Thomas and Edd stumbled through the dark, feeling their way along the narrow passageway with their hands against the wall. Edd led the way, but with no source of light, they had to take it slow. Every now and then, Thomas’s fingers would brush away from the cold, coarse stone and end up flailing in the open air, and he would have to follow the sound of Edd’s voice to get back on track. They had taken so many turns that Thomas wasn’t even sure what direction they were going in. But there was no sign that the invaders had been back here.

“How the hell do you know your way around back here anyway?” Thomas whispered.

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“Well, I kind of do. I came back here to sleep sometimes whenever Richard put me on the night shift. I wasn’t exactly sober.”

“Oh.”

“What do you mean, “oh”?”

“Well, I…it’s kind of a sensitive subject.”

Edd chuckled. “Not to me. It’s like I said to Dick, it only hurt me, so I’m not gonna shame myself about it. Not that I condone it, mind you, but I’m not gonna get anywhere beatin’ myself up about it, now, am I?”

“No, I understand you there. I guess I just didn’t want to remind you of something unpleasant.”

Edd scoffed. “We’re refugees on an alien planet, lad. Anywhere ya look, something’s gonna remind you that we’re not back home.”

Thomas’s foot nudged something mushy and jumped back, bumping his head into the wall as he heard it slither away. “Yeah, you’re not wrong there.”

The ground rumbled from an explosion somewhere. An array of possible scenarios flooded Thomas’s mind. It could be Ithlin still fighting the golden Idex, enemy reinforcements, or worse. “Do you think that’s still Ithlin fighting?”

He heard Edd come to a stop. “Based on those two she dealt with, I’d wager she’s giving him hell.”

“Yeah, but I thought fights were supposed to be quicker than that. What if it’s-“

“What-ifs aren’t gonna do us any good now. We know what we have to do, so let’s just do it.," Edd snapped.

“Okay. Sorry.” He should’ve kept his anxious ramblings to himself. What good did it do?

It’s not like we could do anything about it if they did decide to bring something worse to bear.

Edd sighed. “Try not to worry about Ithlin, alright? All we can do right now is put one foot in front of the other and do what we can.”

After rounding several more corners, they finally stumbled into a faint ray of light shining through some sort of tinted glass. The tint was so dark that the window would’ve been unnoticeable had it not been for the abject darkness around it. Thomas groped with his hand around the window until he brushed his fingers across what felt like a handhold. It was a metal door.

“Ha, we finally made it," Edd proclaimed.

“How close is this door to the loading dock?”. Thomas tried to peer through the glass.

“Do you remember that small hallway where they had stacked up all of the empty crates?”

“I think so. Over by the hallway into the East Wing?” His stomach lurched. The East Wing was on the opposite side of the warehouse from the loading dock. They would have to make it across the entire warehouse, a room the size of an airplane hangar before they could even enter the loading dock.

Thomas could just make out Edd nodding his head in the dim light. “It’s either this or nothing.”

Reign yourself in. We came all this way, don’t break now.

Thomas grabbed the handle. “Well, at least this isn’t the way they were trying to funnel us through. Maybe they won’t expect it.”

I’m running out of lies.

Bundles of pipes and conduits ran through the wall next to it and into the room beyond. He pressed his ear against the glass, trying to make out any noises before opening it, not sure if it would make a difference. If the Idex were in there, they would be silently lying in wait like a hunter in a blind, not blustering around making noise.

As he pressed his face against the glass, Thomas felt a slight sense of comfort. Its smooth surface felt like an icepack. He hadn’t noticed how overheated he had become from the ash coating his skin.

But as he held his ear against it, the glass began to vibrate from a sound on the other side, dissipating his reprieve. The muffled sound pulsed chaotically, with no rhythm or reason. 

No, that’s not a single sound. It’s multiple.

“I think I hear a group of people talking in there.”

Edd pressed his ear against the glass, too. “Yeah, you’re right. I think it is.”

Without another word, Thomas pulled the handhold. But the door was heavy, with no power running to it to open it. Edd grabbed on, too, and with both of their weights behind it, they slowly slid it open with a piercing scrape.

The first thing Thomas saw as he entered the warehouse was the barrel of a rifle pointed at his face. Several soldiers in dirty, worn uniforms surrounded the door with their weapons leveled. Behind them, refugees clamored over each other to get a look at the newcomers.

“They are humans! Lower your weapons!” A female voice commanded. Thomas couldn’t put a name to her exact accent, but he noticed that she rolled her R’s. A middle-aged woman with shoulder length, black hair approached them. Under a ballistic vest, she wore a white shirt with a caduceus insignia. “Where did you two come from?”

“We used the electrical service corridors to come back here from the main hall. We thought we’d see if we could get the train going again." Thomas answered, hands still raised.

Her face lit up. “You know how to? None of us are maintenance personnel, and we did not see any of them when we first came here.”

Thomas thought of the screams that they had heard just after the attack first started and had a sneaking suspicion of what their fate was. “Well, we didn’t usually work on the trains, but we think we at least have a chance at getting it back up and running. Edd and I were cross-trained in it.”

The woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Graças a Deus. Is there anything you need from us?”

Edd came forward and spoke in a low voice. “Just keep a watch on the doors and gather any tools you can find. We were in here when this all kicked off, and we’re pretty sure we heard them come through here.”

Her eyes widened, and the soldiers next to her tensed. Thomas began to voice his suspicion of what happened to the train crew but felt a frog in his throat and recalled the panic that had ensued when this had all started.

They can put two and two together. And even if they can’t, it might do more harm than good.

The woman straightened. “There’s nothing to be done about it. I’m Adriana, and this is Corporal Deveraux.”

She gestured to a young soldier to her right. He wore an olive-green uniform. On his right shoulder, he sported a grimy and faded patch of the Canadian flag. He raised a shaking hand in greeting.

Adriana continued. “We’ve barricaded the entrances and are ready to go as soon as you get the trains back up.”

“We’re down to around seven men, not including civilians. And we don’t have the firepower or ammo to do much more than distract them.," Deveraux added, clenching his rifle. “But we’ll do what we can.” He turned to an even younger soldier beside him. “Wong, go grab those repair tools we found and anything else we might have.”

The soldier darted off into the crowd.

“Right now, I think the Idex is busy with Ithlin, so we should still have some time. We saw them engage her in the main hall,” Thomas added, trying to sound hopeful.

Adriana's eyes widened into saucers. “So, she’s probably dead? Or captured?”

Edd grinned and shook his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure, miss. We just watched her blow craters through two of the shiny bastards.”

Adriana and the others loosened slightly, more confused than relieved.

“She’s armed?” Devereux asked, eyebrow raised.

Edd patted Devereaux on the shoulder. “To the teeth. Believe me, it looked like she was in some kind of combat mode.”

The soldiers seemed to ease up a bit, but Adriana seemed unconvinced. “I don’t understand why she would feel the need to conceal her weapons from us. I find it… disconcerting.”

Wong returned with another soldier; both had their arms filled with bags of tools. Thomas and Edd immediately got to work sifting through them. Edd nodded approvingly. “This’ll do.”

Adriana looked satisfied. “We will do what we can to keep people out of your way. Let us know if you need anything else. I’m going to attend to the wounded.”

She turned and headed into the crowd; one of the soldiers went with her, clearing a path through the crowd. Devereux turned back to his men. “Wong, I want you and Campbell to tag along with these two. Make sure that no one gives them trouble. The rest of you pan out and watch the entrances. If you hear anything, report it back immediately.”

Deveraux and the others panned out, leaving them alone with Wong and Campbell.

Thomas rubbed his arm, expecting his watch to be there. “Well, let’s get started, then.”

They walked through the crowd towards the train. Most of the crowd was human, but a few clusters of Korokti were huddled together near the walls. Their hands were joined as they engaged in some sort of ritual, bobbing their heads up and down. It was too loud to make out what they were saying, but given the circumstances, Thomas didn’t need to make out their meaning. Several shelves had been knocked down and transformed into makeshift barricades against each of the entrances, making the warehouse seem even more massive than it already was.

He spotted Adriana and a few volunteers tending to the wounded, although there were fewer than he expected. Then he thought of Richard and remembered what kind of weapons the Idex were using. The wounded here were likely injured by the opening bombings. Those unable to walk were laid out on the hover-carts, ready to be moved at a moment’s notice.

As they entered the loading dock, Thomas immediately saw that the trains were indeed untouched. The cars were long and cylindrical and would have looked like tanker cars back on Earth. But with their multi-sectioned doors opened and raised into the air, they looked more like giant, robotic centipedes than freight cars.

“These are just freight cars. Where’s the actual train?” Campbell asked.

“The trains are completely automated. The destination and transit settings are preprogrammed from the operator’s station," Thomas said, looking up and down the train. “They look untouched. It has to be an electrical issue, probably went down with the rest of the local grid when the shit hit the fan.”

Edd hopped down onto the rail and peeked beneath the lead car. “No, the rail line and operator stations run on their own power system. I learned that during my brief stay at the Atrium. It’s so that in the event something like this shite happening, they can still send help or evacuate the area.”

Thomas rubbed his head. “So, they had to go out of their way to cut off the power to it?”

“Yeah, most likely. Either that or we’re really unlucky.” Edd climbed back up and onto the platform.

The worst assumption is the safest assumption.

Between the way the crowd was being funneled back here, the absence of the train crew, and now this, there was no doubt in Thomas’s mind that the only reason that these people were still alive was because the Idex wanted them to be, at least for now. There was too much effort taken to direct them and entrap them here for it to just be because the Idex were preoccupied with Ithlin. He remembered the way the golden Idex had pointed its weapon at them before addressing Ithlin.

It has to have something to do with her. Maybe we’re their insurance policy if they can’t subdue her. Or maybe we’re bait.

Either scenario sounded equally likely, but one thing was for certain. The Idex would be coming back for them. His legs felt drained of their strength for a moment as a sense of helplessness enveloped him. He looked at Edd and the two soldiers.

“Edd, you know more about the rail line than I do. How do you think we can get this back online?”

Edd scowled. “If it’s even still possible, I’d say we’d need to go below, into the small space beneath the tracks, and find where the power was disconnected.”

Wong shook his head. “We need to start loading as soon as the train’s running again. One of you is going to have to stay in the operator’s station and have everything ready to go.”

Thomas weighed their options. Edd knew the rail liner better, making him the better choice for either of the two options. It would have to be a matter of which one he could figure out more easily. But at the same time, he despised the idea of letting Edd go down there alone while he sat back in the operator’s station, just waiting for something to happen.

Before Thomas could figure out what to say, Edd grabbed one of the tool bags. “I’ll go below. I know the system better than you do, and…”. He gestured to himself. “I’m a tad better sized for this kind of thing.”

“Let me come with you. I doubt the operator’s station is that hard to figure out. One of them can do it.” Thomas pointed to Wong and Campbell.

Campbell readjusted the strap of his rifle. “Maybe, but you at least have some experience with it. We have none. Every second is going to matter here.”

Thomas huffed and looked away, trying to conjure some kind of counterargument out of thin air. “The cross-training for the operator’s station was a five-minute presentation from six months ago. The skill gap between us isn’t that-”

“Thomas! It has to be you in the operator booth.” Edd took a step closer. “You’ll do more good up there than down in the tunnel with me.”

I’m not even sure what I could contribute down there anyway. I’ve never even messed with Penitent tech before.

Thomas ground his teeth. He hated it, but they were wasting time they didn’t have. “Fine. I’ll have to watch for when you get the power running since our walkie-talkies still seem to be jammed.”

Wong huffed impatiently. “Alright, let’s get moving then. Campbell, go with him up to the operator booth and keep him covered. I’ll do what I can to cover the Scottish one.”

Wong turned to leave, but Edd began to open his tool bag. “Just a second, lad. I need to check my tools to make sure I have everything that I need before I go. Thomas, will you help me check.”

Thomas knelt down next to Edd as he slowly picked through the bag’s contents.

Edd spoke in a low whisper, “You’ve got this, Tommy-boy. Don’t doubt that.”

“Edd, I have the easy job here. Worry about yourself," Thomas whispered back, feeling slightly patronized.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that," Edd said with a small smile as he reached into his pocket for something. It was the watch. “Here, let me give this back to you. You can listen to music while you wait.”

Thomas’s frustration melted away. “Nah. You keep it for now. At least until you get a chance to listen to some of it yourself, it’s a great soundtrack.”

Edd’s brow hardened. “Are you sure?”

Thomas nodded.

Edd tightened it around his wrist and zipped up the bag. “Let’s do this.”