Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine

by Dalton Wolf

  “Sure thing, Chief,” Boomer replied.

  “And everyone watch and listen for that other train,” Calvin added.

  “It is getting dark,” Hephaestus muttered, looking at the heavy clouds beginning to blot out the sun. “There is a handle that operates a light outside!” He called after Boomer. He turned to the others. “You can view the track on the monitor. Just as on the front, there is a camera outside so you do not have to look out a window. Nice, is it not?”

  “But someone has to be out there to shine the light…” Calvin pointed out. “Not good if we’re surrounded by zombies.”

  “That is not really a problem.” Hef turned his mic back off again. “Eventually he will realize the light can only be moved from inside.”

  Several of the others laughed, while Calvin simply shook his head in surrender.

  “This is a brilliant design, Hef,” Calvin admitted. “The depth of detail you go into for your contraptions borders on the idyllic. But we already knew you were a genius.”

  “This creation goes beyond genius,” he crowed above the growing engine noise. “She’s pure inspiration. I would break into song if this compartment were not already so noisy and were I not also sure Tripper would brain me.”

  No matter how hard he had tried, Hef couldn’t keep the engine room from sounding like an engine room. In reverse, it was worse for some unknown reason he promised himself to look into later. The drone of the engines drowned out half of what everyone said. He shook his head in slight disappointment. The electronic sound reducing layers he’d added to the walls had helped a lot but in the end, it was still a train, and two fifteen-hundred horsepower engines sent out a bit of a rumble.

  Backing all the way to the switch took longer than anticipated. Lucy and Hef double-checked each other on mirrored laptops and both had to sign off on a section of track or they each had to inspect it again. The train sat stopped three times when both wanted to inspect a section ahead…or behind as the case was.

  “You’re being entirely too careful, guys,” Tripper informed them casually. “I promise you, if the A-10s returned all we would see is a gaping hole where the track and surrounding hillside used to be.”

  Hephaestus, however, seemed to be looking for something other than damage. Every time Calvin was about to ask his friend what he was looking for, Boomer, Hef or Lucy would shout something and distract him. When the alarm went off to inform them that the location of the switch track was coming up, Hef shook his head in disappointment.

  “Ok. Do we have control of the switch?” he looked to Sarah for a nod, which she gave. “Are we clear up front?” he asked Athena, who sat at a duplicate monitor as the one he had before him.

  “Clear,” she called back.

  “Clear here,” he agreed.

  “Boomer?”

  “Clear,” Boomer responded over the headset, not sounding too upset at having spent fifteen minutes trying to move an immoveable light.

  Hef nodded to Sarah and she flipped the switch on the touch screen he had installed in the ‘dash’ of the big Engineer’s room.

  “Here we go,” he said simply, and the train rolled easily onto the new track and slowly sped up to their new safe cruising speed of fifteen mph.

  “Switch it back and lock it,” Calvin ordered. When Hef sent him a quizzical look he replied, “That other train is still back there. We don’t need that following us and causing problems. Though, it should have caught us as slow as we were moving.”

  “Nothing on the screen or the drone monitor, Scooter,” Lucy informed him.

  “They must have stopped or turned aside,” Calvin mused.

  “Or the Warthogs finished their mission,” Trip said with raised eyebrows.

  “Let’s hope not. We might need to come back through here some day.”

  “What do we do if this happens again?” the Captain asked Hephaestus.

  “It had better not,” Calvin shot her an angry glare.

  “I will have whoever is on the maps keeping track of alternate routes as we go,” Hephaestus suggested, with an eye on Calvin, who nodded in return.

  Hephaestus looked back to the captain. “Relax, Captain. It is not your fault. We are still in the big game. We have just had to change tactics after giving up a score.”

  “Who’s driving?” Calvin asked.

  “This is my bitch,” Lucy stated confidently.

  “Lucy is in the program,” Hef nodded. “She has operated similar programs before. I think we should give her first shift and she can show the others how it is done.”

  Calvin nodded agreement. It made sense. Lucy was the only one other than Hephaestus who had actually driven a train. She had worked in the accounting office of one of the railroads and had taken weekend shifts learning how to ‘yard dog’ and drive several different engines. Leaning over her shoulder and pointing to various buttons and screens, it only took Hef a few minutes to teach her the basics. And for his train, that is all anyone needs to know for now, he thought.

  “Look in the console there, Lucy,” Hef told her.

  She reached in and her eyes lit up. She pulled out a pink and blue striped, bedazzled Rail Conductor’s Cap.

  “I had that made for your birthday long ago, but you found a better job and quit the railways. Once I knew we would be taking this out of here, I hid it there for you.”

  “I would have loved it then, and it’s awesome now,” her eyes beamed. She reached up and hugged his neck and he took her in a great embrace and kissed her cheek. When he let her go, she shuffled back over to her console to keep an eye on the train.

  Calvin’s eyes were beginning to droop. Time for a nap. “Gus, Scaggs, Joel, Felicia, you’re on first watch since you’re already up there and had the last sleep cycle anyway. I need a nap,” Calvin smiled up at his friends sitting on the catwalk above. With a nod to Athena, he walked out of the engine room, followed by everyone except for Hephaestus, who eyed the monitor, and Sarah, who was securing their locks on the switches ahead.

  Lucy drove the Twilight Dragon from her darkened corner, watching everything from an invisible distance, her eyes always straying to rest fondly on Hephaestus, imagining his broad shoulders under the heavy chainmail jacket, remembering how good his firm embrace had felt, the intoxicating scent of his cologne. She couldn’t hear a thing from the other side of the compartment, but a cold chill filled her gut as she recognized a look on Hef’s face when he stared at the captain, and the way she returned that look.

  Captain Batmouche’ talked quietly to her people and they eventually faded out of the compartment as well, but the officer then sauntered over to where Hephaestus was locking covers over several compartments of machinery he had been monitoring.

  “There is something on your mind, Captain Batmouche’?” he asked casually.

  “You are always shaking your head when you look at me,” she said boldly, demanding a response.

  “Because you are always too intense; you must learn to loosen up.”

  “I have a job to do,” she explained without apology.

  “We all have a job to do now. That job is to stay alive and hopefully return and try to save the rest of my city.”

  “I…get that. I just want to get my mission done and return to the wall.”

  “You are getting the mission done in the fastest manner and with the highest percentage of success. What you do not like is that it happens to be civilians, a bunch of geeks no less, who are succeeding where you were about to fail.”

  “It is not that I don’t appreciate what your group has done. On the contrary, it’s very impressive. And I know I would still be back there as dinner for those things if not for your actions…”

  “But?” Hephaestus asked.

  “But I do not like so many things being out of my control,” she admitted with a bit of girlish petulance.

  “Some relationships are like that, Captain,” he replied with a big smile.

  She liked the way she felt when his big bright
teeth beckoned out of his dark face at her that way. “Wait. I’m sorry, what?” she asked, finally hearing what he had said. “Relationship, what, no I couldn’t. I’m, what?” she tittered.

  “I was simply stating that some relationships make you feel like everything is out of your control. You have to decide if what you are expecting to get out of the relationship is worth the negatives you will have to endure to achieve those goals.”

  “So beautiful and he’s got such a bleak view on relationships,” the captain said under her breath, but somehow he heard it over the rumbling diesels.

  “Not really,” he replied as if reading her mind.

  Shit, she thought, then remembered she was now wearing one of their mics and she’d never turned it off after testing. She hadn’t said it under her breath, but into the mic for everyone to hear. She’d said everything into the mic. Shit, her mind repeated angrily.

  “It is this way with all types of relationships,” he rolled on, ignoring her awkward moment as if he were oblivious to it. “All types,” he repeated. “Between people, between companies, and even between countries. If we can overlook the negatives in light of the beneficial things, then many agreements and arrangements can be made. If, however, the negatives cannot be overlooked, we must take time away and lessen communication until we can find a middle-ground again.”

  By the time he was finished she realized she was staring like a love-sick schoolgirl and straightened her uniform roughly. “Whatever. I was just saying…I’m feeling a little…”

  “Impotent,” Hef suggested.

  “That’s…not…the exact word I would use,” she spluttered. “I’m feeling very potent. I’m just uncomfortable letting others give orders to my people.”

  “Orders. Orders. Orders,” Hef breathed in mild annoyance. “Do you never take time off?”

  “I’m on a mission.” She stated flatly, blood rising to her cheeks as she picked up a certain, unmistakable vibe.

  “But the mission is on hold now for several additional hours,” he breathed smoothly, seeming to have halved the distance between their two bodies without her noticing. “I visualize you as a rum girl, am I right?” he raised an eyebrow.

  Pulse quickening, body tingling, she could only nod.

  “I have a very expensive bottle of spiced rum from Jamaica that you must try,” he suggested. “My shift here is over in ten minutes. Why not take a few minutes to check out of that uniform and meet me in my room?” he asked.

  “I…I don’t have anything to change into,” she mumbled meekly.

  He leaned in, warm breath whispering into her ear, sending shockwaves throughout her body. “That’s ok. I kind of like the uniform anyway. I’ll see you in ten,” he promised, shoving her lightly towards the door.

  She went. Another damn person telling her what to do and she went without a second thought. ‘Went’ in this case meant dashing through the cars at full throttle like a mad-woman and then stripping completely naked and diving into the shower before the door to her quarters had swung shut.

  All he did was ask you in for a drink, part of her mind cautioned her.

  And he can drink as much of me as he wants, another silent voice replied. Wait. What? What does that even mean? Like he’s a fucking vampire or something? Get your head out of your ass, Genevieve. Oh god that smooth skin. I want to cover him with honey and just lick him all over. Oh shit. I can’t go over there like this. She turned off the hot water and stood staring at a discolored beige tile on the white shower wall, breathing deeply the sweet fragrance of Jasmine and some other flowers from her conditioner.

  Just take it easy, she started to cool down a little. If it happens, it happens…

  Only a few minutes later she marched through the corridor in a fresh uniform someone had laid out for her while she was out earlier, whistling a tune her subconscious had made up while she was getting dressed, she called it If it Happens, It Happens and it had a very happy ending.

  Hef finished his shift and turned the helm over to Lucy. He didn’t notice the broken-hearted look of longing she directed at his back as he sauntered out. But with a well-practiced grimace, she shook her head to clear it and put her attention back to driving them to safety, misty dark eyes carefully monitoring the drone’s cameras despite the heavy blanket of sadness covering her heart.

  The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient, she repeated one of her favorite quotes. It seemed fitting somehow.

  Pitchforks, Torches and other Bad Decisions

  The passing of another four hours found Gus, Joel, Scaggs and Felicia still on watch, all unwilling to wake the others when they were still amped up and enjoying themselves. Scaggs now drove the train after Lucy had given up the controls to go to bed early, claiming she wasn’t feeling very well.

  “I have to plug the drone in so it will recharge,” Lucy explained as she shuffled out of the engine room looking as if she hadn’t slept in three days.

  “So we’re driving blind. Great. Oh! Thanks for teaching me how to drive a train!” Scaggs had called after her. Lucy waved weakly before disappearing down the padded steel corridor.

  Gus manned the left side gun-port across the room from Scaggs. The ‘garage car’ rear turret was unmanned for now because they had decided to let everyone sleep for a few more hours and manning it would have meant waking someone up. It would only take them another few hours to get to their destination and they were sure Calvin and the others would need their rest for the trek south to the castle after dropping the doctor off. There was a person on each of the engine turrets while Saul manned the sleeper car turret and Quinn covered the workshop air gun.

  “Gussy…Guster, we’ve got a problem,” Scaggs shot him a warning look from across the engine room, where she studied the computer screen that tracked their position on the rail system. The program showed every known track line and the condition of all switches. If there was a train on the system with the proper GPS transponder it would show a number, speed, destination and ETA information in a little popup window. Before leaving Hef had informed Lucy that their route was pretty straight and they would only pass a few switches. He had also told her that all of the switches were green and then had shown her how to switch them just in case there was a problem…and Lucy had passed that knowledge on to Scaggs before leaving. Scaggs knew computers, and she understood simple tasks like this, so when she’d seen the red indicator on their next switch, she had tried to change it to green just like Lucy had shown her. A little window had popped up saying ‘Priority Override’ instead of the nice information she’d been expecting.

  Problem, yes that’s a problem, she thought.

  “Don’t tell me, we ran out of track?” Gus joked.

  “Close enough. Someone switched the track on us and it’s locked out to manual.”

  “What? That’s impossible. Hef said his codes override everyone but the F.R.A. and some of the top bosses in the industry.” Still, he slowed the train to a greater crawl and walked over to her monitor.

  “Well, one of them knows we’re out here,” she grunted ominously.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they don’t want us going anywhere.”

  “Ah, they probably don’t even know the track is locked.”

  “I switched it back green, and it turned back off. We rinsed and repeated as necessary. Then they locked it to manual. We can’t switch from this laptop.”

  “The entire railroad?”

  “No, just that section up ahead for now. But if they can do it to one…” she didn’t have to finish the rest.

  “What’s going on?” Joel queried at just under a yell. He and Felicia had jumped down from the turrets and met in the middle, holding hands as they joined the others by the monitor.

  “Someone switched the tracks and locked us out.”

  “That’s impossible. Hef said—”

  “We know!” Scaggs and Gus yelled together.

  “Well we have to do something. It’s coming up in anoth
er half mile.”

  “Someone must have done it manually,” Gus offered. “If someone is at the actual switch, there are several overrides that lock out switching from a remote source. That’s the only way they’d be able to supersede his codes and keep him out.”

  The others stared at him in wide-eyed wonder.

  “Hey, Hef knows all of that stuff and he gets talkative when he’s high. I just remembered him telling me that someone on the ground can screw the whole thing if they’ve got the equipment and codes.”

  “Well, someone needs to go out and switch it back,” Scaggs suggested, looking at Gus with a query in an arched eyebrow.

  “Ok. Me and Scaggs will jump out and switch the track—” Gus began planning, but was interrupted.

  “—Hephaestus said to wake him if anything happens to slow or stop us,” Felicia warned them.

  “That man really needs his sleep,” Scaggs informed her. “He was talking to a wall for five minutes earlier before he realized Quinn had walked away.”

  “Yeah, I think I heard him hit on Captain Buttmunch earlier,” Joel added. “He clearly needs some rest.”

  “I don’t know,” Gus countered, “she’s not unattractive.” He looked to Scaggs for confirmation and she nodded.

  “Yeah, I’d fuck her,” she admitted.

  “Yeah, but she’s kind of an iron bitch,” Joel pointed out quietly, in case anyone was in the compartment next door. “And Hef is just so nice. I don’t see it.”

  “He was real emphatic about waking him up!” Felicia added in a very loud voice in case they simply couldn’t hear her.

  “Hef’s been going non-stop for a week, you guys. I’m not gonna wake him for something we can do ourselves,” Gus declared with a firm note of finality.

  “Well, he’s definitely earned his rest,” Felicia agreed tentatively, looking appreciatively up at her turret and running a hand fondly across the cushioned padding of the underside of the cupola seat. “We can cover you from the turrets, I guess.”

  If any of them had bothered to honor his wishes, they would have learned that Hephaestus was in his quarters doing quite the opposite of resting with the captain and both were enjoying it immensely. But no one thought on it again until the situation had already spiraled well out of control.