I added a note about the different brands of portals, but I didn’t have time for writing. I’d add more later. Since I didn’t have to have the book open to add to it, I’d been spending a lot of time mentally writing in that second, hidden scratchpad, mostly when we were on a train or sitting down to eat. I didn’t know if any of it made sense. I wasn’t a writer, and whenever I started to mentally type my feelings onto the pad, I couldn’t tell if it was coherent or just bullshit. I assumed some future crawler would find my chapter and just think I was being a whiny bitch.
We had everything lined up and ready to go. If all went as planned, we guesstimated it would take about 8-10 hours for the first three trains to reach the end of the line. The system said these things went five times faster than the normal trains. I really hoped this worked.
Also, it turned out while every single one of the portals on the rapid-response carts was a two-way switch where one could select the abyss or a trainyard, the trainyards themselves were different on each one. The trainyard number was helpfully painted on the edge of each cart, likely so the workers would know which cart to use when an interdiction was required. I supposed in the end it didn’t really matter which cart we used, though the three separate groups at the end of the line would all be sent off to different instances of the trainyard. We picked three where we knew people were already holed up at the local version of station 36.
Only one of the carts had a portal that was tuned to trainyard E, the same yard where we had come in earlier, and the same one where we could easily return to the Nightmare and Imani’s group if we needed. We’d keep that cart here with us.
Meanwhile, Imani and Li Jun and everybody else from station 101 were in the process of fortifying station 36. They’d disabled the Vermillion train on the track, blocking any monster coming down the line. I was afraid that’d mean the blister ghouls coming from station 72 would simply turn around and head back toward us at 75, but it appeared they were congregating in front of the train. Not that it mattered much. There were literally dozens of lines that fed into that station, and they were in a constant state of battle, pushing the invaders back. I hoped they’d be able to hold out.
“Okay, everybody cover your ears,” I said as I finished placing the final trap onto the sixth cart. “I’m putting a delay on all of them, but I’m going to set this one off just to make sure it works like we want.”
“How am I supposed to cover my ears, Carl?” Donut asked.
“Okay, go to the other side of the station then. Remember last time? It’s loud as shit.”
The regular subway cars were big and heavy and thundered through the tunnels. These carts didn’t appear to make hardly any noise at all. As Katia pointed out earlier, that’d be a problem for those waiting at the other end of the line. Therefore we needed one last touch so the crawlers could hear the portal coming.
I reached down and set the one-minute delay on the last of the traps. I had one on all six of the carts. This one would go first. The others all had a 30-minute delay, but I wanted to make double sure that the delay function worked as intended before I sent it through the portal. I engaged the engine, double-checked to make sure the portal was set to the abyss and that the car was dialed to the correct portal. Everything was a go.
“What do you think it’s going to be?” I called over to Katia, who stood by the side of the tracks, covering her ears.
“It’ll be ‘Wonderwall!’ I just know it,” Donut shouted from the far side of the platform. “It’s the greatest song of all time!”
“Wonderwall?” Katia said, turning and laughing. “You mean the song by Oasis?”
Peaking at Number 1 on Nov 16, 1981, it’s “Physical!”
The alarm trap activated, and the Olivia Newton John song started playing, so loud I took a small amount of damage. I pushed the throttle of the train and jumped down. I watched as it shot down the track, hit the portal, and disappear.
I rushed forward to get a screenshot so I could see if the train had actually made it, but I could hear it. It was distant, barely audible, and it sounded as if it was far below us, but it was there. The line it had transferred to was physically nearby. I took the screenshot, and I could see the end of the train, already far way. The scoop portal was still intact.
Holy shit, it worked.
Carclass="underline" Bautista. Sinopia line is on its way.
Bautista: What was the song?
Carclass="underline" “Physical” by Olivia Newton John.
Bautista: Damn. I had one gold on “Eye of the Tiger.” I don’t think anybody picked that one.
Carclass="underline" There’s no way people are going to guess the song. The trap uses any song that ever charted on the Billboard hot 100. There’s gotta be a million choices. I’m going to send the Grullo and Mindaro trains now. Then in fifteen minutes we’ll send the second trains tuned to the yards. Your team will end up at yard Q. There’s already about 400 people guarding station 36 at that one. Remember to take the employee line. It should be clear.
Bautista: Okay, buddy. Thanks.
“Monsters! Monsters!” Donut cried, running up just as I saw the wave of red dots on the Vermillion track. There had to be about thirty of them. They were moving fast.
“Shit,” I said. “Okay, let’s get ready.”
“Carl, they’re really, really big. I think they’re those stage-3 DT monsters. I don’t think we can handle them!”
We only had about thirty seconds to decide what to do. If we hid, they’d probably stream around the subway engine car we had parked here and continue down the line, where they’d eventually come to the disabled train on the track right before station 36, mixing in with the blister ghouls. That’d be fine if they stayed put. But I remembered how big those fuckers were, and if they managed to break into the car and open a path down to station 36, it’d be another weight on the shoulder of Imani and Li Jun. Though I strongly suspected they’d be dealing with these guys whether we liked it or not.
Still, we couldn’t just let that happen. I had an idea.
“Hide,” I said. I turned toward the Downward Dog and started jogging. “Come on, guys, let them pass. But as soon as they do, we gotta move.”
Katia and Donut sent the last three rapid-response carts through the portals while I attached the explosives to the back of the vermillion train. I needed to get this done quick. I was placing them on the short shelf in front of the door that’d turn into the between-train gangway when it was properly attached to another train. I had to tie everything together with a rope and then use the door to keep it in place.
“You know,” I said up to the ceiling while I worked, “If any of you guys want to send me duct tape, it’ll make this sort of thing a lot easier. Rope sucks for this stuff, and pus is too expensive to waste. I’d be able to make bigger bombs. Just saying.”
Even though the battered vermillion engine faced the wrong direction, it did have that half-assed, standard-issue cowcatcher device in the back, which really doubled as the connector mechanism. Still, I was afraid this wasn’t going to work. Either way, it would be spectacular. I warned Li Jun and Imani what I was doing, and they agreed to it.
Yes, I knew I could probably use one of the interdiction carts, and that’d clear the line much more easily. But I wanted to see if I’d get experience if I did it this way. Plus I really wanted to see if this would work. Other than the landmines I’d used to derail that first train, I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to use much explosives on this floor, so I jumped at the opportunity to sandwich a bunch of ghouls and monsters between two trains.
Nobody was on the tracks on this line, so the worst that could happen was it went off prematurely. Or it didn’t go off at all. Or I caved in the line. Or I killed myself.