I'm back! And on with the chapter!
"Just how far are you willing to go to save Grace?"
Simon fights to control his breathing. It's stupid. There's no way the figure below could hear him over the roar of the train, and yet he lies as flatly as possible against the cold metal roof of the car and anxiously bites his bottom lip. Simon watches as Amelia Hughes emerges from the car below him, clearly irritated, and one hand massaging the curve of her lower back.
Is she really going to fall for it?
HOURS BEFORE...
"I must warn you, mon cher, that this plan may not work." Samantha's yellow eyes are upon Simon, but Simon's focus lies solely on the mysterious box resting innocently on his lap. This is the second time he has found himself in the Cat's lair and is presented with a mysterious object she claims will help. If he accepts the Cat's help—if he goes through with this—Simon has to be certain this won't be a repeat of last time. His traitorous mind bombards him with flashbacks consisting of himself, the Cat, the fire… 'You're going to help me!' 'Grace is not acting like she should!' Simon would laugh if he isn't so sure that he would cry.
'She isn't one of your miniatures, Simon.'
"Then how are you even sure that it'll work at all?" he exclaims. His face is haunted.
Samantha's eyes narrow; she gives him a toothy grin. "What if I told you there is a car on this train which only purpose is to store memories?"
"I'd ask why I've never heard of it," Simon answers.
"Mais oui, I suppose you haven't…" The retort hangs heavily like a noxious cloud, and she smirks—For a person who has spent such a long time on the train, you don't know very much at all, do you? Simon's knuckles go white as short, jagged nails dig into calloused palms, yet she appears not to notice. "That's not surprising. The Tape Car is always located at or near the front of the train, and this train is very, very long. By probability alone and ah… past incidents… I doubt many passengers are deposited so close to the front of the train. You won't remember it, Simon, but even you were once inside The Tape Car when you first boarded. That is where the train evaluates your past and assigns you a number-"
"Wait! What?" The blond gazes at the glowing numbers covering his bicep and forearm. "But how does it-?" He and Grace know that the train must assign numbers somehow, but how does it monitor them all? Do numbers recalculate there and are then recorded on the passenger? Could this be manipulated in some way? So many questions pile up in his innermost thoughts…
"None of that," Samantha holds up a paw. "I know the direction in which your mind is heading, and I'm afraid that there are some explanations even I cannot begin to clarify. Écoute-moi! You believe that the Powers-That-Be routinely let an ingénue like myself in the know concerning something as important as that?"
In spite of the flattened ears, the paw held dramatically over one eye, the Cat is calm, too calm. Simon is certain that the Cat would never admit not knowing something and would be absolutely sour if she were forced to do so. She's lying; she's hiding something—or someone. She forgets that her present audience knows her much more intimately than her usual one, but this time Simon bites his tongue before the urge to explode becomes overpowering. Past Simon had been too impatient, and he, but more importantly Grace, are paying the price for it. This time Simon will push himself to become a little cleverer, a bit more composed. He is evolving.
"Then what do you know?" Simon crosses his arms as his gaze returns to the Cat.
"You're a smart boy, think a little. If every passenger has his number assigned and monitored from within The Tape Car, then this would obviously include Grace as well. If one were to walk in and, oh say, relieve the car of Grace's tape…" Her voice trails off in an offhanded manner, and Simon immediately picks up on the implication, suddenly excited.
"-and-and if she were to watch it…" He leaps out of his chair. "Grace could replace her lost memories with exact copies of her old ones…" The blond looks at the Cat. "…right?"
"That is the idea. Of course, I have no idea whether it will succeed or not, but it would be very interesting to observe…" She ignores a nasty glare from the blond.
"Grace isn't some kind of lab experiment. She is my friend! If you even think that-"
"Ah, il n'y a pas plus sourd que celui ne veut pas entendre…" Samantha sighs, "What do you want me to say, Simon?"
Say that you're telling me the truth, that you're sorry for abandoning me to my death all those years ago, that you recognize you never taught me anything about the train and yet you dare allow yourself to become so preachy about how the train works all these years later… Tell me why you pretended to care about me. Admit that you only feel guilty because I am alive… A dozen thoughts long since grown old and bitter and poisonous rise up to paralyze his throat, but Simon does not heed. Not this time.
"Say that you don't have any nefarious plans in your so-called 'helping'," Simon replies. "Say that you won't treat Grace like a lab rat."
There is a brief silence between the two before the Cat relents with a short, but delicate bow. "As you wish… A pox upon my whiskers, no, I won't treat your friend like a lab rat, but you can't fault my interest in this subject. It isn't nefarious, quite the opposite, really. To think…" she pauses, eyes widening in barely suppressed elation. "Instead of information flowing from passenger to train, we're proposing the reverse! Such a scheme! Such stakes!"
Simon isn't moved by such stakes, but he realizes interrogating Samantha further isn't going to help him in the long run. "Okay… So let's say you've convinced me; why don't we head for this Tape Car right now? We're wasting time as it is just standing around and talking at each other."
The Cat laughs. "Oh, you silly boy… Such eagerness…" she smiles, and Simon has the sinking feeling that although this Tape Car solution sounds both miraculous and fantastical, Samantha is still sitting on a massive buried lede. "By rough, and I mean very rough, estimation, I believe The Tape Car is approximately five million, three hundred and eighty-two thousand, five hundred and sixty-one cars away; give or take a few. My hovercraft has a function installed that allows me to know these things, though I suppose I'll have to learn to live without given that it's most likely still in The Black Market Car. Hmm…" A pause. "At a fair pace, given the advantage of using your equipment, I daresay it would take you almost a year to reach your destination, barring no distractions of course…"
"A-a year?" Simon feels his face paling as all of the blood rushes from his head to settle uncomfortably somewhere behind his ribcage. "But-"
"Tut, tut, you're fretting, mon cher. Never worry when I am here to help you." Those yellow eyes grow bright. And here is when Simon knows that the Cat will make her move. Internally he prepares himself for the impact. "You see, I know a faster way to transverse the train compared to your harpoons, and in the process you and I might somewhat settle a score with an old enemy we both share…"
THE PRESENT
As soon as Amelia disappears behind the door of the next car, Simon wastes no time springing into action. He throws himself over the side of the roof without thinking, his harpoon hooks already deployed and reeling him forward. However long the old lady will be distracted by his ruse, Simon doesn't know, but he must reach his pre-planned destination before she suspects anything…
A certain grubby cardboard box weighs heavily in his pocket.
HOURS BEFORE
"This?" Simon asks, rattling the small box with his left hand.
"Parbleu! Careful! Careful!" The Cat is upon him in an instant, one paw resting forcefully on his forearm. "You have no idea of the trouble I've gone through to collect the contents inside of this box. If it opens even once before the right moment, everything will be ruined."
"Okay…" Simon breathes slowly. "Jeez, what is inside of this thing? I mean, it's not going to kill her or something, right?" He doesn't like Amelia, but she is a human being at the very least. It doesn't feel right to harm real people.
Samantha stares intensely at that small, brown box. "Kill her? No… Provide her with a well needed dose of humility?" She laughs. "Ah, Simon, why else did I take the time to tell you about that old parable Belling the Cat?"
THE PRESENT
The Duck Car, just great… Trying not to choke on an excess of warm white feathers, Simon's forefinger flips open the lid of the box and pulls out a faded handkerchief that is for some strange reason screen printed with various cartoony looking turtles. What exactly is Amelia's deal with turtles?
"Somewhere, mon cher, on Amelia's person, is a device. She uses it to control cars."
Hurriedly he tosses the handkerchief over his head—and more than a few curious ducks make a dive for it—and does his best to swim through the mass of warm bodies towards the exit. Is it true that birds are incapable of holding their own excrement? Simon remembers stumbling across the subject years back in childhood, but right now he cannot recall the answer. The implication of the unknown makes him move faster.
"I've gone through many lengths to acquire the items within that box, though I suppose I never considered I would find a use for it. We've had our clashes over the years, but I'd figured it was best to wait her out—Amelia is quite old, for a human…"
"One part of Amelia's rehabilitation—if you'd call it rehabilitation—is to clean up all the damage she's done. She's attracted to things like these. If you leave each one within a different train car and lure her to the third, well… ….we'd have a chance to lay hands on her sound wave. With that, we could traverse the train in hours, why, we could stop by The Mall Car and gather Grace and enter The Tape Car in under a day…"
Simon doesn't have much time. There is a chance that Amelia would investigate the first bit of contraband he had dropped—some sort of gradation photo?—but there is also the possibility that she'd simply sent that entire first car into quarantine. On the detection of the second one, she's bound to be suspicious. Amelia would want to hunt exactly who—or what—is spreading around irregularities that she had created, and is supposed to be quarantining away from the rest of the train. She would want to investigate…like Hazel…
The Cat expects Simon to behave like a good messenger boy, as he had been once upon a time, and return obediently with Amelia's sound wave. Simon, however, has a different idea. It wouldn't hurt if he were to figure out how to operate Amelia's device on his lonesome, right? He would make a detour to The Mall Car and pick up a few Apex along with Grace.
Samantha is plotting something—whether it will be a positive or negative consequence for them is unknown—but perhaps the execution may be a bit harder with thirty armed children around. He'd tell Grace everything then—the awesome potential of The Tape Car alone would make sure she doesn't kill him outright, or at least not too soon. They have had their arguments before, but they had always come around. Grace Monroe and Simon Laurent are a pair and will always be one. Grace will be upset, but she would understand, eventually. In the depths of her soul, she wouldn't be able to picture herself parted from him—like he could never imagine himself without Grace.
Simon is barely able to exit The Duck Car before the door on the opposite end of the car opens.
Grace's eyelids flutter open briefly before she shuts them again. Gradually she is welcomed back, or rather metaphorically dragged, into the land of the living. A cool breeze blows gently across her face, and Grace breathes in the faint hint of wildflowers nearby. Her first thought is that it's all so peaceful. Her second is that the last thing she remembers is leaving The Mall Car, and she suddenly feels the urge to vomit. For the first time in long, long time, Grace allows herself to cry.
That was a really stupid thing to do, Grace…going it alone… Her mind makes a futile attempt to rouse any memory of walking into this car, but Grace already knows that she won't be able to. Similar to her waking up on the floor of the food court, there is a supermassive black hole of nothing from her saying goodbye to the Apex to her awakening in the midst of this tranquil meadow. Fuck.
Slowly, Grace exhales and tries to relax and deftly skims her fingers over herself to check to see if everything is still in order. Nose, check. Shoulders, check. Elbows, check… The train devours the weak. Knees seem to be okay… The train can be a hostile environment occasionally, but it's been so long since Grace herself has been thoroughly touched by fear that her current apprehensiveness feels foreign. Grace is not weak, yet consequently she recognizes that strength sometimes doesn't matter to the train. All it takes is one slip up, and—sucks to be you—you're falling off into the wasteland, sucked into a bottomless pit, infected by millions of sentient parasites, waking up in mysterious cars you have no memory of entering…
There is a crisp white and neatly folded note pinned onto her shirt fluttering stiffly in the breeze. Grace rips it off.
Shakily, she stands to her feet and shoves that note into a pocket. Judging by her waking up alone, her mysterious savior isn't Apex. Grace is surprised that her savior hadn't hung around to see her awaken, but then again, people are strange creatures. The teen decides if she ever meets her Good Samaritan again, she'll acknowledge she owes him one. Meetings between passengers on the train are like ships passing in the night, yet at the very least she could promise a hot meal and forbid the kids from rummaging through their stuff. First thing's first though… Grace unhooks the locator null from her pack and gives it a shake.
Grace Monroe is a doer and a survivor, and all extraneous thought is pushed aside from the task at hand. Right now she preoccupies herself with feeding the null Simon's final sock—which in turn will lead her to Simon, who still possesses his number tracker—hopefully, for his sake he does—, which in turn will lead them back to the Apex, which in turn will lead her straight to bed where she anticipates to sleep this all off like a bad hangover. Note reading and best friend questioning and best friend murdering shall all come later, when Grace is fresh and ready rule her world once again.
"What the-?" Grace definitely isn't ready for the null's red light to point upwards almost perpendicularly into the air and disappear into faded blue skies. Holy shit! Her legs began to move before her mind contemplates her next thought. How on earth did he get that close? How far away was he to begin with? The string of light moves easterly, and all at once Grace remembers a physical truth about train cars. Cars are nearly always larger inside than they are out; she'd never catch Simon on foot if he is at that moment running along the roof. Nevertheless, she races on past endless empty fields of wildflowers; she has no option not to try.
When Grace bursts through the exit like a creature gone mad, her face is tilted upwards to catch the familiar blur of khaki and white. Wait, would he even be wearing those ridiculous pants still? Grace hates the fact that she cannot say for certain—Simon had changed so quickly recently. For all she knows, Grace might look up to spot him wearing a clown costume.
"Well, there's no time like the present to find out…" Grace mumbles under her breath. Standing here will grant her nothing, and there is a good chance she will spy his retreating figure if she climbs onto the roof. She grasps both handles of her harpoon hooks and shoots off a quick prayer to the Conductor that her aim will be true. Grace aims them forward and shoots and-
Shlink! Crash!
Grace watches on in stunned silence as her right hook collides with another. A rush of adrenaline causes the scene to play out in slow motion; at the sight of his left hook knocked awry, Simon is too stunned to react. His face looks down to meet hers, eyes wide, and Grace witnesses him mouth a single word in pure astonishment. Grace…
Simon.
And in the span of a heartbeat time speeds up again, and he is already past her. Grace dodges just in time to avoid her falling hooks that had been pushed off course by Simon's passage, and she dives onto the bridge between cars, her back striking against the handrail. Simon, however, is not so fortunate. He slams side-first into the wall of the next car and slides down, having only one harpoon successfully been planted onto the wall.
In another heartbeat and once again, Grace races towards him before she can think.
Notes: Translations are as follows: mon cher = 'my dear'
mais oui = 'indeed'
écoute-moi! = 'listen to me!'
il n'y a pas plus sourd que celui ne veut pas entendre = 'there is no one as deaf as the person who doesn't want to listen'
Parbleu = 'by God (Jove)!'
ingénue = an innocent, kind, and sweet young girl (hint, hint, this ain't the Cat) If you have any questions or corrections for better translations, feel free to comment, and I will add them! And yes! Grace and Simon meet again! I've been waiting for weeks to post this... I hope you all enjoy!
As always, thanks for reading!