The stainless-steel wheels of the Budd R-Zero train bit into the chilled head of the rail as the consist rolled past the frog into Tunnel Zero.
The flooded turntable fell behind them, swallowed by the rising dark of the rock cut. Ahead, the bore was straight as an arrow and lined with white hoarfrost that sparkled in the beam of Mac’s new brass lantern.
Julian Vance leaned his shoulder against the vestibule bulkhead of Car Three, his chest heaving as the adrenaline ebbed. The chill of Tunnel Zero rushed in through the open end-door.
It was not normal winter air. It carried no moisture from snow, no bite of pine needles or autumn mud.
It was dry, sterile, and cold enough to make a man’s teeth ache behind closed lips.
Inside Car Three, the yellow incandescent ceiling lights flickered once, then dimmed to a steady amber glow. The hum of the third rail had faded behind them. Here, on the abandoned feeder spur, the train rolled entirely on momentum, gliding down a gentle grade that dropped deeper into the bedrock of Lower New Marrow.
“Close that outer storm door, kid,” Mac Cole called back from the narrow passageway leading toward the cab. The bus driver’s voice was hoarse from tunnel grit. “You’re letting thirty years of municipal frost straight into Clara’s blankets.”
