After meeting the crew of the Underground Railroad Station A and learning where the world of Talos gets its power – the Carnot Engine – Graham is introduced to the true horrors of Lanford when Wheat takes him out at night to witness a knight beating and arresting an entire family with minimal effort – but then an advanced technology appears that even Wheat has never seen before.

Word Count: 33,683

“Fuck my father. Don’t be sorry,” Tesla said. He, a young man so beaten up and battle-scarred that he began to look old for his age, had lost his father several months ago when the man was reported missing. But Tesla and his father were entirely different people; one a staunch patriot, the other a feisty rebel. Tesla himself was a short yet proper man with an astute posture that hinted to a wealthy upbringing, but now his clothes were torn and tattered, and the old money was nowhere to be found.

Graham, confounded, backed away. “Wait, what? Who said anything about an Underground Railroad? I asked Marcus for a favor, not an escape route. I want to stay here in Lanford.

“Is this guy serious? Does he know anything? It’s not like Marcus to send us an imbecile,” Amelia Laval chimed in. “The man is getting old, his judgment is definitely fading. We should find a new officer in Gorom, Joseph, or we risk the entire Railroad.” She turned to James, “The Underground Railroad is not an escape; it’s a means of living in Lanford safely by moving around. If you want to remain alive in Lanford City, you had better stick with us.”

He didn’t understand – he couldn’t understand. Lanford had been paradise. There was nothing to run from. Graham was halfway to expressing this when Wheat interrupted him.

“You are already in here, in this home with us, so we have to let you know what’s going on.” Graham kept backing away, moving towards the door. “Ives, get the door; don’t let him out.” The surly black man moved toward the door, blocking it. “Lanford is not what it looks like. If you doubt anything I am about to say, I can prove it to you. But it might get us killed.

“Lanford City was founded on grand principles as they say, this much is true, but they leave out several gruesome details. The government has recently passed several motions to restrict our consumption of power – not ours, specifically, but all of Lanford’s, the entire continent.”

Graham spoke. “The whole continent? Is the government located here in the city, or—”

“Really?” Lavan said. “This is ridiculous. Joseph, I’m going to wire Marcus as ask what the fuck is up with him, what with sending us a man who acts like he has never had a grammar school education.”

Inside Graham’s heart, he could feel that these bickering, distressed souls were the ones he could confide in, but didn’t understand why. Lavan’s anger at his mere presence – the only person who seemed to have any malice towards him – finally gave him recognition as a resident in Lanford, a man who must face all the challenges a true Talos resident must face, a man not exempt from the happenings around him. And that shocked Graham – he could not let it continue. He must let it be known that he, a resident of Earth, could not be treated with the same expectations as even a grammar school Talos native. Proudly did he shout, “Maybe that’s because I’m not from here!

“Do you hear me?” he continued. “I sound nothing like any of you. You talk strange; you move strange; you are nothing like me at all. Mr. Wheat, or Joseph if you prefer, did you take anything away from what I said to you? This world – your world, the world of Talos – it is not my world. Your customs confound me, your technology excites and scares me, and although I thought I was being helped clearly I’m mistaken, because to watch you bicker amongst yourselves like children while a man, a real man, possibly the only one in this room, searches for his way home, breaks my heart.” He heaved, out of breath, resuscitating his lungs from a motion long overdue. Everyone else just stared. “I think my way home is in Lanford. I didn’t ask to live here. But I really think that the technology, or the supplies to make such technology, is hidden somewhere in this city. Any city that can produce this much waste product – enough to send overseas and cause storms of ash and soot – must have high technology somewhere.”

“Bullshit,” I’ve Judson, the man blocking the door, said. Graham turned around to face him. “There’s no other world with life on it, and even if there was, it’s not close enough for an alien to visit us. Astronomers have been searching for centuries. Prove to me that you’re not from Talos, or shut the hell up so we can tell you where your bed is and feed you some meds.”

“I… I can’t prove it. You just have to believe me. I was in a room, alone, and a door with a lock, a lock that I built. The door burst open, the lock unlocked itself, and then… I was here. Not here, but there, in Alteria, on the ground only yesterday. Two women picked me up and gave me shelter. Then I met Marcus, who let me rest for the night and then sent me to Lanford, after I told him that I wanted to come here and find my way home.”

“Still a load of bullshit. Sounds like you had a bad dream and forgot where you were.”

“Wait,” Jessica Ames said, a beautiful brunette woman without the clothes to match. “When did you say this happened?”

“Yesterday. Or two days ago, but in the middle of the night. I woke up the next morning covered in ash on the ground.”

“I believe you,” she said. “Everyone, whether or not he’s telling the truth – or even knows the truth – it’s our job to keep him safe. Marcus sent him, so the man’s story must have at least a bit of merit. James, I’m leaving here tonight. You can come with me – I’ve got a bunch of midnight passes and the keys to a new automobile and house on the other side of the district. Are you familiar with the Carnot Engine? Well, let me start more simply. What did you do back on your own planet?”

“I’m an engineer. Or, I was. I just got fired. There’ve been some serious troubles recently where I’m from. The economy is piss poor; firms are shutting down, there’s widespread chaos. Come to think of it, it’s not the best place to be right now. Maybe I can take my time – just a bit.”

“Ah, great! Everyone, this means we have another man to help tinker with the tech. At any rate, the Carnot Engine is an extremely powerful steam engine. If your world – I can’t believe I’m saying this – if your world is anything like ours, though if you’re here I’d imagine it’s much more advanced, then you know about some sort of steam engine.”

“Yeah, I do. But isn’t the Carnot Engine a theoretical device? They’re impossible to build.”

“You know about the Carnot Engine? Impossible, unless it’s coincidence in the names. On Talos, man named Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot predicted a device called the Carnot Engine long ago. Everyone else, listen good – I know some of you haven’t been at Station A, or even in the Railroad, for long, so this explanation will do you good. Carnot predicted that this engine would have optimal efficiency over all other engines, but despite knowing how it should work was never able to build one himself. He literally wasted away attempting to build his perfect engine, and died in his laboratory, supposedly some few thousand miles across the country from Lanford City.

“His invention remained a mystery up until about sixty years ago, when two men, Benoit Clapeyron and Rudolf Clausius found his documents in a museum. The aspiring engineers finished what the dead man could not, and developed the world’s first working Carnot Engine. By tapping into the power of the reversible heat cycle, the Carnot Engine was able to generate levels of power unseen ever before. It was brought almost instantly to market, and powers most modern technology. In essence, we owe everything that we have to those three men, including the guns strapped about all your waists, which are using shrunken versions of the engine to build up enough pressure to fire a bullet.”

“That sounds eerily close to the story on my world, but our two tales diverge at one point – in my world, the Carnot Engine is still a theoretical device, and we were able to develop newer, more sophisticated technology not based around heat and steam. Most everything in my world is powered by electricity generated from countless different types of engines; the electricity is stored in different locations and served to residents through wires than span entire countries. I’ve seen ports on your walls and ceilings; I have a feeling you’re all in a similar situation. But they’re serving up steam, aren’t they, and not electricity?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Though most of our ports are used to power Lamp Spheres, which are scarce around here. We need the light to keep working, and to alert Railroad travelers, so we actually have several engines hidden around the house. If the knights caught wind that we had Carnot Engines and a stash of coal laying around this house, we’d all be arrested. Maybe killed.” Everyone suddenly shivered; the room had become inexplicably colder at the mention of death.

“Killed? The hell kind of operation are you running, Joseph?” Graham asked. “I’m not here to risk my life.”

“You risked your life, I’m afraid, when you came to Talos. The knights are not the friendly faces you probably know. And I’d know, I remember the first time I came to Lanford – bright, smiling faces they all had when you got lost and asked them to help you find your way home. But the next day, you noticed that you had new neighbors, even though the old neighbors didn’t appear to have prepared to move. Then the next day, you’d have new neighbors on the other adjacent house. Suddenly you’re the only one left and you don’t know why. Then you hear that they were arrested, sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes in plain day, and nobody ever says why they were arrested, afraid that they’ll be arrested themselves. And then those people get arrested, even if they don’t say anything to anybody. I’ve been running for years now. Years, James, and I’ve only narrowly escaped the knights. They want to take us all, and why I have no idea. But if you’re inclined to wander Lanford in search of whatever it is you need, you had better know that there’s a severe risk coming with that choice.”

Joseph continued by saying he would like to show Graham the tyranny of the knights, for it seemed the timid stranger was still in disbelief that his paradise land was less perfect than he’d imagined. In fact, most everyone in the room was able to attest to some tyranny they had experienced firsthand – Graham was the only stranger to this injustice, accounted for by his absence from Talos until yesterday. Graham first agreed to Ames’s plan to relocate post-haste that coming evening, and then waited to hear just how Wheat planned to show him what the knights were doing behind-the-scenes.

That night, before traveling out with Ames, Graham traveled out with Wheat. The lanky man’s figure appeared accustomed to the travel, though it could not have been before his supposedly horrid experiences. It still looked rather out of shape, but fared surprisingly well, even though Wheat’s balance was terrible, and the man continually tripped over his own feet. Wheat took a dark red slip out of his pocket, and then another, and handed this second one to Graham. “It’s hard to imagine that only a few months ago you could keep one midnight pass forever. Now they take them after your first offence, and arrest you if you don’t have one. So, even if you already have one, keep the one I just gave you. I’m sure Marcus supplied you with at least one.”

“Yeah, he did,” Graham said, holding out his own pass that he always kept with him. “He gave me money, too; slipped it into my clothes or something.”

“What? Marcus is poor; he can barely afford to do what he does now, sending people to different cities and whatnot. Oh, sure, he makes maps, but when has that ever been a hearty living? You probably don’t know, so let me tell you: Never. It’s never made anyone any money, unless you are commissioned, which doesn’t happen anymore. How much money did you receive?”

“I counted about two thousand gold pass when I first found it.”

Wheat, dumbstruck, almost shouted, which would have drawn attention over to the two men. Instead, he whispered, “That’s… that’s a lot of money, James. No normal person has that kind of money to just give away, that’s more than most people make in a year! You’d better take care of that sum. Protect it with your life – if anyone finds out about it, they’ll be out to get you. Sorry to give you more things to worry about, but our economy isn’t that great either, even with a city this big.”

Wheat led the two to another train station, but in a different location than the one Graham had entered through. The construct was uniform across all train stations – each one was a small building with an elevator that rose high above the district walls, onto a small boarding platform with a waiting room across a small, usually metal bridge to the side. “We’re going to the Yellow District. I have a pass to go there. It’s one district in from here – its where all the rich folks live, but usually not for long. They’re always getting arrested, presumably for being rich, and then the government saps up their money and loots the house, then pawns it off as a vacant, new home for unsuspecting entrepreneurs blind enough to want to move into this city. The district is crawling with knights, so be careful and have your pass ready. Just because it isn’t yet midnight does not mean they won’t want to see your pass.”

The two attempted to board the train when it came, but were stopped by several conductors when they became aware that Graham was not in possession of a Yellow District pass. With enough arguing, Wheat was able to convince the conductors that everything was fine, and that the poor soul had left his pass in his house. After receiving a stern talking to from the conductors about leaving ones identity information in the home unguarded, Graham and Wheat were able to enter the locomotive; the whole thing seemed to be unnecessarily large and lavish for only a mile or so of travel, and the locomotive moved so slowly; Graham wasn’t sure they would be back in time for him to meet Ames to leave. But they did eventually reach the Yellow District, and exited quickly and quietly into the night air.

Everything was larger in the Yellow District – homes were several stories taller, were no longer box shaped but appeared as large and as highly decorated as castles, and had front lawns well-kept with trimmed flora and foliage all about. It was, indeed, the home of a rich man; Wheat said it was rumored the houses were made from gold and not brass, melted down from millions of one-GP coins. The district was considerably smaller than the Green District – both in area and radius. There was only enough room for one mansion against the back wall connecting to the Green District, the front lawn of the house, then the road some more grass, and another wall that bordered the Orange District, the wealthiest district in the city containing the local government leaders and several world government leaders. Access to this district was securely guarded and explicitly forbidden by anyone not easily identifiable as a figurehead of the government, or an extremely rich celebrity. Merely having an Orange District pass was not enough to enter the Orange District – there was an intrinsic ethos beyond the pass one was required to have before being allowed to enter. And so, the Yellow District was Graham and Wheat’s ultimate limit, the most they would be able to fool the conductors and knights without arousing more suspicion than necessary.

“You might think it’s cruel, but if we find someone getting arrested tonight we cannot interfere. We’ll be hidden. If you expose yourself, you will surely be killed. Do not, under any circumstances, expose yourself to the knights. The ones in fully golden armor are the most dangerous, and are equipped with weapons inaccessible to normal citizens that put our silly guns to shame. We’re powerless against those knights in particular, so we run as fast as we can.”

They began to walk idly around the Yellow District loop, looking for a knight about to knock on a door. They never forcibly entered a home, Wheat said, for they tried to look as innocent as possible. But to have a knight knock on your door meant it was almost certain you were to be bound and arrested on the spot, without argument or trial. At last they found a maroon knight knocking on the door of one of the Yellow District’s many identical mansions. Hiding behind a bush, Graham and Wheat crept up to the house to witness the happenings inside. “Damn it all, I always dislike how predictable they’ve become. And yet, as predictable as they are, it’s almost impossible to know if you’ll be next. My heart goes out to this poor fellow – but we have to get out of here before the knight does,” Wheat whispered.

Inside, peeking through the window at different intervals and hidden securely behind a gigantic shrubbery, Graham witnessed the knight speaking to a slim, well-kept gentleman who had presently been writing in his notebook. When the knight approached him, the man stood up instantly to argue. Neither Graham nor Wheat could hear what either party was shouting from behind the glass, and Graham thought that perhaps this was for the better.

Then, aggravated, the knight backhanded the gentleman with his armor-plated extremity. Blood and torn skin fell on the floor and covered the knight’s hand, and the gentleman fell to the floor bleeding and writhing in pain. The knight looked down at the man’s body and laughed, then picked him up by his shirt and mumbled words into his ear. Whatever the knight had said clearly convinced the gentleman of some ultimate truth, causing the knight to release him and begin walking away – but only for a short time. The knight, who was only walked away to give himself a running start, subsequently kicked the gentleman, still on the floor in pain.

The gentleman was now entirely incapacitated, and his body was handcuffed with elaborate galvanized steel chains and cuffs that guaranteed his indefinite stasis.

Graham turned away “This is sick, Joseph. We have to get out of here; that man is going to die! Are there others in the house? How can we just leave them here? No, we can’t leave, we have to go save them – there could be children in there, everyone’s in danger!”

“No, Graham, we can’t. Don’t move – we have to remain hidden as I said. There’s absolutely nothing you can do. I’ve seen this too many times, and as much as I would love to join you in an uprising, their numbers are too many. We can only outrun them, as we do now, and hope to live normal lives if we’re lucky. It’s the same treatment, every time. Oh, no…” Wheat said, looking into the window and seeing the man’s two young children walk in.

Graham had had enough. He began to wrestle himself from the shrubbery and planned to enter the mansion and save the children – but Wheat detained him. “Are you insane, James? Don’t get yourself killed. There’s no merit in it.”

“But they’re children, Joseph! Young children. They don’t look a day over eight, both of them. We can’t, we can’t just leave them like this… it’s inhuman.”

But the knight did not harm the children – rather, he pulled out a strange looking device that resembled a taser, only it was not a taser – it performed odd functions no taser Graham had ever seen perform. With the device, the knight paralyzed the children from across the room, then encased them in a glowing ball of blue light – them and their father both. This ball of blue light henceforth lifted into the air, carrying the three with it; the father was unconscious by this point, and the children were forcibly immobile. If they could speak, nobody could hear it.

“Joseph – what is that thing?” graham said, referring to the odd taser-like contraption.

But Wheat’s face, full of worry, was pale as snow, and his whole body shook as it had when Graham had first arrived at his house several hours ago. He looked at Graham, his pale white face resembling that of an undead soldier who had seen far too much in his short lifetime, and spoke only these words:

“I don’t know.”