Amy Hadley 1. "Number Nine"

Chapter 4

I walk till the closest train station, going along to the rails, coming back to the north. The loneliness is rough, even for me who usually live alone. It's an unpleasant feeling, and I don't know why I suddenly feel this way. I walk quickly, taking each step madly, jumping over the rails, taking care not to touch them or I could get electrocuted.

   I should be the happiest right now, but all I am feeling is anger. I'm angry at him, at me because I can't be happy the way I should be, I can't enjoy this moment I was dreaming for so long.

   I meet the first train station by noon. It's empty. No one usually come that far from the city, that close to the borders. Tired, but adrenaline boosted since I read the text I got, I sit on a metal bench, waiting for the next train, looking at the horizon in front of me. Far away, I can see the metal barriers around the river that separate our territory from the enemy side of the country, the East side we've been fighting during the war. This river, which end as a lake, is dividing our country in both territory, East and West.

    I squint, looking at the other side. There, it's only ghost town now. All the East side of our beautiful country got destroyed by the war and left uninhabited. Our army destroyed all the building there, all the houses and killed everyone by spreading the Virus. It was the main capability of the Virus, before it's used to makes people immune to all diseases, it kills people coming from the West side, and it spreads quickly between them, without lag phase or adaptation time. It penetrated any type of cell and depending on the origins of the host, it destroyed everything that was different. This is what science is for.

   Selecting one race, chosen to be superior to all the others.

   Such a waste...

   I shiver and look closer. I can almost see the dark chemical smoke clouds, raising from columns of debris from houses and buildings reduced to ashes by the explosions of the last war.

   A train comes to the station at 1pm. It's one of the trains which serves the outskirts and the city, without passing through the old villages, and which leads to the Tower central place, where they asked me to go. It is empty when I enter it, and only one or two people get up at the following stations, to get off at the entrance to the city center.

   This, is a magnetic train that travels at full speed, traveling a long distance in record time, levitating above the rails, balanced on an electromagnetic field. Someone one day explained to me that this system is based on the radioactive decay of a special material composing the metal of the rails, as well as the development of a magnetic field, which allows strong energy reductions.

   From the outside, it is extremely ugly. It looks like a large gray and articulated caterpillar, each wagon of which undulates in a mechanical creak. There is no driver; the dashboard is regulated by an artificial intelligence equipped with a built-in GPS, which uses satellite coordinates to bring the beast to its destination.

   The interior is a little classier, ​​although too flashy for my taste. The floor is covered with beige carpet, and as surprising as it may seem, the seats are made of wood. Or rather, imitation wood. The kind of material that gives an effect reminiscent of old homes of the past, but that does not offer any cozy feeling, or pleasant smell. I find it kitsch and bad taste, but it's not my business!

   I sit on the back of the engine, letting my back fall on the uncomfortable seat. I start to realize how much of muscles aches I have in all my suffering body.

   For the first minutes of the train travel, I look at the pendant James gave me. I turn in between my fingers, shivering while touching the beautiful engravings, fascinated by theirs precisions. Then, I start contemplating the main red stone, trying to understand what this precise shade of red makes me think of. I am always coming back to that point: it's the red shade of blood.