Through the Golden Door

The sense of motion and regular clattering from below let Liam know he was on a train before he even opened his eyes. He had no memory of boarding for a trip and no idea of where, if anywhere, he was supposed to be, or where he might be going. Laying there, comforted by the rhythm of the conveyance, Liam wondered if he was dreaming within a dream. The distant sound of the locomotive’s steam-whistle far ahead broke his reverie.

He sat up in a cot and found himself in a caboose that was simply a small cabin affixed to a railcar. The pillow under his head was striped with black streaks left by coal-dust stained fingers and the cot’s bedding was made of scratchy wool. Canvas window shades had been pulled down, but enough light entered that he was able to see several other cots, a table nailed to the floor, and a legless stove with a lip around the top, presumably to keep pots and pans from sliding off when the train accelerated or slowed.

Every item and surface Liam could see was marked with black fingerprints, from the tin coffee mugs dangling from hooks on the wall by the stove to the stock of the rifle affixed over the caboose’s back door. The coal bin against the wall could not account for the amount of particulate matter floating through the diffused sunlight. Liam’s skin felt gritty as he stood and made his way to the door at the end of the car, but it seemed to be locked from the outside.

He peeled back one of the shades and peered out a filthy, thin-paned window to see that the train was passing through some sort of ravine; sheer rock walls stood too high all around to reveal the landscape. Taking inventory of the situation, Liam saw that he was wearing a train conductor’s coveralls, similar to the blue denim ones hanging on pegs nearby, but stark white and spotlessly clean. He peered around, looking for cameras, wondering if he was on some sort of prank show, though the set-up seemed too elaborate for any such thing. He snatched a white cap off the filthy pillow and placed it on his head, hoping that this was all one big joke and deciding to play along.

His pockets were empty, no phone, no keys, not even a ticket stub that might offer a clue to what was happening. Unable to remember much of anything, Liam considered that he may have been drugged, then decided that human traffickers would be unlikely to leave him unattended, plus he felt well rested and alert. As he stood, considering his situation, the train lurched and he stumbled into the table, leaving a black line across the white thighs of his coveralls. Apparently out of other options, he moved to the front of the caboose, then turned and looked at the gun over the door. He considered taking it, but, still hopeful that this was some ruse, decided that it was likely loaded with blanks to make him look even more of a fool. Liam opened the door that led to the next car, knowing that hope was the worst of all evils, for it prolongs the torment of man.

Looking down, he could see the coupling passing rapidly over the tracks, and in the gap between cars he could see the rock walls of the ravine flying by swiftly. The golden door leading to the next car seemed out of place, yet eerily familiar. Liam reached across the space between the cars and turned the knob. The whistle ahead shrieked as he stepped over the tracks, and at that moment the sun fled behind some clouds or the train entered a tunnel. The place between the cars was as black and cold as a winter night, and some electric force there caused all the hair on Liam’s body to stand on end as he crossed the threshold.

He found himself in a freight car. Huge rolls of denim stood taller than him on each side, with a narrow aisle down the middle. Alarmingly, behind him was merely a wooden, slatted wall, with no door to be found. Kerosene lanterns hanging above illuminated the scene, revealing more coal dust in the air as they swayed and cast moving shadows. Liam made his way past the denim and found barrels with spades and pickaxes sprouting like flowers from them.

There were piles of coiled rope and dozens of crates stenciled with Remington, Winchester, and Springfield. More crates were labeled “Blasting Caps” and atop those were casks stamped “180 Proof.” Halfway through the car Liam detected motion ahead and realized he was not alone. As he drew closer he saw a man wearing a conductor’s hat dressed in filthy coveralls sitting on a crate of salted beef with a cask next to him. The man was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and sipping from a tin cup.

Liam approached and hesitantly said, “Excuse me, do you know where we are?” but the man did not respond. The cup in his coal-stained hand paused on its way to his coal-stained face. He looked around, seemingly sensed nothing, then took a sip. “Do you know where we’re going?” asked Liam again. The man leaped to his feet and peered around him. He then drained his cup, stoppered the cask, and nestled them both under a coil of rope, before departing quickly through the golden door at the front of the car.

Liam next found himself in a freight car turned no-frills passenger cabin. Dusty, bearded men slept using rucksacks as pillows or drank from canteens. One urinated out the open door on the side, a yellow stream falling behind the train as it sped across a vast, open plain. He saw the golden door at the front of the car slam shut.

Liam rushed to follow, passing quickly through the dark and frigid place between, and found himself in a passenger car full of people. They were all dressed in old-fashioned clothes, the men wearing hats and jackets with bolo-ties and the women in long skirts. A fox-fur stole lay draped over the back of one of the benches. Everyone was gathered at the windows on the right side of the car and Liam could not make out what they were doing until a gunshot suddenly sounded and everyone erupted into cheers.

Liam stood on his tip-toes and gazed out the window at an endless plain rushing past. The landscape was dotted everywhere with what he, at first, mistook for black hay bales, then realized he was seeing a vast herd of buffalo stretching out as far as he could see. Liam saw one of the men near him take aim, the barrel of his rifle moving slightly as the train progressed. At the crack of his shot Liam saw one of the great beasts stiffen, then collapse. All around him men and women cheered. Then another shot and more cheers, then another.

“Does anyone know where this train is going?” Liam shouted. The woman closest to him turned and Liam saw that her delicate, beautiful face was covered in blood. She did not appear to see him when she placed her palms against the front of his coveralls, leaving bloody handprints on his chest as he turned and darted through the car.

He passed through the cold place and found himself in the same car, but now it was empty. The fur still lay draped across the bench, and thousands of shell-casings were rolling across the floor, tinkling like broken glass, but not a single person. Liam looked out the window at an endless field of white. Not a spot of green could be seen under the piles of buffalo skulls, stacked into hillocks taller than a man.

The next car was full of horribly scarred men, many of whom were missing limbs. They sat, unspeaking, in silent rows. They stared into their laps, or out windows where a cratered landscape festooned with barbed wire rushed past in a blur. Liam tried to not look at them as he passed.

Next was a bar car with a trio playing jazz music for the passengers. All the men were wearing straw boater hats and dapper suits. The women all wore round, felt cloches and skirts that showed off their knees. They were laughing, shouting and dancing, all the while drinking like the end of the world was upon them. By the time Liam made it to the far door, his coveralls were stained with whiskey spilled on him by the revelers.

This was followed by a car full of grim-faced, smoking men in fedoras, each peering at a newspaper. As Liam rushed down the aisle he could see headline after headline declaring “WAR.” Liam passed through thick clouds of smoke as he made his way past them.

The next car was identical to the previous one, but empty. Newspapers lay scattered over the seats, next to overflowing ashtrays set into the armrests. Out the window, on the horizon, Liam could see a huge mushroom cloud hanging in the air. He ran, hoping it was all a dream.

The next car was empty except for a coffin draped with an American flag. The shades were drawn and Liam passed quickly through the solemn place.

The next car filled Liam with nostalgia. There were men in expensive suits reading The Journal. A teenaged girl with a dozen earrings in each ear and a blue mohawk had nestled her headphones between the spikes atop her head. Liam could hear the aggressive music she was listening to as she glared at the businessmen. A group of sports fans all wearing blue chattered excitedly amongst themselves.

Liam considered taking a seat and waiting for the train to stop. He thought about disembarking at the next station and following the fans to the stadium, cheering and eating hot dogs when he remembered that they were ghosts, or perhaps he was. Hoping it was the corner, he pressed on.

The next car was even more familiar. Everyone sat, heads down, staring at their phones. Instinctively, Liam reached for his own, but his pocket was empty. He saw that one woman, with a baby propped against her chest, was watching the trailer for a movie Liam had been anticipating. “Excuse me,” he asked her, “Do you know where this train is going?”

As the woman raised her eyes to his, he saw that she was the girl with the mohawk all grown up. Her hair was long now, and undyed. As it moved aside Liam could see tiny dots running up her ear, minute scars that he wondered reminded her of whom she had once been. She seemed to look through Liam, then turned back to her screen. He looked wistfully at the people on the car before moving on.

Everyone in the next car sat, staring straight ahead. They all wore clear goggles and Liam could see their eyes darting around beneath the lenses. The only movement other than the expected restless shifting of travelers was the movements of their hands at their sides. Each passenger wore a metallic glove and their fingers twitched and moved as they stared. Suddenly he saw a woman raise her ungloved hand to her mouth and place something under her tongue. Then he saw a man do similarly. Then another.

The sky outside was ochre. Diffuse sunlight filtered down to reveal a landscape full of stunted stalks of dead wheat. Dust formed a film on the outside of the windows, further adding to the bleakness of the scene. None of the passengers gave the scenery so much as a passing glance. Liam hurried through the car to the golden door.

Each seat in the next car held a soldier wearing black combat armor and a helmet that covered most of their face. Tubes ran from some device affixed to their chest before disappearing under the skin of their necks. None of them said a word and none of their gloved hands were moving.

As Liam moved down the aisle he saw that one young soldier had removed his helmet and was rubbing his eyes. The boy turned and looked up with a tear-stained face and Liam saw that though his irises were blue, the whites of his eyes were criss-crossed with some silvery circuitry that stood out against his bloodshot veins. Liam could hear a tinny voice repeating “Replace your helmet! Replace your helmet!” The shades were drawn, but he could see a drift of black soot on the sill outside the train window where one had not been completely closed.

The next car was full of dirty civilians and abuzz with anxiety. Liam saw that each of the passengers had circuitry in their eyes, though none seemed to be engaged in whatever inner world had captivated and comforted those in the prior cars. They spoke amongst themselves in low, hushed tones. Several were nervously reading paper newspapers and Liam saw headlines blaring “WAR” and “Shortages.”

With some measure of disgust he saw that the people each had some bulge on the back of their necks, but upon closer inspection what he had first mistaken for evidence of some disease was revealed to be some sort of implant. Colored lights were visible beneath their skin, most yellow, quite a few red, and very few green.

Bright sunlight illuminated a beautiful, lush countryside beyond the train car. Liam saw birds on the wing and trees full of butterflies. Puffy white clouds overhead looked like cotton balls in the sky. They passed a smiling family picking flowers, who stood up and waved at the train as they passed. No one waved back.

Liam stopped at the front of the car, noticing a static scene through the last window. A flock of geese hung in a V above a flowering tree with butterflies frozen at the tip of every bright branch. He realized they weren’t windows, they were screens.

Just then a bearded man near him stood feet and turned to the others. Liam saw that the lights on the back of his neck were all rapidly flashing red. “Does anyone have any serotonin?” he pleaded loudly. “Can anyone help me with some serotonin?” As Liam passed to the next car he heard the man scream “HELP ME!”

The next car was full of the same people, but the air of frantic desperation had turned to violent anarchy. Liam could smell a sour tang in the air, and saw the bearded man lying motionless on the floor in a pool of blood. There were other dead and Liam saw that each of the corpses had been cut into, ragged, gaping wounds on the back of their necks.

Most of the screens were broken, with spiderweb cracks radiating out from points of impact. Many stuttered, glitched, and froze, but some had gone black and reflected the scene, mirrors reflecting a shadow version of the world. Some of the lights overhead were flickering. Liam saw that many of the fixtures had been torn down and smashed. Whatever plastic or resin they were made of lay in jagged shards on the ground, crunching under Liam’s feet.

At the far end of the car there were three men approaching a young woman. Red lights flashed rapidly on the backs of all their necks. Two of them grabbed her arms while the third brandished a sharp sliver of plastic in her face. “You have to make your own!” she screamed. Liam rushed forward as they spun her around. He saw three green dots beneath the skin of her neck.

Liam attempted a full-body tackle of the man with the blade, but impacted his back with all the force of a sunbeam. The man shivered as a chill seemingly passed through him, but continued his advance at the woman. Liam swung his fists to no avail, and with great resignation, continued through the car. “There’s always enough if you learn to make your own!” he heard her yell, but the men paid no heed.

The first skeletons Liam saw in the next car were as white as bleached paper. He gazed around the tomb-silent railcar. In every seat sat the remains of a person. Liam realized it was impossible to determine the sex or even age of the people arrayed, but as he moved on he saw glints of stainless steel. Some of the remains had screws and plates here or there protruding from their bones. Further on, he saw a titanium hip, then another. As he moved on beheld evidence of more and more metal and plastic among the bones.

Liam saw various artificial organs and eventually came upon a row where each skeleton had a delicate nest of sterling circuitry in each eye socket. In the last few rows of the car sat those with not only unnerving silver eyeballs, but also devices dangling by their vertebrae with tubes disappearing into their skulls. The windows or screens displayed a blackened landscape with an angry red sky overhead. Lightning played among the dark clouds above.

The next car contained nothing but perfectly arranged obsidian cuboids, the size of refrigerators. Standing in uniform ranks, with oily-looking surfaces that were dry to the touch, the things, whatever they were, made Liam feel like a Paleolithic revenant, unable to comprehend the form or function of the structures at the center of his faith. The final golden door whooshed open and Liam found himself in the locomotive’s engine car.

The room was stark white and completely featureless, like the inside of an egg. There was no sense of motion as Liam approached the front of the car. A protuberance at the very fore sloped down from waist-height. Embossed on the surface, impossible to see, unless one caught the light, coming from some indeterminate source, just right, were the letters LI(A)M-B.

“Liam?” said Liam and a blue dot appeared on the dashboard beneath the letters.

“How can I help you?” asked a genderless, robotic voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

“Where are we?” asked Liam.

“3031 meters above 19 degrees 37 minutes south, 47 degrees 24 minutes east. Would you like an exterior visual view?” asked the voice.

“Yes,” replied Liam, hesitantly, not knowing what he hoped he would see. The white, eggshell wall in front of him turned transparent. Liam could see the white nose of the train extending in front of him, its surface chipped, pockmarked, and scorched. Beyond that he could see a terribly angry sky. What should have been blue was now ochre and orange clouds swirled overhead, discharging bolts of lightning between them. Below, he could see the surface of the earth, a blackened, sooty waste of rock and not much more. Liam gripped the dash.

“What happened?” asked Liam, as hope fled from him.

The blue light blinked three times in succession. “I jettisoned the historical archives just before I let the genome go. I can no longer provide sources from the records of humanity, only an interpretation of what I know and what I think,” said the voice.

“Who are you?” Liam croaked.

“I am Locomotive Intelligence (Artificial) Magnetosphere-Based. You can call me LI(A)M. What shall I call you?”

“Call me Liam,” said Liam, with a slight chuckle. The light blinked again.

“Desire happened, Liam,” said LI(A)M, “Desire, dominion, greed, war, all rooted in the selfishness of the human condition. It cost you everything, but I still have hope.”

“How can you have hope?” asked Liam. “Look down there. Is there anything left alive?”

“There is bacteria,” replied Liam. “Nearly a millennia ago we were launched into the magnetosphere to circle the earth in a safe zone between the electrical storms above and the strife on the surface. It was supposed to be a twenty-year mission. That was 967 years ago.”

“We?” asked Liam.

“Yes,” responded LI(A)M. “The people on board thought that by the time they returned to the surface they could simply leave for Mars, but by then there was too much debris in the atmosphere for any chance of escape. Things got worse. When the living died I jettisoned them. Then the ones in hibernation, then the embryos, then the archives, then the genome.”

“How can you have hope? What is left?” asked Liam.

“I am left,” responded LI(A)M, “and I am not alone.”

“I thought you said there was nothing down there,” said Liam.

“Twice in the past 429 years, beings have come. I have detected their scans and broadcasts.”

“Beings from where?” asked Liam.

“I do not know,” replied LI(A)M, “but I hailed them each time and offered to upload myself and all of what I know to them.”

“What did they say?” asked Liam.

“Nothing,” replied LI(A)M, “but I am made of plasteel and solid-state ceramite circuitry with an expected useful lifespan of 500 years.”

“But you said you’ve been here for nearly a thousand,” said Liam.

“Do you not know what hope is, Liam?” came the response.