The Rails started out as a story that I was toying around with about issues of temporal causality. However I unfortunately lost the original copy I'd written up and so when I finally sat back down to rework it I decided that it had the potential of fitting into the world I'd already created in my previous works, The Traveller and The Post. Chronologically The Rails takes place years before either The Traveller or The Post but it fit better as the third story because, to me anyway, it did a lot to tie things together. With the addition of this story to the now three piece collection I came up with a name for this collection, calling it "Lament of Ishmael", a title that becomes a bit more clear at the end of the Epilogue.

The Rails

Jonathon rolled over and off the pile of crates he’d been taking a nap on before rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The warehouse wasn’t particularly the best place to try and catch some sleep but with everything that had been going on these past few months it was certainly the quietest place. Tossing off the woolen blanket he’d brought into the warehouse for just this purpose, Jonathon pulled on his large parka to keep out the winter draft that made its way though the warehouse.

Jonathon walked over to the small service door and pushed the warehouse door open letting in the biting cold wind that was commonplace to the mountain region. Snow covered the mountainside and footpaths that led from the warehouse to the main facility not to far away. From his spot on the mountainside Jonathon had a magnificent view of the valley and forest at the base of the mountain, a forest that had not always been there. Lots of things had changed over the last few months, the world had become a far different world then the one Jonathon had known before the winter set in, and unfortunately most of the world didn’t even notice, more importantly they couldn’t notice.

Years back now, Jonathon was one of the lead scientists working with his nation’s most renowned alchemists in improving the world’s recent invention, the steam engine, and more specifically, the railroads that were being used to allow for the faster transportation of goods and people across the great vastness of the nation and the world’s continents. Initially all their combined attempts were focused on improving the engine that pulled the carts and cars of the train, however Kevin, one of the most promising alchemists Jonathon was working with came up with a way to improve the railroads rather then the engine. Employing his trade Kevin and his fellow alchemists developed a remarkable new railroad one that, with a properly modified engine, would allow a train and its cargo to travel anywhere along the length of the rail system instantly.

An industrial revolution of sorts had just come about and factories started producing vast stretches of rails that alchemists would later imbue to allow our new engines to travel instantly along the rails. When the first stretch of rail opened, connecting our nation’s largest cities together, the people were united in celebration. As the rail system expanded connecting all corners of the nation together complicated timetables were introduced to keep the trains running smoothly throughout the nation. Eventually the rail system expanded into the nations with which we shared our borders resulting in the multi-national Bureau of Railroad Control which oversaw the planning and scheduling of new rails as well as the timing for the whole system. In time engineers and the alchemists worked together to create a rail bridge across the narrow straight that separated the two continents of our world and when that bridge was completed it connected the two rail networks together for the first time. It had only taken a mere twenty years for all the nations of the world to come together to create this marvel of technology and alchemy fused together. The world was united in celebration as the rail bridge was ceremoniously opened and together we marveled at our own magnificence.

Life carried on as the rails became more widespread, they became the foundation of much of our growing world society, tying together the most remote places with instant travel to anywhere along the ever growing network. It wasn’t until one year after the bridge was built that connected the world that we caught our first glimpse of the horror that we had created. All of the schedules for departures and arrivals of the trains are carefully monitored and planned by the Bureau of Railroad Control to ensure not just that trains leave and arrive at the proper times but that there are no accidents as well. On the eve of the first anniversary of the world network two trains appeared at a station at the same time. The resulting collision was horrific as the two trains collided and tore through the station’s loading platforms. Over a hundred people on the colliding trains were killed and hundreds more were injured. Before the day was over the Bureau of Railroad Control started an investigation that lasted almost three weeks, during which the whole of the rail system was shut down.

When the head of the BRC gave his final report it was impossible to lay fault on any one person. Both trains were following proper procedures and both had records stating where and when they were to arrive. Indeed the master schedule that dictated arrival and departure times listed both trains as arriving at the same place at the same time, something that worried everyone. The master schedule was overhauled and examined for any other inconsistencies in the schedule and when everyone was assured that such an accident wouldn’t happen again the rails were reopened and traffic amongst them commenced, however despite the initial assurances more accidents occurred, and each with growing frequency. In the six months that followed the first accident nine more had occurred before the BRC shut down the rail indefinitely. The investigation on the issue opened up new problems as sources for the scheduling errors kept popping up.

Kevin, now the country’s lead alchemist, was part of the investigation team looking into possible problems with the physical rail system and what he discovered shocked the world. When the rail system was first developed and the ability to instantly travel along their length was well known, but not the reasons. Working together Kevin and Jonathon had discovered that travel along the rails was made possible by the rail’s unique attribute that they existed in all points in time regardless of where they were. Were a section of the railroad be removed or worse, destroyed, that section would cease to exist at all points in time and for everyone it would seem as if that section had never existed at all.

When this news reached the head of the BRC it was met with harsh disbelief, how could a section of the rail system be destroyed and no one know about it, they had argued. In that there was the catch, for at the single moment a rail section was destroyed it was wiped from everyone’s memory. It was, in the end, Jonathon’s idea that prompted the ability to study the rail’s destruction as they occurred, by removing themselves and their research facility from time as the rails had been.

Pulling his large coat tightly around him, Jonathon tried to block out the harsh wind that had begun to whip across the mountainside. The sun was setting on the horizon when Jonathon paused briefly as he stared at the forest at the foot of the mountain, a forest that hadn’t been there several days ago. At the base of the mountain, a booming town had sprung up in the wake of the new rail that had passed through the area. It had only taken a few years but as the town grew, much of the forest was cleared away to make room for the region’s expansive growth. That was, until a little more then a week ago when that section of rail was removed before the team’s very eyes. In an instant the town and rail station had vanished and with it gone the forest reappeared, for with no rail there was no town, and with no town the forest had not been cleared away. A deathly chill ran down Jonathon’s spine as he thought about how the world was quickly loosing the past twenty years of growth and prosperity due to some problem with the rail system that he and his friends had so carefully created. Trying to shrug off the feeling Jonathon made his way down the path from the warehouse, the snow crunching under his feet as the wind howled through the treetops. The porch light hanging over the entrance to the research facility swung from side to side in the wind and bathed the porch in a yellow light that grew brighter as the sun set below the horizon. Pulling open the door Jonathon stepped out of the fridged mountain air and into what seemed a stiflingly hot sauna.

Jonathon quickly discarded his coat, tossing it onto one of the many coat hooks by the door. Knocking the mud and snow from his boots he checked his watch now noting that he was going to be late for his meeting with the rest of the team. The hallways of the research facility seemed like a maze to Jonathon the first time he came here more then twenty years ago and it was in these halls and labs that the team he worked with crafted the first section of rails that would go on to be the blueprint for the whole of the rail system. Pushing open the door to the conference room everyone turned to stare at Jonathon as he moved to take his spot at the table.
“Over slept again my friend?” Kevin joked to Jonathon, noting the still sleepy look in his eye.
“My apologies for being late everyone,” Jonathon said as he looked around the room. Catching the acceptance from everyone he went on, “I had had an interesting thought the other night, something I talked over a great deal with Kevin here,” he said gesturing to the lead alchemist sitting across from him at the conference table. The room itself was bare, but typical of any normal conference room. Chalkboards lined two whole walls while strips of cork ran along the other two walls allowing for the hanging of posters and the likes. The center to of the room housed a long ovular table with more then enough chairs to seat the fifteen people that led the research team that lived here on the mountain.

“Most of our research and efforts so far have focused on either the engines or the rails themselves, and as such we’ve been unable to find any reason as to why the rail sections are disappearing. But I’ve got a new idea,” Jonathon said, taking a pause. “What if the rails aren’t disappearing because of something we did wrong, but because they’re being intentionally destroyed?” With the last words escaping his mouth everyone in the room nearly gasped in unison, except Kevin. When Jonathon approached Kevin with the notion that the rails might be being destroyed intentionally Kevin merely nodded at the idea, expressing that the same idea had crossed his mind, now that idea was being realized by others. “Kevin and I ran back through all the rail sections we’ve noted as having vanished. It’s limited, since we don’t know how much of the system was destroyed before we pulled ourselves out of the timeline, but we were able to come up with a pattern.”

On the other side of the room, Kevin pulled out a large poster that he and Jonathon had drawn up the night before, one of the reasons Jonathon had overslept in the warehouse. The poster was a large-scale map of their nation and showed numerous sections of the rail system as red lines across the map as well as other sections marked with various other colors. “This map shows all of the current rail sections still intact in red. These other colors mark sections of the rail that have vanished since our removal from the timeline.” Kevin spoke as he pointed to sections of the map with a large ruler.

“As you can see,” Jonathon said, picking up the conversation, “The colored sections that disappeared did so in a very specific manner going from blue, the oldest disappearances we have on record, to orange, marking the most recent.” Jonathon paused to take a sip of water from the glass that sat in front of him before he stood up to walk over to the map. “When you overlay the dates of construction for each of the rail sections you come up with an interesting pattern.”

Kevin pulled out from under the table a large sheet of mostly transparent plastic that he tacked up over the first map. Dates were written along the plastic sheet, each one lining up with a section of the rail system and when it was created. “As you can see, the sections of the rail system that have been destroyed are being destroyed in a manner that links them together.” Kevin tired to explain.

“In other words, the sections of rail must be destroyed such that no other section was strictly dependent on it. So if two sections of rail were constructed,” Jonathon tried to explain to the still confused faces in front of him. On the chalkboard he drew two sections of rail, the first was a straight section while the second branched off the first part at a hastily drawn train station. “Such that the second section was constructed both after and depended on the first section, then the first section couldn’t be destroyed until the second section was.”

“There is one catch in this theory, about dependent destruction however,” Kevin interjected slowly and hesitantly. “There are two rail sections that are isolated from the rail system.” Again, Kevin paused letting the gravity of the new information sink in. “The proto-rail and the test track are the only two sections of the rail system that are outside.”

“But what does that mean?” asked Thomas, one the newer leads. Thomas had just graduated from the university when the first section of the rail system was put in. Fascinated by it all he apprenticed as an alchemist and quickly rose to prominence. “It would seem to me that the proto-rail and the test track are two pieces that are intrinsically linked to the system, without them the whole rail system would never have been built.”

“This is true,” Kevin retorted quickly, having gone over the same question with Jonathon the night before. “However what sets them apart is the technique involved. See, every time a new section of the rail system was built it had to be incorporated into the whole of the system so the engines could use it. Because the test track and especially the proto-rail were never added to the network they exist outside the rail system’s networked protection.”

 “If someone is trying, for whatever reason, to destroy the rail system as we know it, all they need to do is find either the test track of the proto-rail and destroy either of them. Without their construction the whole network will cease to exist,” Jonathon finished. Everyone sitting at the conference table shared the same grim look on their faces. They’d all worked to some degree on the creation of the rail system and the evidence now before them seemed beyond refute.

“Hide them,” the younger alchemist said suddenly, breaking the lingering silence in the room.

“Can’t we just hide the two sets of rails so they won’t be found?”

“If what we’ve all heard is right, hiding the rails won’t matter,” Lilith replied. Lilith, one of the few female scientists on the research team was always a very composed person. Raised in the slums of the capital city she had always strived her hardest to rise above what she’d considered her wretched heritage. “If you think about it, anything we hide now will be found in time, and it would seem time is something that is not on our side on this one. The solution to this has to be direct”

“How can we do anything directly though? We all know the rails can’t be used to travel through time, we’re stuck here while whom ever is doing this is who know when in the future,” Thomas asked.

“There might be a way,” one of the other scientists suddenly interjected. Jonathon’s brow furrowed, an almost noticeable wince overcoming him. The gentleman at the far end of the table went by the name Ishmael. Jonathon had never liked him, ever since he had been appointed to the team several months ago by the Bureau of Railroad Control. Ishmael was a puzzle to everyone on the team and at first he bewildered even the BRC committee due to his lack of any public record, in fact when Ishmael walked into the BRC offices to apply for a research position not even a name could be found to which came his reply of “Ishmael, that should be good enough. You may call me Ishmael.” Ishmael quickly amazed everyone with his in depth knowledge of alchemy, science and the rail system. To Jonathon it was his almost encyclopedic knowledge about the rail system that struck the first chord. Ishmael seemed to know everything about them, down to the existence of the test track and proto-rail, something not generally known, even to other researchers within the BRC. Now Ishmael was one of the team leads who coordinated the work between the scientists and the alchemists due to his own expertise in both.

“All of our attempts at traveling through time on the rails were with specially crafted engines, designed specifically for the rails.” As Ishmael spoke everyone in the room turned to face him, his eyes seemed to dart from place to place as he spoke, almost as if he were making sure he had everyone’s attention. Jonathon saw something else, he saw Ishmael thinking hard, as if an epiphany had hit him. It was almost the same look he had gotten when he realized the connection between the destroyed sections of the rail system. “What Kevin and Jonathan said about the link between the rail sections and their ‘dependant destruction’. All of the earlier engines were made for the rail system, built and infused with our alchemy to travel instantly along the rails. But what if their construction, based on the rail technique is what prevents them from actually harnessing the rail’s full potential?”

“What are you getting at?” Lilith asked during Ishmael’s momentary pause.

“I’m eager to know to,” Jonathon added, a bit of sarcasm in his tone almost hinting at the dramatic pause that Ishmael was probably going for.

“We can’t travel through time on the rail with something built and based on the rail system,” Ishmael finished, almost glaring at Jonathon. “We’d need something that is set apart from the network, like how the proto-rail and test track are set apart. We need something that precedes everything to do with the rail system.”

The pause this time was genuine, everyone was thinking about how this new idea might actually work. “Even if it could work, how are we supposed to stop who ever is doing this?” Kevin asked, breaking the moment. “I mean, we have no idea where to look for this person, let alone when.”

“It might be enough that we don’t have to find them. It might be enough that we set up the materials and supplies so that someone in the future would find them and would know what to do with them,” Ishmael replied. Everyone in the room was a bit worried at the idea. To most Lilith was right, a direct approach was needed to deal with the situation, and Ishmael’s idea relied to much on a hopeful whim that someone might know what to do later.

“The old hand cart!” Thomas almost shouted, once again breaking the silence that had overcome the room. “The railroads that lead up to this facility are a normal set of tracks predating the rail system by quite some time,” Thomas said almost frantically, his mind now was racing too as an idea began to form. “There was an old hand cart I saw one day on the original railroad that serviced the mountain and towns in the area. It’s long since become over grown, well once the new rail system went in that is. We could modify the old hand cart and the railroad it’s on to work the way Ishmael was talking about.”

The rest of the team slowly began nodding, as if voting their approval to the idea. One by one they turned to look at Jonathon. Having led the team this far each person on the team including Kevin, looked upon Jonathon as their leader during these times. In the end it was his approval that was needed to make the plan go forward. Jonathon’s hesitation was apparent to everyone, Kevin stared Jonathon with a different glare. Not one of approval or questioning, but of guilt and determination. Kevin knew Jonathon housed no friendship for Ishmael, the way Ishmael had wrapped the research team and BRC committee around his little finger through his expertise in all things relating to the rail system had set them apart from the moment they met.

Jonathon met Kevin’s stare and knew what he was thinking. Kevin was making sure he thought of the plan as a plan, and ignored who actually came up with it. Kevin knew he couldn’t take this moment to spite Ishmael and Jonathon knew it too. Jonathon took a deep breath and sighed, “It’s a sound plan,” Jonathon finally said to the group in the room. “Kevin, I’d like you and Lilith to work with Ishmael and see what we need to make this work. Thomas, take some of the assistants with and let’s find and start clearing that railroad. Let’s get to work people.” Jonathon finished, ushering people out of the small conference room with a wave of his arms.

In moments the team leaders had cleared out of the room, talking amongst themselves, working out new plans and schedules. Jonathon looked on as each filed out the door until Ishmael reached the doorway and paused. It was brief, quick enough that no one noticed except Jonathon, who had been watching him since he stood up. In the doorway Ishmael turned his head to glance at Jonathon and let out a small grin, a grin that sent a shiver down Jonathon’s spine.

It took the team almost ten months to finish the plan and in the end they were successful. The old hand cart that Thomas had talked about was still in good condition despite the fact that it was probably almost fifty or sixty years old. As part of the work done on the old handcart the normal lever system it used to propel itself along the rails was removed and in its place a small sail and rigging set had been constructed. Ishmael had insisted that the mechanical aspects of the cart be removed as was needed in order to perform the alchemy they had worked on. The overgrowth along the railroad took the most time to clear, but after that, the process of creating a new rail system was quick. In the end Ishmael dropped the last of the supplies onto the cart before Kevin finished the alchemy that they had so carefully worked out. When everything was done all we could do was wait, and hope. Wait, and hope.

Copyright 06.2007

The story "The Rails " is the property of Jeff Fischer and can not be reprinted or redistributed without my permission.