Chapter Four
"Despite the worries of a frightened tomato, many strangers board a train"
Chicago's Union Station
Wednesday 30th December 1931
07:00
The Flying Lancer had originally been built nearly twenty years earlier for use in Europe, taking travelers from the tip of Italy to the wilds of Norway to the rock of Gibraltar to the lowlands of the Netherlands. However, the outbreak of World War One had put those grand plans on hold. Instead, the engine remained in America, and had been refitted for use as a luxurious transcontinental express service. It wasn't as fast or clean as the new, modern electric engines, but Ray felt that nothing was better than a good old-fashioned steam engine.
She was certain Zarc would agree with her too, but he was too busy quarreling with the freight loaders.
"Are you sure it's safe?"
"Quite positive sir" the poor man Zarc was ambushing at the moment was remarkably calm in the face of the frantic passenger. Ray had to wonder how often he dealt with nervous passengers worried about their luggage.
"There's no chance it's damaged at all?"
"No sir, we were very careful."
"And will there be someone guarding it?"
"The conductors on board have been notified that it must be minded, sir."
"But they don't know what's in it."
"No, of course not, sir. Your privacy is of our upmost importance."
"And there's not chance something could set it off?"
"Nothing short of an explosion, sir."
Ray sighed. This was quite a fuss from the same guy who, not two days, had been whining to her about being reduced to a glorified, if very overpaid, courier. The same man who basically told his boss where to stick his new toy that he wanted transporting to the big apple, and only agreed to the minor task of making sure it got there because, as Ray pointed out, they were going to New York anyway. Why not get an extra bonus for sitting back, relaxing and letting the staff do their job? Honestly, men and their pride.
"Come on, honey" she sighed, grabbing Zarc's arm and dragging him away from the freight cars "You're going to make us late."
"But Ray-!" he startled, spluttering slightly.
"Zarc, I swear you are more stressed about this baby than I am – and no, I'm not talking about the stupid package" Ray sighed, wrapping her arm around his now to keep a firmer told on him, her other hand fluttering to her still flat stomach on instinct "Stop taking it out on the nice man. Now come on, the first-class carriages are up front on this train, remember? And we have to get unpacked."
"But the-!" Zarc was still continuing on his attempted outburst, gesturing with his free arm back towards the freight cars.
Ray stopped and forced him to stand still, grabbing both his wrists and shooting him a frustrated glare.
"Zarc, I love you and you're going to be a great father" she told him "But at the moment, you are being a terrible husband."
Zarc froze, then seemed to relax for the first time since he got up this morning. "Alright."
"All calmed down now?" she smiled.
"Not really" he admitted "I really wish I didn't have to bring something so dangerous on this train you guys are riding on."
His hand seemed to gesture towards her stomach a little at 'you guys'.
"Come on, Zarc; you helped build this thing" she reassured him "It's not going to go off. And, worse case scenario, if it does, we're at the front of the train. The two of us will be fine. We're going to go to New York and you finally get to meet my little brothers. Now," she began pulling him towards the front of the train again "I'm starving. And you do not want a hungry pregnant woman angry at you."
Zarc laughed nervously. "Amen to that."
At the back of the train, amusing named the caboose, an elderly man in a conductor's uniform stepped off the train with a relieved sigh.
"Hey! Chojiro!"
Chojiro turned to see a young man, also in a conductor's uniform, running across the platform, red hair swept back by the wind blowing into the station and a big grin on his face. "You're as energetic as ever I see."
"I can't believe I finally get to ride such a beauty!" the young conductor whistled in appreciation "You getting off here, old man? You're missing the best part!"
"I'm on my break until next week" Chojiro confirmed "Pity it couldn't have been over Christmas, but at least I get to ring in the new year with my family. You and Roger will take the train on to New York and back."
"Well all good for you" the young conductor laughed "I'm gonna be in Times Square to watch the ball drop!"
Chojiro chuckled, clearly reminiscing about something. "Someday, you're have a girl and a family of your own, Dennis. Then you'll understand."
"Understand what?" Dennis cocked his head to the side, confused.
"Why I'm going to be stepping down after the season ends" Chojiro told him.
Dennis' face fell. "What?! You can't retire, Chojiro!"
"I already told the company about it" Chojiro told him, taking off the young man's white conductor hat off his head and brushing some dirt off of it "I just don't have the energy, or the enthusiasm for it anymore. It's a young man's game now." With a smile, he put the now clean hat back on Dennis' head. "The rails are ready for young men like you."
With a small wave, he walked past Dennis, then waved again as he passed the other conductor due to ride the train, who insisted everyone call him by his surname Roger.
"Bye Chojiro!" Dennis called back to him "Don't worry! We can handle it from here!"
As his eyes followed Chojiro down the platform, he was distracted by the sight of a beautiful dark-haired young woman standing near the freight cars with a violin case and a bank expression on her face.
Dennis took off his hat and laid it against his chest, letting a whistle of air out of his lungs. "Now that is a good-looking doll right there! You don't see that everyday!"
"Come on" Roger scowled, all but pushing Dennis into the caboose "You'll unsettle the passengers."
"I'm not unsettling!" Dennis insisted, but got onboard the train anyway.
As Chojiro walked down the platform, he met the eye of a young boy sitting in the first-class dinning car. On instinct, Chojiro smiled and waved up to the boy. The boy blinked, then raised his hand to wave back. Before the boy got the chance though, an arm reached from between the carriages and pulled Chojiro out of view of the platform.
"Wow! Look at all these people!" Yugo's eyes had practically popped out of his head when he saw the massive train positioned by the platform "Are they all on the same train as us?!"
"Most of them will be riding in the other classes, Yugo" Rin reminded him, brushing down her newly bought dress. With the money they had alleviated from the Chicago mob yesterday, they'd been able to buy some more clothes (though, granted, letting Yugo buy them may have been a mistake), as well as two first-class tickets on the fastest train out of town with enough bills left spare for their lodging once they got there and a present for Masumi "We'll be in first-class, which will be fairly empty."
"Oh, right" Yugo nodded "Hey look! There's going to be an orchestra on board!"
"A what?" Rin frowned and followed his gaze to the freight cars. Standing around it were a group of men and one woman in black, all carrying instrument cases "Oh, you're right. A black-tie orchestra. I don't think they're performing though. Just going from one city to the next between performances."
"Aww, I like music" Yugo whined.
"It's only twenty-four hours – you'll be asleep for most of it" Rin pointed out "And I'm sure there'll be plenty of entertainment on board."
"Alright!" Yugo cheered "Do you think they're an orchestra too?"
"Huh?" Rin turned to see who Yugo was looking at now. Up at the front of the train, by the second-class carriages stood another group of people, but this time all in white. "I don't think so. Wonder why all the white. A wedding party maybe?"
"A wedding?!" Yugo cheered with delight "That means expensive presents for Masumi!"
Rin's face brightened. "Exactly! The perfect payoff for our train robbery!"
"I thought we already did the train robbery and now we're escaping?" Yugo frowned with confusion.
Rin blanched; she hadn't wanted him to figure that out yet. "Er…yeah, that's true isn't it. So, we'll just have to get Masumi more presents from the train! She deserves lots of them!"
"Yeah!" Yugo cheered.
"Unless it's not a wedding – they don't seem to be carrying any presents" Rin pointed out "But why all the white then?"
"Hmm…I bet they didn't want to get their white suits dirty in the city, so they saved them for the train home!" Yugo declared "I bet that means the carriages are super clean then!"
"Well, it's not entirely impossible I guess" Rin admitted, checking their tickets to see what carriage they were in. This train was very confusing – third-class seemed to be where first-class normally was on a train and vice versa.
"I know! I'm being so smart today!"
"Yes you are, sweetie."
"ALRIGHT!"
The sudden enthusiastic shout from Yugo caught the attention of almost everyone on the platform, including a young man in coveralls with one hand on the rail leading up to the first-class carriage. He froze for a second, scanned his surroundings. Then, when he decided he wasn't being watched, jumped up onto the train.
At the freight cars, a young man in black named Allen Kozuki with his troupe of musicians was negotiating with a railroad official, unperturbed by any audience.
"Some of our orchestra are going to have to ride in the freight car with our instruments" he explained "They're very important to us, you see, and we can't afford to have then broken or stolen."
The freight loader Allen had come across was a good deal less unphased by the attention of the first-class passengers than his colleague that Zarc had pulled up was. "I-I-I'm afraid I can't allow that sir. It's company policy, see-"
"Don't worry, I already got the permission I needed" Allen told him, holding up a piece of paper to the man's eyes "See, it's all there. All sorted out. I just need you to leave them a spot, that's all."
The young man seemed a bit dazzled by the important piece of paper, but nodded nervously anyway. "Of course sir! Right away sir!"
As this was all going on, a few feet away by a large pillar, a group of unusual characters was loitering near enough to the freight cars to hear the conversation going on.
"Oh no!" one of the boys, who had a large tattoo down the side of his face, gasped "That means there'll be guys in the freight car all night! Which means we'll be seen! Which means that we can't get to it! Which means we'll never be able to get the money to pay off these tickets which means we'll all go bankrupt and have to eat Noburu to survive and I don't want to eat any of my friends-!"
"Relax, genius" one of the two girls, the one with an eyepatch over one of her blue eyes and a burn scar running down the side of her face and arm, reassured him "The package we want is in a different freight car. We won't ever have to go near those musician guys."
"Are you sure?" the boy asked, practically biting his nails with worry.
"Yuya, we already checked it a dozen times" the other girl, this one a short ginger with curly hair, reassured him as she checked over what appeared to be a railroad uniform "It's in the restricted car – no one goes in or out unless they're a railroad employee. Stop worrying – worse case scenario, you have a whole day of kicking back and relaxing on the greatest train in America to come up with a plan to get in there without being spotted by any wayward musicians. Or to come up with a new scheme to pay for the tickets."
"And the rent" the other male in the group, a large heavyset man, chipped in "Don't forget about the rent."
"Meiru, stop playing with your costume" the eyepatch girl reached over to stop the ginger from touching the uniform again "I spent ages re-sizing it – it's fine."
"Well I'm the one who's go to pull off a heist in it" Meiru informed he a little sulkily "You guys get to chill out the whole way while I'm serving snotty rich dudes champagne."
"We needed someone with railroad credentials" the eyepatch girl pointed out "I did offer to do it myself."
"Oh please don't fight!" Yuya waved his arms between them, like he was hoping to wave away any bad air that was brewing "I can't think when you're fighting! Please! You're both so scary when you fight!"
"Yuzu, you can whip up a bomb anywhere out of anything, I'll give you that" Meiru admitted "But you can't make a martini to save your life. Noburu wouldn't even fit behind the bar and Yuya-"
The three of them looked up at Yuya, who was now beginning to pace as he stressed about angry demons possessing them.
"Yeah, no" was all Yuzu could say in agreement.
"If all else fails, I could just punch everyone in the freight car out" Noburu pointed out, a mischievous little smirk darting across his face for a second.
"Oh no! Noburu, no!" that worked Yuya up to new levels of stress "Noburu, you can't! You'll get killed! No Noburu, don't get killed! Noburu! NOBURU!"
Up the platform by the second-class carriages, Yuya and his group were not the only ones to be taking note of the black-dressed orchestra. A young man in a white suit and fedora was also paying attention to them.
"What you look at that" he remarked to the group "A black-tie orchestra. Ah…I always did like the contrast of white to black; don't you think it's so…serene, my dear sister?"
The woman in a white dress stood next to him folded her arms and shot him a look of death. "I hate white."
"Come on, don't be like that" the man tried to playfully scratch her cheek, only to find his hand in a death grip "You know why we're in white, sister."
"I know why you're in white" he smartly informed him "Why the hell the rest of us have to look like a church choir I put down simply to idiocy."
"Well not all of us can get our kicks out of just literally kicks" the young man sighed, now turned to a dark-haired man beside him "So, Jacob, anyone I should be paying any…special attention to?"
"There's the senator's daughter and her husband over there" Jacob pointed out the pair entering the first-class dinning car ahead of them "Other than that it's just oil tycoons and fat businessmen."
The young man licked his lips. "Such beautifully prepared livestock, ready for the slaughter."
"I could be eating real slaughtered livestock right now" the man's sister retorted "Instead of standing here looking like a red-light lady and freezing my ass off."
"We needed a lady's delicate touch" her brother pointed out.
The sister looked at the two girls standing next to her, then shot him an unimpressed look. "Call me delicate again and I'll show you a real lady's touch."
"Sister, haven't you always said you wanted me to take you to New York?" the young man pointed out "Is that not what I am doing right now?"
"Yes" his sister admitted "The skimpy dresses and fountains of blood are a surprise."
"Boss! Boss!" a man, clearly older than the rest of the group, came running up to them, holding up a conductor's uniform "Look what I found!"
The young man didn't seem all that impressed, an expression mirrored by the rest of the group. "You're trying too hard, Doctor. Don't try hard."
The Flying Lancer left Union Station at exactly 9am with 232 passengers, two drivers and two conductors on board, setting off towards Indiana.