Chapter 18

"Need help with that?", I ask Edgar, who's protesting and struggling with the heavy set of keys in front of the drawer he's trying to open. There must be some kind of hybernation system for the most dangerous prisoners here because they're stacked up in drawers, like corpses in a morgue. Creepy.

"No, but, you know, take your own time", he grunts as he scoots over to make room for me.

I start lasering the lock. "Nam Koong Min Soo", Edgar reads. "Kronole addict. Fuck. Do we really need a kronohead?".

"Edgar...", Curtis tries to calm him down.

The lock switches and we open the drawer. Apparently, Nam Goong Min Soo is asleep.

Curtis sighs and opens the kronole box. He slowly places a lump of Chronole under Namgoong's nostrils. Namgoong suddenly wakes up, sniffing.

"Are you Nam Koong Min Soo?", Curtis urges. No response. "Security specialist?".

The asian looks at the faces hovering over him like a sleepy-eyed, letargic animal suddenly awakened. He's a bit weird, with this goofy and mysterious vibe at the same time.

"Did you design and install the door-locks and security provisions on this train?", Curtis insists.

Again, no response.

"Look at him, he's gone", Edgar blurts, then turns to him. "What's wrong with you - you fried your fucking brain with that shite?".

Curtis gives him a look then calls at the awaken again. "Nam! Are you listening? Nam?".

He yawns. tired, regards Edgar, then speaks. "Yes, I am listening, bastard".

The look on everyone's faces means only the Doctor and I understood him.

"He is listening, bast- ahem", I translate.

Edgar and Nam Koong give me a puzzled look then he nods to something behind Edgar, who turns and reaches on the wall to snatch up a small machine labelled Simultaneous Interpretation Service. He switches it on and tosses it to Namgoong. He pushes buttons until the readout declares Language Code 27 = Korean.

Namgoong repeats, in Korean.

"Yes, I am listening... bastard...", the sweet voice of the automatic interpreter repeats.

"And my name is not Naem, Nahm, and it's Naam-Goong. That's my name. Min-Soo is my name. Got that? Fucking idiots"

The interpreter beeps frantically: "Unknown words. Please try with the correct vocabulary".

"What was that?" Curtis asks.

"Nevermind", the Doctor and I say in unison. Happening a lot today. "Pronounce problems".

Everyone simply stares at Namgoong, utterly befuddled. Curtis holds another interpreter unit in his hand.

"Anyway, we need your help", Curtis lets the machine translate.

"For what?".

"We're going to the front. We need you to open the gates".

Namgoong is silent. Something tells me he's not keen on the idea.

"We're going to the front and we need you to open all the gates". Curtis repeats.

"What if I don't want to?"

Curtis stares at him intently and then shows him the lump of kronole. Gotcha. Namgoong tries to remain stoic but, I mean, everyone can see desire rippling through his expression. Druggies. Always the same.

"Straight from the barrel" . Namgoong stares. He's tempted. "For every gate you open, one lump of kronole". Curtis continues, flipping the lump to Namgoong.

Namgoong lets it drop to the floor staring at Curtis. He bends down, seemingly to pick it up but instead removes a cigarette case and a matchbook from his shoe.

"Wow!". Everyone looks with eyes rounded like saucers.

"Cigarettes?!" Tanya wonders.

"Holy shit - cigarettes have been extinct for a decade now...", the painter says, longingly.

Everyone pushes forward to watch Namgoong open the almost empty matchbook. He plucks one, strikes it, lights one of the two cigarette in the case and sucks on it for a long stretch. Everyone is dizzy in shock. Even Curtis' eyes flutter as the smell hits him. I make a mental note to bring these people cigarettes once we're over with the let's-take-over-the-train deal. Once the Tardis is back to work, hopefully.

"You want some, asshole?", Namgoong ask smugly, blowing smoke in the air. People are breathing in the twirls. "I bet you fuckheads never smoked one before, hm?".

"Rude", the Doctor coffs. Ah. So he knows what rude means.

"You're a fucking kronohead so let me make this real simple for you", Curtis groans, his patience wearing thin. "Help us, you get your drug. Don't, we put you back where we found you. What'll it be, asshole?".

He's thinking about it. Or falling asleep again. Chan, the little boy, runs trough the crowd curiously and snatches the matchbook from his hand. He doesn't aknowledge that at first, then turns to look at him and throws the cigarette butt aside.

All at once, the crowd dives toward the butt. I take a step back as the space between Namgoong and Curtis fills with milling bodies. Namgoong's fist lands squarely in the center of Edgar's face. He's bleeding. He kneels on Edgar's abdomen and snatches the keys from Edgar's hands. He rises again and tries to knock out each man who tries to stop him. He's not running though, he's looking for another drawer.

I grab hold of his arm and keep it still. "What?" I ask, snatching the keys from him.

"My daughter, Yona. If I go, she goes too", he says in the translator, pointing at another drawer.

Curtis looks at me and nods. "So you're coming with us?"

"One gate, two lumps of kronole", he bargains. I laser the drawer open. Naam looks curiously. Wow, Yona is young. And asleep, despite the commotion in the section. Namgoong pokes at her head. "Two people, two lumps".

"Shit...", the girl yawns, reluctantly sitting up, dirty and clad in short pants and a T-shirt. She drapes herself with the hooded coat she was using as a blanket.

Curtis takes a look at her. Yona is ignoring the curious stares from the crowd and concentrates on dressing. She seems totally out of it; first she carelessly yawns again, then burps.

"She's an addict, too?", Curtis asks without really needing an answer.

I follow Nam to the first gate. He slides a metal plate from the floor and extracts the wiring. Yona crouches down beside him, yawning. He groans and pulls two cables. He looks up at me, opening his hand.

"Aha. You wish. Isomorphic controls", I say, and crouch down to speed up the opening.

Curtis makes a weird face.

I stand up, gesturing for Naam to complete the action. I take a step back, because first row is very much armed and I'm trying not to be violent here. The Doctor sees me and nods.

Yona whispers. "Nobody there".

Both Curtis and I hear her. When he turns to question her, she pleads with her hand open.

"Kronole?".

Sighing, Curtis gives her two lumps. She sniffs them deeply then passes them to her father.

The big hydraulic gate slides open.

We enter the next car, where there's just a bunch of unmade beds, food on the table... and nobody there. "Well that was anticlimatic", Edgar says, stepping over clubs left on the floor.

"How did you know?". Curtis asks Yona, who's distracted playing with Kronol.

"Seems like someone left in a hurry", the Doctor says warily. It looks like we're on the guards quarters. Did they know we were coming?

The sketch artist steps to the wall and pulls a lever "This can't be a window, can-" and before he finishes saying it, we're blinded by the landscape, dazzling sunlight filling the room with light.

Curtis and Edgar stop dead in their tracks.

I adjust my eyes to the sudden white and watch outside. Donna shows up at my side and covers her mouth in shock. I look around. Everyone is amazed. They've been locked up in the tail section for who knows how long. I bet some of them have never seen it before. Even Grey, Gilliam's bodyguard, seems to lose his cool for an instant and has a genuine look of wonder.

Everything is frozen, an infinite snowscape. White, blinding white everywhere. It reminds me of the Ood planet.

"This isn't our Earth, right?", Martha asks whispering to the Doctor, right at my back.

"Must be a colony", the Doctor says.

"Then how do they know... Korean?". Donna asks, worried.

The Doctor shrugs. "Every colony basically had copies of the original Earth countries. A bit like, say, Chinatown, Little Italy, you know. Humans. Big plans, great travels... small imagination".

"But how did they let this happen?", Donna wonders.

"Private colony", the Doctor deepens. "Their problem, their solution. They must have thought that chemical would save the planet, and instead it froze it".

"If the Tardis was working, I bet you two could come up with something to cancel the effect of that chemical, right?", Donna says. "Something like that gas converter you used before with Rattigan?".

The Doctor nods, his sad eyes still fixed on the landscape.

"Private", I repeat, "that would explain why nobody came to rescue them".

"Yep".

"It's beautiful", the painter says, amazed, flipping through his sketchbook.

"It's still cold", Gilliam sharply states.

The train makes a curve, racing through the frozen snow plain, and we finally get a look at it. And it's fucking long. That strikes a nerve - I admit I am impressed by the engineering. The head section is sharp and frozen, cutting through the snow as it goes.

"Behold, the snowpiercer", Gilliam says by my said. "The big rattling ark".

We pass through an abandoned train station in a small town. The platform is piled with snow mounds. Probably corpses, frozen to death in the middle of a fierce struggle to get on the train to survive. The long-frozen landscape of the small town rushes past - overturned cars frozen in place, helicopters suspended where they crashed. A doomsday landscape preserved in the exact state of their final moments, flickering past without end.

There's an air of puzzled tragedy around the car, like when you try not to look at an accident on the street. Everyone is fascinated, even Curtis is mesmerized by the sudden vision.

He stops beside the Doctor, who's looking at him. He shakes his head violently to re-focus, then looks away from the window and starts poking at the rebel army.

"Enough! We didn't come for this. Everyone focus! Keep moving!".

We make our way to the next gate. "How did you know?", Curtis asks Yona and her big round innocent eyes. They make quite a contrast with how insistently she asks for Kronol, but Curtis gives it to her. Or, is about to when she snatches it from his hands.

"Coming this way... he's running", she whispers again.

"Wh-", I say, but the gate is already opening and there's, actually, a man with a cooking apron running towards us.

"Paul?", Curtis calls, bewildered.

Paul jumps up and grabs a ceiling pipe. Hanging down, he grunts and swings, turning one of the valves in a weird way.

"Paul!", Edgar calls.

Paul, barely acknowledging and bowing his head carelessly, jumps down with a boom and breathlessly runs off to tend to a big machine that looks like a fertilizer manufacturing device.

"Paul, man! I don't believe it!"Edgar repeats. "How many years has it been since they dragged you...?".

"Give me a second. It used to work automatically..." Paul runs and jumps up onto another pipe. Grunting, he turns another valve, twitching like a pig in a butcher shop. Curtis and Edgar move to him as he drops to the floor.

Curtis looks at him puzzled. "What are you doing?".

Paul hurries away to another valve, embarrassed "The parts went extinct so I have to

do this manually...", he explains as he turns it.

"Do what?" Edgar is equally confused.

The machine goes whooosh, kicking in. From a tray in our direction, it begins spitting out protein blocks from its mouth. The rebel army gathers around the machine watching with curiosity and affection.

I walk past them until I see a tube from where a raw black material feeds the machine.

"Ehi", I nod to Curtis. He follows my gaze and takes Paul aside.

"So you're the informant?", he asks him, whispering.

"What- wait!", he interrupts to try and stop the painter, who walked up a platform to see the inside of the big tank feeding the machine. He pulls a hatch, then steps back, disgusted.

"No,,,", he screams. Curtis catches him and jumps at his side.

Now, I don't know what was inside that and I didn't even taste that thing, but Donna did.

All I know is, Curtis looks at what's inside that tank, then turns to the painter menacingly. "You don't draw this", he warns. The painter is about to throw up.

I turn around and everybody is happily eating the protein blocks. Well, okay, not everyone. Definitely not the Doctor, nor Martha or Donna, but a lot of people. Tanya. Edgar. Grey.

The painter looks at them, then throws up in a corner.

"This is the last time we eat this shite", he swears.

"But... it's what I eat too, you know? Besides, what else-", Paul says.

"You won't have to anymore. We're going to the front. Come with us", I invite.

"Oh, no, no, no", he protests, shrugging. "My place is here".

"What, doing this? Come on, we're going to change things", Curtis says, softly. Edgar and the Doctor walk up to us. "Isn't that why you've been sending the red notes?".

"The... you mean these?", he says, pulling a metal capsule from his pocket. "I didn't write them. I just send them along". He sounds like he's apologizing.

"You don't...?" Curtis snatches the capsule from Paul's hand and opens it. "Gilliam", he calls.

Grey and Gilliam appear beside us. Curtis reads aloud for the small group. "Water".

"The water supply section", Gilliam explains.

"It's just a few cars ahead", Paul suggests. "It's where the water is cleansed and recycled".

"One of the most crucial sections of the train". Gilliam adds.

"Control the water and you have the upper hand. Brilliant", the Doctor says.

"We control the water, we control the negotiations", Curtis nods.

"We won't even have to make it all the way to the front", Gilliam adds.

Curtis is already looking at the next gate, his face ablaze in anticipation. The Doctor's eyebrows frown in an expression I know very well and that Gilliam isn't lucky to see. He takes me aside.

"You stay with Curtis, okay?" he warns. "I mean, keep an eye on him".

"Uhm, Doctor, I was already doing that".

He stops. "Doing what?".

"Keeping an eye on Curtis. Is this going anywhere or...".

The Doctor is just staring at me.

"Oh", I see. "You didn't say that aloud, did you?".

He groans. "Nope".

"Uh. Ok".

"Ok?".

"Not much we can do about this thought-reading thing if it happens randomly, can we?" I smile faintly.

"I guess", he shrugs, then squeezes my arms. "I'll go check where Donna is. Martha's just back taking care of the injured".

I exhale and turn to the gate.

Edgar and Naam are bickering again through the translators.

"Yes, I'm doing it for the kronol", Naam's speaker says.

"Yeah, kronol this, kronol that, fuck".

Curtis is looking at me, curious. I walk through the people and his gaze turns away, embarassed.

"Yona", he calls to the girl at his side. She turns slowly. "How old are you?".

"Seventeen", she replies. She has a chirpy bright voice.

"Seventeen", Curtis repeats. "You're a train baby?".

"Yes", she admits. They've been on this train for seventeen years. Seventeen years of living like this. Suddenly Curtis's anger and rage seem out of proportion. I mean, I would be much more furious. "How about you?", she asks.

"Seventeen on the ground, seventeen in the tail section".

"The ground", she repeats. "How was it?".

"I don't remember", he says, looking at me. I can't tell if he's lying about it.

"Why?", I ask.

"I don't want to remember anything before I met Gilliam", he replies softly, turning his gaze back to the girl. "Are you a clairvoyant?"

"Clairvoyant... what's that?", she says, curious.

"You always seem to know what's behind the gates", I explain.

"Do you see... things... in your mind?", Curtis adds.

Slowly, she stands up. Or rather, she unrolls herself from the corner where she's been curled, sniffing her kronol lump. She starts walking slowly closer to the gate.

Curtis follows her, the corner of his eye checking if I'm with them.

I'm studying her face. And her face turns from focused to terrified. "Don't open it", she whispers.

"What?", Curtis asks.

I turn to Naam, who's placing the last circuit in place, and to the gate, while Yona screams loud in Korean now, "Stop!".

Too late.

The gates slides open and the next room is packed with soldiers. They look like butchers, sporting leather balaclavas and tarp oilskin might even be proper butchers, since they're all armed with axes.

A pinching headache, and a voice in my head suddenly speaks.

Kill them. Kill them all.