WRAITH CASE STUDY AUGUSTA PINE
IDENTITY SECURITY DIVISION
THE HIJACKING DEbrIEF
The bus had been hijacked and I hadn’t done it.
You would think that working for the feds would get me all kinds of cool transportation.
Private cars, helicopters, maybe even a tank if things got really intense.
But no. I got to take public transit. This bus was designed for long hauls—padded seats, a restroom in the back, and a driver encapsulated in his own cabin.
The bus would be on autopilot, but vehicles were required to have a driver in case of emergencies.
After my rather abrupt ejection from San Francisco, Prefect had booked me a ticket to Oregon. I assumed my next job would be in Portland.
But as the saying goes, life is not about the destination.
The bus chugged along I-5, through a southern Oregon burn zone.
Swathes of the west had been forcibly evacuated after the great fires of the forties.
Entire towns had been abandoned, farms left behind, and houses boarded up.
It was illegal to resettle, at least for now.
The only people allowed inside a burn zone were government employees and the cars traveling along the interstates.
I watched the hills roll by; the trees were blackened needles against the horizon and the summer smoke painted the landscape in shades of gray blue. The off-ramps were crisscrossed with orange cones and a flimsy wooden barrier.
How did I know it was flimsy? Because abruptly, the bus took a right turn and crashed into one. The barrier broke as if it had been made of wet tissue paper. I heard a faint crunch as we rolled over the orange cones.
Someone cried out in surprise. I clutched my own seat as we jounced across a bit of uneven pavement and began to drive on a long-forgotten road.
I checked my visor for our location. Just north of the city previously known as Grants Pass. Now it was Burn Zone O-173.
“What’s going on?” a man called out from behind me. I craned my neck to see the other passengers; their faces were all shades of confusion and alarm. “Is this a mandatory detour?”
“Is the interstate blocked?”
“Did a new fire cross I-5?”
“I’ll ask the driver,” I called out. Gripping the seats for balance, I made my way toward the front of the bus. An old lady sat in one of the front rows, an elaborate lace crochet in her lap. I gave her what I hoped was a comforting smile. She did not look comforted.
The driver’s cabin was encased in bulletproof plexiglass. The driver himself was slumped across his steering wheel, his mouth slack and eyes closed. A cup of spilled coffee rolled on the floor. I rapped on the glass. He didn’t so much as twitch.
“Well,” I said, “that’s not good.”
The bus was driving off course.
The driver was unconscious.
And there was a wraith aboard.
Stuff like this was why I’d stopped believing in coincidences.
I twitched my fingers, activating my phone. It was built into my visor, the tiny speaker nestled just above my right ear.
Prefect picked up on the first ring. As though he had been expecting my call.
I said flatly, “You’ve got to be kidding me. The bus is the job?”
There was a beat of silence. Then he replied, “What’s the situation?”
“We’re heading down an off-ramp into a burn zone,” I said, keeping my voice low so the other passengers wouldn’t hear. “The driver’s unconscious. There are a bunch of scared passengers.”
“Oh.” His tone brightened. “Good.”
The bus jostled.
“Prefect,” I said, “your definition of ‘good’ needs some adjustment.”
“Is the driver dead?” he asked.
I peered through the glass. “Can’t tell.”
“Could it be natural causes?” said Prefect. “A stroke? Falling asleep at the wheel?”
I shrugged before I remembered he couldn’t see it.
“I don’t know. I’m looking at him through a wall of glass.
But it looks like the last thing he did before passing out was drink from a coffee.
Wouldn’t be hard to drug it—I’m just saying.
” I shifted from foot to foot, trying to stretch out my hips as I spoke.
“So what’s good about a bus being hijacked? ”
“There’s an office betting pool,” said Prefect. “About whose wraith would land on the right bus. I bet on you, of course.”
“I’m flattered,” I said. “Now tell me what I’ve won.”
“There’ve been a series of hijacked buses between San Francisco and Portland over the last year. We traced a pattern to routes that run north on Thursdays and south on Sundays.”
“So you’ve been putting wraiths on buses in the hope that one of us would end up on a hijacked trip?”
“Precisely.”
I leaned my forehead against the driver’s cabin. “And what did you win?”
Prefect sounded very satisfied. “A coffee maker.”
“This is only worth a coffee maker?”
“It’s a very good coffee maker. Just don’t set it on fire, too.”
“Why didn’t you just trace the passengers?” I said. “Surely you’ve got records of everyone who rides these things.”
Prefect made a soft sound that seemed to indicate I was being foolish.
“Of course we tried. But buses are one of the few modes of transportation that take cash and don’t require ID.
And some of the cameras have been nonfunctional.
We haven’t been able to compile a list of all the passengers on the hijacked buses. ”
I exhaled hard, my breath fogging the glass. “So where’s this bus going to end up? The bottom of a lake?”
“Of course not,” he said. “There are no lakes in your vicinity.”
I huffed out a half sigh, half laugh. “You always know just how to cheer me up, Prefect.”
“Don’t panic,” Prefect replied. “If these hijackings were violent, you’d have already heard about them. No, these are more of a … taunting nature.”
“Taunting?” I said, forehead scrunching. “What do you mean?”
“The first stopped by an amusement park,” said Prefect.
“Another went to a restaurant. One to a popular tourist attraction that sells ice cream shaped like dinosaurs. And the hacks are so seamless that we only find out after the bus has arrived at its destination. Most of the previous passengers believed that the detours were scheduled. Right now, I’m looking at the bus’s supposed location and it says you’re on I-5.
Luckily your personal tracker says otherwise. ”
I caught on. “Okay. So whoever’s doing this is a pro. I assume you checked everyone at the bus company?”
“Of course,” he said, sounding faintly offended for the first time. “The navigation is input by the driver and cannot be altered remotely.”
I turned to face the passengers. There were about fifteen—among them was a dad reading to two toddlers, a middle-aged woman asleep with a baseball cap pulled down over her face, a preteen boy lost in his tablet game, a young woman with very pale skin and turquoise hair, a twenty-something with expensive sunglasses, and that old lady with the yarn.
“So,” I said. “It’s got to be a passenger.”
“That’s the assumption, yes,” said Prefect.
“I’m sending backup your way and I’ll be keeping tabs on your route.
If you appear to be going someplace dangerous, I will call you.
But in the meantime, find the hijacker. This person is good enough that they either need to be in prison or on the payroll. ”
“And I should try to keep everyone on the bus safe?” I asked a little dryly.
There was a short pause. “If you believe that’s necessary.” A click and the call ended.
What Prefect hadn’t said—and hadn’t needed to say—was that no driver had been drugged before. Whoever this hijacker was, they were escalating.
We headed into the heart of the burn zone.
An uneasy thrum of conversation buzzed through the bus.
About half the bus were arguing that this must be an approved detour while the others seemed to think something was wrong.
The dead trees cast eerie shadows along the road.
Wherever we were heading, it wasn’t an amusement park or a restaurant.
I didn’t know where we were going and I didn’t really want to find out.
The ground was orange red from the fire retardant.
Scattered alongside the road were old cars that had been caught in previous wildfires.
They were nothing but hollowed-out metal frames, dragged off the pavement and left to rust.
“All right,” I said, clapping my hands. All eyes turned to me. “I regret to inform you that you’ve officially all become part of a hostage situation.”
They all gaped at me and I realized my error.
“Not by me,” I said. I gestured at the front of the bus. “Our driver’s unconscious and our course has been altered. Which means we’ve been hijacked.”
It was the dad who spoke up first. “Why should we trust you?” He had sleek black hair and was tall enough that he had to angle himself sideways so his knees didn’t hit the seat in front of him. His kids looked like twins.
I pressed two fingers to the bridge of my nose. “If I’d done this, do you think I’d stand up and announce it?”
“Aren’t you a little young to know if we’ve been hijacked?” asked the older lady.
“I look young,” I said. “But I’m with law enforcement.” That was only sort of true. ISD didn’t so much enforce laws as treat them like fun little guidelines that could be bent for the government’s benefit.
“Shouldn’t you have a badge?” asked the turquoise-hair girl.
“I have a keycard,” I said, digging a white-and-blue card out of my pocket. Technically also true. But it was just a customer loyalty card for a national doughnut chain. I kept my finger over the words “Glazed and Confused.”
A few people looked relieved. “Do you know where we’re going?” asked a man with sunglasses. He had the sleek look of someone with money, which made me wonder why he was even on public transportation.
I shook my head. “No idea.”
“Should we try to break into the driver’s cabin?” the turquoise-hair girl said.
“It’s reinforced,” said another person. “You can’t shatter those walls or pick the lock.”
“What are we supposed to do?” asked the dad. His two kids were shifting uneasily in the seats beside him.