In the Heart of the Iron Conundrum: Part One

This is Part One of a short sci-fi story. If you've already read the story and asked, but where is the sci-fi, don't worry, the sci-fi is yet to come! And expect a few twists and turns along the way!

It was a novel idea, holding a ball on the Iron Will. Only the wealthiest people on Earth had been invited to the charity event being held on the quaint steam train that rumbled through the countryside of central France. As such, the dining cart was supplied with plates of caviar, antipasto dishes, and other culinary delights befitting of such wealth. There were people dressed in immensely royal dresses, suits befitting of royalty, and outfits from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds representing the more luxurious sides of their culture. Discussions of finances, politics, marriage proposals and betrothals, business deals, luxury cars, and cosmetic surgeries were on the lips of every guest. There were beautiful men and women spinning around in the dance cart, overweight men refilling their fifth wine glass with the finest red, and people sat around the onboard fountain in the lounge cart, nattering away about raising money for the unfortunates of the world. It was a shindig to remember.

Although the Iron Will was built for the pure purpose of hosting events, others used it for transporting goods. The steam train had cargo carts, currently filled with items needed to maintain an evening of delights for the wealthy. As such, they were heavily guarded before the classic iron-clad and burgundy coloured train set off on its five-hour jaunt around the countryside. It meant getting into cargo was near impossible… unless you were Jonah Rhodes. Jonah used to work as a bodyguard for a high ranking official in America before he was discharged after the official believed Jonah had been skimming from contractor salaries. It was all lies, all a huge cover up for the official’s own skimming, and it was Jonah who got the blame. He had to flee the country to escape the life sentence he was wrongfully given, ending up in the heart of France, with a backpack of sleeping gear and the clothes on his back. When he heard about the Iron Will’s creation, and learnt from looking into places he shouldn’t that it needed to stop close to the eastern most border of France, he knew this was his chance to skip the country and start again.

Somehow, four other people had also heard about the Iron Will’s destination. Jonah wasn’t alone at the Iron Will’s station the night before it was due to depart. He’d been living isolated, moving from place to place. He was always on guard, even more so when he entered a warehouse adjacent to where the Iron Will was going to pull up. But even he was surprised to see four other homeless individuals sat around a single portable gas stove, warming up a single can of soup.

“Mind where you stand, rough’en. We got them glass bits in the doorway,” said a beady eyed woman as Jonah opened the door.

Jonah immediately stepped back, eyeing the four people in front of him. They had stacked several crates around the place so they couldn’t be seen from the outside, hence he’d not spotted them during his initial scout of the place. As for the people, they were clearly homeless and down on their luck. The woman who’d spoken to him was middle-aged, with a head of wiry black hair that seemed to have a personality of its own. She was dressed in a mismatch of camping clothes, clearly ill-gotten. Two of the other people were so alike, it was like they were clones of each other. Both men had shrewd features, like they were trying to suss everyone out constantly. But they were handsome in their own rights, with strong features and mops of strawberry blonde hair that gave them a forever young aesthetic that would result in many a romantic offer, were they not dressed in dirty rags. The final person had incredibly ambiguous features that did not betray their gender. They had a pair of dark eyes that stared through cracked glasses, and a dark poncho the bore no design nor dirt. They were oddly enchanting, but the way they stared at Jonah made him uncomfortable, like his soul being viewed.

“I ain’t got no beef with ye,” Jonah murmured, looking over his shoulder to check he hadn’t alerted any of the guards.

“Well come on in then, boy, you’re letting the draft in,” said the wiry-haired woman, beckoning in the nervous man.

Jonah hesitated but thought better of running off now in the case he was spotted. Last thing he wanted was to get arrested and carted back to America to serve a sentence that was inevitably going to be worse than what it already was. Picking his way carefully across the glass strewn floor, he made his way towards the four, who were now dishing out the barely warm tomato soup. It was clear he wasn’t going to be offered any of the food, not that he would have taken it anyway, but he was curious about the way the twins were looking at him.

“So, come to join in on the festivities of the rich?” asked the wiry woman, spooning in the soup through her cracked lips.

“Something like that,” Jonah muttered, shifting uncomfortably as the twins maintained their stare.

“Oh, don’t ya worry about them. They’re mute. They communicate with gestures and eyes and stuff. They’re asking for your name.”

“Right. Well, best we keep it as it is, I say. I don’t know any of you.”

The woman guffawed, shaking her wiry hair around her round face. She had many laugh lines etched on her dark face.

“One of them, eh? Everyone’s got dust bunnies under their britches around here, you’re not special. Well, allow me then. I’m Briar, they’re Custard and Prickles, and glasses over there is Trecker. ‘Course, none of those are our real names, given we’re all secretly spies,” Briar said, sticking her finger into her cup and spooning out the last of her measly soup serving. “You can give us any old name. Best do it now or I’ll be forced to give ya a name myself.”

Jonah nodded, glancing back at the closed door to the warehouse. For people like this to have found out exactly where to be and when, and still make enough noise to alert a butterfly let alone some hypervigilant guards, he was rightfully suspicious. He shrugged, and pulled his backpack onto his lap, leaning back against a crate.

“Shrugs, then. We’ll call ya Shrugs. So then, Shrugs, here’s the deal. Us four are getting on that damn train and getting outta dodge. We’re off to make ourselves a little corner of the world that isn’t in the middle of nowhere. You’re doing the same, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. So, you’re going to help us, and we’re going to help you. Then we’ll walk away from each other, having lost nothing but breath on this conversation. Deal?” Briar said, tutting under her breath as if she was talking to a child.

Jonah just nodded, keeping one eye on the four strangers in front of him, and the other on the door. He didn’t care much about these people, but they’d be good fodder if they were caught. Better them than him. He caught himself hovering on that thought for a while after it crossed his mind. He shook his dreadlocks a bit, aghast he’d ever think such a thing. Rubbing his calloused hands together, sighing, he turned to Briar, fixing his steely gaze on her almost motherly looking face.

“Deal. It’d be good for us to stick together. Safety in numbers, and we can watch each other’s backs,” Jonah whispered, letting a small smile form.

Briar, Custard, Prickles, and Trecker nodded back, and resumed their evening meal. It was certainly going to be a tough and interesting heist. Jonah could only hope that at least one of them was going to make it onto the train, and he was going to ensure it was going to happen.