Inside the train were people sitting on their seats who were all either looking at their phones or trying to get a look at what was happening outside. Somebody noticed the three new people who came in.
"What is happening? Do you know?" Some passenger asked 32A and looked at her.
"Looks like a tree had fallen on the tracks. We don't work on the train, we just went to take a closer look." 32A answered politely while she and the two others made their way across the corridor looking for unoccupied seats.
It didn't take too long for them to find some, and so 32A sat down and so did the others. 32A took an unoccupied window seat while Toivo and Ella took the two seats behind her.
"Your turn to have the window seat." Ella said politely to Toivo and chose to take the seat on the corridor's side.
"That was a lot easier than shoving you two inside suitcases and stealing a passport that looks like me." 32A said while kneeling on her seat the wrong way around and peeking over the tall green dyed leathery backrest.
"But that's just the first part. We don't have tickets. If there's a ticket inspection, it's over. Freeloaders are kept in the train and arrested at the next stop. If that happens, it's all over." Ella said nervously.
"If there's a ticket inspection? So they might not do it at all?" Toivo asked.
"They'll most likely do it! We can't put our faith on the hope that they wouldn't." Ella replied.
"Great. Can we still get out of the train and think of something else?" Toivo asked but just as he finished, the train started moving.
"Well, we'll do it this way then." 32A stated.
"I have an idea." Toivo stated quietly.
"Well, do tell." Ella replied.
"I'll need to sit on the corridor's side. When a ticket inspector comes, I'll create a distraction. And when the inspector is distracted, we'll go... Somewhere." Toivo explained.
"Somewhere?" Ella asked.
"Sounds better than sitting here and waiting to see what happens." 32A stated.
"True." Ella stated back.
"So let's switch seats and wait for the right time." Toivo said.
He and Ella did exactly that and Toivo kept paying attention to the corridor and looking paranoid.
"I honestly feel much safer not being so close to the corridor where people can see my face. A lot of people have seen my passport photo now, but the only shot that anyone has seen of you is some blurry camera footage." Ella said to Toivo.
"Whereas I don't even have that. Just some local cops far away from here know what I look like because of our little fuel stealing trip with Sampo. But here I can be without worries." 32A said proudly and put her hands behind her neck as she sat on her seat.
"You went stealing fuel from the police and nobody even knows you. I'm just tagging along and my passport has been in the news. Great. Very fair." Ella said.
"Sounds like your problem." 32A said jokingly.
"Is that the ticket insprector?" Toivo asked and looked into the corridor where somebody was going around stopping at every seat.
Ella raised her head to look.
"Yep. You have your distraction ready?" Ella asked.
"He's scanning people's tickets with that phone." Toivo pointed out and kept waiting for the ticket inspector to get closer to him row by row.
Once the ticket inspector was dangerously close, Toivo made the inspector's phone shatter. The inspector looked at the phone and wondered what happened. Toivo looked away as to not look guilty, but heard the inspector turning the other way and going away.
"Okay. Let's go further ahead in the train to a place that he passed already. He'll think that he inspected us already." Toivo said and got up from his seat and walked on the corridor.
Ella and 32A couldn't even argue back before Toivo was already on his way, and so they just followed him. While walking the corridor, Ella kept her fist over her mouth like she was coughing, just to hide her face a little. 32A wasn't worried at all, but just followed Toivo and looked where he sat down. Toivo sat down next to an unoccupied seat by a window and 32A allowed Ella to sit down next to him. 32A herself sat down behind the two of them next to some stranger who was already there. Ella looked straight ahead and tried to blend in. Toivo looked out the window and just looked bored. Once the ticket inspector had a different phone, he briskly walked past without paying attention to any of them and just picked up where he left off.
"It worked!" Ella said happily.
"Did you not have faith in me?" Toivo asked.
"Well, there might still be more ticket inspections because more stops are along the way. But by then we'll be familiar faces to the inspector so maybe he won't check us." Ella guessed.
"He didn't seem to pay attention to us when he passed by. I don't think he even saw us." 32A pointed out from behind.
The passenger sitting next to 32A let out a curious humm but didn't express any other interest after they all went quiet for a moment. After a moment of nervous silence something from behind got all of their attention.
"So no ticket? Travelling without a ticket is a crime. We will have to report the police and you will be arrested at the next station." A voice said from behind.
All three of them looked behind them and saw the ticket inspector talking to someone.
"This is bad. This is really bad." Ella said.
"Why? It's not us who are in trouble." Toivo wondered.
"But if the police get in the train, they might see us." Ella explained.
"That's bad." 32A stated.
"Let's just go somewhere else when that time comes." Toivo suggested.
"We could go between the cars where there's a little platform." Ella added.
"Well, there you go. Let's do that." 32A said from behind and felt at ease.
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The trip advanced without trouble and the three freeloaders decided not to speak as to not get the passenger next to 32A too curious. Once the the voice from the speakers announced that the train was arriving at a station, Ella got up from her seat without saying anything, and the other two did the same. Some other people also got up from their seats to leave the train. Ella led the way to the end of the car and went outside to stand on the little platform between the two cars. The train stopped at the station and the three freeloaders leaned on the guardrail at the platform between the train cars. People got out and people got in. The freeloaders all faced away from the train station's platform, though Toivo kept peeking behind him nervously. He saw some officers enter the train and drag someone out. He noticed one of the officers glance back at him while dragging someone away, so he looked away again.
"Hey, you there!" One officer shouted at his direction.
Toivo didn't respond at all, but prepared to defend himself and the others.
"Don't hurt anyone." Ella whispered to Toivo.
"I don't intend to." Toivo replied.
"Where do we go from here if we need to run?" Ella asked.
"You three there!" The same officer shouted again.
32A was the only one who turned around, not being paranoid about being recognized.
"What is it, sir?" She shouted back.
"Respect for the coast guard! You do important work!" The officer shouted and walked away with the arrested freeloader.
32A looked at Ella's jacket and understood what the officer was talking about.
"I bet you two were sweating there." 32A said jokingly, only to see her bet proven correct when she looked at the faces of Ella and Toivo.
Ella just nervously returned inside the train without responding.
"She told you to not hurt anyone. Have you hurt more people while I was gone?" 32A asked Toivo who stayed outside with her.
"I've had to resort to that. Breaking knees and wrists from pursuers. She doesn't like it, and I don't want to do any more of it either." Toivo answered.
"But you're willing to do it if you have to?"
"I am. If I see no better choice, I won't hesitate. I still won't kill anyone, unless it's a situation like when you were in that man's chokehold and I had no choice. But only then."
"Did it do anything to you when you killed that guy?" 32A asked.
"I keep wondering if I could have solved the situation a different way. But I keep telling myself that I did what I had to do. It helps, but I question if it's true."
"Just remind yourself that the guy had probably already killed many people and was ready to kill another one."
"I know."
"I fear that we'll get into a situation like that if we want to bust our family out of whatever place they're in." 32A stated.
"Me too."
"So are you ready to do whatever it takes to save someone? It could be any one of us or our family who may need to be saved." 32A asked.
"Can't you just save anyone who gets hurt or dies?" Toivo asked back.
"Of course I can."
"But you can't bring yourself back from the dead, I think."
"I wouldn't know. I haven't died before. So is that why you were willing to kill that guy? You figured that if I die, I'm actually dead."
"Yes. If it was anyone else who was threatened, maybe I would have trusted you to save them. I just don't want to kill anyone if there's a better option."
"Well, I intend to be on board all the way. So if anyone is threatened, they can rely on my help so you won't have to make the choice to kill someone. Let's not get into a situation where you have to make that choice." 32A stated just as the train started moving again.
"That's good to hear. There was one more thing I wanted to say." Toivo said.
"What is it?"
"There at the ice, something happened. For a few seconds I didn't feel, see or hear anything, and then everything came back suddenly. It felt weird. It was something I've never experienced before and I can't even describe what it felt like. I think I died for a few seconds."
"You got shot. You probably died. Sorry that you had to experience that. Probably wasn't nice."
"Dying didn't feel like anything, but coming back was something completely different than anything I've experienced before. I never want to get into a situation where I have to experience it again. So yeah, let's not get into such situations."
"Ha. Yeah. I'll still bring you back as many times as I need to, even if it feels bad."
"Heh. I expect you to. Should we go back inside and see if Ella has been arrested?" Toivo asked.
"I'll stay here for a little while longer." 32A answered.
"Okay. But check your jacket's right pocket." Toivo said and went back in, leaving 32A alone.
32A put her hand in her pocket and felt a paper. She took the paper out and looked at it. It was the same drawing that Toivo made for her the previous night.
"So that's where it went. I wondered." She quietly said to herself and then felt her left pocket to make sure that the bottle was still there.
She sighed in relief when she felt it still there. She stayed on the little platform, looking at the sights and landscapes passing her by as the train moved south. She read Ilona's letter again and looked at the drawing too. After a while of standing on the platform and leaning on the guardrail she heard the door open again as Toivo joined her again.
"You're still here." He stated after leaning on the guardrail too.
"As you can see." 32A replied and looked at the drawing that she was holding in her hands.
"What are you thinking about?" Toivo asked.
32A didn't say anything back, but just very purposefully let go of the drawing and let it disappear into the wind in the blink of an eye.
"Why?" Toivo asked calmly, not being angry or upset, but merely curious.
"Because I don't need it. For so long your drawings were the only things that I had left of Ilona. I needed them to avoid nightmares and because I believed that my dreams with her were better than reality. But now I think differently." 32A explained and looked at the landscapes flashing by.
She took Ilona's letter from the bottle again and held it with both hands.
"Last night I held your drawing close to me and looked at it until I fell asleep. I saw a wonderful dream where Ilona was with me, but I realised that I don't need to make up dreams with her because the reality is better than any dream. She's alive and she has a purpose. And we have a purpose too. I'll keep this letter forever but I'll no longer look back and long for something that never could have been reality." 32A further explained.
"So the reality is better than any dream? Well said." Toivo replied.
32A rolled up the letter and put it in the bottle, and put the bottle in the pocket of her jacket.
"Let's go back in." 32A said and did exactly that.
Inside she and Toivo returned to their original seats.
"Why were you out there for so long?" Ella asked 32A.
"Just thinking about some things alone." 32A answered.
"Did you do all the thinking that needed to be thought?"
"Not even close." 32A replied just as she heard beeps coming from elsewhere.
"Tickets are being inspected again. Just as I feared. They're inspecting them after every stop." Ella said when she peeked to look at where the sound was coming from.
"So I have to do the trick again." Toivo stated.
Once the ticket inspector got close again, Toivo made the phone shatter again and the inspector got visibly frustrated.
"I'm so sick of these junks. They break every time. Let freeloaders do what they do. Not my problem." The inspector said and walked off.
"That was easy. Sounds like we won't have to worry about that anymore." 32A stated happily.
"You aren't really hiding your criminal activity very well." The passenger next to 32A said.
"Please don't tell anyone. You haven't told so far." 32A pleaded.
"I don't really care. I'm not snitching on anyone." The passenger in a bright green hoodie replied.
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The train was quiet and no more ticket inspections were being done, which put the freeloaders' minds at ease. 32A was bored during the train ride and discreetly looked at what the passenger next to her was reading on his phone. After reading along to some uninteresting technology articles, the passenger opened an interesting article:
"Defense minister Granlund: "Time to end it." The national defense minister and the Swedish state's representative in the United Nation Project has caused a lot of discord with his view and rhetoric about disease carriers and a potential outbreak. This morning at 9:07 the minister said in his own words that he has sent an appeal to the chairman of the UNP for "nuclear assistance" which has some citizens worried. Our experts have already debunked those concerns. You can read more about it at our previous article. Granlund did not leave room for doubt in that he wants to bring a permanent end to the inflow of disease carriers. Some people have attacked Granlund and said that his plan is inhumane, but Granlund himself reasoned that the disease carriers don't have much life left anyway and that bringing their inflow to an end would save lives." The article said.
The further 32A read the article, the less discreet she got about reading it.
"Such lies, all of it." The passenger said out loud after noticing 32A snooping.
"I'm not following. Who are the disease carriers? Nuclear assistance?" 32A asked.
"Have you not even heard of the disease carriers? They're the reason why there's so few people in this train. Getting a ticket required a valid reason and it was really hard to get in. There's a slight scare of them going around that Granlund likes to exaggerate and turn into a full blown public panic."
"So the disease carriers are the people coming from the no-contact zone?"
"You didn't even know about that?"
"I don't pay attention to news. But do people seriously think that the people coming from there still carry a disease?" 32A asked, even though she knew the answer.
"It's hard to know since nothing is known about the disease other than it was manmade and the people who made it never shared the formula with the world and everybody's been too scared to go collect samples. We don't have a way to know if somebody has it or not. You can't blame people for being scared."
"I didn't know those bits. Are you scared of the disease carriers?" 32A asked.
"Not really. The inflow of the no-contact people has only recently been noticed but it's probably been going on a lot longer, yet there's been no outbreak."
"So am I understanding correctly? The defense minister wants to drop a nuclear bomb into the no-contact zone?" 32A asked for clarification.
"That's been a rumor for a couple of days now. Now he confirmed it."
"Sounds like you pay attention to this stuff."
"I have to. It's a big part of what we do, even though we know that the news outlets aren't really telling the whole truth."
"So what do you do and with who?" 32A asked curiously.
"I best not say with all of these people around." The passenger said and put the phone away and looked out the window.
32A didn't try to dig for any more information.
"What were you two talking about?" 32A asked Ella and Toivo after missing their entire conversation while reading and talking with the hoodie wearing passenger.
"Just asking little questions to pass the time." Ella replied.
"Some of them seemed a little too personal to just be for passing time." Toivo added.
"Anyway, did you learn what we already know?" Ella asked 32A.
"I think so. And I think getting our family out isn't the only thing we need to do. The people in our homeland... I mean the no-contact zone might be threatened too." 32A replied.
"I heard what you two talked about. But what can we do?" Toivo said to 32A.
"I don't know but we have to do something! Lots of people still live their lives there. Even people who I got to know and care about during those couple of days there. And Ilona is there!" 32A complained worriedly.
"So do we change plans now? Do we focus on this issue?" Toivo wondered.
"Is it possible to do both?" Ella wondered.
"I don't know! I don't know anything." 32A complained and breathed heavily with her mouth once she comprehended the seriousness of the situation.
She leaned back at her backrest and worried about the situation. The passenger next to her noticed it.
"You're more worried about those news than anyone I've met. For personal reasons?" The passenger asked.
"None of your concern." 32A simply said back and kept staring forward.
She took her bottle from her pocket and held it close to herself.
"Just when I thought you were safe, they want to take you away again." She said to the bottle while thinking about Ilona.
She desperately turned to the passenger next to her and grabbed the sleeve of his hoodie.
"Are they actually going to do it? Is that even legal? How would they get the permission for it?" She asked obsessively.
"Granlund seems to be serious. And since everyone in the UNP is in the same club anyway, it'll probably be easy for him to get what he wants."
"And does nobody have anything to say back to them? Tell them how insane the idea is?"
"Plenty of people probably do. But no people who matter. There are no heroes in that club of theirs." The passenger replied.
32A let go after hearing that. Hearing heroes mentioned made her think of someone who saw her as a hero before she left. She grabbed the backrest in front of her to talk to Toivo and Ella.
"We have to stop whatever plan the government has! I couldn't live if they actually got to do what they want to do." 32A said to them with near panic.
"I agree. Since we're going there anyway, we can see what we can do, even if we don't know what yet." Toivo added.
32A turned to the passenger next to her.
"You pay attention to things that are going on. Are you involved with any groups of any kind?" 32A asked.
"I'm part of one pretty active group." The passenger replied.
"So could you maybe spread the word around to people? No bombs to the no-contact zone, or something like that." 32A begged.
"That's a fine idea. I can do that in addition to the other things we do."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you! You don't even know how much I appreciate that."
"I'll keep that in mind. But my stop is here." The passenger said and got up.
"Here? But we're not at the station yet." 32A wondered but still stood up to allow the passenger to leave his seat.
"I can't hop off at the station. There's somebody waiting for me there. But I already told you too much." The passenger said and left through the door.
"But the train hasn't even stopped yet." 32A wondered out loud.
She then noticed that the passenger's phone was on the seat. She picked it up and went to follow the passenger out the door.
"You forgot your... Phone?" She said when she was on the platform outside the railway car and didn't see the passenger there.
She tried to open the door to the next car but the door was locked. She looked at the passenger's phone that she still had in her hand. There was a message on the phone that she read out loud.
"The police are waiting at the Stockholm train station. We're waiting for you with the ride. Jump off five minutes before the train arrives at the station and leave this phone behind." The message read.
"The police are waiting at the train station? Ugh, why can't anything be easy? Toivo and Ella should know about this." 32A said in frustration and returned to her seat where she leaned forward to talk.
"Good that you came. We're almost at the final station and we have to get off soon." Ella said to 32A.
"We have to get off now. There's police there." 32A and showed the message to Ella.
"Whose phone is this?" Ella asked.
"It's the passenger's who was next to me. So the police are not waiting for us but they're still there."
"Great. Just great." Toivo added.
"Oh no. But how do we get off? We can't just stop the train." Ella wondered.
"Well, the mysterious passenger seemed to jump off. Maybe we should too."
"What? We wouldn't survive that!" Ella answered.
"As long as I survive, you two won't have to." 32A suggested completely seriously.
"She's right." Toivo backed her up.
They all heard from the speakers that the train is now arriving at the final station.
"Already? But we're not even inside the city." Toivo wondered.
"They won't let the train get into the city anymore because it's too difficult to do head counts on entire trains. Well, usually at least. Maybe not today when so few people got let in the train." Ella explained.
"So if we want to get into the city, we'll have to walk past one of those checkpoints?" Toivo asked.
"Not if we find a different way in. But we won't find one if we don't jump off now." 32A reminded them.
Ella looked at Toivo as if to ask what he thinks.
"You two will be fine. Whatever happens, I'll repair the damage." 32A assured.
"Okay. Let's jump." Ella said and looked back at 32A.
"It might hurt a little." Toivo added.
"Don't remind me." Ella said and got up and then Toivo also got up and they all left through the door.
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"The train is already slowing down." Ella said in relief.
"That means it'll hurt less. But it'll still hurt. You two jump first." 32A said.
Ella looked down from the platform in horror and then looked at Toivo.
"Three, two, one?" She said to Toivo.
"If that makes it easier." Toivo answered.
Ella took a deep breath.
"Okay. Here we go. Three... Two..." Ella counted down and then grabbed Toivo into a tight hug.
"One!" She shouted and jumped off the platform locked together with Toivo.
32A jumped right after them. As Ella and Toivo jumped off the train locked together, they rolled on the ground together and came to a stop when Toivo's back hit a large stone by the side of the tracks. As they laid there dizzy and hurting, a few seconds later 32A also rolled near them, also dizzy, in pain, dirty and bruised.
"Did we survive?" Ella quietly asked while laying next to Toivo.
Toivo's response was spitting blood on her face.
"Ahh, did everybody survive?" 32A asked while crawling towards the other two.
She touched her own back and legs and every other part that was in pain and then sat close to Ella and Toivo and saw the blood on Ella's face and got worried.
"You need to help him! He's hurt!" Ella replied.
32A flipped Toivo so he was now facing her instead of Ella.
"Oh, ouch. Just a moment." 32A said and put her hand on Toivo's forehead as he looked like he was begging her with just his eyes and weak breaths.
32A kept her hand on his forehead for a minute and repaired all the damage she couldn't see.
"Agh. Thanks." Toivo said to 32A once he was fine.
"As I promised." 32A simply replied and then looked at Ella's wounds.
She had a cut on her face that 32A healed with a touch.
"Are you hurting anywhere?" 32A asked.
"My ribs." Ella answered, so 32A touched her and the pain went away quickly.
32A stood up and looked ahead. She saw the quickly disappearing tail of the train and the tops of some tall buildings ahead. The other two also stood up and looked ahead.
"So we're here." Toivo said.
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