The following day Mason awoke, showered shaved, and reported to work at the rail yard. His world had changed over night. He’d found a text message from Marina thinking him for the coffee and conversation. She even used a winky face emoji. Mason did not even know that people used that emoji. Many emojis were relics of a more social age. With a sigh he put his smart phone back into his pocket and turned his attention toward the day ahead of him.
Locomotive #296 was a licensed copy of a GE- U36 locomotive that had been built locally after the license had been secured on Earth. It had been modernized and was now powered by a amonia powered diesel style engine and now sat burbling away awaiting her crew. The yard hands had cleaned the locomotive and her bright orange paint glowed in the sun.
“She does look good when she’s cleaned up.” a voice called out.
Mason turned and spotted Teddy, his coworker and the only conductor that was assigned to their yard. It was a good thing that he got along with the lank blond headed conductor, because they shared the cab of the locomotive on long runs. The two men were friends.
“Mason, I have heard such rumors,” Teddy began as he examined the days roster on his tablet.
“Have you?” Mason replied.
“All of Madison is talking about you and some super compandroid.” Teddy continued.
“People do like to talk,” Mason shrugged.
“The rumors are scandalous,” Teddy pressed as they walked around the locomotive and inspected it before going to work.
“What kind of scandal?”
“Guys think that the compandroid had been hacked by a regressive. Or that a deviant had cast aside coequality and is pretending to be a compandroid.” Teddy finished the last safety check. “So which is it?” he continued after they were in the cab of the locomotive.
“Marina is Marina. That is all I know.” Mason sat down behind the control stack.
After being cleared to leave the yard they ran west down the line, retrieved a consist of cars that had been prepared for transport to the city, and started east to deliver them.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I wish your friend luck,” Teddy replied when he was certain that the radio was not keyed to broadcast. “Let me know if she has a sister,” he added with a smile.
As the train moved closer to the city more signs of coequal influence appeared. From their cab both men could spot the “counselors” as they stood on the passenger platform. Dressed in one sleeved pants suits and mandarin collared shirts the “counselors” were easy to spot. They were not often seen out in public, but they traveled in coequal pairs. They investigated and made judgements from coequal points of view. They seemed to be the select few true believers in what they called coequality. The counselors were rumored to haunt the bawdy district in order to ensure that biologic couples did not prosper.
The train continued on to the freight yard outside of the city of Redo. There Mason slowly rolled onto a siding, Teddy hopped to the ground, disconnected the cars and set the brakes, and both men reported to the main office.
The office in the rail yard was square, made of cement, small, and nowhere near as nice as the passenger stations along the line. It made both men long for the shared passenger station in Madison. Adding to the gloom was the presence of two counselors who were talking to the elderly station manager.
“Barrister, I’m told that you stayed on schedule. Excellent work! We have a shipment that needs to leave town NOW.” the older woman stated.
“Vital supplies?” Mason ventured.
“No. A shipment of pre coequality literature. The shipment has been under guard ever since it arrived here.” the manager answered.
“That sort of entertainment may be allowed in the sticks. Science only knows what you men see in that trash. Perhaps you read it to your companion dolls. We don’t need that type of influence in Redo.” one of the counselors sneered.
“We will need our tanks topped off.” Teddy stated.
“It’s being done now.” the manager replied.
Mason and Teddy were quckly hustled back out to the rail yard where they found that their locomotive had been hooked up to three box cars. The box cars had locks on their doors and the whole train was surrounded by a platoon of counselors. None of the officials appeared to enjoy trudging through the deep gravel in the yard, but they stayed at their posts. The crew was shadowed by the station manager and counselors as they performed their pre trip inspection. One of the counselors demanded that the crew immediately remove the objectionable material from Redo immediately and threatened Mason with crimes against coequality when he told them that the inspection had to be done. The threat of detainment only vanished when Teddy pointed out that if they derailed the objectionable material could spill out all over the track side. In a fright the counselors ordered their subordinates to illuminate the entire train with their flashlights in order to aid with the inspection.
The engineer and conductor eagerly climbed aboard the locomotive and were soon rolling westward. While they were within the city limits of Redo patrol vehicles shadowed the train. Once they were out of the city Mason and Teddy found themselves on their own.
“What are we carrying that has them so upset? They told us not to stop until Madison.” Mason grumbled.
“According to the manifest we have several a case of video carts that include You’ve got mail, Stardust, Splash, and Casablanca to name a few. In the other crates we have Barbara Cartland, and various other romance author’s books. Hey! We even have a shipment of comic and manga reprints from Earth.” Teddy read off the manifest.
“It’s amazing this stuff made it through customs ‘officially’.” Mason stated after emitting a sharp whistle.
“I guess they view us all as deviants or potential deviants. I bet the stuff we are hauling is way better than the books the counselors approve of.”
The counselors recommended books that celebrated self and solitude. They were utterly depressing. They wrote volumes to attempted to hide the incompleteness that people felt. Mason found his thoughts wandering back to how much he enjoyed talking with Marina. When he got off work he would call her.