Chapter four

Max ran up his second crossing violation of the morning, causing an autocab to screech to a halt as he bolted out from the pavement and across the road in front of it. One more violation and an ARD would be dispatched to intercept him, issuing another fine that he had little hope of paying. Unless he made it to London. He'd only got the message this morning having scraped together a little cash from his last couple of Edinburgh gigs to pay the overdue ultranet access fee - the first gigs he'd got in three months. The message was the one he'd been waiting his whole life for, well ever since he'd given up his data processing job two years ago to play music full time. His brother had said he was crazy. No one listens to electro any more, that stuff went out decades ago, he had said. But for Max it was a passion, bordering on obsession, and he was certain electro was making a comeback and he could be at the forefront of it. If only he could get a brake.

Then he got the message

Some of his tunes were picking up a bit of momentum on the ultranet. Fairly niche corners of the music community at present, but enough to catch the attention of one of the music dredging programmes used by the big record corporations. As a result of this he'd been invited to London to meet some of the execs, play a track or two live, see if his face fit as well as his sound. But he needed to be in London by this afternoon, so he'd launched a transport query while he rushed around stuffing some equipment into a canvas hold-all. Scramjet was out of the picture on cost grounds, but the hyper-rail train was feasible. Thanks to dynamic pricing he could get a ticket cheap if he travelled when the Mars shuttle was due to land and practically no-one would be using the trains. But that left him with just 20 minutes to get from one side of Edinburgh to the other, with no money for an autocab.

Some hastily packed gadget or other was digging painfully into his side, hammered further into his ribcage with each stride. But he was nearly there, thankfully with no more roads between him an the station entrance, so no risk of crossing them at an unspecified location and racking up another violation under the ever-watching eye of the citynet. That still meant other pedestrians to negotiate though, many with intelli-luggage trailing in their wakes like little rectangular dogs, perfectly poised at shin height to trip the hasty or unwary. Max hurdled one, dodged round another, narrowing missing an old lady before skidding through the automatic doors to the station. His IR glasses were prominently displaying platform 7, with an arrow pointing off to his left. Next to the arrow was a small number, flashing red, -0:00:08. He was late, but hopefully not catastrophically late. The hyper-trains actively tracked their ticket holders; any not on the train at departure time were monitored and if close enough the AI of the train had a small window to wait for them, provided that their programming decided that the late comers were close enough / approaching at a fast enough speed. There was only ever a few seconds of lee-way, but the full automation of the transport network allowed for constant fine tuning of schedules.

Max tumbled onto the train, breathing so hard he thought he was going to pass out. But he'd made it. The doors swished close and with a small rumble the train began to move. He unsteadily got up, trying to smooth down his hair and clothes. As expected, there were few other passengers, but enough of those were giving him a disapproving look to make him feel uncomfortable. He may have only held up the train by 27 seconds, but that seemed to be enough to upset these grumpy sods. Max sighed and started to move up the carriage. Into the next carriage where he could pretend that he had nothing to do with the delay, although the sweat on his brow and still heavy breathing were slight give-aways. He was actually close to the front of the train now, and his luck must be changing as there was a seat free right at the nose with uninterrupted views of the track ahead. It was always quite a surreal feeling sitting at the head of these computer controlled trains, like you were strapped to the front of a rocket, scenery passing by in a blur as it approached 300mph.

Even better than the view outside, though, was the girl sat in the seat across the isle from the one Max slumped down in. Long dark hair fell across neck and shoulders, but kept out of her face by a small red clip. She had removed her shoes so as to pull her feet up on to the seat, knees pulled close to her chest. She had pushed her IR specs up onto her head, as if to better take in the rush of the view ahead.

"Quite a buzz, isn't it?" Max attempted to adopt a pose of detached nonchalance, but wasn't quite sure he was carrying it off

"Excuse me?" she didn't turn to look at him, her eyes continued to stare ahead

"The view at the front of one of these things"

"Oh, yes, it's amazing" her inflection on the last word hinted at an accent, but smoothed by a period abroad

"American?" Max was intrigued

She turned to look at her questioner "Yeah, well, not since I was a kid though"

"Cool place"

"You been?"

"I, well, er, no, but I want to" Max mentally kicked himself for sounding like a simpering idiot. He'd get an assistant to handle the ladies when he made it big. For now he'd have to settle with an attempt to change the subject, "So what brings you to Scotland?"

"Oh, I'm studying here"

Mike frowned, it was unusual to actually travel to a different country to study given that it was much easier to enrol remotely these days. Save the travelling for the fun stuff. However, one or two academic pursuits required students local to their lecturers. "So that would mean you were studying...?"

"Medicine"

"Ah, of course, nice, er, subject" he was on shaky ground again. Thankfully she changed the subject for him.

"So are you not staying with family for the shuttle landing?" this was said with a roll of the eyes, as if she wasn't quite buying into the #standtogether euphoria.

"Nah, I got an important appointment in London"

"Cool"

"Yeah, meeting some music execs, they want to sign me up" slight exaggeration, but close enough to the truth "Of course I wanted to stay independent with my sound, but you just need the backing of the big guys to get people listening to you these days, separate the wheat from the chaff, you know how it is"

"Wow, what sort of music?"

"Well, er, electro, but you know, with a fresh vibe"

"Electro? Think my dad's in to that" she pulled her glasses back down, he was losing her

"Sounds like a cool guy" he tried a tentative laugh, but she didn't join him "But this is new stuff, a lot of people are talking about it"

"Mmm-hmmm" she'd turned back towards the front window

"So, er, you headed to London? You could, er" time to gamble "come to one of my gigs if you wanted? I could ping you a backstage pass" ok, so no gigs were booked, but he could worry about that later

"Oh, I can't, sorry"

"That's ok"

She must have seen his face drop "No, it's just that I'm not going to London. I'm going to visit my dad in Berlin. Maybe you could link me to some of your stuff though and I could show him?"

"Yeah, sure" maybe he could score a date with her old man. Max slumped further down in his seat.

Scenery flew by

"I'm Katie, by the way" Max, turn back towards her, was she interested, or just feeling bad for shooting him down?

"Max" mind you, he wasn't above using pity to exploit an opportunity with a hot girl "So Berlin, that's quite a journey by train, even at this speed" he nodded to the window, "You don't like flying?"

"Ha! Try and afford a scramjet ticket on a student allowance"

"No help from dad then?" he liked an independent woman

"It's a surprise, he's always moaning that he doesn't see me enough face to face, you know what the olds are like?"

Max sniggered, his mum was exactly the same "So what does the old man do in Berlin?"

"Oh, something to do with the army, I'm not sure what" her tone implied further questions in this area wouldn't be a good idea

"Not long till touchdown then, excited?"

"Hmmm, not really, just seems like there are better things for that kinda cash to be spent on" Feisty, Max liked it, "Will probably still watch it though, although my feed is a bit hazy - it playing up for you?" Max hadn't really been concentrating on his feeds of the shuttle, but now she mentioned it, the picture quality wasn't great. Some of the cameras seemed to have dropped out altogether.

"It isn't great. Maybe the train systems are interfering?" Max didn't really understand these sort of things

"Maybe" she didn't sound convinced and the two of them lapsed back into silence.

The shuttle approached the landing field as the train approached its first stop in Newcastle. The scenery outside was becoming more industrial in appearance, old factories and smoke stacks sticking out, relics of the past compared to the vision of the future that the automated train represented. The track began to curve around the buildings as the scenery became more built up, the factories giving way to the, light industrial zones, which gave way to the apartment blocks. With the station approaching and the track curving more the train AI sent a message for the engines to slow down.

Except the message didn't get there.

Primary control systems glitched, then secondary. An urgent message was sent to the central control depot, except their systems had also gone offline.

The train picked up speed. Ahead, a set of points switched. The train gave a small judder as it was sent down one of the local lines into central Newcastle. This line wasn't built for the hyper-trains, it was meant for the local commuter services that travelled at a fifth of the speed. The line turned sharply to the left to negotiate round a large apartment block.

The momentum of the hyper-train carried it straight on

The front carriage smashed through the guard rail, metal screeching and glass shattering. The jolt as it left the track throwing its passengers up off their seats. As it arched towards the apartment building Max had a brief sensation of weightlessness.

"I wonder if this is what it feels like to be one of the Mars astronauts" he thought

The train slammed into the building in a flash of brilliant white