2. A Ride to ParisI had just stepped through the front door of our Staten Isnd house, my mind still reeling from killer aliens and mysteriously appearing weapons, when Uncle Malven's voice exploded across the house like a hand grenade in a library.
"WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE COCK PEN OPEN, HUH? ARE YOU REALLY THAT BRAINLESS, OR DO YOU JUST NOT CARE? I SWEAR, YOU CAN'T DO A SINGLE THING RIGHT!"
Uncle Malven Crook—yes, that's his actual name—proud assistant editor of The Staten Isnd Advance, never missed a chance to remind me how utterly useless I was. The man could find fault with a saint. If I walked on water, he'd scold me for getting the bottoms of my feet wet.
Oh, and if you're wondering—I live in St. George, Staten Isnd. Lucky me. The forgotten borough of New York City, where people mostly commute away from rather than to. It's like living in the appendix of the Big Apple—technically part of the body but everyone forgets it exists until it causes problems.
"AND YOU'RE GROUNDED, MARK!" Uncle Malven's voice bellowed like a hurricane with a personal grudge. "THE MCNAVAIRES' DOG ATE MY POLLY!"
Polly, for the record, was his prize-winning rooster. A bird with an attitude problem worse than Uncle Malven's—which is saying something. That rooster had drawn blood from me on at least five separate occasions. If the McNavaires' golden retriever had actually eaten it, I was tempted to send the dog a thank-you card and a steak.
Exhibit A: Welcome to my life.
Exhibit B: Aunt Veronica wasn't much better.
My daily schedule looked something like this:
4:00 PM: "Mark! Clean the dishes!" (Even if they were already clean)
5:00 PM: "Mark! Help me calcute our taxes!" (Yes, even in April when taxes were already filed)
6:00 PM: "Mark! Feed the chickens!" (The same chickens that treated my ankles like corn on the cob)
7:00 PM: "Mark! No dinner for you!" (Usually for some infraction I didn't commit)
8:00 PM: "Mark! Finish your homework!" (Even during summer break)
9:00 PM: "Mark! Turn off the TV—you're wasting electricity!" (Even when I wasn't watching TV)
Yeah. Real loving family environment. Norman Rockwell would've painted us and then immediately burned the canvas.
I should expin about Uncle Malven and Aunt Veronica. They're not actually my blood retives. They're my guardians—allegedly. The state appointed them after my mom died in a car crash when I was three. My dad? Never met him. According to the sparse paperwork, he vanished before I was born. Just another mystery in the ongoing soap opera that is my life. All that I got from them is this neckce shaped like a gaxy.
By 9:01 PM, when they'd finally colpsed from yelling exhaustion, I escaped to my room—a converted closet that could generously be described as "cozy" if you were a real estate agent with a severe truth allergy. I locked the door (double-checked it too—Aunt Veronica was the sneaky type who'd burst in just to catch me "wasting electricity" by reading after bedtime), and pulled out my phone.
I added the new number Ms. Borlough had given me: (302) 555-0198.
Mr. McNavaire—Caleb's adoptive dad and possibly the only adult in my life who didn't actively dislike me—had given me a Nokia C20 for my birthday. A real cutting-edge piece of tech from around 2005, but hey, it was a phone. It came with a USN Gold SIM that somehow gave me unlimited internet. No compints there.
While I was crushing Mario Kart on my Switch (the same one that had morphed into an abacus earlier today—still couldn't wrap my head around that), my phone buzzed.
New message from the mystery number.
Pack your bags.
I stared at it like it was written in hieroglyphics. Who was this? Ms. Borlough had said someone would contact me, but I was expecting a call, not cryptic text messages.
American kids are trained early: obey your teachers, your boss, your government...not anonymous text messages telling you to pack your bags in the middle of the night. That's basically page one of the "How to Get Murdered" handbook.
Buzz.
If you value your life, trust me.
Okay, creepy. Also, highly convincing in a deeply concerning way. I mean, I do, in fact, value my life. Especially after nearly losing it to an alien assassin earlier today.
I gnced at my meager possessions. What do you pack when a mysterious text tells you your life is in danger? Clean underwear seemed like a good start. I stuffed some clothes, my Switch, chargers, and the 43.75 I had saved from odd jobs into my school backpack.
Buzz.
Open your window.
I froze, cold fear trickling down my spine like ice water. How...did they know where I was? Were they watching me right now?
Every atom of common sense screamed DON'T. But curiosity? Curiosity has been killing cats and endangering teenagers since the dawn of time.
I inched toward my window, pulling back the faded Star Wars curtain (from when the prequels were still new—that's how old they were). The night outside was dark, the streetlight on our block having given up on life years ago.
I unlocked the window and pushed it open. Cool night air rushed in, carrying the smell of the harbor and Mrs. Picardy's overpowering rose garden next door.
Buzz.
Jump.
If I'd lived on the second floor, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Lucky for me, my room was on the ground floor, the window barely four feet off the ground.
Still, was I really going to do this? Jump out my window in the middle of the night because a text told me to? This was either going to be the coolest thing I'd ever done or the stupidest decision of my shortly-ended life.
I threw my backpack out first, then swung my legs over the sill and dropped to the patchy grass below. The night was quiet except for the distant sound of the ferry horn and Uncle Malven's snoring, which was loud enough to register on the Richter scale.
Buzz.
Check your mailbox. 200 inside.
Yeah right, I thought. Our mailbox was a rusty metal thing that had been dented so many times it looked like it had been through a war. Uncle Malven checked it obsessively for his magazine subscriptions and bills.
But when I crept around to the front yard and opened the creaky mailbox—boom. Two crisp 100 bills, looking so new they practically glowed in the darkness.
I wasn't sure if I was starring in a spy movie or getting kidnapped by someone with excellent financial pnning skills. Either way, I was too broke to argue with 200.
Buzz.
Go to Caleb's house. His family's at Target. He's home alone. Knock on the right-side window.
This was beyond weird now. How did this person know Caleb's family was at Target? Were they stalking all of us? And yet...after what happened today with the alien, Ms. Borlough's cryptic warnings, and the psma gun that materialized in my hands, mysterious texts seemed almost mundane.
Still clutching the cash like it might disappear, I sprinted down the block to Caleb's house—a proper house, not like our glorified shoe box. Two stories, actual yard, fresh paint. The McNavaires were comfortable, not rich, but compared to living with the Crooks, Caleb might as well have been residing in Buckingham Pace.
I ran around to the side and pounded on the window I knew was Caleb's bedroom.
"Caleb! Open up!"
After a moment, he groaned and cracked the window open. His hair looked like he'd just wrestled a tornado and lost badly. He was wearing pajama pants with little UFOs on them—ironic given our day.
"What is it, Mark?" he mumbled, clearly half-asleep. "It's like...super te."
"Pack your bags," I said, trying to sound dramatic but mostly coming across as out of breath.
He blinked at me like I'd spoken ancient Sumerian backward.
I shoved the phone in his face. He read the texts—and his eyes went saucer-wide, sleep evaporating instantly.
"Is this...is this about what happened today? The alien? Ms. Borlough?" he whispered.
"Has to be," I said. "She said someone would contact me. Guess this is it."
He disappeared from the window. I heard drawers opening and closing, a thud, a muffled curse. Thirty seconds ter, he burst out the front door, wearing a ridiculous "Travel Freak" T-shirt and lugging a rucksack big enough to smuggle a refrigerator.
"What did you pack, your entire room?" I asked.
"Essentials," he replied defensively. "Never know what we might need."
Buzz.
Mark, hold Caleb's hand. Caleb, concentrate—like st time. Think about the Staten Isnd Ferry Terminal.
I looked at Caleb. "Like st time? What does that mean?"
Caleb's face went pale. "I don't know. I mean, after I got thrown into that car, I remember feeling like I was falling through shadows, and then suddenly I was behind the gym."
"You...teleported?"
"Maybe? I don't know. It was all blurry and weird."
"Well, whatever it was, they want you to do it again." I grabbed his hand, feeling only slightly ridiculous. "Think ferry thoughts or whatever."
Caleb closed his eyes, his face scrunching up in concentration. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the world around us twisted—not figuratively, literally twisted like someone had grabbed reality and wrung it out like a wet towel. Colors inverted, sounds reversed, and my stomach lurched like I was on the world's worst roller coaster.
We fell— Not down. Not up. Just...fell—
—and crash-nded seven feet above the Staten Isnd Ferry terminal dock, smming onto the concrete like dropped bowling balls.
The impact knocked the wind out of me. I y there for a moment, staring up at the night sky, wondering if I'd broken anything important. Everything hurt, but in that general "still operational" kind of way.
I staggered upright, helping Caleb to his feet. He looked even worse than I felt, pale and cmmy like he might throw up.
"Did we just...?" he began.
"Teleport across town? Yeah. Yeah, we did." I looked around, half-expecting to see people staring, pointing, maybe calling the police. But the terminal was nearly empty at this hour, just a few te-night commuters heading home after shifts in Manhattan.
We were there. Five miles from where we'd been standing seconds ago.
Buzz.
Find the yellow ferry—the City of New York. Leaves in 15 minutes.
"Seriously?" Caleb groaned. "We just teleported here and now we need to take a ferry? Why didn't we just teleport to Manhattan?"
"Maybe there's a range limit?" I guessed, pulling him toward the terminal. "Or maybe you need to recharge your teleportation batteries or something."
"That's not a thing," he muttered, but followed anyway.
We sprinted through the terminal. Luckily, no crowds tonight. We fshed our student MetroCards—one of the few perks of living in Staten Isnd—and skidded onto the ferry just as it unched off the dock.
The cool night air spped me awake as we climbed to the upper deck. The ferry rumbled forward, cutting through the dark waters of New York Harbor. The Manhattan skyline glittered ahead of us, a consteltion of human-made stars.
"Where are we even going?" Caleb muttered, clutching the railing. "Why does this feel like Ms. Borlough's evil science project?"
I shrugged. "If we die, I'm bming you."
"Me? You're the one with the mystery number!"
"You're the one who can teleport!"
"Not very well, obviously!" He gestured to his elbow, which was already sporting an impressive bruise from our nding.
Buzz.
At Whitehall Terminal: Go straight, left at the first intersection, right at the second. Find a staircase marked MTA.
Twenty minutes ter, we docked at Whitehall, the ferry terminal on the Manhattan side. It was te enough that the usual crowds had thinned, but New York being New York, there were still plenty of people around.
We bolted down the terminal, following the mysterious directions. Straight ahead through the main hall, left at the first intersection where a hot dog vendor was closing up shop (the smell made my stomach growl—I hadn't eaten since lunch), right at the second where a street performer was packing up his guitar.
Sure enough, we found a giant circur "MTA" banner hanging over a staircase leading down into the subway system.
Buzz.
Take the subway to Grand Central Terminal.
"Grand Central? At this hour?" Caleb looked at his watch. "It's almost midnight!"
"Trains run all night," I said, though I wasn't actually sure if that was true. "Come on."
We hopped onto the next train headed uptown. Five bucks each from our mystery money stash.
190 left. (Good thing texting strangers came with a financial aid package.)
The subway car was nearly empty—just us, an elderly woman knitting something fluorescent green, and a guy in a business suit who looked like he'd had the day from hell.
"Mark," Caleb said quietly as the train rattled through the tunnels, "what if this is a trap? What if it's not connected to Ms. Borlough at all?"
I'd been trying not to think about that. "She said someone would contact us. They know about what happened today. They know you can...do that shadow-jumping thing. Who else could it be?"
"I don't know. The aliens?"
That was a sobering thought. What if we were being lured into a trap? But then, why give us 200? Alien assassins didn't seem like the type to expense account their kills.
Grand Central Terminal wasn't just a station—it was a pace from another era. Even at this te hour, the vast main concourse with its gold ceiling, marble floors, and iconic clock took my breath away. A few te-night travelers hurried across the polished floor, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. Business suits and briefcases mixed with tourists in comfortable shoes and backpacks.
Our stomachs growled in unison.
"Should we grab something to eat?" Caleb suggested. "Who knows when we'll get another chance."
We blew 14 on cookies from a te-night bakery stand. (Absolutely worth it.)
Buzz.
Find the staircase to the first ptform level.
With cookie crumbs still on our shirts, we located the staircase and climbed down to where the trains waited at their ptforms. The terminal was quieter down here, the hustle and bustle of the main concourse fading to a distant murmur.
Buzz.
20 paces forward. Find the next staircase.
We counted exactly twenty steps (arguing briefly about what constituted a "pace") and found another, narrower staircase tucked between ptforms 27 and 28. Unlike the grand staircases above, this one was utilitarian, metal and concrete, with a small sign reading "Authorized Personnel Only."
"Should we really be going down there?" Caleb whispered.
Before I could answer, another message arrived.
Buzz.
Squeeze through the narrow gap between the walls.
At the bottom of the stairs, we found ourselves in a dimly lit maintenance corridor. About halfway down, there was indeed a gap between the walls—a narrow crack where the building's structure didn't quite meet up properly. It looked like the kind of architectural oversight that happens in very old buildings.
It also looked like what my health teacher would call an "A.K.A. the 'You're Gonna Regret This' passage."
I hesitated, peering into the darkness beyond the gap. What if ten zombies jumped out? Or worse, transit police?
But something inside whispered: Move.
The same something that had guided my hands when I fired the psma gun. The same something that had transted the alien's nguage in my mind.
"Let's go," I said, more confidently than I felt.
The gap was barely wide enough for us to squeeze through sideways. Caleb's massive backpack got stuck at first, requiring some creative maneuvering and muttered curses to free it. The passage sloped downward, growing darker with each step.
And suddenly—
—a sliver of yellow light appeared ahead.
We pushed forward and stumbled into a hidden ptform.
The Secret StationThe pce looked abandoned, like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie set. Flickering kerosene mps cast long shadows across dusty wooden benches. The air smelled old—not just stale, but genuinely ancient, like opening a time capsule.
A crumpled newspaper y on the ground by my feet. I picked it up, squinting at the yellowed pages: The New York Sun, dated July 19, 1901.
"Dude," Caleb breathed, "is this for real?"
On the wall across from us, painted in faded gold lettering:
INTRA-PLANETARY TRANSIT SYSTEM (EARTH DIVISION)Created by Lord Xureis and his son Jack FinneyEstablished 1889
"Intra-Pnetary?" I read aloud. "As in, travel within the pnet?"
"What's a Lord Xureis?" Caleb asked. "Sounds made up."
Across the tracks, a glowing digital board stood in stark contrast to the antique surroundings—like someone had dropped a piece of modern technology into a museum exhibit:
Train No: 09
Name: IPTS-09
Final Destination: Tokyo Shinjuku Station (Ptform A)
Next Stop: Gare de Lyon, Paris (Ptform X)
Arriving in: 30 seconds
Wait. Tokyo?? By train??
"That's impossible," I said aloud. "You can't take a train from New York to Paris. There's an ocean in the way!"
"Maybe it's just the name of the route?" Caleb suggested weakly. "Like how airlines name their flights after destinations?"
The countdown on the board ticked steadily downward: 30... 29... 28...
I heard nothing. No rumble of approaching wheels. No headlights cutting through tunnel darkness. Just cold, dead air.
Buzz.
Take IPTS-09. Get off at Paris.
I tightened my grip on my bag, exchanging a nervous gnce with Caleb.
"This is insane," he whispered. "You know that, right?"
"After everything that's happened today, this doesn't even make my top five insane moments," I replied.
The clock hit 3... 2... 1...
A fsh of light exploded from the tunnel—not headlights, but something more like lightning—and a blood-red TGV train bsted into the station, braking with a pneumatic hiss that echoed off the ancient walls.
The doors slid open with a soft chime.
Empty. Not a single passenger inside.
"All aboard the crazy train," I muttered, stepping forward.
We climbed into what looked like a first-css compartment—plush seats with excessive legroom, small reading mps, and fold-down tables. Everything was spotless, unlike the dusty ptform outside.
The doors snapped shut behind us with a finality that made my stomach clench.
Overhead, a calm female voice with a slight French accent said:
"Please wear your seatbelt for your safety."
Seatbelts? On a train?
I spotted them tucked into the seats—heavy-duty harnesses more like what you'd find on a roller coaster than a commuter train. I buckled up immediately, the straps crossing over my chest in an X pattern.
Caleb didn't. "Dude, it's a train. You don't need seatbelts on a—"
The train unched.
Not moved—LAUNCHED.
One second we were stationary. The next, I was being pressed into my seat by a force that felt like an elephant sitting on my chest. My cheeks rippled back like I was in one of those wind tunnel videos. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Could barely think.
I felt my bones liquify. Caleb screamed like a broken wnmower being thrown down a flight of stairs.
The speedometer on the wall blinked:
350,400 km/h.
That couldn't be right. That was roughly 290 times faster than a normal high-speed train. That was...
I did the quick math in my head.
...about one-third the speed of light.
Impossible.
I thought my soul left my body at least twice. All I could do was grip the armrests and pray that whatever inhuman technology was propelling us didn't suddenly fail.
The nightmare acceleration sted about a minute. Then the train began to slow down—just as violently as it had sped up. We ricocheted off walls, poles, the ceiling. I was grateful for the harness keeping me somewhat in pce, though my neck felt like it had been used as a golf club.
At some point during the deceleration, Caleb—who, remember, hadn't buckled up—got eaten by what looked like a localized bck hole that appeared in the ceiling, then was spat out from another one in the floor, before finally smming into a seat three rows back.
Physics was clearly taking a vacation day.
When I finally stood up, bruised but breathing, we were at a new station.
The ptform sign read:
GARE DE LYON
PLATE-FORME
X"We're...in Paris?" Caleb croaked from where he y sprawled across two seats. "Actual Paris? France Paris?"
"Unless there's another Gare de Lyon I don't know about," I said, helping him up.
Through the windows, we could see the TGV shimmering, its color and shape shifting until it became a sleek white ICE train with "FRANKFURT AM MAIN" dispyed on its electronic destination board.
"Okay, that's just showing off," Caleb muttered.
Buzz.
Find the metro. Line 14. St. Lazare Station.
We stumbled off the train like zombies, legs wobbly, stomachs queasy. The ptform we emerged onto looked perfectly normal—a regur train ptform in what appeared to be a regur Paris train station. Commuters hurried past, speaking rapid French, completely ignoring the two American kids who had just traveled at near-light speed across the Atntic Ocean.
"Mark," Caleb said as we followed signs for the metro, "I think this finally tops the alien on my weird-stuff-o-meter."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Teleporting seven miles across Staten Isnd is one thing. This is...something else."
The Parisian metro was cleaner than New York's subway and, despite the te hour (or early morning, depending on how you looked at it), still running. We found Line 14 and boarded a train headed for St. Lazare.
Buzz.
Book tickets to école Militaire. Change at Madeleine.
We made the switch at Madeleine station, navigating the tunnels with the help of surprisingly intuitive signage. My wallet whimpered as we bought more tickets from a machine.
Finally, we surfaced at école Militaire station into the cool Parisian night. The streets were quiet here, just a few taxis cruising by and the occasional te-night pedestrian.
Buzz.
Right turn. Walk 100 meters. Left. Then right.
We followed the directions, too tired and disoriented to do anything but obey. The neighborhoods we passed through were beautiful in that distinctly European way—elegant buildings with wrought-iron balconies, cobblestone streets, small cafés with their chairs stacked for the night.
Through the gaps in the buildings— there it was.
The Eiffel Tower.
Illuminated against the night sky, it looked magical, otherworldly. A ttice of light stretching up into darkness.
"Whoa," Caleb whispered.
Even after everything we'd seen today—alien assassins, spontaneously materializing weapons, teleportation, impossible trains—there was something about seeing the Eiffel Tower in person that struck us both silent.
Buzz.
Take the elevator to the top.
Our phones were dying. Mine showed 10% battery.
"Are we really doing this?" Caleb asked. "Breaking into the Eiffel Tower in the middle of the night?"
"I don't think we'll need to break in," I said, pointing.
Despite the te hour, the Tower appeared to be open, its elevators still running. A few tourists milled around the base, taking night photos.
We approached the entrance, half-expecting to be stopped, questioned, turned away. Instead, a bored-looking attendant waved us through without even checking for tickets.
The elevator climbed slowly—achingly slowly after our light-speed train ride—up the iron skeleton of the tower. Through the gss walls, Paris glittered beneath us like a million tiny candles.
At the top observation deck, the wind was stronger, colder. The city spread out in every direction, a map of lights and shadows. In the distance, I could make out the Seine River, a bck ribbon cutting through the city.
My phone buzzed one more time:
You have completed Phase One. Phase Two begins now. Look to your right.
I turned—
—and standing there, arms crossed, phone in hand, was Ms. Borlough.
Except she wasn't dressed like Ms. Borlough anymore. Gone was the dowdy history teacher outfit. Instead, she wore what looked like a pilot's jumpsuit in midnight blue, with strange silver insignias on the shoulders.
"Hey, Ms. Borlough," I called out. "Mind expining what the heck is going on?"
She smiled—a real smile this time, not the tight-lipped teacher smile we were used to.
"Please," she said. "Don't call me that. That was just my Earth name."
She stepped forward, moonlight catching in her hair, which now seemed to shimmer with an almost metallic quality.
"My real name," she said, "is Arriana."
"Arriana," I repeated. "Okay, Arriana. Would you like to expin why you had us running across half the pnet in the middle of the night? Or why there's a train that can go from New York to Paris in minutes? Or maybe start with the alien that tried to kill us this morning?"
"All in good time, Mark," she said. "But first, I need to show you something. Both of you."
She turned to look out over the city, but her gaze was focused on something higher. Following her line of sight, I saw nothing but stars.
"The Eiffel Tower isn't your destination," she said softly.
I blinked. "Then what is?"
She grinned, and for a moment, her eyes fshed with the same violet light I'd seen in her office.
"Follow me."
She stepped toward the edge of the ptform—toward the safety barrier—and then, impossibly, through it. Not climbing, not jumping. Just...passing through solid metal like it wasn't there.
Caleb and I exchanged looks.
"After you," he said weakly.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and stepped forward, half-expecting to hit solid barrier.
Instead, I felt a brief tingle, like static electricity, and then— nothing beneath my feet.
I was falling through darkness. Again.