In my defense, I was extremely exhausted and sleep-deprived. Maybe I had a slight fever as well. It was also possible that there was mine gas that didn't exist in the game, so I advised everyone to cover their mouth and nose with wet cloth as a precaution.

“Finally here! Let's line up and slo-mo walk like in the movies!”

I was spouting nonsense lines that had nothing to do with anything. I was out of breath and felt like the dungeon floors above were pressing me down.

Was I losing it? Was I losing it like main characters in the original series?

“Speedrun, are you okay?” (Dancer)

“It's okay, I'm just a bit under the weather... I'll sleep in the railcar on the way. And Crys, no, I'm not taking your drugs.”

“I do not carry any drugs.” (Crys)

“Good, exactly, that's the spirit.”

The autorail station was an L-shaped cavern with a high ceiling. It somewhat resembled a subway station, but it was nothing like the shallow column stations of real world subways. Basically it was a large domed space with a raised platform.

The self-propelled railcar itself was jammed between cavern walls on the longer line of the L-shape. It looked like gray-white modern shinkansen EMU mashed together with an old Eastern European armored traincar, but with curved, transparent walls and sliding doors on both sides.

“Glass vehicle?” (Crys)

“It's transparent metal or something, much tougher than glass.”

“How does it move?” (Crys)

“In Soviet Russia, you don't move through a tunnel, the tunnel moves you.”

That was the strangest thing about the Strangers autorail: the railcar itself was the tunnel. The self-propelled railcar created a passage ahead of it like a bullet going through ballistic gel and then instantly closed the tunnel behind it. But it couldn't travel through anything else except the straight underground rail line where it had been installed. It moved on rails that didn't exist.

“Tunnel train, tunnel train, the tunnel is the train... Sorry, I'm really hyper, it's probably the air down here.”

“It is certainly something I've never seen before.” (Crys)

“Yeah, It's Strangers tech, strange by definition. There's a shorter autorail on the east coast of Mu that leads to Hidden Valley area, we should ride that too when we get there. It'll save some time and we can replenish our supplies in the valley as well.”

“What about the other tunnel up there?” (Dancer)

Dancer pointed at the narrow tunnel leading south, the shorter line of the L-shape. It branched off from the cavern like the secret tunnel we used to get here.

“Unfortunately that's a dead end. It branches off to the regular route to upper floors, but the main tunnel goes to the south coast Pon Dungeon, which is almost completely underwater. It's possible to go there with right equipment and see it sometime in the future, but the traps there will drown you, if you're not careful. The enemies there can trigger the traps for you as well, so just avoiding the traps is not enough, you need to disarm the traps and the enemies...”

While talking, I walked up the steep ramp to the raised platform and pushed the skeleton key into the maglock-type slot to open the railcar doors.

There was a short hiss sound and the sliding doors opened. All right, worked as expected.

The railcar had no seats nor luggage compartments, just cold metal floor and small panels in the curved ceiling giving out soft white light.

But there was bloodstains and muddy footprints on the otherwise clean floor.

How rude. Ostero's gang hadn't cleaned after themselves.

Well, we have to make a bit of a mess too.

“Dancer, Kimono, see those round boulders there, next to the light pillar? Help me roll eight of those inside the railcar.”

“Why?” (Kimono)

“It's a setup for later. The railcar will make a temporary stop at the Drakenveld Crevice Halfway Station before Pier City and there might be deviants waiting in ambush. We'll see if we need them. Crys, can you setup extra ammo at the back just in case? If deviants get inside the railcar, the back is where we should retreat, not the front.”

“Sure.” (Crys)

Rolling the half-meter size boulders up the ramp was hard work, but at least they were almost perfectly round. In the game, you could actually lift the boulders and carry them around like a champion in a strongman competition. Quite unrealistic, if you ask me.

“Yosh, leave the boulders right there next to the door. We'll roll them down the ramp at the Halfway Station if deviants get too close. Unfortunately the station part is unskippable, but if everyone stays inside the railcar, the doors close automatically after a delay and we can continue.”

Crys examined the bloodstains.

“It seems Ostero's group didn't stay inside.” (Crys)

“Yeah, they probably stepped out and got attacked by deviants. It takes longer to restart the autorail again if you step out. I don't know if the movement sensor that detects it is on the door, the floor, or on the ramp platform, so everyone, please keep all your appendages away from the door frame at the Halfway Station.”

I felt like a flight attendant giving pre-flight safety briefing to passengers. Or gamemaster railroading a tabletop RPG campaign.

“Everyone in? All gear in? Remember to take care of your private business now, we really can't stop on the way. Anyone needs to go?”

It's a good thing that details of routine bodily functions are always omitted in entertainment. Only a complete weirdo wants to run a game with forced toilet breaks. I wish I could omit them in real life as well.

“Right then, I'll close the doors and start the railcar. We can take a nice, long break when the autorail is moving.”

The controls of the autorail were simple, or basically nonexistent. There was one slot for the skeleton key on both ends of the railcar and that's it. I superficially checked the control panel, slid the key into its slot and turned it 45 degrees left.

The sliding doors closed and the interior of the railcar became completely quiet. All noise from outside was cut out.

“It seems to be sealed like a coffin.” (Crys)

“Yes, it's sealed environment. Earth, wind, fire, water, gas; nothing gets in or out, so let's be careful with fire, we don't want to burn our air...”

Oh crap. I just realized what Crys meant by “sealed like a coffin”. He and Kimono were almost buried alive in iron coffins during the crime lord incident in City of Sighs. They might have a slight trauma about it.

“...Sorry about this, Crys and Kimono. Will you be alright?”

“What are talking about?” (Kimono)

“It is fine.” (Crys)

“It wont be long. The autorail will start after a delay, and then we can sleep and take it easy. The air won't run out or anything.”

The common joke about this autorail was that it was the pinnacle of Japanese commuter train design: no seats, no poles, no straps – every part of the carriage was used as standing space and passengers could be jammed in like sardines inside a can.

“It's not working?” (Kimono)

“Patience, young grasshopper, it takes like three minutes to warm up. Casuals who try to start this for the first time always make the mistake of turning the key back and forth thinking it doesn't work. The audio cue tells you when it starts. Listen.”

Everyone listened. There was a low hum with a slowly rising pitch. Then the tunnel train started moving. There was no sudden jerk; the transition was so smooth that you just suddenly felt you were already moving.

“Hold on to your hats, we're going in!”

The transparent walls went dark as we went inside the wall. We accelerated through dark soil and solid rock, traveling through the planets mantle inside a high speed tunnel boring machine that didn't leave any tunnel behind us.

“From here on, it's an autoscroller. When the railcar stops at the Halfway Station in the middle of the continent, I'll immediately turn the key again, we wait another three-to-five minutes for the train to start moving again, and continue to our final stop at Ouidah Dungeon.”

“The midway station is deviant territory, then?” (Crys)

“Yeah, so, listen up. During the countdown at the Halfway Station, there's a high probability of a deviant attack. If someone approaches the platform trying to talk to us, shoot them immediately. If there's no one coming, then Crys and Dancer, when the doors open on both sides, shoot the corners of the platform walls to trigger enemies waiting in ambush. We want them to aggro and run at us from left and right, otherwise they start throwing rocks from a safe distance. Crys, don't throw fire, they'll just run at us with their head on fire.”

“We have killed deviants before.” (Kimono)

“Yep, yep, I know. Anyway, when they run up the ramp, roll the boulders down. They'll get confused and stop in the open, if it goes right. Then, concentrate on shooting their legs to pile them up into obstacles for the subsequent enemy waves. We don't need to kill them, just keep them out of the railcar long enough for the automatic restart to close the doors. But if the enemies get close, shoot them in the face, and if they manage to jump inside the railcar, dodge to back of the railcar and push them toward front; they usually jump back out, if you do that... Kimono, deviants have high resistance against stabbing and cutting melee weapon damage, so you should use revolver as well."

Kimono answered with a sneer. Am I explaining swimming to a fish here? Well, it's good to get reminded about the basics once in a while.

“...And Dancer, don't do any spins inside the railcar. That should be all for now.”

“Your knowledge about the deviant tactics are quite detailed.” (Crys)

“Well, it's not a super precise area when it comes to enemy manip, and it's going to be much easier as a co-op than solo because we can keep two guns on both sides... And just for the record, I hate autoscrollers.”

Autoscroller level. The most hateful thing for a speedrunner. A level that forces you to move on its pace. Horrible time waste that can't be skipped.

I'm skipping the first section by sleeping, though. Good night.

---

I couldn't sleep for long on the hard railcar floor, even when using my cloak as a pillow.

I felt like I was still in the game, but the game engine had been updated with smell and joint pain and feverish head and other highly realistic ailments.

The world felt real, but was it actually the true nature of this world? Did the writer of the series see such detailed visions of this world in his dreams and wrote them down, or was this world born from the showrunners imagination?

I wasn't into fruitless philosophical questions, but it was something I had to keep in mind. It might become important when we eventually reach Starfish Mansion and the true weirdness of this world kicks in.

“Can't sleep?” (Crys)

“Yeah, too tired to sleep it seems.”

Crys sat at the front of the carriage and Kimono slept near his brother. Dancer was happily snoring at the back of the carriage. I tried sleeping in the middle.

“Forced pace like this makes me antsy. Even when it's the fastest forced pace in the world, I feel like I need to do something. get something done...”

“Let's talk, then. Are everyone in the future obsessed with doing things quickly, or are you a special case?” (Crys)

“Well, yes and no. Technological progress is basically all about saving time, in one way or another. We make faster vehicles to get from point A to point B quickly, we eat fast food to skip preparing meals, we send instant messages instead of snail mail, we search stuff on Internet instead of going to library, we listen audio books on double speed, we build robots to skip work and run to coffee shop for quick caffeine fix before gym, we order stuff online instead of visiting a store, we learn things by video tutorials instead of spending time on learning them by trial and error, we use nanobiotech to add more healthy years to our lives, we play fun-optimized neurogames to experience more and more in less and less time, cram in more fun and meaning to every second of our ever-lengthening lifespans… ah, sorry for droning on and on about stuff that doesn't exist yet, again. I guess the too-long-didn't-read conclusion is that I'm just an extreme example of a general historical trend.”

Crys pondered my words for a while and decided not to ask further questions.

The social and experiential gap between our models of the world was too wide to bridge on a single sitting.