The Created

Chapter 32: It's Nothing

CAT

We creep silently to the edge of the tree line and hunch over behind a group of bushes. Kye finally moves up to the front and cautiously peers over the hedges to get a glimpse of the station. I don't know what Connor and Kye were doing back there, but I am trying very hard not to be jealous; it's not the time for crap like that. I need to be focused. I just don't know what I can do to win Kye back to my side.

The station is a hive of activity; I'm worried they may have added more workers ever since my free ride into the facility. There's boxes and stacks of goods lying everywhere in the clearing, just like the first time. A few workers pile the goods onto carts and wheel them up onto the metal platform and into the open train. Others walk back and forth with clipboards, taking inventory. The whirring of heavy machinery fills the air as the train is prepared for takeoff.

"This train will head to the facility," Paxton reminds us. "They'll unload it and send it back here to empty the garbage. That's when we get on as it heads back to headquarters."

"It's huge," Kye says, marveling at the sheer length of the train.

It's true; I forgot just how extensive the train is.

The station is even more impressive, able to fit more than two trains end-to-end.

Everyone hunkers down under the bushes, preparing for however long the wait might be.

When the train is fully loaded, it accelerates at an alarming rate as it exits the station and is gone in a flash, dropping down and disappearing beneath the surface. The workers file into a small building; they, too, are waiting for the train to return.

No one has to wait long. In less than half an hour, I hear the purr of the train on the tracks beneath us, headed our direction.

"Cloaks on?" Paxton confirms, looking around at all of us. He takes his shotgun off his back and checks that it's loaded.

"You're not actually planning on using that, are you?" Connor says cautiously.

"You're not actually planning on being a wuss the whole time, are you?" Paxton replies curtly.

Connor brushes him off, but I don't think he really understands what's at stake here.

"We just need to reach the train before the workers see us," I say, moving on. "I assume that—" I point to a panel of buttons and levers off to the side of the station, "—is the control panel for the train. So, you guys hop on, and I'll set the train in motion before the workers know what hit them."

The noise of the train grows louder. I steal a glance at Kye, who is watching the workers through the windows of the building. None of them seem in any rush to get outside.

"Just be quick," he says to me. "We can't afford for them to get a hold of you."

The ground trembles slightly as the train nears the surface.

"It's going to slow down, right?" Amber asks no one in particular.

"I'm sure it is," Paxton says, though his tone is not very convincing.

All eyes are fixed on the far side of the clearing where we saw the train disappear before, waiting to see it emerge any second. Then the train shoots out of the ground like a bullet. Its long, streamlined body hisses as it cuts through the air.

Paxton's eyes turn to saucers. "It's not stopping," he whispers in disbelief.

"What?"

"It's not going to stop!" he yells. "GO!"