Train to Hell © Matt Quinn 1998. Contains violence and profanity. Suddenly, a voice boomed out through the din. "Is it ready yet?" "Almost sir. We just have to relink this cable" one worker on a specially shielded car said. Then, he bent down and began fiddling with some wiring in the shield. Something hummed. "It's finished sir." Dr. Walter Attwood was pleased. "Good" he said. "All systems go. Move it forward." The train chugged forward, out of the secret tunnel built for it under the waving grasses and peaceful streams. "Excellent" Attwood said, walking out the tunnel on a ramp. "Now link it up." In the shielded car, two technicians typed in commanded. One of them began talking on a walkie-talkie. "Just pick the particle beam satellite, and lock it onto that big rock over there" Attwood said to the technicians in the car. Up in orbit, a satellite turned, and locked onto the rock with its sophisticated sensory equipment. Then, it fired. A green beam of light shot out from the sky, and it hit the rock. It exploded, hurling shrapnel and debris over a square mile area. "Excellent. Now get this train moving. I have some phone calls to make." In the White House, President Clinton picked up the phone. He was in a jolly mood because a judge had just dismissed the Paula Jones case, and he wasn't going to have to pay any fines or do time. "Good morning" he said cheerfully. "What? That weapons system is ready! I thought that was cancelled." "That was one condition of our little deal, Mr. President." Ah, damn Bill Clinton thought. That little prick Attwood was blackmailing him. He had James Carville wear a listening device, so when he and the President had a talk about important matters pertaining to the Paula Jones and Vince Foster cases, he had recorded every word, and demanded that the President authorize a satellite weapons system. "There is one good thing about this arrangement for you, besides not being arrested" Attwood said sweetly. "We don't need to throw soldiers around as much as we used to, we can use these satellites as weapons." "Alright" Clinton said. "What now." "There's going to be something of a party on the train because we finished the damn thing on schedule for once. How many guests can be invited?" "Two for you, and one for the foreman of the project. The workers and others really can't bring anyone else." "Agreeable." Attwood hung up.
Six hours later, the plane landed in Los Angeles airport, and Attwood got out, gathered his bags, and returned to the lab where he worked. He saw that things were as they usually were. Dr. Ed Tate was filling out a report on something, Dr. Sloan Parker was analyzing DNA readouts from a captured assassin for the new species, and Tom Daniels was gone, out hunting for assassins like he was supposed to. "Good morning everyone" Attwood said. "It's six in the afternoon," Ed said pointedly. "Who cares? Folks, I have a job that is needed to be done." "What?" Sloan asked. "I have a satellite in orbit that searches for, anomalous objects, and I need both of you to help attenuate for large concentrations of the new species. Care to help me?" "Cool" Ed said. "Fine" Sloan said. "But who's going to guard the lab?" "Tom is. I'll have him told later." "Okay" Sloan said. Several hours later, Ed and Sloan were brought to a closed train station Missouri. Attwood got in with minimal disturbance, and they waited. Suddenly, a train roared in. It was sleek, fast, and seemed quite heavily armed. A door opened. "Welcome aboard" Attwood said as he climbed in. The others followed suite. The doors closed and the train shot out of the station. Overhead, three helicopters silently wheeled over the train, following it at a comfortable speed. Inside each helicopter were 7 soldiers of the new species, heavily armed with Uzis, ZMGs, and grenade launchers. Their orders were to capture the train.
Inside the train, the party was going at a full clip. Drinks had been served, and everyone seemed to be talking about something. "When exactly are we going to attenuate the satellite system?" Ed asked. "You're not. I already had that done. I actually needed a ploy to invite you to the party." Something thumped on the roof, and everyone went quiet. They could hear someone walking around up there. "Who the hell's up there?" Attwood yelled through the roof. No answer. "Send up a couple of security boys up there with really big guns. Something fishy is going on." Two armed security men walked to the ladder that led to the roof. They climbed it, neither saying a word. When they opened the hatch and called out, no one answered. They climbed out of the train's interior, onto the roof, and looked out. Both were caught in a crossfire of automatic weapons. They fell to their knees, and back down the open hatch. The 21 commandos filed in. In the party room, gunfire roared. Commandos dressed entirely in black and armed with compact machine guns were fighting with security personnel. Three security men and five commandos were already dead, as were 12 party-goers. A grenade was fired into the security personnel's area, killing 12 of them. Now winning the fight, the commandos walked into the room. "Everyone down" one roared. "We're taking over this train in the name of the Symbionese Liberation Army." "What the hell's the Symbionese Liberation Army?" a guest asked. Gunfire chattered. The guest died on the floor. "Any more smart remarks?" the commando asked. The train car was silent. Attwood had sneaked off during the fight, and broadcasted a message to the lab. The phone rang, and Tom answered it. "Hello" he asked. "This is Attwood. There's a train in Missouri, recently attacked by members of the new species. Sloan, Ed, and I are in mortal danger. Can you get anyone to help? I've activated the coordinate transmitter on frequency 7.567." Something clicked. Someone spoke. "Put it down." The phone clicked off. Tom hung up the phone on his end, eyes cold as steel. Brushing Peterson aside, he called for a helicopter. A very fast one. Hours later, Tom's helicopter flew came upon the train, speeding toward the swampy Mississippi delta. Tom grabbed an Uzi pistol and as the chopper flew low, he jumped onto the rearmost car. He was lucky that he did that. A door on the side of the train opened, and rocket shot out, dropping the chopper onto the rails, destroying it completely. "Someone's on the roof" the leader of the assassins, Trace Kaufman said. "Helenski, you go remove the annoyance." "Yes sir" Helenski said, beaming with pride. Then, he loaded his machine gun and climbed onto the roof. The wind whipped over the train, cold as ice and hard as steel. He checked his rifle, looking down long enough for Tom to strike. Tom fired seven rounds into Helenski's chest and abdomen, knocking him forward onto the front car. He died when the bullets shredded his internal organs. "Helenski's dead" Kaufman roared. "Carver, Jenson; get your asses up there and kill that vermin." "Yes sir" Carver said, her hands trembling with rage. Jenson nodded his head, and loaded his gun. Things were going to become violent. Tom stalked over the train roof, looking for something to destroy that would stop the train. He heard an almost imperceptible click of shoes on steel. He spun, gun firing. The bullets whizzed by the man and the woman's heads, and they fired back. Bullets ricocheted off the steel, and Tom began firing. Jenson was hit first, and was blasted of the train, onto the tracks to be left for the buzzards. Carver just got madder. This traitorous worm, if he really was the Tom Daniels who the clan leader Lewis always ranted about, would die painfully. "Bastard" she screamed into the wind. "I'm going to kill you!" "What would possibly motivate you to do that" Tom roared back. "Revenge! You are Tom Daniels, are you not?" "Yes." He began firing, riddling her body with lead. Then, he noticed the open hatch into the train. He walked over, and climbed down. "Damnit!" Kaufman roared. "Tom has penetrated the train! Everyone! Get hostages! Two of you, get Dr. Parker. Things are going to get interesting." Tom stalked through the darkened belly of the train, eyes scanning left and right for assassins. He could sense several of them, but Lewis, before his capture, had trained several assassins in blurring Tom's ability to sense them. How many of the assassins were trained that way; Lewis wasn't telling. Something moved. Tom pointed his rifle at the area. "Don't shoot" someone ordered. "Or she will die." "Two questions. Who's talking and who will die?" "I, Trace Kaufman leader of the Midwestern Rattlesnake Clan. The one who will die is Dr. Sloan Parker. Two of my most capable warriors are there right now, pointing guns at her head. You've killed my people who have been holding hostages before they could kill the hostage, but two? Lewis himself wasn't even that good." "If you kill Sloan, I swear to God, I will beat you to death with a rifle butt, then tear out your heart and make you watch it stop beating." "You and Mr. Stamper (Tomorrow Never Dies, (c) their creators and Eon Productions). Seriously, if you think I'm going to let you..." Tom fired, cutting the man's scream short. Then, he rushed forward. "Don't make another move, Tom. Or she will die." It was another assassin speaking. The assassin was a black man with a buzz cut, and he had an AK-74 pointed at Sloan's head. Another assassin, a white guy with an automatic shotgun, has his gun pointed at her head. Tom looked left, and right, lowering his gun. Then, he saw something move. It was Ed, creeping up behind the two assassins. Ed didn't stand a chance, even if they were unarmed, but it would provide a needed distraction. He narrowed his eyes as Ed leaped... Tom raised his gun and shot the black man as Ed landed on the other. The man picked him and threw him into a wall, but then Tom killed him. All was fine now. "Stay here" Tom said to them, throwing them the guns of the men he killed. Then, he stalked off. Two assassins were just then opening the door to the driver's area. They had control of every part of the train except the conductor's "cockpit" and the satellite control system, which they wanted. They were coming upon the famous Missouri Swamp Bridge, which was a mile long span of steel over a deep bog. Suddenly, they busted down the door and killed the conductor. Unfortunately for them, the body of Helenski had fallen onto the tracks, and the train cut right through it, but a chance alignment of the body and the wheels derailed it. The back four cars plunged into the swamp just as self-destruct charges went off. In case of the train wrecking, the designers of the train had put a "suicide catch" into the programming. If the satellite control area was compromised (water had flooded in), then charges in the wheel carriage of all the cars exploded. The result tore up the cars pretty bad and killed most of the people on them. Sloan, Ed, Attwood and the seven people with them were fortunate. The forces of the explosions had been directed to the sides and not up, tearing huge holes in the sides. They were in the fifth car, which was ten minutes from sinking into the morass. Seven alligators were swimming about, hunting for scarce prey in the region where the train slammed into mire, and several chunks of Helenski that were tangled up in the wheel carriage were shot out, leaving a trail of blood. The alligators formed a wolf pack, and began following the trail of blood. To the wrecked train. Assassin Jon Raymond scrambled up away from the rising waters, onto a chair bolted to the floor. The hole was huge, about 16X20 feet, and his part of the train was hanging together by a thin wall of steel. The water kept rising, along with some odd-looking ripples. He slid down a little... Two alligators launched from the water, one seizing his head, the other his legs. They began twisting... Raymond was torn in half. His internal organs spilled into the flooding train, which two other arriving alligators ate. One of the gators swallowed both of his legs, while the other twisted his torso apart beneath the reddened waters. Tom felt the train buckle, and saw part of it sinking into the swamp, pulling the rest of the train down. He quickly rushed back to the car in which he had left the others. That car was flooding too. Sloan saw the ripples in the bloodstained swamp water and knew what it meant. She had heard the screams as the alligators tore men apart in the other car. She slowly began moving upward. She almost screamed. One of her ankles was broken, and she could barely move. She pulled herself up again, seeing the red eyes of the alligator eyeing her hungrily. She raised the ZMG machine gun Tom had given her after killing those two assassins, and fired it at the alligator's head. It went under, and floated back up. She hoped that it was over six feet, or she would be liable to be charged with violating federal wildlife laws. Damn. Tom ran into the train car to find it half-flooded. A dead alligator floated in front of a terrified Sloan, and two alligators were fast approaching and... They bit down on the dead gator, tearing it in half. Tom grabbed Sloan and Ed, and dragged them to higher ground, almost stepping on Attwood. It seemed to rouse all of them. "The train is sinking! We need to get out of it NOW!" Tom said hurriedly. "For once, we agree," Ed said groggily. "Unfortunately, in order to get out, we need to swim through Alligator Swamp. So, everyone hold their breath, grab a sharp object, and SWIM!!" Everyone dove in at the same time, except for Sloan who dove in a second later, gingerly adjusting her broken ankle. As she swam, she could see more alligators swarming into the wreckage; or swarming out carrying human limbs. She came out from under the wreckage, and Ed pulled her up. Then, they began running up the line of trains, and were almost clear of the sinking cars when the click of a gun and an enraged voice stopped them. "Freeze, you bastards." It was Kaufman. He was trailing blood, and seemed to be bleeding badly, but he seemed to intend to take them down with him. "Any last words?" "Go to hell" Sloan said angrily. He raised his gun to fire and... A huge alligator, almost 18 feet long, surged up, swallowing him, jaws about his neck, and then dragged the screaming terrorist into the blackwater swamp. They scrambled away, and sat on the bank. Attwood pulled out his waterproof cellular phone, and called in. Two hours later, just as the last train car slipped beneath the calm, black-red surface of the swamp, a chopper arrived. They were going home.
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