Field Investigations

Chapter 9: Anger

An hour and a half? How was that even possible? It felt like it had been only minutes since our encounter with the people from the Field. I sat down, exhausted, hoping that the next two hours on the bus could go by quickly as well.

It was pitch black out by now. I didn't have a watch, but I knew it had to be around one or two in the morning. Looking out the window, I saw we were no longer in the countryside. Thousands of lit up buildings surrounded us on either side, the sound of honking horns filling the air. Under the highway we were on, I could see large crowds of people walking through the bustling streets. I wondered what city this was. We'd passed through New York hours before when the bus had gone into the Field to pass the traffic jam, and my knowledge of geography was pretty limited.

We were pulled over at a gas station raised at least fifty feet above the city streets. In all of the action earlier, I had barely noticed the bus pulling over, let alone paying any attention to the view. Now that things had calmed down, though, I took a moment to appreciate this aerial view of the city. I'd been to New York City a few times before, and it definitely dwarfed this city in terms of size. Something about the view of the city lit up like this, though, made it seem a lot more impressive. 

My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn't eaten in almost twenty hours. "Hey, could I go in and grab a snack?" I asked.

"Go ahead," Douglas told me. He seemed to have momentarily forgotten that he had kidnapped me. "Or, wait, I'll go in and get something for you. I should restock on medical supplies anyway." He turned to Kenna, who had somehow pushed herself up onto one of the bus seats. "Do you need anything to eat?"

"I'm good," Kenna said. "If you're going to go in, go fast. We should get back on the road as soon as possible."

"Alright," Douglas said. He stood up, brushed off his beige coat, and walked off the bus towards the building a few hundred feet away.

"Why do you wear those masks?" I asked Kenna. It was a question that had been on my mind for a while. 

"What, you mean this?" Kenna pulled at the fabric mask that now hung around her neck. "I wear it most of the time just in case there's someone watching us from the Field. I don't know if it really hides my identity all that well, but I sort of got into the habit of wearing it and never stopped. Earlier I was wearing it so that you wouldn't be able to describe me to anyone that well if you escaped, but once we started talking about the Field I figured there was no use keeping it on."

"Oh," I said, not sure how to respond. "And I have another question."

"Yeah?" 

"What's the AFS?" I ventured, hoping to finally get a clear answer. For a second, Kenna didn't respond. I tapped my foot on the bus floor, listening to the sounds of the city below. I wondered if even a single other person in this city knew about the Field. I'd been in the Field three times already, and I still barely understood it. Part of me still felt like maybe this was all some sort of dream. 

Kenna's voice brought me back out of my thoughts. "The AFS... It's, well, a sort of organization. I... I shouldn't tell you too much now. No, it's better if they explain it to you there."

"What kind of organization?"

"Like I said, it's better if you just wait. I'm not supposed to tell you too much yet. They'll explain everything once we arrive."

"Arrive where? AFS?"

"You'll see," was all Kenna would tell me in response. We sat in silence for a moment. 

"So, tell me a bit about yourself." Kenna broke the awkward silence, repeating her question from earlier. I wasn't sure what to say.

"I don't know," I snapped back. Now that we were no longer in danger, my anger from earlier was starting to resurface. "I was taken onto this bus, and I don't know where I am. Nobody will give me any clear explanations, because god forbid I know where I'm going to. And I'm supposed to just accept that people can turn invisible and then solidify again and then shoot other occasionally invisible people with occasionally invisible guns."

"Look," Kenna said. "I'm sorry. I know how you-"

"You don't know how I feel. You're literally the person who got me into this situation in the first place. You know exactly what's happening and exactly what's going to happen, and you know exactly why. If you knew how I feel, then none of this would be happening right now." 

Kenna let me finish my rant before she spoke again. "No, I do know. Maybe this is telling you too much, but this same thing happened to me ten years ago." Kenna sounded sincere, but I had no reason to believe her. She kidnapped me. Why should I put lying past her? 

I sat fuming for a minute before I responded. "I'm leaving this bus," I declared, storming to the front and pulling as hard as I could on the door handles. Kenna watched calmly from the back of the bus, making me even more upset.

When I realized that there was no way I'd be able to open the doors, I stormed over to the window and tried to pry it open. It didn't budge. After a minute of pulling it downwards with all my strength, I gave up, sitting back down in exhausted fury.

The bus was quiet for a minute. I looked back at Kenna, who was looking down at the carpeted floor which was smudged with dirt and covered in scattered candy wrappers. She sighed and looked back up at me as if she was about to say something. Before she could, though, Douglas walked back onto the bus with a plastic bag in hand.

"Is everything alright?" he asked, looking around the bus.