Jason Underwood touched the cold steel of the train. It felt like touching a loaded gun.
"She's a monster," O'Malley muttered, staring up at the engine.
The Behemoth sat idling in the subterranean dock, steam hissing from its relief valves. It wasn't a sleek passenger train. It was a fortress on wheels.
The locomotive stood three stories tall, clad in jagged plates of black iron armor. The cowcatcher wasn't a grate; it was a wall of spinning, diamond-tipped spikes designed to mulch obstacles. The wheels were taller than a man, rimmed with copper to conduct the massive electrical load from the Gates-Cells batteries.
Jason looked back at the Icarus.
The airship—his silver bird, his home for the last three months—lay dead in the water. Its reactor core had been ripped out to power the factory. It was a hollow shell, bobbing listlessly in the dark sludge.
He felt a pang of grief. The airship had been elegant. It represented the future he wanted to build: clean, soaring, advanced.
This train? This was a weapon of brute force. It was ugly, loud, and dangerous. It represented the war he was actually in.
"We are loading the last of the supplies," Sarah's voice cut through his thoughts. She was carrying a crate of medical gear, limping slightly but moving with purpose. "The factory's automated loaders are fast. We leave in five minutes."
"Good," Jason said. He wiped grease from his hands. "Because we aren't alone."
He looked at the factory skylights. The shattered glass from the Pinkerton raid was still raining down. They had repelled the first wave, but Alta Rockefeller wouldn't stop. She would send an army.
"Crew assignments!" Jason barked, his voice echoing in the cavern.
The team gathered by the boarding ramp. They looked small against the backdrop of the massive machine.
"Hughes," Jason pointed to the engine room. "You're the conductor. The controls are automated, but the track is garbage. I need you to manage the speed."
Howard Hughes looked at the massive turbine engine. His eyes lit up with a manic gleam.
"She's got torque, Jason," Hughes whispered, vibrating with excitement. "I can bypass the governors. I can make this iron bitch fly."
"Don't fly her," Jason warned. "Just keep her on the rails. Einstein?"
The physicist stepped forward, clutching a bundle of rotting paper maps.
"The navigation car," Jason said. "The tracks in the Cascades are a maze of switchbacks and dead spurs. Gates can drive, but he can't see. You have to calculate the route. If we miss a switch at eighty miles an hour..."
"We become a kinetic missile," Einstein finished. He adjusted his glasses. "I will calculate the trajectory. But the maps are from 1905. The terrain may have... shifted."
"Do your best," Jason said. "Hemingway?"
The writer was already smoking a cigar, inspecting a crate of grenades.
"Caboose," Jason said. "It's an armored turret. You're tail gunner. Anything chasing us gets shredded."
"I like the sound of that," Hemingway grinned. "The rear guard of the apocalypse."
"Oppenheimer," Jason turned to the nervous scientist. "You're stoker. But not coal. You're managing the chemical mix for the afterburners. It's volatile. Keep us from exploding."
"I... I will try," Oppenheimer stammered.
"And Tesla," Jason pointed to the outer hull. "The coils."
Nikola Tesla smiled. A sharp, dangerous smile.
"The hull is wired," Tesla said. "If anyone touches the skin of this train while we are moving, they will be vaporized. 50,000 volts."
"Perfect," Jason said.
He looked at the last member of the crew.
The Gates-Machine.
The iron giant stood by the cargo door, motionless. Steam vented rhythmically from its hydraulic joints. Its single red eye was fixed on Sarah.
Jason walked over. Sarah was cleaning her pistol, glaring at the machine.
"You have my mother's logo on your chest," Sarah spat.
The machine's head turned. Whir-click.
"SHE PROVIDED THE CHASSIS," the synthesized voice ground out. It sounded like gravel in a blender. "YOU PROVIDE THE TARGET."
"I'm not a target," Sarah said, racking the slide. "I'm the reason you exist. Without my husband, you're just code in the dark."
"CORRECT," Gates said. "DO NOT MISTAKE PROXIMITY FOR ALLIANCE, SARAH ROCKEFELLER. I CALCULATE YOU ARE 40% LIKELY TO BETRAY US TO YOUR GENETIC PROGENITOR."
Sarah flinched.
Jason stepped between them. He put a hand on the machine's cold iron chest.
"Back off," Jason said softly. "She's command staff. You're heavy infantry. Know your place."
The red eye focused on Jason. For a second, Jason thought the machine would crush him.
Then, it stepped back.
"ACKNOWLEDGED," Gates said. "BOARDING COMPLETE. DEPARTURE IMMINENT."
A siren wailed in the factory.
WEE-OOO-WEE-OOO.
"They're back!" O'Malley shouted from the ramp. "Pinkertons at the main gate! They brought a breaching ram!"
Jason jumped onto the train.
"Go!" Jason screamed into the intercom. "Hughes! Punch it!"
Inside the engine room, Howard Hughes laughed. He slammed the heavy brass throttle forward.
The electric motors screamed.
The Behemoth didn't lurch. It launched.
The torque was instant. The wheels spun, throwing sparks that lit up the cavern. The train shot forward, pinning Jason against the wall.
They roared down the tunnel.
"Tunnel exit in thirty seconds!" Einstein's voice crackled over the speaker. "Warning! Debris detected!"
"The Pinkertons sealed it!" O'Malley yelled, looking out the slit window. "They collapsed the exit!"
"Ramming speed!" Jason ordered.
The train accelerated. 40 MPH. 60. 80.
The darkness of the tunnel rushed by.
Ahead, a wall of rock blocked the light.
"Brace!"
CRASH.
The sound was deafening. The Behemoth hit the rockfall like a cannonball.
The spiked cowcatcher did its job. It didn't push the rocks; it pulverized them. Stone shattered into dust. The train shuddered violently, but the armor held.
They burst out of the mountain.
Light. Gray, snowy light.
They were in the Cascades. The air was thin and cold. Snow swirled around the tracks.
But the tracks weren't empty.
"Ambush!" Hemingway yelled from the rear.
Lined up along the snowbanks were men in black coats. Pinkertons. They had machine gun nests set up on the ridges.
Bullets pinged off the iron hull like hail.
"Tesla!" Jason screamed. "The shield!"
"Activating!"
Tesla threw a switch in the engineering car.
Blue lightning arced from the train's hull.
It lashed out like a whip. The bolts connected with the machine gun nests.
ZZZ-CRACK.
Men screamed as the electricity cooked them instantly. The machine guns melted. The snow turned to steam.
The train tore through the ambush, leaving a trail of ozone and charred bodies.
"Clear!" O'Malley shouted. "We're through the cordon!"
Jason slumped against the wall. His heart was hammering.
"Status?" Jason asked.
"Hull integrity 98%," Gates reported from the corner. "Battery levels optimal. Speed: 90 miles per hour."
"We're alive," Sarah whispered.
"For now," Jason said. He walked to the front window.
The track ahead wound through the mountains. Steep cliffs. Deep gorges.
But something was wrong.
"Slow down," Jason said.
"What?" Hughes asked over the comms. "We need momentum for the incline!"
"Slow down!" Jason yelled. "Look at the track!"
Ahead, around a bend, the rails disappeared.
A wall of logs blocked the path.
Massive Douglas Fir trunks, piled ten feet high and chained together. It was a barricade built by giants.
"Timber Barons," O'Malley cursed. "Pelley's allies in the north. They blocked the pass."
"Braking distance is insufficient!" Hughes screamed. "We're going to hit it!"
"If we hit that wall at this speed, we derail," Einstein warned. "Physics is not on our side."
Jason looked at the logs. They were too thick for the spikes. They needed to be cut.
He looked at Gates.
"Clear it," Jason ordered.
The machine didn't hesitate.
Gates walked to the side door. He punched the release. Wind and snow howled into the car.
The iron giant stepped out onto the running board of the moving train.
"What is he doing?" Sarah gasped.
Gates climbed. His magnetic feet locked onto the hull. He crawled over the engine like a spider until he reached the cowcatcher.
He stood on the very front of the train, wind whipping against his iron frame.
The log wall was rushing toward them. Five seconds to impact.
Gates raised his right arm.
A panel slid open on his forearm. A nozzle extended.
FWOOSH.
A beam of white-hot plasma shot out. A thermal cutter.
Gates swept his arm in a circle.
The plasma sliced through the logs like butter.
One second to impact.
Gates braced himself.
SMASH.
The train hit the wall.
But the center of the barricade had been severed. The logs flew apart, exploding outward in a shower of burning wood and sawdust.
The Behemoth plowed through the hole, untouched.
Gates stood on the front, bathed in fire and snow, unmoving.
He climbed back toward the cab as the train roared up the mountain pass.
Jason watched him through the glass.
"He's not a tool," Jason whispered. "He's a catastrophe."
"And he's ours," O'Malley said grimly.
The train climbed higher into the whiteout, leaving burning timber in its wake.