Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas's! Here's another chapter, significantly faster than the last one I had to do, so please, by all means, have a blast with it. I enjoyed writing it, especially for the two Scots. Also, the story stuff is pretty slow here, but it's more to set up the next two chapters more than anything, which is when we sort of shift into the moment the Other Railway took form.
AaronCottrell97: Yeah, pretty much!
Reality Rejection Service: Yeah, that's just more set up for why he believes all this stuff, really.
Bronze Shield: Ha! Well strap yourself in then! XD.
Game-Watch: Heh, it's always fun to write Hatt in pain.
MattPrice01: Thanks mate! And yeah, that line slipping in there was just because I figured oh what the hell. Hope you enjoy this one.
JD145: Yeah, it's boring, but passable. Much more so than any of the Nitrogen stuff, or the New Series as a whole.
Radical Sandwiches: Pretty much, yeah. Hopefully you'll get a sense of what's going on in the world around about that time, and how it's really kickstarting the whole plot of the present day stuff into motion.
UGX7: This is what happens when you have no idea what to do with a character like Dusty Miller! Yes, the Mysterons are able to resurrect the dead, and use them. Given how small they are at present, they have little control over Zero. It's fine, I get it. It's a lot to take in. Same to you too!
CUE THE THEME!
Donald and Douglas are _? Fill in the blank, is it:
A: Scottish Twins
B: Bloody Hooligans
C: Drunk
D: Really fed up of having to be referred to by their nationality and relationship to each other.
The answer is, of course, all of the above. They enjoy working on the Fat Controller's railway, even if they could do with a lot less work at Smelly-by-the-sea, primarily because Donald was practically marooned there back in 1998 and was left smelling of fish for an entire year. Sometimes, though, when they look at the old wreck (And then the ruins of the castle that is right beside Sir Topham's failed attempt to take up jogging), they do miss Scotland.
One day, the Fat Controller called them to the docks. Not literally, he didn't have that big a megaphone. As they puffed in and ignored the strange antique truck that was being pulled out of a ship, and then tried equally as hard to ignore the lustful look that it's new owner, one , had on his face, they wondered whether or not they'd be getting more screen time.
In one respect, they were right. In another, they were way off the mark.
"Oh look, it's Quasimodo!" sniggered Donald, as they caught sight of Harvey standing there. Douglas gave him a look, and nodded to the other engine. The three of them had bonded over being/becoming Scottish, which was nice for them and only them, as the accents got very impenetrable very fast.
"Lord Callan's castle is finally reopened-"
"Wait who in John Laurie's name is Lord Callan?"
"Aye, and why should we give a flying caber if his castle is reopened or not?"
"How, how do you not know Lord Callan!?" protested Hatt, nervously. "You're Scottish!"
"Aye, and there's not like a grand ol'network of Scottish people that we all know about and use! Ye're daft if ye think we know every one of the Jocks who come over here and start using silly accents!" Douglas.
"Aye, hoots mon, what kind of haggis-eating sassanach would accuse us of havnae comprehensible accents, och aye, the noo!?" said Harvey with verve. Or candour. Or pride. Or shame. You know what, what he said it with is probably never going to understood.
"...Moving on. Who is this prick?"
"He was our MP for years in the House of Lords, and then we sort of found out that he might have...started...paying prostitutes. And also accidentally leaking information to so many countries I don't even begin to comprehend."
"...So he's Jeffery Archer, is what yer saying."
"Yep. In fact I'm honestly not sure whether or not he's just Archer with red hair, a false beard and a ridiculously thick accent. Anyway, unfortunately he's still a toff, so he's throwing a big do that could turn into a big orgy that could turn into a big moneymaker. So basically, I need you to take the banners, bunting and bagpipes to the castles!"
"HA! He's clearly not Scottish! Any fool knows that the average Scotsman has at least four bagpipes on him at all times!" bragged Donald. Douglas didn't think this was quite accurate, but it was early in the day.
There was a long silence, in which everyone felt awkward, as Fatty restarted his brain. "ARVEY! Please load em straight away! I have to get my best kilt on!" Everyone mentally groaned at the image that occurred to them.
"Yes. ... Sir." said Harvey, slowly. The twins were relatively excited. Finally, a night out somewhere they understood!
...
Percy arrived there, because of course he did, as the twins were getting coupled up. He was curious "And where are you twin-twine-twang-two going!?" He hissed, clearly the pills for the headache weren't working.
"Lord Callan's Castle!"
"Who?"
"I dinnae know, he's a bloke."
"By Castle Loch!" said Harvey, who was being 'helpful'.
"I thought it was called Callan Castle."
"I thought it was called Black Loch."
"I thought that going there seems like a terrible idea!" shuddered Percy.
"Awwww, scared that the big ol'monster might get ye!"
"He might-"
"KEEP YER MOUTH SHUT!" said Douglas, having one of his bi-polar episodes. Percy and Harvey began to slowly back away as the twins began to argue again. "THERE IS NAE MONSTER!"
"IS!"
"IS NAE!"
"IS!"
"IS NAE!"
"IS!" And so on, and so on, as the two started off. Lord Callan's Castle is in Misty Valley, or as it's known to the residents of the Island, Oh Shit, We Ran Out of Real Places, Let's Just Steal Some From Enid Blyton Valley. Both engines were determined to get the stuff to the destination so they could perhaps sod off and do something actually Scottish. Like complain about independence.
"THERE IT IS!" cried Donald, his voice cracking.
"WURR ALMOST THERE!" cried Douglas, his voice turning into James's for a moment. Then there was trouble, as per usual.
"Who the hell just leaves trees on the line with nae a word to us!?" shouted Donald. Douglas was more distracted by why there was a single solitary castle turret so far out here. They stopped just in time. I know, I was tense too what with the complete lack of tension enhancers.
There was a loud crash, and the brake-van was promptly buried under an avalanche. As you know, three second warning avalanches are a thing, right? Right! As the guard struggled to eat his way out of the delicious death he would no doubt suffer, like any true Scotsman, the drivers and firemen decided to head off and kill a sheep for lunch.
"We could take the causeway!" said Donald's driver as he began to eat the sheep's leg. Douglas's driver knew that causeways were, quite frankly, not to be trusted. His grandfather had been killed by a causeway, primarily because the silly sod hadn't bothered to move when a train had been coming across it.
"It's too dangerous! And besides, this sheep isnae gonna eat itself!"
"WE'LL NEVER GET TO THE CASTLE NOW!" said Donald, trying to interject some legendary acting into the script.
"I'll phone for help! It'll probably be some daft twit who thinks me accent is thick!"
...
"Splendid outfit, duckie!" said the tailor. He privately thought that the man in charge of all the railways looked a wee bit of a twit, but he wasn't paid for his opinions. The cat looked distressed to witness this. Then the phone rang.
"What an unusually thick accent!" said Sir Topham Hatt as he picked up the phone. "..WHAT?! DONALD AND DOUGLAS!? TRAPPED BY THE LOCH!? THEY'RE EATING A SHEEP!? CAN'T GO OVER THE CAUSEWAY!?"
"That is what I said." said Douglas's weary driver.
"THIS IS UNTHINKABLE!" said Hatt, who was unable to calm down when he was put on the phone. Like all Englishmen, he though that if he shouted at the foreign person loud enough they would maybe understand him better. "I SHALL SEND FOR HELP AS SOON AS I CAN!" He put the phone down. "Bloody Scots, eh?"
"Sir, ye havenae knocked us off, we can hear everything."
"SHIT!"
...
It was dark before the Fat Controller recovered enough to give a damn, and by that time, there were no more sheep to eat. Everyone was growing very, very tense indeed.
"What's THAT?!"
Suddenly, the twins spotted something strange move through the mist. It had the neck of a giraffe, the beak of a vulture and smelled a lot like Irn Bru. There was only one thing it could be.
"TIS NESSIE! She's come to punish us for our rampant hooliganism!"
"FO-SHO IT IS!" shouted Donald, using some of his hip lingo.
"No! Tis me!" It was Harvey, who for some reason had decided to put his hook and that of the Breakdown Train at an angle.
"YOU'LL BE OUT OF A JOB, CRANE ENGINE!" screamed the twins as one.
"On this Island? Fat chance!"
And by morning, the lines were clear. The twins sped off, leaving Harvey to do all the hard work. They wanted to go home and go watch their favourite movie. Trainspotting. A bit on the nose, I know, but still, have you heard the Scots in that? Donald was of the opinion that Robert Carlyle would be a good choice should someone decided to not screw up another movie about them. Douglas could make do with whichever one didn't have a career.
Lord Callan's workers were waiting to unload the trucks, and after arguing about whether or not they shoud do this or head off to the pub, they decided. And headed off to the pub. Once they returned, they set them up in record time, and the party was a huge success.
"AH THINK THEY'RE VERRA RELIABLE." said Lord Callan, eyeing up the lady not too far from him.
"Verra reliable too!" said Hatt, failing at an accent.
"OCH AYE!" said the twins.
And then they decided to get off home before the whole thing turned into some sort of feral mating ritual. They were missing Scotland, just not that much.
...
THE PAST.
"So...you have an opinion?"
"...So let me get this straight. There's this thing that came around when the world was created."
"Yes."
"Which is made of pure concentrated shadows and evil and the stuff of nightmares."
"Uh huh."
"Which was defeated by a group of old men waving their hands around and saying magic words, while a small imp who looks like a jester but is actually from the future, and that one bloke from Hancock in ghost form."
"Indeed."
"And the things that helped them defeat him turned into steam engines and ended up creating most of the talking vehicles we know today with the help of an alien race of wee men who happen to look like celebrities."
"Mmm hmm."
"And then after that they shoved him in a castle somewhere until some slightly miffed biker opened up the gates of hell and sent one half of him flying through a portal which at some point before the year 2000 will open and deposit him."
"Sure."
"While the other half is currently resting inside an old Marklin class tank engine that was shoved off onto the side and it's honestly debatable how much of what he does is going to be the engine itself or the ridiculously complex and baffling abomination that ye've essentially shoved in it."
"Yeah."
"And yer ultimate plan is essentially to use this thing ta take over yon world completely and basically do whatever it is ye want."
"That...Yes, that is essentially what I have told you over the past three hours." The Accountant blinked. "You think I'm lying?"
"No."
"Well you'd be the first. Why not?"
"Because if ye were trying to convince me ta take part in something, telling me THAT is quite possibly the worst lie ye could have come up with." Zero wiped his brow. "Okay, so assuming ye are not just some crazy homeless arse off the street, how do ye want to do this?"
"Well, obviously getting the two halves back together is priority. But to do that I'm going to need to handle one or two things. Get a bigger influence for starters, there's a few scientists who worked over with this man, Hargreaves. You know him? Ah. I see you do. Yes, this German scientist has the theory that he can create an army of disposable engines that can essentially take all equipment and scientists to wherever it's needed. To get that I need money."
"And how were ye thinking of doing that?"
"Well, actually...how much do you know about the big three in charge of this Other Railway? Because I've got access to the funds, I know quite a fair bit. A lot of money, a lot of ground that isn't being used as anything other than 'bragging rights', and a lot of privacy. Barely anyone knows about them. So, supposing that Lord Belborough and his fellow Trumptonshire constituents were to meet with some unfortunate incident, it would automatically return to the business that the Lord himself runs."
"Where we would, presumably, use it to do...what?"
"Make advances. Use the stuff I've learned from my university. Create technology and unearth secrets that the world will not be ready for. We will make them ready."
"...Ye know I must be mad, this is actually starting to sound workable to me."
"I need you back on the seas, Captain. The ones who started the whole thing, those who haven't been killed by the war, we need to care of them. Get their bodies, melt them down, construct a weapon so powerful we will never be able to stop it."
"Interesting, interesting. But just the two of us?"
"Aside from your crew, I already have several people working to bring together those we need. We need to continue the search for the Lost Engine, but not so that we can merely destroy her." His eyes shone darkly. "Imagine it, Zero. The power of a God!"
"All right, all right-" said Zero, who wanted to move off of this topic now "-but what about the others?"
"They should be here any moment now- Ah! There they are!" Zero turned, and his eyes widened slightly. The man in front of him was young, but looked far older than he should have. Wearing a sort of black leather ensemble and a motorbike helmet that he practically tossed at the bartender, he looked as though he had come from a dodgy PSA about the warnings of drugs.
"Mr Boomer, meet Captain Zero."
"Yo."
"Hey."
There was a long, awkward silence as the two men sized each other up. Boomer sat down, lit up a cigarette and stared at Zero.
"Well this is fun." He muttered at last. "So yer the sea. I'm the land. He's the fire beneath our arses. Who's taking care of the air?"
In response, the Accountant slid a large folder of paper across to him. "Here. There are people in here who have contact with airforces, not only that, but with the military, and with Mr Zero here, we now have a link to constructors. There's a man in here I'd like you to scout out, P.T. He's got a good track record with the procurement of vehicles to be used. Name of Gotch, recently out on parole for his rather extreme views. He's stupid, but usable."
"And how the hell are we going to keep it secret from Belborough?"
"Simple. We play our parts to perfection." The Accountant slid across their drinks. "Drink up. It's going to be a long few years."
...
It was. Over the remainder of the fifties, the three men carried out their plans supposedly under the guise of helping the Trumptonshire effort. The Accountant mapped out large stretches of woods where the council wasn't using, areas that could be transformed into a thriving metropolis for all the workers who would come, looking for new jobs. The news that the age of steam was coming to an end, ostentatiously because of the disappearance of the Lost Engine, made this even easier.
Lord Belborough, Captain Snort and Sergeant Major Grout knew nothing of this. Nor did anyone else, save for those that were recruited to their side.
Well that wasn't quite true. There was one person who knew.
If he counted as a person.
Every time Zero went to remove something to give to the Accountant, or if he was a little too quick to downplay their relationship together, the Clown looked at him and smiled that incredibly disturbing smile. Both Captain and Accountant were significantly concerned about him, but eventually the Accountant had decided that the Clown could do whatever he liked.
"I've got a feeling about him. We mortals are no match for him." He whispered one day. Zero was in agreement on that at least.
It was 1963 before it happened. The day prior to it, on November the 20th, Captain Zero recieved word from the Accountant to send over the results of several years hard work. Taken from the skin of several of those caught in the blast made by the Malevolence escaping, the compound had been synthesised significantly into a sort of gas form. It would not receive work for another two days, at least.
For everyone in the Trumptonshire area had started to feel just the tiniest bit ill. No one was sure why or how, until Doctor Mopp headed off in an attempt to find a company willing to assist in the healing of his county.
Enter a small company that had recently been set up by the elder Packard (Having successfully made sure that each male sibling of his wife were removed post-haste) that offered to give treatment to the entire area via a new chemical compound. He offered to show Mopp a test upon some creatures who, by the strangest of co-incidences, suffered from the same virus as the Trumptonshire people.
"The experiments were a success?" asked the Doctor, nervously.
The Accountant removed his goggles and took a look. "The entire Trumptonshire county's been affected. I doubt so much as a bird will have noticed the gas." He turned to the doctor. "Yes, it is. Doctor Mopp, I must admit, your willingness to test this gives me faith."
"Ah, thank you. I must admit, when your company approached me, I wasn't sure but now-"
"Clean bill of health for everyone there once we inject it! Camberwick Green, Chigley, Trumpton. All will be healthy thanks to you, Doctor."
Mopp smiled. "If you say so. Now, I must join my friends and tell them the news!" He hurried out, the Captain walking in as he did so. Next to the area where the animals had been housed, he watched as person after person arrived in to get exposed to the miracle cure.
"What's got a bee in his bonnet?"
"The results."
"Ah." Zero frowned. "I must say, even by our standards this is a little...barbaric. Nae profit at all. I'm a soldier, but this...even the wars never produced anything quite so deadly. An entire county? And for what?"
"Simple." The Accountant pulled out a map. "Firstly, it shows that the gas works. If nothing else, it'll prevent any attackers from getting to the Other Railway. And secondly, it gave us a chance to search the entire county. Wherever that package went, we can trace it from the office records. My suspicion is that it was shipped somewhere to The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited in Wales-"
"Mouthful."
"-but I doubt we'll find it there. I have a suspicion that it is somewhere near the Silver Hatch area at present, hence my sending the big three off to check it out. There's some tycoon there planning to build a racing stadium there."
"What about yon friend?"
"Who, Doctor Mopp? He won't remember us. He's infected as well. I give this entire area a minimum of three years. Maximum five. Then everyone here will be forgotten, cast aside by the government. But not by the public. Better to make examples out of them." He turned to Doctor Gurtzer. "Keep them here for a minimum of two days. That'll be long enough for our men to take control of the town and establish a presence there. My car awaits. We must hurry!"
And so, Zero and the Accountant set off for the now abandoned area of the Trumptonshire County.
One day later, the second step of their take over would begin.
Three days later, absolutely no one would care.