The Lungs

At the door, a guard scanned Mayfly’s ticket on a little monitor, looked at her, looked at her guide—who only shrugged—and then scanned it again. Satisfied, albeit confused, he handed it back and let them through. They stepped into a short passage where the roar of wheel on rail was almost deafening, and after that…silence.

No, not silence, quiet. Quiet, and music, and light.

It was like stepping into a palace. Where Econ was all utility and uniformity, the Priority Suite was pomp and comfort. The walls were laid over with varnished, gold-trimmed oak, and warm light glowed from behind milky glass panels in the ceiling. There were no rows of screens along the upper edge, which was surprisingly nice. As fascinating as their mystical pictures were, Mayfly had begun to find them overwhelming. In their place, mesh boxes played music. It was soft, but upbeat and mellow, worlds apart from the strings and shanties she was used to. She liked it, it felt easy to dance to.

But she wasn’t here to dance. She could, later, after she’d handled Enfie’s favor—and gotten rid of all these papers.

It wouldn’t be too hard; there were no doors between the Priority Suite cars, so it looked much bigger than Econ, but there was hardly anyone around. A few sharp-dressed men played cards at a booth, another handful sat alone in velvet seats that looked softer than Mayfly’s bed. There was a bar counter set against one wall, its shelves stocked with bottles of things she knew she wasn’t allowed to drink, and that she also knew tasted bad from the times she and the other kids had tried them anyway. One woman behind the counter polished glasses, and another man, judging by the smoke being sucked into a vent above him, must have been cooking something on a stovetop. Further down there were smatterings of passengers at little tables, or standing together, chatting quietly yet excitedly about things she couldn’t hear.

“Well,” her guide said. “Here you are, miss. Sorry again for the trouble.”

She waved her hand as best she could with her arms full. “No trouble at all, you were great!”

He bowed his head and made to leave, but before he could go, another guard marched over. “Hey,” he said. “You got picked up in town, yeah?”

At first she thought he was talking to her, but her guide snapped upright and nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir. Shift two.”

“Well then where’s the rest of you? My guys have been on their feet since Gonnton, and you’re only now reporting in?”

“Sorry, sir. They’re probably still in the crew’s quarters. I-I’ll go get them.”

The guard grimaced. “Every minute you’re not at your post is gonna be an hour off your paycheck. So unless you want to show up to New Cazzer in debt, I suggest you snap to it."

Her guide bowed his head again, and walked hastily back to the Econ cars. The guard spared a glance a glance at Mayfly, as confused as the others had been. He had one of those strange weapons slung around his shoulder, and, in fact, he was the same man who’d thrown the passenger out back at Flytrap Station.

“You someone’s kid?”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “I’m looking for Dr. Falbrite.”

“He your dad?”

“Nuh-uh. But these are for him!” She waggled the rolls of paper in her arms.

The guard squinted at the papers, then sighed with realization. “Are these from that loon in Econ?”

“Sure are! That’s Enfie, she’s really pretty and we’re friends now. I promised I’d bring these up here and show’em to Dr. Falbrite for her. Do you know which one he is?”

It was immediately obvious that he did, and just as obvious that he was debating with himself whether or not to answer. Mayfly waited patiently for him to win, or lose—she didn’t know which to root for.

Finally, he sighed and pointed to a man sitting alone at a table one car down. “See him?”

“Yup!” She only just managed to stop herself from adding: ‘You’re nice for someone who beat up a guy.’ Instead, she gave a polite bow and said, “Thank you so much!” before trotting off down the car.

Heads turned as she passed; People in sharp suits and dresses, with gold on their wrists or dangling from their ears, held their drinks and halted their conversations to watch her. Many of them, like Enfie, had prosthetic limbs, only they were much shinier, plated silver or even gold, and of a higher quality than anything she’d seen advertised on the Econ screens.

She smiled to those that met her eyes before they quickly looked away. She wished she had clothes as beautiful as theirs, but if her flower-hunt took her to more places like Flytrap, it was probably best that she kept her boots on.

When she reached Dr. Falbrite’s table, she found him staring intently down at a tablet, reading something that had too many tiny words and not a single picture. When he swiped his finger along the screen, it flipped like paper to a new page.

“Excuse me? Are you Dr. Falbrite?”

“I am,” he said without looking up. When she sat down across from him and dropped the roll of papers onto the table, though, that got his attention.

He had an odd face, a bit like Ealdwin’s. Not old, but also decidedly not young, either; there was age in his eyes that belied the smooth skin and full head of ungrayed hair. His suit was neat and black, with a deep orange vest beneath. He wore a monocle over one eye, and the other was fake. It moved like the real deal, but the white was too white, and the green was distinctly more vibrant than the other. Around his neck was a small, circular pendant of a fox chasing its own tail.

At first he looked offended, then angry, and then as he began to inspect her more closely, he turned quizzical. He reached into his pocket and pulled a little paper stick from a box and stuck it between his lips. Three of the fingers on one hand were prosthetic—ruby-colored, gold-trimming, very pretty. With a flick of his wrist, the topmost digit of his pointer finger flipped back and a tiny flame sparked to life in its place. He brought it to the butt of the stick, lit it, and took a deep breath before blowing smoke up into a vent above them.

“Who are you?” he asked, flicking his finger back in place.

“My name’s Mayfly, it’s nice to meet you!”

“Hm. And what am I to say, Mayfly? Is it nice to meet you? I don't know that yet. You’re clearly not one of my students, and I doubt you’ve read any of my books. Yet you come here and you drop a pile of garbage in front of me like a pet dog.”

“Gosh, I...I didn't think of it like that. I’m sorry. Are you mad?”

“For now I’m curious. I suggest you make use of that while you can.”

“O-okay…” Finding it suddenly difficult to look him in the eye, she did her best to tidy up the paper rolls. “Well, so…I’m Mayfly—”

“You’ve said.”

“Right, sorry. I'm kinda new to this, but this stuff here, it’s not trash. My friend Enfie wanted me to give it to you—they’re maps! I think she even did them herself, too, which is really cool, isn’t it?”

“Maps of what?”

“Maps of…they’re, uh…” Oh no. What were they maps of? Something about scrapes on the coast, and reading surfaces. But that made even less sense than whatever Enfie had said. What had she said? What were the maps?  “They're Green.”

“Green.”

The maps were not green. “The maps are green," she repeated. "And that’s really important, cause they’re not…normally…like that. She wants to talk to you when we get to New Cazzer, and you know, I bet she could explain all this way better than I can.”

The doctor’s curiosity was beginning to wane into frustration. Absently, he rolled one of the maps open just enough to get a peek, scoffed, and then rolled another, only to see something important enough to bolt upright. With supreme urgency, he unraveled it all the way—Mayfly scooped up some of the others to clear space—and pinned one side down with his tablet.

Mayfly didn’t know what she was seeing. It looked like a patch of land laid out on a grid, but there were no details. No rivers, no trees, no hills, just a bird’s-eye view of a blob. All along the side there was handwriting; paragraphs upon paragraphs with lines connecting them to different blocks on the grid, and between them were long strings of numbers, equations, violent scribbling. It was a mess.

Dr. Falbrite seemed to understand it perfectly. He ran his fingers over the words, silently mouthing them to himself. His head shook numbly. 

“Is it good?” she asked.

“Good?" He looked up at her with raw, boiling indignance. “This is horseshit. Absolute meaningless fucking drivel. What did you say your friend’s name was? Enfie? Enfie Dora? No fucking wonder. How do you know this woman?”

Mayfly cringed away like it was her own work he'd just gutted. “I—we—I just met her back there. She’s really nice.”

“She’s a moron. Do you know who I am? I’m one of the foremost authorities on the subject of metallogenesis. I’ve studied technoscapes longer than that woman has been alive, I grew up near one of the damn things. My work is the baseline for every class in the Confederacy that even orbits the topic; If you see a word that sounds like ‘metaflora,’ I’m collecting on it. Do you understand?”

“N-no.”

“This—” he crumpled up the map, which was loud enough to draw the concerned attention of a few other passengers. Not content, he snatched up the rest of the rolls and threw them onto the hardwood floor as well. “These, all of these, are horseshit. Baseless fantasies of a desperate woman, who has been writing me every week for the past five years to tell me my theories, which are by now as theoretical as gravity, are wrong. Enfie Dora is not a scientist, she's never stepped foot in a classroom, or a lab. She’s an historian—by hobby.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I’ve been more than indulgent of her psychosis. Spam emails are one thing, this is harassment. You want to do your friend a favor? You take this garbage back to her, and you tell her that if I so much as see someone that I suspect might be her, I’ll alert the guard. On both of you, you little dog.” He took one more long drag from his stick, and then blew the smoke in her face. As she waved it away and said a silent thanks that she didn’t actually need to breathe, he stood up and stomped over to the bar.

She wasn’t used to being shouted at; people hardly ever raised their voices out of anger back home, and they certainly didn't call people morons or dogs. Her hands weren’t shaking, but she guessed that was the body more than her own nerves, because she felt utterly terrible.

Poor Enfie, she’d let her down. Who could have known Dr. Falbrite would be such a jerk? Perhaps it had been the introduction; sure, he wasn’t her biggest fan, but if Mayfly hadn’t fumbled at the start, he might have been more open to listening. If only Enfie had been there to explain it.

Oh!

Mayfly hopped down and gathered the maps off the floor. She might not have done a very good job, but if she swapped their tickets, then Enfie could come up and convince him herself. The Priority Suite was nice, she liked the music and how fancy everyone looked, but she didn’t need soft seats anymore, and, not that she was hungry, but getting yelled at had certainly killed her appetite.

So be it. She could spend the trip happily in Econ, watching Gen fly by faster than any ferry, and maybe making a few more friends on the way to New Cazzer.

With her newfound Resolve, Mayfly marched right past Dr. Falbrite, who was now nursing a glass of something that probably tasted awful, and made for the door back to Econ.

It opened, and a guard nearly walked right into her. It wasn’t her guide, or any of the other ones she’d seen on the way in. But in the brief moment their eyes met, she saw surprise, and recognition.

“Pardon,” he muttered, lifting his cap to run a hand over his smooth head, and walked past her.

That voice was familiar, especially the muttering. If she shut her eyes she could almost hear it amidst a pair of other low, urgent whispers and the gleeful calls of a conman.

“Foste?” she asked. That was what the man had called him, anyway.

He paused too long for her to have been wrong, then carried on like he hadn’t heard her. But he had, because that was him. Foste was a guard? Why hadn’t he been wearing his uniform before? And surely guards didn’t have to pay to get on, so why had he been playing for tickets? Where were his friends? 

Of course, there were rational answers to all of these questions, but something felt...off. Wrong.

Mayfly didn’t go to Econ. She let the door shut, and followed Foste as he made his way to the bar. Could guards drink on the job? Her guide had been chewed out just for being a few minutes late.

But Foste didn’t order a drink. He sat down, right next to Dr. Falbrite, and set his cap on the counter. The barkeep gave him a curious look, as did the doctor when he finally looked up from his tablet to find a bald man staring at him.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. He seemed to be looking for Foste’s nameplate, and spotted Mayfly standing not far away. He scowled. “What did that woman do now?”

“Valter Falbrite,” Foste said, more than asked.

“Yes, yes, tell me  what’s the matter.”

Foste shook his head. “Nothing, sir. Nothing at all. I’m just, well…I’m sorry, this is embarrassing. I’m actually a huge fan.”

Instantly, Falbrite’s demeanor lightened. He didn’t seem happy—Mayfly wasn’t sure he could express it even if he was—but definitely pleased, if skeptical. Setting his tablet aside, he turned to give Foste his full attention.

“You? Really? I must say I find that somewhat surprising. Not that I don’t believe you, you just don’t fit the…mold I’m used to. Are you a student?”

“I was, actually. One of yours—sort of. Indirectly. My parents adored your work, it was all over the house growing up; on the shelves, by the beds, on the dinner table too if you can believe it. I’ve been reading your books damn near since I could read at all. And not just the things you wrote, either, but also the stories about you, too. All of it, anything I could get my hands on. You were like a...fixture in my life. No exaggerating when I say your lessons shaped who I am today. ”

Falbrite looked him over again, and there was a flicker of disappointment in his eyes, as if to say: ‘shaped you into a train guard?’ But he didn’t say that. Instead, he took a drink and put on a placid smile.

“Well, that's very flattering. You must be planning on breaking into research, I take it? There are good schools in New Cazzer, and plenty of opportunities for graduates.”

“Oh, no. No, academia is a rich man’s game.”

“Hm. I’m suppose that’s true, but plenty of my finest, most successful students came from jobs worse than this. There are always scholarships for those with true ambition."

“True ambition…” Foste said the word like it was the first time he’d ever heard it. “That's a good point. We're nothing without that, are we?”

“And that’s the bold truth.” Falbrite finished his glass and ordered another, gesturing for the barkeep to pour one for Foste as well. “So what books of mine were you reading when you were young? Most people don’t touch metallogenesis until they’re in university.”

“Oh I still haven’t.”

“Still haven’t what?”

The barkeep set down their glasses, but only Foste took his. Falbrite watched him, confused, as he drained the whole glass at once and slapped it back down onto the counter.

“I still haven’t touched a single word of this inane, useless shit you’ve been peddling to the foxes for sixty years,” Foste said, and his voice turned suddenly bitter. “Since you left.”

All the color washed out of Falbrite’s face. He froze stiff. His mouth opened like he might speak, but no words came, so Foste continued.

“No, no. I studied under the real Valter Falbrite. The ferromancer. I read every manual you ever wrote, I watched every single recording of you they had, over and over. I’d stand in my room, miming the moves all night until the sun came up, trying to lift a count off the floor while you were throwing around axes bigger than my father.

“And you know what? They still teach your stuff out west. You’re probably a bigger legend to the magi there than you are here, but that’s no surprise.” He looked down at Falbrite’s metal hand, then deep into his fake eye. “Guess you’re the one who can't lift a count anymore. What a fucking shame. What a disgrace. What kind of wolf tears out his own fangs?”

“I…” Falbrite spoke like his throat was bone-dry, but he couldn’t get his hand to stop shaking long enough to grab his drink. “I’m…not…”

“The worst part—at least, to me,” Foste said. He took Falbrite’s drink and downed it himself. “The worst part, is that they were just gonna leave you. I mean, they all but did anyway. Sixty years. You did well for yourself with all this Metallogarbage, and as pathetic as it was, it wasn’t a betrayal. Leaving wasn’t, either. No one back west gave a shit what you did, not until they heard you’d started telling your secrets to foxes. Our secrets. Did you think no one would notice how many more ferromancers there were in the Confederacy these past years? Stupid. Lazy. How long have you been teaching them? Can you even teach if you can’t do it yourself anymore? I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

“I didn’t…” Falbrite mumbled. “I didn’t.”

“You did, Valter. And you didn’t even do it for the right reasons.” Foste reached out and gently took Falbrite by his orange vest. “Look at you. No fangs. New pelt. You’re not even a wolf anymore, you’re a fox. And foxes don’t have ambition,” he said, pulling him close. “They have greed.”

Falbrite’s lips quivered, and he took hold of Foste’s shoulders to try and pry himself free. It didn’t work. “Guh…guards!” he shrieked, finally finding his voice. “Guards! Assassin!”

The guard who had met Mayfly at the door bolted down the car, baffled at first, but he took Falbrite’s word. He raised his strange weapon, took aim at Foste, and pulled the trigger.

It was the loudest thing Mayfly had ever heard, a single crack like a thundercloud condensed into the space of the car. She dropped the maps and covered her ears, but amidst the ringing she heard something strike the wood near the bar. Then she heard choking.

Mayfly gasped.

The guard was pinned to the far wall with his own weapon pressed against his neck. Foste had his hand outstretched at him, and with an upward sweep, the guard’s weapon dragged him up and slammed him against the ceiling. He cried out. Glass and sparks sprayed from the shattered panels. Foste dropped his arm, and the guard fell to the floor in an unmoving heap.

Most of the passengers scrambled behind their seats or their tables. One woman tried to run for the door, but Foste reached out again. Her prosthetic arm shuddered and she jerked as if held by the wrist. He tugged back sharply, and that same invisible force threw her to the ground. The metal twisted, the joint dislodged at the shoulder with a wet crunch. Blood and black fluid dribbled from the wound. She wailed miserably.

“And what did all that greed get you, Valter?” Foste asked loudly, as if to everyone. “A fuller hairline? Younger skin? A shiny hand?”

He placed a hand on Falbrite’s chest, right over the fox pendant. His lips curled, his teeth bared themselves in a furious grin. “Some fancy lungs for your bad habits?”

Foste let him go and ripped his hand back. Falbrite let out a horrid scream that started as shock but quickly morphed into agony. Red blossomed through his suit, soaked all down his front. His whole body arched and quaked. He scratched helplessly at his vest. His eyes screwed shut. 

Then his chest exploded. 

Blood and black and bone sprayed the air, and from the wound a pair of dull, metal organs flew into Foste’s hand. He yanked them free of the tubes and viscera, then tossed them aside.

The doctor choked in silent anguish, before he fell to the ground with a heavy thud. There he lay, twitching as his life puddled beneath him, until he was still.

The car was silent save for the muted rumbling of the tracks. Mayfly stood frozen, unable to peel her eyes away from the dead man. From the blood. The bones she didn’t have rattled violently. She felt sick, without feeling it in her body. She wanted to cry, but her eyes were cold.

Foste turned to them, bloody. Hungry. He looked at her. He looked right at her, and no one else, and in that awful moment she knew exactly how real Ealdwin's warnings were. 

The proof stained his teeth. He licked them clean. 

Mayfly ran.