Field Investigations

Chapter 6: Eavesdropper

I took the Transporter from her hands. Holding it was nerve-wracking. It felt like the slightest touch would send its duck-taped form scattered across the floor in thousands of pieces. I inhaled deeply, holding my breath like I was preparing to dive into a pool, shut my eyes as tightly as I could, reached up my left hand, and pressed down on the red button that sat in the middle of the contraption.

For a second, nothing happened. Was the Transporter not working? Would it simply not respond? Then, though, I heard a loud click as the button fell into place. I slowly opened my eyes to see if it had worked. Sure enough, when I looked at the place where my hand should have been, all I saw was air and the bus floor beneath. I was back in the Field.

I couldn't see the Transporter in my hand, but I could feel its cold material pressing against my skin. I would have no trouble finding the button to go back.

I looked to the right and saw Kenna. Her eyes were darting around the bus. Clearly she couldn't see me. I wondered if she'd be able to hear me from the Field, though.

"Hey, Kenna," I said. She didn't respond or even turn towards me. I guessed the Field took away your voice, too.

I reached back behind me and touched the closed window with my free hand, jumping a little when I saw my hand pass through it. I pulled my hand back and then slowly moved it towards the windowpane again, letting the tips of my fingers move through the glass. It was like the window wasn't even there.

Whoa.

I tried to step my foot through the wall and stubbed my toe hard. Whoops. I forgot about the hybrid shoes Kenna had given to me. It was probably a good thing I hadn't succeeded in walking through the wall, though. Now that I thought it through, I realized that if I'd left the bus I would have stopped moving at the same speed as it, and I would have been left stranded on the side of the road.

Wait - wouldn't that be a good thing? As much as I was starting to feel comfortable here, I was kidnapped, dragged onto that bus against my will. Shouldn't I be trying to escape?

I reached down and felt around by my feet, trying to find the shoelaces so I could get my feet out of these shoes and myself off of this bus. I was starting to untie them and pull out my right foot when I remembered what Kenna had said. These shoes were the only thing stopping me from falling through the ground. 

Also, even if I could get off the bus with my feet firmly on the ground, what would I do then? When I'd woken up on the bus, my phone had been gone, which meant that even if I got off the bus, I would have no means of calling for help. I didn't know where I was, and I'd been on the bus for a while, five or six hours at least, so even if I had my location I would have a hard time finding a way to get back. 

And hadn't Kenna said something about her Field Interface device being able to track the locations of everyone in the Field? Sure, she might be starting to feel like a friend, but I knew for a fact that she was a kidnapper. It was very possible that she was tracking my location, checking to make sure that I didn't leave the bus. 

I laced the shoe back up with a sigh, struggling to tie it with my one free hand. I stood up straight and went to press the button when I heard a man's voice coming from my right. Was there someone else in the Field here?

"I know about the secrets of the AFS." The voice was high pitched but scratchy and gravelly, like a CD of those chipmunk songs that had been written on by a freshly sharpened pencil. What was the AFS? Was the man talking to me, or was there a third person here in the Field? My instincts were telling me to just press the button and leave, but my curiosity got the better of me. I had to find out what he meant, and there was a chance he would say something more that would make things clearer. I wondered if Kenna realized that there were other people here in the Field. If she was tracking me, then she would probably also be able to see anyone else in the Field in close proximity.

I waited a minute in excruciating silence, not daring to breath for fear that the man would hear me. Every slight shift of my t-shirt sent my heart beating simultaneously far too fast and not at all. There was a chance he didn't know I was here, and I didn't want to alert him to my presence if that was the case. I was on the verge of giving up when I heard a different voice speak.

"Let's discuss, then. But first, there seems to be an unwanted eavesdropper in here." This time, it was a woman who spoke. Her voice was warm and friendly, but her words were the exact opposite, sending me into a frozen panic.

"Press the button!" I shouted to myself, but my hand wouldn't move. 

"Hello," the woman spoke again, this time addressing me. Her voice was sharper this time, colder. "I would ap-"

I didn't wait for her to finish her sentence, my instincts taking over as I regained control over my hands and slammed my palm down on the button. Her voice cut out as I felt myself shift back into my normal, solid form.

I jumped when I saw a person sitting right where the woman's voice had been coming from, but relaxed when I realized that it was Kenna.

"Oh, you're back," she said. "How was - did something go wrong?" She faltered after seeing my panicked expression and sweat-drenched face. I guess she hadn't been watching the Field Interface like I'd thought earlier, because if she had she would know about the people who were there in the Field.

"There - there were -" I still felt shaky after my encounter with the voices in the Field. "There were other people. Voices. In the Field."

"Here?" Kenna's face went pale. "On... on the bus?" She tapped the square in the center of her keycard, opening the Field Interface in front of us. She navigated to the Field I had just entered and typed in coordinates. The chart that pulled up to the screen only had one person logged for today.

Kenna sighed, clearly relieved. "You're the only one who was in that Field dimension here today. I don't know what you thought you heard, but there was no one else there."