The Iron Road

Clack…clack…clack.

Fidget groaned, body aching and head splintering like someone shoved an icepick through the back of her skull. Rolling onto her back, she screwed her knuckles into her eyes, then stared at the dark ceiling, blinking. She focused on the rows of metal rivets above her, counting each one until the throbbing dulled and her eyes adjusted to the dimness.

Clack…clack…clack.

Metal surrounded her, darkened steel from floor to ceiling. Flipping over onto her stomach, Fidget pressed her ear to the floor and held her breath, heart pounding. The subtle jostling of the floor beneath her, the tell-tale clack of steel wheels gliding over iron tracks. All signs pointed to a reality she’d tried to avoid for years. Gut wrenching, Fidget leaped to her feet and spun a quick circle around the room. No windows, a single door, and a small hatch in the ceiling above that appeared welded shut.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Fidget paced the length of the small car and tried to deny her current circumstances. “What the hell happened?”

Biting her forefinger hard, Fidget swallowed down the waves of curses swelling on her tongue and stomped towards the single door. She pulled on the lever hard, yanked it left, then right, and screamed at it when it refused to budge. Trembling, she knelt and examined the lock- a TX-40. Shit. There’s no cracking that one.

Sinking to her bottom, Fidget pulled her knees close to her chest and leaned back against the door. She pressed her head onto her knees and tried to slow her frantic breathing. Think! Lose your shit and you lose your edge. Sorrow would be disappointed.

Sorrow. Where the hell had he gone? Pressing her hands against her temples, Fidget tried to squeeze the memories out of her brain. Her leg twitched chaotically, her anxiety levels punching through the roof and beyond. She remembered the meeting with Hatch and his gang, sitting in the back corner while Sorrow did all the talking. He always did the talking. He was good at it. Immaculate. A silver tongue to help the poison go down easier. No one liked to hear what Sorrow had to say, but somehow he made it sound good anyways, a bitter pill laced with sweet, sticky candy. Ever the charmer. The Faceless had no better enforcer, and she no better mentor.

Clack…clack…clack.

Fidget shook her head, then ducked it between her legs and locked her arms over the back of her neck, feet tapping restlessly. Something had gone wrong, though, hadn’t it? Sorrow’s usual tactics failed, cut short by Hatch’s notorious temper. The arms dealer got angry, furious at the audacity of the Faceless’ request. But no one in the Pits had better access to weapons than Hatch, and no one outside the Faceless possessed the real money and talent to use them. Despite Sorrow’s charm, Hatch’s men held tight to their rifles, fingers itching for the trigger. But shit hadn’t hit the fan until things went sideways outside of Hatch’s club. She remembered shouting, gunfire, then the lights went out and…nothing. That was that.

“Shit.”

Fidget sat upright and gently thumped her head against the door, eyes squeezed shut. This shouldn’t be happening. How could it be happening? They’d always been so careful, so cautious. And now? Well, now it didn’t matter anymore, did it?

Clack…clack…clack.

A heavy thunk boomed from inside the door, the gargantuan latch sliding free. Fidget scrambled out of the way as the heavy door careened open, catching her hip as it swung wide. She rolled with it, getting her feet back under her, and crouched down, ready for whatever walked through the door.

A ferret-faced man, skinny as a rake and dark hair hanging in oily strands to his shoulders, stared at her, bewildered. His jaw hung loose for a moment, ogling her up and down, then produced a cracked tablet and flipped through the screens. Muttering to himself, he shook his head and let his arms drop back down to his side, staring at her again instead. A leery grin wormed its way across his cracked lips. “Fuck me sideways,” he drawled. “No one told me anything about a girl! They give you a ticket before they dropped you in?”

Fidget frowned, then turned her pockets inside out. Nothing.

He rolled his eyes. “Your arm, honey. They tattoo your ticket.”

Holding her breath, Fidget rolled up her sleeve and exhaled shakily. No tattoo, no marks aside from the ones she’d put there herself. She held up her wrist for the man to see and glared back at him. “What is this?” she demanded. “Some kind of prank? Where am I?”

The man squinted at her arm, studied his tablet again, then chuckled to himself. “If it is, I’m not in on the joke. Must be somebody’s birthday. Who knows? You sure they didn’t give you nothing? Said nothing at your trial?”

Clack…clack…clack.

Fidget blanched. “I…I didn’t have…” Shit. She returned the man’s gaze helplessly, her stomach lurching up into her chest. “Where am I?” she pressed again, though she really didn’t want to know the answer.

A wolfish smile spread across the man’s face, bearing rotten teeth. “Engine 066, honey. The Slammer Express. Hell on rails. Call it what you like, it doesn’t really change much. You’re on the Iron Road.”

***

Fidget squeezed her arm tighter to stop her fingers from trembling. Wordlessly, she followed close on the man’s heels as he led her from one car to the next, idly chatting as they went. A prison train. God, she was on a prison train! Of all the places to get locked up, she could think of no worse place to be.

Created as an effort to relieve the pressure on the prison system, the trains were supposed to be a temporary solution. Miles upon miles of unused and endless tracks out in the middle of nowhere seemed like the better solution to releasing more criminals back into the moral cesspool known as the Pits. An easy storage place to house Spire City’s unwanted. But seventy years later, the trains were still running and no one in the upper city seemed to be making plans to change that. Not so temporary, after all.

Worse still, Fidget wasn’t meant to be here. She’d had no trial, no sentencing. Every inmate came with a ticket, their judgment inked on their skin. Rubbing her wrist, Fidget swallowed past the lump growing in her throat. She wanted to cry, felt like bursting, but refused to cave. Lose your shit, lose your edge. Focus, dammit!

Fingers snapped in front of her face. She swatted them away and glared at her guide.

“I said we’ll get this straightened out one way or another. Gotta be a processing error or something. Wayne’ll know. He knows everything.”

Fidget swept a quick gaze up and down the man again. Nothing about him seemed official, from his dirt-stained rags to the film of filth that coated every inch of bare skin. He reeked, and not in the way she’d come to associate with the law. “You work for the Judicials?”

“Shit, no!” he laughed, bearing his wrist to show his own ticket. “Been riding this train for thirty years now. Longevity and good behavior have their perks now and then. Ain’t no volunteers to work the trains, so we sorta run ourselves. But not Wayne. Wayne’s the only one with a badge.”

“And Wayne can get me off of this shit bucket?”

He shrugged. “Only way to find out is to get to engineering. And to get there, you gotta walk the whole train.”

The man stopped abruptly, causing Fidget to nearly run into him. He rummaged through a few open crates stacked in the empty bunks bolted to the walls, then tossed an old, black coat at her. “Put that on and don’t take it off till we get to Wayne.”

Fidget sniffed the coat and cringed. It reeked of rat piss and vomit. “Why?”

“Cause you’re on a train full of hard-up criminals,” he replied flatly. “Why’d you think?”

Fidget breathed shallowly as she sank into the filthy coat, trying not to gag. “No, why are you helping me?”

A small smile lit up the man’s face, genuine and fond. “I had a daughter back in the day. She was twelve when they locked me up. Thirty years in this rolling clink and I like to think I still gotta bit of her old pops left in me. Someone she can be proud of.”

Fidget returned his smile awkwardly. “Thank you…”

“Bones,” he replied, offering his hand. When she didn’t take it, he quickly wiped it on his trousers and shrugged. “Now pull up that hood and let’s get you to Wayne.”

Nodding, Fidget flipped up the hood and tried to breathe through her mouth as Bones led her further into the heart of Engine 066. Each car mirrored the last- steel walls dotted with barred windows, the glass so foggy and coated in grime you couldn’t see out them even if you tried. Metal bunks stacked three tiers high served as shelves in the first few cars, space for future inmates, but Fidget swore she saw eyes peeking out from under the stained sheets from time to time. And it was hot. God, it was hot! Like a sweltering armpit, muggy and reeking of bodily secretions. The further they went, the worse it stank.

Bones paused at another door. “Brace yourself. It gets worse from here on out.” Then he hovered the tablet beside the lock until the screen flashed green and pumped down on the handle, sliding the door aside before he slipped into the waiting shadows beyond.

The smell hit her first, a nauseating stew of sweat and piss and shit that would have made even the Pits blush. She clapped a hand over her nose and mouth, then followed close on Bones’ heels.

***

Fidget expected depravity. The prison trains were known for little else. But she hadn’t been prepared for the complete dejection mirrored on every face huddled within the cramped cars. These were men but halved somehow. Sick and despondent, thin and filthy, desperate and hopeless. Huddled in their bunks or sprawled out on the floor, they watched her silently, like sick dogs in little cages.

“The further back along the train, the lesser the crimes,” Bones explained, seeing the pitiful and confused look etched on Fidget’s face. “It’s the cars closest to the front you gotta worry about.”

Fidget nodded curtly and continued tapping out a familiar rhythm on her arm to try and calm her rapid pulse. Stay sharp. Don’t let your guard down for a second.

Bones tensed as he slid open another door, poked his head inside, then waved for her to follow. Fidget pulled her hood farther over her face and shrunk down deeper into her coat. She blinked against the dim lighting, eyes adjusting painfully slow. Snippets of conversation swirled towards them, silenced suddenly by the shunk of the heavy door sliding shut behind her. She felt more than saw the feral stares bearing down on her, a hundred hungry eyes watching her every move. Bones kept his head down and his pace quick, trying to draw as little attention to them as possible.

He failed.

“Whatcha got here, Bonesy?” A burly inmate leaped down from his bunk and into their path, tattoos swirling across his bare arms. More gorilla than man, Fidget assessed quickly. Bald head, heavy brow, square jaw, fists the size of dinner plates. And if that wasn’t enough to judge his character, the gore-strewn hammer tattooed on his neck sealed it. A Bloodsmith thug. Wonderful.

He flicked his critical gaze between Bones and Fidget as he crossed his arms over his chest. “A new toy to play with?”

Bones uttered a nervous chuckle and flashed his rotten smile. “Not this time, unfortunately, Nerus. This meat’s bound for the front, if you catch my meaning.”

Nerus shifted his focus back to Fidget, brows narrowed and lips plastered in a thin frown. “That bad huh?” He grinned maliciously. “Best let you get on then, Bonesy.”

Bones smiled again and began scooting around the massive man. But when Fidget made to follow, Nerus grabbed the back of her hood and yanked it down. A collective gasp bounced off the steel walls, morphing slowly into hungry whispers, the prospect of what lay within their grasp not lost on any of the gathered men.

“See now, Bonesy,” Nerus growled, hand still clamped tight around the hood of her coat, “I don’t like it when you lie to me. It ain’t fair, not after all I’ve done for you.”

Bones spread his hands wide, gaze shifting nervously between Fidget and the bullish giant. “C’mon now, Nerus. Don’t be like that. I gotta get her to Wayne, ain’t no other way around it. So if you’d be so kind as to let her go so we can be on our way.”

Nerus grinned. “Sure, Bonesy. Right after I’m done with her.”

The car shuddered violently, groaning as it wobbled on the tracks, and made the dim lights flicker spasmodically. The clack, clack, clacking increased its tempo as the train seemed to pick up speed. Never one to waste an opportunity, Fidget wriggled out of her coat, spun on her heel, and hammered the toe of her boot right into Nerus’ balls. With a pitiful moan, he fell to one knee, clutching himself in one hand and her coat in the other. Fidget spat at him, then bolted for the other side of the train car.

Hell broke loose. Before she could reach the door, a wave of clawing hands grappled her. They pulled at her arms, her hair, her face, each one seeking a hold over her while simultaneously fighting off the other inmates. The crush of bodies swamped her, pinning her flailing arms and legs and dragging her down. She choked on the scream building in her chest, sucked in a shallow breath, and tried to fight as best she could. Not like this! I don’t want to die like this! Fight, dammit!

The train rattled again, surging forward as it leaped down the tracks, and threw the mass of bodies hard to the left as it careened around a turn. Fidget gasped, desperately filling her lungs. She blinked back stinging tears, then clawed her way forward until she found Bones. Dead or unconscious, she didn’t know, but his broken tablet sat on the floor beside him. Instantly, Fidget snatched the tablet and clambered to her feet. She had seconds before the rest of the inmates regained their footing.

The car trembled violently, shuddering as the clack, clack, clacking of the Iron Road shook the speeding train. Fidget leaped over the sprawl of bodies and hovered the tablet beside the lock. Seconds felt like centuries, her chest throbbing with her racing pulse, until finally the screen flashed green. Shoving down on the handle, Fidget threw the door open and slammed it shut behind her, exhaling sharply as the lock instantly thumped into place.

But safety was still half a train away. Fidget snatched a blanket from the nearest bunk and threw it over her head, keeping her face hidden in the shadows it provided. Sucking in a shallow breath, she moved on, mimicking Bones’ swaggering stride. To be part of the Faceless is to be everyone, Sorrow had taught her. It’s why the Pits respect us. Why the whole of Spire City fears us. Because we can be anyone at any time.

In that moment, she was Bones, adopting his mannerisms, his swagger, and let the violent rattling of the speeding train explain her urgent stride. She glided through the remaining train cars like smoke, moving between the prisoners like she belonged, patting a shoulder here, kicking at an outstretched leg there. No one stopped her, no one said a word to her, many of them too focused on the increased speed and erratic movements of the train.

Hidden in Bones’ guise, she moved from one train car to the next, hovering the tablet by each lock and breathing a silent sigh every time it flashed green, until she entered a train car vastly different than the others. Instead of open bunks, a line of closed compartments occupied the right side of the train car, forcing the hallway to veer sharply to the left before resuming its path forward. Fidget rounded the corner slowly and peered down the hall, breathing a little easier at the sight of closed doors on the adjacent wall. Shirking off the blanket and rolling it up under her arm, Fidget tip-toed past the closed compartments, holding her breath as she did. A small window of reinforced glass was cut at eye level in each door, along with a narrow serving slat bolted shut along the bottom.

Fidget cast a wary glance through the first compartment window, fingers restlessly tapping against the back of the tablet. An emaciated man hunched in the corner of the compartment, the sharp ridges of his spine visible across his pale back. She could hear him muttering, but he gave no indication that he knew she watched him.

Fidget moved on, sparing only the occasional glance through the other compartment windows at the entombed souls within. Most were catatonic, statuesque, until she came to the final door. The inmate threw himself at the door, slamming his face against the glass, and startling Fidget backward. She tripped over her feet and stumbled, falling back against the opposite wall. The mad face screamed at her, blood cascading down his face from his broken nose, and raged against the door. Fidget quickly scrambled to her feet and fled for the safety of the exit door.

The next five cars mirrored the last, locked compartments for the most dangerous, the most volatile, the insane. Fidget made a point to avoid peeking through the windows and sped through the halls until she reached the front of the train. Locked behind a shield of reinforced, bullet-proof glass, the train’s engineering console waited. A lone figure sat with his back turned towards her, focused on the controls spread out him. Fidget hovered the tablet beside the lock, her gaze drawn backward by a distant banging in one of the cars behind her, and cursed when the screen flashed red instead of green. No access.

“Hey!” she cried, pounding her fist on the glass to get the engineer’s attention. “Let me in! Hey, I’m talking to you! Wayne? Open the door!”

Wayne didn’t move, the control board blinking chaotically before him. Fidget swept her gaze across the confusing array of flashing lights and gauges, then up to the window of monitors, each one showing a different section of the train or tracks. On one screen, a lone figure paced the length of one of the solitary compartments, careful to keep his face hidden from the camera’s prying eye. In another, she saw the car where Nerus and the other inmates had attacked her, the enraged men currently throwing themselves against the locked door in a vain attempt to break it open. Nerus shouldered his way past the others and slammed an iron rod he’d pulled free from one of the bed frames and began prying the door open. Her heart slammed into her throat as she saw the metal begin to give.

“Wayne! Open the fucking door!” she screamed and pounded on the glass again. But the words froze in her throat as she noticed the blood splattered across the console.

Fidget’s stomach lurched, heart drumming in her ears as her adrenaline-fogged brain tried to make sense of the scene in front of her. Wayne remained motionless, deaf to her pleas. Well, deaf to everything on account of the giant hole blown out on the side of his head.

Fidget choked out a sob and slammed her open palms against the glass. “Fuck!” she screamed, pouring all of her fear and anger into that single word.

Wayne was dead and, with him, her only chance at getting off the Iron Road.