An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing #1)(85)

I was in.

Or, at least, I was into the very small rooms that stored the airplane’s wheels. In my studying 767s, I knew that these wheel bays were big enough for a person to be inside, until the wheels came back in, in which case a person would be very lucky not to be crushed. A number of people had climbed into the forward wheel bay to attempt to hitchhike. This, it turns out, is a fairly good way to die. But that did mean it was possible to climb into the wheel bays, which I proceeded to do immediately. I went up into the forward wheel bay first, because I knew that there was actually a port in there that led to the avionics bay, the room where all the plane’s controls were. And from there was another port that led to the interior of the plane. Both of these ports, however, are not just doors, I knew. They’re sealed and need special tools to open, but I figured that was my best bet for getting all the way into the plane. Once in the landing gear bay, I saw a remarkable spaghetti mess of tubes and cables. If I were an engineer at Boeing, I’d have a fairly good idea what I was looking at. But I was not, so in the dim light coming from the open hatch, all I saw was a big scary mess.

But spotting the hatch in the ceiling of the bay wasn’t a problem. It was marked mostly by the nonexistence of tons of tubes and wires. It was basically the only flat surface on the ceiling. Opening the hatch, on the other hand, was not so simple. It was fastened in place with dozens of flush bolts. Instead of normal Phillips or flathead screws, they were just flat, like the head of a tack.

I dug my nails as deep as I could get into the hatch, but it was so obviously fruitless that I didn’t even keep trying.

I crawled around in the bay for a little while longer, looking for . . . anything, I guess, but it all just looked like a mess.

I went back to the hatch to scratch at it a bit more because, I dunno, maybe I had received super strength in the last twenty minutes. This time, though, I noticed the texture of tiny raised letters on the handle. In the dimness of the light the letters were tough to make out—at least that’s what I thought at first. Finally I realized that it was not that they were hard to see; they were simply not letters. They were there, but they were just a bunch of lines and circles that my brain couldn’t form into words.

It was just the thing that happens when you’re off track and the detail of the Dream begins to fade. But how could that be? I’d sung the song and it worked! This had to be it!

“AAAGGHHHH!” I screamed my frustration into the empty room. That didn’t help. I aimed a kick at a collection of pipes on the wall, thinking to wake myself up in frustration. I mean, it’s not like I had nothing to report back to the rest of the world. But if they had succeeded in bringing me a clue, I was loath to come back telling them it was a dead end!

So I only kicked enough to make a satisfying thud, not enough to wake myself up.

The air was stale and oily in the bay, so I decided that maybe there was something I had missed on the outside of the plane. Maybe the secret was in one of the other wheel bays.

I circled the plane again. I yanked on every single thing I could yank on and several I couldn’t. I climbed into the other wheel bays and found nothing compelling or useful.

Frustrated, I just started walking away from the plane.

A few blocks down the street I turned to look at that massive machine. I’d spent hours in the Dream staring at it, so I didn’t expect to see anything new. And I didn’t, but I did feel my heart suddenly jump into my throat before I began running full speed back to the plane because I’d figured it out.

Back in the forward bay I had to let my eyes adjust for a few minutes before I could see the tiny engraved shapes on the handle again. They weren’t the indecipherable scribble of “on the wrong track” dream writing; they were the lines and dots of the Mayan numerical system Miranda had taught me at that hotel in DC. The same system that, I was now certain, represented the number six on the tail of the plane.

I could absolutely have punched myself in the face and looked up the system with Andy, but I wanted nothing more than to do this on my own. After months of people all over the world co-solving sequences, I wanted to be more than the vehicle through which this final sequence was solved; I wanted my name on that goddamn Wikipedia page!

So I sat there and tried my damnedest to remember what Miranda had told me. The dots were ones and the bars were fives. So two bars with one dot was an eleven. I was pretty sure about that. Two dots, that was just two. This was simple—the Mayans knew what was up!

So I had a sequence of numbers: 11, 2, 7, 19, 4, 4, 12. Now, what the hell was I supposed to do with those numbers? Well, to the side of the door were seven dials, each numbered one to nineteen. Good lord, was it that easy?

I set each of the dials to the corresponding number, and actually had to dodge as the hatch fell down into the wheel bay. My foot slipped and I tumbled down out of the open hatch. My head slammed into the landing gear on the way down. I awoke in Andy’s apartment.

“FUCK!” I shouted.

Andy screamed from the other room, “Are you OK?” and then ran into the room.

“Yes! I’m great! I just— FUCK! I got into the plane. Then I solved the next step in the sequence, it was the Mayan numbers Miranda told me about, they were printed on a hatch in the landing gear bay. I was opening the hatch and I fucking fell and hit my head and woke up!”

Andy laughed like a madman.

“Shut up!”

“It’s pretty funny, April. You bagged your first clue and finished it off by slamming your head into a wall?”