by GR Griffin
Barb’s knuckles remained flat, uncomfortable. She hated that move – having not used it in years – remembering a conversation with a fellow trainee back at Castle Highkeep. Almira, her name was, and she was there the day Barb first pulled off that move at the tender age of ten. Pitiful, it was. A few pins the size of baby teeth that gave the training dummies sore feet. Over time, she watched as Barb honed that spell, growing both the size and quantity of the fangs until it became established that surrounding her was a bad idea.
One day, during skills inspection testing, Barb took to the grounds and impressed the teachers with her acrobatics and agility, clearing the course with the fastest time. Almira saw the perfect moment where Barb could have wowed them with that move, but she never used it.
Afterwards, Almira posed her the question: “Why didn’t you use that tooth magic on those dummies? That would’ve been so cool!”
She did not know why, but the answer to that question came out of nowhere. It sounded so out of place for a girl of her age, and yet she spoke it with an air of wisdom that surpassed her by about a few centuries. An air that she still did not possess, even as she approached the two-hundred year mark.
“Magic wouldn’t have destroyed those dummies. I would’ve.”
A resounding second snap brought her head up and out of her reminiscing. The machine against her back skidded as the drop grew steeper, the crescendo of wheels beneath more noticeable as the train picked up speed. A third snap followed accompanied by a sudden move. Barb took one step away as the fourth and final belt groaned and then gave way. The entire digger scraped down the deck. Barb bounded up onto the tank track and over the driver compartment. She span around to catch the machine barrelling sideways down the train, bulldozing anything in its path.
Up ahead, Fleck burst through the entrance to the enclosed carriage at the end of the flatbeds, grabbing hold of the frame to stop themself. The right wall was built with reflective metal shelves, holding packages and sealed envelopes of varying sizes and destinations. Two lines of barrels were stacked on the opposite end, divided by the loading door in the centre of the left side wall. At the other side of the car, a limp seatbelt dangled beside the next gate, above a foldout seat.
Fleck made a mad dash for the safety of the seatbelt, their hope beyond hope being to strap themself in and wait out the rest of this loco ride in safety. Dom literally dove in behind them. The incoming digger smashed into the car seconds later, sending a bone-shattering quake that crumpled the entire back like an empty can and sent Fleck and Dom tumbling down. The packages on the shelves poured out, flowing across the stretch with each change in the train’s trajectory.
Barb’s tranquiliser gun slipped from his hand, getting buried among the assortment of parcels. As Dom climbed up with the aid of the barrels, Fleck crawled closer to the seat. He took hold of the frying pan, the wanted individual within reach. Fleck saw the first swing coming and rolled to the side. The base struck the floor with a distorted bonk. Fleck rose and ducked to avoid a swipe from the pan. Dom took the handle by both hands and brought it down, missing Fleck as they sidestepped it.
“Fight. Back.” Dom said with each strike that failed to connect. “Fight. Back.”
Several repeated blows later – all of them misses – he stopped to regain his stamina. Fleck was mere feet away, breathing just as heavy. His underarms were stained with perspiration, they could smell the thick exertion ebbing off him.
Dom drew in hard through pursed lips. “The posters weren’t lying; you really can’t hurt another living soul.”
The human looked like they were about to say something when the far door opened; Barb appeared through the frame, gun at the ready, targets in her sights. Two bullets went off. Fleck and Dom both dove behind the barrels.
Without warning, the train span ninety degrees to the left, flinging Fleck and Dom against the loading door, Barb against the barrels. It twisted in the opposite direction, Fleck, Dom, and Barb flew into the shelves that comprised the right side.
The entire train hit a series of corkscrew turns. The inside became a bingo roller of brown-wrapped parcels and sealed letters, with a human, a deer chef, and a bounty hunting bat sprinting with the flow to remain upright. Running across the floor, then across the door, then across the ceiling, then across the shelves, then back to the floor.
Across the door. Across the ceiling. Across the— back the other way!
Across the door. Across the floor. Across the shelves. Across the ceiling. Across the door. Across the floor.
The train stopped spinning and immediately shot straight up. Metal groaned against metal as the digger came loose and broke free from its holdings. The hulking machine fell into the sky, smashing into several pieces of what made up the Shattered Zone before shattering itself. Wrecked beyond repair.
All three fell back. Fleck reached for something to grab, but their hands came out empty.
Barb snatched hold of the seatbelt.
Dom rolled alongside Fleck and grabbed hold of the crinkly door frame. The door itself indistinguishable from the wreckage.
Fleck fell straight out of the carriage, rolling painfully backwards. They descended across several flatbeds, back the way they came. Moving so fast, they were unable to make out anything. Their hands groped for anything to latch onto.
Their fingers gripped something: the handle of the boning knife Dom left jutting from the empty flatbed. The force of their momentum sent it slicing a clear chasm down the centre. Through a spinning brain and aching fingers, they forced themself through sheer force of will to hold on. The blade came to a halt upon striking the iron frame that lined the deck.
The train continued to rocket upwards, crashing through the floating fragments of land. At this rate, they were going to exit the atmosphere. They would not be surprised if they ended up in another monster kingdom in outer space.
The loose deliveries above poured from the crushed door, raining downwards. Among them, Fleck spotted the black metallic rectangle of the tranquiliser gun, falling end over end down the decks. Taking one hand away, they reached out and caught it. Something told them that they needed it.
The train slowed to a snail’s pace as the engine reached the summit. What goes up… All went silent as the leading car curved over the dipper, stopped, and then went down the vertical decline. Must come down. The engine roared to life, kicking all of its pistons into overdrive. Just like an ordinary, human rollercoaster, the vehicle picked up speed at an alarming rate.
As the train got faster and faster, Fleck’s hold slipped further and further. A thin layer of moisture formed on their palm, acting against them. They hit the dip, the entire car kicking upwards with the force of a catapult.
Fleck lost their grip and was tossed into the air, spinning uncontrollably. Their sight became a blur of dark blue, brown, green, and white.
Barb saw the event unfold from all the way over in the packages compartment. She watched as her target was sent soaring.
Barb needed to catch them.
She released the seatbelt and took flight up the car. She had enough time to deal with both the chef and child in one swoop.
Barb snatched Dom by the collar of his dirtied shirt, plucking him off what was left of the door frame. She dropped him off on one of the innumerable islands – one that had a few berry bushes, a tree that yearned fruit, and was in good sight from the tracks. As she flew away, the stranded chef stomped the ground, retorting with obscene profanities and rude sign language. Oh, how gratuitous were the things coming out of his mouth; it should be washed out with soap at once. Good thing you can’t see it, otherwise, the rating would surely get bumped up to mature.
In these rough parts, the odd bit of cargo goes missing on a regular basis. It became so frequent that another division was set up to recover lost property from the Shattered Zone. Someone could swing around and pick up Dom the railway chef from anywhere between a couple of hours to a few days. The edible produce around him was in the even
t of the worst case scenario.
“Okay, little Fleck, no more games,” Barb said to herself. “It’s just you and me, as it should be.” Her unintentional rhyme on a dime rekindled her resolve.
Fleck was in free-fall, with no parachute, bungie cord, or umbrella. They plummeted through the zone’s threshold and into the fray, passing rubble and greenery on all sides. From within the mess, Barb appeared, darting in and around as fast her wings would allow. She moved in with arms outstretched, ready to catch them.
Sadly, she did not see that hidden rock until her face was against it.
Fleck felt their soaring heart sink from the second Barb disappeared Looney Tunes style. They descended deeper and deeper through the mess. What was going to save them? What was going to break their fall? They crashed through the fragile branches of a seriously bent tree, receiving a mouthful of leaves.
After falling a few extra hundred feet, the train came into view. They were directly over it, on a collision course with a bulk container, strapped down with a thick tarp. Anything could be underneath that; coal, timber, ice, iron ore, marble blocks, the possibilities were vast and hard. At the last moment, Fleck span themself around and curled up into a ball, hugging the non-lethal gun to their chest, hoping that whatever lay under the cover was soft enough to break their fall – or as few bones as possible.
They tore through the tarp and sank deep into the insides, bouncing to a gentle, simple stop.
Lady luck appeared to have smiled upon them.
The cargo was so soft, so bouncy, and so heavenly. They opened their eyes and found themself swimming in a pool of white pillows. Just like the one they slept on last night, except it was a whole bundle of them. Their collective softness combined into one whole entity, forming a giant marshmallow of soft.
Fleck rolled over and caught one of the tags:
Cloud Pillows
The softest pillows in the Outerworld
Made from actual clouds
(100% cotton)
As comfortable as it was, there was no time for them to be laying around. They clambered off as fast as they could, on the off chance the pillows were but padding for boxes of dynamite beneath, triggered to activate under the weight of a human youth. After fighting with the dithering tarp, they jumped to the next cargo bin over. The substance hidden under this tarpaulin crunched with the density of sand.
An electrified bullet pierced the ground where they stepped. Fleck pivoted upwards to find Barb plunging toward them, eager to leave a lasting impression on the human the same way her face made a lasting impression on the asteroid earlier. There was a perfect indentation and everything. Her shots were rapid and merciless, wanting nothing more than to end this fiasco once and for all. On the surface, on her flattened features, she was no longer confident and in control.
Fleck bobbed and weaved around the container top, dodging the shots. Barb came crashing down on top of them. Fleck fell back.
Together, they aimed their weapons at each other.
Together, both pulled the triggers.
One clicked.
A single spit rang out.
A shot had been fired, but from which gun, and which individual had been struck? Barb stepped back, inspecting the human. Fleck remained still with the gun outstretched, finger down on the trigger. The rapid clicking sound dulled in the passing air stream.
Barb glanced down at her arm and found, sticking out of her bicep, a single dart.
“Well… I didn’t see that coming…” Barb said, each word more slurred than the last. One would presume that with the paralysing agent being her own creation, she would be immune to it. But the soldier is not invulnerable to the bullets they dispense, nor was the assassin unsusceptible to the poisons they distilled, nor was the execution’s axe less sharp to those who wielded it. The paralysing effect travelled up her arm, into her neck and down her spine, taking hold in seconds. The bounty hunter had never experienced her own formula, but was curious as to how it felt. Curiosity killed the cat, or in this case, curiosity killed the bat. Her entire body seized up like cement was being poured into her bones, solidifying around the joints. Her muscles twitched painfully. Her skeleton locked in place. The colours in her sights sharpened.
The sound of the engine screeching was not easily ignored. Fleck turned and saw, up ahead, the exiting tunnel of the Shattered Zone. The pitch black semi-circle in the opposite end of the cracked lands, the cliff a broken face of craters.
The tunnel was small. The wall as jagged and sharp as a million blades. Barb looked up with frozen eyes. There was barely space between the train top and the tunnel ceiling for someone prone. The wall was approaching fast, at well over a hundred miles per hour, closer to two-hundred at this rate. Barb tried to move, but doing so felt like her muscles would rip from their nerve ends. Her entire body went into alert mode, pulse quickening, mind racing, telling herself to move. Fly away. Fall down. Drop.
Do something! Anything!
The cliff wall was incoming, yet Barb was unable to force her body out of its stasis – barely able to twitch her fingers. Her pupils dilated. Panic set in. She did not want to die.
The cliff face was closing in. She had seconds to react.
The faint tremors of a scream attempted to escape her frozen vocals. Barb really, really, really did not want to die.
The wall was meters away. A breath escaped past her lips as Fleck dove into her stomach.
Their weight slammed into her, swiping her off her feet, flat onto her back. At the exact same moment her head collided with the roof, the tunnel entrance screamed past and her vision was drowned in orange and black.
What just happened? Barb’s eyes widened, struggling to comprehend. She was alive. Her breathing was fast and shallow. She was breathing. She was alive. Her very own soul quaking, like at any moment it would shatter to pieces. Her soul was intact. She was alive.
Fleck looked into her eyes, getting their own breath back. Concern lay behind those pair of closed eyelids. Concern for the bat monster who hounded their every move. Who would have gladly taken them straight to their doom in Castle Highkeep and lose no sleep over it. Whose life they just saved without giving it a second thought.
Fleck apologised, saying that they only want to get home to their family.
Barb smiled. She probably didn’t know she was doing it. Somehow, she regained the ability to flex her tongue. “That makes two of us. I’ve seen so many dumb things on this job… but a target saving my life? That’s a first…” Her look fell blankly on the strobes, allowing their flashy persistence to put her mind at ease. The light and dark formed one whole entity. “Humans… Nothing but warmongers and butchers… eh, Maxie…?”
Her head lolled back. Her eyelids closed as slumber overcame her.
Fleck pushed themself to the side, taking a seat behind the unconscious bounty hunter. Their mind raced, processing what they had just survived. Their bones quivered from a combination of the chilly gale and coming down from the adrenaline.
They did it. Against all odds, they did it. All without reaching a save point.
The exit arrived with the same dramatic effect of reaching the pearly gates. Never would Fleck ever take boring, flat land for granted again. The roaming plains. Flat. Wide. Whole. Had they not been moving, they would have leapt straight to the ground and kissed it until the soil tasted like chocolate.
The size of Black Ice Mountain took their breath away; so large, ominous, and mountainy. They were so close now. Every corner and crevice and shade from white to black they could make out in full detail.
The lady on the speaker spoke out strong and true, especially from atop the shipping container, as if the speaker was right next to them. “Attention passengers. We’ll be arriving at Winter’s Edge in ten minutes. Please make sure you have all your possessions upon departure. We thank you for travelling with us today. Watch your step, and we hope you have a very pleasant day.”
Fleck scoffed. Fat chance of that, buddy.
They gazed upon the arctic world a few miles over. It could not get any crazier than this, right?
Right?
* * *
His laboratory, his home, was dark and dusty. He had been meaning to get it cleaned for a couple of hundred years now.
With each passing decade, it became that slightly bit harder for Professor Haze to do anything; most notoriously, traversing the stairs of his home. He would be in need of a stair lift sometime within the next century. Although, by then, he would probably have built a hover lift or a teleportation lift, one that would not leave an ugly, grey chain leading up the perfectly cobbled stairs.
Life had never been the same since the civil war. So much happened during those first years, more events during those unruly times. However, the last two hundred years have proven boring, each one a brief reprieve to make way for the next.
He was at the front and centre during the war, the mastermind of the great men and woman who put their faces on the front cover. Now the professor knew what it was like to be a relic. An old dusty heirloom stuffed into a closet and forgotten about. A museum exhibit more fragile than the glass encasing it. He was old, had been for quite some time. He once stood tall, handsome, and toned. But time and age wears all down. Starting with the aches in his back, followed by failing eyesight, then the occasional trembling in his fingers. He looked up to the old and wise during his golden days and knew the same fate would happen to him eventually, just as he looked down at the young and able today and knew that the same thing would happen to them eventually.
Despite spending the last hundreds of years and thousands of days doing nothing, it has been the last few days that had him on edge. He had started to believe that maybe his job was done, that his usefulness was finished and he had truly became the rusty trinket found buried in the sand, but a feeling ate away at his insides.
Something he could not explain. A form of hindsight he developed during the war. He learned to trust it, and more often than none, his expectations proved to be valid.