Murder on the Disoriented Express

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“Well,” says Ciere Giba, peering into the wine cellar, “of all the places we’ve squatted, this one has the best drinks.”

Alan Fiacre closes his eyes and slowly inhales. The cellar is dark, cool, and comfortable. There’s a sense of strength to the old wood walls. With its single exit, it’s easily defensible, and there’s enough food down here to last at least a week. Whoever stocked this cellar made sure they’d have a fine place to hide, should they ever need it.

Alan relaxes. He’s been in many places like this before and familiarity almost feels like coming home.

Ciere lingers on the threshold, her fingers still on the doorknob. She gives the small room a narrow-eyed look. It puts Alan in mind of feral cats looking at baited traps—tempted by the food, but wary of the walls.

Alan says, “You want to get out of here? The others probably won’t mind if we wait on the stairs.”

“I’m fine,” Ciere says automatically, in the same guarded way she always says,
I’m not claustrophobic.

Alan understands. There are some things he won’t talk about, too. Trying to pry such truths out of others would be hypocritical.

“You know,” he says, after a long moment, “I have to disagree. The casino had pretty good ones.”

She looks at him, puzzled by the sudden change in subject.

Alan keeps his eyes on the wine barrels. “Drinks, I mean.”

The comment does what it is supposed to: it distracts and redirects Ciere’s attention. She walks to one of the wine racks, her hand going for a dusty bottle. She squints at the label. “You think Guntram would notice if I took one?”

“Yes, he would,” comes a familiar voice. A blond man strides down the stairs. He’s not physically imposing, but Alan knows better than to judge by appearances. Brandt Guntram is one of the more dangerous men Alan has met in his life. Guntram is cool, methodical, and without pride. There’s none of the bluster Alan has come to expect from criminals. Should he ever decide Ciere and Alan are threats, there won’t be a warning. Just two flashes of gunfire.

Alan lets his eyes meet Guntram’s gaze. Something like understanding passes between them.
I don’t trust you
, Alan thinks.

I know
, is Guntram’s silent reply.

Ciere grudgingly puts the bottle down. “You make a living out of being a mobster, yet you draw the line at stealing a bottle of booze?”

Guntram smiles thinly. “We’re all our own kind of criminal.”

Alan isn’t a criminal by choice.

It’s more of a necessity. While staying off the government’s radar, he learned how to squat in houses, how to use corners of the Internet the government can’t access, how to send and receive coded messages, and to steal food when he has no other options. Alan doesn’t regret any of it.

He’s the last Fiacre. It is his duty to survive.

“The privatization of trains began after the war,” says Guntram.

There are no chairs in the cellar, so Ciere and Alan sit on wine barrels. Guntram stands before them, having adopted a stance like a history professor.

Sitting behind them is Conrad, Guntram’s bodyguard. He’s well over six feet tall and he looks like he could lift one of these barrels in each arm. But despite this, Alan likes the man. Conrad is blunt, honest, and good-natured; Alan doesn’t mind having Conrad at his back.

“After the Pacific War, crime spiked,” continues Guntram. “And that included pickpocketing—especially on public transportation. Trains in particular. Criminals with powers used the trains as ideal hunting grounds. This caused a slump in business and eventually, some of them began to shut down. However, one individual saw an opportunity. Benjamin Hubbard, a rather wealthy man, began buying out some of the public railroads. He hired his own security, thus ensuring that people could once again ride trains without worrying about losing a wallet. These companies charged more, but that was to be expected—”

“Why do you always monologue at us?” interrupts Ciere. “It’s boring and just a little cliché.”

Guntram gives her a flat look. “Informing my colleagues is cliché?”

“Oh, come on,” says Ciere. “There’s informing and then there’s twirling your mustache.”

“I don’t have a mustache,” points out Guntram.

“You also don’t have a high-backed chair or a white cat, but you manage the B movie villain schtick just fine.”

“I,” says Guntram, sounding offended for the first time, “would not be a
B movie
villain.”

Conrad turns a laugh into a garbled cough. Alan tries not to smile.

Ciere throws up her hands. “Everyone knows about the trains! In fact, I’ve
been
one of those pickpockets. How’d you think I got from Seattle to Detroit when I was a kid?” She gives Guntram a triumphant look.

Guntram smiles. It’s one of those thin smiles that sets Alan on edge. “Conrad?” he says. “Did you know about the trains?”

“No,” says Conrad, and he grins at Ciere. “Kitty, we’re not all Americans. And I had better things to learn than the recent history of your trains.” His German accent seems to thicken around the last few words, as if in deliberate rebuke.

Ciere flushes and turns back to Guntram.

“Okay then,” she says grudgingly. She waves a hand around. “Continue.”

“I’ll try to keep my mustache-twirling to a minimum,” replies Guntram.

Alan and Ciere have been working with the Gyr Syndicate for just over two months. Two months of living with professional criminals and killers, and at some point in the midst of it, Ciere began talking back to Guntram. Maybe it was the familiarity—eating together, sleeping in adjacent hotel rooms, traveling in the same cars, listening to Conrad’s muttered curses and Guntram’s careful silences, and allying themselves against the same enemies.

As they became more integrated into the Syndicate, Alan watched Ciere gradually relax around the mobsters. She doesn’t trust them, even Alan can see that, but she doesn’t expect a knife in the back, either.

Alan’s not so sure. But then again, if the Syndicate is going to betray them, there’s not a lot he can do about it. Not yet, anyway. So Alan does what he has always done: remain in the shadows, listen, and wait.

As for enjoying Ciere’s verbal matches with Guntram…well, that’s just a fringe benefit.

Guntram leans against a barrel, looking as confident and comfortable as ever. “As I was saying, Hubbard and Co. run most of the private trains up and down the Eastern Seaboard. They make a nice little living off of it. But not all of their money comes from legitimate services.” He takes a breath. “They’re using the trains to smuggle weapons to the Alberani crime family.”

Ciere blows out a small breath. “Well, that’s inconvenient. Cops don’t search those trains. There’s supposed to be no need—the companies hire their own security and deliver any criminals to the police. Gift-wrapped, if the rumors are right.” She shakes her head. “Kit never let us work a job on those trains.”

Guntram reaches down, picking up a manila envelope. “Well,” he says, “you’re no longer working for him.” He holds out two slips of paper. Alan takes one and Ciere another.

It’s a ticket. A train ticket.

“You want us riding a train used by a rival crime family?” asks Ciere. She doesn’t sound afraid, just interested.

“Technically,” says Guntram, “you’re
stealing
from a train used by a rival crime family.”

There’s an old saying about a person not being the sum of his parts. It’s true—people are made up of memories and experiences, of families and relationships.

But Alan feels he has no sum; he is all parts. He is what he knows—and what he knows is everything about the MK virus. How to culture it, weaken it, render the virus inactive. What parts of the virus to strip away and how to craft the remaining pieces into the Praevenir vaccine. The vaccine that causes 0.003% of its recipients to develop some kind of superhuman ability.

And here’s the thing about having the world’s most coveted weapon hidden in a person’s brain: it makes everything else irrelevant.

Alan has known what he is since his aunt sat him down and explained. He alone carries the knowledge of how to create superpowered soldiers.

When Brenton Fiacre created the vaccine, he had no idea what the consequences would be: the rounding up of American citizens, the founding of the UAI, the realization that humanity would never be able to look at itself the same way.

And that was
before
a war broke out.

So, yes. Alan knows exactly the dangers of the Praevenir vaccine. He knows what governments would do with it; he has seen the files that TATE managed to hack out of government servers—the scores of dauthus forcibly recruited into the military, the mentalists driven into the TSA, the illusionists that use their talents to spy on other nations.

America uses such individuals because it is convinced that the rest of the nations are also using them as weapons. And they probably are. Alan’s father did his best to repair the damage; he destroyed the vaccine, its formula, and himself.

Alan has very little of his family: a bracelet his mother owned, a wedding ring, the journal his aunt kept, and numbers and letters seared into his brain. And for a very long time, those were all that mattered. Keeping the memories safe, staying on the run, his father’s legacy secret and guarded.

But that was before he met Ciere, before her crew of white-collar thieves stumbled upon him. Before she used her immunity to effectively fake his death and hide him from the very authorities that would see him truly dead. To keep Alan safe, she promised to serve these mobsters for six months. Ciere, being an illusionist, has the power to make people see what she wants—and it’s a valuable talent. But these days, it’s dangerous to be talented. And if the Syndicate were to ever decide that they wanted to keep her on a more permanent basis…

Alan doesn’t let himself think about that.

He tells himself it’s the least he can do, being here for her.

The train between New York City and Miami will take about twenty-eight hours. Even so, Alan doesn’t pack anything but the basics—a change of clothes, his burner phone, and his few possessions. He keeps it all in a worn leather backpack. There’s no need to bring anything else.

“You know Guntram first nabbed me here?” says Ciere. Alan blinks and looks up at the Penn Station sign. Guntram dropped them off and went to find parking, leaving the two teenagers on the bustling sidewalk.

“Did he?” asks Alan, interested. He’s only heard bits and pieces of this story—a robbed bank, some forty thousand dollars, and a Hello Kitty bobblehead.

Ciere nods. “I was taking one of the public trains down to Philadelphia. He found me, threatened me, put the tracking bracelet on me.” Her hand goes to her wrist, to the heavy silver bracelet. “It was all very civilized.”

“And now we’re working for him,” says Alan.

Ciere shrugs. “To be honest, this is the kind of job I was trained to do. Doesn’t matter who’s paying me to do it.” Her mouth twists into a bitter smile. “Although it would be nice to actually get paid.”

Guntram finds them after ten minutes. He has his phone in hand, as if finished making a call. “The rest of your party is already here.”

Ciere brightens. “Is it Henry? Because that would actually make this trip pretty fun.”

Guntram doesn’t reply and Ciere grins. She strides into the train station, unconcerned with the mobster at her back. Alan falls into step behind both of them. The train station isn’t overly busy, but there are still plenty of people to keep an eye on.

One of the Gyr Syndicate mobsters waits for them. It isn’t Henry.

“Oh,
him
,” says Ciere, making no attempt to hide her annoyance.

The man’s name is Pruitt. He leans against a bench, as if he’s too keyed up to sit. He has curly dark hair, scars on his hands, and a perpetual frown. Of course, that might be because the first time they met, Alan mistook him for an enemy and kicked Pruitt’s legs out from under him.

Their relationship never really improved after that.

“Of course you had to send him,” mutters Ciere. “Why can’t Conrad come with us?”

“Because a six-foot-tall German mercenary tends to draw attention, especially in close quarters,” says Guntram mildly. “Pruitt is less noticeable. He’s also a resident of Florida, so we don’t have to fake his ID tags.”

Pruitt appears even less pleased than Ciere when they approach. “Kids,” he says, by way of greeting. To Guntram he adds, “Boss.”

“You ready?” asks Guntram. His tone shifts; it changes from the indulgent, amused voice he uses with Ciere into something harder.

Pruitt nods.

“Get it done,” says Guntram. He gives Ciere and Alan a steady look. “And behave. All of you.”

Ciere gives him a thumbs-up. Alan isn’t sure how anyone can make a physical gesture look sarcastic, but she manages just fine.

Alan has hopped trains before. It’s one of the easier, if less safe, ways to travel. Cargo trains were the best and he has a few fond memories of playing gin rummy with his aunt while surrounded by wooden crates.

This train is nothing like that. It looks like an old-fashioned steam train. The red and brown paint is artfully distressed and even the whistle sounds like it belongs to another century. “I thought this was top-of-the-line,” says Ciere, under her breath.

Pruitt is the one to answer. “It is,” he says, making no attempt to hide his scorn. “It’s so people can pretend it’s an older age, back before the war.”

Ciere snorts. “The First World War, by the looks of it.”

Pruitt gives her a hard look. “I would’ve thought you’ve stolen enough antiques to appreciate them.”

Ciere glares at him, but doesn’t reply.

Getting on board takes half an hour; one of the metal detectors is down, forcing everyone through the same security line. Pruitt goes first, handing over his tags, ticket, and wallet. He steps through the metal detector and is waved forward.

Ciere has a little more trouble.

“What kind of metal have you got on you?” asks the security officer, sounding tired.

Ciere screws up her face. “Um. My bra.”