How We Began Anthology 1st Edition

Edie Danford Alexis Hall Delphine

Dryden Vanessa North Amy Jo Cousins
Annabeth Albert Geonn Cannon
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 Alexis Hall
Delphine Dryden
Vanessa North
Annabeth Albert
Amy Jo Cousins
Geonn Cannon
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,
living or dead, is coincidental.

TruNorth, Copyright © 2015 by Alexis Hall

Unexpected Dragons, Copyright © 2015 by Delphine Dryden
A Song for Sweater-boy, Copyright © 2015 by Vanessa North
The Taste of Coffee and Cream, Copyright © 2015 by Amy Jo Albinak
First in Line, Copyright © 2015 by Annabeth Albert
Extinction Level Events, Copyright © 2015 by Geonn Cannon

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or

transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding
subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Pink Kayak Press www.pinkkayakpress.com

Edited by Edie Danford www.ediedanford.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition November 2015
 About the Works

TruNorth by Alexis Hall

For the first time ever, an intimate glimpse into the backstage lives of
TruNorth, the pop sensation who have thrilled fans from the Antarctic
Metropolis to Polaris Station. Available exclusively on iGlass the
unbelievable Tru story of how these five normal boys conquered the hearts
of—

He’s the nice one. Everybody’s third or fourth favourite. His name is
Noah and his job is to be young and free, wild but not too wild,
exciting but safe. He has everything he’s ever wanted, and he’s
beginning to think it sucks.

When TruNorth play New Berlin, he follows his bandmate Callum

(the quiet one, the one the shy girls go for) into the old city. To a club
where everything is possible and everything is true.

—With one-of-a-kind pics, exclusive interviews and the real story behind
the band, this is TruNorth as you’ve never seen them before!

Unexpected Dragons by Delphine Dryden

If Zev could wish his way into his dragon form, he would already be
flying with the rest of his training group. But now it's high summer,
and fear is taking over. If he hasn't made the change by now...maybe
he'll never be a dragon.

Zev doesn't want to leave the village on the crag, leave his family
and the rest of the dragon kin. He doesn't want to go down to the
grasslands where the non-kin live—flat landers, earthbound. He
worries his friend Rook may be headed that way. So how can Rook
seem so calm about it?
But once Zev does change, a new dilemma greets him. Even staying
in the village may mean a life he didn't bargain for. If only he could
borrow a little of Rook's patient wisdom--reach out and take it from
his slender hands, his petal-soft lips. If only Zev could unfurl his
new wings and follow Rook up and up and up, into the blinding
brilliance of a summer sky.

A Song for Sweater-boy by Vanessa North

Ash Cooper has made a mess—an angry prank turned into a
criminal mischief charge and now he’s on probation. Jamie Allen has
a talent for pattern recognition, but he’s not so great with people—
how can someone as well-liked as Ash Cooper not have all the
answers? An unlikely friendship springs up between them as they
navigate senior year, a probation sentence, and—oh god—
homecoming.

The Taste of Coffee and Cream by Amy Jo Cousins

Jude lives for Saturdays, when she can hop a bus and escape to
wander the streets of a town where no one knows her, reveling in
the freedom to be her true self. She isn’t interested in making
friends, but some people become friends whether you invite them to
or not.

Owen works the counter at the coffee shop where Jude changes
clothes and she thinks maybe he knows things she usually keeps
hidden. When he reveals her secret to someone else, Jude will have
to decide if she can hang onto enough trust to let her take the biggest
risk of all…

First in Line by Annabeth Albert

When new Cathia College freshman, Ethaniel Rhodes arrives on
campus, he’s determined to finally be true to himself, but getting the
courage to follow through with his plan proves harder than he
thought. Unexpected allies, new friends, and an intriguing
upperclassman all complicate his first days on campus. Ultimately,
however, only Ethaniel can decide whether the time is right to take a
leap of faith.

Extinction Level Events by Geonn Cannon

Recent high-school graduate Cassandra Keane is leaving the town
she's known her whole life and heading to college. Before she goes,
she has a list of things she has to do that includes a difficult
conversation with her best friend. As her time runs out, Cassandra
learns there are some things you can't plan, and other things you can
miss even if they're right under your nose.
Dear Reader,

How does love begin? How does a conversation, a shared event, or

even just a tiny connection made with a touch or a glance, plant a
seed in our hearts—a seed that will grow into a special relationship
that sustains us as vitally as food, water and air?
The answer is as varied and amazing as humanity itself, of course!
In this anthology of original short stories, six wonderful authors
explore the beginnings of incredible—and incredibly diverse—
relationships between LGBTQ+ young people on the cusp of new,
life-changing experiences.
Stories written by Geonn Cannon and Annabeth Albert include
characters embarking on the exciting but sometimes scary transition
from life at home to life in college. Amy Jo Cousins and Vanessa
North share stories that explore how unexpected friendships can
transform the sometimes cold and narrow world of a high school
student into one of openness and warmth. Delphine Dryden’s shifter
story and Alexis Hall’s dystopian tale beautifully relate how a shift
in perception can grant freedom from confining ideas.
All of the proceeds from this volume will benefit The Trevor
Project, the leading national organization providing crisis
intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ+ young
people ages thirteen to twenty-four. The goal of The Trevor Project is
to end suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and
questioning young people by providing counseling, advocacy,
education and resources. Each sale of How We Began will allow its
authors to support an organization that does vital work for young
people.
It has been an honor to work with authors who have contributed
their time, energy and awesome talent to this anthology. Annabeth
Albert, Geonn Cannon, Amy Jo Cousins, Delphine Dryden, Alexis
Hall and Vanessa North: thank you all. You totally rock! Also, a
heartfelt thanks to the publisher, organizer and creative mind
behind this project, Audra North, whose enthusiasm, generosity and
kindness provided a nurturing space for all these stories to grow and
be joyfully set free for readers to know and love.
And it is indeed joy and freedom and love that I wish for all the
readers of How We Began. Thank you so much for your support!

Edie Danford, Editor

 Contents

TruNorth by Alexis Hall

Unexpected Dragons by Delphine Dryden
A Song for Sweater-boy by Vanessa North
The Taste of Coffee and Cream by Amy Jo Cousins
First in Line by Annabeth Albert
Extinction Level Events by Geonn Cannon
TruNorth

Alexis Hall
Dear Reader,

It’s weird being thirty-ish. While I don’t think I’m precisely

declining into decrepitude just yet, time moves differently these
days. When I was a kid a week seemed like forever, whereas now
I’m reaching the point when ‘next year’ is relatively soon. The stage
of your life where you see a new TV show on Netflix or in one the
few shops that still sell DVDs and realise it’s already up to Season
Six. I’m at the age where I spend far too much time being shocked at
how many things happened more than ten years ago.
The thing about this is that it makes the past seem at once very
present and very remote. The difference between myself now and
myself a decade ago is, to an extent, minimal. But the difference
between myself at twenty-two and myself at eighteen is huge. As a
result, it’s very easy to look at your earlier selves as little more than
alpha and beta versions of the person you became. To see their
hopes and dreams and fears as childish, misguided or transitory.
But this is a trick of hindsight and, quite simply, it isn’t how life
works.
So that’s basically why I wrote this story. Because the present isn’t
just a first draft of the future.
Because the most important you is the you you are now.

Love,
AJH
quicunquevult.com
I’m the nice one.
That’s the first thing they told me after the final episode of The
Next Big Thing.
Not that it meant anything to me then. Stumbling off stage, hardly
believing what’d just happened, light-dazzled, the baying of the
crowd ringing in my ears.
And honestly—two years, two world tours and three albums later
—it still doesn’t.
I’m still stumbling off stages. Lights still burn my eyes. And the
fans still scream until it could be any noise at all. Joy or rage or hate
or whatever.
But I’m allowed to be a little goofy. My smile to be a little
stunned. Apparently it’s endearing. Makes me relatable.
And safe to be loved by somewhere in the region of eight million
girls. Or one fifth of that. Probably less because Max is the charming
one—all flippy curls and chocolate eyes—and everyone knows he’s
the favourite.
The second thing they told me that day was that I hadn’t really
won the show. I’d come in sixth by audience vote, but the other guy
—couldn’t even remember his name—hadn’t…how did they put it?
Fit the concept.
I’m probably supposed to be grateful. But at the same time
understand that I’m expendable. Chosen not on talent or popularity
or because I really believed in my dream, but because Simeon Glyde
decided. And changed my life for me.
I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I’d been
different. Brunette not blonde. Taller. Shorter. Or whatever else I’d,
or not had, that made me right. When someone else—someone
better, I guess—had been wrong.
I suppose I would have gone back home with my parents. Joined
up with one of the corps like they’d done.
For a little while, I’d have been Nearly the Next Big Thing, the life
that could have been mine on every screen around me. Probably it
would have hurt. But that stuff fades with time. And, afterwards,
what would’ve been left…
Would’ve been me.
Just me.

*****

We play the O3 in London.

The crowd is amazing, filling up this vast dome. When there’s
that many people, they look like coloured beads, shaken back and
forth by these huge ripples of motion.
They’re here for us. To see us.
There’s something almost physical about so much excitement and
anticipation and all this… I don’t know what else to call it except
love. Surging towards the stage, beating against my body, as if it’s
trying to push right inside me. I never know if I’m flying or
drowning or dying.
But when I’m here, when I’m on stage and my face is on the
screens and my voice is everywhere, I don’t care.
It’s weird because it’s not the sort of thing you can really seriously
want or imagine wanting. It’s too big. Too impossible.
But now I know what it’s like, I do want it. I want it so badly it
tastes like blood in my mouth.
We close with Something About You—our first number one.
I wish you could see what I see when I see you
Cos then you’d believe there’s no reason to doubt you
You’d know how your smile lights up my world
Because to me, oh to me
There’s something about you.
It’d been waiting for us after The Next Big Thing. All we had to do
was record it. The video’s a bit rough around the edges. Not the
video itself—it’s Glyde’s handiwork, so slick as slick as can be—but
us.
 Still learning our parts.
It’s effortless now, though. We know how to move and how to
stand together. Whose arm should be flung across whose shoulder.
Who keeps his hands in his pockets. Who tucks his thumbs in his
belt.
Max, Me, Oli, Rayan, Callum.
All choreography, but it’s meant to look natural.
Glyde calls it “coordinated anarchy”. Vigorous young animals
having the time of our lives.
He really does call us that. With this awful fondness.
We’re doing it now. Running to the edge of the stage, waving,
blowing kisses, swapping places, jumping past each other, coming
together at last. I rest an elbow on Max’s shoulder, put my left arm
round Oli. Rayan leans against him on the other side. Callum, on the
far end, folds his arms. Close but not touching.
We’re publicity-still perfect.
We did good tonight. I know we did.
Adrenaline sparks beneath my skin even as my breath slows and
my heart calms. It’s a hectic, electric feeling, not quite like happiness.
This moment when I blur so absolutely into who I’m supposed to be
and everything else falls away.
And there’s just TruNorth and everyone who loves us.
Oli does the speech. We do some version of it every concert.
Every time we win an award. Or break number one.
Glyde insists. And Oli is sort of the leader. The talker. The funny
one. With a wide-mouthed smile that creases right into his cheeks.
“We just want to say a massive thank you to every single one of
you for coming out to see us tonight. We honestly wouldn’t be here
without you. We’re really excited to be on tour and we know that
you’ve done this for us. And thank you to all the parents for paying
for you to come here and be with us tonight. We have the best
fans…”
Most of it gets drowned in the screams anyway.
 It’s only when it’s all over and we’re heading for the car that I
realise how tired I am. That sick edge of exhaustion, my head fuzzy
and full of stale light.
I’m so relieved we’re not on the bus tonight.
There’ll be a few hours at least where I can lie in a proper bed.
Dark and still and silent.
But it takes so long to get to the hotel. The security team forcing
us through the crowds. The car forcing its way through the streets.
Air forcing itself into my lungs and out again.
There’s nothing to look at except my knees. My hands resting on
them. The windows are tinted and, even though you’re meant to be
able to see out, everything gets dimmed. Especially in the dark. The
arena is all lit up but the colours are dirty.
And I’m so far away from everything. From where I started.
A boy with a guitar among thousands of boys with guitars.
I can still remember that first audition: standing there on stage in
front of the judges, the audience just faceless shadows. I was
terrified and excited at the same time. It was the worst best thing I’d
ever done. Or the best worst.
Hard to explain what it was like. How it felt to be there. All that
hope we had.
But I’m not very good at that stuff. Words, I mean. Music’s easier.
It just slips into people. Gets straight to what matters without
anything in the way.
This is probably why they decided to make me the nice one. So I
just have to hang around looking wholesome and there’s no
pressure on me to say anything useful or interesting or funny.
Callum’s even quieter, but it’s different with him. There are these
moments in interviews when someone will ask him something
directly and he’ll sit forward, all intent, and suddenly you won’t
know how you weren’t staring at him the whole time. Max is
definitely good-looking but Callum is sharply and absolutely
beautiful. A forest-coloured boy: green and gold and soft, warm
browns. And he’s always got something to say. Something that
proves his silence is a choice when I’m just empty and tangled up.
There was a thing he said once… I can’t even remember when. It’s
hard to stop interviews from muddling together. The thing about fame
is that it consumes everything until there’s just the fame left. So, for us, it’ll
always be about whether we stay famous or become less famous. And that’s
just something you have to live with if you intend, at some point, to start
living for yourself.
My audition piece was The Sound of Settling. Kind of retro. And
my own arrangement.
I’d been pretty crap. But Simeon Glyde’s eyes had never left mine
and he’d given me the yes that got me into the next round.
That was the last time I’d touched my guitar.
I don’t really know why. It’s not like anyone pulled it from my
hands while I wept and screamed. And I’m not a genius with it or
anything so it’s always made more sense to have a professional
backing band.
It’s not a massive loss or a tragedy or anything.
It’s just the way it worked out.
It’s probably in the luggage somewhere. My old mahogany-
topped dreadnaught with its ebony black fingerboard. Secondhand.
Wouldn’t have been worth much firsthand, to be honest.
But, being kind of cheap and battered, it has this rough, bluesy
sound I like.
My fingers twitch, sliding to imaginary chords.
I’d be so rusty. And I have no idea what I’d play.
If I had the choice again.
I don’t really have time to listen to music anymore so there’s
nothing left except a pile of TruNorth songs. So familiar they’re
practically static in my head.
This sudden…awareness I guess you’d call it…runs all up the
way up from my wrists and then down my spine.
 Callum’s eyes are on my hands.
Just for a moment, before his gaze flicks away.
Nobody else is speaking.
When there’s just us we don’t.
Don’t talk. Don’t touch.
We know each other too well. And we’ve sort of passed by or
maybe through friendship.
It’s something for the stage and the fans and the cameras.

*****

Finally, we get to the hotel. But before I can make it to the elevator—
“Just a moment, Noah.”
Words I’ve come to dread.
I really thought I might be spared the debrief tonight.
Unfortunately it’s all so friendly I can’t easily say no. Of course I
try anyway. “I’m kind of pretty tired right now.”
“It won’t take long.”
They always send Benedict when it’s me. It’s embarrassing how
obvious it must be that I like him. I don’t even know what his job is
—some kind of liaison to Glyde, I think—but he’s been with us since
the very beginning. He has a nice smile and a soft voice and I like
how he looks at me.
As if maybe he sees past TruNorth all the way back to that boy
with the guitar.
He uses iGlass—most people in his line of work do—but even
though he’s got it turned off his eyes have this shininess. Like
pebbles on the beach smoothed by the tide.
“Okay,” I say.
His hand closes over my forearm, just for a moment. The warmth
of it is shocking somehow. So is how he real he is, how solid.
 When we’re in public, we’re always touching each other. The
band I mean. Friendly, unambiguous touches. Shoulder to shoulder.
Arm to arm. Whatever makes us look comfortable together.
But suddenly I’m trying to remember the last time somebody just
hugged me.
Wondering what it would be like to sway into Benedict and be
held.
I don’t do it, of course.
I just follow him into one of the conference rooms, where the
media team is already set up.
The walls are all screens and the screens are all us. Endless images
from every possible angle. And social media feeds from all over the
world racing past like traffic.
It’s basically for my benefit because I’m not perma-streaming..
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Our contracts don’t allow us any
unapproved modifications. Even Rayan’s bad-boy tattoos and
diamond studs had to go past Glyde first.
And I can’t imagine he’d ever say yes to iGlass, since most people
—me included—find it creepy as hell.
I catch this faint, insectoid click as Benedict activates his.
A couple of people turn to look at me as I sit down. They’re
smiling, saying “hey Noah” or whatever and all the time their eyes
are covered by a flickery, milky film. Cataracts made of data.
I’m sure I should know at least somebody here. But the Media
Team is this merry-go-round of analysts and specialists and
branding gurus and communication experts.
“So.” This is how these meetings always begin. One harmless
little word.
I glance towards whoever said it. She’s looking at me but she
could be seeing anything. There’s probably some sort of
collaborative project-management plan for me updating behind her
eyes. Her hair is pulled into tight, purple-streaked warrior braids
that lie flat to her skull.
 It’s such a small thing but it makes me realise that I know nothing
about her life at all..
I can’t imagine any more what it’s like to be her. What she thinks
about when she wakes up in the morning, in some cheap hotel or in
a room she rents, and begins to plait her hair.
I’m probably just a line on her CV.
“Only a few things to cover tonight,” she tells me, all brisk and
cheerful.
They always say this as well. Even if there’s lists and lists. Hours
and hours.
“I know we’re getting close to the end of the tour and you’re
probably flagging but you missed your mark a couple of times.”
The dregs of exhilaration drain away. Leaving only this dull
thumping in my head.
Images fill up the screens. All me. With a flick of somebody’s
fingers they pan, rotate, tilt, zoom in, zoom out. We go over
everything I’ve done badly. Every time I’ve been in the wrong place.
Every time I’ve broken alignment. Every time I’ve been off message.
I lose track of the shoulds and shouldn’ts.
But I uh-huh and yeah and sorry. I’m supposed to be used to this
but all it ever does is make me feel bad.
Watching someone fucking up and being told it’s me.
There’s this photo someone’s put on LineUp. Some fan snap from
back stage, grainy and unglamorous. Close to monochrome. I can’t
remember the moment it was taken. No idea what was going
through my head.
I guess I’m just waiting?
I don’t exactly look sad but I don’t look happy either. Still and
unsmiling. Harsher angles than usual. Mainly eyes and cheekbones
and shadows. Slightly hulking because my arms are folded and
bulgy.
It’s odd. I’m used to seeing myself. Like living in a room of
mirrors.
 This picture is different.
It doesn’t feel like a mirror. It feels like a pool. Depth behind the
reflection.
Embarrassing…vain maybe…but I like it.
Except it’s not how I’m supposed to look. I’m supposed to be
clean-cut, grinning, open body language. Not moody or
intimidating.
So they’re talking about how to ensure it doesn’t get much
attention. Our own posts always get the most traction—millions
upon millions of responses—so it’s easy to swamp stuff.
It’s kind of a thing. The way we engage with our fans.
I wonder how they’d feel if they knew that everything was done
by committee. Every candid selfie. Every funny comment. Every
spontaneous update. Every reply.
Maybe they wouldn’t care. It’s him they know.
Which is a fucking crazy thing to think.
Because it’s not him, it’s me.
And nice boys don’t say “fucking”.
Even while I’m sitting here, messages and comments and pictures
are flashing up on the screens, too fast for me to read. Everyone is
talking to everyone else. It’s all how many Echoes this Bark got or
what’s trending on MeIm.
I know better than to read comments. Except I’d look anyway.
new side to noah hot hot hot Max is waaaaaay hotter I wanna be with
Cal 4eva Rayan is def the hottest for me Defenetely max I cannot live
without him I love Oli Cal and max!!!!! back off bitch max is mine
Pathetic how much I still care.
Part of me just doesn’t want to lose. Doesn’t want to be the
weakest link. The boring one. The other one.
And part of me—the only part I can recognise really—is still that
kid on the audition stage. Wanting to be loved and heard and seen
and understood.
 “Look.” Not Purple Braids. Someone else. A man. His suit too
expensive. “We really have to talk about the gay thing.” He looks at
me with his off-white eyes. His stare feels accusing somehow. “It’s
not going away.”
There’s been rumours for a while.
“We stick to the strategy.” Someone else again. “Ignore it. Starve
it. Anything else will fuel the story.”
Suit sighs. Irritated and disappointed. I’m making his job harder
than it has to be. An impatient snap of his fingers and fresh images
tile the screen.
I gaze at them. There I am again. Onstage. Off. With fans.
Publicity stills. Candids. Smiling, waving, pulling silly faces. I don’t
get whatever he’s try to show me.
“He’s not even trying.”
He gestures and a picture flies from between the rest. A twist of
his hand and it spins. He opens his palm and we zoom in.
It’s the standard photograph. The five of us in a row, arms around
each other’s shoulders.
Except wait.
No.
My hand is lower on Oli’s back. Almost around his waist.
I can’t remember doing it. I know better than that.
My skin crawls.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do with that?” Suit’s watch
strap scrapes against the glass table as he shoves the picture away.
The wall of me ripples around it. I know what this is about now.
It’s about whatever this man, maybe whatever the world, sees as
suspect.
Gay, I guess?
“We can call in the consultant again?” A woman with big hoop
earrings.
 I’m not going through that a second time. Though, honestly, if
they decide it’s necessary, I probably don’t have much choice.
I’m suddenly too aware of my body, the memory of my day with
the consultant in my skin like pins and needles. I find myself
worrying about the angle of my wrists. The way my hands are
resting on the table.
My face must do something because Purple Braids leans in.
“We’re on your side, Noah. We’re just trying to help.”
I nod. I’m so deep into exhaustion even despair is sluggish.
“The fact is”—she’s talking to the room now—“there’s usually a
gay one. We’ve managed to contain it so far but this was probably
inevitable.”
One of the screens dissolves into charts. Lines tracking
merchandise sales, mentions, likes, market research data scribbling
endlessly. Reminds me of those heart monitors you get in hospitals.
I’m the yellow one, dipping slightly below the rest.
“Better him than one of the others.” Suit shrugs.
Purple Braid’s eyes flick back to me. Pity, maybe, drowned in the
data. “We can push back on this. It doesn’t have to be you.”
Silence.
I watch the vanishing point on the screens. Old words fading into
new.
“How about,” says Hoops suddenly “we get him a girlfriend?”
Benedict shakes his head. “No girlfriends. You know that.”
“Yes, we know. Keep them accessible.” Hoops’s earrings chime
with her impatience. “Question is: does supposed homosexuality
make him seem less or more accessible than a temporary girlfriend?”
“But”—Purple Braids again—“when they break up, the narrative
will be that it didn’t work out because he’s gay.”
I laugh.
It ricochets off the glass table and the screens.
 There’s a moment before I realise it’s me. That the sound is
coming from me.
Heads snap round.
So many pairs of eyes. Irises and pupils blurred to oily cream.
“Let’s wrap this up,” says Benedict.
It takes me a long time to remember how to stop laughing.
I don’t know how to explain. But I went out with a girl and broke
up with her all inside someone else’s conversation.
And also.
Also.
In all this talk, this endless scrutiny, nobody’s ever asked.
Nobody’s ever asked if I’m actually gay.
I almost wish they would. Except I wouldn’t know how to
answer.
There’s so much I’ve lost track of the past few years. I’m not even
sure what music I like anymore. How I’d dress if it was up to me.
I don’t even know if I’m really all that nice.
I think I’m probably not.
I think I’m probably pretty selfish.
Mainly what I am is stuck in my own head. Thinking about
myself. Trapped somehow while my body moves and smiles and
sings and does what it’s told.

*****

Eventually I’m hustled into a hotel room that isn’t mine to have my
photo taken They’re the kind of candid, behind-the-scenes shots that
the fans are supposed to love. All carefully rehearsed, of course. Put
through a gazillion filters.

We have to be careful with this stuff. The fans are everywhere and
they’re really good at finding us. They tracked us to this shopping
centre once from a random Metavore update. I still remember the
screams and the thudding of hands against glass.
I smile and smile and thumbs-up into various phones. I’m rolling
up my socks—because that’s apparently the sort of thing I do—and
being excited for New Berlin.
We’re heading there tomorrow to close out the tour and start
recording our fourth album. They’re calling it While We’re Young.
It’s meant to be a return to…whatever.
Now & Then, the third one, still debuted at number one but
apparently the fans didn’t like it as much.
Something about it not being us or something. I don’t know. They
keep us pretty insulated from that stuff. We don’t even have access
to our own social media accounts any more. Not since Oli had a
massive meltdown on Weeble because some fans worked out which
hotel room he was staying in and kept ringing the internal phone.
Whatever he posted is long buried.
He had to do this big apology video.
Tell everyone his grandmother had died.
“Okay folks.” It’s Benedict who breaks up the…whatever this is.
“I think that’s enough for now.”
I escape through security to our rooms.
Pitch into bed. And I’m gone.
Asleep like falling down a well.

*****

I get three or four solid hours before I have to get up.

It’s a grey morning, misty half-light and drizzle that glistens
softly in the glow from the towers. Everything is muted. People are
talking—there are always people talking—but they sound so far
away.
I climb onto the waiting bus, stumble between the sofas and crawl
into my bunk. There’s a zippy curtain thing I can pull closed but I
can’t find the energy to do it.
I do fall asleep, sometimes, when we’re moving but it never feels
like proper sleep somehow. I’ll jerk awake, feeling sticky and
groggy, with this heaviness in my head and it’ll turn out only five
minutes has gone by.
And I can do that for whole journeys: the time passing in erratic
chunks like someone throwing up.
At last we’re moving.
Rayan is face down on the bunk opposite. Max already zipped
and cocooned. Oli and Callum on the sofa—Oli sprawled, legs and
arms wide, Callum tucked into a corner, knees pulled up to his chin.
He’s writing in a battered spiral-bound notebook. Just like he has
been all year.
Oli bugs him about it sometimes—he’s got this cat-like curiosity
that seems just on the edge of cruelty, like he’s batting you around
because he doesn’t know what else to do—but Callum doesn’t seem
bothered.
Though he doesn’t answer either.
His fringe is in his eyes. He’s got this one lock that always seems
to fall that way but his hair is pretty long in general — it’s this
butter-brown colour, very soft and straight, except at the ends,
which are all fly-away like someone has been tugging playfully at
them.
I remember suddenly that he used to wear glasses but I guess
they fixed him.
I should be used to the notebook, but it’s still kind of odd.
Quaint, maybe? If that means what I think it does. But then I
guess some things never change. You can digitise the whole world
but some people still want to listen to crackly LPs in their loft. Or
hold a book in their hands.
We’ve all got these top-of-the line tablets but I have no idea who
has access to them. So maybe he’s just worried about his privacy. In
a strange way, you can’t really beat paper for that.
 “Looking for something fagboy?” Oli snaps his fingers to get my
attention. Gunshot loud.
Oh no. I’ve been sneak-staring at Callum but it probably seems
like I’m sneak-staring at Oli. I just shake my head. There’s no point
trying to talk to him when he’s in this sort of mood.
He leans forward. It’s probably just the angle but there’s
something menacing to me in his deep-cut smile. “Don’t think I
didn’t notice you groping my arse yesterday.”
I can’t help cringing. It’s not what he’s accusing me of that upsets
me. It’s the idea that if I was… If I am … I’d be into Oli. Except I
don’t know how to express that distinction. So I just say, “I didn’t”,
which sounds pathetic.
“Liar. You’re fucking gagging for me, mate.”
If I had more…something—courage or wit or conviction—I’d turn
the joke on him somehow. But all I manage is, “I’m not.”
“Oh stop it, will you?” Callum glances up from his notebook,
flicking the hair out of his way with an exasperated brush of his
fingers.
“Oooooh.” Oli’s eyes shine. He’s got this energy to him now,
almost like when he’s on stage. “What do you care?”
Callum doesn’t even hesitate. “I don’t care. It’s just boring.” Then
disappears back into his notebook.
It’s the perfect answer.
Of course, it would be.
I’m impressed and envious.
But also hurt. And embarrassed about being hurt. I mean, why
would he care?
I don’t like Oli and he sometimes makes me pretty miserable. But
there’s something about the easy way Callum dismisses me that cuts
way deeper.
In any case, it shuts Oli up for a bit. And then he shrugs. “I was
just messing about. Noah knows that. Right, Noah?”
 I know he’s a dickhead. “Right.”
He looks around. Finds nothing worth looking at. Taps his feet.
Then his hands. Clucks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
Rayan makes a muffled noise. “I’m trying to sleep.”
Oli huffs out a sigh. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls
out a vial of Blue. “Want some?”
Callum doesn’t even look up. I shake my head.
I tried it once. Our manager, Terry, gets it. It’s designer. The best
there is. Untraceable. No side-effects. It doesn’t really do anything
dramatic. Doesn’t even really feel like being on drugs—whatever
that’s supposed to be like.
It just makes everything very quietly a little bit better.
I didn’t dare take it again. It was way too easy to like it.
But I can’t tell if I’m being stupid.
Oli uses the eyedropper and tosses it onto the floor. It rolls with
the motion of the bus, tugging at my attention in a slightly annoying
way. But I don’t climb down and pick it up. I’ve had enough of Oli’s
attention for one day.
He lies back on the sofa. The Blue has gathered in the corner of his
eyes like tinted tears. One breaks free, slicks down his cheek and
then evaporates to nothing. Not even a gleam.
Hopefully he’ll be quiet now.
“It’s just,” he says, “you’ve never done it, have you Noah?”
There’s no way I’m answering that.
Rayan stirs in his bunk. “Come to the afterparty. You’ll get laid
twenty times over. Fans’ll do anything.”
“Um, maybe.” I’m lying. I don’t want to go.
And I don’t want some girl I don’t know, who doesn’t know me,
but thinks she does.
“You should.” Rayan lifts his head long enough to give me his
famous, very wicked, very white smile. “And you can trust me and
Max. We only invite the hot ones.”
 “I…really need to get some sleep before tonight.”
I push myself into a sitting position and zip myself in.
In the darkness, I feel the motion of the bus moving through my
body. And because nobody can see me I cover my face with my
hands.
I’m probably just tired.
But I really miss my guitar.

*****

It’s the first time we’ve been to New Berlin.

Even though the War was years ago, Glyde thought Incorporated
Territories were still too dangerous. But I guess he changed his
mind. Money does that.
I kind of wish I hadn’t been huddled in my bunk the whole
journey.
Because New Berlin, it’s…
It’s like nothing else.
We play on the roof of the Kullchin-Jin building, which I’ve only
ever seen in pictures before. A silver needle piercing the city’s
glittering heart.
The rest of the stadium is flown in around us. These vast tiers of
seats mounted on anti-grav platforms. Our music loud enough to
drown out the thunder of engines. Our light bright enough to blot
out the stars.
Or maybe it’s a skybox. I can’t tell the difference any more.
And there’s no debrief.
Just the afterparty.
Glyde thinks it’s good for us to blow off steam when we close a
tour.
Max and Rayan spent most of the pre-show with our security
team looking at photos of girls. Anyone they choose gets an invite,
though they’re searched like it’s prison before they’re allowed in.
Stripped of phones and mods and the rest of it.
The system seems to work.
Sometimes there are rumours. The occasional attempted tabloid
exposé.
But nothing sticks.
We’re still seen as good boys.
As soon as the concert is done, we’re rushed into the elevator and
whisked off to the hotel part of the complex. I almost wish we could
have stayed on the roof a bit longer—just to feel the immensity of all
that sky.
Inside, it’s like a honeycomb. Gold and glass.
Rayan tells me I should definitely come to the party tonight. That
it’ll never be like this for us again. That in a couple of years we’ll be
past it and forgotten Just another boyband that used to be big.
I escape to my room instead.
Which turns out to be this…transparent box. I don’t know how
else to describe it. It’s meant to be panoramic, I think. There’s
buttons on the wall that will let me be anywhere—under the ocean,
on a tropical island, in any city on the planet—or else there’s a
hundred and eighty degrees of New Berlin itself, jewel-bright below
me.
The bed is right in the middle. Resting on a rug of scarlet and
sapphire, and hung with canopies of gold.
Deep, shameless, wealthy colours.
Nothing like the Middle District where I grew up.
Maybe I am too nice for this.
A knock on the door. I’m not sure I want to answer but I don’t
want everyone to think I’m being troublesome.
I’m surprised to find Benedict there, iGlass off, smiling at me.
“Can I come in?” he asks.
“Oh. Um. Yeah. Sure.”
 I step back and he steps after me and it’s a little bit like a dance.
The silence of the room settles over us. I suddenly realise I can’t
remember the last time I was alone with someone.
I’ve forgotten how it feels. I’m prickly with anxiety and
uncertainty and some kind of weird excitement.
He glances around, lets out a low whistle. “This place.”
“It’s… something.” Oh, why can’t I be interesting?
I follow him across the room and we stand for a bit, watching the
light streaming over the plaza below. You can’t even tell it’s night
really, except that none of the colours are real.
“Anyway.” He half-turns. “I just came to check in on you, really.”
“I’m fine.”
He tilts his head, his gaze sweetly knowing. “Are you sure,
Noah?”
I shrug.
“You’ve just seemed different lately.”
I don’t know what to say to that either.
Thankfully, he talks for me. “Unhappy and frustrated.”
Then he reaches out a hand. Very lightly cradles the edge of my
jaw.
My heart gives this sick lurch, like I’ve got vertigo on the inside.
It’s so shocking and so lovely that I actually gasp.
“Lonely, maybe?” he offers.
And I swallow helplessly, not wanting to answer that either.
He angles my face—he’s just a little bit shorter than me—and
leans in close. His reflection flickers in the glass, my gaze sliding
past him for some reason as his mouth moves to mine. I flinch at the
last second and his lips catch my cheek instead.
“It’s all right,” he whispers.
I can feel the warmth of his breath. This ghostly prelude to the
promise of his skin. “But I’m not supposed to—”
“You can trust me.”
 “But Glyde—”
He laughs, not exactly unkindly, but it makes me feel silly
anyway. “I work for Glyde.”
“You mean—” I shake loose from his hand, which is turning hot
and heavy against my face “—he sent you?”
“Not sent me. But he approved…” I guess I’m making it obvious
that this isn’t exactly what I want to hear right now because he
breaks off and tries again: “I mean, I like you. Of course I do. That’s
why I’m here.”
I stare at him. His eyes are wide and he’s a little flushed but I
can’t tell if that’s embarrassment or…me. If he really wants me, like
he says.
“We know it’s hard sometimes,” he goes on. “No privacy. Lots of
restrictions. But we don’t want you to feel completely trapped.
Believe it or not, we want you to be happy.”
I’m shivering. Caught in this weird no man’s land between
invisible and exposed.
“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” Benedict tells
me. “We can just…hang out.”
It sounds so awkward the way he says it. That little hesitation
seeming huge somehow.
And I’m jittery and confused. I can’t help thinking of Max and
Rayan. Dancing and drinking and probably fucking. And Oli with
his Blue.
Benedict’s right. Glyde does try to make sure we get what we
want.
Or what we think we do.
When I used to imagine being with someone, it wasn’t discreetly
in hotel rooms. With my producer’s permission.
But then I didn’t imagine being alone either. And I’ll be eighteen
in a few months.
It’s weird because I’ve done stuff most people can only dream of.
 I’m rich. I’m famous. I’ve travelled all over the world. Last
Valentine’s Day, I got a couple of million messages.
But I’ve never kissed anyone. Never been on a date.
It’s not a simple trade-off. A price to be paid. An either/or.
It’s just the way it worked out.
Benedict smiles at me and I realise I’ve been quiet for ages. “You
know you’re over-thinking this, right?”
“Yeah.”
We lean into each other again. I don’t pull away, but this time
Benedict’s lips follow my jaw. This whispery scrape of sensation.
It’s… it’s nice?
Very carefully I rest my hands at his waist. Stroke up and down
his sides.
There’s something a bit overwhelming about touching someone.
It’s too much freedom. Like silence or a blank sheet of paper.
I tilt my head and his mouth slides down my throat. I’m suddenly
really self-conscious about how sweaty I am and the pale stubble
that’s been gathering all day. It’s bad for my image, but it’s easier to
feel than see.
Benedict makes a sound into my skin. I think it’s a good noise. As
if he likes the roughness he’s found. His tongue dips into the hollow
of my throat.
A shocked gasp cuts into the silence.
Oh, it’s me.
But that spot is so…so tender. And his tongue is so soft. Gently
damp.
And then suddenly we’re in a rush. I don’t know if I do it, or he
does, but my T-shirt is over my head and on the floor. And then I’m
looking down at his hands on my naked chest. His fingers curling
over the ridges of sculpted muscles.
They’d made us all hit the gym pretty hard after the “Fat!Oli”
scandal.
 We’re also meant to be manscaped for the occasional shirtless
photo shoot or beach snap, except I’ve kind of let myself go a bit. I’d
be in big trouble if our stylist could see me.
But Benedict doesn’t seem to mind.
“You know,” he whispers, playing with the dark gold curls, “I
still think we got your branding wrong.”
He looks up at me, smiling.
I have no idea what he means or how to reply, so I smile back
briefly and let my gaze drift past him again. He’s kissing his way
down me and I’m watching the to-and-fro of strangers across the
plaza below. It’s easy to imagine stuff when you’re behind one-way
glass.
To look for things to recognise.
Like the slender figure in the grey hoodie, slipping from the
building.
I can almost convince myself there’s something familiar in the
way he moves.
But then he hesitates. Glances over his shoulder as though he
expects to be pursued. I’m too far for details but I would know that
profile anywhere. That soft, deceptive fall of hair.
It’s weird to see Callum without the rest of us.
On his own. Untended, unnoticed.
He pulls the hood more firmly into place and hurries away.
That’s when I see the wavery hint of my own reflection in the
glass. Shirtless and sweat-damp in a hotel room. In front of a man on
his knees.
And I feel I could crack like a mirror.
I stumble backwards, away from Benedict. “I…I don’t think I
want to do this now.”
“Um okay.” He puts a hand on the floor to stop himself falling
over. Blinks up at me.
 “It’s just it’s been a really long tour.” I’m trying not to look
anywhere significant. Like out the window. Or at his—oh wow. It’s
incredibly awkward trying to tell someone you’re tired when
they’re…
“Yes. Yes. Of course.” He scrambles to his feet. And he’s also
looking in random directions. “You should probably rest up. We can
—” He musters a thin sort of smile. “—talk tomorrow.”
I try to smile back. “That’d be good.”
The second he’s in the corridor, I dash back to the window. Just in
time to see Callum turning left at the top of the plaza. I grab another
T-shirt from my case and the most anonymous-looking jacket I own.
And then run all the way down the lobby and out the front doors,
chasing him into the shining electric night.

*****

The whole time I’m terrified I’m going to get recognised. I imagine
alarms going off. Security chasing me down.
But nobody notices me at all.
I’m just someone in a crowd.
It’s…amazing.
And then I get terrified all over again. What if something happens
to me? If I get lost or attacked or…or… Well I have no idea.
All my biometrics are logged, of course, but I’ve heard stories
about blackmarket retinal surgery. People losing their whole
identity, all their money, everything.
Or maybe it’s just what you tell kids to make them take scanning
in seriously. I don’t know.
Anyway, I’m not turning back.
I need to know what Callum is doing.
It’s hard to unravel whether I’m concerned for him or curious or
just plain jealous. It would never have occurred to me that this was
possible. That we could just leave. Though, honestly, even if it had,
I’m not sure I’d have found the balls to actually do it.
Just enough courage to follow, that’s me.
I wonder if he’s running away or something. But that doesn’t
make much sense. He doesn’t seem unhappy and you wouldn’t flee
into an unknown city with only a shoulder bag. Right?
Maybe this is just what he does. Stealing the occasional night off.
Maybe Glyde approves.
Just like he does the rest of it.
Me and Benedict.
I keep to the edges of the crowds. The safest distance I can
manage without losing him completely.
He walks quickly, head down, barely looking around him.
Purposeful, not touristy.
We leave the domes and the skyscrapers and the fountains, the
lavish little gardens that probably cost more than some of the
buildings, and head through a sort of checkpoint.
It’s eerie. Unmanned. Not even a scan
Just a gate that slides quietly open for anyone to pass through.
It’s dark on the other side. And cold. And, oh fuck, raining.
The drops hit the backs of my hands, my cheeks, like nothing I’ve
ever felt before.
We must have reached the edge of the skybox.
Callum speeds up, his footsteps echoing in the deep silence of the
deserted street.
But I have to go more carefully. The shadows conceal me, but
they conceal him too, and any sound could give me away.
We pass between a set of sandstone columns. They’re chipped
and cracked and thick with dirt and I think they were probably once
part of something much bigger. If I squint, I can make out what
might have been an arch or a roof, maybe.
 Ahead, the road is wide and straight. Lined by old-fashioned
streetlights, still flickering occasionally with drowned green light.
And trees grown fairytale wild, their branches twisted together like
lovers or enemies.
The buildings on either side, the ones that still stand, are tall and
square, though the styles run a gamut of centuries. Some of them
would probably have been pretty grand once, but now even the
intact ones are tumble-down, the windows mostly boarded up.
Someone has scrawled LIEBE ODER NICHTS right across the
front of one. The foot-tall letters are ragged, as if they’re bleeding.
Across another: DAS IST DER LETZTE TANZ.
And then: ART CONQUERS ALL. Across a painting of two
hands, chained by golden links.
On the bridge of broken statues that crosses the dark river:
POLITIK IST DIE FORTSETZUNG DES KRIEGES MIT ANDEREN
MITTELN.
I squint through the silver haze of the still-falling rain at Callum’s
back. He’s just on the edge of sight. Just about to disappear.
What are we doing here?
I’m really cold now, really wet. I’m about ready to turn back.
Except then there’ll be no answers at all.
And, even though he doesn’t know I’m there, I don’t want to
leave Callum alone.
There are other pedestrians sometimes, but they might as well be
ghosts.
At last we come to a wide, grey plaza, framed by hollowed-out
buildings and what looks to be a derelict train station. Here and
there, the ground is scored by metal tracks and, on the far side, the
road narrows, becoming darker still.
Sometimes, I think I can catch music. Muffled by brick and stone.
Voices, too. And other noises. Laughter. Gasps. Muffled moans that
could just as easily be pain or pleasure. And in the distance there’s a
reddish glow. Getting brighter as we get closer.
 A flood of lipstick-scarlet neon spilling onto the murky street.
It’s coming from a sign pinned over the door of a building.
NEW
ELDORADO
Is what it says.
The letters crackling and humming as if they’re magic. Or alive
somehow.
It must be a club. Maybe?
Callum doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t even glance up. He just steps
inside and is gone.
I wait, alone on the dark street, with no idea where I am, until I’m
certain he’s not coming out again.
Then I follow.
Graffiti runs the whole length of the building. Although I guess
it’s not exactly graffiti—maybe more of a mural? It shows these
dancing couples, all in ball dresses and tuxedos or whatever,
silhouetted against this crazy sweep of colour. As if someone broke a
rainbow against the wall.
There’s a man and a woman, then a woman and a woman, then a
man and a man, then… I don’t know …could be either or neither or
both, then three people together and finally a man and a poodle. I
have no idea what’s going on with that last one. But it’s more
cartoonish than the others so I guess it’s meant to be a joke?
At least they both look like they’re having a nice time?
I make it to the front door.
My heart is beating so fast as I stand there, bathed in crimson
light. I can see the rest of the sign now. There’s a painting of a man
(?) and a woman (?) winking. And between them: HIER IST’S
RICHTIG!
Brisk, stompy footsteps behind me.
I freeze. Pure panic.
 A man—a middle-aged man in jeans and a leather jacket—steps
past me. Disappears inside, just like Callum did.
For some reason, the sight of him shoves me into action. I catch
the door as it swings and slip in after him, nearly smothering in the
velvet curtain that’s waiting for me on the other side.
By the time I’m out, the other man is handing his coat and a dirty
collection of dollar bills to an attendant. “Danke, Fräulein.” I guess
he’s probably American from his too-slow, too-loud German.
She nods.
I hover in the doorway, faintly alarmed by her boredom and her
beauty. Both of which are obvious. She’s wearing a silver evening
dress that clings to her every movie-starlet curve.
“Excuse me.” The American isn’t done, leaning in a little closer,
apparently undiscouraged by the way she draws back from him.
“But are you really a man?”
She smiles. Lips as red as Snow White’s poisoned apple. “I’m
whatever you want me to be, darling.”
Then she waves the man away.
And I have no choice but to come forward.
I’m in this shabby little alcove, all peeling paint and threadbare
carpet. There’s a rack for coats and a chair and a smell of rising
damp and that’s about it. Except for the doors I guess must lead into
the club itself. Honestly, it’s not even that it’s sleazy so much as
ordinary. Rundown in this everyday way.
“Um,” I say.
Beauty eyes me without much interest and extends her hand,
palm up, fingers wiggling. The universal gesture for “pay up.”
“I don’t… That is…can you…” I flail vaguely. The universal
gesture for “take it from the database”.
“Oh no.” Beauty’s perfectly shaped, perfectly dark brows dip into
a frown. “We have no use for your biometric credits here. What we
trade, is paid for in cash alone.”
“And, uh, what is that exactly?”
 “If you have to ask, darling, you are in no position to have it.”
“Right.”
I’m about to leave when a different voice, a deeper, warmer voice,
says: “Let him come, Ernst.”
Beauty—Ernst—shrugs, produces a nail file from somewhere and
puts it viciously to work.
The raspy sound makes me cringe, like there’s ants under my
skin, but I ignore it. There’s a tall woman standing in by the internal
doors.
At least, I think she’s a woman. But, I mean, who cares? I’m not
going to be crass about it like the American.
She’s got dark skin and champagne-blonde hair that falls in sleek
waves from beneath a shiny top hat. Just like the figures on the
mural outside, she’s wearing a tuxedo with a silk lapels and a very
stiff white shirt under it. Satin ribbons run up the seams of her dark
trousers, making her legs look endless. In one hand, she’s holding an
ivory cigarette holder, inlaid with red jade and green. With the other
she beckons me forward.
I step towards her, feeling shabby and awkward and incredibly
ordinary. “Sorry I didn’t bring any cash.” To be honest, I’ve no idea
how I’m even supposed to get any.
“Put it from your mind, mein Kleiner.” She gives me this moon-
bright smile. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for
tonight?”
I don’t know how to explain that I’ve no idea what I’m doing.
That I’m following a boy. So I shrug. Try to smile. “I don’t know.
What have you got?”
A laugh billows out of her with a plume of smoke from her
cigarette. “Dreams. Truth. Hope. Art. Sex. Freedom. Joy. Love.” She
steps clear of the doorway and ushers me through with a flourishing
bow. “Welcome,” she tells me, “to Eldorado.”
And I step through.
 I don’t know what I’m expecting. Some kind of wonderland, I
think.
At first I don’t think it is. And then … then I’m not sure.
Because the first thing I hear is the music. There’s a live band.
And I don’t really know what they’re playing, except it’s brassy and
bold and it makes me want to dance in ways I’ve never danced
before.
In a flurry of feathers and sequins just like the mureal.
For whatever reason, the club itself has a slightly Asian theme,
with hanging lanterns and strange paintings on the walls. There’s a
bar and a stage and a wooden dance floor, ringed by tables, all set
into intimate little alcoves.
The air is thick with perfume and tobacco.
And it’s somehow smaller than I’d imagined. Almost
claustrophobic, especially with the number of people. Some of them
clearly tourists, like me and the American, but the rest must be staff
or patrons or regulars because they’re dressed as glamorously as the
hostess. Tuxedos or evening dresses. And I even think I see someone
in a floor-length mink coat.
No poodles though.
Which I’m pretty grateful about.
I look for Callum but there’s no sign of him at all.
The hostess pushes me gently into a seat at an unoccupied table
and snaps her fingers.
Next thing I know someone is putting a glass of champagne down
in front of me. I don’t drink much—it’s a no-no if you’re in a
boyband—but since I’m being stared at, I take a sip. The bubbles
explode on my tongue, that kind of acidic, apple-y taste flooding my
mouth.
The hostess watches me, amused and lazily curious. “What’s your
name?”
“Noah.” I answer without even thinking about it and then wish I
wasn’t a complete idiot. She just nods, so I rush on. “What’s yours?”
 “You can call me—” She seems to think about it for a moment,
smiling all the time. “—Rumpelstilzchen.”
“Um, okay.”
She takes another pull on her cigarette, the tip glowing red for a
moment like a watching eye. “Well, Noah. Enjoy the show. I hope
you find what you need.”
With that, she stands and pushes into the crowd.
I stay where I’ve been put, drinking the champagne very slowly
and avoiding eye contact. Nobody talks to me, which is a relief, but
sometimes they smile my way. And I’m pretty sure if I smiled back,
I’d have company.
I’m starting to worry I’ve lost Callum completely.
And, even if I haven’t, what’s going to happen when he sees me?
What am I supposed to say to him?
Oh yeah, I kind of stalked you across Berlin. Because reasons.
Just when I’ve pretty much decided to leave, the band falls silent
and the lights dim. The dancers clear the dance floor. And
Rumpelstilzchen takes the stage. Claiming the attention of the room
with a nothing more than a flick of her cigarette holder.
“Hola, Bonsoir, Guten Abend, Da Jia Hao, Hi. Je suis ni de
compere for this evening of…entertainment.” She smiles, her eyes
everywhere. But it feels like she’s talking to me. Like I’m alone in the
room and I’m the only one who matters. “I beg of you, do not be
alarmed by anything you see or hear. I assure you it is all part of the
show. I ask of you also to disable your personal recording
equipment because, my darlings, do any of you really want your
employers to know you were here? And believe me we are very
serious about this rule. Why, last week, we had to confiscate a man’s
eyes.”
There’s laughter. Some of it sounds genuinely amused. The rest of
it is nervous.
I don’t laugh. I think I’m on the uncomfortable edge of lost.
Alice wanting out of Wonderland. Dorothy dreaming of home.
 “But I’m sure,” she continues, “you have heard enough of me and
my dire warnings for your personal and moral safety. Please, in
whatever way you deem appropriate, make yourselves ready for our
first performer. All the way from a secret research facility deep in the
wastelands of the Americas, I bring you the death-defying, gravity-
defying, mis…defying—” She pauses, brows sardonically arched.
“—let me have that one, darlings. Subject 17!”
She steps down, the spotlight snaps off and, while we wait in the
darkness, a piano breaks softly into the opening notes of… Chopin, I
think? One of the nocturnes?
There’s a rustling gasp from the audience and then I see a slender,
graceful figure floating in the air above the stage, illuminated only
by lines of turquoise light that run up and down his body, like his
veins are full of whatever they put in glowsticks. As the music plays,
he dances—a kind of aerial ballet—turning slowly, suspended by
nothing, supported by nothing, the light pulsing slowly beneath his
skin.
It’s hard to watch somehow. Beautiful, for sure. But something
else as well.
There’s other acts after. Singers, dancers, acrobats, lasers and
holograms. Some are funny, some are sad, a lot of them are really
kind of blatantly sexual and make me blush. There’s even this
woman in a black evening gown who paints what I guess has to be
the War and the fall of old Berlin with sand poured from her hand, a
flickering projector throws the images onto a screen at the back of
the stage. I recognise the columns we walked through—apparently
they were a gate once.
And I suddenly realise I have no idea how long I’ve been here.
What if I’m missed? Could I be tracked?
I picture a swarm of paparazzi surging into the Eldorado. Finding
me. My flushed and startled guilty face front and centre of every
gossip blog and scandal feed there is.
 Except if I try to leave now, I’ll have to blunder out in the dark
and maybe the performers will think I’m being rude and mock me in
front of everyone.
And while that’s much less bad than being caught, it’s also
slightly more likely to actually happen.
So I just sit there, fretting and paralysed.
Caught between an imagined terrible thing and a possible bad
one.
“And now, meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs,
Ladies and Gentlemen—” Rumpelstilzchen is back on stage. “—I am
afraid we have but one more offering to set before you this evening.”
She gazes around with exaggerated grief and the audience
responds with boos and awws.
But all I feel is relief. Last act and then I can go.
I’m starting to think I must have imagined Callum because he’s
definitely not here.
“A very special treat,” Rumpelstilzchen is saying. “A wonderful
young lady all the way from England. You remember England, ja?
Cold, rainy, used to have an empire? This wonderful young lady is
so beautiful, so charming, so talented, only yesterday I said to her, ‘I
must have you for my wife.’ And she said to me, ‘But darling, what
does your wife want with me?’” There’s a murmur of amusement
but she presses on mercilessly. “And I said, ‘She wants what I want,
dear. To fuck you.’” There’s a boom-tish from the band. “But so,
without further ado, my friends and companions, please welcome to
the stage, the remarkable, the exceptional, Fräulein Aisling Cleary.”
I nearly knock my champagne glass over. Startled to hear
Callum’s surname.
So…
His…sister works here?
There’s a scattering of applause.
Then darkness. Anticipatory silence.
 The light fades in slowly to reveal a young woman standing
before the old-fashioned microphone. She’s wearing a red corset
dress with ruffly skirts and black lace trimmings. Fishnets. Sparkly
shoes. A hat with a veil and a jaunty feather. Her shoulders are bare
and pale.
She’s…y’know. She’s pretty.
Okay, she’s very pretty. A little bit fragile, a little bit wicked.
Her lips are so soft-looking.
Callum would probably beat the crap out of me if he knew I was
here and what I was thinking.
Then she sings. Just the piano and her voice.
But her voice. Her voice. Powerful and vulnerable at the same
time, with this edge to it, this ache, this hint of roughness that makes
all the hair on my arms stand up.
My breath catch.
I’m so transfixed by her, by the movement of her throat and by
the way her mouth shapes the words, by the shadows and colours in
her eyes, that it takes me a moment to place what she’s singing.
It’s an old one: the “The Ship Song.” It sounds so different the
way she does it.
So full of yearning. Relentless in a way. Like a thrush beating
against my curled up snail of a heart.
Breaking me open.
The very last line, she makes sound all glittery. Like an invitation.
And… I would… I would. I would drown everything. Burn it
down.For a little history with someone.
With her.
She’s smiling as the last notes fade and the applause—which is
wild—begins.
And that’s when I realise. When I recognise her.
Not Callum’s sister. Not Callum’s sister at all.
She’s Callum.
 She’s moved on to the next song—“Don’t Tell Mama”—but I’m
barely listening.
Everything’s whirling in my head. Surprise, I guess, and
confusion. But only because I don’t know if this is part of the act.
Or if the act is everything else.
The thing is, I’ve got so many memories of Callum. Three years’
worth. Of seeing him nearly every day. Being with him nearly every
day.
On stage. In the recording studio. At press conferences. At
photoshoots and interviews. On planes and buses and in cars. In
hotel after hotel after hotel.The way he curls himself into very small
spaces. The way his hair falls into his eyes. His quietness. His
intensity. His patience. His kindness to fans. His hints of
playfulness.I can remember him singing Happy Birthday to
someone at an airport. Steadying someone else so she didn’t fall in
the middle of a screaming, shoving crowd.
Though I can’t remember when I first realised he was beautiful.
All these memories. And now I’m going through them, looking
for someone else. Looking for Aisling.
I don’t know if I should be able to find her or not.
Then I realise the shocking thing isn’t so much that she’s here. It’s
just how “here” she is. In every note she sings.
So I stop thinking and just…listen. Because she’s speaking to me
in the language I know best. And haven’t really spoken for a long
time.
I don’t recognise all her songs. And some of them aren’t in
English.But I feel them. And I understand them.
And she’s so full of fire and joy. Not quiet now.
She sings Cohen, Cave, Waits. Harsh songs she cracks wide and
fills with tenderness. With hope.
She’s funny, too. She detaches the microphone from the stand,
steps down from the stage and perches on the edge of one of the
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tom Swift and
his airline express
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Tom Swift and his airline express

or, From ocean to ocean by daylight

Author: Victor Appleton

Release date: January 13, 2024 [eBook #72701]

Language: English

Original publication: Racine, WI: Whitman Publishing Co, 1926

Credits: Delphine Lettau, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed

Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SWIFT

AND HIS AIRLINE EXPRESS ***
TOM SWIFT AND HIS
AIRLINE EXPRESS
or

From Ocean to Ocean by Daylight

by
VICTOR APPLETON

WHITMAN PUBLISHING CO.

Racine, Wis. Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

Copyright, 1926, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Inc.
New York, N. Y.
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed in U. S. A.

CONTENTS

I. Something Queer
II. Waiting in the Dark
III. Masked Men
IV. A Night of Worry
V. A Crash
VI. Again a Prisoner
VII. The Plot
VIII. Mr. Damon’s News
IX. Koku’s Alarm
X. Tom’s Plight
XI. The Explosion
XII. A Dangerous Search
XIII. An Ominous Message
XIV. The Airline Express
XV. A Trial Flight
XVI. Jason Jacks
XVII. The Airline Starts
XVIII. Chicago
XIX. Denver
XX. A Mountain Storm
XXI. The Golden Gate
XXII. Kenny Breaks Down
XXIII. Another Capture
XXIV. Troubles and Worries
XXV. A Glorious Finish
Tom Swift and His Airline Express
 CHAPTER I
SOMETHING QUEER

“Ours is sure a great plant!” murmured Tom Swift to himself, with

justifiable pride. “It would be a credit to anybody. No wonder dad
loves it, and so do I. Yes, it sure is a great plant! We’ve had our
troubles—our ups and downs—and our enemies have tried their
hardest to wipe it out.”
Darkness was slowly gathering over the landscape, shrouding in
velvety black the trees which were faintly stirring in the summer
breeze. Tom, following an old-time cowpath across the green
meadow on his way home from town, topped a little rise and caught
a glimpse of the high board fence surrounding the Swift Construction
Company’s plant which he and his father had built up after many
years of hard work.
Tom paused for a moment to trace, in the fast-gathering shadows
of the night, the outlines of the various buildings—the foundry, the
wood-working mill, the electrical shop, the hangars where many
types of aircraft were housed.
From some of the tall chimneys faint clouds of smoke arose, for
certain of the industries carried on by the Swift Construction
Company required that furnaces be kept going day and night.
“A great plant—a wonderful plant!” mused Tom. It gave him a
certain sense of pleasure to dwell thus in introspection on the
accomplishments of his father and himself. And it buoyed him up for
the work in prospect—for Tom Swift had a great plan in mind, a plan
so great and daring that, as yet, he had said but little of it even to his
father or to Ned Newton, his old chum who was now an officer of the
concern.
“But it can be done! I know it can be done!” declared Tom. “And
I’m going to do it! I’m going to——”
In his mental energy he had unconsciously spoken the last words
in a low voice, but the sight of something just ahead of him in the
gathering darkness caused him to break off abruptly and halt
suddenly. Concentrating his gaze, Tom Swift looked eagerly at a
clump of bushes.
 “It’s a man,” murmured Tom Swift. “A man, sure enough, and it
isn’t one of our workers, either. None of them would sneak around as
he is doing.”
For that described exactly the movements of the stranger of
whom Tom had caught sight in the darkness as he approached the
big fence which surrounded his plant.
“What’s he up to?” mused Tom. “No good, that’s sure. He
wouldn’t sneak along like that if he were on the level.”
Through Tom’s mind flashed remembrances of times when
attempts had been made by enemies of himself and his father to fire
the plant. To prevent this, and to keep strangers away, a high fence
had been erected around the buildings. This fence was protected by
wires on the plan of a burglar alarm, so that, no matter at what point
the barrier was climbed, a bell would ring in the main office and on
an indicator would appear a number to show at what part of the
fence an attempt was being made to scale it.
An effort to break down the barrier, or burrow beneath it, would
also sound the alarm in like manner. So Tom had no fear that the
sneaking stranger, crouching along in the darkness, could get into
the midst of the buildings without notice being given.
“But what’s his game?” thought Tom.
Almost at the instant he asked himself this question he saw the
man crawl behind a clump of bushes. In the natural course of events
the man should have appeared on the other side of the clump. But
he did nothing of the sort.
“He may be hiding there,” mused Tom. “Perhaps waiting for a
confederate. I’ll just have a closer look at this!”
He advanced boldly toward the bushes. There was nothing
between him and the shrubbery, and it was still light enough to see
fairly well. Besides, Tom had extraordinarily good eyes. His
astonishment can be imagined when, on reaching the bush off which
he had not taken his gaze and behind which he had seen the
crawling man disappear he found—no one!
“That’s the queerest thing I’ve seen yet!” exclaimed Tom, rubbing
his organs of vision.
Standing beside the bush which came about to his shoulders,
Tom looked on all sides of it. There was no hollow in the ground, as
far as he could make out, no depression and no other clumps of
shrubbery and no boulders behind which a man might be hidden.
Some distance away there were all of these things in profusion, for
the land was wild and uncultivated outside the plant fence. But there
was not a hole, boulder, or bush near enough to the one beside
which Tom stood to have enabled a man to gain their protection
while the young inventor was watching.
“He just crawled back of his bush and then vanished!” said Tom,
in a half whisper to himself. “If only I had a flashlight now——” He
was startled by hearing some one walking toward him out of the
darkness which was now quite dense. “Here he comes!” thought
Tom. “Appearing as queerly as he disappeared. Or else it’s one of
his confederates.” He could see no one, and his hand clutched
something in his pocket that might be used in case he was attacked.
But a moment later, just as Tom’s nerves and muscles were
getting tense in anticipation of a struggle, a cheery whistle broke out
in the darkness, mingling with the now louder sounds of the
footsteps, and Tom, with a cry of relief, called:
“That you, Ned?”
“Sure, old scout!” was the reply. “Oh, there you are!” went on Ned
Newton, as he caught sight of Tom at the same moment the young
inventor glimpsed his friend and financial manager.
“You’re a bit late,” went on Ned. “I waited for you, and when you
didn’t show up I thought I might as well walk in toward town and
maybe I’d meet you.”
“Yes, I couldn’t get just what I wanted until I had tried two or three
places,” Tom answered. “And then I met a man——”
Ned broke into a laugh.
“What’s the idea?” Tom wanted to know.
“Tell that to Mary!” advised his chum. “She may believe that and
then you can tell her another.”
“Whew!” shrilly whistled Tom. “I forgot all about Mary. I promised
to call on her to-night.”
“Sure you did,” laughed Ned. “And I’ve got a date with Helen. You
said we’d go over together and——”
“Clean forgot it!” broke in Tom. “And I can’t go now. I’ve got
something to do.” Quickly he made up his mind to say nothing to
Ned of what he had seen until he investigated a little on his own
account. “Here, I tell you what to do,” went on Tom. “Go on, keep
your date with Helen, but when you get to her house telephone to
Mary for me and say I’ll be a little late. Will you?”
“Pull your chestnuts out of the fire? Is that it, Tom? I reminded
you myself before supper!” laughed Ned. “Well, I don’t mind, for
you’ve done the same for me. I guess Mary Nestor knows you by
this time, or, if she doesn’t, she never will. But what’s the big idea?”
“Oh, I’ve just got a notion in my head,” said Tom. “I want to go to
the office a moment to jot down some memoranda before I forget
them. ’Phone Mary I’ll be over as soon as I can. See you later.”
“Cheek!” exclaimed Ned, and with his merry whistle he hurried off
in the darkness. “I only hope Mary speaks to you when you finally
get to see her,” floated back to Tom.
“Don’t you worry about Mary,” advised the young inventor. “I’ll
explain to her. And tell her I’ll be along in about half an hour. I really
forgot all about the engagement.”
“I’ll say you did!” playfully mocked Ned.
Then, with his chum out of the way, Tom gave himself to trying to
solve the mystery. For mystery he believed it to be. Seeing a man
step behind a bush and, on arriving at the bush, to find nothing of the
man there was surprising, to say the least.
Sensing that it would soon be so dark that it would be useless to
investigate without an illuminant of some sort, Tom made haste to
gain what advantage he could from the fast-fading light. He looked
sharply about without moving from his place behind the bush on the
other side of which he had seen the man disappear. Then, as he
could pick up here no clew to the strange happening, the young
inventor moved around to the other side.
The light was a little better here and Tom saw something that
made him fairly gasp with astonishment. He had moved somewhat
away from the bush and almost at his feet was an opening in the
ground.
“This explains it!” murmured Tom, half aloud. “A hole in the
ground! He went down there. I knew he couldn’t have dug himself in
as quickly as that. But that hole! I never saw it before. It isn’t any of
our doing. I’d have known about it if it were.”
 All the land there belonged to Tom and his father. It was a big
field surrounding the fenced-in plant, and often the smooth part of
the field was used as a landing place for aeroplanes.
Cautiously approaching the opening in the ground and wondering
more and more how it had gotten there without his knowledge, Tom
saw that it had been closed by some planks placed over it. These
were now tossed to one side, as if they had been hurriedly
displaced. Scattered about was loose earth which had evidently
covered the planks, thus hiding them from the view of a casual
observer.
“A secret opening!” murmured Tom. “This is certainly the
queerest thing I’ve ever seen! What does it mean?”
His surprise increased when, as he drew near to the edge of the
opening, he saw a rough flight of plank steps going down into the
hole. The young man caught his breath sharply, it was so
astounding. But with Tom Swift to see and think was to act, and a
moment later he began a descent of the steps into the mysterious
hole. It might have been the part of discretion to wait until daylight,
but a secret opening like this, so near the Swift plant, could mean but
one thing, Tom reasoned.
“Some one is trying to put up a game on us,” he decided.
“Unknown to us he has made a tunnel under our plant. There’s
something funny here! I’m going to see what it is.”
Tom had fairly to feel his way down the flight of plank steps. They
were rough and uneven, but solidly built. The young inventor
counted them as he descended so he would know how to come
back. Now that his head was below the level of the ground it was so
dark that it was as if a velvet robe had been wrapped about him.
He counted ten steps down, and was cautiously feeling about
with his right foot extended to ascertain if there were any more, when
suddenly he felt the presence of some one near him. He caught the
sound of breath fiercely drawn in, as if his unknown and unseen
companion, there in the darkness, was nerving himself for an attack.
Instinctively Tom drew back, his hands pressed to the planked
sides of the opening down which he had descended. He could feel,
rather than see, some one leaning toward him. A sweet, sickening
odor came to his nostrils. He felt a hand pressed over his face—a
hand that held a damp rag which gave off that overpowering
perfume.
“Here! What’s this? Who—who——” But Tom Swift’s voice
became a mere gurgle in his throat. His legs became limp. His head
whirled and he seemed lifted up and carried through measureless
miles of space on the wings of some great bird.
Then Tom’s senses left him. He knew no more.
 CHAPTER II
WAITING IN THE DARK

Just how long Tom Swift remained unconscious he himself did

not know. It may have been several hours, for when he came to
himself he felt a curious stiffness about his muscles as if he had lain
for some time on the damp ground.
And he was on the ground—a fact he ascertained by feeling
about with his hands, his fingers encountering damp, packed earth
and the smooth surface of stones set in the soil.
“Where in the world am I, and what happened?” thought Tom, as
soon as he could collect his senses enough to do any thinking. “Gee,
but I sure do feel queer!”
There was a sickish taste in his mouth—a sense of sweetness,
such as he remembered followed a slight operation he had
undergone some years before when an anæsthetic had been given
him.
“They doped me all right—that’s what they did,” mused Tom.
“Ether, chloroform, or something like that. It knocked me out. But I’m
beginning to feel all right again—no headache or anything like that.
But what does it all mean, and where am I?”
Those were questions not easily answered.
While Tom Swift is trying to collect his senses and to remember,
in their sequence, the events which led up to his queer predicament,
may I take just a moment of your time, if you are a new reader, to tell
you who Tom was?
The first book of this series, “Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle,”
introduces you to the young inventor. His father, Barton Swift, was a
widower, living in the old homestead at Shopton on Lake Carlopa.
The Swift home was on the outskirts of the town and in a building not
far from the house Barton Swift began work on a series of inventions
which were destined to make him and his son famous. Tom’s mother
was dead, but Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper, looked well after the
material welfare of Tom and his father.
In due time Tom began to follow in his father’s footsteps, working
at small inventions until, when a sturdy youth, he became possessed
of a motorcycle. He bought the machine of an eccentric individual
named Wakefield Damon, who lived in the neighboring town of
Waterfield. Mr. Damon set out to learn to ride his new machine.
“But bless my porous plaster!” the queer man would exclaim in
telling the story, “I never thought the contraption was going to climb
trees!”
Which it did, or tried to, because Mr. Damon did not know how to
manage it. The result was that the rider was injured and the
motorcycle badly smashed and Tom, near whose home the accident
occurred, became the owner of the machine.
How he repaired it, added some improvements, and what he did
with the machine are fully set forth in the book. It was the beginning
of a long friendship with Mr. Damon, and also the real start of Tom’s
inventive career.
Those of you who have followed him in his successes, from his
motor boat to “Tom Swift’s Chest of Secrets,”—the volume
immediately preceding this one—need not be told of Tom’s activities.
He had made some wonderful pieces of apparatus and had had
some startling adventures. In some of these his father and Mr.
Damon had shared. So, also, had Ned Newton, Tom’s closest friend
and now the treasurer of the Swift Construction Company.
Mary Nestor, of whom Ned had spoken, was a beautiful girl
whom Tom hoped to marry some day, and Ned Newton was
interested in a similar manner in Mary’s friend, Helen Morton.
As Tom sat there in the darkness, trying to puzzle out where he
was and how he had gotten there, his thought flashed to Mary.
“I wonder what she’ll think?” he mused. “I’d better get to a
telephone and explain. Let’s see. I was coming back from town and I
saw some fellow sneaking along behind the bushes. I met Ned. I
went down a flight of stairs in a hole—though how they could be
there and I not know it, is more than I can fathom. Then they doped
me. But who did it and why, I don’t know. I’ll soon find out, though.
Wonder how long I’ve been here? Feels like a week, I’m so stiff. But
I’m not hurt, thank goodness!”
Tom stretched out his arms in the darkness. They responded to
the action of his muscles. But when he tried to get up and walk—
well, he simply could not!
 “Chained fast!” cried Tom, aloud. His hands had sought his left
ankle when he found that something held him fast there, and his
fingers had come in contact with a chain.
For a moment he felt a sinking sensation. To be chained fast in
the dark, at the bottom of some cave or dungeon, located he knew
not where, was enough to take the heart out of any one. But not for
long did Tom Swift give way to despair.
He gave a vigorous tug to the chain about his ankle. After all, it
might only be lying across it or loosely twisted. But it needed only
one effort on his part to loosen the links to let him know that he was
bound fast. Whoever had put the chain on his ankle had done so
with serious intentions of holding the young inventor captive.
“Well, this is worse and more of it!” he mused grimly. “What does
it all mean? It can’t be a plot to kidnap me. No one knew I was
coming across the lots, for I didn’t know it myself until the last
minute. And seeing that man sneaking along, discovering the secret
stairs—it was all a series of accidents. Though it’s likely to prove a
serious accident for me if I can’t get loose.”
Tom was nothing if not practical, and first he felt about with his
hands to determine the exact nature of what it was that held him fast.
He discovered, by the sense of touch, that something in the nature of
a handcuff was snapped about his ankle. To this cuff, or leg-iron,
was attached a chain. By following this, link by link, Tom found that
the chain was made fast to a ring of iron which, in turn, was sunk into
the stone side wall of the cave or tunnel in which he now found
himself.
How far he was removed from the bottom of the flight of secret
steps where he had been made unconscious, he did not know, any
more than he knew where he was.
Having discovered what it was that held him fast and the nature
of the chain and its fastenings, Tom, who had risen to his feet, stood
silent a moment, listening. It was very black and very still in the cave,
if such it was, and from the earthy, damp smell he concluded that he
must be underground, or at least in some vault or cellar.
By test Tom found that he could move about five feet, such being
the length of the chain. The leg-iron had been snapped or riveted
about his ankle outside of his trousers. It was not tight enough to
cause any pain, but it was snug enough to be impossible of removal.
“They’ve got me as tight as an animal in a trap!” grimly exclaimed
the youth, when, by a series of tugs, he ascertained how securely
the end of the chain was fast in the rocky wall. “Just like a trap, or a
prisoner in an old-time dungeon!” bitterly reflected the young man.
“All it needs to make a moving picture film is some beautiful maiden
to come to my rescue with a file——”
Tom’s spoken words (for he was talking aloud to himself) came to
a sudden end as he clapped a hand to the pocket of his coat.
“I’ve got ’em!” he fairly shouted, and he drew out a small paper
parcel in which were two keen files. They were part of the purchases
made just before stumbling on the mysterious man and finding the
steps in the queer opening.
“Files—the hardest and best made!” he told himself. “They’ll cut
through anything but a diamond. Luck’s with me, after all. They didn’t
know I had these! Oh, boy!”
Everything seemed changed now! Though he was held fast,
though he was in some secret dungeon, hope sang a song of joy in
his heart.
For a moment Tom debated with himself as to the best end of the
chain at which to begin filing. It would be more comfortable with that
leg-iron off his ankle, but by feeling it in the darkness he could tell
that it was broad and thick. It would take some time for even the
keen, hard file to cut through it.
“I’ll file through one of the links close to the leg-iron,” decided
Tom. “That won’t leave much to carry around, and it won’t take long
to cut through a link—that is, unless they’re made of case-hardened
steel.”
But the chain was of the ordinary sort, made of soft iron, and it
did not take the young inventor long, practiced as he was in the use
of tools, to file apart one of the links. True it was not easy in the
darkness, and, more than once, the file slipped and cut Tom’s hands
or fingers, for he changed from left to right and back to left in using
the file, having taught himself to be ambidextrous in many
operations.
 At last he could feel that the link was nearly severed and then,
inserting the small ends of the two files in it, he pried them apart.
This leverage broke the thin remaining bit of iron and Tom was free.
That is, he was free to move about as he pleased, but he was still
within the dark cave, and where it was he could not imagine.
“I’ve got to feel my way about,” he told himself. “It’s as dark as
the inside of a pocket.”
So dark was it that Tom had to tread cautiously and with
outstretched hands lest he bump into some obstruction. Whether he
was moving toward the steps down which he had come or in the
opposite direction, Tom had no means of knowing. His sense of
touch alone guided him.
He could feel that he was walking along a tunnel, but the size of it
he could only guess at. Then, suddenly, on making an elbow turn, he
saw, glimmering in the distance, a faint light. It was the light of day,
Tom knew, and by that he realized that he had been held captive all
night.
“That makes it bad,” he mused. “Dad will have done a lot of
worrying about me, I’m afraid. But I guess I’ll soon be out of here.”
Then, to his ears, came the murmur of voices—voices strange to
him. So faint was the light in the distance that it was of no service to
him where he stood waiting in the darkness; waiting for he knew not
what.
The voices increased in loudness, showing that the speakers
were approaching. Then he heard footsteps echoing strangely in the
hollow tunnel.
“If there’s going to be a fight I’d better get ready for it,” Tom told
himself fiercely. He stooped and began feeling about on the ground
for a loose rock or a club. But he could find nothing. Then like a flash
it came to him.
“One of the files! They’re pretty sharp on the handle end. As good
as a knife! I’ll use it like a knife if I have to,” he mused desperately.
He drew one of the files from his pocket, grasped it firmly, and
waited in the darkness for what was to happen next.
 CHAPTER III
MASKED MEN

After the treatment that had been accorded him, Tom Swift rather
welcomed than otherwise a chance to come to grips with the men
who were responsible for his position. Usually even-tempered and
generous, just now he felt eager for vengeance and he would not
have cared much if two men had attacked him at once.
Strangely enough he did not feel weak or ill now. He had,
somewhat, when he first regained his senses after having been
overpowered by some drug. But his brain had cleared and he kept
himself in such good physical trim all the while that even a night of
unconsciousness had not sapped his strength.
The light in the distance did not increase any, from which Tom
gathered that it was full daylight with the sun well above the horizon,
and after that first murmur of voices and the sound of footsteps these
sounds did not come any nearer. Nor did Tom catch a glimpse of any
figures between himself and that little circle of light.
Then from some point outside the cave or tunnel he heard voices
calling. They were louder than the first, and there seemed to be
some dispute or disturbance.
The voices rose to a high pitch and then died away. Silence
followed, and then came the sound of retreating footsteps.
“They’re going away!” exulted Tom. “Now I’ve got a chance to
walk toward that daylight and see where I am. Maybe I’d better wait
a few minutes, though. They may come back.”
He waited what he thought was several minutes and then,
hearing no other sounds of voices or footsteps, began a cautious
approach toward that gleam of light. What a blessed thing light was,
after all that black and clinging darkness!
In silence Tom crept on, advancing one foot after the other
cautiously, and keeping one hand extended to give warning of his
approach toward any obstruction while in his other hand he held the
file like a dagger, ready to use.
But there was no occasion for this. A little later he found himself
standing in a circle of daylight illumination that filtered down an
inclined shaft which led out of a tunnel, such as Tom could now
ascertain he was in. A natural tunnel it appeared to be, with rocks
jutting out here and there in the earthen sides. Roughly the tunnel
was in the form of a half circle, the floor being flat and the roof
arched. The inclined entrance led upward in a gentle slope.
“Well, now to see what’s up there!” said Tom to himself, taking a
long breath and holding his weapon ready. He tensed his muscles
and steeled his nerves for what he felt might be a desperate
struggle. Yet he did not shrink back.
As he advanced cautiously, step by step, up the incline that led to
daylight and the outer world, he felt at first a sense of disappointment
when he saw no one with whom he might come to grips. He had
been treated so meanly that it would have been a source of
satisfaction to have had it out in a rough-and-tumble fight with those
responsible.
But, to his surprise, Tom pushed his way out through a tangle of
underbrush and bushes which grew about this end of the tunnel and
found none to dispute him. This surprise was added to when he
looked about him and found out where he was.
“On Barn Door Island!” exclaimed Tom. “Of all places! Barn Door
Island! But how did I get here? It’s miles away from where I went
down those steps near our plant. Of all places! Barn Door Island!”
This was a small island in Lake Carlopa which had been named
Barn Door because, some time or other, one of the early settlers
happened to remark that it was no larger than the door of a barn.
The island was at the end of the lake farthest removed from Shopton
and the Swift plant.
“I never knew there was an entrance to a tunnel here!” said Tom,
as he looked about him. “But then I’ve never explored here very
much.”
Nor had any of the other lads of Shopton. Barn Door Island was a
barren place—merely a collection of scrubby trees and tangled
bushes and great boulders set down at the swampy end of Lake
Carlopa. It was not a good fishing location and too dreary for picnic
parties, so Barn Door was seldom visited.
“But if I had an idea there was a tunnel entrance here—the
beginning of a passage that led under the lake and under the land