Chapter 2: The Gingerbread Car

Amelia walked through a field of dry grass, passing by hundreds of hay stacks that were sprinkled throughout the car. The sky was orange due to the permanent sunset of the place.

A beeping sound came from her backpack. She immediately opened it and took out the red device to check her e-mail. She smiled when she noticed the sender's name.

Sender: Hazel Hughes
Subject: Dear Mom

First day of school went great. I've met my classmates. They're all nice kids except for one boy who kept picking on others, but I scared him away so the bullied kids could have peace. No, I didn't use my turtle form. Grace said I can't reveal that to them just yet. We'll have to wait until the humans get used to the idea of the train being real.

The good news is that there is a spokesperson for the train out here. Remember the chrome denizen One-One talked to us about on the day we turned Simon back into a human? She calls herself Lake now, and she hosts her own talk show alongside her friend Jesse Cosay! And one time they even invited Tulip Olsen, who is Lake's prime and was a former passenger! This will help humans understand denizens better, and maybe even prepare people before they board the train.

Grace is doing fine too. She loves her job, and she even taught me a few new dances. She said it's the least she can do to repay me for helping her when we were in that debutante ball car.

I hope you find what you need to get your number down. Grace and I will be waiting for you when you'll get your exit. I just know you will get it.

Love, Hazel & Grace.

Still walking, Amelia held the device with her left hand and typed with her right.

To: Hazel Hughes
Subject: Dear Hazel and Grace

I agree with Grace. It is good to be cautious at this time. But I do have hope that one day humans and denizens will live together as allies.

Speaking of denizens, One has found two more of your siblings, and I have met them. Unfortunately, gaining their trust is proving to be difficult. They are equipped with power armours, and one of them sent a swarm of ghoms my way, then called them off as they both escaped. I will keep you updated on how this mission goes.

Amelia Hughes

She sent the message and put the e-mailing machine into her backpack, then continued walking until she finally found the door. After opening it, she looked around outside, making sure the turtle brothers hadn't prepared an ambush for her. No signs of turtles or any other living thing in sight. It was safe to continue to the next car.

After opening the doors, Amelia found herself in a place she had visited before. The smell of vanilla and gingerbread always charmed her nose when she passed through this car. Since she was hungry, it also made her mouth water and her stomach growl this time.

All buildings and tree trunks were made of dark brown gingerbread, the roads were made of white fondant, and the grass and tree leaves were made of green sugar. It made her even hungrier. However, she knew that eating the scenery was considered a felony around there. The signs on the sides of the road outright said, "Do not consume the surroundings!"

The inhabitants of the car were gingerbread people with various sugary decorations on them as clothes. They all smiled at Amelia as she passed by. She was glad that she had never wronged them during her time as the False Conductor. They were high up on the list of most welcoming denizens she had ever encountered during her 33 years on the train.

She saw a familiar gingerbread lady with a muffin cart to the right of the road. "Good day, Miss Gumdrops! How's your business going?"

The gingerbread lady smiled at her and said, "Good day to you too, Miss Amelia! It's going very well; I'm almost out of muffins." She grabbed a box of six muffins and handed them to Amelia. "Here, take these. They're on the house."

Amelia's stomach was saved! She took the muffin box while her face radiated of happiness. "Thank you so much! I just happened to run out of food today and didn't have time to acquire more. One sent me on an unexpected mission." She glanced to the sides. "Have you seen two turtle denizens dressed in tech-heavy armours?"

Gumdrops shook her head. "Can't say I have. Just gingerbread people and gingerbread critters all day."

"Looks like I'll have to keep searching," Amelia said. Her stomach growled, and she looked at the muffins. "But first I have to find a place where I can sit and eat these."

After walking a bit further into the car's world, Amelia found a good spot where she could enjoy her muffins. It was a place with grass to sit on, and a lake and blue sky to keep the atmosphere calm. The sun, although made of fondant and having yellow and gold spirals, still emitted warmth.

Little did Amelia know that she was being watched. The turtle brothers peeked from behind a thick but short, gnarly tree that had minty leaves and gingerbread bark.

"She's persistent, I'll give her that," Alrick said. "I want to know more about her, but at the same time something tells me I should be scared of her. I don't know why."

"She seems like a nice lady to me," his brother said. "She tried to solve things peacefully."

Alrick glared at him. "Remember what happened the last time someone treated us with kindness and we thought we've finally found a place to call home?"

The softshell frowned. "Yeah, those hedgehogs almost succeeded in trapping us."

"We're lucky the worst they've managed to do to us was turn us into pincushions for their quills," Alrick said.

"So, what do you suggest we do about her, bro?"

The tortoise opened a metal hatch on his armor's right lower arm. It showed a black screen with a green dot and a red arrow pointing at the dot. "Here's the plan: you gain her trust and get her to tell you everything about herself, then you seek my signal and come find me."

"Sure," the softshell said. "I'll go talk to her." He started walking toward Amelia.

Alrick grabbed him by the right arm and pulled him back behind the tree. "Are you raving mad, bro? You can't just walk up to someone and suggest an alliance after you've fought with them. She'll get suspicious."

"Then how am I supposed to make her trust me?"

Alrick smirked at his brother before saying, "You make her think she has earned your trust first."

Amelia had just finished her third muffin when she heard someone shout nearby. She couldn't tell what they were saying, but she had a feeling she'd have to intervene if things didn't calm down.

The one making the racket was the softshell, who raised his fists and stomped the ground. "Come on! None of you recognize me?"

The gingerbread denizens just passed him by, ignoring him. One of them said, "Poor guy has lost his mind."

"Okay," the softshell said, "you don't recognize me while I look like this." His face morphed until he looked like a pale human. "Do you remember me now?"

Most denizens stared at him for a second, then passed him by. A few commented on what a neat trick he did, then went on their merry way too.

"You can't be serious!" the softshell said, covering his face with both of his palms in defeat. He raised his hands in the air and waved them. "Everyone else attacked me when I looked like this. Does the word 'Apex' even ring a bell?"

A gingerbread lady arrived at the scene and said, "Apex?" She looked at the softshell's face and pointed at him with her fingerless hand. "He's one of the leaders of those scoundrels who ate my entire family! He ate my sister and my father!"

"Yeah, I … definitely did! They were delicious!" the softshell said, struggling to keep a fake grin of madness on his face. Internally, he wanted to cry.

Seconds later, there was an angry mob chasing him down the street with torches and pitchforks.

Amelia decided to step up and see what was going on. She was shocked to see … "Simon?!"

The softshell hid behind her and curled up into a ball. "Please, don't let them kill me!"

"How in the world did you–" She had to turn and face the mob. With her palm held before the denizens, she yelled "Stop!"

The gingerbread people halted, still fuming and ready for a fight.

"On behalf of the Conductor, I request that you leave this denizen to me," Amelia said while pointing at the turtle. "One wants this denizen to be taken to the corresponding car, where he will be judged."

"Hey, I thought the Apex don't accept denizens!" a gingerbread man said.

"The Apex is no more," she said. "Their leader has left the train, and her second in command is dead." She looked at the curled up turtle denizen. "Or at least was dead last I checked."

The softshell said, "Please, I didn't do any of that! I was just … ready to give up and accept that I'll always be blamed for someone else's crimes."

Amelia crossed her arms. "Get up!"

After he uncurled, she could see his face better. Most of it looked like Simon's. The only detail missing was the stubble.

"Are you Simon?" Amelia asked.

"No, ma'am. People call me lots of things lately: hooligan, scoundrel, killer, monster, Apex scum … I prefer to be called Jam." After seeing that Amelia stared at him in disbelief, he said, "What? It's my favorite food. Why wouldn't I name myself after it?"

Amelia took out her turtle-themed handkerchief and wiped the sweat off her forehead. "This doesn't make any sense. I've dismantled the scanner as soon as I became One's employee. There was no way for Simon to get scanned."

"Who is this Simon person you keep talking about?" Jam asked, waving his arms in frustration.

Amelia searched through her backpack. She brought out a photo in which she was with a dark-skinned young woman with short dreadlocks, a little girl with olive skin and blond hair, and a young man with pale skin and blond hair tied in a ponytail. The blond man had green glowing numbers all the way up to his neck. Everyone in the photo was smiling. "Simon was my coworker. You can see him on the left in the photo."

Jam gasped. "He looks like me if I'd shave less frequently and if I'd cut my hair shorter and straighten it!"

She put the photo back into her backpack. "The poor fool locked himself in his room and watched his own tape unsupervised. It showed him that he couldn't get over not having his friends around, so he became trapped and unable to call for help for a whole week. The kids and teenagers who noticed he went missing for so long broke into his room and found that he had wasted away."

"Weren't you one of his friends?" Jam asked.

The crowd slowly backed off, each denizen returning to where they needed to be. A few still shot nasty glances in Jam's direction.

It took Amelia a moment to answer. "We weren't friends. More like reluctant allies. Simon and I used to be enemies until One turned him into a ghom and I helped bring him to One to have him changed back into a human."

Jam stared at her wide-eyed. "People can get turned into ghoms?!"

"Yes, with the right tools. Speaking of ghoms, I noticed your brother can call them to his aid."

Jam grinned. "Yeah! I can do that too, but they see him as more dominant, so they respect him more. I tend to get munched on by them because I fail to stand up for myself."

Amelia squinted at him. "Is speaking ghom language an innate skill to you, or did you learn it?"

"I don't know," Jam said, scratching the back of his head. "It might have something to do with the ghom that died protecting us in a familiar house while we were unconscious."

Amelia burst into laughter.

Jam stared at her, wondering if the lady had lost her marbles and if he should run away.

She finally spoke. "I'm guessing this dead ghom you've mentioned was on or near a sofa, in a room where there was a red rug, a table, a jar of blackcurrant jam, a video game console, a TV, and a pair of red glasses."

"Yes," Jam said.

"You and your brother were the ghom!"

It was Jam's turn to squint at her. "You're not making any sense, lady."

She smiled. "I have some explaining to do." Then she looked around. "Hmm. Where is your brother hiding? Is he all right?"

"He's fine. He went up ahead searching for something. I can track him down for you. Now, please, explain what you're on about and what this has to do with me and my brother."

"Let's go sit by the lake," she said. "I'll tell you everything I know."

At the lake, they both sat on the grass, in lotus position.

"Let's start with the reason why the train invited me here," Amelia said, handing Jam a muffin.

"Thanks," Jam said before taking a bite out of the muffin.

"Thirty three years ago, I had a fiancé named Alrick. We loved each other and felt inseparable. But one day, I received a phone call that made it seem like the world was collapsing around me. I was announced that Alrick died in a dirt biking accident. I couldn't face the reality that I would never see him again. I refused to go to his funeral, thinking that if I'll never see him get buried I could convince myself that he was still alive and that he would return, just like he always did. But the days went by, and he was not coming back."

Jam's eyes were filling up with tears as he listened attentively, forgetting about the half-eaten muffin in his hand.

Amelia continued. "One day, I decided I didn't want to live in a world without Alrick. I wanted to escape. And what better place to end it all than the college campus where Alrick and I graduated? But the train had other plans for me. It removed the roof of the college building and lured me in with the promise of futuristic technology – the kind that made me hope I could bring Alrick back."

Jam had wiped away his tears and resumed eating his muffin.

Amelia smacked the ground with her right fist. "My misplaced hope led me down a dark path. I usurped the good-willed Conductor One, I took over the train, and changed its devices into tools for my own sick goal of recreating Alrick. I had nothing left of him except my memories. I had a memory tape of my own, so I've used a scanner to create orbs coded with everything found in that tape. But it turned out that it kept creating everything wrong. The architecture, the gravity, the very laws of physics were wrong in the cars those orbs created for me. So I've forced a robot called the Steward to help me acquire orbs from other cars, which I've then used on my more recent cars. All that was left was to code in Alrick and his personality."

"I don't like where this is going," Jam said, having finished his muffin.

"I've captured and studied ghoms from the wasteland, and realized they are very moldable by injected code, fully becoming the entity whose essence was contained in orbs I'd equip in a device I've stolen from the train and repurposed. I've failed to complete my plan countless times, because the scanner kept mixing the turtle pattern of my handkerchief into the orbs, corrupting them. I didn't understand what was causing it at the time, so I kept shooting ghoms with multiple orbs, hoping that the right combination would put all the required pieces together and form Alrick exactly as I remembered him. The last ghom I've shot with four different orbs was the one you and your brother came from. But I have yet to find out how you ended up looking like my coworker."

Jam had a shocked look on his face as he morphed into his turtle form. "You've captured … There was a ghom … and Alrick and I came out of it?"

"I guess that technically makes you twins," Amelia said.

The softshell looked at his power armor's hands. "So, my brother and I are … ghoms."

Amelia shook her head. "It's not that simple to define what you are. You have ghom, human, and denizen code. Do you happen to have a number on your palm too?"

"Y-yes," Jam said, surprised she knew about that detail. "It's 337. But it doesn't glow. My brother has one just like mine."

"It used to be my number. Your sister Hazel has that same non-glowing number on her right palm."

"We have a sister?"

"You have many sisters, but Hazel is similar to you, capable of changing between turtle and human form. She's the little girl you saw in my photo."

Jam smiled. "She looks adorable! Can I meet her?"

"That will be difficult," Amelia said. "She left the train with Grace, the young woman from the photo. Simon donated parts of his number to Hazel so she could qualify for getting an exit. That boy had a tendency to come up with macabre solutions to problems, but cutting his own skin like that took the cake."

Jam shuddered at the thought. "I wouldn't want people to hurt themselves for me. I'm pretty sure my brother wouldn't want that either. Is there some other solution? We'd love to get away from this train. Almost everyone here hates us because of what this Simon guy did to them."

Amelia pondered for a moment. "I do not know of any other working solutions, given that you're not made of reflective material. All I do know from my boss is that it must be something good enough to convince the train there is a glowing number on your hand's skin. If you and your brother are willing to work with me, maybe we'll find a way to get you two off this train. Or at the very least I could help you find an accepting community on the train. Do we have a deal?" She offered a handshake.

Jam smiled at her before grabbing her hand with his armor's and gently shaking it. "Deal."

To be continued.