Several hours later.
There was a train, hurdling through unnatural darkness. The interior of the train carriage was elaborate, hand carved armrests leading to plush, plumb maroon cushions. Light fixtures jingled gently overhead as the train lumbered onward, the crystalline globes the only defense against the oppressive unnatural night outside. The few survivors unaffected by the gloom were seated in the trains seats. Two men dressed in three piece suits, one donning a dashing charcoal color, the other a no-nonesense brown. One lady wore a kimono, elaborately embroidered. The other two women were wearing clothes more suited for working, flowing skirts leading to fitted bodices, though the fabric of the two were very different, one was clearly of higher quality than the other. A teenaged girl was in a wheelchair, her hair perfect inexplicably against the trains rambling flight.
There was the train conductor, and his friend, the secret investigator.
And then there was a frazzled, redheaded young lady, perhaps 18 or 19 years old. She had her hair swept up into a rushed bun, though the sweat and grime left her perhaps truly in need of a shower.
It was me. That's me. Switching from third to first person. That was me. And I did need a shower.
As far as we knew, it was only us who remained awake on the train against the unnatural night. Everyone else was unconscious but alive, or restrained and also alive. That or unaccounted for.
"All I wanted was a quiet week in the central city. But the impossible cases, they find me. They find me. Like how we find ourselves here with a conundrum." Said the secret investigator. "We find ourselves perhaps in mortal peril. Each of you..." she made eye contact with each individual. "...Could be the saboteur. Three times, this train was almost stopped again. Mrs. Saizoko, you were the last to be seen before the extra light fixtures were broken."
The lady wearing the kimono scoffed and clicked her tongue. "I have no reason to destroy the light. The gloom is nearly enough to kill us already. When my husband hears how I've been treated, there will be trouble."
The secret investigator sighed. "And Mr. Jones, you and the victim had been seen fighting."
The man in the no-nonsense coat made a disgruntled noise. "As a retired officer, I find those who skip their duty a stain on the honor of the solider class. We didn't fight. If we had fought, he would have been dead a lot sooner."
"And Miss Clark, you were the last person to escape the lights going out. Hard to imagine that."
The girl in the wheelchair bunched into herself. "As someone with limited mobility, I always make sure that I have access to the door. I was right next to it when the lights started going out in the other train. Also, call me Bethany. Miss Clark is my older sister." She fingered a beaded bracelet nervously. "In the darkened train car, everyone else went to look, but I knew something was wrong."
"We will see what the truth reveals." Said the investigator. She was kinda cool. Like Hercule Poirot. She had a way of cutting through lies. I had watched her work and bring order to the few remaining survivors on this train. Her hair was pulled back too tightly, and the pale fine blonde made it almost see through, so her head even resembled an egg. While many of the people here wore fancy attire, the way she wore her three piece suit was perfect, like it was a piece of art itself.
"So." Said the investigator. To me. "You expect us to believe that you really had nothing to do with the disappearance of Deputy Constable Hawthorne, Miss Ward?" Her green eyes resembled a cats as she stared at me.
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My name wasn't Miss Ward, but I wasn't going to correct the secret investigator's assumption. Earlier that day, I had been arrested by Deputy Constable Hawthorne and that was how I became his ward. When I found myself in a different place than my college dorm room, the night before my last final, I was very lucky to be found and then quickly arrested by Deputy Constable Hawthorne and his partner, Yu Lin. When I appeared, I had jaywalked, and apparently that's majorly illegal here in steampunk land. But I think that was just a cover to allow them to flee from the Sects people. It's complicated.
From my perspective, I had faded from my bathroom (I still had my toothbrush and smart phone) and found myself in a steampunk world. Lots of Victorian style building, but also a lot of bright copper pipes and shiny cogs and gears and weird street crossing signs. The population of the area I appeared in seemed to be a mix of mostly British looking people and a quarter vaguely Asian looking people, having a strange harmony between post Victorian fashion and vague Japanese and Chinese fashion. And this steampunk land's technology? From what I've seen, more advanced than Earth. They all have 3-d projector pocket watches and some form of the internet. Their trains apparently can and do break the sound barrier cheaply and easily. My little smart phone was actually called an antique by someone. Ouch.
I had realized then and there I was not some Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I was not going to be able to wow them with my amazing science. This was not the iseikai experience I had been looking forward to. I realized it was probably better to stay with the local law enforcement (I couldn't exactly run away after they caught me anyway.)
Hawthorne was a very tall and broad man, and his posh British accent was so sharp it could cut glass. His partner was the beautiful Yu Lin, with luscious and shimmering black hair and skin paler than mine (how is that possible when I'm a redhead who burns in the sunlight?). She had called me little red flower and promised to help me. I trusted both of them more than the various other people I met. More than my old English teacher, who just hated me and my misuse of the English Language.
But as the last train was leaving, Yu Lin had stayed behind in the city to buy us time to leave. I didn't know what Hawthorne had that was so important that he would leave his partner behind with the dangerous Samurai that had been following them, but it must be very important..
Hawthorne and I had boarded a train, where we prepared to leave our troubles behind.
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"Miss Ward, do you really expect us to believe that?"
Oops, too busy narrating. "I was with Bethany." I said, pointing to the girl in the wheelchair.
"She was, Mizz." Said Bethany. "She really really was. We made bracelets together."
"See? I have a witness." I said, feeling very proud of myself and my bracelet. It had turned out well.
The secret investigator preened. "Right. And did you have access to a time piece, Miss Bethany?"
"I haven't got a watch." she said, leaving out the 'H' sound. "But I won't lie, Mizz."
Somehow I didn't think the crowd was very accepting of my witness. The retired military man even scoffed. But I believed her!
The secret investigator seemed to favor the majority as she turned her cat like focus back to me. "And you were also the last person seen in the breaker room, before the pilot light went out."
I smiled sincerely. "Nope. The last person in the breaker room before the pilot light went out was Mr. Craig...who is also missing...I was the person who fixed the pilot light."
"But Mr. Brown said he was the one to relit the pilot light." She said, to the man in the charcoal suit.
I didn't think calling him a liar would work. Especially since I knew he was a coward. He had lied to save face when he had run away the other direction. "I understand there can be multiple claims. And in the fog of scary things, people..." I looked at Mr. Brown in his stupid charcoal suit. "Can be mistaken. But my hands have the residue from the match. If we tested his hands, I am very sure that we will find there is no residue."
He clasped his hands behind his back.
"We cannot test that until we reach the Central City."
"If you cannot prove he did it, you can't prove I didn't do it. And vice versa. And unlike Mr. Brown, my courage has been proven." I had been the one to retrieve the parts from the dangerous forest. I had also been the one to forsake my own safety for the sake of the passengers, when I had been part of a plan to draw the extra dinos away from the train.
"Strange to be that courageous."
Honestly, I was surprised too. I thought I'd have the valor of an undercooked pizza roll. But then again, I think I was in shock so it didn't feel real at the time.
Where was I? Right, getting all my readers back up to speed.
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So Hawthorne and I broaded the train. One of the people chasing them tried to stop us, but one surprise throat punch from yours truly had sent the puppy-stomping dude off the train just in time as it sped away. Also, for a steam-train, it went quickly. Like, really fast. I think steam here isn't another state of water. I think it's a special chemical/magicky thing. I was also pretty sure the laws of physics were different here, but I haven't had the time to test it out yet. The trains connect the different cities and keeps the people safe from the dinosaurs that never went extinct here.
All was going well until the train was sabotaged, and we were almost stranded in the middle of the forest. The rail was raised off the ground below, with only a small sidewalk along side it. This was where I learned how truly messed up the world was.
Apparently steam is poisonous to people. Some people are able to withstand that. I am apparently one of them, so...yay, I have a talent. They call it a brit rating. Hawthorne knew I had one because I had jay-walked through steam twice with really no noticeable side effects. He and Yu Lin both had good brit ratings too. I think you need that if you plan to work at Special Yard.
But there are some people who can go a step further than just brit rating. With the steam, they can basically run through the tree tops like in Naruto. They can't operate or manipulate steam devices well though, so they have their drawbacks. These wannabe ninjas are called foresters, and they seem to be a separate faction from the people who live in the cities.
While the foresters were sent away to look for shelters, the people with brit ratings were sent to try to find what happened with the steam engine train.
So I was able to help Deputy Constable Hawthorne look into what happened to the train. Basically, it had been sabotaged separately 3 times, so...we just had to wait for rescue. But apparently steam makes some dinosaurs more...aggressive. So it's not safe to hang out in the forest with the steam staved dinosaurs. And coming from the city, apparently everyone was covered in steam and we were in a steam drenched metal can.
If we couldn't get the train going in 30 minutes, everyone without a brit rating would have been dinosaur food.
That's where I met Sam Craig, an older gentleman who seemed really nice. I also met Redshirt...I mean Lt. Richard Burnbrees, a solider in his twenties with no discernable survival instinct. I also also met Jesseme Rogers, a really type A personality who is way too trusting of the powers that be. The lady struggled to believe we could possibly be in danger for way too long. Jesseme is a steam engineer, which is apparently a big deal in steam punk land. Like a rock star or an astronaut from how everyone treated her.
I didn't trust her, but that's because I am an American from the 21st century who has read too many novels and manga. If anyone would break the train, my money had been on her.
But it hadn't been her. It had been Sam Craig. Well, not Mr. Craig exactly, but...He had turned into a Name Bound. His name was stolen, and apparently that meant he basically did the will of the Namestealer. The Namestealer was one of the saboteurs.
Who was still on this train.
We hadn't caught it yet.
So, while we were trying to find out what happened, Sam Craig had turned into what I thought was a zombie. We had fought him off, and had incapacitated him and restrained him so he couldn't cause more harm.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
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Yep, so...spoilers. Someone un-restrained him later and he caused...more trouble.
Also, with the Name Stealer on the loose...it meant everyone here had the danger to lose control of themselves, should they have had their name stolen at a previous point and not yet activated.
"And you were the last person to see Master Lee and the Steam Engineer." The Secret Investigator said, perfectly rolling her Rs.
I sighed. It really didn't look good for me. I promised to never be the main character again if I survived this.
The two other women glared at me. At least Mrs. Saizoko seemed to treat everyone the same. It wasn't very nice, but at least it was consistent.
The other two women were friends, they claimed, but there was a large differences in their socioeconomic stances. Miss Hanes was clearly more well to do. Her friend Miss Copperfield, the lady wearing clearly a coarser and cheaper fabric, was very pleasant when Miss Hanes wasn't around. I was getting companion vibes, not friends.
I pushed up a frazzled loose strand of hair away from my eyes. "I reiterate, that Miss Copperfield told me she heard them later."
"No she didn't." Said Miss Hanes.
Miss Copperfield said nothing but looked away.
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After the Sam Craig incident, Hawthorne sent me away from the train. He deemed staying near the train more dangerous in the next ten minutes than the forest filled with dinosaurs. Apparently, after I left, there were several more 'zombifications' as I called them, of people suddenly being forced to do the bidding of the name stealer.
I had also been sent to intercept whatever foresters I met and see if any had found a shelter with supplies. I had even taken a picture of the damaged parts, when Jesseme had complimented my use of antiques.
So I left the huge steam engine, and ran along the elevated sidewalk that went along side the elevated track. After a few minutes I ran into some foresters. Sounds great right?
Nope. Was not great.
They were in the presence of the ilk, the Name Stealer in raw form. I don't know what kind of arrangement they had, but while we were trying to restart the train, several of the saboteurs clued onto each other and formed some kind of deal. Tried to steal my name, but having read too much manga and old fairy tales, I knew better than giving it out. The Name Stealer then tried to force it out.
Jokes on her. My overtired college brain was full of formulas for tomorrow's accounting exam, and I was able to stop the invasion of my mind with the desperation of a college student defending her GPA (4.0 baby.).
I had been allowed to escape after that. I think I spooked them. Because...
I don't know. I think redheads are just naturally scary? Or they had other business to attend and I was not their objective and they didn't want to waste too much time. But let's go with redheads are scary.
I would have liked to run back to the train, at that point, but I think my would be attackers may have actually attacked. Besides, I got to see a signal flare from the forest. Long story short, I made it to a shelter house and two foresters. These guys were good, at least to me, and to my very tired brain the older one seemed to resemble Chris Pratt and the younger one, closer to my own age, looked like Rock Lee from Naruto. We had found the correct parts, (and I grabbed way more than I should have by the way), but as we were leaving we discovered what the naughty evil saboteur foresters had been doing: Drawing the dinosaurs closer. So we did the same thing, but gathered them to the shelter house and...
So I was already arrested for jaywalking...
I wonder what the penalty is for using the shelter house as a lure then blowing it up to contain the very aggressive barney colored dinosaurs. Chris Prattalike had then left to handle a massive t-rex, while entrusting the bowl cut young man James to me. Me. I can't even grow marigolds, and someone entrusted a whole other human to me.
So some people have no sense. That's all I'm gonna say.
We were nearly out of time, and James/Rock Lee ran through the trees like they do in early 2000s anime with me over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes. I had the spare parts for the train.
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"Well, Miss Ward." Said the Secret Investigator lady. She wore her hair entirely too tightly; her prim demeanor was dour enough to frighten small children and the delicate, faint of heart like myself.
I disliked how so many of the people on the train were so eager to blame me. I could have avoided this whole mess and hung out in the shelter. I didn't.
"My friend is a forester. He said he would be back and he will be."
"Master Lee seems to be an exceptional forester, but wasn't it strange how little he spoke. Almost like he had taken a vow to remain silent." she said, hypothesizing.
I grimaced. It was a complicated situation.
James was exceptional. I had seen him fend off multiple other foresters. At least 1/3 of saboteurs had undoubtedly been after him as civil war was breaking out in the Sects. I didn't know much, but I knew him to be a steadfast companion, who I had already entrusted with my life.
He was also shy.
Like...
So shy he bordered on being mute. He had all the swagger of a confident martial artist, but that confidence did not extend to his speech.
He could speak to his mentor, Mr. Prattallike (not his real name, I just needed to call him something in my head and that name stuck). And he could speak to me, for reasons neither of us understood. But anyone else? That was a no. When he tried to talk to groups, it came out stilted and tight.
He was so shy that during a forester battle, he had asked me to antagonize the bad guys as his mouth didn't move right when talking to other people. Punching and kicking grown adults much bigger than him? Not a problem. Battle quips? Nope.
I had been entrusted with him, and strangely I had more world experience than he did. I mean, at that point I had been in the world about 2ish hours. But using my knowledge of fairy tales, I had told him not to reveal his name, not even to me. So he had adopted the name I called him, Rock Lee. Except when he said it, Rock came out sounding like Peter. Weirdness. Almost like I wasn't actually completely speaking English and somehow I had a translator working for me. Like how Little Red Flower, the name Yu Lin called me, sounded more like "shel buy". But I didn't have enough time to understand everything, and somehow I still hoped I'd get to take my finals. My accounting final. In another world.
Wow, my priorities were messed up.
"I don't know what he promised or didn't." I said at last, lamely.
The investigator shook her head sadly, making a small tut tuting sound. "Of course. And I'm sure you do not know how several pounds of highly dangerous components came to be inside the train meant for the good citizens of our proud cities?"
That one was actually my fault...
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As James took me back, he had one last encounter with the foresters. Some of them may have been neutrals who merely saw him as a potential threat, but some of the foresters were working now with the name stealer. So I encouraged him to beat their tailbones. Which he did. He was really good at that fighting stuff. He needed them angry, asked me to provide my special services. I did. They got mad. I was sent to run the rest of the way to the train by myself. I did. I was proud of myself for not falling down the elevated rail, but then I saw the Foresters do real life wire work with no wires, and my confidence was smushed a little.
I got to the train, and met up with the Redshirt Lt. and Jesseme. She was just then starting to figure out that maybe...perhaps...by some terrible chance...someone had sabotaged the train. I really tried hard not to laugh at her. We repaired the train, but Lt. Burnabree (I can't remember his name properly, which I am sure isn't a clue.), had inspected the bag I was using to carry the spare parts. Now, someone may wonder why they didn't have spare parts if their breaking could leave the train stranded. One, apparently they did carry a single spare. And that spare had been blown up.
Why not have more spare parts?
Welp. Turns out the star jump drive, a little hollow rod painted gold inside with stars punched at intricate and precise places, had a tendency to...blow up if not probably held in check.
It's like having a birthday party at a gas station for an old lady with a 100 candles on the cake. Probably nothing will happen, but every candle you add just makes it a little more likely to...blow up. And as no one had told me...I had grabbed all the spare jump drives. All of them. Turns out the shelters where the spares were kept had something like a steam faraday cage, so that dangerous items and materials didn't...explode.
So...we got the train working again.
Hawthorne had returned at that point and nodded knowingly at me, when he saw all the star jump rods, like he understood some secret plan or design I had. I wish someone would clue me in. The train was moving again, and Rock Lee jumped on and we all compared notes.
What we found:
The saboteurs were after different people who all happened to get on the last train unexpectedly. The saboteurs probably had not been working together at the start and they had little or no time to prepare.
Specifically, I may or may not been a cause for everyone in this group to decide to take an earlier train, or cause them to miss the train before this one. Also...everyone on the roof of the train had a target on their head.
Jesseme Rogers was a promising young star rising in the steam engineering world, and worked on some fancy program called the Attala Project that may have played some part in me iseikai-ing here. In her possession, she may have incriminating data that proved the projects wrongdoing. Her belief in the genuine good will in other human beings was nice, but it had left her vulnerable as she had a family emergency and had asked for time off to handle it. She hadn't yet looked at the data, but my thoughts were the bad guys had no way of knowing that. She had basically ran for the hills right after receiving the first of the data. My thoughts are the bad guys were probably paranoid, and paranoid people are paranoid, and jump to the worst-case scenarios.
James/Rock Lee was the son of a clan Lord that protected some dude called the Silver Master (Wow, I wonder if they have a Purple Master and a Green Master too, or do they just stay in metals?). When the Silver Master disappeared, the same time that the Attala Project turned on, many of the foresters suspected wrongdoing of the clan that was supposed to protect him. Apparently without the Silver Master, civil war was inevitable. So James and his teacher had fled, and Mr. Prattalike was intending to entrust the bowl-cutted Rock Lee lookalike to a friend in special yard. It seemed to me that the real villain foresters who were involved the disappearance of the Silver Master were after him. All the other foresters kind of ended on a truce and let him go without anymore fighting. They hadn't even got on the train as it started working again. They would be just fine in the forest. James had told me later that it was a sign of good faith. I kept thought it was more dangerous, because the evil foresters could chase the train later.
Lt. Redshirt was a naturally talented steam manipulator (If you can't manipulate the steam, you can't be a steam engineer); he had under reported his sensitivity to steam because he hated math (the nerve, right?). Redshirt had been stationed as a guard to that Attala project's science center and had intercepted a message from a friend who had disappeared. The entire squadron guarding the inside had disappeared, in fact. The message had included a warning about something else coming into the world. Something dangerous. Lt. Redshirt had gone awol (Absent without leave) and was heading to Special Yard to make a report.
As for my benefactor, Deputy Constable Hawthorne? I didn't know. I think he and his partner were close to solving the entire matter before they were pursued by the Sects people. (The sects maybe different from the foresters, but I didn't have wikipedia here so I didn't know.) Hawthorne was mysterious. In fact, I believed that Yu Lin was there more as his bodyguard. There was something that felt safe about Hawthorne, but I had seen that danger lurked not far beneath the surface.
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But while I indeed did know who had unknowingly brought all the destructive material (It was me), I denied it the same way I denied everything else. I had played that party game before where one person pretends to get murdered and one person in the group did it. The group had to find out who had done the killing, while the killer had to pretend to be a normal member of the group.
"I helped fix the train. I don't know anything about extra components. If they were dangerous, why haven't they exploded yet?" I said.
She nodded, the first time she softened to me at all. "I will admit that point. But you have secrets, Miss Ward. So many secrets. Perhaps you even know who the killer is?"
My throat caught. I knew secrets alright.
"I didn't kill the Lt." I said. "Redshirt...Richard was a friend to me. He saved my life."
"Does his death come as a surprise then?"
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All my new friends had targets on their backs. The good Lt. Richard Burnadee had been waving the most death flags. I had been worried he would be the first loose thread to be snipped. He was even wearing a redshirt.
We got the train moving, but before Deputy Constable Hawthorne, Steam Engineer Jesseme, James/Rock Lee the Heir of a Great Forester House, Lt. Burnabee, and I went inside the train, the sky around us was plummeted into the unnatural night. With all the fighting of the name bound and the foresters each other, blood had been shed.
It was no longer safe to be outside.
Death walkers, Rock and Deputy Constable Hawthorne both confirmed. I now officially hated this world. We all knew dangers lurked inside the train. The people trying to stop us would not stop. Everyone in that group had secrets that threatened something massive. Secrets worth killing for, apparently. And we would have to go inside the train now. With the saboteurs.
All my friends knew secrets of the Attalla project, directly or indirectly.
But Richard was the only one with a saved message from one of the disappeared guards that claimed that the project had gone too far. And had perhaps let in a great evil. A being from another world. The Harbinger. The fabled creature that heralds the end of the world.
I had a secret too. None of my friends realized I was Iseikaied there. By a quirk of fate, I had been wearing my silky bathrobe, which looked close enough to the fashion of the world. I didn't look like I was from the city, but everyone had accepted me as a newcomer from the countryside. My lack of social aware brushed aside as a bumpkin trying to make her way in the world. My lack of social graces forgiven by my youth and earnestness. My lack of knowledge was surmised as inexperience.
I wasn't an nameless evil. I wasn't the Harbinger of death. I was just an ordinary girl working to get a CPA to make a bunch of money. Purely normal. Except the red hair, I was no different from anyone else. I had risked my life several times to save other people. That is not something a nameless evil would do. And I had a name, too. I just won't share it because magic is apparently real, even if the citizens of this world didn't see it as magic.
I didn't know any rules here. But I knew the less I said, the less I exposed myself, the better. I was a stranger with less than a day's experience in a land far from my home. I had no choice. I...couldn't tell them. I didn't lie. But I didn't tell the truth.
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To prevent my secret from escaping, I had to wonder...Would it be better to be arrested for the Murder of Lt. Richard Jason Burndree, found dead just an hour ago?
I shook my head at the Special Investigator. "I will be honest, the flags were there all along that he was the target of the train's saboteur."
I had secrets to keep.
And my friends to help.
I looked at everyone here in this train carriage. Mr. Brown in the charcoal suit, still hiding his hands behind his back. Mr. Jones, the retired military officer, seemingly pleased. Miss Hanes in her practical but opulent dress. Miss Copperfield, her face withdrawn, not looking toward me. Mrs. Saizoko in her gorgeous kimono, her head cast to an aloof angle. Bethany in her wheelchair with her perfect hair. The train conductor, his uniform dirty from all the unexpected repairs. And even the Secret Investigator, her white blonde hair pulled back tightly, her green catlike eyes shining as she considered every word everyone spoke.
Someone in this group was the last saboteur. And I was going to find out.