The Black Bullet sat waiting by the passenger platform venting its excitement from its safety valve despite rain pouring down all around it. Its body had been washed and repainted and it shone like a horse spoiling for a race. Sharp golden lettering was freshly painted on its tender exclaiming the name, "Black Bullet". Its number plates are lit up reading X-042 and its headlight shines through the dark Kentucky rain. It is attended by the ground crew but its engineer was nowhere to be found. John sits on a bench under the overhang of the station platform on a wet bench huddled in the strangely cold rainy day for the beginning of a Kentucky summer.<br/><br/>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br/><br/>Henry typed up a message to Dominic Maddox requesting that he come to the Scarlet City institute. Previous attempts to gather him had failed, Henry assumed it was because Mr.Maddox was ignoring him. This time he was going to try something different from exorbitant pay or the chance to wipe those treacherous supers from the earth. He sprinkled little hints about knowing who might have killed his family in a way of it catching Dominic's eyes but to come to that conclusion the vigilante would have to read between the lines. Then again Mr.Maddox's phone could have been broken in a confrontation with a super and he hadn't had the time or the money to fix it. Henry hit send and hoped that this one might get him his catch. He smiled the message was sent before giving a stern look as he heard one of the experiments scream down the hall before it was abruptly cut off.<br/><br/>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br/><br/>The warmth of the machining table embraced Casey as he put the finishing touches on his latest project. He had been slaving over the bench for the past weeks almost sacrificing meeting the Zieglers at the Scarlet City rail yard.<span style="color: #4000FF">"That's today"</span>the realization dawns on Casey suddenly as he finishes. He throws his project in a sack haphazardly and begins to run out into the Kentucky rain. He runs into a very hard wall that wasn't in the doorway a second ago. Casey's collision with the unyielding wall of almost inhuman flesh would have thrown him to the ground if the large hands of Mongrel hadn't shot forth and stabilized him. Quickly recovering from the shock they both run to the Black Bullet across the rail yard. Mounting the cab Casey signals to John to board the train. A double blast of the whistle signifies that they will be departing. A loud puff as the drivers begin to spin slowly at first and picking up speed. The locomotive eagerly begins to roll down the track towards the end of the line picking up speed and lifting off into the sky. Turning north the train charts its course for Scarlet City with a chorus of the clattering of couplings and the elated puffing of the locomotive climbing above the dark clouds into the midday sun.