Wonder

The streets of the residential areas of Arteria are a pretty noisy place, not because it is a bustling marketplace or because it is an industrial district. The bustling is from the community and the people as they strike up conversation with each other, as everyone knows each other. Some people are returning from a hard day’s work in the agricultural fields, while others are packing up their food and drink for their shift in the same fields. Arteria is, first and foremost, an agricultural and ranching settlement after all.

That makes the sight of someone like Mr Alistair strolling down the street all the more puzzling- a businessman who made and maintains a small fortune not grown from the land but from the material extracted from it. Metal deposits in the nearby mountains serve as a constant supply of fresh material to use in his smithy, and his connections have allowed him to maintain an advantageous relationship with the mining guild. In return, the mining guild receives a handsome portion of the revenue from the smithy and a connection with which they can sell their surplus ore that the smithy does not purchase. Mr Alistair is also an outsider, having been brought here long ago when Arteria was decidedly an agricultural district and the mining guild was still a fledgling operation. However, the colony welcomed him and his efforts, and he too is greeted kindly as he walks along the street.

Right behind him, strolled Fareed. An orphaned child from Arteria, his life had first directed him to do odd jobs in the fields before his identity as a mage was discovered by Mr Alistair, who took the child under his wing. While no one could teach Fareed how to use his magic, he found that working in the smithy indirectly taught him how to tap into it. He could feel everything around him in the smithy whenever he closed his eyes. Well, maybe not everything, the building itself only seemed to hover above him silently, and the bigger things, such as the pulley systems, towered ominously over him and the rest of the workers. But the benches, the tools and the smaller things that they crafted and forged, he could feel and manipulate much better. He prefers not to rely on this skill, though; he finds a strange sense of comfort in using his bare hands to craft things.

The pair continued along their path, exchanging greetings and small talk with everyone who called out to them.

“Sir?” Fareed called out to Mr Alistair.

“Yes, Fareed?” Mr Alistair turned to him as they kept walking.

“I have two questions,”

“Well, ask away then, dear boy,”

“First, what did you mean by that question you asked me in your office?”

“Which one? The one about what you intend to achieve or the one about what more you could have?”

“Well, both I suppose…”

“Hmm…” Mr Alistair stroked his beard as he gathered his thoughts, “Well, regarding the first part of your question… I see in you the capacity to do so much more than what you do at the smithy. You are a mage, but more than that, you are still a child.” He shifted his gaze up, towards the sky, the Sun starting to set. “The world you entered when you found Arteria cannot be the only thing you experience. Far too many lives are wasted away in being content with what they are given. I would know… I was almost one of them.”

Fareed looked up at the man, the one who would mentor him in his times of strife, and for just a moment saw someone who seemed sad. It was only a moment, though, the spark in his eyes rekindling almost instantly.

“As for the second part of the question,” He went on, “You must wait before I answer that- if I even must.”

“Oh,” Fareed said, “Well then, my second question- where are we going?”

Mr Alistair chuckled, “Oh, just to meet an old associate of mine,” he reached for his pocket watch “We are making good time.”

They continued on their way, the open expanses of the fields grew more and more scarce as the housing grew more and more dense.

“Tell me, Fareed,” Mr Alistair spoke up, “What do you think of Arteria?”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you much, sir,” Fareed smiled as he struggled to remember what little he could of the past he left behind, miserable as it was. "My time as a lost soul has been spotty in my memories. Suffice it to say, I was grateful to the people who first took me in and to you who did so after and became my mentor. Though I must say as far as mentors go, you have not been the best.”

Mr Alistair chuckled, “Ah, where were my manners? I must apologise to you then,”

“It’s no problem, the men and women under your employ were such kind people to give me company instead, and you did your best to look after all of us.”

“Oh… My dear boy, this will not do… To flatter your mentor and employer like this?”

“It is fine, any bonuses you wish to give me in return can be given equally to the others instead.”

They both chuckled as they made their way further into the heart of the colony, funnily enough, located further to its edge rather than its centre.

“Tell me, Fareed,” Mr Alistair began again, “Have you been to this side of the colony often?”

“No, sir,” Fareed replied, “I never saw any reason to stray away from the residential area, the agricultural district or the mining district.”

“Really?” Mr Alistair turned to him, “You have never been here in your waking memory?”

Fareed shook his head.

“Oh! What a shame…” Mr Alistair shook his head as well, “Well then, if nothing else, I’m glad I brought you to this side of the settlement.” Mr Alistair checked his pocket watch again. “Hmm, we should probably pick up our pace.” He said as he entered a brisk stride, Fareed jogged to catch up with him before matching his speed. “If you’ve never been here, then there is something you must definitely see!”

“What is it, sir?” Fareed asked.

“Oh, where’s the fun in that?” Mr Alistair said as he smiled.

They both hurried their way through the district, and the houses now seemed to be disappearing, giving way to shops and storehouses instead. As they proceeded further inward, the shops started to dwindle as well. People ferried carts of materials to and fro between the shops, the storehouses and a place further down the road. Becoming curious, Fareed reached out into the storehouses. He felt agricultural produce in one place, dairy items from the ranches in another, ores, stone and metal in a third, clothes and textiles in a fourth and many other things as well.

“Sir, what is this place? There are so many things that could be made in Arteria, but there are just as many that are not,” Fareed asked Mr Alistair.

“Hmm, I suppose you are about to find out!” Mr Alistair said as they came up to a building where a bunch of workers were hurrying in and out of, carts standing by, both empty and laden with goods.

Mr Alistair hurried in, and Fareed followed closely behind, growing more and more curious. He reached out again, this time right in front of him. There were people all around him, so he could not see anything. But he could still feel the things he reached out to. He felt the goods that he felt in the storehouses, as well as the carts on which they were being ferried. He felt great big arches over which people seemed to be walking along. He felt raised platforms upon which were more empty carts that slowly seemed to be getting stocked up. But then he felt something else. The goods were being brought out of it. It was made of metal and was standing silent, yet he felt some sort of power lying dormant throughout it. That was another curiosity- it was long. And it was not a single piece of metal. Throughout it, he could feel the complexity of multiple moving parts, waiting to be called upon should they need to be employed. The ground seemed to be quaking under its weight.

As Fareed was struggling to picture what he was feeling, someone grabbed his hand and pulled him forward. Startled, he opened his eyes to be greeted by Mr Alistair, pulling him to the front of a crowd. “Yes, yes, it’s all well and good to get a mere idea of what it looks like… but for this, you will need a front-row seat!” he exclaimed. After some brief and painful pushing and shoving, Mr Alistair and Fareed burst out ahead of the crowd and before him stood something that could only be described as a monster. Even without intentionally tapping into his magic, Fareed could now feel the power in the machine, for a machine it had to be to hold such power within itself at bay. It billowed steam and smoke from a vent atop. It stood atop wheels, the larger ones towards the back connected by a bar that led into a box. And at the back of it was a compartment where someone seemed to be sitting and monitoring something, though Fareed could not see what it was.

“Well, what do you think, my boy?” Mr Alistair’s words snapped Fareed back into reality for just a moment, but the awe lingered as he spoke.

“Sir… What is this?” he asked, still unable to fully comprehend the machine that stood before him, with or without his magic.

“This is what we call a locomotive; it is the beating heart of a convoy group.”

“A locomotive? And convoy?”

“Yes, you remember all those people moving things from and to here? Convoys help ferry those things between colonies, and convoys are powered and moved by locomotives. The places where locomotives stop and deliver their cargo to a colony are called the stations.”

“So then… we’re in a station right now?”

“Exactly!” Another voice called out from beyond the gathering mist from the steam. Through the mist, Fareed could see a figure flanked by two others getting closer. Then, as the mist subsided and the figures walked through, Fareed was greeted by a man who seemed some years older than Mr Alistair and the two figures beside seemed to be kids, twins actually, roughly his age, if not slightly older than him. “Ah, Alistair! It’s been too long!”

“Jasper! It truly has been,” Alistair said as they hugged each other, “I never expected this reunion to have taken so long!”

“Well, it was someone’s idea to stick around in one place instead of joining along with his merry band…”

“Oh please… You and I both know I was too old to keep putting up with your optimism.”

The two continued to exchange banter, some of which was sharp-tongued while others were cheeky, but neither seemed to take it to heart and continued to exchange fond memories they shared. Fareed, on the other hand, noticed the two boys standing beside the man named Jasper. The one closer to Fareed shifted his eyes from the two men to him, smiled and stepped forward, holding his hand out.

“Good afternoon, and nice to meet you. What is your name?” the boy asked as Fareed took his hand to shake it.

“Ah indeed, where are my manners? I answered the boy’s question and then completely ignored him!” Jasper spoke up, ending the banter he was making with Alistair.

Fareed’s shyness got the better of him in that moment, but he steeled himself and spoke up. “Erm, my name is Fareed sir… I work in Mr Alistair’s smithy as a machinist.”

“A machinist, you say? Very nice. These are my children. The boy whose hand you are shaking is Felix, and the one who is still hiding beside me is Isaac.” As he said that, Felix, who was still holding hands with Fareed, bowed lightly, and Isaac peeked over from behind his father. “And as you may have already surmised from my lively conversation with your employer, my name is Jasper.” He continued as he took a step closer to the locomotive. “And I am the conductor of this locomotive.”