chapter 20
The greenhouse is impressive. I mean. The ceiling and the walls are all covered in a special glowing paint that reflects the light from the outside, and it's warm. It feels sunny.
I admit I'm in awe. But I'm studying the skills that took to build such a thing - on a train, and I'm looking around so I kinda slam into Curtis' back. While the workers here are equally surprised at our visit, and Mason, although in chains, tries to reassure them, he stopped, not because of that interaction, but simply to pluck a ripe, red tomato from a plant. He looks at it in wonder, then tastes it. Yona, who stepped in the room first, is cheerful and surprised. Her father shows her what soil is- being born on the train, she's never seen anything like it.
I used to travel, back when I was human. And now, I mean. The Tardis is a wonderful machine. Goes from anywhere to anytime. I've never experienced being away from something for eighteen bloody years. I walk closer to Curtis, he's a little overwhelmed and silently searches for my hand, to regain balance. I press my fingers into his skin and he pushes back, recovering. "Let's move on", he invites.
Young Yona is even more excited to jump into the next section, Ok, ok, me too. It's a huge arch aquarium with clear blue water. The ecosystem is great- we spot large fishes, turtles, rayfishes swimming with bubbles. Tanya and Andrew shove Mason is forward - like a shield. Curtis clings to my hand, flabbergasted to see the aquarium. The few workers in the section look puzzled, and Mason tries to relieve the tension.
"Do any of you feel like sushi?", she asks, gesturing ahead.
Curtis turns to her, confused, but Tanya is already replying. "Sushi? Hell, yea. Line that shit up".
We stop at the small sushi bar attached to the aquarium, where a pitch black chef is making sushi out of the fresh fish. Mason, hands tied to the front, sits at the corner of the bar with Tanya. Curtis, Andrew, Grey, Namgoong, and Yona, salivating. I sit at the opposite corner, not really hungry. Also, vegetarian. For ages.
"You people are very lucky. This is served only twice in a year, in March and September".
"Why? Not enough fish?", Tanya asks smirking.
Mason curls her face in one of her weird expressions. "Enough" is the wrong criteria. Balance. You see, this aquarium is a closed ecological system - The, the number of individual units must be controlled very precisely to maintain the proper sustainable balance". She repeats the moving-imaginary-things weird gesture.
Somehow, there's something very creepy about the way she says this. I look at the aquarium, while numbers run up to my mind: fish doesn't have that long of a life span, so the ecosystem must replicate a number of times a year, but how many people are there in the front section? The feeling that they must be a very much smaller number than the tailsectioners becomes stronger.
Meanwhile, sushi plates are laid: Tanya and Andrew eat with gusto; Grey gingerly peels the fish from the rice before eating; Namgoong uses chopsticks like a pro; Yona, puzzled seeing sushi for the first time, sniffs hers and makes a face. I get a plate too and pass it over to Yona, who smiles like a child after her first bite.
Rachmaninoff's piano prelude plays from some stereo. Everyone silently eats while watching the white snowy vista of a frozen port city unfold outside: no one seems too surprised by the peculiar sight of large vessels toppled in the frozen sea.
A plate is laid for Mason too, and she makes an attempt to eat her sushi with tied hands.
"No", Curtis says abruptly, pulling the chains from Tanya's lap, before Mason can reach the plate. "You eat this", he instructs, shoving a protein block at her.
She looks at it faking a forced smile. "Eat it. All of it", Curtis repeats, a cold stare in his eyes. Tanya steals Mason's sushi.
The following section is a butcher's storage. It's as freezing as the tail section but much cleaner, if not for the lines of skinned animals hanging from the walls. I don't look with much attention (still vegetarian) but there are quite a lot of big animals. That looks weird too- where do they get them? Are they breeding live stock on the train? And where? Again, Curtis shakes in shock, rubbing his arm. I notice he's scratching his scar, nervously.
Naam nods at me and I walk over to speed up the gate-opening with the laser screwdriver, while Mason tries to convince Curtis to let her without chains into the next section. All she obtains is a square of fabric that covers her cuffs. "For the sake of education!", she insists, but we're already opening the gate.
And if I ever thought these people were on the edge of crazy, the school sections twitches the judgement to bonkers.
The teacher, visibly pregnant, looks preacher-gone-over-the-top. She wears a flowered dress with a giant white collar. The kids - they're wearing arts and crafts masks, that Tanya and Andrew franctically tear off to search for their children, to no avail - sound literally brainwashed.
"I heard all Tail Sectioners were lazy dogs who slept all day in their own shit!" a girl jumps up without being called.
"Ylfa!", the teacher remarks.
"No, nooo", Mason smiles forcedly, "they're very nice and they're very just and merciful. So it is", she adds, then turns to the teacher. "Please don't let us interrupt...".
"We were just about to show a video", the teacher says, herding the children back to their seats as Curtis rounds up the bereft Tanya and Andrew to move on.
Now, this video. Did I say, brainwashed? And why wouldn't they be, when the education they have is the video we're watching right now? It's the story of the train - no, the story of Mr. Wilford.
"The Great Pioneer!" calls the teacher TV monitor, coming to life, with a burst of theme music and a big splash of the Wilford Enterprises logo. When Wilford's face comes up - curiously, it is digitally blurred.
"The Wilford Story - the First 82 Years", the voice over in the video goes. The Rebels are transfixed by the images. The Children squirm like they have seen this before and are bored. "From a very young age, Mr. Wilford's love of locomotives was apparent.." cue home-movie footage of Wilford as a kid playing with a bright red toy train, making choo choo noises, then stopping to show the toy in the camera, speaking. "when I grow up, I want to live in a train. Forever!". I can't hold back a giggle. This is sooo fake. And I've worked in a lot of lousy productions, so I know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, the teacher talks over the video, explaining with wide gestures. "His early dreams were realized when he founded his own transportation empire - the Wilford Enterprises", the video turns into an infographic. "But his greatest dream was to construct a luxury locomotive 'cruise' line connecting the railways of the entire world into one!" A world map shows railway lines snaking across and connecting into one tremendous circle, like a worm eating its own tail.
"A circular railway that extends for 438,000 kilometers and completes one circle every year. Impervious to the extreme cold of the Arctic and the scorching heat of the
African desert..." the voice over sounds like the narrator on the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy, so it's hard for me to take it seriously. On video, the train runs through various landscapes, from a desert to a snow-bound plain to a jungle, shown in rapid montage. Well, ok, it has been going for eighteen years, sustaining itself, but surely not in any scorching heat. "Wilford's Miracle Train is self-sustaining and possesses the most sophisticated designs and advanced technology known to man". Ahahah. Shut up.
Curtis stares intently at the screen trying to decipher the digital blur of Wilford's image when the teacher stops the video with a remote. The screen is covered with a PAUSE sign. "As hard as it is to believe, people in the Old World made fun of Mr. Wilford", she says, condescending. "They criticized him for over-engineering and over-equipping this wonderful train. But Wilford knew something they did not. And what was that?".
Several children raise their hands. Teacher is about to acknowledge one when Ylfa, the insulting spoiled girl from before, jumps up again. "Old World people were frigging morons who got turned into popsicles!"
"Well, sort of. Mr. Wilford knew that CW-7 would freeze the world. So what did the prophetic Mr. Wilford invent to protect the chosen from that calamity?", the teacher asks, running a hand over her pregnant belly at chosen. Puah.
"The engine!", all the kids cheer together.
And if I thought this was getting creepy, there's a song. Meaning, the teacher walks up to an organ and plays a nursery rhyme. The creepiest nursery rhyme, with split choruses between boys and girls, and choreography, and whatever. The kids jump up so quickly most of us are drawing weapons by the time we realize they're just singing.
"Rumble Rumble, Rattle Rattle, It will never die!" Curtis, bewildered, gestures for the Rebels to lower their weapons. Mason smiles broadly, her foot tapping away. Teacher plays cheerfully along though some keys no longer work. The sound is quite creepy. And. We didn't even hear the lyrics yet.
"What happens if the engine stops?
We all freeze and die!
But will it stop?
No!
Oh will it stop?
No!
Can you tell us why?
The engine is eternal!
Yes!
The engine is forever!
Yes!
Rumble rumble
Rattle Rattle
Who is the reason why?
Wilford!
Yea!
Wilford!
Yea!
Wilford! Wilford! Hip hooray!".
By the last line, Mason is chanting along with the teacher, so i nudge at her at the same time as Curtis. There's a signal whistling from the front of the train and the teacher and the kids all run to the windows. Curtis gives me a look - he probably wants to keep moving - but something catches his attention too.
There's some other commotion - kids screaming, and more brainwashed enthusiasm - over some bodies frozen in the snow. From what the teacher says, they tried to stop the engine but failed, and left the train believing they could survive outside.
"The revolt of the seven!", one of the kids screams.
I watch out. "Did you know them?", I whisper to Curtis.
He doesn't look at me. "Not personally", he admits. "It was a long time ago".
He then nods to Yona and Naam, who are looking much more intensely. Something tells me Naam did know them well. He's finally looking like a human being with emotions instead of some drug-fueled, half-functioning brain.
Watch out. Don't get cozy there.
Surprised by the voice in my head, I stammer back, preparing myself for the incoming headache. Which, again, doesn't come. I blink a few times and Curtis notices.
"You all right?".
"Yes, just... nothing, don't worry".
Not nothing. You should worry. I said, watch out.
It's not a headache as much as a sting to my temple. I lose balance a beat and Curtis holds me up, confused.
I decide to stay silent rather than have the nasty voice repeat itself and sting me again. I just smile faintly at him.
"Wh-", he starts, but the gate to the next section swooshes open and he lets go of me to pull out his weapon, as does everyone else from Team let's-get-to-the-engine. I pull the laser screwdriver too- and we whirl around, only to find a single, bald Asian man enter.
His head is shaped like an egg, and he's in fact pushing a cart full of baskets of white eggs. The teacher herds the children towards the cart, as the rebels are - again - bewildered.
"Look children! It's the New Year Eggs from Mr. Wilford!", she cheers, followed by the children, who surround Egg-Head and his full basket of hard boiled eggs. "New beginnings! New Life!", she chants.
Egg-Head hands her a big basket full of boiled eggs and she starts handing them out to the children and everyone else. Tanya pushes her way to the front of the line, while the crazed teacher continues. "These eggs are boiled in water heated by the Sacred Engine itself! See? They're still warm!".
Surprisingly, Egg-Head gives an egg to Curtis before walking past us, pushing his cart out the Back Gate.
As a special treat, there's also a violinist playing a G-string Bach aria.
Suddenly, the tv monitor unpauses and gives way to CCTV video footage of Egg-Head passing out eggs in the abattoir and aquarium sections.
"...join live coverage of the 18th Annual Egg Festival...".
The children are listening to the beautiful -and again, incomplete violin. The train has an aquarium but the magical Wilford clearly didn't care for preserving musical instrument. So apparently all the live music on this train is either out of tune or broken. It's quite eerie. And it's unnerving, this tension.
Tanya smacks the egg onto Ylfa's head to crack it open and starts peeling it, calling for Curtis. "Let's go, Curtis".
He isn't listening. His attention is riveted on his egg.
"I'll eat that if you aren't", Tanya insists.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Curtis looks at me and shows me his egg, while I hold my temple. There's a pinhole at the bottom of the egg, he pulls the egg apart until a small metal capsule falls out.
With the corner of my eye, I see Egg-head reaching the water supply section,where he starts distributing eggs to the tailsectioners.
"I thought chicken was extinct", the painter's voice comes through the monitor.
Curtis unrolls the Red Letter. It says blood.
I gasp as the last remaining violin string breaks and the music stops. The snapped string cuts the violinist's cheek, drawing blood.
Curtis is overcome with dread. He shuts his eyes in anticipation, then turns around, his eyes darting around.
"Rumors. You know, there are many things on board that are rumored to be extinct", Egg-head says politely to the painter. He has a soft, actorial voice.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
I grab hold of Curtis, still transfixed to the monitor, searching through the room. He doesn't get it at first.
"Such as?", the painter asks in the screen.
"Bullets", I whisper. Curtis snaps back to me, his eyes frantically searching the room.
Fucking Egg-Head on screen reaches beneath the eggs, pulling out a sub-machine gun. "This", he says coldly.
As he starts firing around, the teacher pulls out a gun from her egg basket. "Duck!", she orders before shooting. The kids and Mason dive for cover as she opens fire.
Andrew, just behind Curtis, is instantly shot through the head. The children scream and run hiding under their desks for cover. Mason crawls towards the teacher as she keeps firing away towards us.
"The prisoners", I warn Curtis, who's exchanging glances with Grey, hidden under desks across from him and me.
More gunfire, and it's clear she's aiming at Curtis. Grey, pushing Tanya out of the way, in a swift movement, pitches the dagger at the teacher burying it in her throat. She drops the gun and it skitters away. The children's shrill screams continue. Stunned, the teacher reaches for her throat and yanks the dagger out. Blood runs crimson down her neck from the dagger's hole, then she collapses. As soon as I see Grey moving, I jump out, reaching for the gun with Curtis.
Mason quickly lunges for the fallen gun too but I kick her hand away, while Curtis picks her up by the jacket. I pick up the gun. "It wasn't me! It wasn't me!", she cries under Curtis menacing look.
Tanya cries out, holding Andrew's dead body in her arm. I breathe deep and turn to the screen.
Curtis was right. Regroup and re-attack.
Everyone stayed behind. My friends stayed behind.
Paralyzed, his eyes to the screen, Curtis can't watch away. Something isn't right. Something very clear.
You're alone.
Curtis is shaking, holding Mason's jacket lepels, when the screen buzzes again with a card celebrating the train's 18th birthday.
The images switches to CCTV again, and here's Franco the elder, dragging the beaten Gilliam to the center, very aware of the camera angle. Grey jumps to Curtis' side as he lets go of Mason. She quirkly turns around as if looking for an escape and I promptly point the gun at her.
Grey turns away and Yona screams as Franco, looking into the camera, shoots Gilliam. He falls to the side dead, without a sound. Franco watches into the camera as two guards walk beside him and make sure Gilliam is dead. How did the Doctor let this happen?
Curtis freezes. I shiver at the real coldness emanating from him. "Curtis?", I call, softly, still holding the gun.
He doesn't answer. Tanya walks up to him and slaps his face. "Curtis", she calls, more resolutedly.
He strokes his cheek where Tanya just hit him, turning slowly to me. "You are the leader now", I tell him, as if he needed to hear that. "Lead them", I plead.
He silently takes a deep breath, then he walks to me and pulls the gun from my hands, without looking at me, and sternly walks to Mason. "Curtis my friend, we understand each other! Listen to my words, it wasn't me-", she says, her hands joined in prayer.
Curtis inhales and shoots her. I close my eyes, exhaling. The selfish part of me is glad he took the gun away or I would have probably shot her. I blink.
"We go forward", he says, without looking at anyone.
Everybody is shocked by his sudden decision to get rid of Mason so they're all stuck behind as I briskly walk to his side. "Franco and the guards are coming back for us", I warn him, picking up a bullet magazine from the upside-down egg basket.
"We'll kill them too and finish the job", he says without turning.
I try to find the right words, because I know now that something here doesn't add up. Better not upset a man who just lost his guide and who's holding a gun. "About that", I ask, and I hesitate before touching his arm, "Are you sure about what job it is?".
He turns to me. His eyes are more desperate than I've ever seen. "Those red notes. I never knew who sent them anyway", he admits, painfully. "But sure we can't stop now. Even if there is definitely something wrong here".
Something is very, very wrong. For starters, where the hell is the Doctor?
I know. One thing I didn't consider: what makes Snowpiercer such a brilliant film is that it's a very long film that gives you time to get acquainted with the characters and a lot of things happen. I really didn't plan for this to take so many chapters. we're getting there thou, rest assured. (means, already writing it)