Car 1 – The Orchard of Frozen Seconds
00:23:49 until next jump.
The doors sighed open on a smell of iron and wet earth. Cass stepped out first, boots crunching frost that glittered like powdered glass. Behind him, Mara's breath plumed and hung motionless in the air—each exhale a white statue that refused to fall.
The car stretched farther than geometry allowed: rows of black-barked trees under a sky that looked like someone had paused a lightning strike. Every flash was frozen mid-fork, casting still shadows sharp enough to cut.
Clockwork apples dangled from the branches, their skins etched with tiny, racing numerals.
00:23:44… 00:23:43…
Cass took one step closer. The nearest fruit ticked louder than his heart.
"Don't touch them," Mara warned. "I read about this in—" She frowned, as if the memory had slipped behind a pane of ice. "I think I read about it."
The 13-minute rewind was still cooling; he couldn't use it again until the train phased. Which meant whatever happened here would be permanent.
A child's giggle echoed. Whisper darted between the trunks, her crayon clutched like a dagger. She stopped beneath a tree and pointed upward. High in the branches, a single apple displayed no numbers at all—just a perfect, reflective surface.
In it, Cass saw the locomotive. Empty. On fire. His own corpse slumped against the throttle.
He reached instinctively for the tablet on his belt. The screen stuttered, then displayed three lines of blood-red text:
CAR LAW #1 – TIME HERE IS FRUIT.
CAR LAW #2 – EVERY SECOND PICKED AGES THE PICKER.
CAR LAW #3 – WHEN THE LAST APPLE FALLS, THE CAR IS DELETED.
00:22:10.
A low tremor rolled under the soil. One tree cracked straight down its middle, revealing a hollow lined with teeth-shaped gears. From inside, something exhaled: a wind that smelled of old film reels and funeral flowers.
Cass's stopwatch vibrated— a new sub-timer he'd never set.
APPLE INTEGRITY: 47 / 50.
Three had already dropped somewhere out of sight.
The Auditor's voice drifted over the intercom— impossible; the train was a kilometer behind and sealed.
> "Iteration 042 begins. Survivor count: four. Expected attrition: one."
Whisper tugged his sleeve and offered her crayon drawing: the orchard without trees, only a pile of apples counting down to zero.
Mara knelt, gloved fingers brushing the soil. "There's a pattern in the roots— Morse, maybe. If we can read it—"
Another crack. A second tree split. An apple the size of a heart detached, hovered, then plummeted in slow motion.
00:21:03.
Cass made the calculation aloud. "Fifty apples. Forty-seven left. Roughly twenty-three minutes before the last falls. That's our window."
Mara's eyes widened. "You said our window. What about the passengers still asleep in Car 9?"
He didn't answer. Instead he pulled a collapsible scanner from his belt— sleek black metal that hadn't existed yesterday. The Singularity Core had printed it while he slept, trading 11 hours of his lifespan for the blueprint. The cursor blinked:
SCANNING… ROOT NETWORK 0.7 % DECODED.
Whisper darted again, this time toward the hollow tree. The gears inside began to turn, slow as centuries. A third apple detached.
00:20:17.
Cass stepped between her and the hole. The wind gusted harder, carrying dust that looked like seconds— tiny silver numerals swirling, 23, 22, 21…
He reached up, fingers brushing the nearest apple. The numerals on its skin jumped onto his wrist, burning cold. His reflection in the mirrored apple aged five years in an instant— gray threading his temples, skin tightening over cheekbones.
But the scanner pinged: 1 % data converted into a route map through the orchard's safest path.
Trade accepted.
Mara saw the white in his hair and swallowed. "How much life did that cost you?"
"Less than the next one." He handed her the scanner. "Guide Whisper. I'll buy us minutes."
He drew the compact plasma cutter from his thigh holster— another Core-forged debt. Triggered it. Violet fire bloomed, casting long, unmoving shadows among the lightning-struck sky.
Apple integrity: 46 / 50.
Cass advanced, blade humming, slicing branches that bled sand instead of sap. Every cut spilled more numerals into the air— a blizzard of stolen time settling on his shoulders like frost.
Behind him, Mara's voice rose: "Path clear to the center! There's a maintenance hatch— maybe the car's exit!"
The ground shuddered. Not a tree this time— the entire horizon tilted. Apples began to fall like hail.
00:18:00.
Cass sprinted, the cutter roaring, carving a tunnel of burning seconds. Silver numbers splashed across his visor, blinding him. He felt his knees buckle— forty years older now, maybe fifty— but the Core kept his heart mechanical, ticking against the Silence.
He reached the hatch just as the last apple— the mirror-apple— detached above Whisper's head. She looked up, unafraid, and caught it with both hands.
The orchard froze. Every falling fruit hung mid-air, a photograph of ruin.
On the hatch: a keypad. One line typed itself, letter by letter.
> PAY 13 MINUTES TO OPEN.
Cass laughed— a cracked, papery sound. He still had exactly thirteen minutes until the next jump. The train wouldn't wait.
He pressed his thumb to the pad. The display pulsed CONFIRMED.
Somewhere behind his eyes, thirteen minutes of future life evaporated. The hatch irised open, revealing a ladder down into red-lit circuitry that breathed like lungs.
Whisper handed him the mirror-apple. Its surface now showed a new image: the train at 00:00:00, doors closing, Cass still inside the orchard.
He looked at the frozen fruit, then at Mara, then at the hatch.
"Run," he said.
They ran.
As the ladder swallowed them, the orchard resumed its fall. Fifty apples hit the ground at once— no sound, no bounce— and the entire car folded into two dimensions, slid sideways, and vanished.
00:17:59… 00:17:58…
The Obsidian Express was already pulling away.