[Eerie musical ambience, mechanical rattling.]

Narrator 1: The mail cart is yet again descending into unfathomable darkness. It is getting close to its destination, but it’s not there quite yet.

Narrator 2: It takes a little while to get from here to there. And for the most part, it’s a long, quiet journey through emptiness. Tzila has gone to sleep in the engine car, and Phineas is pretending to sleep in the mail car.

Narrator 1: The mail cart has two components: at the front, an engine compartment full of all the bocular stuff that makes the car go, and a rear compartment full of nothing but boxes and cargo, both compartments connected in the middle by a narrow doorway.

Narrator 2: Lark has taken the opportunity to get a moment of goddamn peace and quiet to herself, with the other two presumably asleep. Lark is now sitting on the roof, the cable overhead, and the dim, intermittently-blinking beacon light in front of her,

Narrator 1: blinking dimly, on and off, on and off,

Narrator 2: illuminating the nothing that there is to be seen in the darkness of the Fold, enjoying her third-to-last cigarette. She knows she shouldn’t be smoking here, in this dangerous wilderness where every little flicker of life could be detected by forces unseen. But the pinprick of heat is small enough, and she’s, she’s just not even going to smoke the whole thing, so. Probably it will be fine. She’s rationalizing. She feels like she will lose her goddamn mind if she can’t have a smoke. It’s the one indulgence she can allow herself right now.

Narrator 1: It is quiet and deep and dark,

Narrator 2: and under other circumstances, quite peaceful. She doesn’t really like leaving Tzila where she can’t see her, down there with that Adsecla. But while they’re both asleep seemed like the best moment to steal a second for herself, something she desperately needs. She’s a bit of an introvert, if we haven’t driven that point home.

Narrator 1: And the Adsecla has been well-behaved, doing precisely as instructed, sitting quietly in one corner of the cargo compartment minding his own business, saying little to nothing.

Narrator 2: The model of good behavior.

Narrator 1: And that sets Lark just a tiny bit more at ease with him.

Narrator 2: Why, she almost can’t reconcile this obedient, agreeable footsoldier with the wild-eyed warrior she had seen dragging Sherman Guthrie’s body through the streets of Stationary Hill. She hears the hatch door thud open behind her, and heavy footsteps clank their way onto the roof of the car.

Narrator 3: Speak of the devil. Phineas sits down behind Lark,

Narrator 1: keeping a respectful distance.

Narrator 2: He knows that her name is Lark now, because that’s what he heard Tzila call her.

Narrator 3: And they both sit there, in the silence, in the darkness, for a moment,

Narrator 2: watching the occasional particulates and unidentifiable rippling things that are briefly to be seen in the brief illumination of the beacon light.

Narrator 3: (as Phineas) “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot back there.”

Narrator 2: (as Lark, whispering) “Remember to keep your voice down.”

Narrator 3: (Phineas, whispering) “Oh, right. Sorry. I was… trying to get in touch with Tzila earlier. That was for an assignment that’s kind of on pause right now, but… I needed to talk to her, and… I hope at some point here soon I’d like to be able to, again, if that’s all right with you.”

Narrator 2: (Lark) “For the assignment that’s on pause.”

Narrator 1: Lark doesn’t look at him. She just gazes dead ahead, staring into the darkness below.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Was what you did to Sherman… also part of this assignment?”

Narrator 1: Uh-oh.

Narrator 3: Ooh.

Narrator 2: Hmm, that’s… interesting. Phineas, uh, didn’t realize that she knew about that.

Narrator 1: Now this is an interesting moment here, which we should clarify for you.

Narrator 2: Lark thinks that she’s referring to the fact that Phineas supposedly killed Sherman. Phineas thinks that Lark is referring to the fact that he beat the living daylights out of Sherman. And Tzila, passed out from exhaustion below them, doesn’t know that Phineas has anything at all to do with her father.

Narrator 1: There are a lot of unknowns, a lot of miscommunication. This is one of those scenarios.

Narrator 3: Phineas’s voice catches in his throat for a moment.

Narrator 2: A wave of discomfort crashes down upon him.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “That part didn’t go as intended.”

Narrator 1: Understatement of the year.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “I know that I need to apologize to Tzila, and… I guess that’s kind of why I’m, I’m talking to you, why I, I would like to be able to do that. If that’s all right.”

Narrator 2: The next time the beacon’s light switches on for a moment, Phineas sees that Lark has turned her head to stare at him uncomprehendingly. In her mind she’s thinking, Apologize? For killing her dad? Seems a little weak.

Narrator 1: Lark is staring daggers at him.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Right now, that girl doesn’t know that you had anything to do with her dad,”

Narrator 1: Lark says.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “All she knows is that the Trust is responsible. But you are an agent of the Trust, are you not?”

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “I am.”

Narrator 2: (Lark) “They sent you on this assignment that’s on pause. And now they’re sending you on a new assignment to get help for Midst?”

Narrator 3: And while it isn’t technically true, Phineas finds himself saying, [Phineas:] “Well, I, yeah. I’m just trying to make it right, Lark. I, that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Narrator 1: He seems scared and he seems sincere. He believes he’s doing the right thing. He seems to be trying his best, but his best means very little given what he has done. Lark looks him up and down.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Okay, you want us to be honest with each other? I saw the look on your face when that ship took off away from Midst. You were not expecting them to leave without you. I think they abandoned you.”

Narrator 1: And this is pretty fucking hard to hear, coming from this woman, here on top of this mail cart in unimaginable darkness with everyone gone and everything lost.

Narrator 2: And he feels an immediate urge to deny this, to disprove this, to not even let this sentence hang in the air for a moment longer than it has to, and forgetting all about the directive to keep silent just for one fateful moment, Phineas immediately comes back with:

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “No they did NOT!”

Narrator 2: Just a LITTLE bit more heated than he meant to.

[Sudden, monstrous roaring.]

Narrator 2: Lark slowly grinds her cigarette on the roof of the car below them. [Lark:] “Nice going, kid.”

[Ominous music with an urgent rhythm that blends with the clicking of the beacon light.]

Narrator 1: The darkness around them is alive with vast, slow-coiling, bioluminescent movement.

Narrator 2: They feel the Fold buffeted against them with somewhat more force than usual,

Narrator 1: an odd, liquid, seismic tremoring in the fog around them, as again—

[Strange, alien keening continues.]

Narrator 1: Oh, it, it is indescribably eerie.

Narrator 2: The beacon light blinks on and off, on and off, by turns plunging them into absolute darkness and giving them a fraction of a second’s glimpse into what might be lurking there. And the next time the beacon light comes on, they see above their heads, rushing silently through the Fold, coiling around them, the underbelly of — something.

Narrator 3: A foldwail… is, well, it’s a whale in that it is a colossal sea-like organism, but that’s really where the connection to anything that you might be familiar with ends. This monster is not a w-h-a-l-e whale, but a w-a-i-l wail.

Narrator 2: So named for the sound it makes and the sound that it makes others make.

Narrator 1: And the sound that it is making again right now, as you can hear, as it begins to coil massively toward the mail car.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Well, shit,” Lark says, getting to her feet slowly, calmly.

Narrator 1: This is clearly a time to whisper. They have to think fast. It’s like a giant dragon kite. It’s like a massive eel. Its entire body is a lengthy snaking mass of filaments and segments and strange tailing lures.

Narrator 2: It is basically a huge mouth given the evolutionary means to soar around. And it has, despite all their precautions, become aware of their presence.

[The wail wails.]

Narrator 2: (Lark, whispering) “It can’t see us, but it is looking for us. Now, it can sense heat. We have to think of a way to kill it or distract it. And we have minutes to do this.”

Narrator 1: This is a very tense situation, extremely hushed. Lark’s voice is very low. As she creeps along the roof of the mail cart,

Narrator 2: she slowly pulls her hunting knife out of a sheath. Seems a bit ridiculous in the face of this enormous behemoth.

Narrator 1: It’s coiling closer and closer, wrapping around the car, circling enormously, its blind eyeless head seeking the source of the disturbance it has detected, seeking them.

Narrator 3: And in this moment, Phineas feels a clarity emerge.

Narrator 1: Something about being in danger.

Narrator 2: He has a clear objective in this moment.

Narrator 3: Survive.

Narrator 2: And suddenly, he has an idea.

Narrator 3: (Phineas, whispering) “You stay up here, keep it distracted. I gotta go back inside.”

Narrator 1: And he does. Moving quickly, quietly, and staying low, headed towards the hatch in the roof of the compartment, he begins to climb down inside.

Narrator 2: He’s gone. He’s disappeared. And Lark turns to face the monster with a knife in her hand.

Narrator 1: Inside the mail compartment, Tzila has awakened. She is climbing up the ladder as Phineas is climbing down. She looks bleary-eyed and confused and frightened.

Narrator 3: Phineas puts a finger to his lips.

Narrator 2: She claps a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Lark is upstairs, but I need your help in here. Open up some of these mail bags and boxes, get everything out on the floor, all the paper. Spread it around. Get it in a pile.”

Narrator 1: He seems confident and assured in this moment, like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and this has a powerful effect on Tzila, who accepts his instructions and unhesitatingly, quickly, begins to crack open mail crates and pull open mailbags and upend their contents onto the floor of the cart.

Narrator 2: Tzila, who in her own way is feeling adrift, appreciates the structure of a clear objective to be tackled, even though that objective involves a terrible monster that wants to devour them all.

Narrator 1: (as Tzila) “Is it a wail? Oh, I’ve read about them, that’s bad.”

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Remember, shhh! Get the stuff open.”

Narrator 1: Tzila keeps her voice down and moves quickly and quietly, upending papers, envelopes, parcels, packages, as quietly but as quickly as possible onto the floor of the cart.

Narrator 2: They’re being as quiet as they can, but it is still an awful lot of activity that’s making their bodies heat up, that’s making their hearts beat faster, and Lark, up on top of the car, is noticing that the wail is noticing. Its movements are becoming increasingly more targeted. It’s spiraling tighter and tighter around the mail car, becoming more and more interested. Its mouth, by the way, is large enough to consume the entire thing in one gulp, if it decides to.

[Wailing.]

Narrator 2: Lark has killed a foldwail before. Of course, she had a harpoon gun at the time and was working as a part of a wailing crew,

Narrator 1: all of whom also had harpoon guns. This situation is very different and much worse.

Narrator 2: She’s hesitating to even make an attempt on it with her knife in case that only enrages it.

Narrator 1: She hears some muffled thumping and clanking from inside the cart, which is not good,

Narrator 2: pretty much the opposite of what she hoped would happen.

Narrator 1: What are they DOING down there? What is Phineas DOING?

Narrator 3: Phineas is making his way from crate to crate, upending them on the floor, spilling their contents all over the floor of the mail compartment. And then he arrives at the crate with his pauldron and mace inside.

Narrator 2: His mica contraband which has been locked away throughout the entirety of the voyage so far.

Narrator 3: And as he flips the lid of this open, he notices with some horror that Lark was right.

Narrator 1: Mica IS bad this deep in the Fold.

Narrator 2: The inside of this crate is not wood anymore. It’s sort of wet and sticky to the touch.

Narrator 1: It’s possible that it’s breathing? Well, he doesn’t have time to investigate THAT, but that’s horrible.

Narrator 2: The fold surrounding the white, bright glow of the mica is undulating and agitated.

Narrator 1: Yeah, it’s time to get these things out of here, quick.

Narrator 3: And so he pulls them out and sets the pauldron there on the ground and holds his mace aloft,

Narrator 1: surrounded by paper and parcels,

Narrator 2: by one hell of a fire hazard. Since moving slowly and quietly doesn’t seem that relevant anymore, Lark comes quickly zooming down the ladder back into the mail compartment.

Narrator 1: Tzila is upending the last bag of mail onto the ground, dumping out a number of packages, including one package in particular that is meaningless to our friends assembled here today, but which will be familiar to you — a black, sticky package. A little “leaky-leaky” there, as one might say.

Narrator 2: Not important. Just a side detail. [Lark:] “What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” Lark whispers, hisses, and as she’s asking the question and sees Phineas standing there with his mace at the ready, about to bring two pieces of mica crashing together,

Narrator 1: amongst a massive amount of paper and wood, it becomes clear. He’s going to set the cart on fire. And that is exactly what they need.

Narrator 2: They lock eyes, and almost telepathically seem to come to an understanding of the plan together.

Narrator 1: This is actually a great idea.

Narrator 2: This is a good plan. This could work. [Lark:] “Disconnect the cars, right?” she asks, clarifying.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Yes.”

Narrator 2: She takes Tzila and retreats quickly to the engine compartment and begins looking for a way to disconnect the two cars, as Phineas sets about creating the biggest fire he can.

Narrator 3: You remember the Incendiary Imaging Device.

Narrator 2: You remember the moon exploding, too. Mica has some incendiary properties.

Narrator 1: It doesn’t USUALLY blow up on its own.

Narrator 2: When mistreated, or treated in a very intentional way, mica is a great firestarter. After seeking out a final terse nod from Lark, Phineas brings the mace down on the pauldron with all his force.

[Glassy impact.]

Narrator 1: Mica sparks against mica, a brilliant flash of bright, burning light.

Narrator 2: A torrent of sparks flies up, landing in all the mail that has been dumped out, all the tinder, potential little tearrors shimmering, trailing after each bright point.

[Flames begin to crackle.]

Narrator 3: Phineas strikes the pauldron again, tiny pieces of mica shrapnel skittering across the paper, each tiny piece cutting and burning and conflagrating this mess, this pile of messages.

Narrator 2: Never to reach their destination. And, almost in rhythm with him, the side of the mail car is struck by something in turn. Something that has definitely gotten interested now.

Narrator 1: Inside the engine car, just a few feet away, Tzila has located a lever. [Tzila:] “Lark! This? This?”

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Shhh, yeah, I think that’s the one.”

Narrator 1: It certainly seems to be the one. It has a sign on it that says “Disconnect car.”

Narrator 3: Lark grasps the release lever and gazes into the raging inferno that is currently the mail compartment.

Narrator 2: Phineas gives the mica another strike for good measure, though the flames around him are clearly catching.

Narrator 3: Plumes of flame are now billowing up and through the hatch at the top of the car.

Narrator 2: Another bone-shaking cry from outside. Phineas feels the vibrations quake through his body, and imagines just how easily the wail could swallow them all up. He looks through the flames across at Lark, standing there in the engine compartment with her hand on the lever,

Narrator 1: ready to disconnect the engine from the cargo car, the cargo car that Phineas now stands within, surrounded by flames.

Narrator 2: A perfect burning capsule of wail bait. They lock eyes.

Narrator 1: The temptation to eject Phineas is very strong. Lark’s grip tightens on the lever. Dawning comprehension is apparent in Phineas’s gaze.

Narrator 2: He actually kind of freezes, and just waits for her to make her decision, whatever it’s going to be.

Narrator 3: This is the moment that’s going to define the future of their relationship for a long time. Or not a long time at all, in fact. It could go terribly wrong and he’ll just, it’ll all end here for him.

Narrator 2: With her other hand, the one not on the lever, she beckons to him. A terse little jerk of the head.

Narrator 3: And wasting no time at all, Phineas drops the mace and charges across the burning mail car into the engine room, joining Lark and Tzila.

Narrator 2: And as soon as Phineas is through the doorway, Lark heaves on the lever with all her might, disconnecting the two cars.

Narrator 1: With a flash of sparks and a grind of metal, the burning mail car detaches, receding away down the cable. As the engine compartment accelerates ahead,

Narrator 2: the three of them watch through the open doorway.

Narrator 1: In the light of the flames, the massive coiling monster is briefly visible,

Narrator 2: zeroing in on its toasty new snack,

Narrator 3: the engine car almost invisible compared to this burning, brilliant blaze,

Narrator 2: just as Phineas had planned and hoped. They’re standing there, their chests heaving, their hearts beating, sweat shining on their foreheads. Lark plants her feet, bracing herself across the doorway. [Lark:] “You might wanna hold on to something here.”

Narrator 1: Distantly, far away down the cable, the red ember of the mail car receding into the dark vanishes. There is a sudden impact, the cable itself twanging and bouncing like a plucked guitar string,

Narrator 2: and the engine compartment jolts and judders and swings in the impact and the reverberations, as the mail compartment is devoured in one huge gulp, ripped off the cable.

Narrator 1: And then it slowly settles, and then all is quiet and strangely still but for the distant complaint of a wail experiencing some very significant indigestion somewhere deep down in the dark below.

Narrator 2: Phineas looks over at Lark

Narrator 1: and Tzila.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Good plan,” Lark says.

Narrator 1: They’re alive. And below, distantly in the dark down the cable, the very first lights of civilization are visible,

Narrator 2: glimmering, dimly oscillating fold-safe lights,

Narrator 1: the lights of the islet of Sequester, their destination.

Narrator 3: The end of the line.