Fantastic Trains

by Neil Enock

  “How were we able to see Raymond today?” her mom asked.

  “Patreon particles. From the ship’s exploded light drive,” Curly said. “For the last ten years I’ve been collecting them on the surface and augmenting them with the planet’s natural Matreon particles. That’s what’s in the emitter Sarah has.”

  “But that makes a Faster-Than-Light drive!” her dad said. “You put an FTL drive on my daughter’s arm?”

  “Dad, it would need a lot more to be an FTL drive,” she said.

  “Sarah’s right,” Curly said. “The emitter simply exposes the particles to each other, and the resultant excitation makes things visible to Raymond. We’ll need a much bigger event to bring him back.”

  “Bring him back?” her dad asked incredulously.

  “Phase three.” Curly smiled happily at Sarah. “Bring my brother home.”

  —— «» ——

  Sarah’s parents had always been stubborn, ‘go with the flow’ types, so they amazed her when they agreed to support Curly in his efforts to bring back his brother. They petitioned the council for assistance, citing Curly’s years of data collection, the recent photo of Raymond, and Sarah’s experience of finding the boy on the train.

  The council shocked them when all but two of the councilors voted to let them attempt proper communication with Raymond and cleared the way for them to use the train under the Zone for up to one hour at a time, as necessary.

  The two naysayers on the council rode along on the first few trips where Curly and Sarah used whiteboards to schedule times with Raymond for communications. As soon as they saw the boy on the train was real and communicating back, the council vote became unanimous.

  —— «» ——

  “Why did they have to announce what we’re doing?” Curly grumbled as they pushed their way through the crowd to the train a few weeks later.

  “It’s in the constitution,” Sarah reminded him. “Unanimous votes have to be publicized.”

  “Bah! They’ll look good if they help bring someone from the Crisis back,” Curly said. “That’s all they care about.”

  Sarah shrugged. “Either way, they’re letting you do it.”

  “Us,” he said. “This couldn’t have happened without you — and your parents.”

  She smiled as they boarded the train. It wasn’t long until Raymond was reading the whiteboard that explained their thoughts on the anomaly he was trapped in. He shook his head, and put his hands one over the other, as if there was an invisible ball between them, and rotated the ball 180 degrees.

  “What’s he trying to say?” Curly asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sarah said. “Something is turned around?”

  Raymond began writing a complex formula on his own whiteboard. He vanished before he could complete it.

  Back at the lab, they studied a video of the exchange.

  “It’s impossible to tell what he thinks is turned around,” her dad said. “This is the first time you showed him our thoughts on the anomaly?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “We wanted to give him context for what we are doing.”

  “Speaking of what we are doing,” Curly said, changing the subject, “we haven’t discussed how we are going to get enough Patreon particles to make this work.”

  Sarah smiled. Her mother got up and opened the frosted glass door of the cabinet that housed Sarah’s samples. “Sarah’s Interstellar Comm Array experiment had her collecting samples with high Patreon concentrations for months,” she told Curly. “Based on your calculations, we should have far more than we need.”

  Curly looked at Sarah, then at the samples, then back again. “When did you start to see Raymond?”

  “When I started to come in later in the mornings,” she said. “I needed to collect the samples in daylight.”

  “That’s why you could see him when no one else could.” Curly slapped his forehead. “You were saturated with Patreon particles!” He looked down at the plans laid out in front of him. “This really is going to work!”

  “This confirms your ‘phase three’ theory?” asked Sarah.

  Curly nodded. “Now we just have to build it.”

  —— «» ——

  Over the next two months Curly, Sarah and her parents worked tirelessly to develop and build the phase three device.

  Time passed quickly and before long the day that the council had decided to call Re-Union Day had arrived.

  “It looks like everyone in the colony is here,” Sarah said as they made their way through the throngs gathered outside the First Landing Station.

  “It stands to be a rather significant day,” her dad said.

  “Let us hope so,” her mother added.

  “Bloody crowds,” Curly muttered. But he was smiling.

  Accompanied by the encouraging cheers of the crowd they eventually pushed their way through to the train, which had been reserved especially for the entire day. Selected Council officials, a medical team and the colony news crew were already on board. The news crew had set up remote cameras in Car 47, ready to livestream the event to the entire colony.

  “What a circus!” Curly said as the door closed behind him.

  “Let’s get to work,” Sarah said as she rolled forward the emitter array. It consisted of three circular metal hoops with pods for the Patreon packs, Matreon exciters and a separate EM ring for focusing the energy.

  “Five minutes,” her mother called out.

  “All ready,” her father said as he checked the console.

  “Power on!” Curly instructed.

  The indicators glowed and the emitters began to hum as they came up to temperature. The needles on the dials jumped up, wavered and then settled down to normal.

  “Okay.”

  Sarah caught Curly’s eye and gave him an encouraging smile. Her mother gave the signal, and the train started moving. “Here we go,” she said.

  They rode in silence as they approached the Zone. Sarah tensed as she heard the squeal of steel on steel. It was time. “Ready…”

  The lights flickered. “Patreon injection … now!” Curly hit the switch.

  Space within the emitter array seemed to distort, shimmer, and settle into a flat field as Raymond appeared on the other side. There was no time for contemplation. Careful to avoid touching the field, Sarah extended a handwritten note toward and then into the shimmering field. Raymond reached forward as it emerged on his side … and took it from her!

  “It works!” Sarah cried, surprise and delight in her voice.

  Smiling, Raymond pushed the note that he had prepared into the portal. But, as the edges of his note touched the field, it disintegrated and vanished!

  “What happened?” Curly said.

  “I don’t know—” Sarah began hopelessly.

  Sparks flew from the emitters, and the train shuddered, just enough to throw Sarah off balance. Instinctively she reached out to steady herself, but her hand went straight into the field. Her mother screamed as Raymond lunged forward, grabbed Sarah’s hand before she could pull it back and — pulled her through the portal.

  The lights flickered and they were both gone.

  —— «» ——

  “What have you done?” Sarah yelled as Raymond caught her and steadied her from falling.

  “I couldn’t let you pull back,” he apologized. “That would have cost you an arm, or more.”

  “But where…” she trailed off as she looked around. The moving train car they were in looked nothing like Car 47. It had the shape of the train car, but it had been outfitted like a lab, and they were standing inside a sphere of glowing emitters right in the middle of it all.

  “Where are we?” he finished for her. “Can I let go?”

  She realized she was still hanging on to him and nodded. “We were supposed to bring you back.”r />
  “Please don’t move!” he cautioned, letting her go. Moments later the lights on the emitters clicked off and the train car began to slow.

  “It’s safe now,” he said. “Come and see.”

  He moved to a control panel and clicked a couple of buttons. She took in the racks of equipment as the train car began moving again, this time in the opposite direction. From behind her, a shaft of sunlight lit up the interior as the window shutters retracted.

  She spun and looked out over the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. Crystal lakes dotted lush greenery. People strolled along paths that connected lakeside villas. The paths led to a sprawling, modern city off in the distance. It seemed like they must be in a crater, as the city rose up from the lush floor and climbed up the walls to where tall stone spires seemed woven between the tallest buildings. Off in the distance, one spire was much too symmetrical to be stone. She gasped as she recognized the forward cone of a colony lightship!

  “Welcome to First Landing,” he said.

  “What?”

  He pointed out the window. “This … is First Landing.” He watched her intently.

  Her mind reeled.

  “But. I live in First Landing.”

  “Yes, you do,” Raymond said. “I’m Ray.”

  “Sarah,” she said. “Pleased to meet you … in person. You’re Curly’s twin brother.”

  “Hmm,” he said. The train slowly came to a halt. A sensor dinged and the train door automatically opened. “Come with me.”

  They left the train and instead of a train station, they emerged into a series of labs. As they walked by each lab, people stopped what they were doing and stared at them, at her. He ignored them all, leading her to a glassed-in café, then out the door onto a patio where they could look back at the facility.

  He pointed along the crater wall. A long thin building attached to the lab circled the crater wall for about a fifth of its circumference.

  “The train line?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Let me try and explain. Maybe we should sit?”

  “This can’t be First Landing.”

  “Well,” he started carefully, “many years ago, the second lightship to arrive had a drive failure on landing and exploded directly over First Landing, which created the crater we are in now.”

  “The Crisis, yes … but First Landing is fine,” Sarah protested. “And the ship was to land at the new spaceport, not First Landing.”

  “True. But it ended up here, where it exploded. First Landing was vaporized … or so we thought.”

  “But—”

  “Maybe its best I get through this all, then you can ask questions after?”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Everything was gone right up to the train tunnel and part of the train. The tunnel and remaining train were found in the crater wall here. As it was being rebuilt, people started seeing what they called ‘ghosts’ of their missing relatives in one train car. Everyone dismissed it, except one person, who realized that you were seeing us as well.”

  “You?” Sarah said.

  “No,” he said. “But I’ll get to that. For years it was assumed to be a ghost story, but after a while, the appearances became regular, almost scheduled. We think it was just luck that the train times coincided. Eventually it was thought that you were all trapped in an anomaly and an effort was mounted to coordinate an attempt to bring you back.

  “Just as things were getting started on that effort, part of the crater wall collapsed, taking out a portion of the tunnel as well. It took about twenty-five years to rally the effort and expense of trying to rebuild the line. Eventually this facility was built and the track restored. But, although we could see you, people from your side couldn’t see us any longer. Until you came along.” He smiled.

  “I was exposed to Patreon particles that came from the exploded light drive,” she said. “Curly said that’s why you could see me.”

  “That makes perfect sense,” he said. “That’s the missing piece!”

  He smiled happily, but then looked at her apprehensively.

  “There’s more?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He smiled again. “My name is Ray. Raymond is my grandfather.”

  “Impossible!” Sarah scoffed. “Curly is only forty-one years old.”

  “How long since the Explosion?” he asked her.

  “Twenty-five years, of course,” she said.

  “Sixty years. By our measure,” he explained. “We noticed the effect even before the crater collapsed. The timing difference was measurable. It may even be why the crater wall collapsed. That’s why the train was separated from the mainline and put in a controlled environment. It’s why we have the dilation bubble set up in the train car.”

  “And that’s why we couldn’t see anything behind you in our Car 47,” she said. “Because of the dilation bubble.”

  “And why we couldn’t build a portal from this side,” he said. “Until now.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Your exposure to the Patreon radiation and the fact that we, um, safely moved you through the portal. We’ll need a bit more time, but we have everything we need to build a portal that will work both ways now.”

  “I can go home!” she said, happy tears spilling down her cheeks.

  “Or,” he smiled, brushing her tears away, “you can come home. And you can bring everyone home with you.”

  —— « o » ——

  Neil Enock

  Neil Enock has been called a modern day renaissance man. He is an author, actor, director, artist, singer, songwriter, screenwriter, filmmaker, inventor, and media presenter. He created and hosts “Train Talk TV” on iTunes, which has over a million viewers/listeners, and just completed his first televison pilot, SomeWhen – which Neil both wrote and produced. In addition to his many talents, Neil has a vast knowledge of trains (real, toy and imaginary) and a passion for storytelling.

  The Siren and the Switch

  by Christine Hanolsy

  The Train is in your blood, my mother would have said, if she had lived. She’d said it of my father often enough. She would curl up on their bunk in our cramped residence-coupé and stare out into the Undertow night after night until we pulled into the next Station. Envara to Andalus Minor via Kazimir — that was our route, the only route I have ever traveled. Even through the Undertow it takes three months to traverse the Spur end to end. I celebrated my twelfth birthday halfway between Andalus and Kazimir and my thirteenth on-station at Envara. My mother braided ribbons into my heavy black hair.

  Some people, I know, live their entire lives groundside, or on the concourses and resupply hubs between planets. Stationary lives, we say, smiling at our own pun to cover up disdain. My mother was born on Remera Segunda, just one stop beyond Envara on the Orion-Cygnus line. She never loved the Train, but she had loved my father. Me, I can’t imagine staying in one place, can’t fathom waking up day after day with the same landscape on my doorstep. On Remera Segunda, my mother said, one could walk for weeks and never leave the grain fields nor come out from the shadow of the mountain.

  The Train is in your blood, she would have said, and my father would have agreed. Home is the space in between Stations, the motion of the Train, the ever-changing landscape of the Undertow. I was a born Engineer, like him.

  Sometimes, when I was small, my father would take me with him to the control car. I would sit on his knee and watch the dials and blinking lights.

  “Steady, girl,” he would caution when I reached for the levers. “Trust the Train. He knows the way.” And so I learned to sit, to watch and listen, to feel the hum and sway of the engine and hear the faint hiss of the mags against the force-rails. Groundside trains are different, I’ve heard. They clack and clatter, squeal and groan from city to city, shackled by gravity and friction and o
ther limitations of subsonic speed. Union Galactic Trains are nearly silent, unless you know what to listen for.

  And outside, between Stations, there is the Undertow.

  They say the Undertow is like an ocean, though I have never seen the sea, only this infinite expanse above or below or overlaying the space between the stars, separated from our own reality by a barrier both impermeable and fragile. It shifts and seethes; it swallows. It is non-traversable by ship or shuttle or any other means that requires set coordinates, bearings and lines of position. One might as well fix one’s nav-system on a stick floating on the waves. Countless ships had been lost before the force-rails were invented. And now Trains crisscross the Undertow from Station to Station on routes opened and fixed generations ago by the Switchman’s Corps. We used to be explorers, we humans.

  —— «» ——

  I checked my timepiece. Even without it, I could tell by the pulse of the force-rails through the floor that my Train was waking up from his on-station nap. I say his, as my father did, though a Train is not alive. Trains don’t even have artificial intelligence. They’re just machines, vehicles. This particular Train was the property of Union Galactic, even though I called him mine.

  Affection and a familiar impatience settled in my belly and I bounced on my toes a little, waiting for the doors to slide open. Next stop: the resupply hub at EA-51, and then four more weeks along the Spur to Andalus Minor itself — the End of the Line, colloquially. There was nothing beyond, nothing we could reach, not without a Switch to open a new path and an Engineer to guide the Train. Nowadays, Union Galactic was not interested in expanding into the Arm. Nowadays, we stuck to the schedule.

  At least Andalus Minor had plenty to recommend it, including the best teahouse I had found along the Spur, where I’d met a girl with violet eyes and long, elegant fingers. I wondered if she was still there, if she would remember me after so much time or if she’d found a more permanent liaison. A hazard of the traveling life, I suppose. Not everyone was as lucky as my father.