The Harrowing Reality of Railway Maintenance

The Boy counted on nine fingers the number of hours he had slept during the week and recounted thrice and did not need his toes to supplement the count. Cuffs bound him by wrist and ankle to the floor of an Auroch truck. Two guards armed with automatic weapons sat on the bench opposite and another guard rode with the driver in front past a shielded partition. They drove at sunrise toward the western edge of the city. The Boy tried to wet his cracked lips but found his tongue dry and swollen. The skin of his face felt heavy and loose, like the layers could slip away with a rough jostling.

The truck stopped. The guards disconnected the Boy’s cuffs from the floor and grabbed his arms and led him off the truck. The Boy hopped off the end and stumbled to his knees and got roughly lifted back to a standing position. They stood before a building of coarse red brick. Sunrise struck his shins.

A shutter door rolled slowly open like a castle portcullis. A robust and vastly tattooed man in the realm of forty-years manually worked the chain like a lonesome gate guard. The darkness inside had a demoniacal thickness. The Boy was led into the darkness and his cuffs removed and the guards left him in the charge of the tattooed man.

The Boy’s eyes adjusted to the dark. He stood in the midst of a wide and hybridised workshop, equal parts mechanic, metallurgist, firefighter, and shaman.

‘Do you know where you are?’ asked the tattooed man. The Boy nodded. ‘That helps. Sometimes they send us folk who think they’re going into a comfy prison cell.’ He laughed without humour. ‘All the same, best I describe what we’re about here.’

The man placed a hand on the Boy’s shoulder. Calluses seemed to glove the digits and palm. He lit a candle on a brass holder and showed the Boy around the building.

The building was one of many dotted along the outskirts of Melbourne. They served a unique department of Fletcher Railways, known as the Fletcher Railway Early Action Crew. FREAC. The men and women who served on the crews were called Freaks or Bobcats, for a few reasons each.

On the rare occasions trains running on the Fletcher Railways network had a major catastrophe, like derailment or sabotage, the company deployed Sentinels backed by private military forces to fix the issue. The Sentinels and soldiers were applauded by the city for risking their lives to handle such a massive task. But those events were rare.

Rail maintenance was common and without applause.

Maintenance crews needed to be small so as to move fast and not draw the attention of too many Entities. Necessary but unsafe all the same. A certain breed of person joined or were sent to the FREAC department, each with unique yet similar circumstances.

The building the Boy toured had a supply depot to prepare components, equipment to check the specialised alloys, fireman poles for rapid deployment, along with sleeping quarters and recreation upstairs. There was also tables of esoteric tomes, mortars and pestles, and other mage-related apparatus. That separated Fletcher Railways and their competitors. Magic. Nobody else could compete with the magic-infused quality of Fletcher and Fornax products.

‘We call this place the Den,’ said the tattooed man. ‘And I’m called Lumbar.’

The Boy kept his face impassive. ‘I’m—’

‘Don’t. You’ll get your name when it’s time.’

The Boy’s fatigued mind accepted this without question.

By the time the tour finished, other members of the crew had woken up and went about their mornings on the floor above. The tattooed man called Lumbar brought the Boy to meet them. Lumbar climbed stairs in the corner. His shoulders nearly touched the sides. The Boy followed by clutching a railing and taking the steps one at a time.

The space above resembled a loft apartment. Open layout. It contained: Kitchen, bunkbeds, bathrooms, common area, and holes in the floor for the fireman poles. Lumbar went to the border between kitchen and common area and gestured to the people ambling around.

‘This here is Ginkgo.’

A boy in his twenties gave a brief wave. He had wispy golden hair and a hairline escaping past his x-axis. He poured cereal into a deep mug and then added coffee, milk, and three spoons of sugar.

‘That’s Papaya.’

‘Because she’s sweet?’ asked the Boy, his throat dry and sore.

‘Because there’s a lot of seed in her.’

The Boy looked askance at Papaya, who shrugged. She wore flannel pyjamas with an antler design across the front. She drank black coffee.

‘Doc. Short for Doctrine. You’ll find out. Next to him is Crest.’

‘This city is eating itself,’ Doc told the woman called Crest. ‘Before the Dusk, humanity got too big. During, we got too small. Now we’re motionless. We’ve broken time as a dimension.’

‘Look there.’ The Boy followed Lumbar’s finger to an intricate painting on the wall. It featured a shield and wreath and criss-crossed hammers flanked by a wombat and Tasmanian devil. ‘She designed a unique crest for each of the Dens in the city. It’s on our uniforms. I’ll fetch yours later.’

Two more figures hung around. They smelled of leather and flicked thick steel washers at a piece of plywood. The washers lodged into the wood and a couple tore through. ‘Winnfield and Vega,’ Lumbar introduced. The pair of men waved over their shoulders without looking.

‘Is he awake?’ asked Crest, rounding the kitchen island.

‘I’m awake,’ the Boy mumbled.

Crest addressed Lumbar, not bothering to look at the Boy. ‘He looks like shit. Let me guess: Home has more spoons than grass?’

‘Doubt it,’ Lumbar replied. ‘He’s…’

The Boy wanted to tell them that he stood right between them and could hear, and couldn’t they at least pretend they wanted him on the team?

Doc yanked up the Boy’s sleeve and showed the Boy’s inner forearm to the group. ‘Worse than a spoon problem,’ he said, nasally. The Boy tried to pull away, but Doc’s thin frame belied great strength. ‘Painter’s needle more your speed, kid?’

Ginkgo, Papaya, Winnfield, and Vega investigated the Boy’s forearm. On the smooth skin was tattooed a rough skull and four stars.

‘Andromeda and Corvus is one star,’ Ginkgo said. ‘Cassiopeia and Scorpius is two. What’s three?’

‘Serpens,’ Papaya answered.

‘What’s four?’

Nobody had the answer save the Boy but he figured if they wanted to ignore him he’d ignore them back.

‘Can I have a word, Lumbar?’ asked Doc.

Lumbar towered over the rest of the team. ‘I know what you’re going to say, and no.’ The Boy could hardly keep upright and Lumbar must have sensed it because he led the Boy to the bunkbeds and told him to get some rest.

‘He’s bad news,’ said Papaya.

Those three words and affirming murmurs were the last sounds heard before the Boy slipped into his tenth hour of sleep for the week.

#

While the maintenance crew in the Den woke up, another group went to sleep. Elsewhere in the city, the Rail Snakes had finished messy reconnaissance of a Fornax-owned facility. One of the Snakes got killed by Octavia Fornax’s fire whips, though the survivors couldn’t recall the dead Snake’s name or appearance. The dead Snake would have an on-the-spot cremation by Octavia Fornax and be forgotten to the world in totality. The other Snakes returned to an abandoned train station from pre-Dusk days.

Captain Horatius Kite sat on his throne of cushions and beanbags piled onto a staircase leading to platform two.

The Snakes from the reconnaissance mission didn’t bring back much information, but they’d found something else for their leader.

Richie Roderick.

Richie’s nascent adulthood was visible by the dotted scabs on his upper lip, the imprint of an imprecise and novice shaving hand. He was young and a Snake and already embroiled in a life far beyond his control.

All the Snakes figured Richie got killed after his capture by Wei Yao. Rumour had it he and a couple other Snakes had been brought to Fornax for questioning during the gala at Foster Hall. The throat-burned corpses of the other Snakes were found as warnings, but not Richie. He was found in one of their safe houses, eating canned peaches and crying.

The Snakes dragged Richie before their leader. ‘Captain Horace,’ said a Snake. ‘Found you a certain rat.’ The other Snakes chuckled, eager for bloodshed, hounds drooling to a kill.

Horace drummed his fingers against his bare chest. ‘Is this true, Richie? You’ve betrayed us?’

‘N-No,’ Richie sobbed. ‘I’m not a rat! I’m not!’ One of the Snakes kicked Richie in the ribs. ‘T-They forced me, and stuff. Fornax did. I didn’t tell them anything important.’

‘So, you’re not a rat?’ asked Horace.

‘I’m not! Please!’

Horace eased into the mountain of beanbags, fingers interlocked on his chest. ‘Well, if he says he isn’t a rat, he isn’t a rat.’

The other Snakes exchanged confused looks. One of them stepped forward. ‘Cory and James were executed by those Fornax fucks, but Richie makes it out? How’s that make sense?’

‘It makes no bloody sense,’ Horace laughed, before growing instantly serious. ‘But he isn’t a rat.’

‘Captain—’

‘How about you, Tom?’

The Snake, Tom, frowned. ‘What about me?’

‘Three jobs back, you skimmed ten-percent for yourself. Does that make you a rat?’

The other Snakes subtly turned to Tom. An almost tangible pressure lifted from Richie, whose tears dried. ‘You think I’m a rat?’ Tom said, before his distress turned to indignation. ‘I’ve been with you for years and now, what, you’re chatting shit about me suddenly turning?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Horace replied. ‘I’m saying you skimmed profits. No big deal. You do good work, I figure you’re rewarding yourself. I know that, and I know Richie isn’t a rat. So, how about we settle down and focus on the next job, hey?’

Horace closed his eyes, and his tone had a conclusive edge. The Snakes retreated into the shadows and graffiti-covered tunnels of the train station. Richie started to pull away, until Horace’s eyes snapped open.

‘Richie,’ he said.

Richie scraped his knees rushing to kneel. ‘Thanks, boss. I owe you.’

‘A few months from now, I’ll have a job for you. Make sure it’s a good one, yeah?’

‘Yeah. Yes.’ He swallowed. ‘I won’t let you down.’

#

The Boy slept on and on. He dreamed of his recent past. He dreamed that his sin had not happened and then he dreamed that it had happened far worse than in his memories. He dreamed that death would meet him in the coming days and that he deserved it. He dreamed of doing something or anything meaningful before that day came.

When the Boy woke up the rest of the crew were downstairs. They worked. Each had their station and speciality and the Boy hovered awkwardly at the staircase until Ginkgo noticed and whistled to Lumbar.

Lumbar opened a trunk and tossed the Boy a blue jumpsuit with the Den’s crest stitched onto the arms. ‘Should fit you.’ The Boy washed and changed upstairs. Sleep had brought him back to his senses. Bathing brought him a modicum of peace. Neither alleviated the weight of his new reality.

The Boy returned downstairs and Lumbar led him to Papaya’s station. She worked with various metals and miniature rails. Lumbar explained that she tested the kinetic infusion of newly-delivered rails and smoothed any gaps before deployment. ‘You can help her for today,’ Lumbar said.

‘I’m good,’ Papaya interjected. ‘Almost done. Ask Doc.’

‘No need,’ Doc called from across the room.

The Boy glanced around. The air itself felt prickly and hostile. Lumbar offered a sheepish grin. ‘They’re not great with new people.’

‘Uh, no.’ Papaya gulped down coffee and tossed aside a chunk of metal. It slid strangely, as if greased, before freezing when it made contact with another piece of metal. She turned and had her hands akimbo and frowned at the Boy. ‘We’re not great with liabilities. He’s a four-star. We don’t even know what that means. Let’s say a Fornax lieutenant gets a three-star tat. Totally believable. Then I guess big Willy Fornax would be a four-star, but last I checked, Willy Fornax was about six-foot-seven.’ Papaya brandished a kinetic infusion gauge like a hammer. ‘So, unless he tells us why he’s a four-star, we’ve got no business keeping him around.’

‘Doubt he’s got a place to go,’ Lumbar replied.

‘Tough shit. Neither did we.’

Lumbar sighed and turned to the Boy. His shoulders hunched in a conciliatory but fatalistic manner. ‘It’d help if you told us why you were sent here, kid.’

‘You could’ve started with that,’ the Boy scowled. ‘If any of you had asked, I’d have told you, like I’m going to do now.’

The rest of the crew put down their tools.

‘Kidnapping the mayor’s daughter,’ the Boy said.

Nobody spoke for a while. Papaya cocked her head. ‘You’re a four-star for that?’

‘So it would seem.’

Lumbar exhaled and slapped the Boy’s back. ‘Had me worried, kid. Thought you might’ve burned down an orphanage or something. But, hey, listen. There are twelve kinds of people who end up working the rails: First, those with something to live for. Second, those with something to die for. Third, those with something to kill for. Fourth, those with something to repay. Fifth—’

‘I get the picture.’ The Boy sighed. ‘It was either this or execution. How’s that fit into your little dodecagon philosophy?’

‘Ninth, actually, those with something to discover.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘If death is one of two options, the alternative is life, which is yours to discover.’

‘Whatever you say.’ The Boy scratched his cheek. The nub of his missing finger gave a feeble wiggle. ‘What’s the tenth reason?’

‘Tenth, those with something to prove.’

‘Eleventh?’

‘Want me to start over?’

‘…Nah, forget it.’

The crew didn’t get the chance to continue their work. A siren rang out. Red light filled the space. The crew rushed wordless to their stations. Voices shouted over the siren in slingo unknowable to the Boy. Their hands moved in custom esoteric signage. They geared up and loaded personal effects onto a sleek off-road truck with a canopy. The Boy spun and searched for directions but their bodies blurred.

‘Boy’s an L-B,’ Papaya told Lumbar, and stamped palm with fist.

‘Cord,’ Winnfield and Vega said in unison.

‘He told us why he’s a four-star,’ Lumbar argued. ‘We need the help.’

Papaya made a cross with her arms and tapped her nose.

‘Trial by fire,’ Lumbar replied. ‘No debate.’ He turned to the Boy and jabbed a thumb at the truck. The siren drowned out Lumbar, but the Boy read his lips and climbed into the truck.

Most of the crew sat under the canopy. The shutter rolled open and truck roared out. The vehicle skidded on cracked pavement and sped away from the city. Vega drove and Ginkgo used a radio to get information on the job until the truck breached the amber zone and the connection crackled dead.

Ginkgo slid open a grated partition and called to the crew in the back. ‘They think an urchin. Scuffed the ballast and some of the sleepers, maybe a rail.’

‘Any backup?’ Lumbar called.

‘No fliers in the area. Clans are far, too.’

Papaya scoffed. ‘Figures.’

They drove deeper into the Dusk and into the middle of nowhere and from holes in the canopy the Boy spotted the silhouettes of Entities roaming the landscape. In half-an-hour or more the crew got restless. They scanned the horizon and watched the rails parallel to their vehicle.

‘Any trains scheduled?’ Lumbar asked Doc.

‘None.’

A few minutes later the vehicle braked sharply and slid the crew along the passenger benches. They looked undeterred. They piled out of the vehicle and rushed to the railway. Crest gasped. It wasn’t a matter of fixing ballast and a sleeper and the supposed possibility of a rail but instead fixing a great deal of everything. The urchin Entity had rolled across the track and slashed deep grooves in the rails. The wooden sleepers were split. Much deeper and the damage may as well have been a crater.

Lumbar managed a forceful whisper. ‘Change plan: Full process.’

Half the crew rushed to the vehicle and flipped open side compartments and extracted replacement components. The other half used hooked tools and shovels and a handheld saw-looking machine to remove the damage components. They worked in unison and equal speed but the removal part of the crew was down a pair of hands.

Lumbar waved the Boy over. ‘Grab this.’

The Boy grabbed as commanded at a chunk of metal and dragged it away. Winnfield and Vega carried pieces too and with impressive alacrity. The Boy had dragged his piece a meter the wrong way before noticing the crew wanted the damaged pieces back on the truck.

They continued to work. Entities loomed somewhere out there. If a lonesome Entity approached it could be killed with a barrage of gunfire, but the violence would do nothing but draw the attention of more Entities.

‘Time?’ Lumbar asked Ginkgo.

‘Late.’

‘Pick up the pace.’

The replacement pieces got carried to the rails and put in place. Winnfield shoved gloves and a massive ratchet-like tool at the Boy’s chest. Copying the others the Boy slotted the tool into bolts and tightened them. His shoulders and muscles along his back ached with a terrible and almost tearing heat. It took a while for the Boy to notice the proper technique. The others: Got their tools low, crouched, and used their legs to raise it to roughly a forty-five degree angle before pivoting and pushing the rest of the way.

‘Time?’ Lumbar asked Ginkgo.

‘Good.’

‘Pick up the pace.’

They replaced the rails and sleepers and poured gravel and Papaya used a sort of stethoscope-detector-Geiger-counter hybrid with dials to do what the Boy later learned was synchronise and smooth the kinetic infusion between the old and new rails. It was a deceptively important role because without it a train might undergo a hard jolt when it reached the new rail, a jolt hard enough to dislodge one wheel or a few.

‘Time?’

‘Good.’

‘Load up.’

The crew gathered their equipment and the damaged rail parts and brought them to the vehicle. In the process Entities drew closer. They moved slowly and were far enough away. They had ordinary appearances in the sense that they lacked uniformity. Entities with consistent appearances induced fear in all but the most ignorant.

They had loaded all but a few pieces when a cloud of dust kicked up a short distance away. Lumbar hissed at Gingko. ‘Did they confirm urchin?’

‘No visual.’

‘Bloody hell—’

The cloud of dust got bigger and a dark form exploded from the other side of the rail. Papaya and the Boy hadn’t reached the truck yet. The dark form leapt over the rail. Snake-like and a multitude. Fangs brandished and jaws seemed to unlatch. Cobras they got called.

Papaya and the Boy sprinted for the vehicle. Papaya started closer but it put her closer to the cobras, so she spun and went for the other side of the vehicle. More cobras erupted from the under the truck and like tendrils reached for Papaya. She fell. The Entities made no sound. Venom spat from their inky jaws. Papaya covered her face and hoped.

The Boy sprang at Papaya and knocked the wind out of her with his landing but the venom struck his shin instead of any part of her. Lumbar and Winnfield hopped from the vehicle and retrieved the two. It took moments for the agony to register but when it did the Boy’s wails filled the truck and the emptiness of the Australian outback. He screamed as if seeking to fill his throat with blood. He convulsed. The crew held him down lest he break a limb against the seats.

The venom pulsed along his shin and ate away: Skin, muscle and sinew, stark white of bone.

Winnfield unlatched and unsheathed a hand axe near the ceiling and Lumbar took the handle. They used two leather belts. One tightened below the Boy’s knee. The other overlapped and lodged between his teeth. Then Lumbar took aim past where the venom consumed and raised the axe and swung it.

Leather muffled the Boy’s agony. His body flexed and writhed as best it could. Blood slickened the floor of the truck. The stoic Lumbar continued until the venom-afflicted limb had been amputated. He dropped the limb out the back of the truck. He did not toss it carelessly lest venom flick onto one of the crew and restarted the process.

The Boy slackened and his eyes shut.

‘What did I say?’ Papaya said. ‘Liability.’

‘He saved your life,’ Crest snapped.

‘I’m sure Jeremiah Fletcher will personally thank him and give him a nice cottage and a wheelchair.’

‘Poor kid,’ Winnfield murmured. ‘Think he really kidnapped the mayor’s daughter?’

‘Four-star.’

‘Yeah, but…’

The Boy groaned. Lumbar still kneeled by his side. ‘Kid,’ he said. ‘It’ll be—’

Lumbar sniffed. So did the crew. The pungent odour of garlic filled the truck. The odour originated from the Boy’s wound. Bone and connective tissue and muscles and finally skin began to grow from the wound. The garlic odour grew stronger. The Boy’s chest rose high and fell low. He winced. His leg had been replaced. Regrown. He wiggled clean and unblemished toes.

The crew watched the process. Mute.

‘What’s that smell?’ Vega asked from the front.

‘Four-star,’ Papaya echoed.

#

The crew drove toward the Den but passed it and went on for a few blocks before parking around the back of a dive bar. Doc translated the blocky and foreign text over the entrance: Liquid Bread. The Boy followed the crew into what could only be described as a bar of neo-Balkan aesthetics. A motley of traditional fashion items and architectural features decorated the walls. Modern technology intermingled with the old, and magic-infused jars of multi-coloured flame floated overhead.

Liquid Bread and other bars like it never closed, always ready to cater to the FREAC crews. Lumbar, Winnfield, and Vega got jugs and glasses from the counter and brought them to a booth where the rest of the crew had settled.

They wasted no time and began to drink. The Boy toyed with his glass and wiped foam from the rim but didn’t bring it to his lips just yet.

‘So, kid,’ said Doc. ‘Tell us about yourself.’

‘You know why I’m here.’

‘Before that.’

The Boy waved him off. ‘Not that interesting.’

Papaya shook her head as if grieving. ‘Bad form, man.’ She lifted the Boy’s glass and pushed it at his lips and tipped. Before it dripped onto his lap he had to make the decision. And he made the decision to drink. He gulped twice and pushed the glass away. Cold and warmth both flowed through his body.

The adrenaline had worn off but the Boy didn’t crash. He felt tired but active. His regrown leg now wore a boot without sock and his uniform’s leg had been cut at the knee and his heel tapped with a frenetic rhythm.

‘How about this, kid,’ Doc said. ‘The rest of us will say why we’re here. Not here-here, but part of the crew. Then it’ll be your turn.’

Ginkgo leaned and whispered to the Boy. ‘He just wants an excuse to tell you about Sam.’

‘Who’s Sam?’ said the Boy.

‘Glad you asked.’ Doc cleared his throat. ‘S-A-M. Stagnant, aimless, masochism. That’s my main theory. See, the city embodies those three things. It’s stagnant because it refuses to expand.’

‘Because of the Dusk,’ Crest said, clearly having told Doc many times before.

‘The Dusk is an ocean and the city has aquaphobia. You know the Greeks? Bunch of islands, but they built navies and sailed around and killed each other. I’m not saying we should attack the other cities, but all our focus should be on fighting through the Dusk.’

Crest finished her first glass. ‘That’s not why you’re here.’

‘I’m a political dissident.’

‘You tried to firebomb a newsstand, and then you assaulted an officer.’ Crest gave Doc a withering look before turning to the Boy. She didn’t blink when she made eye contact. ‘I’m here because of debts, if you must know.’

‘Same,’ Ginkgo said. ‘I thought I’d found a place the Fornax family didn’t control, but they did, and if you screw up—when you screw up, they’re onto you like something that likes sugar onto a pile of sugar.’

‘Smuggling,’ Winnfield said.

‘Smuggling,’ nodded Vega.

‘Why’re you?’ the Boy asked Papaya.

She sighed and rested her head on the table. ‘Murder.’ The Boy laughed. The others didn’t. His smile fell. ‘First-degree,’ she clarified. ‘Very premeditated.’

‘Your turn, kid,’ said Lumbar.

The Boy had not been opposed earlier to recounting his past but preferred in his childish way a certain mystique. Nor did he want to share without a basis of the crew’s backgrounds. He could not recall how much he’d drank and his voice spoke an echo of a story he’d recounted before:

‘There was what you’d call a mother, and a father, in my life. Many siblings, too. The framework of familial normality had been long-erected, constructed, and affected. A façade well-appraised by the city’s eyes.

‘Did you know the Germans and French, many moons ago, had awards for mothers who conceived and raised multiple children? A few years before my birth, Mayor Carpenter reintroduced a modified version to combat the Dusk, an archaic but inevitable throw-bodies-at-the-problem concept. More births, less Dusk.

‘My parents took to the idea rather zealously. Ducks to water, when it came to sex. Except, Pops had, to put it bluntly, sperm weaker than a tadpole on fire. I ended up with a lot of half-siblings, who were presented to the award-issuing body as full-siblings, a real healthy litter of well-adjusted little rascals and brats.

‘The need to “conceive” and “raise” children got interpreted by my parents more in the vein of “sow” and “harvest” for nebulous prizes, among them the aforementioned awards—which came in the form of stilliform and stelliform medals—adulations, status, prestige, some sponsorships and news articles, that kind of thing. Not a great environment for kids.’

‘Were you abused?’ Papaya asked outright.

‘Me? No. I was the only son of my old man. I got treated like royalty. But my half-siblings, they were more like…cattle.’

‘So you kidnapped the mayor’s daughter and demanded they change things?’ Ginkgo ventured, an eager, childlike fascination alight in his eyes.

‘I kidnapped her, yes, and altruistic, loyal-to-my-blood reasons were a good cover.’

‘I…don’t follow.’

‘I haven’t understood a word since he said façade,’ Winnfield grumbled. Vega grunted around his beer.

‘If a boy and girl run away together in a tale of forbidden love, they’re viewed as naïve, and their downfall is considered unfortunate but inevitable, like a coming-of-age story. But, if a boy kidnaps a girl to make a political statement, and then she expresses her mutual love and support, the pair are elevated to the status of revolutionary and martyr. Do you see what I’m getting at?’

Lumbar finished his nth beer. ‘How old are you, kid?’

‘Around eighteen.’

‘And you’ve got life all figured out?’

‘More or less.’

‘Then your name is Caulfield.’

‘To Caulfield,’ Crest said, raising her glass. The inebriated crew matched her and clinked their glasses and were happy for a reason to drink deeply and stop listening to the Boy’s prolix ramblings.

The Boy didn’t understand the moniker but had no choice to accept it. The Boy became Caulfield. The interruption severed the thread of his story.

The now-named Caulfield asked Lumbar. ‘We get paid, right?’

‘Of course.’

‘I got told if I serve enough time and pay off a debt, I could leave the crew.’

‘You can.’

The Boy spun his empty glass. ‘How long have you all been here?’

‘Quite a while.’

‘So you’re saving up? To leave, I mean.’

Lumbar and a few of the crew gave amused and patronising laughter. ‘Where would we go?’

‘Anywhere else. Sydney, for starters.’

‘Can’t. They don’t sell tickets to offenders.’

‘You could buy a bike and join the nomads.’

Lumbar scratched his stubble. ‘No offense, Caulfield, but you won’t convince any of us to try that.’

‘You like it here, then?’

‘It’s not about like or dislike. We all have our reasons for staying.’

‘Your twelve-sided thing.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And I’m the ninth, something to discover.’ Caulfield scoffed. ‘Bet I’ll discover I don’t want to stick around.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Lumbar murmured into his glass.

The crew drank for a while longer before returning to the vehicle. They returned to the Den but only long enough for Lumbar to retrieve their wages. He distributed the cash as they drove. Their next stop was a narrow alley with many doors and above each door hung a paper or steel-caged lantern. The lanterns shone with three colours: Red, white, or purple.

Caulfield stepped from the vehicle and into an invisible cloud: Perfume, cologne, and incense burning in censers or from sticks in dishes of sand placed in carved alcoves of the alley. Veiled men and women swept rubbish from the alley, dirtied the night prior.

Lumbar, Gingko, and Crest went to doors with red lanterns. Winnfield and Vega went to a white-lit door. Doc chose the rarer purple. Caulfield lingered at the entrance of the alley and Papaya did the same. She lit a cigarette and offered Caulfield one and he accepted it between two fingers and Papaya lit the end of his with her own.

‘You’re not going in,’ Caulfield remarked.

‘Can’t afford it.’ Papaya tilted her head far back when she exhaled the smoke, as if sending it to the clouds. ‘In your story, you didn’t mention the magic. When did you do a Deal?’

‘I didn’t.’

She sneered. ‘Fine.’

‘I’m serious. I was born this way.’

‘I’d rather you lied by omission.’ Papaya extinguished her cigarette underfoot and strode toward a door with a red lantern.

‘Thought you couldn’t afford it?’ Caulfield called after her.

‘I can’t.’ She opened and slammed shut a steel door, sound reverberating in the alley like a gong. Caulfield extinguished his own cigarette on the wall and wanted to wash his mouth out. A few steps and he’d be in the vehicle’s driver seat. Or he could turn and walk from the alley and pick a direction. He glanced around and few people could witness his actions.

Caulfield rubbed cash in his pocket between two fingers and picked a red-lit door at random and went inside.