The Girl Who Ran. Nikki Owen
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so Google,’ Chris says. ‘You freak out on trains, right?’
I tear my sight from Patricia. ‘What?’
Chris leans against the wall and, fast, flips open his laptop. ‘There’s the Goldenpass route to Lausanne in Geneva. It’s long, but quiet, a tourist route, but not busy at this time of year. We can lie low.’ He looks to me, hair flopping in his eyes. ‘Would you be okay with that? It would mean it’s calmer for you to, well, to deal with.’
I study the details he has pulled up on the journey. Wide-open carriages, large windows, space, clean mountain air and no crowds. ‘We will have to change outfits so we are not recognised.’
‘No sweat. I’ve got untraceable credit cards that can buy us new stuff, and an uncanny ability to deactivate security cameras.’ He pauses, drops still for a moment, looks to the photograph in my hand. ‘Hey, we’ll find her, whatever the ending. We can go under the radar, figure out everything we can. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.’
I watch his lips move, smell his scent. ‘Can you hack into the Weisshorn Hospital, track any data?’
His face breaks out into a grin. ‘For you? Anything.’
Patricia coughs. ‘What’— she stops, swallows— ‘sorry – what time does the train depart?’
‘In one hour,’ Chris says. ‘We all ready to go?’
‘Yes.’ I throw my rucksack to my shoulder. ‘But first, I need to use the toilet facilities.’
‘Oh. Okay,’ Patricia says. She slips her cell phone from her bag, checks it and slides it out of sight.
Goldenpass railway line, The Alps, Switzerland.
Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 26 hours and 20 minutes
I am unable to pull my eyes from the palette of watercolour before me. Aching blue lagoons of sky sifting in a mist of citrus and orange peel. Carpets of green grass shoots sprinkled with sugar flakes of snow all scattered among petals of spring painted with brush strokes of yellows and lilacs and multi-coloured confetti. Majestic mountains rise up, backs straight, muscles taut, mountains that, each time I gaze at them, each second I take in their strong, solid presence as they whisk past the window, a lump forms in my throat. When my sight drifts up to the fading turquoise of the sky, my breathing softens, and I think to myself that no matter what happens, no matter what wars are raged, what lives are slain, what untruths are spewed and sewn, the mountains that soar high above us are always there. Solid, present and true.
‘Doc, you okay?’
I peel my forehead from the window. Patricia now wears a wine-red sweat top with a hood and pocket, and on her legs blue jeans the colour of the night sea hug her skin. Her brown wig is still in place, as is Chris’s bottle-blonde mane as he sits by us hunched over his laptop. We are all now casually dressed, but, despite the simple comfort of the clothes, the fresh cardboard cotton of the t-shirt I currently wear itches my skin, irritating me. It’s unbearable, so I go to take it off, but Patricia reaches forward.
‘No, Doc. Not here.’
I stop. ‘Why?’
‘People don’t get changed down to their bras in public places.’
I drop my hand. ‘Oh.’
Scratching my stomach to bat away the clothing annoyance, I glance round the carriage. It is sparse. An old man with white hair wearing a pressed herringbone coat, black tie, cotton-blue shirt sits two seats beyond reading a daily newspaper containing headlines about the NSA and their surveillance of the German Head of State. Near to him is perched a young woman, small bird-like shoulders hunched over a worn-out copy of Animal Farm, the dog ears of the cover touching the tips of ten porcelain fingers as she turns the page, nails bitten, faded black jeans on petite, slim legs.
The only other group in the carriage is a father in his early thirties with two children, both boys under the age of ten, one nestled under each arm. The children are swaddled in navy blue duffle coats sewn with eight toggles apiece and they sit across a wooden table, opposite an elderly woman whose stomach and chin rest in kneaded batches of dough, square metal-framed glasses perched on the tip of a podgy nose as, making conversation with the small family, she points out the various Alpine sights that trundle past.
I observe the father for a moment, watch the way he smiles each time one of his sons whoops or claps at spotting a random cow or a snow-covered mountain top. A father, living, breathing. I hold my gaze on the family scene then, swallowing hard, I touch the picture of my Papa and the photograph of Isabella and her baby.
‘Hey,’ Patricia says, leaning forwards a little, ‘what’ve you done to your thumb?’
‘What?’
‘Your thumb – have you hurt yourself?’
I glance down at the small wound peeking out beneath a pale plaster still partially wet with blood. ‘I cut it.’
‘Where?’
‘In the toilets in Zurich.’
She leans forward. ‘Ooof, that looks sore. Must have been some wallop you gave it.’
I hide my hand out of sight and try to ignore the sting. ‘It is healing.’
The train jostles on and I take out my notebook, careful to avoid contact with my thumb. I check our current location against the brief list I have compiled to help me tackle the journey. Places, times, exact locations, short, sketched scenarios.
Satisfied we are on schedule, I peer through the wide window again and breathe easier. I turn my attention to Chris and his laptop.
‘Have you hacked the Weisshorn database yet?’
He shakes his head. ‘Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense.’
‘What does not make sense?’
Chris sits back, scratches his chin. ‘Well, okay, so I’m in their system, yeah – the hospital’s. I still can’t find Isabella’s name, but, either way, there seems to be some kind of glitch with my computer.’ He swivels his laptop to me and points. ‘See it?’
There are a series of numbers, stretching across the screen and linking to the database Chris is trying to hack. ‘They are codes,’ I say.
He nods. ‘I know, right? And every time I click on them, the screen shakes, just for a second.’ He shows me, and, sure enough, it shakes.
Patricia leans in to see. ‘Why’s it doing that?’
‘No idea. I’ve checked the OS, but it’s all fine.’
‘Can you not tell using a file or something and bypass the shake, or whatever you do?’
‘Nope. My trace files won’t open right now. No idea why.’
Connections firing, I rip open my notebook and cross-reference my written data with the online file then sit back. Nerves prick my spine. Something is not right. I wait for a second, think through the program on the laptop with the details in my notebook from dreams long gone. The motion of the train back and forth, the rhythm and gentle chug of the sound and its predictable pattern soothes my brain, and I flip through my cerebral files, checking, referencing, interweaving the recalled data in my mind as if it were open in a book in front of me. Connections, link, numbers…
‘There’s a thread,’ I say finally, noting that just five seconds have passed.
Chris’s eyes flip wide open. ‘Jesus, that was quick.’ He’s right – even for me that was fast work. The train, the lull of it, the empty white bowl of the mountains and snow – that must be enabling my mind to work at such speed. Patricia watches me closely, frowning.