Nerio woke up with the Sun still hidden behind the horizon, and Etteilla was still fast asleep. He silently ate one of his pre-made meals, packed everything back into his motorcycle, and opened the compartment housing the can-on-a-string. He looked at his watch, time for Niccolo to call him. He pulled the string taught and put the can over his ear.

“Hey, Nerio, you there?” Niccolo’s muffled voice echoed out of the can.

“I’m here, did you read the paper?”

“Did I read the paper?” The palpable sarcasm in his voice told Nerio he had, “Who the hell hasn’t? She made a horse top one-hundred miles an hour! What kind of artefact does she have?”

“That’s the thing Nic, she-” a rustling from under Etteilla’s blanket cut Neiro short. Her stoat, Vivian, crawled out from under it, stretched, and stared at Nerio before walking to his dirty plate and licking it clean. Crisis averted, Nerio continued quieter than before, “She doesn’t have any artefacts.”

“Then what, she can just do that?”

“From what I’ve seen, yes. She can use several abilities, but they appear to require a small casting ritual and an amount of energy from herself. Energy she regains from this.”

Nerio reached for Etteilla’s bag of deer jerky with his right. . .

Right, he thought.

He set the can down and pulled a piece from the bag with his left hand. He placed the piece in front of the invisible portal connecting his can to Niccolo’s. He then grabbed a pair of long tongs and used them to push the piece of jerky through and handed it to Niccolo. The portal worked wonderfully at allowing physical objects through; however, it killed anything alive that traversed it. When he had transferred the jerky, he returned everything to where they were and picked the can back up, “I need you to run some tests on it. Etteilla said it contained a large amount of her ‘magic energy’ but she won’t tell me what that is.”

“Nerio, you’re camping with a living artefact! You should be sending her through, not her food!”

“She’s not an artefact Niccolo. She doesn’t meet any of the criteria.”

“The one in New York didn’t meet the criteria either! And it-” Niccolo stopped himself. Nerio remembered it far better than he did, “Sorry, I didn’t. . . Sorry.”

Nerio pretended to be unfazed and continued, “I know you’re trying to look out for me Nic, but figuring out what she is is my best shot at getting back in with the company.”

Niccolo sighed, “You still want back in after everything they’ve done? They’re talking about a complete removal from the company Nerio. Memory wipes and everything.”

“It’s my home Nic,” Nerio’s voice began to crack as tears formed in his eyes, “I wish it wasn’t, and they do too, but that doesn’t make it not my home.”

“Alright Nerio, I’ll. . .” Niccolo paused, this was not the decision he wanted Nerio to make, “I’ll do what I can back here. As for you,” a metal grabber holding two slips of paper slid out of the invisible portal, “you have a train to catch.”

Nerio grabbed the papers and the metal slipped back through. He surveyed the tickets, they were for a train on the Copper Canyon railway due to leave in a few hours, “Copper Canyon? I thought they halted construction on that.”

“They did, but some millionaire in Belize bought it out, finished it, then sold it back,” Nerio asked a quick ‘what’ before Niccolo continued, “No clue, guess he wanted to ride it but not own it? It’s pointless to understand what goes through the heads of people that wealthy.”

“Guess so, and, thank you Nic,” Nerio said before setting the can down and finally using his one arm to wipe the now dry tears from his face. When he was done he packed the can and Etteilla’s jerky away

Nerio had to push Vivian away from his empty bowl to put it back in his bag. An action Vivian repaid with a sharp bite to the fingers and a chirp telling him to “never steal my feast again”. Nerio glared at Vivian and lightly kicked Etteilla awake while rummaging for a bandage in his bag.

Etteilla was groggy, she hadn’t woken up in a single digit hour in two years, “I swear to god,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes, “if there’s not a fire, I’m magicing you back to sleep.”

“If you do then you’re paying for the tickets.” Nerio dropped one of them onto Etteilla’s head. She read it then looked back at him and asked where he had gotten them, “I had another call with Niccollo; he. . .” Nerio stopped as he noticed Ettiella had gone back to sleep. He kicked her again, “Get up! You can sleep on the train.”

Etteilla perked up at the notion of more sleep, “How long?” she asked.

“Uhh," Nerio looked over the ticket, "sixteen hours.”

She jumped to her feet, packed her things, and mounted her horse in an instant. Nerio followed suit and they started their short trip to Chihuahua.

“Hey, Nerio,” Etteilla broke the silence partway into their journey, “what’s your favorite color?”

Nerio turned his head from the road to stare at her. Etteilla couldn’t see his eyes through his thick goggles, but she knew they were incredulous.

“What? I’m just curious.”

“Curious over something as mundane as my choice in color?”

“I’ll take your mundanity over your silence any day. Besides, shouldn’t we get to know each other?”

He sighed, “Green,” was his reply. Neither of them could hear the other over Nerio’s engine and Zippy’s hooves pounding the ground, but the third arcana deciphered the meanings behind their inaudible voices. Nerio said ‘green’, but he did not mean the green of grass or the eye. He meant the green of a dunite rock.

Etteilla responded in turn, “Red,” she said. The third arcana transcribed that to the color of freshly watered brick.

Etteilla continued to carry their conversation until they arrived at the train station in Chihuahua. The two of them dismounted their vehicles and led them to the platform.

Upon inspecting their tickets, one of the employees notified them that they did not include “vehicle cargo space” and that the train “never accepts large animals on board.”

The two of them were led away and left to find their own vehicle storage solution. Nerio wheeled his bike into the street, snapped one of its mirrors off, and pocketed it. The bike would rebuild itself at 9 PM, shortly before their trip had finished. As long as he was somewhere secluded when it happened it should be fine. Meanwhile, Etteilla pulled a small, corked bottle out of one of her robe’s many pockets. She clasped her hands around it and spread them out. The bottle grew as they spread. She repeated this spell on her horse. Putting her hands on either side of it and bringing them together, shrinking the horse as well. When she was done, the horse was the size of a dog and the bottle was just large enough to fit over it. She did just that. The bottle made contact with the ground, sealing Zippy inside, and Etteilla cast another spell. She cast the first spell again and shrunk the bottle back to its original form before returning it to her robe.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“What were those spells, like, numerically?” Nerio asked.

“Well, the shrinking and growing on was the twelfth arcana, that of expansion. The horse in a jar was arcana forty-five, ensealment.”

They started to make their way back to the platform and Nerio continued his inquisitions, “Ok, so the horse is alive in there, but is it alive [conscious]?”

Etteilla nodded as they passed the ticketer [They’re completely unaware of the time passing them by while in there].

“Neat,” They stepped onto one of the train’s rear cars. Inside, the car was lined with pairs of seats on either side of a central aisle. Etteilla picked a window seat on the right, “and just so you know, when this is over we are doing a full day’s ride. So be sure to. . .” Nerio didn’t bother adding ‘sleep’ to his sentence; Etteilla had already passed out.

Nerio made himself comfortable in the seat next to Etteilla, and at 6:00 AM the train lurched forward. Nerio had had enough sleep the night before and entertained himself in those dark morning hours by pouring over maps he had bought that morning.

The train route was almost 700 km from the station in Chihuahua to the end of the line in Los Mochis. During that trek, it wound through dozens of bridges and tunnels within the Copper Canyon system. Los Mochis rested on the western shore of Mexico, allowing them to continue the race on the shoreline rather than the rugged, mountainous terrain of central Mexico. From the shoreline, Nerio decided that the best route would be to avoid the mountains altogether, entering the Yucatan peninsula via the Chiveal Pass and wrapping around the Sierra Madre de Chiapas mountain range on their way into Guatemala.

The Sun had long since risen by the time Nerio finished his calculations. He passed the remaining time watching the terrain sweep past his window and counting the seconds spent in the tunnels and on the bridges to calculate their current speed. Etteilla awoke a little before three. Twenty minutes before the train's fifth stop in Bahuichivo.

Nerio greeted her and she grumbled in reply before leaving to find the bathroom. She walked to the front of the car; Nerio decided against telling her the toilets were at the rear. She was certain to find out eventually.

When the front offered no visible toilet, Etteilla flagged down an employee to ask for directions. The employee frowned and told her that their car’s bathroom was out of order and she should try the car in front of them. Etteilla thanked them and moved to the door.

What the hell? There’s no doorknob here? How does this. . . Etteilla thought as she tried to decipher the strange mechanism before her. The employee noticed, grabbed the handle, and pulled it upwards. When it didn’t move, they pulled it down and then slid the door to the side, “Ha, trickier than it looks, isn’t it?” The employee ignored her and walked away from the door. Great. Now I’m an idiot and a failed comedian. Etteilla kept silent as she closed the door and moved into the next car.

Nerio made little note of the encounter, he was busy finding their speed as they crossed another bridge. It was six miles per hour faster than before. Odd. We’re approaching another stop, we should be slowing down.

Within the Catalan company, recruits go through rigorous training before becoming full-time employees. A significant facet of that training is getting the young cadets used to recognizing patterns and when they deviate. One common way of doing this was by having one of their teachers or classmates change their vocabulary one day. No longer using contractions, saying ‘required’ instead of ‘necessary’, or other such minute changes. Sometimes they’d only change their dress, wearing shorts when they’ve never done so before or choosing an inferior color combination than normal. Discovering the change led to a reward while failing to do so meant cleaning the blood chambers for a week. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in incredibly observant, paranoid, and often blood-soaked individuals. A problem fixed by the usage of regular showers and paranoia blockers surgically implanted at birth. Blockers Nerio received.

This meant that Nerio’s assumption that the employee sending Etteilla a car ahead, their struggle with the door handle, and the train’s increased speed being connected wasn’t paranoia. It was a purely logical connection that may or may not be true; a connection Nerio needed to investigate further. He tuned his ear to the voices around him. Through the din of the sixty people in the car, he tuned out every conversation but one.

Nerio focused on the employee walking the aisle. She was making the motions of conversing with the passengers. She was taking notes, taking pieces of trash from passengers, and only talked to one person for a short time. Even with all his attention aimed at her, Nerio could barely make out her politely hushed voice over the din permeating the train car, “Motivation research is a plus factor. It is not a substitute for regular marketing research, for business judgment, nor for. . .”

What? Nerio thought before refocusing his attention on the people around him. The Catalans train their recruits to be able to listen to a dozen distinct voices simultaneously. Nerio failed that course, only managing a mere ten with intense concentration.

“. . .coupled with special ways of investigating, which may provide certain additional insights into marketing problems.,” One voice muttered.

“The question really is: When are these additional or plus factors useful to businessmen and advertisers?” Her partner apologized.

“Psychological research is indicated when standard marketing research methods seem unsuited to answer the questions being raised. . .” the elderly gentleman across the aisle and four rows up said gleefully.

“Stated differently, when the quantitative or ‘nose-counting’ approach is not a sufficiently clear-cut guide for action, then something different is needed--something that gets into a new dimension of the problem.” The mother three rows behind him scolded.

“In general, one might guess that motivation research is called for when all the usual data have been examined,” Her child whined.

“and action people still feel puzzled by the subtleties of the human factors involved, lack a sense of surety in the decisions they must make, ” said the tuxedoed man in the back of the car.

“or feel frustrated as they struggle for a fresh sales or copy approach.” continued the man beside him disapprovingly.

They were all reading different parts of the same passage. Offset by seconds and tones to prevent their voices from harmonizing. There were no conversations in the car, only words.

Nerio remained as calm as he could and slowly rose from his seat. The voices around him continued to recite their verses. each desynchronization causing their chorus to become nothing but noise.

Nerio stepped into the aisle and the voices continued. He sifted through his bag while they spoke of the benefits of motivation research covered in earlier chapters. Nerio glanced at his watch; it was 3:05, less than ten minutes from the scheduled arrival time at Bahuichivo. There were still six hours left until the train reached Los Mochis, but Nerio would take his chances walking if it meant getting off the train.

He took a step towards the front of the car. The voices continued but another noise had joined them. The sounds of shifting seats, shifting weights, shifting eyes. He continued to walk and the shifting continued. Every row he passed watched his back intensely and moved their feet to the ground, poised to stand at a moment’s notice. Nerio was at the second row from the front. He glanced outside the window and watched the station at Bahuichivo fly past; he stopped walking and the voices fell silent while the shifting continued.

“I take it you aren’t going to let me leave this car,” Nerio said bracing for the coming assault.

The single woman in the front row, the only person not currently watching Nerio, broke the silence, “No, Mr. Pinkerton, you can leave this car all you want. She and I are only here to stop you from leaving the train until the crash.”

“Crash?”

“Yes, Mr. Pinkerton. Crash. As in violent contact between a vehicle and an object. In this case, between the train you and she and I are on and the bottom of the canyon.”

Nerio reached for his gun. He had more than enough experience to know people like this weren’t much for conversation; their hearing was based on violence. But, the woman interrupted him, “There is no need for threats or acts of brutality Mr. Pinkerton. She and I will both be victims of the crash as well. Shooting me or her would only quicken our deaths by a few minutes. And being pierced by a forty-gram bullet is far less painful than being crushed by thousands of tons of steel. You would be doing me or her a favor. So just sit down and order a nice cup of wine. No need to worry about the bill.”