The Dream Thief

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Karl jumped when a harsh buzzer sounded through the train. He'd gotten so far into pondering Andy's fears that he had no idea where he was. Almost everyone sitting around him in the first passenger car was quiet or downright grim. Hardly the usual ride through the countryside on an early Sunday evening. The only times he’d encountered groups who could be so somber or weary were heading out to the working-class neighborhoods of the Doer District back in Waldron’s Gate.

The people who’d been talking or seeming to enjoy themselves left the train as the shudders and jolts of detaching rear cars rumbled under Karl’s feet. Most were no doubt bound for the fishing village at the end of the public train line. Only a handful ever rode farther. The obvious reason was the restricted access leading out to Joffrey Columns, of course.

Karl knew there was another, deeper explanation, the same reason people who lived in Waldron's Gate hardly ever went to the Convenience. They both dealt with used up, discarded, often ruined things no one wanted to think about if they didn't have to.

The Convenience dealt with garbage. The Columns with minds.

A larger crowd than made sense for a remote fishing village walked under the Swan’s Gate sign in the middle of the narrow wooden platform, heading toward those empty cars. Neither the villagers nor the train conductors would pay any attention to how those women, and a few men, seemed to disappear once they were away from the station every weekend.

Karl knew without asking that quite a few of them would be going to the other end of the train line, then taking the trolley out to the Convenience. Employees at either extreme of society often didn't have the energy or optimism for relationships, especially at the Columns. That didn't mean certain physical needs went away. Quite a few people worked at one place or the other—likely both—filling those needs.

The head conductor, her dark blue uniform accented with generous amounts of brass echoing Constable Law back in the Gate, strolled through the nearly empty car. Karl held his badge in his hand, but she recognized him and most of the rest. She nodded at them, only checking the identification of a few before closing the front door of the car behind her.

The much lighter train, now only the engine and this one silent compartment, jerked back into motion. Karl closed his eyes, relieved that only the last fifteen minutes of a nearly two-hour journey remained. He had no desire to watch the empty, marshy grassland passing by after so many trips over the years.

When Karl opened his eyes, the train was approaching the towering front wall of Joffrey Columns. The dark gray stones were easily three times Karl’s height, broken only by a passage large enough for the steam locomotive to pass through. A metal strip circled the opening, the top black with soot from countless smokestacks. A heavy lattice gate made of the same metal stood to one side to allow passage.

On his first tour of the grounds before he’d ever taken the job, Karl had asked about that odd metal strip. It didn’t anchor the swinging gate, and it didn’t look thick enough to reinforce the stone blocks that were already wider than Karl’s long arms. That was his first experience with asking one too many questions out here, a habit he still struggled with.

After a sharp reminder to not ask about things that did not concern him, Karl hadn’t argued with the explanation of a solid steel floodgate hidden inside the top of the gate. The towers and massive pulleys at the very top that Karl decided not to ask about matched that story. The thing was no one had heard of a flood that high for hundreds of years.

Karl suspected those gates were built to be closed for other kinds of trouble, much worse than high water. No one he’d ever spoken to remembered them being closed for anything but safety drills.

The three-story brown stone building in front of Karl didn't quite block out the twisting brick columns in the distance when he stepped off the train. He'd never been out to that part of the Columns, where the worst of the patients lived. Human and otherwise. The nurses, orderlies, and flat-out hired muscle who worked out there mostly kept to themselves.

That was about what he'd expected when he took the job at eighteen: an escape from disappointment in himself and a life of abusing his body for not much pay. Getting the chance to use his mind had been a surprise, as was the odd sort of family he found when he left his first one behind.

Back then, Karl had enjoyed watching the giant platform turning the train around like an overgrown child’s toy, pointing it back toward the real world. Now he only joined the silent group streaming through employee entrance, decidedly less grand and intimidating than the one the train would pass back through. Karl had to duck to fit through the wooden door, and unlike the main gate, no one bothered guarding this one from the outside. Karl had passed through a matching gate on the other side that morning.

A few people murmured to each other on the long walk down the blandest corridor in all the land. The walls and ceiling were narrow strips of dark wood that had never been varnished or even sanded, the floor pale stone worn into tracks by countless shuffling feet. No one bothered upgrading to even the oldest dim electrics, leaving dingy gas lamps decades past their prime.

Karl suspected no one wanted the exposure of bright light here.

The end of the line, for this hallway at least, went far past bright to blinding. A scarred and battered wooden desk sat below several painfully glaring electrics, a bored guard behind it. Karl also suspected the bright lights here were on purpose, and that the guard was paying far closer attention than anyone knew.

Five plain wooden doors took up the large wall behind the guard desk, each with a rotating circle in the middle. Green or red, depending upon whether someone was inside for the inspection phase of returning to such a lovely workplace.

"Nice visit?"

Karl blinked, surprised anybody had spoken to him. He usually stood in the line, followed directions, got searched, and went on his way. No one had ever asked him anything so seemingly innocent.

The guard, a young guy Karl had never seen before, even smiled. He did take Karl's badge and record the number in one notebook before he crossed it off of another.

"Sure, same as usual," Karl said. "Family, you know. I live out here for a reason."

"Same here," the guard said, nodding. "Sometimes I wonder if we have the right people on the inside. Go on through. Room three is open."

Karl nodded and walked over to the door with the green circle. The guard waiting inside the small room was an older man he recognized.

"Gilmore," Davis said. "You know the routine. Turn out your pockets and strip. Anything strange happen?"

"No, sir. No more than a typical visit with my family. Didn't take anything out or bring anything in."

He emptied his pockets: a ring stuffed with too many keys, his badge, and some spare coin. Karl got undressed as quickly as he could. He didn't love this part of the routine, but it was indeed routine.

"Arms out, turn in a circle."

Karl did, watching Davis shake out his clothes. He'd thought a few times about telling his parents he wouldn't be visiting anymore because this took way too long. Annoying as the inspection was, that would be a bigger lie than he was comfortable telling.

"Get dressed and back to your apartment," the guard said. "Bit restless in there all day. They're asking for people not on shift to stay out of the way."