Simon nodded. Neither one of those alternatives appealed to him.
“Sir? Excuse me, sir?”
It took Simon a moment to realize that the woman was speaking to him. He crawled from beneath the pulling engine and picked up the grease-covered rag lying on the ground. The rag didn’t help cut the crusted grime on his hands.
The speaker was a middle-aged woman with a bandage over her left eye.
Simon started to get to his feet.
“No, you don’t need to get up now. Just stay as you are. My family and I just got here today.”
Simon tried to remember which today it currently was, but couldn’t.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” the woman went on, “but I had to come tell you how much I appreciate what you’re doing.”
Simon felt embarrassed. Somehow he never got too tired to feel that way. “It’s not just me,” he said. “There are a lot of people helping.”
“I know.” The woman smiled. “Truly, I do. But they say you’re the one that started all of this.”
Simon didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded. He felt that was what his father would have done.
“I just wanted to thank you, you know. For caring enough about us to do this. If not for you, my three children would have died in that city, perished at the hands of those monsters.”
We’re not out of the city yet, Simon wanted to point out. But he didn’t. Hope was the commodity they had the least of, and he didn’t want to take it away from anyone because he knew it was a fragile thing, too. Most of them had come to the tube tunnel for a last few meals.
“Bless you,” the woman said. “That’s all I wanted to say.” She took his grease-grimed hand in hers and squeezed. Then she walked away.
Simon stared after her for a moment, at a loss for how he was supposed to react. More than anything, he supposed, he was afraid. It was one thing to find strangers murdered in their homes by the demons, but if he lost these people it was going to hurt.
It’s also going to be your fault that they’re here to get caught, he told himself. He drank some water, then climbed back under the pulling engine.
“You doing okay?” McCorkleson asked.
Simon picked up a battery-operated drill and slid his safety glasses on. He started drilling holes for another support lattice strut.
“Yes.” Metal bits struck Simon’s face sharply enough to sting.
“Right or wrong, however this things turns out,” McCorkleson said, “you’ve done all you could. The rest of it will just have to take care of itself.”
“I know.”
“No,” the old man said gently. “You’re just saying that now. You don’t know it yet. But you will.”
Simon hoped so, but he hoped most of all that everything turned out well.
“Clear!” McCorkleson yelled from the pulling engine’s control center.
“Clear!” Simon yelled back. Three other men standing guard around the pulling engine yelled out the same, letting McCorkleson know that he was clear to engage the power.
The NanoDyne electromagnetic engines were charged by solar power or by cranking them with a special lever. The engines were about the size of scuba tanks and had been mounted just under the pulling engine’s housing. Simon and McCorkleson had managed to put sixteen of them on the unit. He hoped it would be enough to move all the people depending on them fast enough to make their escape.
The engine shuddered as McCorkleson engaged the power. There was little noise as the engines created the magnetic lift that caused the pulling engine to glide up six inches above the rails. Even though the power to the tubes had been lost during the attacks over the first few hours of the demon invasion, the NanoDyne engines generated enough power to accelerate the pulling engine to unbelievable speeds on their own. That had been part of the attraction of the design.
The engines balanced out easily, each working well with the others. At the controls, McCorkleson grinned like a loon. Then he sat the engine back down on the tracks.
“She’s as ready as we’re going to get her,” McCorkleson declared.
A cheer exploded from the men, women, and children lining the tube tunnel. Word was passed along the line and further celebration came in waves.
“All right then,” Simon said. “Let’s get the cargo cars bolted up and see how it responds then. We’ll get moving after full dark tonight.”
Being inside the armor helped take away some of Simon’s fatigue. The computer took over caring for him automatically even though he hadn’t been taking care of himself. Once he’d climbed inside, the armor had tended to his needs, using slap-patches to chemically adjust his physical awareness back up to full alert. He’d pay for that later, he knew, but at the moment he needed the assistance.
The train was ready as they could make it. They’d packed the space with as many supplies as they’d had on hand, which had been precious few, then packed the passenger cars. In the end they’d had to add one more than they’d anticipated, but McCorkleson was confident the pulling engine would have the energy to get it moving.
Only one problem remained, and Simon had left it in place on purpose.
When the power had been cut in the tube, one of the trains had gotten stranded out in the main tunnel. It sat now, blocking the access tunnel of the spur where the out-of-service pulling engine had been stored.
Simon and McCorkleson had located a fuel-powered engine that was used to haul broken trains to service areas. Thankfully it had been functional.
One of the other men who had tube experience climbed into the engine and powered it up. The ripping roar of the massive engines filled the tube. Other than the possibility of running out of fuel, the sound was another reason Simon had wanted to use the NanoDyne engines. The NanoDynes were nearly silent.
Running loose through the tube and the city, the sound from the fuel-powered
