Amanda watched vertical bars appear on the bottom of her unit’s screen. Five of them darkened.
“These receivers work best in open spaces,” the voice said. “Buildings and dense forest restrict the signals. But now that you’re outdoors, your units have registered your current position. Pay attention to the following coordinates. They indicate your destination. North…” The voice dictated a series of numbers. “West…” The voice dictated other numbers.
Amanda was bewildered as Ray, Bethany, Derrick, and Viv pressed buttons on their receivers.
“Not so fast,” Bethany objected, adjusting her microphone. “Tell me the second set of numbers again.”
The voice repeated them.
“Okay,” Bethany said.
Amanda continued to be baffled.
“It’s easy.” Sounding annoyed, Viv took the receiver from her. “The buttons on each side cycle through the main pages and access the menus on them: a compass, an altimeter, a map.”
“No map on mine,” Ray said.
“Mine neither,” Bethany said.
“Great. So we still don’t know where we are.” Viv showed Amanda how each button worked. “With a little practice, you won’t have trouble remembering what they do. Here, I’ll enter the coordinates for you.”
Viv showed Amanda how it was done, then handed the receiver back to her.
“Excellent,” the voice said. “Team spirit.”
“Anything to get out of here,” Viv said.
“That depends on how everyone performs. The forty hours begin…” The voice paused, as if double-checking something “… now.”
Everyone frowned.
“I advise you not to waste time,” the voice warned.
They continued to remain in place.
“You’ll find something you need at the coordinates I gave you.”
“Water?” Bethany asked. “Food?”
The voice didn’t answer.
“Hell, if there’s water and food, let’s go.” Derrick glanced at his GPS receiver.
Amanda did the same. On the screen, a red needle pointed away from her. Above it, a box was marked DIST TO DEST and indicated one mile.
“In this mode, the compass doesn’t aim north but instead toward the coordinates we entered,” Viv explained. “Looks like we’re supposed to head toward that clump of trees in the distance.”
The trees were opposite the valley’s exit, Amanda noticed. She assumed that her thoughts were the same as the others‘. The moment she was far enough from the building that she couldn’t see it any longer, she’d watch for a chance to escape.
The guarded expression in everyone’s eyes told her that the rest of the group had the same plan.
They started walking. Dry grass crunched under Amanda’s boots. The sun’s glare pained her eyes. Despite its heat, she shivered. Staying behind the others, she couldn’t help noticing how unnatural the combination of their blue, green, gray, red, and brown jumpsuits looked. When she looked around, the expanse of the sky seemed overpowering.
A sudden movement attracted her attention. Ahead, something darted from a bush. A rabbit. It zigzagged away from them, racing toward the mountains.
At once, something else appeared, a larger animal bounding from a depression in the ground, chasing the rabbit. For an instant, Amanda thought it was a wolf, but then she realized that its markings didn’t match any pictures of wolves that she’d seen. It’s a German shepherd, she realized. The dog and the panicked rabbit disappeared down a hidden slope.
No one spoke. It struck Amanda as odd that when they were in the building, they hadn’t hesitated to talk, but now that they were in the open, a hush fell over them, broken only by the sound of their boot steps.
“Ever see Hitchcock’s North by Northwest?” Bethany asked unexpectedly.
Her voice came from two places — Bethany herself and Amanda’s earphones. A schizoid effect. Amanda didn’t know how long she could bear this. Frank, where are you? God, don’t let him be dead. I’ll go crazy if he’s dead.
You’re not crazy now? She was terribly aware that she addressed herself in the second person, something else that was schizoid.
The others, too, looked startled by Bethany’s question. It was as incongruous as the way Bethany’s expensive necklace, rings, bracelet, and watch contrasted with her jumpsuit.
Ray answered, self-conscious about being overheard. “Is that the one with Cary Grant on Mount Rushmore?”
“Yeah, the faces of four presidents are carved into the mountain.” Derrick sounded subdued. “I saw North by Northwest in a course in college. The bad guys chase Cary Grant and, what’s her name, Eva Marie Saint, across the faces.”
“In an earlier scene, he gets off a bus at a cornfield,” Viv said.
Amanda sensed a change of tone now, their voices less tentative, as if they hoped that a conversation about something familiar would help them feel normal.
“The cornfield,” Bethany said. “Yes. Grant gets off a bus in farm country. He’s been told to meet somebody and get information about whoever’s trying to kill him.”
Two large birds circled above them.
“Vultures,” Derrick said.
As the shadows passed over them, Bethany returned to the safety of talking about the movie. “After a long time, a car goes by, and Grant keeps waiting. The situation seems even stranger because Grant’s standing on this deserted farm road, wearing a suit.”
Hiking through the brittle grass, Amanda saw a gully ahead.
“Then a truck comes from the side of the cornfield,” Bethany said. “This is after about a minute of Grant doing nothing but stand there. A woman lets a farmer out. The truck leaves. The farmer and Grant nod to each other. We hear a drone in the background, a crop duster flying over a field. Then another bus shows up, and the farmer climbs aboard, but not before telling Grant how strange it is that the plane’s dusting crops where there aren’t any. Grant thinks about this. The bus drives away. Grant thinks some more, glances toward the crop duster, which starts flying in his direction, and suddenly Grant races toward the cornfield. The plane sprays machine-gun bullets at him.”
“Right!” Derrick said. “Grant dives among the corn rows. The pilot drops the fertilizer or herbicide or whatever his plane is carrying, almost suffocating Grant.”
They neared the gully.
“I read somewhere,” Bethany said, “that Hitchcock made several movies with a lot of scary enclosed spaces, that spooky old mansion in Rebecca, for example, but in North by Northwest, he wanted to try the reverse — to make open spaces threatening.”
They paused at the top of the gully.
“So quiet.” Ray turned in a circle, surveying the expanse of the valley and the mountains that encircled them. “I’m used to the noise of jets and cars and cities. Activity. Lots of things happening.”
“It’s like being in that awful rubber boat.” Bethany sounded as if her dry tongue swelled in her mouth. “Nothing but sky and ocean around me. So damned quiet.”
“Not for Derrick and me,” Viv told her. “This sort of place is mostly where we spend our time. Under different circumstances, it would be paradise.”
“Yeah, right, paradise.” Bethany pointed. “How far do you suppose those mountains are?”
“Hard to tell,” Derrick answered. “Maybe fifteen miles. Maybe more. When everything’s open like this, our eyes play tricks.”
Ray pressed a button on his GPS receiver. “The altimeter says we’re at fifty-five hundred feet.” He looked at Bethany. “A mile above sea level. If you’re not used to it, the altitude would be another reason you’re thirsty.”