The Friend

The woman at the ticket booth was stunned. She stared at her screen, eyes narrowed, blinking like she might wake up from a dream. The metal card sat proudly on her desk.

“Is it enough?” Mayfly asked.

“It…uh…shit,” the woman said. “Yeah. It’s…wow. It’s enough. It’s definitely enough.”

Mayfly hissed out an ecstatic ‘yes!’ and took a few swings at the air before rounding back up to the booth. “Boy am I glad. You know, that almost cost me my hand!” she waggled her fingers at the glass emphatically. “This place is no joke!”

“Usually takes people a few weeks to start playing with snakes. Lucky you, kid. One ticket?”

“Yep! One ticket to, uh…actually, where’s this thing going?”

“New Cazzer,” the woman said, and when she realized Mayfly had no idea where that was, she sighed, and her tone slipped from dreary to something more rehearsed. “New Cazzer, capital of the Foxtail Confederacy of Cities, home of the Cazriel Board of Directors and proud pioneer of the developing arts! The pumping heart of ingenuity! Gen’s most—fuck me, I hate this. City’s big, get it? Can I stop?”

“I thought you were doing great.”

“You want the ticket or not?”

“Yes please!” Mayfly said quickly. “Sorry!”

The woman clicked a few more keys, tapped the screen, and paused. An eager look came over her face. “You know, this is a long trip, and there’s enough on here to get you a seat in Priority Class,” she said, and cut Mayfly off before she could say she didn’t know what that was. “Fancy cars up towards the front. You get fed, there’s entertainment, and the seats are softer. Lot of suits in there, could be good for you to rub elbows with some upper-crust foxes.”

Mayfly didn’t quite understand why that was important, but if she’d learned anything so far it was to try anyway. Besides, she hadn’t eaten since morning—in the Valley. She wasn’t hungry yet, but if this was going to be a journey, it couldn’t hurt to be prepared.

“Sure! Thanks for the heads up.”

“Thank me? You know how few of these we sell?” She swiped the card along her screen. There was a beep and a little green light blinked. “I’m gonna get promoted off this. Cheers, kid.”

A strip of paper popped up from a slot in the desk, which the woman plucked and slid under the glass. The metal card, apparently depleted, was dumped into a little bin beside her.

“Doors in the Priority Suite are for emergencies only, so you’ll have to go in through the Econ cars. Someone’ll scan that for you, just hold onto it until you get to New Cazzer.”

“Econ, scan, hold. Got it!” Mayfly took the ticket gratefully. “Thank you again! I’ll probably have to come back through here on my way home. Guess that means I won’t have to pay the toll!”

The woman huffed, but she seemed to be in a much better mood now than before. With a wave and a smile, Mayfly scurried off to the train, heading opposite the frontmost cars as she’d been told to. She didn’t know what ‘Econ’ meant, but she figured it would be safe if she just went all the way to the other end.

There, a handful of guards stood around the empty last car, chatting and blowing smoke from little sticks in their mouths. One of them saw her coming and nodded to the others. Their conversation died quickly.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said.

“What do you want?” said one, words tailed by vapor.

She held out her ticket. “The lady back there said I had to go through the Econ cars to get to the Priority thing.”

“Priority?” he squinted at the ticket, blinking in disbelief. Instantly, his demeanor changed; he straightened up, fixed his uniform, and stuffed the smoking stick into his pocket. The others hastily did the same. “Gods all, uh, sure thing. Yeah. Sorry about that, miss, we don’t usually get, uh—never mind. Sorry. Right this way.”

He led the way in, and though the others muttered behind them, Mayfly was too fascinated by the train’s interior to pay attention. From the outside it might have looked like a toy snake, but inside, it was more like a metal tunnel with windows. A column of three seats took up either side, leaving an aisle in the center for them to move down. The ceiling was dotted with lightbulbs, most of which were off, and with the blinds on some of the windows pulled down, the car seemed stuck in a pre-morning glum.

Above were screens, like the ticket-woman’s, only stretched out long and lined up side by side so that they could run the entire length of the car. They must have been magic, because the pictures they showed moved, like storybooks playing out before her eyes. There was no sound, but the bright colors and popping text captivated her.

“VulpiKnight III, Director’s Cut, Returning to Theatres!” Said one, as a figure in foxlike armor struck a dramatic pose.

“Mirror giving you a hard time?” said another. “Aesthethea Augments can help you ditch those unwanted pounds and pesky blemishes, and we even offer complex reconstructive courses! Download the Aesthethea App for a 10% discount on your first order!”

“With Wearytide around the corner, there’s no better time than now to affirm your faith! L’Clenn Ministries is offering reduced prices on compound prosthetic procedures! Our hand and forearm bundles are 20% off until Waking Day! Optical and Aural replacements up to 15% off! Remember: Clennliness, is next to Godliness.”

Mayfly gasped with excitement. As shifty as Gen seemed, at least it had Wearytide!

The uniformed man led her onward, along more rows of seats where passengers either slept or cast wary, hostile glowers at them. From a tiny mesh box in the ceiling there came a beep, and then a voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be departing Flytrap Station for New Cazzer. Please secure all luggage and stand clear of the doors.”

With a hiss, one of the car’s doors slid shut, and then another further down did the same, and another. The train shook like a waking ox. Mayfly felt butterflies in her stomach.

Then someone shouted in the distance: “Wait!”

She whipped around and peered out of the window to see a lone woman running for the station. Her arms were full with rolls of paper so tall Mayfly couldn’t see her face, but that didn’t seem to stop her.

“Wait!” she shouted again. “Wait! Please! I have my ticket, I’m a passenger!”

The train, of course, couldn’t hear her, and its doors continued to close. Another guard inside chuckled, but made no move to do anything. That didn’t seem fair. If the woman had paid then she should be allowed on, and she certainly shouldn’t be left behind so callously.

No, not fair at all.

Mayfly lunged to the door beside them and held it open. It was metal, and thick, but to her surprise it didn’t feel even the least bit heavy. One of the guards shouted, “Oi!” and made to pull her away, but her guide stepped between them.

“Don’t!” he hissed. “She’s Priority.”

The train shook again, and very slowly, it began to crawl forward on the tracks. The woman was not deterred. Breaking into a sprint onto the station’s platform, she bolted right through the door, stopping sharply and with much more grace than would be expected of someone moving so madly. Mayfly let the door go, and it slammed shut.

The woman hunched against the seats, breathing heavy. She was fairly tall, and had hair the color of soil that fell wildly down to her knees. She wore the clothes and boots of someone who did a lot of moving around, all beneath a long, black duster. Blue eyes found Mayfly from behind a pair of glasses. She smiled with warmth that would have been right at home in the Valley. 

Shuffling her papers under one arm, she reached out and took Mayfly’s hand with her own, the left of which was metal just like hers. It looked much sleeker than her drunken friend’s, and had a dull crimson color. It continued up beneath her sleeve, and judging by the way her coat sat just a little differently around her shoulder, probably meant the whole arm was prosthetic.

“Thank you, sweetie! Thank you—oh, that’s a grip!” she giggled, and looked closer at her. “Gosh, aren’t you just so pretty? Thank you again—”

“Back away, miss,” said her guide, once again making a barrier of himself.

“Sorry, sorry! I just—I could have sworn I had more time! The train wasn’t supposed to leave for another twenty minutes, wasn’t it?”

“The ticket lady told me forty when it got here,” Mayfly said.

The woman gasped, and her eyes narrowed on the other guard, who only threw up his hands in feigned innocence. “You told me an hour!”

“Honest mistake, I guess,” he lied, poorly.

“That’s so rude!”

“I’m rude? Lady, you’ve been bugging my ass nonstop since we left Gonnton. Listen to me carefully: I’m not taking your stupid fucking papers up front—no one wants to read them!”

“Dr. Falbrite might, if you would just bring them to him. It’s research—tell him it’s in his field! He’ll want them! Pretty please?”

“I’ll take them,” Mayfly said. “I’m going up there anyway.”

The guard groaned, sharing a pleading glance with her guide, who only shrugged. The woman bounced eagerly on her toes, happy as could be.

“Really? You will?” she said, already handing them over. “You’re such a sweetheart! Oh gosh, I’ll make it up to you, I swear! What’s your name?”

“May—” she caught a roll from falling, and moved another few under her arms. “Mayfly.”

“Well, Mayfly, if it's alright with you, please tell Dr. Falbrite that these are maps of a dozen technoscapes all along the eastern coast, and that sub-surface readings are green in th…these fo—” she tried to point out a few of the rolls, but gave up. “In four of them. He’ll see which. Tell him that, and then tell him Enfie Dora wants to talk to him when we get to New Cazzer.”

Mayfly couldn’t have recited that back to her if her life depended on it.

“Come on, miss,” her guide said, as the train began to pick up speed. “Let’s get you up to Priority.”

“And you as far from it as possible,” said the other guard, barring Enfie off. Enfie, to her credit, didn’t put up any more of a fuss.

“Thanks again little friend!” she called. “I promise I’ll pay you back!”

Mayfly waved goodbye, happy enough to have, apparently, made another friend.

With that they moved to the next car. The train carried on, and before long the town of Flytrap was no more than it was when she'd first seen it: a smudge of colors on the horizon.