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“Oh, yeah, classic getting-to-know-you conversation,” Myla says from across the hall. “What kind of music do you like? Where are you from? Do you now or have you ever had crabs?”
“You just described our first date, verbatim,” Niko points out.
August, still searching for a ponytail holder, picks up her bag and upends it on the bed.
Her blue ponytail holder from last night falls out, and she tries not to think about tying her hair up while Jane’s teeth worried at her skin. With Niko on the other side of the wall, she might as well project a PowerPoint presentation of herself getting railed on the subway for the whole apartment.
She frowns down at the mess from her bag. A pack of batteries? Where did those come from?
“Oh,” she says, realizing. “Ohhhh, bitch.”
God, she can’t believe it took her so long to notice. This is why you aren’t supposed to kiss your case. She fumbles her phone off her desk so fast, she nearly flings it out the open window.
Weird question, she texts Jane, fingers trembling. Distantly, she hears Niko and Myla in the hallway discussing soil brands. Can you open the battery compartment on your radio and tell me what you see?
Nothing? There’s nothing in there. Why?
There are no batteries in your radio?
Nope.
Didn’t you ever wonder how it works?
I figured it was like my cassette player? It doesn’t have batteries either. I’m a sci-fi freak show, I just assumed that was part of it.
You’ve had a magical cassette player all this time and you never thought to investigate?????? Or mention it???????
I don’t know! I told you when I showed it to you that I didn’t know how it worked! I thought you knew!
I thought you meant you didn’t know how it worked because it was so old???
Wow, that’s calling ME old.
asldfjasf if I thought you could die I would strangle you
She slams back out of her room and into the hall, almost getting a faceful of Niko’s cactus.
“Careful! Cecil is sensitive!”
She ignores him, throwing the package down on the floor in front of the alarm clocks Myla has been blowtorching together all afternoon. “Batteries!”
“What?”
“Batteries,” August repeats. “When you sold me that radio, you told me to make sure I put batteries in it. So I bought those, but—but that was in the middle of the whole kissing-induced horniness fog, so I forgot to give them to her.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But it still works. Her radio, her cassette player—shit, her phone, I gave her a portable battery for it weeks ago but I’ve never seen her use it. None of her electronics need batteries to work. So that means—”
“—whatever is keeping her on the train has to do with electricity,” Myla finishes. She shoves her goggles up onto her forehead. “Whoa.”
“Yeah.”
“Wait. Wow. Yeah, that would make sense. It’s not the train, it’s the line. Maybe she’s bound to—”
“The current. The electrical current of the tracks.”
“So—so whatever event threw her out of time—it might have been electrical. A shock, maybe.” She sits back on her heels, sending LaCroix cans rattling across the floor. It’s impossible to tell if they’re for Myla’s project or hydration. “But something like that, the voltage of the line—I don’t understand how it wouldn’t just kill her.”
