Silence, Please

Professor Arondel felt the train gently rock beneath him, the twittering of birdsong drifting faintly through the windows, only to be lost amongst the roar of passing wind. The locomotive had just come around a bend in the mountain path, giving view to a gorgeous vista. It was sunset over the mountains on the horizon, and in the valley that spread out beneath the rails of the train car there were lush autumnal forests with a wide river cutting a swathe through them. The scent of oak, pine, and clean air tumbled through the windows, playfully tickling his bushy mustache. He sniffled, then sneezed.

“Damn allergies,” he muttered, eyes stinging slightly.

Across from him his student, one Aranessa Covette, gasped slightly, “Professor!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, embarrassed. Aranessa was a young pupil of his, perhaps 25. A brilliant mind, but perhaps sheltered a little too much by her family. She kept her white-gloved hands tightly over her suitcase, and kept her wide-brimmed hat low over her face.

A waiter approached with a quiet whisper, dressed in the traditional black and white waistcoat of his profession, “Anything to drink sir? Madame?”

The man’s accent was peculiar, curving the syllables around his tongue like the pages of a book, Arondel couldn't quite place it.

“No, thank you,” Aranessa said primly.

“Brandy for me, please,” Arondel answered off-handedly, still looking out at the view, then winced, “er, or perhaps just some water.”

Arondel glanced at his student who looked visibly relieved.

The waiter nodded, “Very good sir.”

The train passed into a tunnel in the mountains, and plunged everyone in the cabin into almost complete darkness. A few moments later, the dim illumination of the solar battery charged lights came on. They were dim things, causing the whole cabin to take on a rather gloomy cast, and the cave outside caused the tight confines of the car to smell moist and damp.

A few seconds of silence passed as neither Arondel nor Aranessa knew quite what to talk about next. Then, Arondel saw a man stand up from his seat. The man wore black leather gloves and a long rough-looking coat. He had a mop of brown hair atop his head, with ruggedly handsome features aside from a nose that had clearly been broken at some point.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I might have your attention, please!” he shouted to the shock of all nearby, his voice rough and hoarse.

He gestured in a grandiose manner, doing a slight theatrical bow to the occupants of the train car. Behind him two more men moved smoothly, placing a metallic looking cube about the size of a person’s head on the carpeted floor. Arondel tried to peer at it, but the cabin was so dim that all he could see were gears and wires beginning to spool up.

“Thank you all,” the large man announced, “and now… silence, if you please.”

Then all sound stopped.

It is a peculiar feeling, being deaf, and thankfully one that Arondel had never needed to experience until now. He could feel the faint rocking of the train beneath his feet, but could not hear the click-a-clack of its wheels. He could feel the wind on his face, smell the damp air of the cave, but when it touched his ears it simply flowed by.

This was the third time in as many months such a strange occurrence had happened aboard a passenger train. And it was exactly the reason they were here.

Aranessa was up immediately, whirling to face the large man who had been standing behind her. Arondel was having a bit more trouble. The sudden lack of one of his senses was causing his body to go a little haywire, and he had to fight down nausea as his brain tried to make sense of the feeling of motion without other confirming factors. Several of the car’s occupants vomited at the sudden vertigo they experienced.

The young woman reached into the bag she had been holding so tightly and withdrew a smooth silver revolver. In one graceful motion she drew, spun, sighted, and fired. The shot made no noise, though the flash from the muzzle lit the room. The bullet took the front man who had spoken directly in the right knee, and he went down, no doubt screaming. As Aranessa sighted on the next man, who was diving for cover, Arondel noticed something peculiar. A teardrop shaped bubble hung suspended in the air, just in front of Aranessa’s revolver, right at the end of the barrel. It appeared as though someone had shattered a glass bulb in mid-air and then hung up the pieces.

Arondel, for his part, hit the deck immediately and began slowly scooting his way towards the strange mechanical device. He noticed in passing that several of the car’s occupants still didn’t seem to understand what was going on, completely flabbergasted by the strange sights and lack of noise. But he saw that some of them knew what this was. A robbery.

In the past three months, three train cars had all been robbed and ransacked without so much as a peep of interference. No one in any of the other cars had heard or seen anything, and those that had been robbed were often too injured or traumatized to give much detail. The only things they described had been a lack of hearing, which had returned as soon as the robbers made good on their escape, and a strange metal box. Other than that, the robbers had used completely standard means of operation. Pipes, clubs, bags for the money and the jewelry, all of that. They always targeted well-known wealthy train lines, and always in tunnels so that their activities could not be seen from the outside.

And so, the two of them had been sent here, the most likely next target, to investigate. Arondel Spire, Head Professor of Engineering Sciences at Cardenwroth University, and Aranessa Covette. Heiress to the Covette fortune, expert marksman, and completely deaf from birth.

One of the darkly clothed thugs lunged at Aranessa, attempting to get the jump on him before she could sight and fire again. Arondel, crawling beneath the man, used the back end of his umbrella to hook the man’s foot as he passed over, causing the fellow to tumble over the top of the middle-aged professor. Arondel felt the impact, and felt the air leave his own lungs with a whoomp sensation as the younger, heavier man landed atop him. Arondel looked down towards where the man had fallen and placed a steel-toed shoe kick directly into the goon’s chin. He saw blood spurt from the unfortunate mugger’s mouth, and they began to writhe with pain.

Good, Arondel thought with a satisfied nod, that should teach them a thing or two about robbing trains!

As he turned back around, his self-satisfied smile died when he saw the second thug coming directly at him with a pipe.

A flash half-blinded Arondel, and the second assailant dropped hard into the lap of a terrified elderly woman, who threw him off of her so hard that his head bounced off the side of the train. Arondel was quite impressed at her strength.

Suddenly, something seized him roughly by the collar and pulled him forwards. Ah, right, the speaker. Arondel had hoped that the man had passed out from shock, but when Arondel got a look at his clenched teeth and wild eyes he knew that he had not been so fortunate.

A knife was pressed against Arondel’s throat, cold steel prickling the skin of his neck. He felt a slight stab of pain, and shivered slightly as something warm ran down the length of his neck onto the floor. His attacker looked past him, presumably at Aranessa, and began motioning with his other hand. The poor man was, of course, unaware that she could read lips better than anyone Arondel had ever met. While he was being held hostage, he took this exquisite opportunity to peek at the device on the floor. A metal frame contained some kind of clockwork device that was spinning and sputtering. Even as Arondel was watching it slowly began to grow brighter and brighter red. You didn’t need a PhD to tell that was bad.

He attempted to tell the man next to him that his cube was starting to overheat, but the words never left his mouth, of course. The ringleader did notice that his mouth was moving, however, and turned to see what the Professor was talking about. His dark eyes went wide, and he looked back and forth between the Professor, Aranessa, and the rapidly overheating cube.

He made a decision. The knife whipped away from Arondel’s neck and spun silently through the air. Aranessa’s hair trigger reflexes kicked in and she threw herself to the side. The knife whirled through the air down the dim corridor of the train car, narrowly missing several passengers.

The man, in his haste to get away, did not notice one of the small glass-like bubbles hanging in the air, and ran into it face-first. The man’s head imploded, sucking down to a single point and then flash-frying in a truly fantastical display. His headless corpse toppled to the floor.

Professor Arondel turned from the sight, sickened, to see the box glowing and ratling even more fiercely.

I should throw it out the window, he thought absently as his body moved on its own, get rid of it before it hurts anyone…

His eyes scanned the machine, locating the large brick of a battery which served as the power source, becoming dangerously hot. He followed the wires with his eyes as the rubber began to boil off of the copper. He grabbed one and yanked.

An explosion detonated behind him, so loud he had to clap his hands over his ears and he cried out in pain. Immediately afterwards the train’s emergency break slammed on and he skidded across the carpet, thumping painfully into the door at the far end of the car. There were cries of pain, the smell of smoke, and the squeal of the train’s wheels as it slowly ground to a halt.

He opened his eyes.

He jumped up, “Aranessa!” he shouted, barely able to hear himself over the ringing in his ears. The young woman was lying flat on her back, breathing, thank god, albeit heavily and with difficulty.

“Aranessa,” he said, huddling down next to her and checking for any injuries or blood. There was some but it was from the unfortunate leader of the band of men, “are you alright? Are you injured?”

“Professor… I can’t quite hear you…” she whispered faintly.

“I said are you-” he stopped, then glowered as a slow smile appeared on her face, “You… you! You rascal! Making jokes at a time like this?”

She nodded, then gasped as something under her coat and shirt seemed to pain her, “Broken rib… from the explosion. It was from those little things that came out of my gun. What did you call it professor? Something to do with pressure? Cavo- cava-”

“Cavitation, child, cavitation,” Arondel said with a tight smile, rocking back and forth nervously, “it’s when pressure on one side of something is so much greater than the other side that it causes microscopic cavities to form and then… well… implode.”

He glanced at the dead body with a sick expression on his face. The whole train car stank of vomit and blood.

“I killed him, didn’t I?” Aranessa asked, even more softly, a tear rolling down her cheek, “I don’t feel anything professor. Not anger, or sadness, or shame…”

“That’s shock, child, you’re going into shock. Please, just keep breathing and try to stay awake for me, alright?” Arondel said. He was shaking too, hands chattering like teeth in a blizzard.

Someone yelled for help, whistles sounded dimly, and the rest of the day passed in a haze. They were questioned, checked over by a medic, and released at the nearest constable’s office, carrying everything they had brought onto the train with them. Except, perhaps, one small item.

It was nighttime now, and the sound of crickets drummed around the small town they had been plopped in. Professor Arondel gently removed the cube from his coat and held it up into the starlight. The metal casing was slightly warped, the cables almost melted, but it still gleamed that soft white-blue as it reflected the light of the moon.

“My God,” said the professor with a beatific smile, “this will be extraordinary.”