Displaced

Chapter 115

Arlette gripped the railing of the transport asit lurched wildly around a bend in the road. The robot's long legs and high center of gravity meant it often swayed when rounding bends, but right now she was pushing the machine far beyond normal speeds. She would have pushed the "strider"—as her eccentric employer called it for some reason; sure, this one had much longer legs, but all his robots strode—even faster if she could, but to do so would have left her escort of smaller battle-ready skitters behind. They were already moving as fast as they could, their many shorter legs churning up the dirt beneath.

A trader ahead swerved off the road in a panic, a fearful look in his eyes as Arlette and her hoard charged forward. He wrestled desperately with the reins as Arlette's metallic herd thundered past and continued on its way, the horde's uncanny presence spooking the cart's garoph into a wild frenzy. Normally, Arlette would have felt bad about this, but then again, normally she wouldn't have been speeding down a dirt road with a small army of murder machines right behind her. This time, however, she was, because this time, she finally had a lead.

Cellvas was a municipality straddling the line between town and city. Maybe the largest metropolis outside of the five major cities of Otharia, it sat in a prime location within the triangle formed between Wroetin, Nont, and Eflok—close enough to all three that it was easier and safer to stop there when traveling between them. It would add a few extra days to the trip, but in a way, it was like traveling to one and a half cities. You could always buy and sell wares in Cellvas, too. In fact, its location was such that some of the country's more prosperous businesses had built warehouses there to store goods. Then those goods could easily travel to any of the three cities with relative ease.

At least, that was how it worked and how it had been for centuries, but times were changing fast. In the near future...

The vast, vast majority of Otharians still refused to ride Lord Ferros's tracked wagon transportation system for a whole host of reasons, none of which Arlette found very credible or justified. Lacking the prejudices of the natives, she used it whenever she needed to travel directly from Wroetin to another major city for her work. The wagons—or "trains" as Blake named them—traveled at an absolutely impossible velocity, one that made the already absurd speed of a "strider" look like a garoph trudging through mud. What's more, they were far more comfortable than a wagon or the metal beast upon which she sat. Oh, and they were free to use. If one wished to travel from city to city, the "train system" was, hands down, the cheapest, fastest, and most comfortable method of transport, one which cut a ten-day journey down to a handful of hours.

It would take time, she knew, before the system would be in widespread use—years, maybe even decades. Garoph-headed stubbornness was as integral to an Otharian's national character as duty was to Gustilian society—back when Gustil had still existed, at least. Still, she believed, the wondrous utility of her employer's creation would eventually win out, and when it did, it would spell the death of this place and other towns like it.

None of the tracks in the system went anywhere near Cellvas. Running directly from city to city, they didn't concern themselves with the towns and villages that had served for centuries as waypoints along the way, places to stop and rest and maybe enjoy a meal or stock up on supplies. The more people who used the "trains", the fewer who would be on the road. Soon, these towns and villages would begin to wither as the flow of commerce dwindled to a trickle.

Hardest hit would be places like Cellvas. Once merchants realized they could transport goods from market to market in a few hours instead of days just by moving their storage to a major city, they'd have no more use for a place like this. Cellvas was a town living on borrowed time. The poison had already entered the system, rotting away at the inside. The only question was how long it would take for the symptoms to appear. As she neared the town wall, the "strider" finally and mercifully slowing to a more manageable speed, she wondered just how many people here realized any of what was to come.