And the Third Brought Fire Pt. 04

Pain.

Gritted teeth.

A wrenching sensation.

Then darkness...

When Nix opened his eyes again, he found that he was in what appeared to be a rough metal container - the scent of hay and livestock heavy in his nose. He started to sit up, but was arrested by a warm palm against his chest. A face of silver and steel, with red paint daubing her cheeks like whiskers, peered down at him. Enterprise. Her brow was furrowed, and her voice was nervous - turning her Yankee drawl into something sweeter than water for Nix's ears.

"Miss Nixon? Are you okay?"

Nix blinked again, then closed his eyes.

Her eyes.

She was too tired to cling to false maleness. She shifted her head against the softness that she rested against, opened her eyes to look at Enterprise again. Then she closed them.

When she woke a second time, it was with a squeal of brakes and hissing pistons. The chamber she was in rocked and Nix grunted with a faint throb of pain in her back. She jerked her head up, then looked around wildly, panicking. Enterprise was behind her, her head resting against the wall, her eyes closed, her turbines humming softly. She was asleep - in an off watch, it seemed. Nix was able to actually move now, even if her arms felt leaden and heavy. She rolled onto her side, then winced and pushed herself up. She was dressed in her leggings and a wrap around her back and shoulders - gauze stretched taut over her muscles and tight around her breasts. She looked around and saw that there was the bloody ruin of her shirt and her jacket - her jacket had a small hole and a bloodstain, but her shirt had been shredded like a tiger had been at it.

Or surgical scissors.

She rolled her shoulder, felt the twinge of pain, then looked back at Enterprise. The sleeping spirit was utterly beautiful.

The sliding door built into the livestock compartment - for that was what Nix recognized the chamber to be - opened. The spirit of a rather adorable steam burner from the 1900s peeked in. She was a squat and generously curved girl, with bright green paint on her sides and a rather impressively hooked nose - she had to have a pretty hefty cowcatcher. Her shoulders were daubed in first native symbols that Nix didn't recognize, but that meant it was a tribal train, not one of the big concerns that were situated in Boston or Washington.

"W-We're here and my conductor is asking me what got me so nervous and I don't know what to tell him please help!" she said.

"Uh..." Nix said.

Enterprise jerked her head up, shaking her head. "Huh?" She looked around, saw the train, and frowned at her. "Are you whining again?"

The train chewed on her knuckles nervously. "I don't wanna lie to him anymore, but...but you said he was a technician!"

"I am a technician," Nix said, rubbing his back. "Guh. Tell your conductor that I asked for this berth - I'll pay him in trade."

"H-He won't be mad?" she asked.

"He might be a tad annoyed," Nix said, gently. "But more at me than you."

The train relaxed, sighing. "Okay, thanks." She closed the door with a rattling clink, leaving them alone with a bare electrical bulb. Nix sighed, then frowned at the shirt that had been so handily ruined.

"Damn it all."

"Sorry," Enterprise said, her voice soft.

"You cut the shirt off?" Nix asked. "And..." She paused. "You patched me up?"

"Don't sound so fuckin' shocked," Enterprise said, her cheeks flushing so red that her markings almost vanished. "I've got a fully stocked sick bay."

Nix wasn't impressed, precisely. What she felt was a deep, overriding fear. An uneasy awareness of what had happened. Enterprise had, in the panic, dragged Nix onto a train car. There, she had extracted a bullet, stitched the wound up, applied whatever medicines she could. She looked down at her wrist and noticed a small welling of blood. There were old stories - IVs with saline and plasma and other magical reagents that spirits had been able to deliver to their wounded crew. But the thing was, a modern English spirit, arising from an airship, say, could direct such things...from within their hulls. Not drawn from nothingness. Nix forced down the cold creeping dread in her gut as she asked: "How'd you get the train to carry us?"

"Threatened to blow her up," Enterprise said, looking down at her hands. "I was...in a hurry."

Nix sighed, slowly. "Okay," she said. "Could you have done it?"

Enterprise frowned. "I fuckin' don't know."

Silence hung between them. Nix shook her head. "Listen, I need a shirt." She paused. "Got any laundries in you?"

"A big one, actually," Enterprise said.

***

The door opened and the conductor - a first native man of mixed blood and a weathered complexion - stood at the entrance and peered at Nix, who had just finished throwing his jacket on over his brand new white shirt. He had a long rifle with a lever action swung over his back, and a large knife strapped to his ankle. His features were long and horselike and he swept his gaze over Nix slowly. "Huh," he said, quietly. "That big ship of yours was right. You really are in a lot of trouble, aren't you Mister?"

Nix blinked. "I-"

"Do you think my sweetie, Weetamoe, can actually hide a single thing from me? She plays poker with her hands held backwards," the man said, his voice dry. "I'm Johnathan Smith, conductor. You are a technician, yes? And that boat with you, she's an airship?"

"Not quite," Nix said. "I'm Marion Nixon."

"Huh," Johnathan said.

"Where are we, exactly?" Nix asked.

"We took the Old Route out of New England, into the Wasteland," Johnathan said, stepping back and letting Nix hop down. "The Green Lady will keep us safe - and we have a hold full of cattle that needs delivering to towns outside of the Empire. We're near the Chicago Ghostlands."

Nix slowly turned to Enterprise, who was standing at the lip of the car. She looked out, her mouth opened in confusion. The landscape was all dry grass, sweeping towards Lake Chicago, whose sprawling glassy waters glittered in the distance. There were a few odd hills, festooned with narrow trees, which might have once been building. A huge old pier remained, cracked in half and forged in concrete. Marshy wetland clumped here and there, and the old roads were half visible - the grass slowly peeling it apart and crumbling it apart. Enterprise looked around herself, her eyes wide as saucers. "My...a lot of my crew came from here, I..." she whispered.

Jonathan arched an eyebrow.

"You're a smuggler," Nix said.

Jonathan shrugged one shoulder. "You were the one who left Burned York in a tearing hurry with the police running all around with their guns out and an English airship overhead." He sounded as unperturbed as the glassy waters out there. The cold wind blew towards the train. Nix frowned and knelt down. The train was resting on rusted, ruined tracks - bent and warped and left to rot. They weren't joined and every few yards, it seemed like another chunk was missing, or had been knocked aside.

"Your Weetamoe is quite a skilled train, to run on tracks like these," Nix said, impressed.

"Thank you," Johnathan said. "She's a mite faster on proper track, but, the communities out here have enough time to bribe the President." He smiled, slightly. "Now, I let you lie, but I would like to know what precisely it is you've got going on, Mr. Nixon."

Nix sighed. "I've annoyed some very unpleasant characters. I need to get down to New Austin - my niece moved down there and I'm worried they're going to hurt her."

Jonathan considered. "In exchange for labor, and for pitching in at my stops, I can get you to New Austin in a week," he said, firmly.

Nix considered. The run from Burned York to New Austin could be as short as a day, if you were in a fast courier. It could be in under a day if you flew with the Royal Hurricanes. But the Mechanical Turks had to be reeling with the death of Mr. Jeremiah. And who knew what havoc Sister Zimmerman was unleashing on them. Then he slapped his forehead. "Damn! I'm a fool!" he exclaimed, then touched his ear - where his mobile telephone waited.

"Hello? Miss Rhina!" He said, then waited. The tone was scratchy and distant. He didn't know if he was close enough for-

"Ssss- Mr - sss - on? I can...-arely hear you!"

"Miss Rhina! Send a telegraph to Josephine Dour, and make haste to New Austin. I will be heading to New Austin."

"-ssss- Dour and Austin...sss -ot it! Dour and Austin, repeat, I am g-ssss!"

"Capital," Nix said, then took the small pebble from his ear, then stomped on it. "My apologies, dear heart, to spurn your gift, but...they can track that." He lifted his gaze to Johnathan. "I accept your kind offer, Mr. Smith."

Johnathan offered his hand, nodding. "So," he said. "You go by Mr. Nixon, eh?" His eyes flicked up and down Nix's body, slowly, and then he arched an eyebrow.

Nix frowned slightly. In the silence, Weetamoe arrived, humming cheerfully and standing behind her conductor as the silence stretched.

"Only men can be Technicians," Nix finally said, stiffly. "In the Empire."

"Mm. Seems that way," Johnathan said.

Nix sighed. "Don't tell anyone, please?"

"Tell anyone what?" Johnathan asked, his lips quirking in the tiniest of smiles. "You are a Technician after all."

Weetamoe looked between them. Her brow furrowed and she whispered. "I'm confused," she said.

Enterprise sighed. "That ain't a new fuckin' situation, is it?"

"Be nice, Enterprise," Nix said, while Weetamoe blinked up at Enterprise, her eyes filling with unshed tears. Enterprise blushed.

"Shit, I'm sorry," she said. "I just got a bit of a sailor's mouth."

"Yay! We're friends!" Weetamo threw her arms around Enterprise, burying her face against Enterprise's chest, making the other spirit look like she was cycling through invective in the same way her main battery would load armor piercing shells. She closed her eyes, forced them all aside, then patted the train's head.

"Yeah. Guess we are."

***

Johnathan introduced Nix and Enterprise to the rest of the tribe: there were two engineers who spelled one another in shifts, both of them were young men who shared Johnathan narrow, horsey features, four firemen were a mixture of men and women, but they didn't all seem to be directly related. Then there were ten stevedores for loading and handling cargo, and six guards, though Nix did notice that all the party were armed. It was just that the six guards had long rifles, like Johnathan. The total group were all of mixed First and Second native blood, and they regarded Nix with clear curiosity, but not the hostility that he had expected. The train herself was quite a sight when viewed from a distance - a passenger car that had been converted into a family barracks, an adjoining car that was built for relaxation and enjoying life, and then a string of other cars that were all cargo: Livestock and flat topped general purpose. At the stop, the livestock - mostly steers and cattle - were herded off to start grazing in the grass, the guards fanning out to keep watch.

Once he was done seeing everything, Nix said: "You have quite an impressive train," he said. "Very...industrious."

"She's been in the tribe since 1910," Johnathan said, quietly. "Or so the stories go. They say she was once owned by a company, Charleston Coal, but my great great great great grandfather was her conductor, and her true companion. When the Fire came, Charleston Coal went up in smoke." He sounded faintly amused. "Then it was just us, and we...renamed her, painted her, and used her to carry passengers and freight all across the wasteland."

Nix nodded. "Well, I've already figured out what we can do. Enterprise...my spirit friend..."

"The airship?" Johnathan asked.

"Yeah," Nix said. "She can...see far. It's one of her abilities. So, she can warn you if there's dangers. Are there much bandits?"

"Some," Johnathan said. "This land is wild and dangerous...and the Empire's laws make it worse."

Nix frowned. "Well, hey, the Empire's laws don't cover the wasteland."

Johnathan arched an eyebrow, looking at him square on. "And the ombudsman sentence for, say...robbing one of your banks? is" He asked, his voice dry.

Nix shifted. "Exile," he said.

"The Empire has an awful lot of banks and a great many Yankees who don't quite like having to be on the bottom again," Johnathan said. If he was upset by this or pleased by this, it was hard to tell. May be there was a whimsical tilt to his lips. "They come out here, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their guns. And some with more than that too."

"You don't think the Empire is doing it on purpose, do you?" Nix asked.

Johnathan looked at him, then shrugged. He called out in his own language - something beautiful and lilting and alien. His tribesmen started to gather around him, and then got to work laying out cloth and setting up candles and a small shrine. Nix walked over, his hands sliding into his pockets. He wasn't shocked when the small statue of Lady Trinity was placed on it. He joined the tribe, quietly awkward as they shuffled to make room for him. He knelt down and lowered his head, breathing in and whispering his soft prayers to her, to the Prophet Oppenheimer, to Slotin and Daghlian, to the Apostles. He tried to not think of Sister Zimmerman. What would she make of this quiet faith, that had no bombast, no fire, no brimstone. Just a family, asking the greatest spirit in the world for a boon, and offering to her a small fire, in which they threw herbs he didn't know.

Nix felt the blessing of Trinity return to her. And then one of the tribe reached into his backpack and brought out an ancient, clunky looking Counter. It rattled and clicked cheerfully as he swung it up and down each person, nodding slowly. "We're blessed," he said, cheerfully, then swung it back into his backpack.

"You know part of faith involves taking a leap of faith, right?" Nix asked, grinning slightly.

"White men's faith, maybe," the tribesman with the Counter said, his grin bright against his dark features. "You all get things for free, you expect to keep getting it. We have to count everything ourselves."

Nix frowned.

That made sense, honestly.

Enterprise frowned, muttering to him as they walked towards the train, the stevedores moving out to start gently ushering the cattle back onto the train-cars. "So, um, what was that all about?"

"The Lady Trinity's blessing keeps away radiation, remember?" Nix said, shrugging. "You have to refresh that faith every day. She's..." He paused. "Mercurial. Like aluminum one day, like titanium the next."

Enterprise grunted. "So, in short, one of your goddesses is insane?"

Nix paused, and together, he and Enterprise lifted their gaze to the melted lumps that were all that was left of Chicago - though the softened, smoothed edges of those ruins were more a byproduct of rain and greenery than the heat of the Fire. But they had been left to ruin because of the millions who had died and the millions more who had fled into the rural countryside, begging to Trinity for salvation from the bloody vomit and the clumps of hair falling out and the cancers - without people, wilderness had returned.

Johnathan put Nix and Enterprise up on the top of the train, a few cars back from the smokestack. It wouldn't exactly be comfortable, but the pair of them could keep an eye out for things better. Enterprise simply then focused and drifted up into the air, then landed on the roof of the train, causing soft murmurs to come from the tribe as they watched her. One of the younger guards flashed Nix a grin. "Man, you're a lucky fella," he said, jovially. "Technicians get to have all the fun."

"Right," Nix said, his cheeks darkening with embarrassment. "Got a ladder?"

***

The Weetamo made poor time for a train - but better time than a party walking - as they went into the outer edges of the Chicago Ghostlands, then swung out onto a barely visible rail line that cut northwest. Watching the landscape slide by, Nix breathed in the fresh smells and the smoke both, and realized that he had missed this travel in his time in Burned York and Boston. The copse of trees, the small packs of buffalo and wild cattle, the wild profusion of flowers of every type and breed competing with one another in what naturalists called the chaotic ecology of the new frontier. Bees buzzed in vast swarms around what had once been orchards and farms, gone to compete and struggle against one another. Sometimes, the tribesman with the Counter would come by, walking along the roof with a rifle and his Counter, swinging it around.

Click. Click. Click.

"Don't the animals get cancer?" Enterprise asked.

"...I suppose some do," Nix said. "But also, they're just beasts. Who cares about them?"

Enterprise snorted. "I suppose so."

She let her legs dangle over the side, frowning.

"This used to be the fuckin' heart of America," Enterprise said. "It's just...gone. All gone." She was quiet for a long time. "I remember a lot...things that my crew used to tell me. Do you know what...there was an ice cream place, off the side of the road, right there, where the highway used to run." She pointed at one of the crumbling autoducts that were still threaded across the continental America. This one was a jutting, lonely sight - half collapsed and slanted down, an artificial hill of asphalt and concrete. "Do you know what ice cream even fuckin' is?"

"Of course I know what ice cream is!" Nix said, flushing. "The world's not become a barbarous savage age!"

"Coula fuckin' fooled me," Enterprise said, her voice glum. She kicked her legs. "Fuck this is too goddamn depressing. Tell me about yourself, Marion."

Nix grinned. "Uh...call me Nix, please."

"Why? Marion can be a guy's name," Enterprise said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Yeah, I just don't like it," Nix said, leaning in as she let her masculinity drop like a mask.

"Oh," Enterprise said. "Fuck. Sorry."

"You swear so very much, Enterprise," Nix said.

"Fuck, sorry. I. Fuck! Sorry, I-" Enterprise caught herself as Nix snorted quietly.

Nix sighed. "Well! My parents met and married in England, my family's men were all technician since, oh, the 1600s I think. Anyway, they moved over when I was young - the Colonies needed new technicians, since they've been rebuilding so much in the past few years and there's a lot more trade picking up. The Empire's starting up new mines and farms and claiming back area for farming, cattle..." She shook her head slightly. "My auntie moved over a few years later, and she married an American, and they had my niece, Josephine. She married a year or so ago, and moved to New Austin. She didn't marry an American, thank god."

"Hey!" Enterprise snapped.

"N-No offense to Americas, just..." Nix blushed. "It's not like they're going to be able to...I...nevermind."

Enterprise sighed.

"Anyway. My father died back in 38," Nix said, quietly. "There was a hydroelectric dam near Boston - a new one, built in the aftermath of the Fire. The natives had done their best, but, well, they were using flintknapped tools and salvage, so, the dam was starting to collapse, spirit or no spirit. He went to it, and he managed to keep the spirit together long enough for the city to evacuate the at risk neighborhoods, and make levies and dykes. It was twelve hours of the finest technician work that anyone had ever seen - but...the spirit lost focus at the last moment. He...he could have gotten away, but..."

Nix sighed.

"He...wanted to make sure the city was safe. So he stayed by her, and helped her keep focus. She was so heartbroken after, even when they fixed up the dam, that she barely ever showed her face afterwards. Spirits are funny things. They can take a thousand humans passing them by and see it as just natural, or they can tear someone apart with their bare hands and not even know they done it - but sometimes, they see just one man die and they break just as badly as if you hit them with a sledgehammer."