The Blueprint Prince-Chapter 62 - 61: The Black Gold Rush

Time Remaining: 36 Days, 15 Hours. (Status: Boiler dying. Fuel empty. Scavenging mode.) Location: Sector 4 - The Badlands (The Tar Pits).

The Iron Horse didn’t die with a bang. It died with a cough.

The heavy steam-hauler drifted to a halt in the shadow of a twisted sandstone spire. The massive rubber tires crunched over the red gravel one last time before the silence settled in. The pistons stopped. The rhythmic chug-chug-chug of the air compressor faded.

"That’s it," Zack said, tapping the pressure gauge. "Firebox is cold. We are officially a ten-ton paperweight."

Arthur rubbed the grease on his forehead. "Residual pressure?"

"Dropping," Zack read. "80 PSI. We have enough steam left to blow the whistle or turn the wheels for maybe ten yards. After that, we’re dead."

"We need fuel," Arthur said, kicking the door open. "And we need it fast."

He stepped out into the Badlands. The air was thick and yellow. It didn’t smell like the ozone of the glass plains. It smelled of sulfur and heavy earth. Arthur recognized the smell. Hydrocarbons.

"Paper map," Arthur ordered. "What is this sector?"

Zack unfolded the map. It was brittle with age. "Sector 4. The Badlands. Notes say... ’Imperial Bitumen Processing Plant #4’. Abandoned during the Collapse."

"Bitumen," Arthur murmured. "Tar. Pitch. The stuff the Old Empire used to seal their ships."

"Vivian, grab the buckets," Arthur commanded. "Julian, start breaking things."

"Excuse me?" Julian blinked.

"We need kindling to keep the pilot light alive," Arthur pointed inside the cabin. "Smash the wooden crates, interior paneling. If you have to, smash your chair."

"My lumbar support?" Julian gasped.

"Burn it, We need to keep the embers hot enough to ignite the new fuel."

....

While Julian sadly dismantled the wooden bench seats, Arthur and Vivian scouted the canyon. It was a graveyard of Alchemical Industry. Rusted iron vats the size of houses lay toppled on their sides. Ceramic pipes wove through the rocks like giant dead worms.

"It’s dry," Vivian said, kicking a ceramic pipe. It shattered into dust.

"Bitumen is heavy," Arthur said. "It must have been sinked to bottom."

He followed the slope. They reached the bottom of a dried riverbed. The ground here was black, sticky asphalt. And in the center, pooling around the fractured base of a brass containment silo, was a lake of thick, black sludge.

Refined Bitumen (Bunker Fuel).

"Black Gold," Arthur whispered. He dipped a finger in. It was cold and viscous, stringing out like taffy.

"Can we burn it?" Vivian asked.

"It’s too thick," Arthur wiped his hand on a rock. "If we pour this sludge into the firebox, it will smother the embers. To burn tar, you have to turn it into a liquid."

"How?"

"We will build an injector," Arthur said. "We use the steam to blast the tar into droplets."

They hauled four heavy buckets of black sludge back to the Iron Horse. Inside the cab, Julian was feeding splinters of wood into the firebox. The pressure was barely holding at 75 PSI.

"Pop the maintenance hatch," Arthur ordered.

He located the Brass Lubrication Canister bolted to the firewall. It was a heavy metal cylinder used to drip oil onto the pistons. Arthur ripped it off the wall. He emptied the thin machine oil and poured the thick, black tar inside.

"It won’t flow," Arthur noted. "It’s like glue."

He looked at Julian. "Julian! Heat up the canister! "

Julian grabbed the brass cylinder. "So, I am demoted to a stove now. What a life" He channeled a thermal spell. The brass glowed dull red. Inside, the bitumen bubbled, thinning out from a paste into a hot, runny liquid.

"Zack, give me the Steam-Bleed Hose," Arthur barked.

He took a small copper tube connected to the boiler’s steam line. He punched a hole in the bottom of the brass canister. He arranged the pipes in a "T" shape inside the firebox door.

"It’s a Venturi Injector," Arthur explained, wiring the pipes together with steel wire. "I’m going to shoot a jet of steam across the top of the tar pipe. The steam creates a vacuum (suction). It pulls the hot tar up and blasts it into the fire as a spray."

"You’re using steam to make fire?" Zack asked.

"I’m using physics," Arthur corrected. "Open the steam valve!"

Zack turned the wheel. HISSSSSS. A jet of white steam shot through the copper pipe. The suction kicked in. The hot, liquid tar was pulled from the brass canister. It hit the steam jet and disintegrated into a fine black mist. The mist hit the burning wood embers.

WHOOMPH.

A massive, dirty fireball erupted inside the furnace. Thick, oily black smoke blasted out of the smokestack. The firebox roared with a violent, unstable heat.

[Boiler Pressure: Rising.]

[Consultant Note: Dirty burn detected. Cleaning required soon.]

"It works!" Zack cheered. "We’re burning tar!"

"It’s filthy," Arthur coughed, watching the black smoke. "It’s going to cake the flues with soot. But it generates massive heat."

"Keep the canister hot!" Arthur yelled at Julian. "If the tar cools, it clogs the line!"

GRIND. CLANK. SCREECH.

The sound cut through the canyon. It wasn’t an engine hum. It was the sound of metal tearing against stone. A rhythmic, piercing shriek.

"Contact!" Vivian yelled. "Ridge line!"

Arthur looked up. Standing on the cliff edge were vehicles. Crude, welded skeletons of scrap iron and rebar. Steam-boilers strapped to bicycle frames. And the wheels. They had no tires. Just jagged, raw Steel Rims that sparked and ground against the red rock.

Arthur squinted at the lead rider. The man wore a helmet made from a bucket. He wasn’t pointing at the cargo. He was pointing at the Iron Horse’s Rubber Tires.

"RUBBER!" the rider screamed. "SOFT WHEELS!"

"They want the tires," Arthur realized.

"So, people started robbing tires now?" Zack gasped.

"To them, rubber is rarer than gold." Arthur said.

The raider revved his steam-cycle. Sparks flew from the rear steel rim. They dropped down the canyon wall—a landslide of grinding metal and rust.

"Go!" Arthur shoved Vivian into the cab. "Drive! Drive!"

"I can’t hold the canister forever!" Julian yelled, his hands glowing.

"Just hold it until we hit cruising speed!" Arthur jumped onto the running board. "Zack, punch it!"

Zack slammed the throttle. The injector sprayed hot tar mist. The firebox roared. The Iron Horse launched forward. The rubber tires bit into the red rock, launching them with smooth, silent acceleration.

Behind them, the Rust-Eaters chased. SCREEECH-CLANK.

Their vehicles were loud, clumsy, and violent. The steel wheels slipped on the smooth rocks. Every bump sent a visible shockwave through the riders’ bodies.

"They’re slow!" Zack yelled, watching the mirror. "Steel on stone has no grip!"

"But they have range!" Vivian yelled.

A jagged metal harpoon shot from a steam-buggy. It wasn’t aimed at the door. It was aimed at the rear tire. THWACK. The harpoon bounced off the thick, off-road tread without puncturing.

"They’re trying to flat us!" Arthur yelled. "Vivian! Deterrence!"

Vivian kicked the door open. She leaned out. She didn’t use the hammer. She grabbed a handful of the Sand they had collected from the airship. She threw it directly into the face of the lead biker.

The biker, blinded by the grit, swerved. His steel front wheel hit a large rock. Without rubber to absorb the shock, the rim bent instantly into a taco shape. The bike cartwheeled, crashing into the canyon wall.

"One down!" Vivian shouted.

"Arthur!" Zack yelled. "The boiler temp is hitting critical! The tar burns hotter than wood! The safety valve is lifting!"

"We need to dump heat!" Arthur checked the gauge. 160 PSI. Steam was screaming from the relief valve. "And we need to lose the tail!"

He looked at the bucket of leftover cold bitumen sitting on the floor. "Julian! The bucket!"

"The oil slick maneuver?" Julian asked.

"The Tar Trap," Arthur corrected. "Heat it up! Make it sticky!"

Julian blasted the bucket with heat until the tar was bubbling and smoking. "Dump it!"

Julian leaned out the back window and inverted the bucket. A thick, steaming puddle of molten tar splattered across the narrow canyon floor.

The Iron Horse sped away. The scavengers hit the trap. Unlike rubber, which might have slicked over it, their Steel Rims dug into the hot, gooey tar. The tar cooled instantly on contact with the cold metal wheels. It acted like industrial glue.

CRUNCH. The lead buggy stopped dead as its wheels seized up, cemented to the rock. The biker behind him couldn’t stop. He slammed into the back of the buggy. CLANG-BANG.

A pileup of twisted metal and cursing bandits blocked the canyon floor.

The Iron Horse shot through the stone archway, leaving the grinding noise behind.

Arthur watched the rear view. The bandits were hacking at their wheels with crowbars, trying to chip the asphalt off their rims.

"We lost them," Arthur exhaled, sliding down into the seat.

"My bucket," Julian mourned. "That was a good bucket."

"We kept the tires," Arthur said, patting the dashboard. "That’s what matters."

He checked the gauges. Fuel: The brass canister was half empty. The makeshift Venturi injector was vibrating, but holding. Boiler Pressure: Stabilizing as they reduced speed.

"Cut the steam bleed," Arthur ordered. "Let it coast. We need to save the water."

Zack closed the valve. The fire died down to a rumble.

Arthur looked at his hands. They were stained black with tar. The smell of burning oil was stuck in his nose. Sector 4: The Badlands. Next Waypoint: The Salt Flats.

"We have fuel," Arthur said. "It’s dirty & dangerous, and it smells like a dead dinosaur. But it works."

End of Chapter 61