When the Whistle Blows

Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

Kaleidoscopic colors from the stained-glass ceiling filtered onto Rae’s face as she opened her eyes. Images of clocks cast in rainbow hues stared down on her, the idols of the human collective without mouths or eyes, only hands, ever longer and more creeping. She half-anticipated them reaching down to yank her from her seat.

“Tickets, please!” A sharp-dressed conductor was coming her way in the aisle.

Suddenly Rae was wide awake. The train was careening from side to side, racing down the tracks -- a dead giveaway to the presence of a stowaway, trying to cheat time. Destiny wasn’t pleased, and it was because of them.

Arlo had the tickets. Rae's eyes filtered over the faces, where was he? Her drifting gaze fell on a number blinking on the display to her right.

1955

Her heart froze like the painted second hands above her, with the consciousness that this wasn’t the train she’d boarded.

The conductor was nearing her row. Rae thrust her hands into the crevices of the leather seat, and discreetly checked her clothing for the holographic ticket Arlo had replicated so well. His really were the Starry Night of counterfeits.

“I prefer Mona Lisa,” he had corrected her the night before, flashing the cockeyed grin that had grown on her lately. Wasn't it only last night? The two of them had laid shoulder to shoulder on the darkened rooftop of her New Orleans flat. With the music of the corner jazz band dancing over them on the breeze, she’d imagined for a moment that they might simply stay there. Rae’s palm tingled pleasantly with the warmth of his chest beneath her hand, sensing every breath and heartbeat like the deep rumble of the train.

It was the last night she remembered before they had resolutely boarded the train to 3097. Sometimes memories were misplaced when people traveled this way.

“Coffee, love?” the attendant’s voice snapped Rae back to the present. She accepted the steaming cup just as the train gave a lurch that spilled the hot liquid all over her lap.

“I’m so sorry, Hun!”

“It’s okay, really, but I –”

Don't give yourself away, Dummy!

Waving the attendant off as casually as she could muster, she mumbled, “I’m fine. No worries, it’ll dry.” Wiping her hands over her jeans as if it would do any good, she sat back down. The train seemed to respond with a threatening shudder.

Even if she could find the counterfeit ticket, it said a different year. The train would know -- it already knew.

A silver whistle, the kind conductors wore, dangled around her neck. That was also new, she was pretty sure. Bad enough she had no ticket. This was more frightening. She tucked it quietly beneath her collar, feeling the cool metal against her chest. If the real conductor found her with it, she wasn't sure what would happen.

Arlo must have left it with her. To what end, time would tell.

He had promised to stay with her through the night. Maybe that was what she got for trusting a time-jumper, but Arlo hadn’t asked her for a shilling in return for his services. Settling in on the train to 3097 that morning. Arlo’s strong arms surrounded her while she willed the music that piped from the overhead speakers to play away her grief on the wind. They had beaten system detection and hoped they were in for a smooth transfer to the future.

To Ruby.

Arlo claimed he had found her and could take Rae to her. All he wanted in exchange was any information from Rae’s research that might indicate where his sister had been taken. Like Ruby, she had been whistled away.

Rae had sold all her worldly possessions for Ruby’s ticket, a ticket to the future where every disease was curable. Not that she regretted the sacrifice! There was no price tag on her daughter’s life. Doctors in the present could do no more for her.

Her regret was trusting Osmond Lyons, the zillionaire CEO of the Destiny Trains franchise. Rae had only been a cleaner at the station, but he’d always said hello. Her first impression had been that the sharp young businessman was down-to-earth and generous. He had promised to look after Ruby on the journey and return her in good health. It was Ruby's last chance. Osmond Lyons was her saving grace.

Anger was a hot nail as Ruby’s face flashed in the theater of Rae’s mind. Only one movie ever showed anymore: Her daughter on the day she was whistled away. The soundtrack was the conductor’s dry remark, She must not have been destined for the cure after all.

Rae wished she could switch it off. Some things she couldn't remember, but that day she seemed destined to relive on repeat. Chugga chugga...

“Ticket, please!” The conductor on this train to the past wore a blue coat with shiny brass buttons on the front. He looked charming, like he’d come straight out of a Norman Rockwell, instead of being just another crony for the wealthiest man alive. He was addressing a woman a few rows ahead of Rae.

In another life, the woman could have been a queen, she mused, with the way her yellow hair cascaded down her shoulders. Maybe she was lost in spacetime, trying to return to her kingdom, where probably everything was perfect. Or she’d been banished from her kingdom – there’s a juicy one! No, she must have fled to escape the enemies of her father’s regime after he suffered a tragic misfortune. That one.

Guess the Destiny was a game Rae had invented to entertain and distract her mind when her own "tragic misfortune" overwhelmed her. More than likely the woman was no less ordinary than anyone else aboard the troubled vessel. She was searching for hope that she’d somehow misplaced, chasing a fresh reason to go on, a beginning to replace what felt like an end. She appeared distressed, clutched a toddler boy close to her heart. Trembling, she handed over her ticket, never making eye contact.

The conductor then pointed to the small boy, whose face was buried in his mother’s coat. “His too.”

Terror flickered in the mother’s eyes, but she sat still as ice.

Are you an ice queen? Will your magic save you in this reality?

Again Rae’s eyes raced from face to face, searching for hope, compassion. There was no particular set of features that stood apart. Some passengers were old, some young, different races, social classes, and genders. Most had wistful eyes. That was what stood out to Rae the most about the travelers she’d encountered so far. All were captive to insatiable longing. After this trip, they would take another as soon as the newness wore off.

With the newfound technology to manipulate spacetime had arrived the opportunity to alter life's course. The hope, or the knife, was the idea that changing one’s destiny always made it better. It was a dangerous spell.

In a world with unlimited possible escapes, satisfaction and accountability were low. The next station was always the shiniest. Any hearts you wrecked on the way could forget you as soon as you vanished to another time.

“Ticket, Madame, I won’t ask again!” the conductor’s voice was thick with anger -- no, fear. Everyone was afraid these days. In a world with no rules, fear was queen, and she was made of ice. Well, no rules except the one: Don’t be caught without a ticket.

Mr. Conductor wasn’t masking it so well now. His voice rose in pitch to compete with the train whistle. “There must be a stowaway on board! Someone is upsetting the balance of spacetime and we can’t get back on track until I find out who!”

Most people regarded the conductors as sellouts to Lyons. They and their families were guaranteed free travel anywhere in spacetime. Like every privilege in this new world, this one came at a cost. They were feared and hated, and many had drunk so deeply of their power that they were barely awake anymore.

The train gave another threatening jolt, so violent it knocked the conductor off his feet. Pulling up on the seat in a flush of rage, he yanked the child from the mother’s grasp and tried to set him on his feet. The boy crumbled to the ground, sobbing now along with the mother, who began pleading. “Please, Sir! Count the ticket as his and take me instead!”

“Tickets are non-transferrable.”

Most looked away, but Rae peeked into the aisle. In that moment the child looked up and met her gaze, eyes wide with terror. Her heart stopped, remembering her own sweet Ruby.

I will find you. Mama’s coming.

“I couldn’t afford two tickets! They wouldn’t let me send him on board alone! I had to buy it in my name and hide him in my bag to board, but he couldn’t breathe inside that bag, and I couldn’t stand it! He’s only two years old! Please, we’ll both die if you send us back! Send us forward somewhere, anywhere!” Her voice was like steel grinding steel now, or perhaps that was only the wheels fighting to stay on track.

The conductor’s whistle was swift to his lips. With a tweet more jagged than the rest, or perhaps it was the mother’s screams that only made it seem so sharp, the child vanished in a flash of light.

From the remaining passengers escaped a collective sigh of relief, a strange noise.

It should have appalled Rae that it wasn’t a gasp of horror at seeing the little boy vanish before their eyes, or at the mother’s desperate cries for the conductor to end her as well. On some level it did, but like the rest she was growing too accustomed to the daily terror of Osmond Lyons' world.

Not a tear was shed for the vanished, not a glance given kindly to those left behind. Only one thought plagued the general mass of minds when the destiny of the weak belonged to the powerful: the whistle would blow next for them.

Stowaway disposed, the train should have reset its course safely. Instead, it continued to buck and clang, like a child was banging on pots and pans, or zooming their toy train about. A giant child playing toy trains – Rae let a cynical snort of laughter escape at that idea. It was too perfect a metaphor for Ozzy-boy Lyons, sick enough to call his business Destiny Trains when lives were being bought and sold at a premium only the wealthiest could afford.

As the conductor turned toward Rae’s row, the mother -- the Ice Queen would always be how Rae thought of her from then on -- sprang from her seat and grabbed the collar of his uniform. Her face contorted almost into a roar, and she pulled his face toward hers.

“All of you wanted to change your destiny! You thought you could beat the universe, beat time, beat this finite world, even cheat death!” Her flaming gaze sought contact with anyone, most averted their stares. People don’t like to look upon the face of grief, it reminds them that their own is out there, waiting.

Undaunted, the Ice Queen, continued, “The whistle blows for all in turn. You may buy as many tickets as you can afford but the whistle will catch you. You will hear it in your sleep.”

She gave the mortified conductor a shake. “He is always behind you or right around the corner -- the train conductor to destiny with his damned noisemaker!” She pulled the whistle from the conductor’s chest and blew.

It was unclear if she thought it would end him, or only herself. No sound came. No flash of light. No one vanished.

The conductor didn’t smirk, as Rae had expected, only drew a tenuous breath. He hadn’t been sure what to expect either, but he wasn’t about to show it. His voice steadied with unmistakable intention, “You all know the whistle only carries out the will of the universe.”

The Ice Queen released him, falling silent in her seat.

Mr. Conductor confidently stood, straightened his jacket, and addressed the other passengers.

“Seekers of destiny, somewhere on this train there is still a stowaway! If they are not found and disposed of, we will all be lost to time and space!”

Rae knew they were trying to draw her out. They could smell a jumper a mile away. She would let them play their game. Only Ruby mattered.

I'm coming, my baby!

After Ruby had been whistled away, she had spent months digging into Lyons’ exploits. There was no shortage of dirt, especially once you got to the witnesses of human trafficking. Attendants-turned-whistleblowers claimed that the intrepid leader in science was selling people to future dynasties as slaves for every nefarious purpose. Whispers among sojourners held that he was even selling children to eager prospective parents – those who could afford his rates, naturally. For an upcharge, they could know the child’s genetic makeup before they committed.

The diabolical Lyons now owned this technology exclusively. Competitors mysteriously vanished with the tweet of a conductor’s whistle.

According to Ozzy-boy, the whistles only carried out the will of the universe. He and his conductors were thus freed from blame. For the trains to run safely, the public were told, the whistles had to be implicitly trusted. Many desperate travelers accepted this as gospel, but Rae knew a snake when she saw one. At least, she did now.

From the moment Ruby had been taken, Rae felt sure her daughter was alive. Arlo called it a soul-bond. She was certain someone in the future would want to adopt a little girl with big brown eyes and dimples. Ruby would be well there, and she was probably living a happily comfortable life with some wealthy couple who treated her like a princess. It was the hope that got Rae through the nights.

Hope was what carried her to Arlo. That or insanity. Finding out where Ruby had been adopted hadn't been simple, but following the money Rae had managed. To reach her was more challenging. Rae needed tickets.

At first, Arlo Elley struck her as exactly the kind of character she would have normally avoided. Meeting secretly in the smoky alleys of New Orleans wasn’t her style. Raised by a music professor, Rae was ambitious, the type who liked to walk a line as straight and narrow as the bars of her father’s music.

The deeper Rae dove into the hidden world of the time-jumper, the more loosely she held to her former ideals, until her fortified steel monuments morphed into wispy cloud shadows on the grass. Arlo played a different kind of music than her father, all minor chords, but stunning.

Rae found the man’s brooding secrecy was a grey curtain concealing a candle-lit room. She’d caught enough glimpses of his luminous heart that she knew there was light tucked away inside, even if the wick smoldered under the heaviness of his burden. She trusted him, even now.

Her father had long since boarded his own train back to his childhood. “I want to hug my mother one more time before my own time is up,” he had explained. It hadn’t felt like a suitable explanation to Rae on the night he rounded her street corner for the final time.

“What about me hugging you before your time is up?” she had asked.

He kissed her forehead, “You’ll find me again. Our bond is stronger than spacetime. You are my destiny, aren’t you?”

He’d spoken the words as if they were cute. Rae had not accepted his answer at the time, and she had refused to swallow the blue pill provided by the company to "help" her forget him.

Ever since, she hadn’t been able to stop chewing on those words.

As a child, Rae had read about a butterfly theory. This suggested that even slight variations in the atmosphere, like a butterfly flapping its wings, had a far-reaching impact -- possibly even a tornado.

"Doesn't it make sense that all these misplaced vibrations might eventually wreak chaos of apocalyptic proportions? What else can we expect with souls coming and going in spacetime, all of them discontent, many grieving, and some downright evil?"

That night on the roof she had voiced her fears and her father’s words to Arlo. His response had brought her great comfort. “I believe human energy, our soul-bonds with the people we love, transcends spacetime. I believe destiny wants to bring us together, not to see families torn apart this way. We are magnets. If destiny is more on our side than it is on Lyons’, we will find them, Rae.”

Now he was gone, and the whistle would find her out. Maybe we were wrong.

Rae began to suspect that the forces of destiny were determined to keep them all apart. Maybe that was how she found herself mysteriously on a train heading in the opposite direction of her precious Ruby. Could this be the end of the line?

Rae forcefully rejected her thoughts. The goodness of their love just had to triumph over the ever-spreading greed. She decided to try on her father’s rose-tinted lenses, she could almost see herself reunited with her daughter, and with Arlo. They would be a family when all of this was over. Aren't you my destiny, after all?

There were questions enough that if Rae strung them out like a kite’s tail, the kite could fly around the world ten times and still hit her in the head from behind. Her head was spinning as fast as the wheels on the tracks. Mindlessly, her hand found the whistle around her neck.

“You just have to play the right note.” Whispered the Ice Queen. Rae looked up, startled. The woman was meeting her gaze from rows away. Speaking her father's words. A soul connection -- or some other inexplicable trick of time travel?

Her father always said. “Life is the vast expanse, you are the instrument, and I am the music reminding you to play the right notes.”

The woman spoke again, as the conductor inched closer to Rae’s seat. Rae couldn't explain it, but something was happening. The Ice Queen was stalling for her, whatever the reason.

“If tickets to the universe can be bought and sold, and lives can be altered for a price, that’s a system. Every system can be beaten. It’s just a matter of time.”

The conductor barely glanced behind him. “What is time? Isn’t that a system too? Haven’t we already beaten it with our trains that can travel anywhere in time and space?”

His statement fell like a brick in Rae’s chest. That was what sold the tickets: Time. Time was the commodity that couldn’t be bought or sold. Ozzy could sell new lifestyles, new identities in new generations, but never time itself. When the whistle blows, time’s up.

Is it?

“Ticket please.”

Tickets were hurriedly produced from purses and pockets. No one wanted to be blamed for the runaway train that threatened them all. It was out of control because the universe was angry at someone cheating destiny. That was the narrative.

It's all an illusion. The engineer is speeding to keep us afraid. Like the first ray of dawn, Rae was seeing light shining into all the places that the Destiny Trains franchise tried to keep in the dark.

It might have been forever or only a split second, a trick of time. Suddenly the quick conductor, with his shiny brass buttons, stood beside Rae. “Ticket please.”

Rae froze, unsure of how to answer. In that moment, the conductor glimpsed the whistle around her neck and his eyes widened in horror. Two whistles on one train was forbidden. If both blew at once, only one would win out. Rae wasn’t sure which, or what would happen then.

“Next stop, 1955!” called the loudspeaker.

The train began to brake. The train was stopping. The world was changing.

Several passengers stood and began shuffling toward the front. A ticket dropped from an old woman’s lap.

Non transferrable, right?

Rae knew she had a ticket in her name, somewhere in spacetime. It may have been counterfeit, but it was made with a love that vibrated stronger though the universe than the greed that had built this train. Surely destiny could see her now, right where she stood. All Osmond's money and power couldn't contain her love. Her love was loud.

Today, it was her destiny to change the game.

Sometimes, you have to move when you’re unsure of the outcome. Sometimes, you have to make your own destiny. That’s the real ticket anyway. That’s how you make pretty music.

Rae lunged for the fallen ticket and grasped it, even as the conductor tried in vain to restrain her. Would she vanish? Would she wake face-to-face with Ruby and Arlo, their love defying the system? Or would she wake up again on a different runaway train, forgetting this moment ever happened? Only one way to know: Play the right note.

Placing the whistle to her lips, Rae looked the conductor square in the eyes

and blew.