Fire Fury Freedom

by Amanda Rose

  “Heave… huff… pant…” they were exhausted by the time they finally caught up. Yu-Lee was just about to try and get in when she found herself rather disoriented. She gasped, and the train whistled again. It took her a moment to settle down and recognise why her feet were no longer touching the ground. Mack had whisked her up into his arms, and just as she comprehended this, she found herself in mid-air being thrown into the caboose. Thump! She hit the baseboard hard. She winced, and Mei helped get her out of the way.

  Mack was falling behind slightly as the train continued picking up speed, but he was determined to make it regardless of the odds. Then he fazed out; he didn’t remember it very well afterwards. Somehow his legs went even faster, a fall would have sent him brutally skidding through the snow. Suako could barely believe just how fast he was going. It seemed surreal as they watched; he caught up and grabbed the metal bar of the door with one arm and reached for Kato to help him in with the other. They managed to get him in just before they entered then tunnel. Wham! They slammed the door shut, and the darkness encompassed them all.

  Mack’s eyes were blazing with intensity as the adrenaline coursed through his veins. He felt like he’d just woken up from a dream. He stood there shaking, and he couldn’t stabilise himself, his legs quivered. When Kato released his hold on Mack he nearly tumbled over. Kato grabbed him again to keep him from falling. Mack’s breaths were deep, and heavy. “Are you ok?” Jenko asked. Mack blinked speechlessly. A moment later he gathered his thoughts, and his breath, enough for him to speak, “I’m fine.” The much-delayed answer came in a vague tone. They sat him down. Mack then couldn’t help but laugh. The adrenaline had wiped his mind for a moment, and he found it extremely humorous at the time. He was an inch away from captivity, and he found that funny too. Everyone knew he was fine.

  Masumi had found a lamp, which she’d lit just before they went into the pitch-black tunnel. The light was dim, but at least they could see. Small vents to either side of the train let in the now potent scent of the burning coal. Minor amounts of the smoke came in threw the vent; the smell was sickening, and made them all feel light-headed and dizzy.

  The cab was nearly full of crates, so the amount of room left was uncomfortable to suit nine people. Needless to say, it wasn’t as if they’d had an option upgrading to first class seats, or even coach for that matter. It was chilly at first, but they were so close together that their body heat soon made the entire cabin quite warm. Mei, Suako and Jenko ravaged through the crates. They had been empty so far, but they kept looking.

  “Well, we be home free,” Kato grinned, “S’all thanks t’ you boss,” he patted Mack on the back, “smooth sailin’ from ‘ere till Tomakomai.” Mack nodded at Kato, “Thanks Kato,” he said between his uncontrollable chuckles that were just then dissolving. Leaning against crates or walls, most of them sank down to the hard floor to rest.

  There was a constant rattle, as the treasure hunters went through the crates. One by one empty boxes were thrown aside. Yu-Lee had to lean slightly to one side or the other as she sat, trying to get comfortable, for she’d bruised her tailbone when she’d landed. The thrashing Yu-Lee had withstood had left her sore all over, and all she wanted was to rest. Jenko was frustrated with not finding anything in the crates yet, so he tossed one last crate aside and then went to sit with Yu-Lee. He took off his vest and gave it to her to sit on; her sore rump was more then grateful.

  Slowly Yu-Lee was drifting off with her head comfortably situated on Jenko’s shoulder, when suddenly, “Jackpot!” Mei bellowed out of the blue. An indiscreet noisy rumble of several crates crashing to the floor followed her impulsive disruption. Yu-Lee just about jumped out of her skin. She was finally agitated enough that she had to restrain herself from yelling apprehensively at Mei. Fump! A heavy carton hit the only clear space on the crowded floor. Goosebumps lifted on Yu-Lee’s skin, and her eye began to twitch.

  “Look everyone. They’re a few bags of stuff… Let’s see, what do we have?” Mei squinted her eyes to try and read the already poorly written labels of stitched bags in the dimly lit cart. “Figs, dried apricots… pecans, cashews and… raisins,” she placed the five bags down. “Guess the Imperial army fighters think they’re too good for dried fruit n’ nuts,” Mack coherently laughed. Yu-Lee, now to antsy to sleep, snatched the figs and greedily ate them.

  The natural sugars gave them a boost; compact nutrients gave them much needed energy and strength. They munched away happily as they settled in for the night. The dull drone of the wheels on the rails became strangely soothing. Though it was still rather early, the day had been long, and huddled together, they slept soundly.

  Vince found himself the first to wake the following day. He pondered over the time, and he wondered if it was still night. There was no way to tell, though he still felt tired. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes and groaned. Vince looked around to see that everyone else was still sleeping like babies. Suako had been using his leg as a pillow, so he tried his best not to disturb her as he loosened his coat and scoured through his pockets. He wiggled his journal free, and pulled it out.

  “Dear Journal,

  We’re on our way to the Imperial Capitol City of Tomakomai. We’ve snuck aboard a train. It’s travelling beneath the earth in some man-made tunnel. Since we’re underground I can’t even tell what time it is. It’s probably the middle of the night, everyone else is still sleeping. The exhaust fumes from the coal they’re are eking in here are giving me a nasty headache.

  Food has been hard to come by. We found a few half-eaten bags of some nuts and dried fruit, they should last us until we get to Tomakomai. I don’t know what to expect when we get there. I’ve built it up I my mind to be some extraordinarily grandiose place. I suppose time will tell.

  This trip has proven to be much more then I have ever thought it would be. I have seen things that no one could ever fathom… I have to stop and ask myself sometimes if they actually ever happened. Then I look at Suako, or one of the others, and see the same questions in their eyes and I know it was true because they saw it too. I wonder if anyone will ever believe that the stories we’ll have to share aren’t just fabricated delusions?

  The power that this planet, no, that life in general, wields, makes me wonder what else can be done by the hand of man? It also makes me worry, what if the C.D.F.P. learned how to use it? The life force of the Universe is open to everyone Yu-Lee has told me, because everyone is part of it. If they learned how to gather the energy I can only imagine the terrible things they would try and do with it. Their greed exceeds that of anyone, or any other group, that I’ve ever known. It brings extreme disgust to me.

  I’m sorry for my vagueness leading up to this. I am still in a bit of shock over it. I’m not sure if it’s over the act itself, or the one who did it. Mack saved us from a storm. Yes, I know that ‘wow whoop-de-do, what’s so incredible about that’ is the reaction to that right? Well than listen to how he did it and you’ll know why. …

  …And so now we’re here. My hands are cold, but other than that everything is fine. Suako’s sleeping with her head on my leg. She looks like an angle. I have to wonder about her poor mind sometimes though. She’s been through so much sorrow. I suppose we all have endured some kind of torture from The Company, but… none so literally ‘tortured’ as Suako.” Vince put his pen down and brushed some hair free from her warm pink cheek. His expression was grim- eyes lost in disillusion. He pulled back his hand and picked up his pen again.

  “I have to wonder what some of the injections they had forcefully given her did. Her emotional stability is as rickety as a picket fence. One moment she’s fine, the next her eyes are empty and she distances herself from everyone… She also sometimes seems like she forgets everything that the C.D.F.P. did to her, but she may have blocked out those images as a sort of self-defence mechanism, an overly happy naive artificial personality takes over her. In fact, it wasn’t until after I saw her in Okagwa that she first dropped down that shield. It was lik
e meeting her for the very first time then. I can’t explain it...

  Another thing… I’ve been reluctant to mention it. I guess once it written it becomes more of a reality for me. Suako has always seemed to have a low immune system in some regards. Ever since I first knew her she’s had a deep growl of a cough. It’s become worse lately. Also, random fainting spells, not severe, but still, they… they scare me. …

  …Kairu is looking more and more like a leader everyday. He has grown inside. And I suppose that’s all there is to report up until this point.

  Sincerely,

  Vince.”

  Vince stuck his pen in a nook by the spine of the journal. He then closed the book and tucked it back away in his jacket pocket. The callus on his middle finger was beginning to ache from the pen having had pressed against it. It throbbed deeply as if the pain was coming from the bone, he attempted to settle it by rubbing it with his thumb, but it only made it worse.

  Vince’s lower back had a gap between it and the wall, and his spine felt as if tiny needles had been placed in it. An annoying twinge became agonisingly present at the slightest movement. He was tired, but his pains refused him rest, so he sat there miserably caught in transit.

  Suako flinched and startled him. Her sleep was violent, and Vince could only imagine what taunted her in her sleep, though he didn’t even want to try to picture it; he felt helpless when it came to aiding her. Indecipherable babble conjured between her slurring lips, then more flinching, and what Vince made out to be, punches and kicks of struggle. Whatever she fought against in her troubled mind, her efforts seemed to be futile against them. A dark unsettling feeling swept over Vince, he couldn’t pin point why, but it was there.

  Closing his eyes Vince prayed for sleep, but the harder he tried the more he failed. Coaxing himself to sleep was as beneficial towards falling asleep as trying to recite a sonnet, it simply didn’t work. His body was jiggling from side to side as the bounding transport wobbled about. Like a zombie, he just sat there in a vexatious mind frame. It got to the point where tired urges led to making him quite pissed off at circumstance.

  I’m so tired. God damned train, stop shaking! … My back is fucking killing me. When will this be over? Not soon enough. You can say that again...Why can’t I just sleep? Maybe if you stop talking to yourself it would help. Then shut up. Shut up! Shut up! Urgh! This isn’t working… And what the hell is that freaking hissing!

  His cranium-concealed banter was starting to drive him slightly wonky. He rubbed his temples, but the pressure of his fingers increased as his headache persisted. The hissing sound wasn’t helping, in fact, it was getting louder. He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t care, he only wanted it to go away. He was tensing up as a bitter irritation, pent up within, grew. Vince just wanted some peace for his overactive psychological state.

  Hiss! It just kept coming. Vince was about to erupt but found that his mind was suddenly whisked free of all prior concern as a new situation presented itself. Sudden circumstances called for his immediate attention. He was at full alert.

  There was a noise-drowning suction sound that was followed by an ear wrenching squeal. Vince held his hands over his ears, and everyone else came to life at that point. The tunnel was being torn up from above them. Vince could hardly believe his eyes, snow dumped in threw the newly forming holes. A red light began to flash inside the cabin.

  Everyone was in a bit of a panic. It was unreal; they could see up through the vent past the sheer veil of falling snow to a star shinning between the newly forming clouds above. Something was very wrong. The hissing and squealing took over all thought. Vince jumped when Suako reached up to squeeze his hand. He looked at her for a second then back up through the vent. It was hard to make out much between the metal bars. The train was speeding up. Mack tried to stand up, and he could feel the intense pull on him to fall backward at the speed they were going. The others followed step to get up onto their feet.

  “What’s going on?” Masumi yelled over the overpowering strength of the hiss. “I don’t know!” Kairu yelled back. They stabilised on each other to keep from falling over, it was petrifying. Gusting wind-flow surged inward and began to ravage the cabin mercilessly. Crates toppled over, and hair blocked eyes; the glow of red stained everything in its tinge.

  Mack climbed over the crates and pulled himself up to the vent shaft. His eyes dried out from the wind blowing into them, his eyelids batted up and down to try and keep the moisture in. He peered out through the slant of an open left eye. They drove threw an enormous forced opening, and then, he saw them.

  Pillars of wind circling round and round reached up from the ground all the way to the hazy grey sky above. He could actually see the wind, that once invisible force held sustenance now. Snow flew in at his face temporarily stunning him. He quickly whipped it away. Between the breaks in the tunnel he watched the tornadoes as they wrecked the land. they brought destruction to everything in their path, eating up objects and then spitting them back out with tremendous force.

  The devastation they were causing was immense. The odd tree, that stood amongst the nearly uninterrupted stretch of snowy fields, was uprooted ruthlessly. Mack watched as it plucked one up and took it for a spin. He wondered what could cause these twisters, and then he thought of the C.D.F.P. and the global warming process a scientist once told him about…

  “You see Mack, the pollution emitted from burning coal produces a gas called ‘carbon dioxide’. This gas rises up, and then gets trapped in the atmosphere. It works the same way as that greenhouse I showed you earlier, it traps heat. So, when it’s sunny, it captures the heat and takes longer to part with it then clean air… Hmm? The effects you ask? Well, from my observation it manipulates weather patterns. It may induce some severe uncommon weather, but only time will tell. It also has been the cause of our deteriorating oxygen…”

  Mack remembered his words well. The man had been in a lab accident, a chemical fire, just two weeks later, with all his research destroyed by the flames. Mack now wondered if there had really been an accident. Mack cursed the Company. He returned his attention back to the ‘severe uncommon weather’ in front of him. It was sweet justice that these twisters would come at the toxic gas producing train; it just happened to be bad luck that they were on it at that specific time.

  Mack’s attention was on that single tree that had been taken up into the funnel. He watched as three of the twisters tossed it between them. Then snow flew into his eyes again, and Mack wiped it away with his forearm. Looking back out with a wet face he tried to find the tree with his eyes again, but he didn’t see it, until it was too late…

  There was no time to move. Mack’s eyes bulged, and then it came! Slamming against the train with it’s side, it rumbled the entire cart. Sharp thin branches with their still intact twigs shoved their way in threw the vent slates, and one of them pierced Mack’s left eye. Mack let out a ghastly sound that they could hear even over the howling storm winds. He fell backward lifting his hands up to cover his bloody eye. Jenko crawled over to Mack.

  Then train was speeding up even more, trying to outrun the whirlwinds hailing from the heavens. The twisters screamed, and the high-pitched shrieking deafened listeners. “Stay away from the vents!” Vince yelled after catching his first glimpse of Mack. His voice was a blur, if it was heard at all by anyone. Blood poured out from under his cupped hand, red tears Vince thought, then shuttered and held Suako tighter.

  The bolts holding the roof down started to creak; they sound of the screeching metal tearing away above now had competition. The thin roof began to wriggle itself free. Ping! A bolt flew loosely away. “What’s happening?!” Masumi screamed in utter terror. Kairu threw her to the floor and flung himself on top of her as a human shield. “It’ll be ok!” he called out. Tears streamlined down her pale cheeks.

  Ping! Ping! More bolts came loose and left with the velocity of a bullet. One from the bolts, from the front of the cart, came free and pierced through the metal w
all into the back corner of their cabin, sparkled in the red light and then, Ping! Ping! Exited out the other side. Yu-Lee ducked down with her hands over her head for protection.

  The wobbling of the metal sheet above their heads did so with distinctive sound. It looked like it fought to stay attached to the cabin, but the twister fought back, and it didn’t play fair. It savagely pulled at the metal roofing, and as the metal sheeting lifted up and down it let in waves of blustery snow. The battle raged on for several minutes, the roof was not going to give in so easily. One of the train carts behind them was lifted up off the tracks, and carried off, long before their roof would even consider defeat; triumphantly it seemed to hold on.

  One frustrated blow finally uprooted it and it flew off. The lamp flew off the crate it had been perched on, and crashed, throwing glass shards down like rain over Kato and Mei. The glass tore at their coats, which they’d thrown over themselves just before the shit had hit the fan. Crates flew up and out, twirling as they did. A few of their packs nearly flew away but Yu-Lee pounced on them before they got away.

  Windburn dulled the senses of the perceptive skin. Only the crackling of dried skin brought forth any source of sensation, and that even went easily unnoticed. Pounding dreadful nippy flashes of wind gusts made the epidermis tingle, until eventually turning it numb.

  The stoplight red was no longer contained inside the cramped space. Each of them tried to find something to hold on to. Looking up they could see straight up to blue skies; they were directly in the eye of the storm! To the sides wind circled around the calm centre, it seemed very odd. Suako and Vince looked up eagerly with enriched hearts. Most of the others hadn’t caught the view, determined to cover themselves from any free-falling dangers that may find their way into the open caboose.