Chapter 16 - Huntly Mine (part 5)

After about ten minutes, a train arrives at our station. As expected, it is literally the driver's carriage when you look at it from the outside. After the door opens, Albert signals us to step in.

I withdraw my thoughts. The interior of the train is upgraded to match the standards of a commercial train, even more luxurious than a typical commercial train. There is air conditioning and air filters installed, and even the tiniest details are spotless. The carriage contains the driver's chamber, which takes half of the space of the carriage, partially separated with the table area, taking the other half.

Albert enters the driver's chamber and scans his card on the receptor placed in the centre of the steering wheel to register a driver. After that, the set of buttons and levers emerges besides his driver seat. He presses a button. We hear a long beeping sound, then the engine starts working.

Yea, this train is definitely from the twentieth century. It is shaking from all the vibration of the old engine, plus the weird creaking sound that would literally cover the carriage if the interior wall is not soundproof, and the rail that I assume that no people would dare to fix because the prolonged exposure to toxicity and heat is still intolerant, even with a cutting-edge protective suit.

The wheels start rolling, and we move out of the station. The train carriage runs on a rail that is enveloped with transparent tubes, maybe to protect them from corrosions. As the train goes around the underground factory facility, we look out of the window.

- Can I just assume that you are thinking what I am thinking? - I turn to Mirai and ask.

- Yes. Without a doubt, this place is the perfect spot for the Intruders to build their own factories under heavy surveillance of the mine. But it is quite huge.

- Did the satellite obtain any data?

- Yes. The satellite is currently scanning this area for anomalies, and will produce a map later. But it is not enough.

- Just out of curiosity, but are you planning to check this place in person?

- Why not? My body is effectively immune against corrosion and heat. However, it is underground, so unless the factories have some sort of charger, I will need to return after some time to recharge myself.

- How about drones... - I still try to bring up the idea from the morning.

- Nope. We are not only trying to divert the attention of people away. Except when it is an open space, just by using a drone at low altitudes in this area can give away my position to the Intruders. I need to investigate myself.

- Then, what about me?

- You will investigate the mine. And we gather back at the entrance gate to go back together after our work is done.

That sounds easy when you say it. The mine is as large as this area here, and with many floors.

As I speak to myself after the harsh request, something attracts my sight.

The area, while at first sight would give you a vibe that they factories are built in a random manner, but they all fit together like a pattern. The mineral ores are transported from the mine next door into the factories in this underground area with structures that look like conveyor belts protected with metal cylindrical tubes. The metal tubes would link to the first few factories to mix with chemicals. Then, the liquid are transported to other conveyor belts to the second group of factories that are responsible for filtering to extract pure metal. The metals are then transported to the third group of factories to make alloys, and this will be the final product. They will be transported to a station along this rail, which is the only station that is used to transport processed aluminium and other metals to the ground level.

Basically, the factories have odd shapes, because they are built to maximise the use of the area, unlike the factories up there which are neatly arranged in lines. By building in groups of different functions, this will lead to better metal quality.

Coming back to my train of thought, the conveyor belts are arranged so that the factories for a metal would receive metal ores from the mines directly. They are linked to a matrix of nearly seventy factories, of different types. Then, I make a quick count about the numbers of first, secind and third group of factories, based on how they are linked to each other. My spectacles save the data into the tablet.

The train carriage comes to the station which is used for product transportation, as I mentioned. Here, all conveyor belts are connected together, merging into a single pathway. A complicated system of machines pick up the alloy sheets, clean them and transfer them into elevators which will bring them up for packaging or some stuff. We temporarily alight the train here.

Albert walks towards the alloy metal slates that are going to be brought to the ground level and takes out a slate. He hands me, as if he certainly knows that I would ask for that anyway.

I inspect the slates. It does not take an expert to realise that this aluminium slate here has much higher quality than the ones from the factories up there. These high standard aluminium here is truly the type to use in weapons and vehicles. The sturdiness, the flexibility, the reflective properties, all other statistics are just off the charts if it is to be compared with the aluminium up there.

I give the metal slate to Mirai. It looks like she also realises that this is the type of aluminium we are talking about. It is more similar to the aluminium sample we picked from the Arctic base last time.

We hand the aluminium slate back to Albert, and he puts it back into the pile of other slates. Then, we get onboard again. The wheels start rolling, and the train carriage departs for another station, also the last station, before finishing a loop and returning us to the first station.

- I am curious, but what does your company do? You seem to be more interested to this type of military standard alloy, than the conventional ones for households we saw before. - Albert asks.

- Ah, yes. We are just doing stuffs like kitchen utensils. I mean, conventional aluminium is fine, but we are just exploring other options from this mine. - Mirai quickly improvises a story.

- But, this type of aluminium is very expensive, if you also want to know. This will drive the cost of a spoon or a fork like three- to four-fold. And using this aluminium is like bringing a tank to a sword fight.

- We are just exploring. Of course I clearly know that it is an overkill. - Mirai asserts with her words.

As I said, we cannot let it slip that we are actually not from any company, and we are also not inspecting metal qualities to import them. We are here to save the world.

- Albert, I am a bit curious, but how efficient is this production process this underground facility is? - I ask him, pretending to chill the atmosphere, while extracting information.

- Oh, it is quite efficient. Every kilogram of metal in a metal ore is extracted up to ninety-nine percent. The chemical mixing process is always the fastest, so about three to four alloy and filter factories to one chemical mixing factory. Then, filtering is harder, so about half of the factories here are for that. The rest will be alloy factories, where byproducts of other metal ores may be recycled to make alloys for this metal. This ratio would ensure that we utilise the area the best, and to minimise energy usage. Just by changing one or two of them would ruin the efficiency.

I am going to specifically ask Albert if he does not talk about it, although it would make me sound suspicious. But since he blurts out everything already, I no longer need to.

- And just in case, this is the statistical report for the last year for your company's reference. - Albert takes out a thick file of document from his working bag, then hands us.

Now, I truly did not need to ask him anything more. This person innocently gives us everything as if he knows what we are going to ask.

The train goes round and round on the track, and we have a very good look of the area in many different perspectives. I get a chance to see the links between related factory groups more clearly, and the spectacles record my vision to store in the archive. With the satellite data, I think I can easily skecth a map before Mirai's in-person expedition.

After some time, the train carriage arrives at the last station. It decelerates, before finally coming to a stop. Albert presses the button to open the train door.

We hear him spamming the button, with the rapid clicking sounds as if they reverberate like an echo throughout the carriage. With a scared look on his face, Albert turns around from the driver's seat and tell us.

- Guys, we seem to encounter some trouble. We have a station power cut.

The train door opens, but the platform door of the station does not. Suddenly, all lights from the train station turn off. We are stuck.