New character

Charlotte thought less of herself for not being more cross with the man whom she had lent her coat to. Logically it was his own fault for not being prepared. Then again, the fellow was unprepared in so many ways that she couldn't bring herself to be mad at him, especially after an event for which almost no one was prepared.

It was a Monday morning. Four hours prior, Charlotte and a hundred or so others had boarded an ultra high speed magnetic levitation train to make the monumental trip all the way to the City from Lacus Solis. Now at roughly 9 am, the trip should have had only an hour to go before terminus, making its final straight underneath a range of huge mountains. Three hours into the trip and barely a minute after entering the tunnel, the train was stopped, gliding to a halt hundreds and hundreds of miles from the nearest Mag-Lev station in either direction.

The Mag-Lev was reversed back out of the tunnel and the passengers evacuated onto the bare freezing cold flank of the first mountain. In small groups they were airlifted aboard primitive helicopters over to the nearest ground level settlement, and into a tiny railroad station, where they boarded an equally primitive electric train.

Finally, after that ordeal, the fellow plopped into a couch seat. He had walked all the way through eight sparsely filled carriages first, stopping only in a completely empty one. He was still wearing Charlotte's coat, and even now hugged it against himself as though the icy wind had followed him inside the train. He apparently heard nothing of Charlotte following him all this time, awkwardly stomping and squeaking after him with her backpack, her broken saddlebag and suitcase on old rusty wheels. He was so absorbed in his thoughts, so utterly lost in whatever whirling mess of anxieties must be traversing him that even her standing there next to him didn't suffice to rouse him.

"Could I have it back, now please?"

"Oh!" he jumped, eyes wide, staring up at Charlotte like a frightened puppy, "Um, sorry... you mean your coat?"

"Yeah," she nodded, "It's mine," but he was already fumbling with the buttons to get it off. They were on the wrong side from his perspective, since it was a woman's coat.

"I'm sorry," he said, "Did you follow me all the way through - well of course you did," he wriggled free, "I'm so out of it I only noticed there was a place to sit once there were no people around at all... Can't stop thinking what's going to happen when I get home so late..."

"You live in the underground, I suppose," Charlotte said, "Or do some other people have grey skin?"

"That's right," he said, standing up, "The Burrows. And I'm - I was expected at 10:30 at my job... Oh why did they have to close the tunnel now?"

"Look," she said as he gave her the coat, "Next time, knowing you're a little scatterbrained under pressure, do me a favour and to whomever travels with you again: try to anticipate a bit more, OK?"

The doors at the end of the carriage opened and a woman stepped through, wearing a ticket inspector's uniform. Her arrival instantly made void the impression the two passengers here had of having gotten through their fair share of grief for the day. Spotting her sole prey in this compartment, she strutted over curving her lips in a perfect, professionally trained friendly smile, completely oblivious to the way her presence affected them. Only when she spoke her well-practised greeting and request for valid tickets did either traveller manage to tear their transfixed gaze from her body and focus on her face.

It wasn't the simple fact of her beauty that made such an impression. The City was infamous for its generous serving of women bustier and more curvaceous on average than anywhere on the planet - and beyond. Charlotte was used to this, spending each week in an environment where nearly every other girl had curves and a bust to almost nullify her own. This lady was on another level altogether. The uniform should have quietly flaunted her assets via well-placed games of tailoring and colour, possibly with a touch of cleavage. It would have been especially effective given her distinctly Terran complexion, alabaster without the slightest hint of pink. Instead she just skipped straight to the goodies. Everything of note was on display, no filter or censorship, the would-be obstructing sheets of fabric visibly ripped and torn from the outfit. You could see in all their glory her milky white breasts hanging free and bare. Between her legs just enough material was missing to reveal a rich jungle of dark red fur, perfectly matching the neatly tied bun on her head.

While the other continued drooling in shock, Charlotte recovered her wits and nerve. Shoving violently aside all thought of confronting the bizarre sight in front of them, she fished out her purse from the saddlebag, got her ticket, and summoned the words to explain hers and the Burrowsman's peculiar situation. The conversation jolted his brain back into gear and he straightened up. Much fumbling preceded the finding of his ticket since he'd absently moved it into Charlotte's coat at some point. Meanwhile the mad woman responded flawlessly to hearing of the accident, the image of professionalism in all but the one obvious aspect. She was even able to give Charlotte a believable-sounding set of discount codes for future railroad train commutes for the next three months, exactly as promised by the girl from the Mag-Lev.

It was only after the paperwork was done that the ticket inspector's words began to match her appearance in strangeness. "I do hope you'll ride with us again, in spite of the disturbances," she said at first, sporting a genuinely apologetic smile, "Now If there's nothing else..." She was looking back and forth at each passenger, lingering on Charlotte, intrigued. "Do you need me to turn the heating up in here, dear?" she said, "You must be freezing solid to need so much... Are you borrowing his coat?"

"No..."

Her smile turned mischievous for a split second, biting her lower lip, but then she frowned, not quite seeing what she was after. "Are you sure?" she asked. Charlotte stared, slack jawed, then burst.

“What do you bloody mean?" she exclaimed, "Am I sure? Of course I'm fucking sure! I should know what my own stuff looks like shouldn't I?"

“Well, it doesn’t much look like a woman’s coat - nor a man's to be sure...” She looked Charlotte up and down as if re-evaluating her. Wrinkling her nose she said "Can't be very local, then?"

"Ooh no, completely foreign," Charlotte said, "It's like a whole other world in Lacus Solis... What are you smoking to ask such questions in your ridiculous get-up?"

"Well I'm sorry you don't appreciate this year's aesthetic," the inspector said without flinching, "I'll be sure to relay your feedback to my management. Now if you'll excuse me I shall attend to the rest of you..." She smiled thinly and shimmied past them, barely lowering her voice to mutter "Incredible bunch..."

There followed silence apart from the steady clunking of the moving train's wheels on the tracks. Legs aching hard by now Charlotte made to reach a seating arrangement for herself at last, finding another couch at the opposite end of the carriage. She dropped on the soft material, leaving her stuff in a messy heap, and pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. "One of those days, eh?" she told herself.

"Um..?"

Beside her, the pile of luggage had grown a head. "I-was I-..?" the Burrowsman, stammered, "Didn't she..?"

“Did she have her tits and cunt out for all to see?" Charlotte sighed "Yes, well done. She must be tripping even worse than you and me...Count yourself lucky you don't often have to travel. If she sees you again after you ogled her like a caveman, well that'll be awkward."

"Hey I'm married," he protested, "I was just in shock."

"Sure you were," Charlotte laughed, "You and me both. She did look fabulous... Shame she's a nutter-butter."

He set out back toward his seat. Outside, the railroad snaked and turned on its convoluted journey. If you looked upwards sometimes the clouds parted enough to glimpse the peaks of Thordon's Range. This entire area existed in a sort of perpetual winter what with so little direct sunlight and all the cold air tumbling down from the mountain tops, yet thousands of people lived in it. Dozens of tiny settlements were dotted about the narrow valley. This train, already slow by necessity, would stop at each of those townlets, and there would almost always be people waiting.

Not ten minutes later, the Burrowsman called out “Hey, look out the window!”

They were at the next stop. Through the glass you could see a few houses, and the railway line dividing itself to accommodate multiple platforms at the station. Soon blank concrete surfaces appeared, and on them a small boatload of people.

There was something odd with these people (aside from living at the foot of huge mountains). Charlotte couldn’t make out details, but many of them had bright pink discolorations in the areas of their chest and between their legs...

"Oh bother," she said.