The Metal Carcass

Jail was a solemn place. Especially for the Sheriff forced to live there. No family visits, no days away. He lived here constantly with only his Lawmen for company.

At least, he thought to himself, I get a new view each day. The sarcasm ripe in his thoughts.

This wasn't like the jails they used to have on Earth. This jail was a maximum security high speed bullet train, on a track built solely for it, destined to never stop.

Charging itself as it went, the train travelled at almost 150kmph. So the Sheriff did get a new view every day, a new view of red mist and billowing dust that looks just the same as the day before. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he'd see some rocks in the distance.

The train slowed occasionally for prisoner transfers which were done on the move on a long dead-straight stretch of track. The train slowed to an appropriate speed, allowing just two and a half hours to complete the transfer, which was executed by a triple bladed helicopter lowering a solid cage containing the new prisoner into an open train carriage, and then transported inside by the Sheriff’s Lawmen.

It was deemed as a high risk but necessary action, and high risk it was. It wasn't without its faults, approximately one in nine transfers failed, often ending in a fiery explosion. The cage that was, not the train. The train didn't explode, the train didn't stop. It had outlived every Sheriff before him, it would outlive him too.

The Sheriff - fine tuned as his ears were - sat up. Above the sound of the wheels on the rails, he heard the uneven sound of hooves on the rough ground outside.

Clip clang. Clip clang. Clip clang.

It meant only one thing.

“Bandits!”

He spat the word out, and then spat on the floor in disgust, the sound of it not discernible from a pebble thrown into a bucket.

He pressed his face to the foggy window, attempting to clean the streaky glass with his filthy sleeve, only succeeding in making the glass dirtier, as he peered outside.

“Can you tell who it is?” Lawman Kane asked.

“Looks like the Bloodhound Gang.” The Sheriff sneered, the disgust still present in his voice. “Get the conductor on the line Kane, find out our coordinates.”

“23.753 degrees North, 25.409 degrees East. We've just crossed over the state line into West Aldina.”

“That's Korvum's territory. Send him the info, who knows where he'll be, it might be hours before he can meet us.”

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Korvum finished his drink with a flourish, slamming the empty glass upside down back on the bar, the man beside him still halfway through glared at him, and slid the gold coin across to the barkeep.

“You need to stop finding new people in town for me to keep out-drinking, Jahn.” Korvum said in a deep soothing voice, the western drawl of his accent extending the barkeep's name. “One day, one of them will be so upset, they might start a fight.”

A fist landed square on his jaw, not one second after his statement, but reinforced as it was, it was the other man who fell down to the floor in pain.

“Oh dear, you seem to be making your coat dirty down there sir.” Korvum said kindly, gently easing his jaw to make sure there was no lasting damage. “Do you need a hand getting up?... No pun intended.”

“Fuck off, didn't know you were a halfbreed, did no one tell you scrap is just for the yard.”

“Oh no, that's not very nice, young man. Two insults, and you didn't even give me a chance to retaliate, I was offering you help. I retract my offer. No no, don't try to apologise now, you're too late.”

The weasel who attempted the sucker-punch stood up, grasping his injured hand with his other. “You're done! If I ever see you in here again, I'll shoot that smirk right off your face, clank.”

“That's three to my zero Jahn, did you hear that?” Korvum said to the barkeep, motioning to the retreating man who just lost a gold coin. “I should think I owe him a couple of insults when I see him next, what do you think of Boy? Or Little man?” He shook his head. “No nevermind, I've never been that good at that anyway.”

The screen of his tablet lit up, just as he put his pack of matches back away in his belt pocket. Keeping his newly lit cigarette pinched between his lips, he tapped on the notification, his screen now showed a red alert with a set of coordinates.

His mind - cognition improved by implants - worked quickly. Knowing his top speed on his horse, Ironstride, the location and speed of the train, and where the track went, he figured out that by leaving now, Korvum could intercept the train in approximately 53 minutes.

He stood, nodded to Jahn the barkeep, and flicked him another gold coin, “That's for the trouble earlier Jahn, promise it won't happen again.” He said with a sly smile.

“I've heard that before, and from your mouth no less. Travel safe, K.”

The saloon doors swinging shut behind him, he took a final drag of his cigarette before flicking it away. Now he was outside, he could return his wide brimmed, tan leather hat to its rightful place. Hand crafted by Haskins, the finest hat maker around, it fit snug above his ears.

Pressing his tongue to the back of his teeth, he let out a short two tone whistle. Not liking to tie up Ironstride in case they needed a quick getaway, he always let her roam. She never went far, and Korvum heard the familiar clip clang her hooves made before she came round the bend at the top of the road.

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Exactly 52 minutes later, the reins in his right hand, Korvum released the belt clip and pulled out his revolver with his left. Riding in from the south, with the train running from West to East, Korvum couldn't see the bandits.

He'd been able to see the dust storm kicked up from the train for almost 15 minutes. And now he'd finally come into range, he tuned his tablet into the frequency of the train, and called upon the conductor.

“Korvum.” The Sheriff's voice came through his tablet. “They're North side, if you can beat the train you'll catch them off guard. There's nine of them, I trust that isn't too much to handle."

“Never has been before Sheriff.” Not cocky, truthful. Korvum had the best track record for any bounty hunter on the planet. Dead or alive, he collected bounties all over the state. With ten shots in his revolver, nine men should be no trouble.

Urging Ironstride into a gallop once more after a friendly slap and stroke on the neck, she strode forward. In record time she reached maximum speed and leapt across the track in front of the speeding train.

Gun in hand, steady as it has ever been, he could see all nine riders. Too far away for his revolver, he got Ironstride to sit steady and waited. As soon as they were in range, he fired, fired, fired and fired again until all ten shots were gone.

His aim was true, he'd dropped seven of the nine bandits, leaving just the leader, and the banner holder, both of which in heavy armour, preventing his bullets reaching their intended targets.

Korvum cursed as he saw the leader raise a gun of his own. He kicked his spurs into Ironstride's side, and the horse accelerated instantly, like an arrow from a bow. He heard the shot and smirked, too late, he thought to himself, as he flicked the drum out to empty the cartridges and attempted to reload the revolver.

He struggled to reach his right arm across to load the revolver - a low ache in his chest, oddly deep, hinted he'd been holding his reins too hard - but once he had, the gun came up again, wavering slightly in the breeze. He aimed for weak spots, the joins in the armour, hip, elbow, knee, armpit and neck. He fired eight shots. At least two found their targets, he deduced from the sounds the bandit leader made. After the eighth shot he fell from his horse, and the bannerman fled.

Instead of firing his last two shots unwittingly at the fleeing bannerman, he held his revolver out, still pointing at the fallen bandit as he slid down the side of Ironstride.

Laughing. That wasn't what he was expecting to hear. But, nonetheless, that is what he heard as he approached.

“You fool.” The man choked, clearly in pain from his wounds. He laughed again.

Korvum simply tilted his head and said, “I've been insulted far too much today, to save yourself the trouble of a long, excruciating death, how about you tell me what you mean.”

“You're too late halfbreed.”

“I stopped you, I don't know about you but I see no successful jailbreak around here.” As if to prove his point, he gestured around with his right hand, and felt… pain. A lot of it, in his chest, and spreading. He didn't mask it as it came as such a surprise, so the man laying in front of him laughed again, and spluttered after laughing too hard, blood spurting out of his mouth.

“You didn't stop shit clank, you think we'd only bring 9 riders for a jailbreak? A jailbreak was never in ques…”

Point blank, his shot didn't miss. Korvum now had all the information he needed, clamping his left hand over his painful chest, he stumbled to Ironstride and grabbed his tablet to contact the train. By now though, it had moved out of range and he let out a string of loud, angry and quite vulgar curses to help him through the pain as he swung himself back onto his horse to once again pursue the unstoppable train.

After just a few hundred metres of jostling and trying to match his horses movements, the pain got too much, and Korvum, weakened as he was, slid off the saddle and fell to the floor.

I guess that shot didn't miss. How could he let this happen? How could he have been so foolish to sit still? That was his mistake - the kind of mistake you only make once. He was getting slow in his old age.

His chest dribbling blood and Ironstride nuzzling against his face, Korvum closed his eyes.

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He'd sent the credits across to Korvum as payment the moment he'd seen the Bloodhound gang fall.

The Sheriff watched through the foggy window as the men on, and now off, horseback very quickly disappeared into the distance behind him.

“We're clear men, the state bounty hunter had our backs once more. Keep your eyes peeled for a second hit.” It wasn't unheard of, but most of the bandits had figured out if they were part of that first troop, they were just bait dangled out for slaughter.

“Sheriff, we may have a different problem, I need you in the control room.” The conductor's voice was steady, but tense. Something was wrong, urgent, but not necessarily life critical. Sometimes, they were the hardest issues to deal with as there wasn't a clear answer.

Having sheriffed this train for thirteen years, he never had a problem he couldn't solve with a good boot, or a gun pointing at the right person. But this sounded like a problem that needed something more than physical violence.

Inwardly, he sighed, not showing his emotions to the crew of Lawmen around him - mainly because he didn't want them knowing that he was terrified. What could this problem be?

Only three carriages away, it didn't take long for the Sheriff to walk to the control room, bringing Lawman Kane with him, and leaving Dawl, Port and Holger behind.

“What's the problem, Stenley?”

“Look at this tablet, Sheriff,” pointing to his closest screen, the Sheriff walked over to meet him and look over his shoulder, “this icon up here indicates something uploading. It wasn't there before, and I have no Idea how long it'll be there for.”

“What are you saying?”

“In the simplest terms, we're being hacked. The technology the computers on this train hold is years ahead of what's out in public use currently, it's how we've been able to stay moving for so long without much issue. This hack is military grade, I don't think the Bloodhound gang were working alone.”

“You think they're being used?”

“Again, in simple terms, yes. But it gets worse.” Stenley paused, gathering his thoughts and making sure his message got across. “The absolute only way I can be sure that this technology and our data doesn't get out into the wrong hands, is if I shut down all systems.”

“All systems?”

“Yes, all of them. The cell doors would remain locked fortunately, as they have a manual key backup that would engage due to any power outage, but I'm afraid that the train will slow down to a stop.”

“Stenley, this train cannot stop. It must not.”

“There's no easy way to say it, Sheriff, but it has to. If we don't stop it ourselves, whatever device is hacking us will take everything we've got, and stop the train.”

“Surely there's another way.”

“There's not. At least not one I can think of, and I don't know how much time we have.”

This train was built 63 years ago, had started moving a year later, and hadn't stopped since. When he was passed down the mantle of Sheriff, the mantra was;

'A stopped train is just a metal carcass.’

Did he need to break the flow? Was it his responsibility to decide when this train's journey stopped for the first time? And if he did nothing, what then? Would they be worse off? It was about now he wished a simple boot would fix his problem, but it wouldn't. He pushed back all his feelings of doubt, and took a deep breath.

“Do it Stenley, stop the train.”

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The hack was halted. With all electronic systems disengaged and turned off, the train started to slow. It was always an odd feeling, the body's insides felt like they were still trying to travel forwards.

Staying in the control room, the Sheriff watched the train dip below 80kmph for the first time in 62 years, and it kept dipping and dipping and dipping. When slowed enough, Stenley pulled the independent brake to take it to a complete stop.

The Sheriff almost fell over at the jolt, placing a hand on the wall to steady himself, and he couldn't seem to walk in a straight line, he felt drunk, like he was walking on legs that weren't his own. But at this moment in time, there was only one thing he wanted to do.

He walked into the next carriage, and on his left stood an emergency door with a big red lever, hesitating for merely a second in front of the lever, he reached out and pulled it, releasing the seal of pressurised air and receiving a blast of heat and smell for his troubles. He swung the door open and took one slow step out, his boots crunching the red gravel floor underneath.

He took a huge breath of fresh air, his first in too long to count. Trying not to think of the consequences he was going to have to face. The train had stopped - and so had he.

He stood still, and exhaled, slowly.