Night Train

Neon lights flashed by in a blur of motion outside the windows of the room I found myself in. Bright pink, blue, and green lights flashed into the room in a dizzying array. “Must be on the maglev,” I thought to myself as I woke up and shook the sleepiness from my body. Even as I came to this conclusion, it caused more questions than answers. First red flag in my mind was that I never take the maglev anywhere in the city. Walking gives me the time to process my thoughts and clear my mind. The other two mysteries were that I have no memory of getting on the train, and after checking my pockets, I have no ticket and none of my belongings. Missing my wallet wasn’t a big deal. I didn't have enough money to worry about theft, but the missing pistol was of more concern. While I had little experience with the bullet style maglev, I could tell that it appeared to be going faster than normal, and even more concerning, it was speeding up.

Noting everything in the compartment with me told me that this was no ordinary maglev. I appeared to be in some kind of makeshift laboratory. Pungent smells of cleaning chemicals filled the lab as if someone had recently sterilized it. The room was faintly lit by dim incandescent lighting, almost never used these days. Otherwise, the only light in the room came from the flashing lights outside the window. Equipment and benches bolted down to not have them move when the maglev sped up or slowed down suddenly. Most of the equipment looked like the kind needed to perform blood tests and other biological tests. It was at this moment that I noticed the next odd and somewhat frightening thing. I could see all of this perfectly, and I wasn’t wearing my glasses.

All my life I’d needed corrective lenses to ‌see anything beyond a few inches in front of my face. Now suddenly everything was clearer than it ever had been, even with my glasses. Corrective surgeries existed, of course, but I could never afford them. But if someone had selected me for a corrective surgery, why at night on a moving maglev? No, there had to be something more to this. I couldn’t shake the nervous feeling in my stomach. I stood up and tried to find a mirror, and that’s when I noticed the next strange thing about me. My body seemed much stronger and faster than it ever had before. I could feel the muscles and tendons tighten and flex under the skin as I moved. I felt like a stranger in my ‌body. As if ‌I didn’t belong within it. That couldn’t be right, though. I mean, I could see that the body looked like my own, maybe a bit more muscular than before, but still mine. I continued my search until I found a mirrored surface, and looking into it, I froze.

I stared at the same face I’d seen millions of times throughout my life, with one minor detail changed. My eyes. They used to be blue, but now they were a golden color. Everything else was the same, just a different color in the irises. But I had heard the rumors, and I knew what having golden eyes was supposed to mean. I suppose it would even explain the significant improvement in my physical fitness. More frantically now, I started searching the room, hoping to find an exit.

It didn’t take long for me to find the room’s only exit. “Must be at the very back,” I thought to myself. Taking a deep breath, because the more I learned, the more I believed something bad was going to happen, I opened the door and peered into the next car. Immediately, the carnage in the room assaulted my senses. The next car looked like a scene out of a horror film. Blood covered every surface in the room, and the corners held stacks of corpses. The bodies were already decaying, so either I’d been asleep for a decently long time, or they weren’t killed here. The classic iron smell of blood mixed with the stench of rotting flesh turned my stomach. After a few moments, I got a grip and inspected the room. My fears and the rumors I’d heard about people with golden eyes were confirmed shortly after.

I heard the hum of electricity as if a computer started up inside my brain. Before my eyes, a heads-up display, or HUD, appeared with the word initializing. The rumors everyone whispered on the neon-lit streets of the city were that one of the many corporations who ran the city had perfected cybernetics. They were forcing random people to become cyborgs so that the corporations could have an army of obedient workers to do whatever they pleased with. The HUD now confirmed that the red liquid all over the walls was in fact blood, and that all the bodies in the room were in fact dead human bodies. Of more interest, however, was the fact that most of the blood was of birds and rats, animals known to freely roam around the city. All the bodies were of people who went missing years ago. Finally, after the HUD displayed as much information as it ‌could, it blinked three times and displayed the message, “Incoming Transmission.” Bright white letters typed in front of my eyes.

"Congratulations! You have been selected to take part in our social experiment. You will ‌notice that you have been physically augmented and enhanced in every way possible. You may wonder why you were selected or why this is all done anonymously, but let us assure you, we have our reasons. At this point, you have noticed you are on the out-of-control maglev with many corpses. You have three options: let the maglev crash and hope you die with it, stop the maglev and be arrested on the spot, or escape. Only one option gets the answers you want, perhaps even need. Choose wisely!"

The transmission ended with the logo for a corporation I've never seen before, VoidTech Industries. My first thought was to just let the maglev crash. After all, I’d lived a fairly long life and the likelihood that my life was going to improve was almost none. But shortly after having the thought, the HUD displayed that our final destination was the largest hospital in the district, and I would kill thousands of people with me. Judging by the sheer number of bodies in the next room, execution or life in prison awaited me if caught. The obvious route they wanted me to take was to escape the train and let it crash, but I couldn’t just let them die. With that final thought, the HUD told me that, at the current rate of acceleration, I had five minutes to stop the maglev and escape before the authorities caught me.

Wasting no time, I ran across the room and to the door of the next car. I entered that car and found a dining area, also completely full of the bodies of missing people. I wondered if all the missing persons in the city were caused by this VoidTech corporation. No time to worry about that though, I sprinted through the dining area and into the next car.

As I entered ‌the next car, I requested a schematic of the train using my newfound ability. This car was about three cars away from the main car and the controls to slow and stop the maglev. In this car I saw tons of photos of myself. On my way to work, on my way home from work, dining with friends, obviously VoidTech had been following me for weeks, maybe even months. I made my decision. I would die before I agreed to do anything for them. And if by some miracle I made it out of this situation, I was going to hunt them down.

The last two cars were completely empty. I guess they decided there was enough evidence against me in the first three cars. As I came into the main car, I could see the hospital in the distance. My new sixth sense, as I come to think of the HUD, showed me how to slow and stop the maglev. The only problem is it would take up the last three minutes I had remaining. If I stopped it too quickly, it would derail and crash into the hospital, anyway. I had to decide, and I had to decide soon. I asked for one more calculation, to which I was told the probability of survival wasn’t likely, but it would grant me one extra minute. That would have to be enough, because there was no more time.

I applied the brake to the maglev in the way the HUD suggested for what I was about to attempt. Then I made my way to the top of the maglev. The wind howled past me as I continued to my final destination. I took a deep breath and jumped down in front of the maglev. I grabbed on and dug in my heels with all the strength my new body could allow me.

The sun rose over the skyscrapers of the city. On the morning news, there was a story of a mysterious maglev found just a few feet before the largest hospital in the industrial district. While dozens of missing people were found dead on the maglev, no one else had been found. There were no witnesses of the maglev. Just one strange clue. A couple of deep tracks dug into the ground between the rails of the maglev track.