The Lost Train of Thought

by John Hulme

  “Simly?”

  “In the, uh . . . flesh, sir.”

  Briefer Simly Frye dropped his head into his hands, which were rudely cuffed to the back of a seat on the prisoners’ bus.

  “But I was only trying to help!”

  “I know that, dude, but you went about it the wrong way!” Becker paced up and down the center aisle. “Fixer Blaque had to cut his meeting short to speak with the warden on your behalf, and take my word for it, he is not psyched.”

  Outside in the frozen air, Jelani Blaque was still locked in heated negotiations with Inkar Cyration, the feared Administrator of the Department of Corrections. From the stony look on the Warden’s face, it did not appear to be going well.

  “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “You said it yourself, Becker! I’m the only one you can trust!”

  “When did I say that?”

  “Back in Thought & Emotion, when you read everybody the riot act. You said that every Fixer on the Roster had betrayed you, and if they wanted you back they’d better let you bring along Milton Frye’s favorite grandson so there’s at least one person on the Mission who’s got your back instead of trying to stab you in it!”

  Becker cringed at the memory of his temper tantrum.

  “I really said all that?”

  “Word for word. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I, um . . . had a Fly on the Wall™.”

  Becker shook his head with dismay, because eavesdropping with that old and decommissioned Tool was a serious infraction.

  “Dude, you can’t just break every Rule in the Briefer’s handbook ’cause you feel like it.”

  “Why not? You did.”

  As Fixer Drane marveled at the ripple effect of his bad life decisions, the door to the bus swung open and in walked a not very happy looking man wearing blue-tinted shades that had frosted over white.

  “It took a great deal of bargaining, Briefer Frye.” Fixer Blaque sat in the empty driver’s chair and turned to Simly. “But I managed to keep you out of the Clink.”

  Becker and Simly whispered “yes” at the same time, until— “Unfortunately, seeing as the Trans-Seemsberian will not be making its return trip until tomorrow, it looks as if you will be spending some time in the Pokey.”

  Simly turned a whiter shade of pale. The Pokey was not the Hokey Pokey of birthday parties and roller-skating rinks, but rather the short-term holding cell where hardened criminals awaited processing and small-time hoods learned lessons they wouldn’t soon forget.

  “But sir, wouldn’t it be better if I came along on the Mission? There’s four Fixers and not a single Briefer!”

  “Out of the question.”

  “But—”

  Fixer Blaque silenced Simly with an angry bang of his stick.

  “You’re right, sir. A few nights in the Pokey is just what I deserve.”

  “It’ll be okay, Sim.” Becker patted his favorite Briefer on the shoulder. “Just do what they tell you and keep your mouth shut.”

  “Yes, sir. I won’t say a word.” Simly tried to sound convincing, but everyone knew he’d attempted a vow of silence before, and with dubious results. “And good luck, sirs.”

  The two Fixers gave short and sympathetic nods, then headed off the bus, having already overstayed the Conductor’s ten-minute extension. Simly watched them hop aboard the train, and with a belch of black smoke, the Trans-Seemsberian was off on its overnight journey from the snows of Seemsberia to the scorching desert at the End of the Line.

  “All right you scoundrels! Everybody take a seat!”

  Simly turned to the front of the bus, where Inkar Cyration had claimed the driver’s seat, and two dozen of the most vicious crooks in The Seems were dragging their shackles up the steps. Unlike Simly, their eyes were focused on the floor or the ceiling or the green vinyl seats that they took one by one—anywhere but on the dreaded prison that loomed ahead. The Warden flashed them all a Cheshire grin, then pulled the metal handle that closed the doors tight.

  “Welcome to your new home.”

  15. A unit of Seemsian currency named after Bucky Buckerson, first Administrator of the Department of Miscellaneous, and inventor of dirt.

  16. A unit of Seemsian currency named after William “Bill” Mahoney, first Administrator of the Department of Nature and composer of the four seasons. (Note: 1 Bill = 10 Bucks.)

  17. A Fixer in fifth-century Eu rope who tried to save En gland by restringing a Chain of Events but ended up causing the Dark Ages instead.

  18. See The Seems: The Split Second.

  5

  Contemplation

  End of the Line, Department of Transportation, The Seems

  The morning sun beat down upon the old terminal station known as the End of the Line. It was not as merciless as it would be several hours from now, when only gila monsters and sandpipers would risk venturing outside, but it was already hot enough to send the Dust Bunnies scurrying under the passenger platform. From the cool shade beneath the wooden slats, they watched pebbles and tumbleweeds sweep across the Thought Tracks and listened to the desert moan.

  Directly above, the station sign was squeaking in the breeze, while the door to the signal box gently banged against its hinge. On a typical day, two signalmen would be behind that door, trying to ensure that no two trains arrived on the same track at the same time, while the famously cranky Wheel Tapper would duck his head in and lament the fact that Quality Control still hadn’t fixed the vending machine.

  But this was no typical day.

  “I think I found something!” Becker yelled from inside the Yardmaster’s office, which had also been left wide open. Upon the cluttered desk a reading lamp was still on, a mug of Pickmeup half drunk. “Looks like his Time Piece stopped at exactly 7:37!”

  The voice of Fixer Hassan replied from within the signal box.

  “Same with the clock in here! Mark my words, whatever happened in this place, it happened at that moment.”

  Becker returned to the desk and sifted through the papers that were laid about in several stacks. Judging by how meticulously they were arranged, he assumed the first team of Fixers had already gone through these documents—but if they’d found anything of value, they’d clearly taken it with them.

  “No dice.”

  The door to the office swung open, and in walked the Octogenarian, waving a paper fan across her face. “The time cards say six people were on duty, but I can’t find a single soul.”

  “Any sign of Dr. Thinkenfeld?”

  Sylvia removed her sunhat and wiped some sweat from her white hair, then shook her head no. “I think we have to assume the worst.”

  The two headed out onto the platform, where Hassan was now squatting behind the busted vending machine. Judging by the way he was banging around inside, he appeared to be trying to fix it. “Where’s Fixer Blaque?”

  “He’s looking for the tracks that Casey mentioned in her transmission.” Sylvia pointed to the westernmost portion of the station, where giant rubber stoppers had been placed to keep the Trains of Thought from rolling into the desert. “Seems to think they might be over there.”

  “Blaque’s wasting his time,” mused Hassan. “The Listening Post picked up storms raging all across the Middle of Nowhere last night. Any footprints or trails the first team might’ve followed would be long gone by now.”

  As the Fixers silently considered what that might mean for their Mission, Hassan made a slight adjustment to the coin slot on the vending machine, then closed the back panel and plugged it back in. It flickered for a moment before firing up with a soothing electrical hum.

  “Anybody want a Zagnut?”

  The Octogenarian purchased a Powers That Be Bar instead, then found her way to the laquered map that was posted on the platform.

  “Still nothing from Contemplation?” she asked, pointing to the southernmost portion.

  Becker shook his head no. “The phones are all dead, and when I try to Bleceive them, all I get is this
weird clicking.”

  “What’s the difference?” inquired Hassan. “Whoever stole the train took it into the desert.”

  “Maybe somebody saw something when they were loading it up,” countered the Octo. “Even if they didn’t, there might be some excess Thought lying around that could buy us a little more time.”

  “Good call,” Becker concurred. “Let’s go down there and take a look.”

  “You and Hassan go. I’ll keep an eye on Jelani.”

  As Sylvia put on a pair of big green sunglasses devised not for the brightness of the Seemsian sun but for her troublesome cataracts, she polished off the final bite of her nougat-wrapped, caramel-coated treat.

  “Be careful, boys. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

  Back behind the rubber stoppers, Fixer Blaque watched two members of his team disappear in a cloud of dust, then refocused his attention to the parched ground at his feet. He had hoped to locate some evidence of where Fixer Simms had made her discovery, but the violent weather of the previous evening hadn’t done him any favors. A thick layer of sand covered every last corner of the station, and even his Vindwoturelukinvor™ had failed to uncover a sign. What was really fouling up the search, however, was the buzzing in his own mind.

  Though his meeting with Thibadeau Freck had been brief, it had also been quite illuminating. If what his former student said was true, then Fixer Blaque’s own time window had closed considerably, and a plan years in the making was rapidly approaching its day of reckoning.

  “Any luck?” The Octogenarian had snuck up behind him, looking for all the world like a giant green-eyed bug.

  “Nothing yet. Why don’t you do a sweep along the edge of Track #3.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Any marking that would indicate where the first team went in. Lisa knew the dangers out there from personal experience. She never would have embarked on such a journey without leaving some kind of sign.”

  Sylvia nodded in agreement, but something in Blaque’s voice troubled her.

  “Are you all right, Jelani?”

  “I’m fine. This place just brings up a lot of memories, is all.”

  That seemed to alleviate Sylvia’s concerns, and she sauntered off to explore the northernmost Thought Track. But for Jelani Blaque, walking along the border of the Middle of Nowhere, it was hard not to be thrown back to that time twelve years ago—when he, Lisa Simms, and the late Tom Jackal were charged with bringing back Hope for a despairing world. He had lost so much on that Mission, and even though it had ended in success, he was never truly the same.

  Behind the rubber stopper for Track #3, something reflected in the sunlight. It was a small knob of wood sticking out of the sand, which he wouldn’t have spotted were it not for the long piece of string attached to it. Upon closer inspection, the filament that danced in the breeze was actually a fine strand of horse hair, and the knob the tip of a violin bow that someone had stuck into the ground. Considering it was crafted from the finest Brazilian Pernambuco wood, he had a pretty good idea of who that someone was.

  “Well done, Lisa. Well done.”

  Contemplation, Department of Thought & Emotion, The Seems

  The only way to the mining colony of Contemplation, save a day’s walk through the desert, was a set of rails that ran due south from the End of the Line. Being that there were no trains running, Becker and Hassan had pulled on their Speed Demons instead. They hadn’t planned to turn the trek into a race, but their competitive natures soon took over.

  “Lookin’ a little rusty, old man!” shouted Becker over his shoulder as he momentarily pulled ahead.

  “Slow and steady wins the day.” Hassan stayed just off to the right to avoid sand being kicked up by his young peer. “Or aren’t you familiar with The Tortoise and the Hare?”

  The “old man” took a shortcut through a gulch and soon it was Becker who was eating a faceful of dirt. The young American reminded Hassan of his son, Cyrus, who tried to best his father at every turn. Hassan hadn’t seen the boy in six weeks— not since he’d followed a false tip that the missing chapter was buried near Thebes— and he promised to make up for lost time as soon as this Mission was done.

  “Yeah, I’m familiar with that story!” Becker clicked the back of his heels together and shifted into fourteenth gear. “But in this version, the rabbit kicks the turtle’s butt!”

  Fifteen minutes later, the two Fixers were skidding to a stop.

  “Let’s call it a draw,” said Hassan, and the two bumped fists (though in his heart, Becker thought he’d beat him by a step). Up above, a buzzard stared down at them from a cracked and peeling sign:

  WELCOME TO CONTEMPLATION:

  WHERE THE THINKING PROCESS BEGINS!

  Unfortunately, the colony itself looked far more like the end of something than the beginning. Torn canvas tents dotted the horseshoe-shaped canyon, pickaxes and sifting pans were strewn across the ground, and a thin trickle of water plinked off the tin roof of the refinery. And much like the dusty station at the End of the Line, no one seemed to be on duty here at all.

  “Hello! Anybody here?”

  The only thing that boomeranged back was the echo of Hassan’s own voice.

  “This place is creeping me out,” said Becker, and he could tell his partner was feeling the same way. “It’s like a ghost town.”

  “I don’t even think the ghosts are here anymore.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  Since the welcoming committee was conspicuously absent, the duo made a quick decision to split up and search the canyon on foot. Hassan took the Refinery and the Foreman’s office, while Becker made sure that no damage had been done to the Thought mining process itself.

  “Hellooo!” Becker called out to the maze of abandoned railcars and wafting tent flaps. “I know splitting up was probably a stupid thing to do, but I figured calling attention to that might get me off the hook!”

  Again, he was greeted only by the sound of an echo.

  “Not that anyone out there has a hook . . .”

  The unnatural silence was starting to get under his skin, so he began humming aloud as he followed a grass-covered set of train tracks that cut through the center of camp. They took him to a boarded-up mineshaft, which Becker immediately recognized as an old In-Betweener tunnel. The Seems hadn’t shipped Thought (or anything) to The World that way in years, but the Fixer closed his eyes and imagined what it must’ve been like when automated freight trains, piled high with Goods & Services, cruised back and forth.

  Shucka, shucka.

  A gentle banging drew his attention to the open end of the canyon, where the only gate through a barbed-wire fence had been left open and unlocked. On the other side were rows and rows of enormous cactuses, with thorns the size of arrowheads serving as warning to anyone who wished to extract the precious Thought inside. Judging from the fact that some still had taps sticking from their branches, they were finishing up a harvest when whatever happened here went down.

  Becker did a quick loop around the field and was pleased to see that the basic pillars of the operation were still intact. Though it took weeks to load an entire Train of Thought, in the three days they had left before the Unthinkable happened, there might still be enough time to fill a boxcar or two. They would need to call in at least two teams of Provokers— the meticulous tradesmen who tapped the cacti with little hammers to locate deposits of Thought, then patiently teased out the amber substance within—and a third squad of Collectors to get it over to the Refi—

  Shucka, shucka, shucka.

  Becker wheeled around, certain he’d just heard that banging again from somewhere over his shoulder. But when he turned to investigate, all he saw was a drop cloth attached to an empty scaffold, an open lunchbox overrun by Buzz Kills, and a transistor radio with a dead battery melting in the afternoon sun.

  Shucka, shucka, shucka.

  It was coming from inside one of the discarded Think Tanks, and Becker wasn�
�t taking any chances—he pulled out his trusty Sticks & Stones™. But when he approached the rusty metal cylinder and cautiously popped open the hatch, it was not a Collector or a poltergeist or even an ax-wielding maniac that he saw inside. It was a bespectacled woman in a tie-dyed skirt and beaded necklace, completely lost in Thought.

  “Dr. Thinkenfeld?”

  In the cool shade of Contemplation’s mess hall, the Administrator of Thought & Emotion looked up at Hassan with grief and terror in her eyes. “They’re all gone.”

  “Who’s gone, Doctor?”

  “Everybody! I’m the only one who—”

  Dr. Laura Thinkenfeld burst into tears and crumpled into Hassan’s arms, as if crushed by the guilt of her own survival. Becker threw Hassan a look like “maybe we should give her a few more minutes,” but the Persian shook his head no.

  “Pull yourself together, Laura. We need to know what happened here.”

  The weary Administrator wrung out a few last sobs, then did her best to recover. This was no easy task, since her hair looked like she’d stuck her finger into a wall socket, and her face was burned by something other than the sun. She was also badly dehydrated from being locked inside the Think Tank, but a few swigs from Becker’s canteen seemed to restore her strength.

  “It’s a thankless job, y’know? Toiling away in the hot sun, day after day, hundreds of miles away from air-conditioned offices and the Field of Play. That’s why I always come out here to help with the harvest . . . because these people work too hard not to get some kind of recognition. I mean, all they really ask is for someone to shake their hands and say, ‘You matter.’”

  “Laura, please . . . ,” urged Hassan.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She limped over to the window of the mess hall to have a look outside.

  “The train had just left for the End of the Line—every boxcar stuffed to the brim— and even though it was early in the morning, some of the boys had already broken out kegs of Cheer. But then I heard someone say—I think it was Menden-hall, the Foreman—‘What do you make of that, ma’am?’”