“Ow, ow, ow,” I said as it healed. That had fucking hurt. It’d been a long time since I’d allowed my pedicure kit buffs to expire. I was so used to having rock-solid feet, I’d forgotten what it felt like to be vulnerable down there. We really needed to get to a saferoom.
The train eased to a stop.
“I see more monsters,” Donut said. “But not as many. There’s only a few on the platform. But they’re big. A lot bigger. One is going into train 16 and another two into 14.”
The door handle started to jiggle. I grasped onto it and held the door closed. Squeals of outrage came through the other side. A moment later, the train started to move again.
“Hey,” I said. “Do you remember if we left the doors open all the way down? The ones to cars 17 and 18?”
“We did,” Katia said.
“Okay, let me know the moment you see that next platform. In a couple minutes we’re going to…”
Peaking at Number 2 on January 13, 2007, it’s “Fergalicious!”
The announcement was so loud it rattled the walls.
“What in god’s name is,” Katia started before she was drowned out. The song started, louder than I expected, despite the description’s warning. My ears immediately rang in pain.
Carclass="underline" It’s the alarm trap. They made it through the first door.
Katia: Do you want me to hold the other door?
Carclass="underline" No. We don’t have time anymore. We’re running aft. Toward the back. We’re going in about 15 seconds. We are going to run all the way back to car number 20, and we’re shutting every door we pass. When I say go, we run.
Katia: How is that going to work? I don’t understand.
Donut: JUST GO WITH IT. WHEN CARL SAYS TO DO SOMETHING WE DO IT. ALSO, I LOVE THIS SONG.
The door at the far end of the car rumbled. Shrieks of pain exploded from the other side. Experience notifications started rolling in as mobs were impaled on the door spikes.
I looked at the map to make sure the track was straight, and then I clicked on Protective Shell.
The large, semi-circle shield formed around us, expanding outside the width of the train car. The shield wasn’t affected or fettered by solid objects.
I had no idea how fast the average subway car moved, but that didn’t really matter. I knew this train was going fast, and I also knew that the spell’s barrier would be impenetrable by mobs for 20 seconds.
And more importantly, the spell remained static in the spot where it was cast.
The magical shell disappeared the moment I cast it, rocketing away toward car 16, then 17, then 18, then 19, then 20, and then away, stuck in that same place along the tracks it’d been when I cast, pushing all the mobs along with it like a bulldozer, squishing them into paste against the first surface they met.
Carclass="underline" Go!
I threw open the door just as the door at the other end of the train ripped open, revealing a hedgehog-like ogre creature, so large it couldn’t get through. Only its arm reached in, stretching all the way from car 14. The Dreks poured in around it, running and clambering at us. Several jumped to the ceiling and crawled just as fast as they ran, their mouths open in cries I thankfully couldn’t hear. I slammed the door behind us, then the next.
Car 16 was completely filled with blood. Body parts were splattered around the seats and walls where the Dreks had gotten stuck. Each corpse had dropped about five gold pieces. The ogre creature, apparently called a Psycho Sticker, had been so obliterated it didn’t even register as an X on the map.
I looked over my shoulder at the sign, and the next station was only four minutes away. I relaxed as we jogged toward train number 17, looting the gold as we ran. We were going to be okay. For now.
Carclass="underline" Don’t slip on the blood! It’s easy to trip on their heads. Believe me.
Katia: I’m going to be sick. Oh my god, Carl. I’ve never seen anything like this.
Donut: YOU BETTER GET USED TO IT.
2
The platform to transfer station #83 looked like any other subterranean subway station from before the collapse. It was a narrow, concrete platform that seemed to go on forever. One end had a set of stairs leading up to a different area. The featureless, white-tiled walls gave off an early industrial vibe. A lone bench sat against the wall, and a faded thick yellow stripe was painted on the landing, warning travelers of the edge of the platform.
By the time the train had eased to a stop, and the doors slid open, we still had multiple cars between us and the hordes of killer babies and hedgehog ogres. I feared they would pour out of the train, but Mordecai’s earlier assessment that the transit stations would be safe was correct.
“Do you think the trains get more and more filled with monsters the further it goes?” Katia asked. “Surely they have to get off somewhere.”
“That’s a good question,” I said, watching the train pull away. Drek glared at us through the windows. I flipped them off. “Go fuck yourselves, creepy babies.”
Once the train was gone, I stepped forward to examine the track below. It looked like a regular subway path. It was a channel about five feet deep holding two regular rails. On the far end was the so-called “third rail,” an electrified length of metal that provided power to the train. Normally these things had covers on them to keep people from getting electrocuted if they accidentally fell in, but there was no cover here. I didn’t know how much juice was running through the line. For all I knew the whole thing could be some ridiculous mana system. One never knew with this place. But the presence of what appeared to be ceramic insulators along the single, raised line suggested this was good ol’ DC electricity. Either way, I knew we needed to stay off the damn tracks.
“Mongo,” I said to the dinosaur, who was poised to jump down there to go exploring. “Don’t. You’ll get zapped or squished. Probably both.”
The pet grunted and turned away.
My eyes caught a freestanding, rectangular sign in the center of the platform with some writing on it. I moved to examine it.
The sign simply read The Red Line. Trains approximately every 10-15 minutes and had a long, red squiggle. There was a single dot on the line, about 1/3 of the way from the bottom. It was labeled You are here. Station #83.
I examined the sign more carefully, and I felt the haptic buzz of my Escape Plan skill activating. The map became alive. Additional words appeared. The remaining dots populated the line, starting at station 11 and ending at station 435. It appeared the trains only traveled one way, ascending up the line, which was kind of weird. If there was a second train that went from high to low, it wasn’t indicated here. The transit stations were now circled on the map. They were not at regular intervals, but there were quite a few of them. In addition, every five stations had red squares over the dots, but it didn’t say what that meant.
A box sat in the left corner of the map. It read Saferooms appear at all transfer stations. Stairwells appear at stations numbered 12, 24, 36, 48, and 72 on any colored line. The map didn’t give any more details, nor did it give the names of the other lines at this station, though I knew from the announcement there was also a yellow line platform and a “Nightmare Express” platform somewhere around here.
We’d emerged on the train just after station number 80, and we’d gotten off at 83. There didn’t appear to be a way to get to the lower-numbered stations with the stairwells. At least not directly. Also, I knew that there would be 9,375 stairwells hidden on this floor. If each line only had five stairwell locations, then how many damn lines were there? I hated doing math, but it sounded like this was going to be a mess.
A timer counted down to the next train arrival, which would be in nine minutes.