Velocity

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

***

Knowledge is one of those words that can aid in the development of the mind and enhance confidence, or it can disrupt understanding and destroy the confidence you've built of your own truth. Our tendency to abruptly react to perceivable images can often lead to undesirable results. Just like the time when Shelly found herself on a speeding train...

The last thing Shelly remembers was seeing random numbers jumbled in her slumbering brain before she suddenly sprung awake by the jarring motion of the speeding passenger train. It barely made it through the point of transfer where the tracks connect at a 45-degree angle, changing the direction. The left side of her head hit the window with force as she tried to stable herself by grabbing onto the safety bar of the seat in front of her. Where was she and how did she get there?

Born into the Cranston family of Schenectady NY, Shelly was a bright young rising star, hoping to graduate with honors from Laughton Academy in the summer of 2016. She was an extremely hard worker and humanitarian, winning several academic awards for the many volunteer projects she committed her precious time and effort to. She would not only give you the shirt off her back, but she would also take you to buy that shirt and anything else you needed to help you survive another day in this cold, unpredictable world. That's just the person she was...

Her dark brown eyes were clouded with sleep and plagued with itchiness. She used the sides of her fists to vigorously dig at them in hopes of finding some relief...

Apprehensive and scared by the shocking predicament of her location, she checked her perimeter for anything that would help her understand it. She instantly knew she was on a train from the elongated framework and the aggressive sounds of wheels clanking, which created a rhythm on the solid steel tracks. She knew the train was going much faster than it should be from the unstable conditions inside the cabin car, but what she didn't know was how she got there.

After several seconds of trying to grasp her whereabouts, she saw an old man approaching from the front of the train car she was in. She ducked lower into her seat to try and conceal her person as she didn't know his intentions. He was having a hard time keeping his balance and took one step at a time, using each seat he passed to help keep himself on two feet. Shelly looked at him with watchful eyes as he reached for her seat to hold on to. She couldn't tell if he even noticed she was there. He looked straight ahead like he was trapped in some kind of tunnel vision trance. Shelly noticed a bloody handkerchief hanging out the front left pocket of his plaid trousers, it was obviously used to sop up blood from a fresh scar on his forehead which was pasted with dried, flaking blood. The train suddenly jarred again, sending the old man to the opposite side of the car from her. He dropped something onto the charcoal gray tiled floor in the ruckus, it rolled under the seat next to her. She lowered herself down to her knees and blindly reached under the seat. She patted the floor in different places until she felt the object and picked it up. It was a gold coin or perhaps a token of some kind. The tarnished object was the size of a Kennedy half dollar with foreign words engraved on it in cursive writing.

"Sir! Sir! you dropped this!" she kindly said as she walked toward the back of him to return it. There was no reaction. Maybe he was hard of hearing or deaf. She tried again, even louder but nothing came of her gracious attempts. The man continued walking back to his seat as though it was the only desperate goal on his mind. There was no way she was going to touch him to get his attention, so she put the coin in her pocket with the plan to give it back once the train settled down.

Still puzzled about the fact that she was on a train, Shelly looked up and down the rows of the spotless train car filled with uniformed rows of Imperial red faux-leather seats. She counted 12 other passengers scattered around in various spots and positions. She then looked down at the clothing she was wearing and didn't recognize any of it as hers. She had on black denim jeans which were repulsive to her at the sight. She also adorned a pink and white flowered long sleeved polyester shirt with tight curly white ruffles around its draping collar, it was equally wretched. Shelly was the kind of gal that liked wearing dinner dresses, pleated skirts or cargo pants. Classy but conservative. She rarely wore jeans of any type. She decided to search the front and back pockets of the skintight pants for an ID or something she could recognize as hers. All she found was a business card for Jasper's Confections & Refinery. On the back of it was a five-digit number that read 44153. She assumed it was a zip code, maybe it was where the train was headed. She didn't know so she put the card back in her pocket, then sat down and turned her attention to the darkness beyond the window. She carefully leaned toward it and cupped her hands at either side of her head so she could block out the light from inside the train that reflected the interior onto the window. The 3-dimensional image showed the closest objects to the train whizzing by at incredible speeds. When she focused her vision further away, she saw a large lake with evergreen trees sparsely set around it. The full moon reflection glimmered on the lake from the doppler effect of the wavy water. Beyond the lake she could see a few dim lights nestled just below the snowcapped mountain tops. She sat back in her seat and decided it was time to seek some very needed answers.

Shelly stood in the aisle and began walking forward using the same method of holding on to the seats like the old man used a few minutes earlier. A couple rows up she saw a woman and child going about their business, not fazed at all by the speeding train. The woman appeared rigid and was strangely dressed in all black including a wool alloy head piece embellished with rhinestones and a veil. It was as if she was going to or departing from a funeral. Shelly turned toward them and politely asked,

"Excuse me, do you know where we are and where this train is going?"

The curious little girl looked at Shelly and eagerly blurted out,

"We are going to see the king of culprits!"

Her mom quickly covered the girl's mouth with her hand and shooshed her. She looked at Shelly with a hint of concern and says,

"Don't mind her, my little girl has a morbid sense of humor. She doesn't know what she's talking about, sorry."

The woman settled the little girl who was wearing a hideous yellow and white bonnet with a matching dress and shiny black shoes back into her seat by the window and gave her a lemon flavored lollipop that quickly stole her attention.

The woman looks at Shelly again with a glare that said, why are you still here? She says,

"If you want to know where you are going then why not look at the print on your ticket. I'm sure you'll find the answer there."

Shelly thought this was just a tad odd. She didn't understand why the woman couldn't answer the simple question. Shelly didn't have a ticket and didn't feel the need to let the woman in on that, so she just thanked her and continued to walk up the corridor.

Suddenly, everyone became alarmed in unison when the sound of metal scraping against metal filled the air, forcing them to cover their ears with their hands. Sparks flew horizontally across the outside of every window on the right side of the train, creating quite an unnerving spectacle. The cabin lights flickered on and off until the sound and the sparks went away several seconds later. Shelly's concern was growing. She had taken the nearest seat to ride out the frightful occurrence and angrily wondered who could be driving this train.

Her attention was again interrupted when she hears a woman's scream coming from the from the front of the car. Her natural instincts always come into effect when someone is in need of help. She was only 8 rows from the front and quickly made her way up there, getting knocked side to side in the process. The Asian American woman who screamed was in labor.

"OH MY GOD, this child wants out. I'm having this baby right here and right now!" the woman cried out as she repositioned herself across the two seats so she would be in a laying position.

This was the absolute last thing Shelly expected but nevertheless she sprang into action. She got down close to the young lady whose eyes were as wide as the mouth of the Mississippi river.

"I'm going to try and help you okay, now breathe! Breathe evenly...that's good, just like that...WE NEED A DOCTOR, IS ANYONE HERE A DOCTOR? CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!" No one spoke up, but a few people gathered around to see what was happening.

Shelly felt relieved to see a courtesy phone on the wall near an exit and rushed to it. She picked it up and right away heard a recording say, "The call you're trying to make, cannot be completed as dialed." It kept repeating the same line over and over. This was unfortunate. Shelly dropped the receiver leaving it to dangle in the air. She turned back to the suffering woman who began to pant and whine in distress as her contractions were only minutes apart. She knew that someone would have to leave the car to seek help...

From looking out the window earlier she knew they were in the second car from the front where the engineers control the train from. She asked for volunteers to make the run for help but none of the weird and awkward passengers were willing to go outside and cross the walkway that connected to the front car. She decided she had to do it; it was the only way.

She put one of the passengers in charge of keeping the pregnant woman breathing and comfortable as she turned to look at the intimidating door that led outside. When she finally got the door open the sound was deafening. The out-of-control string of cars had to be going 80 miles an hour or more. Her long brown hair flew to the back of her head like she was caught in the middle of a hurricane. The distance she had to travel was only about eight feet to the other door but given the situation if felt more like 100 ft away to her. The very middle section of the walkway had no protection, it was just a thick square metal bar that connected the two cars together. She would have to make a three-foot jump on a speeding train with nothing but a prayer. She took a couple steps back, charged forward and leapt. The left sleeve of her shirt snagged on the railing causing her to twist and land facing the car she just left. She fell to her butt and quickly scooted back to the door of the next cabin. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, causing her heart to beat with the feeling of a base drum being ruthlessly pounded. She slowly stood up, being very careful as the wind was not going to stop the forceful torment. She opened the car door and fell inside to the floor. She quickly kicked the door shut with her feet, silencing the awful whooshing and clanking sound from outside. When she stood up in this new cabin, all she saw were 5 other passengers. Elevator music played over the speakers which was totally out of place and created a feeling that everything was just fine. She looked around for a captain or steward or anyone that was running the train but saw no one. She treks her way toward the front and cautiously stops to look at an attractive older woman with wavy blond hair and bright red lipstick. She was wearing a beige jumpsuit with her legs crossed and was smoking a cigar like a pro. She had a very raspy tone to her voice, and immediately shared her thoughts.

"We're all going to die! You know it, I know it and so does my Cuban, ha ha!" She takes a puff of it, blew a few perfectly round smoke rings toward the seat in front of her and began laughing deliriously. Shelly quickly moved away from her. A couple more rows up she gets to another person. It was a younger gentleman wearing a black beret and a grey button-down sweater, he was sitting comfortably by himself reading. He seemed to be the most normal person she encountered so far, so she turned to him and pleaded in a crescendo type of rant.

"Please help me! This train needs to slow down or stop, NOW! There is a desperate woman back there in the next car about to have a baby, all kinds of awful things are happening. I don't even know how I got on this maniacal train... I really think I'm losing my mind!"

From the looks of his expression, the man was generally concerned, he closes his book, turns to her and says "Desole madame, Je ne parles pas anglais!"

They didn't understand each other, he was French, and she was American. Frustrated from the ironic feeling of that encounter, Shelly ran from him and kept running until she made it to the conductor's cabin. She twisted the doorknob over and over, but it wouldn't budge. She then continuously pounded on it and yelled for help hoping someone would answer but nothing happened. She looked toward the doorknob again and saw a keypad lock perched on the door frame beside it, she sighed heavily...

Shelly didn't want to die on this train. She had so much to live for. She sat there with her back to the door, sobbing and swaying with the jerking motion of the train. She thought about all the wonderful things she wanted to do in life including graduating and running the Boston marathon. She even wanted to hike Pike's Peak — and her poor chihuahua Gracie, who would take care of her? This reminded her that she was a fighter, she wasn't going out like this. She mustered up the energy to stand and turned to look at the keypad, she wondered if the code was something simple... She typed in 1234, a red light appeared signaling that it was an incorrect combination. Then she tried 1111, the red light appeared again. She tried different combinations for several minutes until she remembered that the business card she found in her pocket had a number written on it. She prayed that somehow it was eerily connected. She took the card and out, turned it over, then slowly keyed in 4-4-1-5-3. A green light appeared, and the door unlocked. She rushed into the empty room and cringed at the sight of no one controlling this runaway convoy of shaky train cars. No evidence of employees anywhere...

She sat in one the seats reserved for the captains and watched in horror as she looked out the front window. Crashing was imminent. This train was moving too fast for it to safely arrive anywhere. It could derail at any moment. She began looking at the overwhelming panel of lights to see if she could figure out how to stop it...

As she studied the console, she wondered why they made these things so complicated. Why can't it just be on or off, push or pull. She was no idiot savant and needed instructions for these types of things. She didn't see breaks anywhere so she decided to try anything. She started pushing buttons on and off while pulling levers up and down. Nothing was changing and the train sped on. All the while she continued studying the room she was in and saw a blue handheld device that was laying between the seats. It looked like a cell phone but was much thicker. She picked it up and looked it over, hoping it was something important that could help. She saw it had an on and off switch which she immediately switched to the on position and watched as it powered up. Once it had fully loaded the screen displayed the words, Welcome to Safeway Travels, please enter your password. There was tiny writing toward the bottom of the screen that read, Hint. She tapped on the hint button and the words 'Not Elizabeth II' appeared. What the HELL did that mean? she pondered... If it wasn't Elizabeth II, then who? Maybe her husband but she didn't pay enough attention in school to remember who the king of England was. "THE KING!" she shouted at herself. The vision of the little girl in the cabin car behind her invaded her mind. She brought up the password screen and typed in kingofculprits then hit enter. The screen went dark, followed by an image of a juke box fading in on the screen. It was nostalgic looking with a neon rainbow arch at the top and rows and rows of song titles behind the glass underneath it; it reminded her of the sitcom 'Happy Days', which was the exact opposite kind of day she was having. The camera was slowing panning in closer to the jukebox — it was the only thing in a dimly lit room with a white tile floor, until the lower half of a man dressed in light green scrubs walked up to it from the right-hand side and paused. The 20 second scene ended with the camera right on the man's index finger as he chose the selection K-14.

The feed goes black. Shelly didn't know what to make of this. All she could think of was finding a juke box or something resembling one since this whole situation was becoming some kind of unpleasant scavenger hunt. The train was showing no signs of slowing down...

"Sir, our test subject has completed stage two of the simulation. Her vitals are off the charts. She has passed every test and resolved two clues so far. Do you wish to continue?"

Shelly was partaking in an experiment from the get-go. There was no speeding train, no woman in labor. Everyone and everything she encountered was simulated. It was very real and life threatening to her though, it had her emotions caught up in a tightly twisted knot.

"I see, I see...Yes! number nine, proceed. We need to know if her will to survive can overcome this improbable quandary. Only 18.391 minutes has elapsed from the time she awakened to the time it took her to get inside the conductor's booth. This is the fastest pace so far out of any of the test subjects. Give her 2 milligrams of succinylcholine, it will calm her heartrate. And simulate a new passenger on the car she's in... Send in the Liar to see if he can distract her from solving the last two clues before the train reaches terminal velocity of the propulsion program. This will end the simulation and she will have to repeat it from the start... I need to know how she handles this even though it may change the outcome of the streak she is on."

"Right away Sir!" Number nine felt that distracting her any further was like cheating, she was obviously distraught, and they had never interfered with any of the previous subjects. But he did what he was told.

The simulation was designed to strengthen your mind and rid it of fear. Shelly agreed to take part hoping to land an intern position with an affiliate company of theirs. It was the most stressful thing she has ever done in her life; she had no idea what the simulation entailed. They only thing they told her is that it was an exciting journey! It strengthened her mind alright, but it did not rid her of fear. She would have the last laugh...

Shelly completed the final two tasks by finding an envelope taped under seat K-14. She knew the jukebox was just a ruse after she saw the seats were labeled with numbered letters. The Liar they sent in had no chance; all of his attempts were squandered. Shelly was too focused to deal with the eccentricities of the passengers and basically ignored him after he said they needed to go the caboose to access the emergency break. Shelly knew that the train didn't have a caboose.

Inside the envelope she found was a letter written in French, she sighed again, but it gave her the idea to take it to the Frenchman she encountered several minutes earlier. He read the letter out loud to her which could have been written in any foreign language, it was just a bunch of vocal sounds that made no sense to her. After he was done reading, he tried to describe to her how to stop the train, but the language barrier proved to be more difficult than solving a Rubik's Cube. He then took a pen out of his knapsack and began to draw the item in which the letter stated would stop the train. As she watched the image being constructed, she quickly realized it was the coin she got from the old man. She hastily took it out of her pocket and gave it to the foreigner, they both rushed to the captain's booth. He inserted the coin in a slot hidden within the confusing panel of lights on the control board. Suddenly the clanking stopped, and the panel went black. The man then looked at shelly with a mischievous grin, he blew her a kiss and waved goodbye...

Shelly came to in real life attached to a gyroscope structure which accounted for the very real motions of being on an unstable train. She had completed the life draining mind mirage in record time. Number nine was the first image her sulking eyes laid upon. Her arms and legs were constrained as a precaution due to muscle reflexes. As soon as she was free of the contraption, she decked number nine right in the face, knocking his head to the side and leaving him with an instant bruise to tend to. She ripped the remaining cords and sensors from her body, got dressed and exited the test room, not caring about the job she no longer wanted. She felt the simulation was a cruel, humiliating concept whose only purpose was to amuse its creator. She was so upset and caught up in emotion, tears rolled from her eyes in relief that she was out of danger. The lingering fear of death followed her for the next few hours...

Shelly rallied to have the project shut down by informing several officials including the governor of the state of Newyork who took interest in the matter. Four months later, the V-CAP company who was responsible for the experiments were fined 10 million dollars for practicing medicine illegally. The operation was temporarily shut down until the government could set up regulations to monitor its progress. As for Shelly Cranston, she did graduate at the top of her class with a major in psychology. In 2018, two years after she saw her life flash before her eyes in the simulation, she landed a dream job in London as a foreign aid worker. The U.K. is known for its advanced underground train system, but she would rather walk than step foot on one ever again.

Maybe there is a purpose of seeing how one reacts to false knowledge, but do we need a simulation in order to test it. We are duped everyday by so many lies that our minds may never know what the real truth is.