The Outer Worlds: Tragedy On The Halcyon Hyper-rail!

The Break of Day

It must have been around the early morning when Parvati awoke. The clouded film over her eyes that formed as she slept slowly dissipated like SAM's industrial grade surface sanitiser. A small streak of light found its way through the gap in the curtains and urged her to wake up. She reached around with her hand to feel for Junlei only to find the gap between her cot and the Captain's, with the slight tickle of Felix's flavoured breath brushing her palm.

She recalled where she was, and pressed her fingers against her forehead marking the location of the impeding headache that came along with a hangover. She reached for her boots and managed to tiptoe out of the room without waking her friends.

She hopped along the corridor as quietly as she could not to disturb anyone pulling on her last boot leaving the laces undone. Occasionally the train would shake to simulate how the old trains used to travel and throw her off balance, but she managed to remain standing.

Finding herself in the dining car, she traced her hand along the bar avoiding the tiny wet spots where people had spilled their drinks the night before. Some parts were sticky, and she'd often feel a groove or carvings that had been overlooked by the maintenance. One had been made rather recently, the writer had attempted to write his own name before obviously being dragged off by someone.

"That Felix" Parvati chucked to herself quietly.

Spying a terminal at the far end of the carriage, she patted herself down trying to find a Bit Cartridge. Successful in her search she connected it to the terminal.

"Transfer of 20 Bits complete" a female voice spoke from the terminal, "Please key in the name and location of the message recipient"

Parvati hovered her fingers over the keyboard as it dropped out from under the screen, "Okie dokie... Junlei Tennyson, The Groundbreaker"

The terminal processed the information, "Recipient found. Please use the next minute to write your message."

"A minute?! Wait starting now?! Aw heck! Uhhh..." she began frantically hitting each key, not taking a moment to hesitate or think about what she was writing. Some of it was pointless babbling, but she talked about how they passed by Edgewater not too long ago and a small gurgling in her stomach that she felt as she watched slowly disappear in the distance. The Captain told her it was "homesickness" but she wasn't too sure about that. She explained at how the gurgling felt dreadful, as though she was being taken back to where she began, and how she didn't want to go back to being Parvati the Edgewater engineer, to the woman who everyone treated coldly, she wrote about how happy she was to have left with the Captain and set foot on the Groundbreaker and meet –

"We're sorry, but your time is up. Please deposit 20 more Bits or press enter to send your message now. If you'd like to cancel this message, please press the N key, we will be unable to refund your Bits but suggest you compose your messages better in the future. This message will automatically send in 20 seconds."

"Ah! Well... I! Err!" Parvati hovered her fingers over the two keys unable to decide which one to press. Indecisive as usual she pressed both at the same time, the screen glitched for a moment before turning off due to confusion.

Parvati sighed before attempting to try writing her message again on another terminal in another carriage, before hearing the terminal say in the same feminine voice "Insufficient funds, please acquire more Bits."

She turned out her pockets hoping to find some spare change but to no avail. Lowering her head she began a slow walk back to her berth, perhaps her two companions would be stirring from their sleep.

But before leaving the second dining car she noticed someone's feet sticking out of the door to their private sleeping car. She thought it odd and opened the door to offer them a hand to get back into their bed.

"Excuse me?" she called out "You alright over there? Need a hand?"

As she arrived at the door she looked down at the body. Skin turning a pale blue, eyes rolled back and slightly swollen and mouth slightly agape with a trickle of drool just falling out the corner, dampening the fine hairs of his goatee. Before her was the corpse of the man who had welcomed them aboard, Terrance Aberyon, and rather than a good morning, she greeted him with a shrill scream.