The Heart Button 2
This is the sequel to The Heart Button. At the end of Part One you will find two options as to how you want the next part of the story to go. Voting closes 48 hours after this is posted. Please cast a vote in the comments. The fates of these characters rest in your hands. On with the show!
Part One
The six years that had passed didn't seem like that much time at all. The nightmares plaguing Gears' sleep had made sure the ordeal remained fresh in his mind's eye, even magnified.
His bad dreams were currently the least of his present concerns.
Lately, Gears' senses had been bringing him reason to doubt them. He heard things. He saw things. In all honesty he didn't know if he was finally going off the schizo deep-end or if the poundings on the walls, scratches at the ceilings and shadows behind the windows were actually real.
Sleep had evaded him for weeks. Nobody noticed, really, which was mostly attributed to his complete lack of friends. His discovery of dying his coal-black hair had helped keep the attention away from him, but he absolutely hated how it looked. White-blonde hair didn't suit him.
Rolling over, Gears reached under his tiny compartment mattress and withdrew a tattered, crumbling scrap of folded paper, and a much newer and cleaner piece. Both he held in his hands, deciding which of them to open, or not open. He decided neither and shoved them both back under his bed, sighing as he pressed his ear to the cold metal of the train's wall. The steady roar of the train's wheels calmed him enough to close his brown eyes, even drifting off for a moment.
Until something slammed itself into the wall of the train, only a few layers of metal between it and his head. He jerked backwards, nearly falling through the thin wooden barrier between him and the aisle of Car Number Nine. All the others were asleep in their little compartments, their lamps off and curtains of their windows closed. But, of course, Gears was now wide awake and sitting bolt upright, being very glad his small height allowed him to without hitting the ceiling.
Whatever it was had only pounded one time, per norm. Gears had never actually gotten accustomed to it. He had become twitchy and paranoid; his neck was incessantly sore from constantly checking over his shoulder. The roof hadn't been visited for months.
Suddenly, the thin door of his compartment slid back and a voice hissed "Gears!"
His sturdy, brown boot would have probably knocked unconscious the intruder if said intruder hadn't been as paranoid as he was. Gears shoved his pillow into his mouth to avoid screaming at whoever it was.
The lanky, light-haired, incredibly tall teenager poked his spectacled face back into the compartment, his faint freckles nearly invisible in the dim lamp light.
"Have you read the note?" He whispered. Sweat glistened on his forehead.
He was literally the last person on the train that Gears wanted to see. In response, he grunted and attempted to slam the little sliding door, but was stopped by the other boy's knobby fingers.
"Roof. Now." He disappeared.
Gears sat for a moment, pondering the expression on the boy's face. Usually, that kid never looked scared, but something was most definitely off. His curiosity again got the better of him. After all, with Cogs, you never could tell.
Reaching under his bed he withdrew the newer piece of folded paper and held it for a moment. After a second's pause, he grabbed the old note and shoved it into the pocket of his cargo pants before gingerly opening the other crinkling scrap.
He could barely make out Cogs' messy scrawl but with a bit of squinting he managed to decode it.
Gears-
I finally found something about which to write. I've been investigating and I've found out how the train actually keeps going, and it seems like something you'd like, your being evil and everything. But that isn't the point. I'm trying to warn you because we need to find a way off this machine as quickly as possible. Find me.
-Cogs
Gears smashed the note in his hands. Cogs had really lost it. He wanted to talk? Where on earth had that come from?
But then a thought struck him like a slap to the face. He hadn't spoken to Cogs for years. What exactly was happening here? Without thinking any further, Gears leapt silently from his compartment and made for the thick door to outside.
The wind blew his wild fake-yellow hair all over as he climbed the ice-cold ladder to the top of the express. Silhouetted against the moonlight was the other gangly teenager, his knees drawn close to him as he rocked back and forth slightly. He sounded like he was muttering to himself.
"What the hell is going on?!" Gears yelled above the wind, "You really are losing your mind..."
"No, I'm not, Gears!" Cogs protested, pushing his glasses up, "Please just listen to me!"
Gears remained silent in consent to Cogs' request.
"Okay. I did some research and I found out that there's a substance in the water called Obsymbium that causes everyone to become too involved in what they're doing by themselves to notice around them. It keeps us from making friends, Gears. I wondered why and started drinking rainwater I'd get from the roof and I realized people are going missing and I found out-"
Cogs' words began to dissolve to slurs, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed onto the roof like a rag doll. Before he could get up and see why, Gears felt a sharp, quick burning in the back of his neck and his body dropped like it was full of hot liquid lead as the world faded into burning nothing.
••••••
The pain was what woke him up. Gears groaned, dimly aware of a distant burning through his entire body, as though his blood was boiling him alive ever so slowly. He was standing up, held upright by his wrists being solidly cuffed to the wall behind him. His arms felt like they had given up and decided to die on him, which was quite upsetting. His ankles were also shackled to the floor.
Every movement made the internal fire worse, and after only a few minutes of struggling Gears resigned himself to hanging helplessly by his arms. It wasn't until his eyes adjusted to the dark that he realized where he was.
He was in the front of the train.
His mind flashed to when he was little, when the nannies taught them how steam engines worked and how the train kept going, yet here he was. There was no coal in sight. Just a strange, copper machine belching steam out several tiny pipe openings, and several racks like the one against which Gears was held.
One of the racks held Cogs, collapsed against the wall.
"Cogs?" Gears said, his voice coming out in a dry croak. He cleared his throat and tried once more, "Cogs!"
Cogs' head nodded slightly. "Huuh?"
"Wha- where are we?" Gears was honestly getting scared.
This question seemed to wake Cogs up completely. His head snapped up, his teeth gritted from the pain, his eyes widened in terror. "Oh, no no no no no. No."
Gears stared at him, "What?!"
"The train runs on a specific kind of human energy that can only be derived from..." His voice trailed off as his eyes fixed on the horrible machine.
"Holy crap, Cogs, just tell me!" Gears snapped.
"Pain, Gears." The words sounded extremely forced, "the trains run on pain."
"Is that why people were disappearing?"
Cogs nodded. "People who find out are used to power the engine." He looked at the floor, and Gears did as well.
About three fourths of the floor was covered in dried blood.
"I really wish I hadn't read that note." Gears thought aloud, "Thanks, Cogs."
"Please, as if they wouldn't have taken you anyway!" Cogs spat, "I mean, come on, numbskull, your hair dye's not fooling anybody."
"Why'd you even show me anyway?!" He exclaimed, "I'm not even your friend!"
Cogs' blue eyes narrowed. "I had a hope the secret wouldn't die with me."
"Sure." Gears huffed, "Not because you were so desperate to get me killed that you wouldn't mind getting killed yourself."
"They aren't going to kill us, Gears." Cogs' voice dwindled to a hollow little noise. Gears didn't like it.
"What are they going to do?" He was partially afraid to even ask.
"Let's just say you'll die if you're lucky and your body can't handle the torture." Answered Cogs.
The pause that ensued was the second most intense moment Gears had ever lived through, and he decided to try and lighten things.
"Well, at least that gives us one more chance to compete with each other." He said half-heartedly. Cogs looked up quizzically.
"Last to die wins?" He guessed. Gears gave a grim, quiet laugh.
"May the best man win."
Gears didn't want to be tortured. Come to think of it, he didn't want Cogs to get tortured either. It wasn't that he liked Cogs, he just didn't want anybody to be in pain for the rest of their life.
Without warning, something pounded heavily onto the roof.
The boys looked up at each other, partially to see if the other heard the sound, and partially to gain satisfaction if the other was afraid. They both were.
"Not again," Cogs groaned.
"Whaddya mean 'not again'?!" Gears regretted yelling, as it made the burning worse.
"I've just been hearing things." Cogs' voice shook, "You wouldn't get it."
"Of course I'd get it, you ignorant creep! It's been happening to me, too!"
Their fight stopped as a gigantic, serrated knife blade punched right through the metal and traveled in a shrieking, sparking circle to its original point. The round portion of the roof dropped, clattering loudly, to the floor and through the gap dropped a smallish, wiry person, dressed in a black trench-coat and a hood that obscured his entire face. Another thing dropped through the hole, but it moved so quickly that Gears could barely see it. He felt it on his shoulder, and it stuck something into his jugular. He screamed in pain as he was entirely engulfed in mind-shattering cold, but it subsided in seconds and took the burning with it. The quick thing whizzed around the little compartment, and the cuffs released the feet and hands of both boys.
Gears couldn't enjoy his freedom for long, because he suddenly found his torso bound in thin wires, and with a sickening lurch he was lifted up, his boots making a sticky sound as they were drawn from the gory floor, and carried through the hole. Cogs followed, and after him the mysterious person. The thing disappeared up the person's sleeve in a flash of silver.
The night on the roof was lit with stars, the air freezing as it snapped through their hair. The stranger put his thin arms around the shoulders of both boys.
"Tuck and roll." Came a robotic voice.
Cogs' face paled with fear. "Wait, what?!"
The stranger shoved both of their backs and Gears found himself completely unable to scream, as his voice became a solid object lodged in his windpipe. His stomach rose to his mouth with the sickening feeling of being completely detached from any physical object, held in the embrace of the empty air.
The shock from colliding with the ground rang through Gears' legs, up his spine and back down again, but he did remember to let his legs collapse beneath him so every bone in him wouldn't shatter.
The grass was wet and prickly, but smelled astounding. It didn't in the slightest remind him of the bitter last time he had been off a train all those years ago, before he met Cogs.
Cogs. He scrambled to his feet and immediately fell back down, his legs unaccustomed to the unmoving land. The other boy was sprawled on the ground, obviously still breathing and overall unhurt, so Gears let him be and faced the mysterious person who had rescued them.
The stranger was paying no attention to him but was staring intently at the ever-moving train. He pulled the hood off and Gears realized it wasn't a "he" at all.
Her long, yellow hair cascaded down the back of her trench coat and on her shoulder suddenly appeared a flash of silver that turned out to be a metal thing with a spherical head on a stubby little body, held to her by four long, incredibly thin spidery-looking legs.
It didn't register in Gears' mind. His brain whirled.
"...Lugnut?"
__________________________________________________________
What happens next?
Lugnut has been driven to utter madness and is now completely evil
Or
Gears has grown up, seen the light and has decided to fight for good
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