Conductor’s Log 15: Everything Changes at Altitude
We held a funeral of sorts, just Driver, Gunner, Brains, and I. We had plenty of spare parts, so we cobbled together a glider and launched it into the waste, saluting with a bowl of hot soup as the thing slammed into a mountain. With a brief nod, we moved on. It had become clear that not swapping real names was a defence mechanism, a way to ensure we didn’t get too close before the inevitable happened.
I sat with the newbies and got to know them a little - two of them are siblings and expert hunters, and so Gunner suggested that with the extra manpower, we properly delegate equipment and roles. We quickly kitted out the hunters Exosuits, and alongside Gunner, they’d be taking the lead when we next stopped at a facility.
Another of the newbies was chattering away with Brains, discussing an idea he had to do with the chemical composition of our rations. The pair vanished into the laboratory car, and before long returned, beaming, with a ration. They announced that, for all intents and purposes, this was the same ration as before, but now it would provide far more nutritional value, and we wouldn’t need to eat nearly so much. About a third of what we had been eating, they suspected.
My time was taken up on a blueprint I’d discovered while browsing the files on the train’s computer. I’d found something called a supervisor's desk, and spent the morning assembling the components according to the instructions on my HUD. Before long, the desk booted up, and I was able to flick between various external cameras on the train, which I suspected would be useful in the future.
The last of the new survivors, was, to put it bluntly, useless. They had no skills to speak of, and were so nervous they could barely get any words out. For a while, I wondered what we were going to do with them, until I noticed how fascinated by the Glider they were, and so before long, they were being strapped into the machine to take it for a tentative test flight.
The Glider leapt into the air, and I expected the whoop of joy Eyes had always cried out when the glider first launched, but instead, a voice I barely recognised came over the radio. Gone was the nervous, tentative person from before, replaced by a voice so confident and striking I wondered if they’d worked in radio back home on Earth. They completed a few laps of the train, getting used to the controls, before guiding the glider back into the catchers net.
When they emerged, I expected the same, confident and calm voice I’d heard over the radio, but it was gone, and the same shivering, uncertain person stood before me, though there was a twinkle in their eyes that hadn’t been there before. I gave them a nod, squeezed their shoulder, and walked away, confident that Radio would be a wonderful new pilot.