“Henry Smith,” said Phoenix without hesitation.
“Laura Williams,” said Mila just as quickly.
The commissioner looked at her oddly, and she dropped her head. He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “And you are?”
“Uh, Chester.” I cursed myself for not choosing a common name like the others. They’d figure me out in a second; Chester would be an easy name to verify as false in the system. Henry and Laura, on the other hand, were much more common, and might get bogged in the system. I crossed my fingers and prayed Phoenix had a plan.
“First name Uh,” said the commissioner, “ and last name Chester?”
My bottom lip quivered from nerves. “No, no,” I said. “It’s Chester Mc—Munchies. Chester McMunchies.”
We were screwed. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mila mutter “Shit.”
“You get that?” said the commissioner toward the ceiling—the room was miked. He put a finger to his ear and nodded. “Right then,” he said. “We’re looking the three of you up in the database.”
The room was shrinking. My heart felt tight against my chest. The commissioner cracked his neck. “Let’s take the glasses off, then, shall we?”
Phoenix feigned a struggle with the cuffs. “I can’t,” he said, raising his voice to the rich octave that signaled one was a spoiled brat. “It’s too hard.”
“Christ’s sake…” muttered the commissioner. He reached for Phoenix’s glasses. At the last second, Phoenix jerked his head to the side, and the commissioner stumbled onto the table. I imagined his colleagues laughing on the opposite side of the window. He pulled himself up. “What the hell was that?”
Phoenix pouted below the dark glasses. “You can’t just grab them,” he said. “They’re Zwallens.”
Zwallens was one of the largest luxury brands on this side of Maui. Sunglasses made by Zwallens could easily run into the thousands. The cheap red sticker that ran along the side of Phoenix’s glasses told me they were definitely not Zwallens, but I doubted the commissioner would know the difference. Zwallens were mostly just marketed to people in their twenties; people the commissioner’s age were encouraged not to wear them.
The red convertible, the fake sunglasses—Phoenix was creating a persona: that of a spoiled rich kid from the wealthy suburbs of Newla. I wondered if the name “Henry Smith” he’d given was real or fake. Maybe it’d been someone he’d known in a past life.
Phoenix weakly lifted his wrists again. “Maybe you could unlock them? They’re making my arms terribly sore, and my chiropractor says—”
“You think I was born yesterday?” The commissioner shook his head. “I’ve seen kids like you before: spoiled rotten. Think you run the world. Please, spare me your entitlements. You’ll wear the handcuffs until we’ve confirmed your identity, and that’s final.” He wandered around the table and kneeled in front of Phoenix. “But the sunglasses, well, those have got to come off now.” He gingerly lifted Phoenix’s glasses, his eyes bright with the knowledge that he was holding something truly expensive.
Phoenix butted him hard in the head, and the commissioner fell to the ground. Mila quickly squatted by his side and fished a ring of keys from his pocket. “See any black ones?” she asked. “Maybe one with an edge like a jigsaw?”
There were at least twenty keys dangling from his keyring. I scanned the bunch as best as I could. “Uh, lemme see… Could you maybe twist them around?” She turned them in the air. “There,” I said, “that’s better.” I turned and tapped a black key with my finger. She grabbed it from the bunch and twisted it toward her handcuffs with surprising dexterity. In seconds, the cuffs fell from her wrists with a clank.
“Who’s next?” she asked. Phoenix raised his arms behind his back, and she undid his, followed by mine. I wondered how she knew the keys so well. How had she known that the black ones alone would unlock the cuffs?
Phoenix stared at the commissioner and rubbed his forehead. “God, he’s got a thick skull.”
Mila rolled her eyes. “Kinda like the guy who hit him.” Phoenix grinned. She tossed him the keyring. The keys looked small in his hands, like they weren’t real keys at all. I stared at my own hands. They couldn’t have been much bigger than Mila’s…
“Those things,” I pointed to Phoenix’s keys, “they look like nuggets in your hands… You know… Because they’re small…”
“Dear god,” said Mila.
I could’ve slapped myself upside the head. There was something magnetic about Phoenix. Like, in a weird way, he was a superhero, and even though I knew he was going to try to kill me, a part of me wanted to just shrug it off and say, “Well, that’s just how he is.”
Phoenix smirked. For a second he didn’t look so wise or grown-up. He just looked like a regular nineteen-year-old kid. “You know what they say about big hands…”
“No correlation,” I said quickly, and Mila chuckled.
Phoenix turned a key in the door, and it opened with a click. Down the hall, an alarm sounded, and the lights flashed. It was starting to seem like all lights ever did anymore was flash.
I tossed my glasses to the floor—I needed my vision clear if I was going to run—and followed Phoenix’s pounding feet. The thump of his shoes against the cold, white tile was drowned out by a familiar voice. “This is an emergency,” a woman’s voice announced. My chest shivered—I was back in the Tube. The megalodons were circling. Charlie was floating by…
“There has been a security breach. The building is now on lockdown. Please head to your designated area immediately. This is an emergency…”
Men in yellow suits scrambled down the hall looking like giant French fries. We raced down the corridor in the opposite direction, hurtling past scrambling T&C agents. One tripped on another’s yellow suit, falling to the ground and throwing his hands toward his colleagues, imploring them to save him.
“LEAVE HIM! LEAVE HIM!” another shouted.
There was a window at the end of the hall, and sunlight poured in with little regard for the flashing lights. It was morning—we’d driven straight through the night. A metal gate lowered from the ceiling as the building prepared for lockdown.
“Shit,” muttered Mila. “They’re really locking us in.”
Phoenix didn’t stop running. He tore through the building like it was on fire. “Where’s the commissioner’s office, Meels?”
She shrugged and feigned indifference.
“I know you know where it is. Now please, just tell me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and pointed.
“Does he have a window view?”
“I don’t remember,” said Mila. “But I think he grew flowers in his office.”
Phoenix nodded. “He’s got a window then.”
We sprinted down the hall. How did Mila know the commissioner? Maybe this was why she’d kept her head down. Maybe she’d been caught before.
The commissioner’s office was stuck in the hall’s corner, and as soon as we were inside, Mila slammed its door shut behind us. She moved to lock it, but Phoenix shook his head. “We don’t have time. I need the keys.” She tossed him the set.
The commissioner’s office was painted orange like sherbet. Pictures of his dog—a basset hound—lined the walls. On the desk were stacks of books, pens, and paper clips. A large window glowed to the desk’s left, and light shined brightly on a pot of pink petunias sitting on its ledge. Even as we stared, bars began to lower themselves across the window.
Phoenix jammed the keys between the lowering bars and the windowsill. They groaned, then stopped altogether. With a shaking fist, Phoenix then shoved the bars back up. They wailed as their circuits burned and died. Phoenix then stuck the keys between his fingers and punched through the glass, his knuckles getting sliced as it broke into shards. He climbed through the window and motioned for me to throw him a hand.