Content warnings for Fractal by Shae Nicholson-
Estimated rating: M15+ for content, verging on R for language.

● Miscarriage and stillbirth
● Allusions to Sexual Assault
● Violence against women
● Blood
● Murder
● Ecological devastation
● Suicidal ideation,
● Death of children (historic)
● Claustrophobia,
● Mines/underground location
● Dark and lack of light
● Gaslighting
● Trainwreck
● Car-crash
● Drowning
● Mental health
● Villainisation of Neurodivergent peoples
● Slurs used:
– Homophobic slurs used as insults, and also used affectionately by a straight-passing person.
– Ableist slur (Sp**ic) used by a neurodivergent person, referring to themself.
– Misogynistic slurs as insults, and as Australian vernacular.

A little closer and she’d be near enough to the edge.

The hum of the electric rail vibrated loudly enough to make her head buzz. She could feel it in the space between the bridge of her nose and her eye sockets.

Everything was slowing down. The lights of the express train were coming through the tunnel, closer and closer.

Four steps, three steps.

It was almost here.

Time had almost stopped.

The rush of air hit her, lifting the loose hair around her face where it had come down from her bun.

Two steps, but what was that rumble?

A baritone, rich…

What are you doing?

One step.

She closed her eyes.

The temptation to reach out and run the back of her hand over the chain-link fence was almost too much for Bonnie. The rasp of the steel moving in each of the grey links made her skin prickle, and the catch of rust against her fingertips grated in a way that usually sent a spasm of revulsion rippling up her arm like an electric shock. 

But the metal would be cool and textured, and the dull chime of her nails would have a rough cadence that was musical.

She was meant to be wearing the claustrophobic winter gloves, but Bonnie needed the sweet coolness of the English autumn enveloping her fingers. Just weeks ago, her cheeks had burned on a frosty Meanjin morning as she stood on the gangplank to the repurposed cruise ship, braced against a July wind. Days before that, the chill of the Western Deserts at night had burned her lips and stung her nose as she hunkered in a dugout, eagerly counting down the minutes until she shipped out.

Across the world, the tickle of an English sea breeze promised the coming of a deeper cold than she had ever experienced, but for now, she worked through the discomfort of wearing the stuffy cold weather gear by letting her fingers dance through the delicious coolness.

Having made landfall twelve days ago, she had so far racked up twenty engagements. All had been resolved without force, and the twenty families involved had been packed up and put on a transport truck to one of the ports.

The surveillance drones had thermal mapped the neighbourhood and come up with several potential sites for Abstainers. Today they were twelve kilometres from the Welsh border. She was freezing, but the morning was bright and the sea wind was invigorating. She had a good feeling about today.

Her job was simple: she and hundreds of other perky, non-threatening customer service pros across the continent were smiling, knocking on doors, and encouraging dissenting British nationals to evacuate the country. The playbook had been copied almost word for word from an old Avon training manual.

Her team was stiff, not yet familiar with each other, but Bonnie felt comfortable and nattered happily. It was her place to fit in, just as it was her job to be bright, non-threatening, appealing… Perfectly put together, perfectly groomed, she looked like a flight attendant in tasteful, nicely fitting, navy blue tactical pants. Perfect, making a difference, practically the poster child of the Extraction program.

At the third house of the day, Bonnie clipped cheerfully up the garden path, Extraction team Thirty-Two keeping pace behind her. Fraser, Hanaka, and Lopez held heavy rifles, looking intimidating. Lipton, Fresco, and Ballymore moved behind her, pistols holstered. They all moved in a V shape with Bonnie at the point. She rapped on the door and stood back, smiling broadly. She appeared so out of place in the Extraction team.

No answer.

No worries, not unexpected.

She stepped forward and knocked again, this time calling out, hopeful and sweet sounding.

“Relocation and Extraction Corps, can you open the door please?”

There was silence for a moment before a thickly accented voice shouted from deep within the house, “Piss off, we‘re not leaving.”

Bonnie tried the doorknob. Locked. She pulled a small boxy device the size of a poppa juice box from her pocket and thumbed a metal probe from its niche. It was slim and as wide as her pinkie nail. She inserted it into the lock and flipped the switch on its base. There was a buzzing sound as the probe’s teeth forced the lock, and she turned the handle. The door had been weakly barricaded, and she wordlessly stepped aside for the security detail at her back to move forward and force their way in.

The barricade fell easily and Fraser, Hanaka, and Lopez moved into the entryway in formation as the other four fell back. It wasn’t a large house, and they cleared the bottom floor quickly. Bonnie got the nod to proceed, and she ascended the staircase to the upper level.

“My name is Bonnie. I‘m with the Relocation and Extraction Corps.” She withdrew her pistol from her hip holster, her finger resting on the safety switch. She held it down to her side and part way behind her leg.

“Fok off,” the voice repeated. It sounded young, a teenager maybe?

“I’m coming upstairs. Please be advised I have an armed escort. It would not be in your best interest to act hastily.”

There was some murmuring: a female voice, her tone agitated, then a male voice responded violently, and she fell silent..

Bonnie advanced, reaching the landing. There were three closed doors ahead of her. To her back was a large, frosted window and nowhere for someone to hide.

“Could you come out please?”

The door opened and a pimply teenage boy poked his head out of what looked to be the bathroom. He looked scared. Bonnie made her face as sympathetic as she possibly could, even though her heart was pounding. The kid was probably seventeen or eighteen, pasty white, though that could have just been the nerves.

“Hey,” she said.

“We don’t want to leave,” he told her, his voice cracking a little.

“That’s ok,” she slid her pistol back into her holster. “Do you live here? What’s your name? I’m Bonnie.”

“Mark,“ the kid replied. “It’s my girlfriend’s house.”

“Hi Mark, can I come to you?”

“Tell her to fuck right off, fucking bootlicker.” The girl’s voice came from behind Mark.

“Shut it,“ the boy snapped. Turning to Bonnie, he nodded and opened the door further.

“Do you know how much danger you are in if you continue to abstain from relocation?” She noted that even though her tone was gentle, her words still felt scripted and stilted.

He nodded slowly.

“Mark, do you want to stay?”

He started to nod but raised his eyes to hers, frightened and wide. His face was dirty. The water had been shut off a month ago in an effort to drive Abstainers out into the open for round up.

Bonnie nodded her understanding. “Ok.” She held her hand out and beckoned as though trying to coax a skittish cat out of hiding. “That’s ok… Do you want to come out of there? We’ve got hot food and somewhere warm for you to sleep.”

Another stream of cursing came from the bathroom, and Mark’s shoulders slumped.

“I have epilepsy,” his voice was so small she could barely hear it.

“That’s ok, it’s better you come with us and see a doctor…”

“We all know what Triage is, bootlicking slag!” The girl appeared at Mark‘s elbow. “You’ll just put a fucking bullet in his head the second…”

“Sadie, go and sit the fuck down!” Mark roared.

The girl jumped and her bottom lip quivered.

“We don’t do that,” Bonnie told him firmly. “My job is to evacuate people – to save people. There are Lichen blooms to the east of here. If we wanted to kill you, why would we be here?”

He shrugged, uncertain.

Epilepsy was a Triageable condition, but there were levels of diagnosis and tests he had to take before any doctor signed off on that particular option. Even if the kid didn‘t get relocated to one of the Commonwealth countries, he’d be safe in the medical settlement off New Zealand’s North Island, Te Ika-a-Māui.

Bonnie had heard the rumours, everyone had, but footage came in weekly of the first few hundred triaged refugees settling into their new life; it was safe, just inconvenient.

“Mark, if you want to leave here, you just have to walk down those stairs and out the front door.”

He hesitated but stepped into the hall, his shoulders quaking.

“You fucking coward,” screeched Sadie; she was younger than him, whip thin, with a long horsey face. “Fucking pussy!” She braced her hands against the door frame, and bodily hung out the door, raining obscenities down on the boy as he descended the stairs.

“Sadie, I need you to calm down,” Bonnie told her, calm but firm.

“Fuck off, Pig.”

“Please come with us of your own volition, or we will legally be required to remove—” Sadie started spitting, and Bonnie’s hand went to her baton. “Stop,” she commanded, drawing the baton and levelling it at the girl, who started to screech again. She sighed, backed away, and talked directly into her comm.

“Fraser, do you copy?”

“Copy, Avon,” the big Canadian replied.

“Extraction required, female, approximately fifteen years old, aggressive behaviour, no sighted weapons.”

“Copy. Teen male just surrendered to Lipton. Good work, Avon, we’re coming up.”

Bonnie stood back as Fraser and Hanaka came up the stairs. Sadie screamed and slammed the door. There was the sound of glass breaking and a report came over the radio.

“She is coming out of the window, over.” Ballymore had a rich, warm accent, and Bonnie could hear her laughing.

“Ballymore, don’t you let her fall. Lopez! Catch her!” Bonnie raced down the stairs; she could hear Fraser and Hanaka laughing now too.

“Eh, she’s climbing in jandals, look!” Hanaka hooted.

Bonnie could hear Sadie screaming and crying. She passed Lipton, and the boy, Mark, sitting on the garden fence. His face was tear streaked; Lipton was tapping away on his tablet, talking quietly.

A drone whizzed past, piloted by one of the surveillance guys back at command. Bonnie scaled the low fence and sprinted around the side of the house, just in time to see the girl dangling from the gutter, shrieking.

“Oh-dear-Jesus-shit!” she gasped, her words running together.

“Don’t worry, Avon, I’ll catch her.” Lopez grinned. He was the shortest of the group, barely 5’4”, but his arms were as thick as Bonnie‘s thighs.

“There is a trampoline next door.” Ballymore gestured over her own shoulder, indicating she wanted to go get it.

Sadie let go, and Hanaka’s sausage-like fingers grabbed at her. Fraser yelled from inside the bathroom.

“Where the fuck is Fresco?” What Fraser supposed Fresco could add to the situation Bonnie was unsure, but the chaos was starting to jangle her senses and she was not feeling quite as perfect as she had been before the engagement.

The girl was dangling by her jumper, and Hanaka was matching her squawks by pitch.

Sadie kicked, she and Hanaka screamed, and the rest of the squad started to laugh. Hanaka was hanging most of the way out of the window as Fraser braced in the window frame, gripping Hanaka’s belt, trying to haul him back inside. Sadie spun, half in and half out of her thick woollen jumper.

“Catch her, bro, catch her!” he yelled.

“Hey, Avon, I told you I’d catch her.” Lopez winked and strode forward, wrapping his arms around the screaming girl’s legs.

“Piss off!”

“Drop her, Hank,” Lopez stepped back. She dropped the remaining five feet to the ground, landing with a loud Ooof!

“Nice work, boys,” Ballymore clapped slowly.

“Jesus, you’ve got a fat ass, Hank,” the big Canadian puffed, still trying to pull Hank back in the window.

Lopez zip tied Sadie’s hands behind her back and guided her back to the front lawn. She had not stopped swearing and was now cussing out her boyfriend. Bonnie escorted them, reciting the girl’s Right to Process over her foul-mouthed tirade.

Hanaka and Fraser met them all at the front of the house, both puffing. With a great deal of effort, they had both worked hard to pull Hanaka back inside. Bonnie stifled a giggle, which Fraser heard. He glanced over at her for a moment as he dipped his head in a way that was almost bashful. It really was a welcome sight: Fraser was large and stoic and looked to be as wild and strong as any Canadian mountain man caricature, but there was a well-hidden warmth deep within him that she glimpsed from time to time.

Everything happened quickly after that.

There were three loud pops and Lipton dropped to the ground.

“Shots fired,” roared Fraser and Lopez at the same time. Hanaka grabbed Sadie and threw her to the ground behind the garden wall. Bonnie grabbed Mark and dragged him down to the dirt beside her.

“Crawl! Fucking move.” She shoved him in the direction of Sadie and cover. More loud pops. A flower pot by Bonnie’s foot exploded.

“Avon!” Ballymore hauled Bonnie to her feet and back behind the sturdy brick letterbox.

Bonnie wasn’t a soldier; it was her job to smile, be calm, and talk Abstainers down. It was her detail’s job to make sure she could do her job, no matter the circumstances. But she had spent the last two and a half years being a professional saboteur for the Eastern Forces Transport Corps — she knew how to shoot. 

She drew the pistol on her thigh, checked the safety was off, and scanned her surroundings.

The whine of the surveillance drone added to the cacophony; it would be relaying the situation back to command. An army of commercially available, remote-controlled drones had cost the Commonwealth Forces the tiniest fraction of what it would cost to repurpose a surveillance satellite for every Extraction team.

Back at command, the drone operator – today it was Riley Westcliffe – would be requesting authorisation to return fire using the miniature pop rifle on the drone. Her squad called them Lego cannons and they fired small, ball bearing projectiles.

“Westcliffe, what’s going on?” Bonnie screamed into her mic.

There was a crackle but no reply through her earpiece.

Fraser, Hanaka, and Lopez had backed into the house, and Bonnie heard the smash of glass as they took up positions on the upper floor. Scanning around her, Bonnie could account for almost everyone – but where was Fresco? 

“Avon, can you see anything?” Ballymore asked her, peering over the wall. There were several more pops, and she cried out. Bonnie hauled her back, relieved to see only a cut on her cheek. Ballymore was blinking frantically.

“Oh! Oh! Oh! Am I shot?”

“Your face is fine, it’s a scratch. Where’s the shooter? Westcliffe! Do you have eyes?” Bonnie couldn’t help but shout. More static. “Fuck. Does anyone have contact with command?”

The whirring of the drone got louder and there was another series of pops.“Over here, Skynet!” Hanaka called out. There was a pop from his own rifle and the drone crashed into the ground between Bonnie and the two kids. Hanaka let out a whoop, and after a moment, Bonnie climbed to her feet.

“What did you do to my fucking drone?” Westcliffe’s voice came in clear and crisp, and they all recoiled from the shrill feedback.

They found Fresco a block over, blood drying in her hair. She looked dazed and opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. Bonnie radioed the truck, while Ballymore shrugged her pack off, knelt, and started to examine the Belizean.

“Lipton, bring the truck over. Fresco has a head wound.”

“Copy that…”

Ballymore shone a light into each of her eyes.

“Lego Cannon, I suspect…” Her English was sharp and concise, and so at odds with her melodious voice and accent. “Fresco, can you please say something.”

Fresco seemed to be struggling to focus and raised a hand to weakly bat the light from Ballymore’s hand.

Lipton arrived, steering the retrofitted lorry towards them. Group Leader Fraser was riding the tail bumper and stepped down as Lipton pulled up. Fraser, a man of few words, looked at Ballymore expectantly.

“She will need to have a scan,” Ballymore told him, gently feeling her way around Fresco’s neck where it met her skull. “I’m confident she can travel, but I would recommend she is returned to command now to undergo further tests.”

Fraser nodded and plucked Fresco’s rifle from the ground near his feet.

“Here.” He handed it to Bonnie and raised his own, tucking the stock hard against his shoulder in demonstration. “Remember?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“Good. I need you to be Barrymore’s eyes on the truck.” He took the rifle back, checked the magazine, and thumbed the safety off and on smoothly. “Lipton needs to drive and Ballymore needs to tend to Fresco.”

“I can shoot, Fraser. I’m not scared.” As the words left her mouth, Bonnie inwardly cringed at how eager and babyish she sounded.

“Which is why I gave you a rifle and not a radio,” he said.

He was a dry man but not cold. She knew realistically she was the least experienced player on the board, but Fraser had always valued her input when she forecast plans for approaching abstainers, and he had not ever made her feel like an outsider or a freak for her… quirks. He often fell into step beside her, and though he rarely spoke, their silences were comfortable.

If Bonnie were being honest with herself, she might have recognised the entirely inappropriate school girl crush she had on the big Canadian man. There was no official ranking in the hodgepodge, largely improvised Transport Corps, as it would have violated several conditions of the Evacuation Agreement signed by the Thirty-Two representatives of the Commonwealth Nations, prohibiting the use of the Evacuation force as a military operation, or operating as a military unit on foreign soil.

To get around these conditions, the command units were largely operated and run by emergency dispatchers, and the Evacuation squads, although staffed predominantly by military and ex-military personnel, were operated as civilian units, with Group Leaders being the closest things to commanding officers.

Bonnie could still feel the surging adrenaline from the attack earlier, and wondered how Fraser could look so calm. The blood was singing in her veins for more action, and she wondered if Fraser could sense this. His eyes reminded her of a hawk; she doubted they missed much.

Lipton, after making sure the kids were secure in the holding area, had emerged with a collapsible stretcher. Fraser took one end and with two sharp shakes, it snapped rigid.

Ballymore, who had braced Fresco’s neck for good measure, helped him slide their injured teammate into place.

Bonnie kept Fresco’s rifle pressed to her chest, scanning the surroundings around the side of the lorry. She blocked out the sound of her team as much as she could, instead listening for footfalls or the tell-tale clickclunk of hunting rifles being primed. She felt a hand on her arm and Fraser jerked his head, indicating she climb aboard. Bonnie nodded her assent, and he surprised her by winking.

“You’ll be back after the area’s been cleared. Marlin’s team will be heading in,” he told her.

“Be safe.” She was barely certain he heard her.

“You keep them safe,” he replied as Lipton started the truck. Fraser stepped up onto the back of the lorry and reached for the roller door as Bonnie did. For a split-second they were nose to nose, and for the briefest moment a smile curved his lips. He stepped backwards and rode the roller door down, and through the slats cut in the door, he held her gaze.

Despite the cold, Bonnie felt warm.

Sunlight streamed in through her bedroom window, lighting up the simple stretched out ‘m’ of a cartoon bird in flight. It had been drawn in the dust on the pane of glass and had become as much of a fixture as the window itself.

Not for the first time, she wanted to throw something through the glass and shatter it into oblivion. Of the several mornings like this, where Bonnie had told herself that today was the day, this bright morning felt different.

Bonnie Tanner awoke on this morning, the morning of July 18th, having made up her mind that she was going to die.

She rose and made her bed for the first time in what might have been months. She moved from room to tiny room of the old, converted railway car, tidying and cleaning. Most rooms were disused; she only used her kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom nowadays, so she was done in an hour.

The door to the last room, which stood between her kitchen and her bathroom, had stayed closed as she bustled to and fro.

The window in the kitchen had never closed properly and the smell of sun-warmed lavender and mock orange filled the compact room as the sun started to creep higher in the sky, casting its warmth on the roofs of the closely packed townhouses to the east.

Bonnie sat at the kitchen counter with a lukewarm coffee and wrote her final words, unsure who would read them. No one had come by since the elderly woman who had lived east of her had passed away several weeks before. The house to the west was derelict.

With her letter signed, Bonnie stood and cast a final look around her matchbox kitchen; the tiny oven and stove had always perched precariously on the edge of the bench by the window, and had always looked like it was seconds away from toppling out into the lavender bushes below.

Instead of turning right, to walk up towards the north-facing front door, she turned left and moved purposefully to the closed door at the end of the hall, one door up from the shoebox bathroom. This door always stood closed, and she pressed her forehead to the cool glass of the compartment window.

The dusty pink window shades had been fixed in place years ago and glowed softly, lit from behind by the morning sun. She rested her hand lightly on the door handle but did not turn it; she had not entered this room in almost a year. Standing like this for a minute, she pressed a kiss to her fingers and held it to the glass.

“Bye, baby,” she whispered, removing her hand from the handle. There were ghosts here, and they would die with her.

There had been a time when she would have remembered every single one of those faces on the other side of the ticket window. Once she would have been able to piece together bits and pieces of their lives from the split second she saw them each day – banker, receptionist, drug dealer; their lives would have interconnected every day in ways they couldn’t imagine, but which Bonnie had once been able to plot with frightening accuracy.

But now she was too tired, too many pieces of her were missing, and everyone looked the same. Day in, day out: take the money, print the ticket, watch the monitor for suspicious activity; breathe in, breathe out.

The ticketing process used to be automatic, but after the explosion, people wanted a human face to ignore rather than the anonymous, cold cameras and the highly fallible computers that were meant to keep them safe. Computers could only watch, after all.

It had not been computers pulling bodies out of the rubble. It had not been computers who died. There had been 439 casualties, but 440 people died that day. Bonnie tried not to think about it too often, as the emptiness had started to echo.

She had waited under the memorial statues for hours after her shift ended, watching people start to leave the city en masse, heading home. Meanjin had a transient workforce. Millions of people streamed into the city every morning for work, and departed every afternoon on the trains, through the tunnels, out into the sunlight.

Perched at the feet of the laughing woman in the hijab, Bonnie felt at peace. There were six statues in total, standing shoulder to shoulder in a tight ring, each with a carved name plate.

The Muslim woman stood behind the plate that read ‘Mother’. Stone hands clasped each other and to the right stood a short man, ‘Father’, smiling lovingly down his right arm.

Further to the right, a young boy pulled playfully at the hand of the Father; his stone eyes squinted forward, and his mouth was wide in a shout of delight; ‘Brother’.

A teenage girl was pulling back on the hand clasped in her left but was smiling indulgently. She had her head turned to the figure on her right, who stared back – androgynous, beautiful, and ageless, the ‘Lover’ forever had their eyes locked on the ‘Sister’.

Completing the circle was the ‘Friend’, a kindly face, staring serenely out over the crowd. She was there for all, and it was her pretty, hopeful face that greeted the masses as they swarmed towards home.

The spread of the feet of the Mother created a cosy place for someone to rest. Lately, this had been Bonnie’s favourite place to sit. She had lost her mother when she was thirteen, and her father didn’t keep in touch; she figured this spot was as good as any to find comfort.

When she felt the time was right, she descended the escalators to one of the northern-facing platforms. The lift had been out of service, and her day had been rife with fielding complaints about it.

An express train would be easiest, she decided. Everything was automated – the doors, the trains – and by slipping behind the safety barrier at the end of the platform at the mouth of the tunnel, no one would see. One second, there; the next, gone.

She watched the scrolling digital readout, counting down the minutes until the train passed through. She could hear the thrum of blood in her ears as her heart started to race.

A little closer and she’d be near enough to the edge.

The hum of the electric rail vibrated loudly enough to make her head buzz. She could feel it in the space between the bridge of her nose and her eye sockets.

Everything was slowing down. The lights of the express train were coming through the tunnel, closer and closer.

Four steps, three steps.

It was almost here.

Time had almost stopped.

The rush of air hit her, lifting the loose hair around her face where it had come down from her bun.

Two steps, but what was that rumble?

A baritone, rich…

What are you doing?

One step.

She closed her eyes.

Something closed like a vice around her arm and dragged her backwards, forcefully jerking her around.

“What’n th’ fuckin’ hell are ye doin’?”

Time started again.

The train sped past.

Bonnie made a choking sound and felt her knees buckle under her. Whoever had grabbed her knelt beside her and touched her shoulder.

“Y’alright, hey?” A deep Scots-Britannic voice asked, sounding bemused, and Bonnie pushed away, flushed with embarrassment.

“I’m fine.” She scrubbed at her face.

The man snorted his disbelief.

“Sure y’are.” He didn’t make any effort to stand until Bonnie did, hovering protectively.

Humiliated, Bonnie’s face burned; she mumbled a brusque thanks.

“Ye don’t mean that…” His reply was sceptical.

He was right; she was not thankful in the slightest. The crippling disappointment of still standing there was only just holding her abject mortification at bay. Between the two, she wanted to curl up and cry out her frustration until she drowned in it.

“I don’ want te leave ye here like this.” His face was angular, and his wide mouth was pressed into a grim, thin line of concern. “Whate’er is going on, there’s…” He paused, and Bonnie thought she caught a flash of recognition.

She didn’t remember much of her time in Extraction, or her crimes from the time that followed, but she wracked her brain for a Scotsman. The blurred, mostly mute faces she could conjure did not fit the bill, so she waved him off, fixing her face into the customer service rictus that had carried her through the past year.

“Hey, thank you.” She grinned. “I’m fine, really—”

The screeching rumble of tearing steel against concrete filled Bonnie’s head, and she dropped like a stone, wrapping her arms around her head to block the noise. The world shook around her, and the sensory assault blinded her even before the lights went out. Next to her, the big Britannic man huddled, one arm thrown across her as he protected his head with the other.

The screaming felt like a tea kettle whistling, dwindling out from a piercing shriek to a final sharp gasp, after which the world snapped back into focus.

Trying to make sense of what she was seeing in the strobe of damaged lights and sparking electrical wires, Bonnie stood and squinted. She was looking at a train. She cranked her head sideways to match its unnatural decline.

“It’s come through th’ roof!” the Brittanic shouted, barely able to be heard over the screech and yelling. “Th’ track gave way.”

He was only partly right, but she focused solely on the continued crumbling grind that made her teeth ache.

“We need t’get out.” The Brittanic grabbed her by her upper arm and urged her towards the exit. They were at the far end of the platform, only metres from the train carriage.

“Passengers.” Bonnie wrenched her arm from his grip and threw herself towards the crushed-in front carriage. It was dark, and the haze of fine dust did not allow her to see anyone moving about inside.

The Britannic swore in response, and Bonnie felt him behind her as she slipped off the platform. There was an overhang that had only partially collapsed under the crush of the train, and Bonnie, uncertain she would fit, dove into the gap, tunnelling into the possible void of the front compartment.

She felt the Britannic’s hands on her ankles and then her calves, grabbing at her clothes, urging her to stop, telling her the roof was going to come down, that she needed to get out…

“Help me or let me go!” she screamed back, and his hands disappeared. Bonnie wriggled further forward, feeling out the sharp edges of the window, the prickle of glass, and a smooth aluminium on the other side.

The pocket of air around her fingers felt warm and heavy, like a wheeze. She fought the urge to withdraw her hand in disgust, and pulled herself forward, hand over hand, until she put hands on something warm and soft. It moved, and Bonnie almost sobbed in relief.

Continuing to force herself into the carriage, she pulled herself over someone before she could manoeuvre herself around. The body groaned, and Bonnie shushed them.

“I’m sorry…” She stroked them absently, feeling around for anyone else. There was a loud, rhythmic banging, and somewhere in the dark, off to her right, someone woke with a pained yell.

Straining her eyes, Bonnie tried to make out any more crumpled figures, her heart beating in time with the thumping on the—

The window smashed in with a sound reminiscent of an aluminium can crumpling, and the warm air was displaced by the dusty rush from the platform. A large boot kicked in the sheet of fractured safety glass, which rained down over them, pebbly and harmless. Bonnie raised her arm to protect her face. Faintly, she registered a warm wetness on her arm.

In the faint strobe of the dancing electrical wires and failing lights stood the silhouette of the big Brittanic, his shoulder broad and heaving with exertion.

“Hullo?” he called in.

“Here!” Bonnie called, her voice thin from the dust.

Someone echoed her and shifted; the person to her right.

Using the light on his phone, the Brittanic shone a guiding light down into the crushed carriage. Bonnie stood, having angled her body into the space that had once been the centre aisle.

“How many?” the Brittanic leaned in as far as he could. The seats, now suspended on their sides, obscured his view.

“Two,” she answered, craning her neck. “Wait…” Halfway up, suspended in the crux of two seats, a hand hung, fingers limp.

The person at Bonnie’s feet dragged themselves towards the broken window with a groan of distress, and she diverted her attention to help them up to the window. Long fingered hands reached in and grasped the man who was pulling himself up and out of the window, and Bonnie noticed that the Brittanic’s hands were wet and pulpy with blood, his palms and the pads of his fingers half minced.

Eyes keen and quick, Bonnie noted a twisted piece of metal, presumably from the billboard that had once hung from the space just below where the roof had come crashing down; it was covered in splotchy red fingerprints. He had used it to break the glass.

“Y’alright?” 

She ducked out of sight, remembering to call back her reply after he repeated his question again, sounding panicked.

The person to her right, a woman, was dazed, her arm looked dislocated, and Bonnie bundled her to the window without ceremony. The Britannic tugged her through, apologising profusely in his low burr, but he snagged Bonnie before she could duck out of sight again.

“The roof’s about te come down,” he warned. “Ye need te get out…”

“One more,” Bonnie breathed, untangling his bloody hand from her blouse.

He regarded her with such an intense exasperation that she actually grinned.

“Get them out,” she told him as she dropped back out of his reach. Casting her eyes skyward, she started to climb.

The hand had not moved, and a drip of blood had appeared at the tips of the fingers. Bonnie felt a drop hit her cheek, then her forehead, but instead of shying away, she stayed the course, eyes fixed on those fingers, feeling for any deviation in those drops.

Her arms ached as she reached and pulled. She slowly moved up the seats, pushing upwards with her legs. A drop fell under her eye, and Bonnie exhaled heavily. The carriage hadn’t moved.

There were perhaps thirty rows of seats in each carriage, two on each side of the aisle, with an additional eight priority seats near each door. The hand hung about halfway between Bonnie and the midway door, and she was almost there when there was another squealing crunch.

The carriage jolted and dropped several feet into a forty-five-degree angle, forcing Bonnie’s heart up into her throat, and her stomach up into her chest cavity. She didn’t need the trajectory of blood droplets to know that the carriage had shifted.

With one last heave, she reached the hand and took it, squeezing it hard.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Hey, can you hear me?”

There was a weak groan, and Bonnie pulled herself up to the last set of seats. She braced her feet against the base of two opposite seats. A young man was splayed across the back of the seats, mercifully slight, and looking to be wholly intact despite a smashed nose.

“Let’s go, mate.” She dragged him across the seat and used gravity to lever him down to be supported across her thighs; she half pinned him against the side of the next set of seats down.

“Oi, Deathwish.” She wanted to look down but needed to focus on balancing the person across her knees. “I’m comin’ up…”

He was agile and strong, and before long he was taking the young man from her, slinging him over his shoulder.

“Ye alright?” he asked again.

“You got him?” Bonnie queried; she puffed, her muscles shaking violently.

“Hey.” He cuffed her arm, steadying her, making her pause and actually look at him. “Ye’re almost out…” he told her.

“Not yet,” Bonnie replied, breathless. She half climbed, half slipped her way down, whereas the Brittanic was more graceful in his descent. Arms still shaking violently, she gestured for him to go ahead of her, and crammed herself onto the back of a seat to let him pass. “You’re faster, I’m holding you up.”

The Brittanic didn’t argue, but he regarded her, frank and imploring. “Hurry,” he rumbled, and started back down at a markedly improved pace.

Bonnie followed, slower, more uncertain of her footing, and by the time she reached the bottom, the Brittanic had already climbed back out through the window and had half dragged the smaller man out. Despite her aching arms and shoulders, Bonnie seized the man’s legs and forced them upwards and outwards, sending the larger man semi-sprawling backwards. There was another snarl of metal and the Brittanic’s eyes went wide in fear. 

“Get back!” Bonnie shouted as he reached out for her, and she hoped he had the chance to snatch his hands back as the carriage dropped again with another piercing squeal.

The side of the carriage crumpled as it listed to the right, into the platform. Bonnie bounced like a pinball trapped between bumpers, wheezing as the chairs compressed together, winding her but also saving her from being ground into paste by the concrete siding of the platform.

Floating in the haze of the terrified and injured, Bonnie was certain she had felt several body parts crack. The faint shouting of the people on the platforms and the whine of the train settling against the concrete made her very aware of how alive she was. Time felt wobbly and for a while she just lay there, feeling seconds drip through her jostled mind.

As she raised her arms weakly to force herself backwards, away from the blocked window, she could have sworn she heard someone calling her name. Feeling more alert, she opened her mouth to yell but could only wheeze. 

Suspecting this was more of a response to the overstimulation, Bonnie hooked her knees into the underside of the chair. Once upon a time she had been in tremendous shape, but by beautiful design she had always held most of her strength in her legs and lower torso. Flexing and straining hard, Bonnie let her chest and shoulder grow limp until she flopped backwards with barely less force than a cork coming out of a bottle.

There was shouting, though it was muffled by the stifling, claustrophobic metal shell. Bonnie could hear a frantic rasping, startlingly close. It sounded like some feral animal was wrapped up in the carriage with her. She kicked and pounded at the side of the train, the rasping getting louder, though the rattling was feeble. Her body throbbed and ached, and she was so tired…

A light!

Up ahead, a roof hatch glowed faintly before being flung open.

“Deathwish?” The Brittanic’s hand appeared, holding his phone, torch on, in his outstretched hand.

“Here.” She staggered over the half-crumpled seats.

“I’m coming!” He lowered himself in, the train too compressed and twisted for it to be too far of a fall, and he had to hunch his shoulders to climb over the seats towards her. 

“The roof…” she called back weakly. There were still pebbly thumps and the occasional groan of concrete on steel.

“Les’ jus’ get ye out…” he answered, reaching for her.

Bonnie registered her depth perception was skewed when she went to take his hand and overbalanced; her reach came up short, making her wobble.

He caught her and half lifted, half dragged her over the rest of the seats. “I gotcha,” he told her, as they reached the centre point in the carriage, cleared for the entry and exit points. “You’ll need a boost.”

He dropped to his knee and looped his fingers together. “On three, Deathwish…”

Bonnie steadied herself by putting her hands on his shoulders. “Bonnie,” she offered, and he looked up at her, his angular face softening as his wide mouth split into a broader grin.

“Oh aye, that ye are…” He boosted her, and Bonnie levered herself up with her last bit of strength. With a groan and a grunt, the Brittanic raised himself up beside her, and with both of them winded from the exertion, they took a moment to catch their breaths.

Bonnie realised his shredded hands would have pained him greatly in the past minutes.

“Louie.” He wheezed next to her, and she patted his chest in acknowledgement as she took in the scene around them, blinking rapidly as the wires – fewer now than there had been – flashed in the dark.

A cluster of people were gathered on the stairs pressing desperately against the blast door that was refusing to open.

“The door…”

“It’s stuck.” He sat up, voice rasping over a dry throat.

“I know a way.” Bonnie half climbed, half slid off the roof, followed by Louie.The two conscious people they had first pulled from the carriage had joined the small group by the door, the third suspended between them, and Bonnie began to limp after them.

The roof was cracking outwards from where the first carriage had fallen through after gravity tore it free of the rest of the train; the carriage now lay on its side, battered and sorry looking.

Bonnie spaced out the distance of the train in her mind, measuring it up against the length of the platform.

“Ye know a way?” Louie prompted.

“There’s an access tunnel to the lift shaft.” She pointed to a place down the platform where the front of the second carriage would roughly end, and where long cracks were starting to form.

“Can’t we use the—” Bonnie interrupted him with a grunt, pointing further down the platform at the lift door, where two more people were slamming helplessly on a similar blast door to the one shielding the stairway.

In total, there were perhaps nine people on the platform, and Bonnie fleetingly felt relieved that it was so late at night.

“After the explosion last year, they rebuilt it to be sealable…” she told him.“How’re people meant t’ get out?” 

“It’s not about people, it’s about airflow…if there’s a fire, or explosion, the air would run out before it moved through the station.”

Louie, grim faced, did not ask any more questions. He was Brittanic; he knew how cheap the cost of human life was in this little corner of the Commonwealth.

Almost in a grim parody of his realisation, Bonnie glimpsed an old billboard from before the LED panel screens had been installed, now shattered and fallen in the collapse. It was curling up at the edges and had been graffitied in some places, but the blue–green landscape of the Isle of Skye, hazy with lichen, filled this part of the station wall.

Do Your Part, urged the billboard. Join Extraction.

Dropping down onto the tracks, it was easy enough to find the access hatch, and Louie muscled the locking lever down while Bonnie cast a wary eye skyward. There was a heavy clunk and Louie let out a little crow of triumph as he swung the access hatch wide.

The long metal passage gleamed; there wasn’t a smudge of dirt anywhere along its length. It had been lit by the phospho-strips and looked like something out of an old science fiction movie, like a hatchway on a spaceship.

Peering in, Bonnie was surprised to find the hatch already part way open, a murky-looking swathe of light contrasting with the soft organic light of the tunnel.“The way’s clear!” she announced. 

Without prompting, Louie curled his hands around his mouth and bellowed. “We’ve a way out! Move ye arses!” 

Bonnie couldn’t help but smile as the Brittanic dropped from his voice. The Australian twang had been absorbed by the United Kingdom’s refugees and had resulted in an odd hybrid of various accents, a pidgin of slang, and though it sounded different for everyone, it had come to be known, unmistakably, as Britannic.

The booming Scottish rumble suited him much better.

No one seemed to hear, or they just ignored Louie, and he and Bonnie ran back down the tracks, shouting. The two trying the elevator door took notice, and Bonnie paused to point out the place where the hatch was hidden under the overhang of the platform.

“There,” she said. “It’s open.”

A chunk of roof dropped from the ceiling. Bonnie fell back in surprise, landing hard on one of the rails. Instinctively, she drew herself into a ball to avoid touching the other rail, though she was not actually sure if magnetic trains still needed electric rails.

Another piece of ceiling shattered to her right, peppering her with concrete shrapnel, and a fine layer of dust started to rain down. She hurried to the overhang and cowered underneath.

Overhead, she heard Louie, loud and commanding, steering, cajoling and bullying the group down onto the track and into the tunnel. She crawled along, more of the roof spraying her with shards of concrete. 

Ahead of her, Louie was half sheltering under the overhang as he forced each of the small group into the tunnel, and he seized her as she reached him.“In,” he told her, and she shook her head.

“You’re strong enough to get everyone up the ladder,” she told him, and though she could tell he wanted to argue, he dove into the tunnel ahead of her.There was a final crack, and Bonnie only had a moment to glimpse the billboard again before the roof came down, the blue–green hills vibrant through the dust and debris.

Do your part… 

If Bonnie had time to spit, she would have. The world roared as the station came down around her, smashing into her head and shoulders as she ducked into the tunnel, the phospho lights doing nothing to illuminate her descent into exhausted half consciousness.