“Gordie, what the hell is the kid doing?”

  “…”

  “Come on, at least give me something to work with…” the thug sighed at the habits of his silent colleague. “Anyone else?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest idea, mate. Maybe he’s snapped already?”

  “Hm… Could be… but I’m not liking that shifty look he’s got right now…”

  The surviving expeditionary members of the Gentleman’s club huddled together and watched as Henry entered a hushed conversation of his own with… himself. His clone, to be specific, but between the three of them the difference mattered little. They also weren’t all that great at keeping their voice down, either. Henry could make out every word they were saying with total clarity.

  Suited him just fine, honestly. It meant that the specifics of the instructions he was giving to his duplicate weren’t being paid attention to.

  Hopefully, that meant that there wouldn’t be any objections to his plan until well after it was in motion.

  He wrapped up his talk with his mirror image shortly after. The two of them split, making for the doors on either end of the train car. Henry beelined toward the far side, walking him past the group of thugs currently eyeing him suspiciously.

  A calculated risk on his part. Unfortunately, math had never been his strong suit.

  “Wait,” one of the delvers spoke as they stuck their arm out in front of him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  His accuser took a step to the side to more directly block his path. The man was nearly a head taller than him and slightly stocky, with the enchanted revolver and a small assortment of other one-handed weapons bouncing lightly on his hip as he moved to intercept him.

  Try as he might, he still couldn’t help but glance at his lost possession longingly. Sometime very soon, he’d have to figure out a way to separate it from him.

  The quick peek seemingly went ignored, but it did lead to a brief moment of silence on his part. Which was misinterpreted almost immediately.

  “Not going to say? Well, that’s fine, then. I’m not letting you get past ‘til I get an answer out of ya.”

  “Hm?” Henry blinked, tearing his eyes away from the gun and finally looking him in the face. Boy, did the other guy need a shave. The patchy beard he was sporting was just… blegh.

  Right, getting off track again, Henry realized. Best answer his question so I can get on with this, then.

  Beginning with a complete non-answer, he tried acting coy to probe their response.

  “Sorry, could you run that by me again? I didn’t quite catch it the first time.”

  “You daft or something?!” His frown deepened at the response, crossing his arms as he did so. “What’s got you conspirin’ with that freaky twin of yours, ya git?”

  Well, it had been worth a shot, at least.

  “Oh! Oh, that!” Henry smacked his forehead, as if the thought of it had entirely slipped his mind. “We’re just going to test the limits of the looping effect this train’s been doing. Won’t be more than ten minutes, honest.”

  Eyes narrowed in Henry’s direction from multiple angles. “Really?” One of the other Club members piped up, suspicion heavily layering his words. “Any reason you couldn’t say that much out in the open before, then? ‘Cause as I see it, you spent an awful long time whispering sweet nothings to yerself.”

  “Would you believe me if I said I did it to piss you all off?”, Henry responded deadpan.

  “No, I-”

  The one acting as impromptu bouncer immediately spoke to argue the contrary, but stopped midway as he considered the question a bit more. Realistically, it was fast approaching the hardest he’d thought about something since the moment Henry first met him.

  And, as his previous low-level antics had established prior, he most definitely was not above that sort of mischief. Surprising how often needling came in handy for him, honestly. You’d think being a nuisance to big men with scary guns would be a great way to end up dead.

  ...On second thought, the verdict’s still out on that last part. Might be speaking a bit too soon.

  Finally, he received a groan of defeat in response. “Ugh… on second thought, yes. You would be exactly the type of fool ta do that, wouldn’t ya?”

  “Guilty as charged. Now, are you going to let me go or not?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever. Although…”

  Oh no. Here came the twist.

  “You know what?”, the thug asked. “I’m a bit curious to see this in action, myself. You wouldn’t mind if I tagged along with ya, right?”

  He idly tapped the handle of the snubnose, implying that this request was not optional.

  Why is it that whenever I try to think of a plan, something always goes wrong with it?

  Henry plastered on a fake smile. “No problem at all. Though, I can’t imagine there’ll be much about it that’s interesting.”

  That remark earned a snort in response. “You kidding? It’s curse magic. How’s that gonna be ‘not interesting’?”

  “Hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you…” Henry attempted to sidestep the man blocking his path, but misjudged just slightly enough to bump shoulders with the man.

  “Watch it, now…”

  Henry flinched at the veiled threat. A timid “Sorry…” was all he managed in response. Not wanting to dwell on it more, he darted past quickly and tucked his arms in close in front of him.

  The metal blade of the knife he’d swiped felt cool to the touch. Slipped behind his belt wasn’t the best place to hide it long-term, but it should be good enough so long as he stayed in front and didn’t turn back.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  < -|- -|- >

  Here’s the spot. Four cars down.

  Henry peered through the corner of his eye behind him. Guard was still there, following at a safe distance behind him. This was the spot he needed to be in, and if he didn’t ditch him in time to execute his half of the plan, the whole thing had the potential to go up in smoke.

  His idea had been simple, in theory. He would try to exploit the other bit of knowledge his efforts had turned up about the magic tied to this Domain.

  In direct contrast to the rest of them, the train fell up. Anything they hadn’t brought in with them followed that rule unerringly. Including bits and pieces of the train itself.

  Gut instinct told him that rule would scale up as the pieces got bigger.

  So, the plan was to fully decouple two ends of separate train cars at the same time. Simple… but with a lot that could go wrong. He’d briefly skimmed through some possible outcomes in his head already, and frankly he was willing to take a chance on it if it meant getting out of here. Worst case, it accomplished next to nothing, and they’d be back to square one where he’d really be forced to jump. An outcome that continued to lose its appeal the more he took the time to look at it with a clearer head.

  Regardless, he needed to get the other guy off his back. Now.

  He crouched down near the door to the next carriage, bending over to untie and retie a shoelace. The man behind him stopped as well, much to his chagrin.

  “You can go on ahead,” he called over his shoulder. “This won’t take long. I’ll catch up.”

  In response, Henry got a shrug and a grunt in the affirmative. The footsteps of the man’s heavy boots against the metal floor were all the confirmation he needed to make himself look busy.

  Once he goes by, I can slip open the door and cut the coupler’s air hose to-

  A shadow looming over him interrupted his train of thought.

  “So, what’s your plan, then?”, growled a low voice in his ear. “You gonna try and stick me with my own knife?”

  Henry’s eyes went wide with surprise. Before he could react, a sharp pain erupted in his ribs as he was kicked to the ground forcefully.

  For a moment, all he could manage was to groan in pain from the impact. As someone who’d dropped from rooftops on multiple occasions now, he could easily say that that felt pretty close to a botched landing.

  “You think I’m THAT feckin’ stupid, do ya?!”, the thug shouted loudly as Henry gasped for air. There’d really been some pent-up emotions behind that kick. “That I’d not notice you eyeing up my kit only to swipe it mere seconds later?!”

  He wheezed again as he turned to face his assailant. The revolver was in the man’s hand, pointed squarely at his chest and humming with a faint, ominous glow. Just waiting for the trigger to be pulled.

  “Well, it’s clear to me now-” A spluttering cough interrupted his remark, causing him to retch for several seconds. “It looks like I sold you a bit short, there.”

  He sneered in response to Henry’s dismissiveness. “Yeah, serves you right, then, doesn’t it?! You wanna know what happens to those who get caught stealing from a Gentleman?!”

  Another kick for his troubles. The boot came down on the same spot for a second time. Then a third.

  His eyes wanted to squeeze shut from the pain. Curl up into a ball in the corner and just wait out the storm. But he needed to keep at least one eye on the seconds hand of his watch.

  The last minute before Plan B began was almost up.

  Three… two…

  A rumble shook through the entirety of the train, just as the henchman attacking him was winding up for another kick. The resulting tremor sent him toppling to the ground like a flamingo in an earthquake.

  …Huh. Looks like his copy jumped the gun a little.

  Now, however, wasn’t a good opportunity to dwell on the timing. He pushed the thought to the side, springing into action immediately.

  Door slammed open while the other man was still recovering. Knife was pulled from his belt, and in one swift motion he stabbed right through the air hose connecting the two cars. He could feel his legs begin to tilt ever so slightly above his head, now. Which, considering they lay flat against the floor, did not bode well.

  Working feverishly as the last gusts of compressed air left the hose, he let the knife drop into the bottomless depths below to grip the lever holding the cars together. Speed in the short term had to be his number one priority right now. And besides, it wasn’t like he had anywhere he could make use of it for the time being, anyway.

  “You little son of a-!”

  Behind him somewhere, the other thug was slowly reorienting. Not that he could do anything about it, currently. Every ounce of strength and leverage he could muster from within the doorframe was being sent straight through his arms into the bar he clung to. Inch by inch, he was making progress, the mechanical lock unfurling nearly halfway.

  The cart was becoming more vertical than horizontal, now. Henry was forced to wedge himself between the floor and the walls in order to keep himself from falling out the opening to what was quickly becoming a trapdoor.

  Just a little bit more…

  A shot rang out.

  Body moving before he could think, he reflexively pulled himself back into cover. A sharp sting in his arm told him that he hadn’t been fast enough. Exotic Domain magic, while capable of many things once thought impossible, still didn’t give him a way to dodge bullets.

  Unfortunately, there was only so much his own reaction time could do to help him. Even the crystal’s energy-bleeding reactive shield simply couldn’t hold up to the sheer amount of punch behind those bullets for more than a split second. A brief flash of light and the peal of shattering crystal were the only indications it had even been there in the first place.

  Between the chaos of the situation, and what few advantages to survivability he had, it was still incredibly lucky that he only ended up with a gaping hole through the middle of his forearm.

  What was luckier, however, was where the bullet pierced after that. Over the noise of his magic shield splintering came the deafening groan of stressed metal giving way to forces it couldn’t stand against any longer.

  The bullet had smashed through the coupling, as well. A neat, cylindrical hole pierced the center of the metal lock, practically identical to the wound in Henry’s arm right now. He had exactly one moment to think about it before the force of gravity in reverse pressed him into the ground.

  Up above him, the thug was dangling from one of the trains metal handholds, cursing him out under his breath as the gun’s aim was thrown off by the sudden movement.

  Henry curled up in the corner behind the now vertical seats, pulling his knees close to his chest to try and make himself as small of a target as possible. Three more shots range out, punching gumball-sized holes in the steel where his spine had been only a moment before.

  But, they were going up. The plan was working.

  All he needed to do now was live long enough to see it through.

  “What the bloody hell ‘ave you done?!?!” The thug from the Gentleman’s Club shouted at the top of his lungs, a shaky tremor in his words betraying the fear he was trying to hide. “WHAT ‘AVE YOU DONE?!?!?!”

  Another shot tore out and nearly clipped his foot. His aim was getting better, and there wasn’t nearly enough chair to hide him completely. It was a miracle that he hadn’t tried to shoot through his cover yet. But, then again, Henry wasn’t the only one who could fall victim to tunnel vision.

  Leaving them at a bit of an impasse. Henry couldn’t move, and if the next two shots didn’t kill him, his attacker couldn’t reload.

  The air whipping through the cabin pounded at his ears as they continued to accelerate. Through the doorway below, the brickwork of the tunnel wall sped past at a frightening pace, leaving the remainder of the train suspended in limbo below. For a moment, he could just make out the end of the train that his copy had separated.

  Only for a moment, though. The mist obscured the whole thing rather quickly as they picked up speed.

  They continued to climb up and away. The pressure Henry was feeling from the speed threatened to pin him to the ground completely.

  For several seconds, it was all either of them could do to withstand the complete free-fall that must have left them well above terminal velocity by now. Henry feared that pretty soon, the force might be too much to handle.

  Until, from somewhere up ahead, a bone-shuddering crash made the whole train lurch. Their fall wasn’t completely stopped, but the lost speed alone was enough to propel him a good several inches in the air.

  Collision after collision threatened to unseat them as the whole room began to turn on its head. Henry slid down the wall across to the other side of the train, earning an opportunistic gunshot behind him as he tumbled. Up above, the thug still dangled, hellbent on teaching him his final lesson.

  Then gravity flipped, and the last thing he saw before he blacked out was the ground beneath his feet getting away from him.

  The back of his head impacted with something hard, and he went out like a light. The sound of crushing steel slowly faded out into the periphery, until silence enveloped his unconscious body.