ICEBREAKER

Part VIII - Starting A Chain Reaction

Moving as rapidly as he could Layton began hurrying to the side of the train. He knew he would have to go back through the train to get to the outside to get to Melanie, but first he needed to see how she was. But he suddenly slowed his steps as he heard a slight noise over the communicator in his helmet. It started out a low moan, then grew a bit more descriptive as Melanie shook off the effects of the fall.

Walking carefully to the edge of the train's roof, Layton looked down to see her sitting in a bank of discarded snow they had shoved off the train earlier at the bottom of a long slope of ice and snow.

"Are you OK?" He called out to her over the communicator.

"I think so." Came the still weak response. "Thankfully it wasn't a straight fall."

"Looks more like a slide." Layton commented, looking over the path she had taken to the ground.

"Well, trust me, it wasn't a lot of fun." She grumbled into the communicator.

"That's because you weren't prepared for it." Layton replied, then, seating himself on the edge of the train, quickly shoved himself off.

Within a few seconds he landed next to her in the discarded snow.

Turning to her with a pleased smile, Layton happily exclaimed, "I want to do that one more time before we leave!"

Melanie pulled herself up, brushing off the snow as she headed back to the emergency door a few yards away with the sole comment of "Adrenalin Junkie."

Heading after her, Layton followed her back to the engine room.

"So now what?" He asked, stepping up next to her where she was standing at the helm.

Melanie was already skimming her hand over the panels in the control board on the front helm as she muttered to herself, ignoring the question.

"Back area, upper decks, rear, central electrical, heat..."

"That one!" Layton quickly exclaimed.

Melanie turned to him with a frown this time. "First we have to get the Tokamak powered up." She replied. "That's all we'll have the power for to begin with."

"How long before we can do that?"

"About 30 minutes." Melanie replied. "Ah, here we are!" She suddenly exclaimed. "Forward engine batteries." A wide smile came to her features as she looked over the panel. "They're charging, Layton. The panels are still working and they're charging the batteries again."

"So that means we should be able to start the Tokamak, which will in turn power up the engine."

"Theoretically." Melanie replied. "A lot of parts needs to still be able to come into play for all of this to work."

"Well, by my estimates, we have about an hour left..."

"An hour and 21 minutes." Melanie informed him.

"And we'll burn a half hour of that just waiting to be able to see if we can even start the engine."

Melanie shrugged. "If we can't start it, it's not a big deal anymore." She replied. "We simply wait for Snowpiercer to come back and pick us up. By the time we back the trains up all the way to the switch again, the Track Scalers likely will have finished their work and we can simply continue on."

Layton looked around the overly organized room. "So what do we do for a half hour?"

Melanie gave him a pleased smile. "Allow me to show you round my engine, Mr. Layton."

Layton had to admit the engine was an impressive work of engineering. Melanie appeared to have learned from the other to trains how to make improvements on the third. Everything on the train was as logically laid out as it possibly could be. The sheer organization would have made Ruth positively giddy with glee.

After showing him around the main engine room, Melanie led him back to a section that seemed to divide the engine into the work area and the living area for the crew by way of a long, extremely tall corridor.

"Icebreaker," Melanie explained as they entered the corridor, "was designed as the ultimate survival ship. The upper and lower desks can sustain a large number of people as long as they don't mind cramped quarters. Things were set up much as they were in the Tail. Shelves were installed as bunks were three to four people could sleep on one shelf. Water would be readily available by filtering it from the snow outside and keeping it in storage tanks in the back. If something happened to one of the other trains, it could call out to Icebreaker for help."

"What about food?" Layton asked.

Melanie stopped as they walked through the corridor and pushed on a section of the wall. Immediately a small door opened. Reaching inside Melanie turned a handle and a large panel next to them opened. Reaching under it, Melanie lifted the panel to reveal stacks of small packages all neatly arranged on shelves behind the wall.

"This entire corridor is nothing but food storage." She explained. "The original population of the train could have survived on the freeze dried stores onboard for years."

Layton reached inside and took out one of the packages. Almost immediately grains of a rice like substance began spilling onto the ground.

Layton tilted the package up to examine the hole more closely.

"Looks like Icebreaker had the same initial problem Snowpiercer had." He commented, sticking his finger into the well chewed out opening in the package.

Melanie gave a quiet sigh. "I guess that simply goes to prove that wherever humans go, rats go with them."

Layton took a closer look inside the open panel.

"There are a few dead ones in here. Why wouldn't they survive with all this food and water?"

"The same reason no person would have survived." Melanie explained. "Even if the Tokamak was left running after the train was abandon, it would only run for a short time. As a fail-safe, human intervention was needed to signal the system to keep working. Without that signal, the Tokamak would eventually shut itself down after a pre-prescribed time."

"So eventually the rats would freeze."

"Exactly."

"Well, that explains what happened to the rats. But where are the people?" Layton asked. "This train didn't drive itself here. It isn't like they could just get off and hop on another passing train. And from what you say, this train could easily keep going for years. They had food. They had water." Layton fanned his arms out on either side. "Why just abandon the train?"

"I suppose for the very reason you pointed out earlier." Melanie stated. "Something happened that drove them off the train."

"To go where?"

Melanie stared at the piled packages of food in the storage bin. "I don't know." She answered quietly, then turned with determination a she headed back to the engine room. "But I'm going to find out."

Following her back to the engine room, Layton found her checking the readings on the panel.

"It's not a hundred percent yet. "She commented. "But it has enough power to start the sequence to power up the Tokamak."

Layton stepped up next to her. "Are you sure about this?"

"The worst that will happen is it doesn't work, Layton. In which case we simply wait for Snowpiercer and return to the train."

Layton gave a small sigh. "All right. Then lets see what this engine can do."

Pausing for a moment, with her hand hovering over the panel, Melanie finally began entering in a sequence on the board.

Almost immediately the train seemed to respond to her touch. At first Layton felt it give a slight shutter. Then a low hum began, which rose and fell several times, each time getting slightly faster. But as the wave of sound evened off into a constant low hum, boards and lights around them began to burst to life as lights came on without so much as a flicker of a delay. All around them Layton thought he could feel the train coming to life. Lights all over the train started to come on in addition to outside lights, including the one at the head of the train.

Layton quickly turned to Melanie, who looked like she was about to exploded from excitement.

"It's working." She stated in a near whisper. "The Tokamak still works. And it's powering up Icebreaker."

"So we can move the train?" Layton asked.

"We can do better than move it." Melanie stated in her growing excitement. "We can drive it out of here."

"Whoa, lady." Layton stated. "We have a train to catch, remember? In just under an hour?"

Melanie stared back at him. "Layton, regardless of anything else, we have to drive Icebreaker down the track to Moscow. It isn't like when Snowpiercer arrives we can just move him to a side track."

Whatever Layton was going to say in reply got cut short when a small panel on the helm suddenly popped open.

"What's that?" He asked.

Melanie walked over to the panel. "I'm not sure. "It could just be a small malfunc..." But she stopped suddenly as she looked into the open console panel. Reaching in she slowly drew out a small, folded piece of paper.

Unfolding it she carefully began reading the words written on the paper in an all to familiar style. From the way they were formed to what they said.

"'I always felt you were still out there somewhere.'" She read off the note. "'And as such stood a chance to end up just where you are standing now.

I am sure you will understand why I can not allow you to have access to this train.

So as much a it pains me to do this, I have to destroy it. An explosive device with enough power to start a chain reaction was left behind on this train. It will detonate in 15 minutes from the time you power up the train.

My sole consolation in having to destroy this magnificent train is that it will also put an end to my search for you.'"

Melanie's excitement turned to utter fury.

"That worthless son of a..."

"What's going on?" Layton asked. "What is that?"

Melanie thrust the paper at him. "Wilford set a trap for me. He knew I may find Icebreaker some day, so he set a trap for the train to destroy itself."

Layton looked around quickly. "Destroy itself how?"

But Melanie had fallen into silence as she stood thinking hard as Layton read over the note she had given him.

"If I wanted to destroy you, how would I do it?" She muttered to herself over the communication device in her helmet.

"Think later." Layton suddenly stated. "How long since the train powered up?"

"About three minutes."

Layton grabbed her by the shoulders and all but dragged her towards the emergency door. "We need to get off this train four minutes ago."

Much as he expected her to do, Melanie dug her heels in. "We have ten minutes, Layton!" She stated. "We could find the device and..."

"And do what?" Layton stated quickly. "You honestly think Wilford is really going to give us fifteen minutes to get off this train when it would only take us five minutes after we found that note? My bet is more that he was hoping we would do exactly what your thinking. Trying to stop the device." He shoved her towards the emergency door. "Now GO!"

All the way behind her Layton never gave her a chance to slow down as he kept pushing her from behind. There was no way he was going to let her follow him out, knowing she could at any moment decide saving her train was worth the risk.

Making it outside Layton gave her another solid shove out the door.

"Get to the sled!" He ordered her. "Get the engine started."

Despite her misgivings about leaving the train behind, Melanie knew Layton was likely right. It simply wasn't in Wilfrod's nature to play fair. And rather than fifteen minutes, the device could likely explode at any minute. So instead of focusing on what losing the engine would mean for Snowpiercer's fragile population, she put all her effort into getting as far from the train as she could.

Plowing through the snow, Melanie made it to the sled first and had the engine already started by the time Layton got there. She felt him slide into place on the seat behind her, then give her a firm slap on the shoulder.

"Go!" He stated.

The sled took off with a jump, heading rapidly over the snow mounds as it moved as fast as Melanie could make it go away from the potential danger. But several minutes away, they managed to find a hill Layton felt was protected enough and took refuge behind it. Mostly it was the only raised object on the plain they were on that offered any shelter.

Sitting next to her with their backs to the hill of ice and snow, Layton turned to her.

Sitting hunched down, trying to make her body as small as possible, He could still see her expression through the visor of her helmet. It was utter desolation. Like the explosion had already happened.

Layton figured this was just one more part of Wilford's plan to hurt her. If she managed to get off the train in time, she would have to sit and wait. Knowing her beloved train was going to be destroyed and having absolutely no way to stop it.

"I'm sorry." Was all he could think to say to her.

She gave slight nod.

"You still have Snowpiercer." He added after a few moments, trying to find some silver lining in all of this for her. "And he won't take her away from you."

Melanie only offered a small nod again in response.

Unable to think of anything else to say, Layton simply reached over and, wrapping an arm over her shoulders, pulled her closer to him as they waited for the seemingly inevitable end of Icebreaker.