The Locomotive of Last Resort

Chapter 14: Collective Bargaining

"They’ve what, Mavrik? Spit it out before I throw you down the intake shaft myself."

"They’ve dropped their shovels, Varkelion. They’ve formed a union. They’ve welded the boiler hatch shut."

Varkelion didn’t waste breath on a curse. He lunged past Mavrik, his heavy leather coat snapping against the narrow metal frame of the bulkhead door. The smell of cold ash and wet rust hit him instantly, overriding the usual comforting stench of sulfur and coal smoke.

"Welded?" Varkelion’s hand flew to the heavy iron-plated revolver at his hip. "With what thermal-rig? They don't have the clearance."

"They don't need clearance when they have three hundred pounds of pressure-torch and nothing left to lose," Mavrik panted, scrambling to keep pace down the spiraling iron stairs. "Griss is leading them. He’s got the whole shift. Thirty-two men, all armed with slag-irons and heavy wrenches. They’ve blocked the lower gangway."

"If those boilers cool by even ten degrees, the vacuum-friction on the outer hull will tear the passenger shanties right off the frame," Varkelion growled. His boots clattered violently against the vibrating floor plates. "Do they want to freeze in the dark? Is that their grand plan?"

"They think they’re already dead," Mavrik said, grabbing Varkelion's shoulder to force him to halt on the landing. "Listen to me! They aren't just striking for extra rations anymore. They heard the rumors about the Fifth Carriage. They know there’s no coal left in the auxiliary bins. They know we’re burning something else."

Varkelion ripped his shoulder away. "I don't care if we're burning the floorboards or their own damn ancestors, Mavrik. If the steam drops, we stop. If we stop, we sink into the void. Go to the auxiliary control. Prepare to manual-override the fuel line."

"I can't!" Mavrik shouted over a sudden, deafening shriek of metal from below. "The valve-control is in the stoker bay! They’ve barricaded the secondary terminal. If I try to force a bypass from here, the pressure blowback will blow the entire lower deck into the gray."

"Then we negotiate with lead," Varkelion said, his jaw setting like cast iron.

He kicked open the heavy security door leading to the lower stoker decks. The hot, suffocating air of the furnace rooms was gone, replaced by a biting, synthetic chill that made his knuckles instantly turn blue.

A crowd of dozens of men stood huddled around the massive, cylindrical housing of Boiler Three. They wore grease-stained leather aprons, their faces black with soot and sweat, but their eyes were bright with a desperate, unified terror. At the front stood Griss, a mountain of a man with a scarred neck and a heavy pneumatic wrench slung over his shoulder like a club.

Behind them, a massive steel bar had been crudely welded across the main fuel-intake hatch. The great firebox was silent, its red glow fading into an ominous, dying purple.

"Step back, Conductor," Griss rumbled, his voice scraping through the cold air. "Don't touch that holster. We’ve got three pressure-charges wired to the primary steam line. You fire a shot, and we open a hole that’ll vent every drop of hot air on this train into the void."

Varkelion didn’t draw his gun, but his hand remained locked on the grip. "You’re committing suicide, Griss. Look at the temperature gauges. We’re already down to seven hundred atmospheres. The hull-stabilizers are going to fail in five minutes."

"Then we die warm, knowing we stopped feeding the beast," Griss spat. He stepped forward, the heavy wrench tapping against his thigh with a rhythmic, sickening clack. "We aren't shoveling for you anymore, Varkelion. Not until you open the gates to the Fifth Carriage and show us what’s making that noise."

"It’s a cargo carriage," Varkelion lied, his voice flat, dead, and steady. "It contains spare mechanical parts and ballast. You know the rules of transit. The cargo is sealed to maintain pressure equilibrium."

"Don't play us for fools!" a younger stoker yelled from the back, his voice cracked with panic. "My brother was on the maintenance crew that went down there yesterday. He didn't come back. But I can hear him. He’s singing through the steam pipes! He’s calling my name!"

"Your brother was reassigned to the rear brake-shack," Varkelion said, his eyes scanning the crowd, calculating the distance between his gun and Griss’s chest. "He’s doing his job. I suggest you do yours before I find thirty-two new men to take your places."

"With what?" Griss laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "The passengers? The soft-handed bastards in the upper berths? They don't know how to handle a draft-damper. They’d choke on the first puff of sulfur. You need us, Conductor. And we want the truth."

Suddenly, the heavy iron door at the far end of the gantry banged open.

A flood of passengers, led by a gaunt woman in a tattered woolen shawl, poured into the narrow stoker bay. Her name was Tasia, a de facto representative of the crowded shanties in the mid-carriages. Behind her, dozens of terrified faces pressed against the metal railings.

"Is it true?" Tasia cried out, her eyes darting between Varkelion and the welded boiler hatch. "The stokers say the train is dying! They say the Fifth Carriage is a tomb, and you’re dragging us into the deep transit just to dump us in the void!"

"Get back to your quarters, Tasia," Varkelion commanded, his voice rising to cut through the sudden murmur of the crowd. "This is an engineering matter. Return to your berths immediately."

"We aren't going back!" Tasia shouted, her hand gripping the cold metal of the gantry. "We heard the music. It’s coming through the floorboards now. It’s not just the pipes. The metal is vibrating. The babies won't stop crying because the walls are humming a lullaby in a language we don't know!"

"It’s the structural harmonics of the high-speed rails," Mavrik interjected, trying to keep his voice calm, though his hands were shaking violently as he checked his pocket-chronometer. "The track is uneven in the Grey Corridor. It’s just resonance. I swear to you, it’s just physics."

"Physics doesn't cry!" Griss roared, leveling his heavy wrench at Mavrik. "Physics doesn't beg for water through the radiator grates! We want the hatch to the Fifth Carriage opened. We want to see what’s inside. If you don't give us the key, Conductor, we let the fire die right here. Let’s see how your 'physics' handles a cold-soak at fifty thousand feet."

Varkelion took a slow step forward. The crowd tense, several stokers raising their iron rods.

"You think you’re brave, Griss?" Varkelion said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You think you’re saving these people? If the boilers go cold, the magnetic couplings between the passenger cars will release. The safety systems are designed to shed dead weight. If the steam dies, the locomotive uncouples from the rest of the train. Every single passenger behind Carriage Three will be left floating in the absolute zero of the void."

A collective gasp went through the crowd of passengers. Tasia looked at Griss, her eyes wide with sudden horror. "Griss... is that true? You told us we could force his hand! You said we’d be safe!"

"He’s bluffing!" Griss shouted, though his own eyes flickered with a brief, terrible doubt. "He wouldn't leave the carriages behind. The cargo is what keeps him alive. The Company would hang him if he arrived at the Terminus with nothing but an empty engine!"

"The Company is three thousand miles away," Varkelion said, pulling his revolver from its holster with a slow, deliberate movement. He didn't point it at Griss; he pointed it at the primary steam valve on the wall. "But I am here. And I will gladly decouple the entire train and ride this locomotive into the station alone before I let a mob of unwashed coal-shovels dictate how I run my ship."

"You wouldn't," Griss breathed, his knuckles turning white on his wrench.

"Try me," Varkelion said. "I’ve sacrificed better men than you to keep the pressure up. Mavrik, what’s the temperature in the secondary chamber?"

"Six hundred and forty degrees," Mavrik whispered, his voice cracking. "The outer hull is starting to contract. I can hear the rivets popping in Carriage Two. We have three minutes, Varkelion. Only three minutes."

"Choose, Griss," Varkelion said, his thumb clicking the hammer of his revolver back. The sound was incredibly loud in the freezing, silent room. "Cut that weld and start the coal-feed, or I blast this valve, drop the couplings, and leave every single one of your families to suffocate in the dark."

The tension in the room was suffocating. The passengers began to scream at the stokers, begging them to pick up their shovels. Tasia grabbed a stoker's leather sleeve, shaking him violently.

"Please! My daughter is in Carriage Four! Don't let him do it! Get to the fire! Get to the fire!"

Griss looked at the revolver, then at the desperate, weeping faces of the passengers, and finally at Varkelion’s eyes—which were as cold and unyielding as the iron rails beneath them.

"You’re a monster, Varkelion," Griss spat, his shoulders slumping. "A goddamn monster."

"I’m the Conductor," Varkelion said. "Cut the weld."

Two stokers frantically stepped forward with a thermal-cutter, the bright blue flame whistling as it began to melt the iron bar they had just welded across the hatch. The sparks rained down on the cold floor plates, casting dancing, demonic shadows on the walls.

But just as the metal bar groaned and snapped under the heat, a deep, resonant shudder ran through the entire length of the train.

It wasn't the usual vibration of the rails. It was a slow, pulsing thud, like the heartbeat of a massive, dying beast.

The lights in the stoker bay flickered, died, and then flared back up in a sickening, bruised-purple hue.

A high-pitched, metallic screech echoed from the ventilation shafts. It didn't sound like steam. It sounded like a collective, agonizing sigh.

Mavrik stared at his diagnostic pad, his face turning completely bloodless. "Varkelion... the pressure... it’s not dropping anymore."

"Did they get the fire restarted?" Varkelion demanded, keeping his eyes locked on Griss.

"No," Mavrik whispered, his fingers trembling as he tapped the screen. "The fire is completely out. But the temperature in the boilers... it’s rising. Rapidly. It’s up to nine hundred degrees. One thousand. It’s still going up!"

"How?" Griss asked, backing away from the hot metal of the boiler housing. "The coal-chutes are closed! There’s nothing in there to burn!"

"The Fifth Carriage," Mavrik said, looking up in pure terror. "The automated systems... they’ve been bypassed. The Fifth Carriage is routing its own heat. It’s drawing thermal energy directly from the passenger cars to feed the engine."

A sudden, piercing scream echoed from the gantry behind them.

Tasia fell to her knees, clutching her chest. Her breath was coming out in thick, white clouds. "It’s cold... God, it’s so cold..."

"The heating lines in Carriage Four and Five are reversing!" Mavrik screamed over the rising roar of the steam pipes. "It’s siphoning the warmth! It’s freezing them to keep the locomotive moving!"

"Cut the connection!" Varkelion ordered, lunging toward the manual valve-override.

"I can't!" Mavrik cried. "The valves are locked from the inside of the Fifth Carriage! It’s overriding the physical controls!"

Before Varkelion could reach the lever, the welded boiler door—now completely free of its bar—blew outward with a deafening crash, slamming into the gantry.

But no fire spilled out.

Instead, a thick, freezing mist of translucent, amber-tinted vapor poured from the dark mouth of the furnace. Inside the empty firebox, clinging to the iron grates, was a pulsing, crystalline mass of dark metal. It looked like a cluster of frozen, black veins, expanding and contracting in time with the shuddering of the train.

And from the depths of the empty furnace, a chorus of whispering voices drifted out, speaking in a perfect, terrifying unison.

"We are almost there," the voices sighed through the mist. "Do not let the cold stop us."

Griss dropped his wrench, his eyes wide as he stared into the living dark of the boiler. "What... what have you put in this train, Varkelion?"

Varkelion didn't answer. He stared at the pulsing black veins inside his engine, realizing for the first time that his hand on the throttle had never truly been the thing in control.