Coulter waved a gun above his head and fired it into the air.
Maria lunged for him, taking out his legs as she yanked his arm, forcing his momentum down into the ground. He landed head first, the air bursting out of him like flour from a sack as she dug her knee between his shoulder blades. He squirmed, gasping with pain, and she eased off the pressure on his arm enough so that it wouldn’t hurt if he remained absolutely still.
A piston hissed in the engine and blood pounded in her ears. A dozen guns pointed at her—the conductor’s handgun, and every rifle from the blockade. Cornstalks snapped as the passengers fled back to the emergency exit, and the unarmed protesters peeked out from behind the combine. She lifted one hand in surrender as the other held Coulter’s hand behind his back. His gun lay next to her knee.
The conductor stepped forward, gun still trained on her, and kicked the handgun towards the train. How easily she had taken out Coulter signalled military training as surely as his precise, controlled movements. Part of her settled. She understood this place, these people. Knew what to do and what not to.
“He’s neutralized.”
“Like hell.” Coulter’s voice was tight with pain.
She forced him up to his knees, resisting the urge to twist harder at his complaints.
With deliberate movements, the conductor picked up the gun from the ground and slid it into his holster. He slid his own into his belt and turned slowly, hands half raised. He spoke clearly and loud, his breath turning white as he spoke.
“We passed a junction three miles back. I can go back, take the Ashcroft line and rejoin the track at Basque. That work for you?”
The protesters’ rifles held steady as Maria gripped Coulter’s arms tighter. The protesters were ill-prepared and the conductor was giving in. It could have been the thin, wide-eyed children behind the combine or the knowledge that it was a fight he could win if he chose.
The engine ticked as the bearded man stared down the barrel of his gun. Every gun behind him was ready to follow his lead. Either this really was about keeping his people safe, or the conductor had made the wrong gamble.
With a nod, he lowered his rifle and the band around her chest loosened. There was a huff of disappointment from one of his group as they followed his lead. The tight ranks of the group behind the combine eased, and they expanded outside its protection. Several of the group leaned on others for support.
Maria had read the reports of the spreading numbers of the afflicted in the rural areas, with some of the first animal cases appearing in the upper Midwest in the cattle ranches of South Dakota—an area that Freeman had visited personally, glowing with benevolence as she had presented the shiny compact Gatherer, a gift to make their lives a little easier.
“All aboard!”
There was no one left to board, only her, her captive and the conductor on the ground. Coulter was panting hard and she eased further off the pressure on his arms, a strange burning from his skin.
The conductor extended a calloused palm towards her, sweat gleaming in the creases.
“I’ll take your gun.”
He would have seen it under her coat as easily as she had seen the training in his footsteps.
“I’m not a threat.”
“You aren’t getting back on my train if you’re carrying it.”
The protesters hadn’t raised their rifles, but they watched from their positions in the same protective arc, the night a solid wall around them. She reached in slowly, the weight of the gun a security she didn’t want to lose. It dug into her skin where she gripped the barrel as she laid it into his palm.
Keep a low profile. The fewer people that know you’re on the move the better.
She was pretty sure this wasn’t what Havernal had in mind, but she’d had to stop Coulter.
The conductor held the gun in his hand with two tucked in his belt as he turned back to the protesters. The group tensed, some of the men half-raising their guns. The conductor nodded once at the bearded man, who nodded back. He glanced disdainfully at her captive’s bent shape.
“You can come with me. And bring him with you.”
THREE
Coulter stumbled ahead of Maria, stopping several times on the way to the engine, bent double even though Maria no longer pinned his arm. The conductor walked behind them and she couldn’t help feeling like a prisoner being taken into custody.
A set of steep, narrow steps and they were in the subdued warmth of the driver’s compartment, the main light source the extensive bank of screens below the windows that wrapped around the forward half of the small room. Several bolts slid into place as the conductor locked the door and Coulter dropped into a black seat at the back of the room, next to the door that led back to the rest of the train. A tall, skinny blond stooped over the controls. His long fingers were more suited to a piano player, and they played over the screens and adjusted switches with the delicacy of a craftsman.
Maria stayed standing, her nerves too wired to let her sit. The conductor said something into a walkie-talkie below Maria’s hearing before he slipped both Coulter’s gun and hers from his holster and placed them in a cabinet flush with the side of the cab. The cabinet door was open only a moment before he locked it, but it was long enough for a view of significant fire power, including what couldn’t have been a semi-automatic. He kept his gun in his holster.
Her agitation rose as her gaze slid to the protesters where they stood on the tracks, some of their torches having gone out. Volatile and inexperienced, she should have placed her bets with them and stayed on the ground. They looked small and frightened from the height of the compartment and she had the sudden fear that the men meant to plow through the bedraggled group.
With a deep hum under her feet the torches began to retreat and the empty track fell away, the powerful engine driving them back towards the junction.
The conductor turned to her from where he watched the process over the thin man’s shoulder. The lightness in his step betrayed a formidable strength.
“Thanks for your help out there.”
“You’re welcome.”
She felt a flicker of pride that barely ignited before it flickered out, wary of something in his tone.
“But next time stay in the fucking train.”
She felt the hardening inside her, as she often did on missions, where she retreated deeper inside, letting her training and toughness take control. She imagined a veil over her face, letting the anger flow freely beneath it, even as she let her lips, cheeks, and eyes turn to glass.
“What are you doing on my train?”
The engine’s vibrations ran up through her feet, pulling her into its resonance. She lifted one foot then the other, trying to break the connection, but the very walls were trembling, a deep, almost imperceptible frequency, as if the earth shook at its very core.
“Strictly as a passenger, sir. I’m on my way to Vancouver.”
She had added the ‘sir’ intentionally. The flickering torches formed a small island of orange light beyond the cool beam of the headlight, its salvation growing weaker as they drew further away. He moved in closer and she forced herself to hold her ground. Up close his eyes were a darker gray than his uniform, his unshaven beard a shadow on his cheeks, and his tightly trimmed hair little more than bristles on a bare skull.
“A passenger who is a member of the military.”
“Not anymore.”
At least partially true, since only Havernal knew where she had gone.
A flicker of amusement showed in his bleak gaze as she engaged her legs against the pull of deceleration.
“We’re approaching the switch.”
The thin man had his hands on the controls, the spotlighted post of a railroad crossing coming into view on the largest screen.
“Once the engine is past the junction, activate the switch.”
The man navigated the switch via the camera. She had seen soldiers like him before, kept on for their skills, yet slipping in and out of formal protocol as their focus drew them elsewhere. There were multiple cameras, judging by the number of different views he was using for the change. She wouldn’t have thought it would be so difficult. Back up, flip the switch, go forward. Yet the man’s creased forehead and hunched, tense shoulders suggested a much harder or at least critical maneuver.
“What is it?”
The conductor moved back to the console.
The man’s gaze darted between screens as if he were wary of an attack. The footage of the surrounding fields showed frozen, barren emptiness, not even the light of a house in the distance.
Maria widened her feet for balance as the train slowed.
“Nothing sir.”
He pulled a lever carefully towards himself.
“I’m just making sure.”
Maria scanned the other screens, catching sight of a frozen image of her holding Coulter’s hands. On the screen beside it, her military identification photo was displayed with her name, rank, and a large number of details that were too small to read. She felt the sudden tightness of the room, the space too small for all these people.
Without altering her stance, she broadened her search, her gaze flicking to screens on separate consoles. Three screens showed static images like that of a security camera. It showed the long interior of what had to be one of the cars, with two large crates secured to the floor. Armed soldiers stood at either side. This crew wasn’t about protecting Electricline and its passengers. They were protecting that secured cargo. With enough military fire power that her palms began to sweat. She had missed clues she should have seen because she had expected this to be a passenger train.
You have to see what’s really there.
Havernal’s voice in her head, exasperated again.
Get out of your own head.
She’d been so busy thinking about him she hadn’t noticed what kind of cars made up the train. Right in the middle there would be a freight car, probably small, made to look like a passenger car, but there would be fortifications if she had looked. The train coasted slowly along the rail, making no sound at all.
“We’re past the junction.”
The conductor lifted a microphone and made an announcement apologizing for the disruption, thanking them for their calmness, and saying they would be back on route shortly, once they changed tracks.
One of the guards on the screen nodded.
Maria looked for the light of the protesters yet their band had disappeared, leaving only the tracks splitting away from each other. The freedom of that open darkness would be so much preferable to this cramped dimness.
The train came to rest, and she swayed, momentarily off balance. She walked purposely to the door that led to the passenger car. In his seat next to the door, Coulter had slumped down, his head bent and to the side at a painful angle.
“Stay where you are.”
The conductor was backlit by the glow of the console. The driver bent beside him as he repeatedly activated the same switch, his gaze focused on a schematic showing on a single screen. The view of the fields showed nothing but darkness in all directions.
“I was going back to my seat.”
He shook his head and pointed to her frozen image on the screen, deftly touching it so the writing grew larger.
“Maria Kowalski. Special Operations Task Force.”
He smiled.
“Current status—Absent without leave.”
Tiny pricks of cold spread over her shoulders. The glare of the screens hurt her eyes.
“I’m on special assignment.”
He laughed.
“First, you got off the train, then you subdue the crazy guy, and then come into the driver’s cab. And the whole time you’re AWOL?”
“I am no danger to this mission.”
“That I agree with.”
The train stopped, the headlight shining on a bare forest to the left, open darkness to the right.
“The switch isn’t responding.”
The conductor’s face hardened in irritation. His second in command’s bursts of typing were the only movement in the room.
“Can you reset it?”
The man pressed buttons, changed the camera angles and shook his head.
“It’s an old model that hasn’t been upgraded.”
The conductor leaned into the screen and Maria looked at the security screen. The guards held the guns in low ready mode. Two large cube containers, twice their height, towered over them. On the closest one was the unmistakeable open hands symbol of the Gatherer.
A moment of incomprehension at the size of the crates. None of the Gatherers she had seen had even come close to that size and hadn’t needed armed protection. She tried to look closer but there were only the upturned hands stamped on the outside. Agitation rippled across her nerves as her body shifted to high gear, aware of every detail and movement in the small room and on that screen. What the hell was the military doing with two oversized Gatherers? She dragged her gaze from the screen before the conductor remembered her.
“Sit down. And don’t move.”
Maria took her seat next to the foul smelling Coulter, cataloguing the information she had gathered on her way back to her seat. The door to the rest of the train lay behind her; the door she had entered through that led directly outside had a multi-stepped opening process.
The seat was hard against her back, the air in the room hot and stuffy, and she felt as if she were inside the barrel of a gun about to be fired into oblivion. The streamlined train clicked and shifted around her, uneasy at rest, the energy of the batteries that powered it flowing through the entire line of cars, searching for a way out.
Coulter was slumped in the corner. She had always marveled at and hated people like him. Serene when someone else was in charge.
The driver typed fast on his keyboard, interrupting the flurry to change viewpoints and consult an on-screen procedural manual. After several minutes of dreadful quiet, the conductor turned only half away from her as the driver straightened and lifted his hands from the keys.
“It’s not responding. We’ll have to do it manually.”
Maria remained absolutely still, pushing back into her seat and making herself as small as possible.
The conductor put on a heavy parka, checked his gun in his holster and rewatched the video on the screen that showed a relaxed engineer demonstrating how to manually change a switch on a bright sunny day. His brow was furrowed and a lethal darkness had descended across his features. She dropped her shoulders and tucked in her legs as the conductor made a final check with the driver.
“Do you want one of the guys from the back?”
The man’s gaze shifted to Maria, checking how much she knew. Maria maintained a neutral gaze out the window, on the web of bare branches highlighted in the headlight.
The two men lowered their voices. The camera views showed a sparse forest that offered little cover and an open, wilted field that offered even less.
The conductor moved to the outside door, passing close enough she could have grabbed his hand. She was about to release her breath, when strong, rough fingers grabbed her wrist, cool metal clicked around it, and the conductor clipped the other handcuff around Coulter’s.
“I’m not that stupid.”
His stale breath was warm on her cheek.
“I didn’t think you were.”
Cold air flowed over her as the door opened and the conductor passed through, only to have the hot air return fast and close when the door slammed behind him.
“Coulter!”
The driver had returned to his screens, his back turned.
She pushed Coulter’s shoulder. His head fell forward, his weigh
t pulling on her wrist where they were attached. He would have fallen forward off their bench if they weren’t handcuffed together. She grabbed his shoulder with her free hand and shoved him upright. She had to strain to hold him straight.
Bile rose in her throat as she pressed her fingers into Coulter’s greasy neck. His hand followed hers.
“All clear.”
The driver spoke into the walkie-talkie.
She sat back, trying to get distance from the lifeless body, and it came with her, its weight continuing to follow where it was led. She forced herself to breathe and not panic. She had seen dead bodies before, it wasn’t going to hurt her.
“Hey!”
The driver hunched over his screens. The conductor stood on one of the screens, gray and grainy bent over a low metal box. He looked repeatedly from side to side.
She yelled again.
He glared at her and turned back to his screens.
“Can you unlock this?”
She held up her handcuffed wrist and Coulter’s. The smell of Coulter was intensifying, his gases oozing out through his skin.
“This guy is dead.”
The man’s mouth had dropped open when he turned this time, a decidedly unmilitary expression. The conductor reached his hand into the metal box and Maria took the opportunity to scream.
“Get him off!”
She pushed at the dead man’s chest and tried to pull her wrist through the handcuff. The metal scraped open her skin and she pulled harder.
“Shut up!”
He had his back to her, focussed on the screen as the conductor gave a thumbs up.
“Help me!”
She stumbled towards him, dragging the body with her. Coulter’s boots scraped along the floor. The driver typed a few more keys and pressed a button on the console. The conductor started closing up the box.
“Okay, okay.”
He reached for his chain of keys, hardly even glancing at Coulter.
“Give me a second.”
Maria sniffled and gulped as he turned the key in its lock, lifting her hand to strike him in the throat as the handcuff fell. He stumbled backwards onto the console, unable to breathe. She scooped up the handcuff and followed. He lifted his arm to protect himself, but he was a controller, not a soldier, and she had him handcuffed to the rail along the wall before the conductor had finished closing the box. She slipped his key ring into her pocket as she strode to the exterior door and slid the bolt into place, a lock strong enough to stop an armed attacker.
The Gatherer Series, Book 1 Page 3