The green vapor ate through the lining of Zorina's lungs like lye. Miren went limp in her grip, his forehead burning hot against her collarbone, small ribs shuddering with choked, dry spasms. There was no time to pick the barricaded latch. Bravic had wedged steel against the hall door, and the air vents were spewing pure rot. She dropped to her knees, dragging Miren under the iron worktable where the air sat an inch thinner. Under the floorboards lay the drainage conduits of the Mid-Tier terrace—two vertical meters of empty ballast above the low-line maintenance chutes. Zorina tore the lining from her grease-stained pilot coat, pulling out three copper-sheathed blasting caps she had stolen from the South Freight yards three months ago. "Shirt in your mouth, Miren. Bite down. Don't look." The boy gagged, wrapping his wool sleeve over his nose, his small face purpled by lack of air. She shoved the caps straight between the pine joints, struck the friction heads with the flat of her belt buckle, and threw her weight over Miren. A sharp, deafening slap splintered the apartment floor into kindling. Plaster showered down in a gray sheet. The floor gave way beneath them in an avalanche of smoking splinters and falling masonry, plunging them through the floor into the greasy dark of the lower utility duct. Cold air hit them like ice water. Zorina rolled as she struck the wet corrugated iron of the lower catwalk, her hip taking the brunt to shield Miren. He groaned, coughing violently, vomiting thin bile onto the grates, but he took a ragged breath of real, bitter Ostrom smog. Real air. "Breathe," she rasped, spit turning gray against the iron. "Come on, little bird. Up." She lifted him onto her back, securing his wrists around her throat with a strip of hem torn from her shirt, and sprinted down the narrow catwalk toward the Mid-Tier switching yard. Below them, through the latticework of suspension cables, the abyss fell away into black mist. But five hundred paces down the rail bed sat the real prize: an uncoupled Class-Nine switch engine, steam hissing from its brass pop-valves, waiting for morning freight hauling. She knew every lever on that iron beast. She had driven these rails before the war turned the tracks into cages. She kicked through the locomotive cab's safety glass, reached inside, and unlocked the latch. She hauled Miren onto the coal bench, slamming the iron door shut against the howling drafts. "Stay low. Cover your ears." She gave him no time to nod. Zorina disengaged the dead-man brake with a heavy iron crank, grabbed the twin throttle levers, and slammed them forward into raw draft. The firebox roared. Sparks erupted from the tall exhaust stack as the drive wheels skidded, bit into the iron rails, and launched the engine down the main incline at suicidal velocity. Far ahead, winding along the sheer stone wall like an armored centipede, ran the black bulk of the Northern Penal Express. The Ministry transport was carrying Kovan toward the freezing quarries of the north. The speedometer needle trembled past eighty, then ninety knots. The stone walls blurred into a streak of black rock and sodium floodlights. Wind screamed through the shattered windscreen. Zorina leaned over the brake column, adjusting the steam flow with the instinctive grease-and-iron memory of her pilot days. She ignored all thought of dying; she only saw the red lantern dangling off the prison train’s caboose grow from a pinpoint into a bleeding eye. "Hold on!" she screamed. The shunter rammed the rear coupler of the prison train with a bone-jarring crash. Iron shrieked against iron. Zorina locked the shunter's emergency brakes to weld the two trains together under dynamic friction, grabbed her pry bar from the tool rack, and leaped across the bucking steel buffer onto the rear observation platform of the armored car. She smashed the brass door latch with two savage blows, leveled her shoulder, and slammed through into the corridor. She expected gunfire. She expected a dozen Vulkari shock troops with bayonets leveled. She came in low, iron bar raised to crush the first skull she met. Instead, the private saloon was dead silent save for the clatter of the tracks. Three state soldiers lay sprawled on the mahogany floorboards, bleeding from blunt-force head wounds. Standing over them, leaning against an ornately carved desk with an antique service revolver held loosely in his right hand, was Bravic Surl. Beside him sat Kovan, bound to a heavy dining chair, his lip split and his spectacles hanging crookedly off one ear, his gray clerk's coat torn at the shoulder. Zorina froze, the crowbar poised mid-strike, her vision narrowing to a pinpoint of homicidal fury. "Bravic. I will gut you from navel to chin." Bravic didn't flinch. He slowly lowered the pistol, wiped soot from his cheek, and offered an infuriating, crooked wink. "Always so quick with the iron, Zori," Bravic drawled, nudging a groaning soldier with his boot. "If I didn't pretend to sell you out, the Ministry hounds would have checked my pockets. A turncoat gets ushered straight into the inner coach without a search. An ally gets shot on the platform. Think with your skull for once." Zorina stared at him, then dropped her gaze to the floor. The brass master-key lay on the table next to an open bottle of wine. Kovan lifted his head. His eyes found hers through the smudged, cracked glass of his spectacles. His voice was hoarse, raw, but steady. "Zorina. You came." She dropped the iron bar. The sound hit the timber floor with a hollow thud. Two strides crossed the cabin. Her palms pressed flat against the sides of his face before her brain could stop the impulse, feeling the hot, rough stubble of his jaw, checking the pulse thrumming beneath his collar. "You absolute fool," she whispered, her thumb brushing the dark bruise under his cheekbone. "I told you to let them take the paper." "The numbers don't lie, wife," Kovan murmured, leaning an imperceptible fraction of an inch into her touch, his breath warm against her wrist. "And neither do I. Miren?" "Safe in the chase cab. We're coupled to the rear." "Untie him before you two start planning your anniversary," Bravic grumbled, tossing a hunting knife onto Kovan's lap. "We have four minutes before the locomotive reaches the high bridge. The master-key works on the vault door in the floor. The state shipping receipts are inside. That's the proof that clears your name and hangs them." Zorina sawed through the hemp ropes binding Kovan's wrists. The moment the cords parted, Kovan's hand caught hers, holding it firmly for a second longer than necessary. His grip was cold, but the pressure was iron-sure. "Together," he said softly. She nodded, unable to pull her hand away until Bravic tapped the floorplate with his heel. Set into the center of the private coach was an armored hatch of layered black steel, stamped with the seal of the Central Ministry. Kovan knelt, his fingers trembling slightly as he aligned the brass key into the central tumbler. He twisted once to the left, twice to the right. A heavy internal deadbolt snapped back with a resounding metallic clunk. Zorina hooked her fingers into the recessed ring, bracing her boots against the floor, and hauled the hatch open. There were no ledgers inside. Sitting in the belly of the steel compartment was a six-cylinder military demolition block, wired directly to the train’s revolving axle assembly, its mechanical clockwork timer ticking down smoothly through three minutes and forty seconds.

Boarding the Prison Train