“I can’t do this,” said Fara, voice shaky. “I thought we were just going to do some damage, I didn’t sign up for… for caves and tunnels and evil giant bug creatures. And Eddy…” she trailed off, then moved to take Gizmo’s limp form from Gliridae. “I’m heading back; carry on without me if you want but I can’t do this.”
Julie Matthes nodded and motioned for her to go. They stared into the blackness of the ravine, watching for any movement, as her footsteps echoed back up the passageway. Beyond that, it was silent, the dying embers of Gliridae’s fires bathing the space in a golden glow.
“We should press on,” Jeremiah said finally. “We need to move if we want to get there before morning, and if we want to get out of here before whatever it is comes back for round two. Let’s figure out a way across, as I can’t carry all of you.”
After a few minutes of searching, they managed to find an ancient column of wood just long enough to lay over the ravine. Gliridae went first, dancing lightly across. Julie Matthes went next, careful with each step, followed by Junior, who dropped to all fours at the halfway mark and crawled the rest of the way. Jeremiah flew to the other side: he wasn’t normally afraid of heights, but he refused to look down as crossed.
Bill looked queasy at the sight.
“It’s solid stuff, don’t worry,” Julie Matthes tried to reassure him. “You just need to move quickly… and try not to slip…”
Jeremiah didn’t blame his friend for not looking convinced. Gliridae trotted to the edge of the ravine, carrying a length of rope- where did he get rope?- and tossed it to the other side.
“I’ve tied this around a stone back there,” called the tiny musician. “Knot it around your waist- it’ll keep you safe if you fall.” Bill nodded and complied, and then carefully got onto the column. “Remember- quickly, but also stable. There’s no point rushing if it’ll make you lose your footing.” Bill nodded again, and squared his shoulders before walking across, jaw clenched so tight Jeremiah could see the tendons straining in his neck. The wood creaked and groaned beneath him, but he made it to the other side and sagged in relief.
“Where did you get rope?” Julie Matthes quietly asked the smaller man as Bill quickly forged ahead, seemingly embarrassed at his earlier fear.
“I found it in one of the huts- it’s probably a hundred years old and rotted through,” Gliridae murmured back, “but it got the job done. Don’t tell him though- I like my head on my shoulders.” Julie Matthes blinked at him and shook her head, but she was smiling.
They continued in silence for what felt like another hour, or just over. In the gloom of the tunnel there was no way to tell. At first, they were on high alert for any sounds coming from behind; but as time went on, they dropped their guards. Jeremiah caught Gliridae rubbing at his eyes a few times, and though the tiny musician tried to shrug and turn away he was clearly still shaken- whether at Eddy’s death or at the creature, he couldn’t say.
Jeremiah was shaken too: it had been years since he’d seen someone die like that, and it left a hollow pit of nerves and remorse at the bottom of his stomach. His previous eagerness was seeping away; this no longer seemed like a fun excursion to cause some mayhem. This was real and dangerous and even if they survived the night, they might find themselves in Lockup come morning. He was regretting his jauntiness earlier that evening: perhaps they should have considered more seriously what they were signing up for.
Then he looked again at Gliridae, and ahead to Bill, and sighed; there was no way he could have walked away from this.
Finally, the tunnel started to slope up. The stone was replaced by red brick, and they could hear noises above them and in the distance. Boxes and barrels began to appear, as did heaps of junk: clearly this was used as overflow storage. Then they turned a corner and the tunnel ended abruptly; a small wooden door was embedded in the wall, light pooling out underneath. They stopped.
“We’re on the lowest floor,” murmured Junior, pulling out a scrap of paper. The map on it was produced seemingly under great duress, drawn in blue and green crayon. Still, it was enough to get an idea of the layout of the place. “Problem is, to get where we’re going there are a couple of doors which require authentication to get through- either keys or employee ID.”
“We’re directly below Braum Wellington’s office,” said Jeremiah, peering at the diagram. “Perhaps we can find the necessary items in there?” The group paused, glancing at each other, then Julie Matthes nodded.
“It’s worth a shot. This side of the building should be quiet until morning, but the forge itself will be busy; we might want to avoid it entirely. If we can destroy or pocket any of the documents in Wellington’s office, that could be a big help. Gliridae?” The smaller man turned to her. “Leave the saxophone.”
He hesitated, then nodded and tucked it between two of the barrels. The dark case faded into the dim surroundings.
Julie Matthes pressed her ear to the door: once satisfied the path was clear, she wrenched it open and beckoned them through.
This time Jeremiah took lead. He slipped through the corridor to the stairwell, one hand opening doors and the other resting firmly on the handgun he’d sequestered in his coat pocket. One by one the others followed, darting the 30 odd metres to the stairs; Gliridae came last, silently shutting the door behind him. Up the stairs they went, wincing as every last noise reverberated all the way to the top, from Basement 4 to Basement 2.
The corridor Jeremiah emerged into was much nicer than the previous one, with deep red carpeting and dark wooden doors, each bearing a brass placard with the occupant’s name. The space was barely lit, and no light shone underneath any doors. It was night: it was deserted.
Quickly, quickly, they hurried down the corridor to Braum Wellington’s office, where Junior picked the lock with an alacrity that Jeremiah found both impressive and alarming- had the teenager been raised for this job? Into the office, and then they locked the door behind them and sagged with relief.
“Let’s get looking,” said Julie Matthes, and they fanned out.
The office was large but sparsely decorated; only one photo hung on the wall, of a young Braum Wellington at his graduation, next to his degree. The desk was neatly organised, with trays of paper and a pot of pens but no personal items. The wallpaper was a dull yellow, and a single hanging lamp provided the only light.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Jeremiah started on a filing cabinet, the majority of which seemed to be memos between Braum and other engineers regarding deadlines… or a lack thereof. He was just puzzling over a particularly nonsensical bit of engineering jargon when a voice echoed down the corridor.
“Well yes, I know that, but he didn’t exactly warn us that he was going to disappear!” The voice was accompanied by footsteps, and they all froze.
“But Mallison, what about the release date?” Another voice replied.
Hide! Jeremiah mouthed, and they scrambled. Junior crawled under the desk while Bill placed himself safely behind the door. Jeremiah and Julie Matthes climbed into the cupboard, and Gliridae stood on the other side of it. There was a sound of a key in the lock.
“The release date stays the same; no more delays, that’s for sure. Look, I need to find these plans, I can’t run this thing if I don’t know what Braum’s next step was.” The door cracked open, then paused. “Yes, okay, I’ll see you there. Yeah. Bye.”
Into the room stepped a gangly, awkward looking man with shaggy brown hair and a face covered with the craters of past adolescent acne. He was carrying a briefcase and looked around the room with a frown, surveying the disorder.
Jeremiah held his breath, trying to decide what to do. They couldn’t let him go through the office: he’d find them for sure. But if they showed themselves, he’d raise the alarm… unless Julie and Junior had their way. Jeremiah didn’t want any more blood spilt over this. He hesitated, and next to him Julie Matthes tensed, as though readying herself to burst out.
“Well hello there, Mr Mallison.”
Gliridae sauntered out from behind the cupboard, hands buried in his jacket pockets, nonchalant as could be. In a split-second Jeremiah made his decision, grabbing Julie’s arm to hold her back as the engineer just about jumped out of his skin.
“Who the hell are you? And what are you doing here?”
“I’m here on official Silver business is what I’m doing here,” said Gliridae, cocking his head. “Namely, looking into the disappearance and assumed murder of your predecessor. Now I must ask, Mr Mallison, what’s got you so defensive?”
“Murder?” The man’s voice cracked. “I’ve got nothing to do with… wait, you’re a Silver?”
From the depths of his pockets, Gliridae pulled out the Silver passes that Avery Ward had given them what felt like a lifetime ago. It was all Jeremiah could do not to laugh in delight.
“Discretion is the name of the game in this business,” Gliridae continued, tucking it back away. “But we were hoping to find you here tonight.”
“We?”
Bill shut the door, revealing himself, and the rest took it as their invitation to climb out of their respective hiding places, surrounding the young engineer. They were all covered from filth from the tunnel, and some also sported blood. Julie and Junior both had guns in plain sight, and Jeremiah and Bill had their mechatronics. Mallison looked around in fear, but Gliridae snapped his fingers in front of the man’s face, drawing his attention back.
“Don’t worry, you’re not a suspect. But we believe one of the employees working in the forge tonight is. Will you help us in bringing justice to Mr Wellington?” He paused, then leaned in with a slight smile. “I’ll be sure to mention it to AnneMarie Parod.”
“You know Miss Parod?” gulped the engineer, before glancing around and recovering himself. “I mean, of course, I’d be glad to help you. Whoever did this needs to be taken in- they’re a threat to everything this city holds dear.”
Gliridae’s smile widened.
“I knew you’d agree. So, would you lead the way?”
Jeremiah took some measure of glee in the expressions on the Julie and Junior’s faces as they left the office. This was the first time they’d seen Gliridae in his element, outside of being a gun-shy tagalong, and it was entertaining. In the short time he’d known him, Jeremiah had come to feel protective of the tiny musician, with his odd sense of humour and his firmly held beliefs. It was fun watching others realise what he was capable of.
Bill quirked an eyebrow to the tiny musician as they walked and Gliridae slipped him a sheet of paper. Jeremiah leaned back to see a memo from the previous week, telling everyone involved that if there was one more delay on the intercontinental rail project, the employees would all be strung up and their guts worn as garters. It was signed AnneMarie Parod.
Bill passed it to Julie Matthes, who smothered a laugh and tucked it away.
And so they found themselves being brought to the heart of the Intercontinental Railway Project by the head engineer of said project, who got them through every door and check with just a quick nod of his head. As they went, the sounds of machinery, clanging metal and shouting voices got louder and louder. Passing through a final gate, they turned a corner and entered the forge.
***
The workshop was enormous: at least five stories tall and the size of several sports fields, with hundreds of workers scurrying to and fro even at this hour. At one end, there was an enormous set of gates facing the road- clearly the desired exit for when the project was done. There were boxes of equipment, large fires being used to pound and shape metal, hooks dangling from heavy chains carrying equipment up and down between stations, and in the centre of it all: the train.
Train wasn’t a grand enough title. Intercontinental Rail Project certainly wasn’t right. Jeremiah desperately cast around for the words to encapsulate the magnitude and horror of what he saw before him, but found he couldn’t.
It was like a demon made from steel and brass; three stories tall, with flattened sheet metal that curved into a deadly point at the front, ready to slice through anything that stood in the way. Enormous metal arms, like those of a crab, lay on either side just waiting to be attached. Jeremiah remembered what he’d read on the poster, about how it would be capable of laying its own tracks.
He couldn’t miss the iron bars on the few windows there were. He couldn’t miss the two artillery towers that perched at the top, guns already fitted.
“Aw hell…” he heard Bill breath beside him. Junior blinked, rubbed his eyes, blinked again. Even Gliridae seemed momentarily speechless, staring up at the machine with dread.
Jeremiah looked over to Julie Matthes and met her eyes. He could tell they were both thinking the same thing: of their friends, their companions, trapped within it. Something cold and furious tightened deep inside of him: he wanted it destroyed. He wanted it crushed, rent into a thousand tiny pieces, with no hope of ever being reassembled. He wanted the minds behind it to stare at the destruction and know to never try anything again.
“We’ll need you to clear the area,” Jeremiah told Mallison. Impossibly, his voice stayed calm- pleasant even. Mallison’s eyebrows quirked.
“There can’t be any further delays- we’re behind schedule as is, they’ll have my head on a platter if I do anything that-“
“Mallison, trust us,” said Gliridae, holding up a hand. All traces of his earlier fear had vanished; Jeremiah wondered how deep he’d had to shove it down. “We’re good at our job: there’s a reason we were assigned to this case. All we need is 20 minutes, at most, and then you can let everyone back in.”
“But how do I explain it to them?”
“Tell them there’s a gas leak,” said Jeremiah, dredging up his ‘authority figure’ voice from the deepest recesses of his mind. “And that you have to clear the area. They can’t argue with that. When we say it’s all clear, you give them the all clear, and everyone gets back to work.”
“We’ll have our culprit, and you’ll have a nice letter of recommendation on its way to AnneMarie,” Gliridae finished. They looked to Mallison, who caved.
“Fine, okay, just- just give me a moment, the announcement rig is at the top.”
Three ladders and four minutes later, Mallison’s nasal voice rang across the room.
“All employees must evacuate the building. I repeat- all employees evacuate. There has been a gas leak detected. Once again- all employees must evacuate.” There was a loud chorus of complaints, and several employees threw down their tools.
“Call us in to work all night and then boot us out again,” Jeremiah heard one snarl to a friend. “What a fucking joke.”
Mallison appeared back at their side, and Gliridae raised an eyebrow.
“Well? You need to leave too; it would be suspicious otherwise.”
“No, no, I can’t leave you unsupervised,” he protested, starting to look nervous. “What if you change something? Or break something? I couldn’t.”
Bill stepped forward and clapped a hand on his shoulder, heavy enough that the smaller man nearly buckled from it, then leaned in close.
“Don’t worry, sonny.” There was a dark humour in his voice. “We’re acting as Silvers.”