#silicon supertrain

“So, San Jose,” Mitzi recognized, before positioning her straw to take a discreet sip of her vanilla-flavored Prof. Pym Pop soda. “And you said it was, what, 1979?”

“When the train line was started in earnest, yes,” Austin nodded, as he used his small plastic spork to slice off a bite-sized piece of his Dutch apple pocket pie, before holding it up to Mitzi’s mouth. Mitzi beamed briefly at the awkward yet gentlemanly gesture, before chomping at the proffered pie, even as Austin continued on, without even appearing to notice her blushes. “It eventually grew to include stops at 33 cities in 26 states, but it all started with San Jose, California, and Charlton, Delaware.”

“Charlton … isn’t that where Bianca has her super-science school, or whatever?” Mitzi checked, brushing strands of her voluminous hair out of her face, as they were caught by the gentle desert breeze, while she and Austin sat on the flat warehouse roof of the Bookhouse, to share their fast food dinners (courtesy of one of King Tut’s Food Pyramids) under the summer-warmed night sky.

“Arkwright College of the Sciences,” Austin confirmed, “where, even before Bianca Yong successfully defended her doctoral thesis, the collective brain trust on campus was burning brightly enough to draw the notice of like minds on the opposite coastline, and vice versa.”

“So, what, they wanted a more tangible connection than just …” here, Mitzi wiggled her fingers in the air, mimicking the action of typing, “clacking away at their keyboards?”

“Each side of the country was generating a world’s fair worth of technological innovations on a weekly basis,” Austin chuckled as he shook his head. “It was becoming a bit much to sum up in electronic mail correspondence, even with the frequency of their exchanges.”

“And all nerds love trains,” Mitzi teased with an affectionate smirk.

“That is a stereotypical characterization that is only … mostly true,” Austin faltered in the midst of his objection, before waving his hands to refocus his thoughts, “and that’s not the point. Instead of simply transmitting these people’s words, or crude visual depictions of their plans, over phone lines, the Silicon Supertrain would essentially supply them with a rolling expo on rails. Rather than tasking developers with trekking to a succession of annual conventions, far from home, the Silicon Supertrain would bring the next generation of computers and accompanying consumer technology TO them!”

Mitzi couldn’t help but bite her lower lip with giddy glee. Moments like this reminded her why she loved Austin. She might not have otherwise shared his interest in what she initially considered a rather sterile subject, but his escalating enthusiasm as he spoke was infectious, and his passion made up her mind that she was going to ravish him later that night.

“You’re looking at me that way again,” Austin observed curiously, cocking his head to one side like a clockwork bird. His tone and facial expression were placid, not at all offended, and yet already skeptical of the denials he knew were forthcoming from her.

Mitzi blinked and cleared her throat. “What? No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” she sought to dismiss his concerns, before seizing upon an aspect of his explanation that had stood out to her. “Okay, so, we both know I’m no engineer, but I gotta think that a tricked-out, high-tech, high-speed supertrain is gonna cost a lot more than what even an Ivy League college and a bunch of boy wonders soldering circuit boards in their garages can scrape together between them.”

“Especially after the tech centers in those other cities I mentioned heard about the Silicon Supertrain during its brainstorming stage, and decided they wanted stops of their own along the way,” Austin dipped one of his tater tots (branded by King Tut’s as “Tater Tuts”) in ketchup, then used it to smear sticky red streaks in a rough loop across the wrapper of the soy burger he’d already eaten. “Incorporating them all meant creating three connected train routes — Boston to Dallas, Dallas to Seattle, and Seattle to Boston — with 10 more cities as stops in between on each route. Just to accommodate the size of the train, the stop that was planned for Charlton had to be placed in Dover instead.”

“Even still, none of those cities would have rolled the dice on funding a boondoggle like a supertrain for uber-nerds, especially back in the late Seventies,” Mitzi scoffed, before she squinted at the messy ketchup loop, with its extra-heavy dabs of ketchup at three of its corners, and quickly realized it was meant to be a map of the Silicon Supertrain’s three connected routes within the continental United States, with Boston, Dallas and Seattle represented by those extra-heavy dabs.

“Okay, Mister Kingsley,” Mitzi grinned, getting into the spirit of Austin’s playful lesson, “so, if this is Dallas,” she dipped a tater tot of her own into the southernmost dab, “and this is Seattle,” another dip, this time in the northwest dab, “then that makes this curve the Pacific coastline,” she smeared her tater tot along the ketchup streak, “but in between what I’m guessing are San Diego and Phoenix, the line goes all jagged,” she frowned speculatively, before chipping at the edges of her cherry red nail polish with her teeth out of subconscious habit.

“And what does that tell you, Mitzi Klingfeld?” Austin gazed at her adoringly, not only genuinely impressed with what she’d discerned so far, but eagerly anticipating how she would tie it all together.

“Well, I spent enough time growing up in Las Vegas to spot where it sits on a map, so that’s why the line zigs so far to the north, coming from Phoenix,” she picked up the uneaten tater tot she’d used as her pointer, “but if it was just heading west, from there to San Diego, the line would flow a lot smoother, so for it to zag back down south, as sharp as it does? That means somebody was awfully invested in getting Apex City on that route,” she leaned back and finally popped the tater tot into her mouth triumphantly. “And nobody else but your dad would have been both loaded and nerdy enough.”

“Technically, it was an investment by the Athenæum, but yes,” Austin couldn’t help but nit-pick, even as he tossed a tater tot into his own broadly beaming mouth. “My family basically bankrolled the project, and Pournelle Propulsion Systems was brought on board as a partner, to help design and build the train itself.”

“And I take it that the Silicon Supertrain has been bringing together overgrown whiz-kids like a Love Boat for Trekkies ever since,” Mitzi lifted her tall plastic cup of soda in a mock toast.

Austin twitched slightly, in what Mitzi had learned was his equivalent of a wince. “For the most part. But there’s been a problem. Very recently, some high-profile passengers on the Silicon Supertrain have been found dead — on board, in transit, NOT of natural causes. It’s been kept out of the press so far, but given the names involved, I don’t expect that to last.”

“So, the clock is already ticking,” Mitzi nodded, her tone growing muted to match Austin’s subdued, utilitarian exposition, before her lips curled into a rueful smirk. “And this is why our last meal of the weekend was drive-thru.”

“Because we have to wake up early tomorrow, and I didn’t want either of us to have to do cleanup duty after a fancy dinner. Sorry,” Austin ducked his head sheepishly.

Austin felt Mitzi kiss his cheek before he saw that she’d scooted her chair around next to his. “Don’t be,” she patted his cheek. “How many other gals who work in admin can say they get to solve bona fide murder mysteries on the job? It’ll be like we’re riding the Orient Express … only, you know, for dorks,” she snorted, before she narrowed her eyes mischievously. “So, what time do we have to be at the Crossroads Transit Center?”

Austin shrugged. “The Silicon Supertrain pulls out of the station promptly at 8:20 a.m. Why?”

Mitzi suddenly slung her legs around Austin’s hips and sat on his lap, facing him. “Because that gives me at least a few hours to eat you alive, Mister Kingsley,” she breathed, affecting her best attempt at a husky Brenda Vaccaro voice, before she tore open the front of his shirt, causing his buttons to spill onto the rooftop beneath them with an audibly tinny clatter, and began licking his downy, peach fuzz-covered chest.

“D-do you want me to — ah!” Austin gasped, trembling reflexively as Mitzi moved hungrily to devour his exposed neck. “Do you w-want me to haul out the guest bed for you again?”