Dust: Episode 1

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Dust: Episode 1
Source: collected/039-dust-episode-1.mp3
SHA-256: 0b07537d25e5821ddc884e2e685716c73d08d4b67b188b35b33bf36b1c9981b5
Model: scribe_v2 | Transcribed: 2026-10-10T18:17:01.891677+00:00
Machine transcript — uncorrected. Speaker labels are local to this recording and do not identify people.

[00:00:00.120] Speaker 1: [train horn]

[00:00:04.860] Speaker 1: [upbeat music]

[00:00:49.460] Speaker 1: Dust. Chapter One. Heist. Regulus K. Boogerton smiled at the people he was trying to rob. They had no idea what was even happening. "It's incredible what they serve in this place. Did you see that?" The aristocrat pointed at a blob of text on the menu, far too distant for Regulus to read. Regulus agreed anyway. That was his part. "Truly unbelievable." Irita Claire's two siblings leaned in to read the menu.

[00:01:23.340] Speaker 1: "Corn gravy and mash. Mashed what?" "It just says mash." "Mash for brains, I assure you." [laughs] Everyone in the seating room laughed, especially Irita Claire. She went as far as to curl an interested eyebrow at him. Scandalous. He needed to get out of here before she started popping buttons on her dress and saying, "Oopsies." Romantic affairs were not part of the plan, but they were frequent side effects. Terrible, really. He practically

[00:01:58.240] Speaker 1: left a trail of heartsick women wherever he went. A few men, too. It wasn't like he could turn it off, though. Not his magnificent charm. Regulus made a show of looking at his pocket watch. "Thank you again for your uncommon kindness, letting me ride in your train." "It isn't our train. We borrowed it." "Ah, then thank you for allowing me to borrow it with you." Irita Claire looked like she might strangle her younger sister. "Melon is

[00:02:32.640] Speaker 1: correct. This car and a few others are Fairlane train cars, but the rest of the train is not. It's a tragic story, really." She managed to slide even closer to Regulus as she said the last part of her sentence. Irita Claire let a gloved hand rest lightly on his left thigh underneath the table. Regulus coughed light- [coughs] "Are you certain the furnace room is not next door? Mm." [laughs] Irita Claire

[00:03:07.600] Speaker 1: let out a half growl, half laugh, but didn't speak. Her siblings and friends looked at each other and either whispered, giggled, or pretended not to notice. Too much charm. Definitely too much charm. He literally could not turn it off, though. Not without ruining the entire plan. Regulus stood up suddenly as Irita Claire tried to lay her head on his shoulder. That was going too far. She teetered and flopped over onto the padded bench, hair and dress flying through the air. "I've just had a wonderful

[00:03:42.320] Speaker 1: idea." He pretended not to notice as her sister tried to help Irita Claire up. The red-faced woman batted her away and smiled eagerly at Regulus. He smiled back. "I'm going on a tour of the train. An adventure, really, when you consider the state of their dining menu." Another polite round of laughs. [laughs] Except from Irita Claire. Her eyes simply simmered. He'd seen that look before. This pot was about to boil over. "Perhaps you'll

[00:04:17.240] Speaker 1: visit the furnace room next door when you return. I simply must find the source of this unbearable heat." Regulus coughed to make a show of hiding his blush. "Irida, are you feeling okay?" Irita Claire's friends had been too afraid to ask, but seemed pleased that her sister had. Regulus felt the wall between worlds weakening. He couldn't help but feel the universe was offering him an insult. It was definitely time to go. He

[00:04:52.360] Speaker 1: strode out of the room waving. Irita Claire practically raced him to the seating room door. Her friends and siblings watched her go with concern. She was the highest ranking and thus the head of the house. Extramarital relationships were not forbidden in the aristocracy, but only because a rule not to destroy one's own reputation was so far self-evident. To them, sex was a negotiation tool all its own. If you were in the habit of giving things away for free, well, surely competitors and suitors would start lining up outside

[00:05:27.240] Speaker 1: your mansions to take further advantage. Regulus wouldn't know what that was like. His membership to the aristocracy ended and began with putting on the costume. "My private rooms are next door." It was clear from the faces in the room when she opened the door to whisper again that everyone had heard her. "Half an hour." The door finally closed for good. Regulus walked off in haste. He would need to meet her again. Irita Claire was a critical part of the plan, but he had to be

[00:06:02.020] Speaker 1: careful. If he let this go too far, well, the situation was already as tense as piano wire. If he consummated this farce, it might kill everyone on the train. For now, it was time to meet the rest of his team. [upbeat music] Regulus made his way to the infamous dining car. It was clearly not a Fairlane car. Based on how they were dressed, at

[00:06:37.056] Speaker 1: least half of the current occupants would have been thrown off the moving train if it were a Fairlane car. Very strict dress codes. He took a seat at the table with a privacy wall and waited to be served. While he waited, he affixed the yellow piper pin to his suit coat. Regulus didn't know who he was meeting, but they would know him by the pin he wore. A woman in a black suit and a little red bow tie appeared a few minutes later with a menu. She had prematurely gray hair, though her face was still youthful. She couldn't have been out of her 30s. "Oh

[00:07:11.816] Speaker 1: my, what a striking nose you have." "It's my best feature." "Is it?" Regulus narrowed his eyes. The Fairlanes had been right to look down on the commoner dining car if this was how he was going to be treated. "I'll take a glass of brandy." The server rolled her eyes at him and then came back a minute later with a glass of something. It wasn't brandy. "Are you sure there's nothing else I can help you with?" She tilted her chin and wiggled

[00:07:46.856] Speaker 1: one shoulder around. Where had they found this server? "Are you having a seizure or something?" She pointed at the metal pin fixed to her suit coat, a small blue dove. Oh. Oh. The Blue Dove. "My apologies. It looked like a pigeon." "No, it doesn't." Blue Dove sat down in the seat across from him. "So who are you then? The bird expert?" Regulus took a sip of whatever was in his

[00:08:21.616] Speaker 1: glass and frowned. It tasted like shoe polish. Blue Dove rolled her eyes. "No. Who are you? The big-nosed rich guy?" "Darling, I can't believe you've figured me out already." Regulus took another sip of his shoe polish. "Where's our final compatriot?" "The Red Crane?" "So you are the bird expert." [sighs] "I figured you'd already met. Where have you been? We've been waiting forever." "I was, mm, preoccupied." Blue Dove

[00:08:56.296] Speaker 1: pounded on the privacy wall behind her. A man got out of the neighboring booth and sat down next to her. He looked like... Well, he looked like one of the people the Fairlanes would have thrown off their moving train to clean up the dining car. "Hello, Yellow, uh..." "Yellow Piper." "She's the bird expert." Blue Dove took Regulus' shoe polish and downed it in one swig. That did it then. She wasn't getting a tip. "Ah, let's just use our real names. I'm Sandel Becker,

[00:09:31.496] Speaker 1: or Sandy, but not Sand." "Why would we call you Sand?" "You wouldn't." "Understood. And you are?" "Tritt." "Tritt. Do you have a last name?" "I do." The man said nothing more. "You do a lot of talking." "That, my dear, is my specialty, and my name is Regulus K. Bookerton." The three of them looked at each other in turn, no one yet willing

[00:10:06.496] Speaker 1: to broach the ultimate reason they met on this train. "So I see how our bird expert got on the train." "I'm not the bird expert. I'm just not an idiot." "But how did you sneak onto this train, Tritt?" Tritt shrugged. "Bought a ticket." "You what?" "I just bought a ticket. It's a train, isn't it? Anyone can buy one." Regulus had followed six months of meticulous orders from the puppeteer's

[00:10:41.496] Speaker 1: mysterious notes to get on this train. He'd forged documents. He'd ruined companies. He'd even worn a fake mustache for a while. Regulus finally closed his mouth when he realized it was hanging open. "Yeah, the puppeteer told me to try and work my way onto the train's security. Ah, it seemed like too much work, so I just bought a ticket." "You don't think maybe the reason you were supposed to work security was so that you could infiltrate them?" "Nah, I did something better."

[00:11:16.716] Speaker 1: Better? The puppeteer's plans were supposed to be followed exactly. That's what made them work. If this imbecile had already deviated from the plan... "So what's your story, big nose?" Regulus closed his eyes and sighed inwardly. There was no way he was even attempting this without a drink. A moment later, another server wandered by, then stopped and turned around to speak to them. "Hey, weird question, but I mixed up an order and poured this extra glass of brandy by mistake. Does anyone want it?"

[00:11:52.056] Speaker 1: Tritt swiped the glass directly off the server's tray and downed it. "Ah, thank you." Then the server looked at Sandel in confusion. "I'm on break." The server just shook his head and walked off. Regulus massaged his temples. That was twice this had happened. Surely, surely the puppeteer was just testing him Seeing if he could manage success with even the most incapable buffoons. Did you at least bring your ciphers? Sandel slid over a piece of paper with four letters on it.

[00:12:27.272] Speaker 1: Trit tapped the side of his head and winked. D-C-S-E. It took Regulus a few minutes to use the three combined ciphers to decode the briefing from the Puppeteer. He wrote down the decoded words one letter at a time. When he was done, everyone looked at each other, uncertain. That's not very helpful. Surely, surely this was not the entire plan. He read it again, searching for some hidden meaning, but there wasn't a lot of room for secrets.

[00:13:02.052] Speaker 1: Rob the vault. Maybe he should just go meet Irita Claire in her room after all. If he was going to die on this train anyway, he may as well enjoy it. Chapter Two: The Perfect Plan. Trit looked down at the message Big Nose had written. Maybe he'd done it wrong. He wasn't sure how it was supposed to work. Secret codes weren't really his thing. Well, then it was a good thing he'd ignored his orders to join the security. Being smart didn't mean you knew everything.

[00:13:36.772] Speaker 1: Sometimes clever people saw things that smart people didn't. He would know because he was clever. I think we need a new plan. Okay, Trit, so we'll just figure out how to rob an armored vault on the spot. Yeah, that's right. That's all we gotta do. Good. It sounded like she was on board. Big Nose was still rubbing his head, though. Probably wasn't used to using it so much. These vault trains have dozens of armed guards, and they aren't your usual nose-picking, unmotivated variety either.

[00:14:11.932] Speaker 1: They will be dangerous men, and armed. Did I mention armed? That's right, which is why you're gonna love this. There should have been 40 shock troopers in the two cars surrounding the vault. But I delayed their deployment before I got on the train. So now there's only four, two inside the vault and four outside. That's six. What? That's six guards. You said four. Uh, fine. So there's 36 fewer shock troopers. How's that? Mathematically accurate.

[00:14:47.372] Speaker 1: Now, is it too late to make it two guards or none? What? I'm just saying, if we're changing the count, we should go for lower. I'm not changing the count. Trit slapped his hands against his face and slowly pulled them down. Here, I'll explain it. So there were 34 guards. 40. Why are we going up now? Trit groaned, then reached under the table to pull something out of his boot. He slammed a piece of metal the size of his hand down between them. It looked like a large iron nail with a

[00:15:22.012] Speaker 1: handle. And what is that? A hole puncher. We walk right up to the guards and punch that through the weak part of the armor, just between where the neck plates connect to the helmet. What? [sighs] No more talk. Take that. I'll take the one on the left. Reg, you get the one on the right. Then Trit got up from the table and started walking to the back of the dining car. These people were going to talk all day if he let them. Hold on. Wait. I said wait. The train rattled furiously and a serving cart slammed into him from just out of

[00:15:57.012] Speaker 1: view. Trit spun with the blow and kicked the cart. Snacks and bottled drinks went flying. He stepped back into a defensive stance with the hole puncher in his hands. Someone put a hand on his shoulder and he nearly skewered them. Sandel took a step back and put her hands up. Easy, I think you got it. Trit forced himself to relax. He was getting better. Sandel waved for him to come sit back down, so he did. You can put that away for now. The other two were looking down at his hands. Trit was still holding the hole puncher in a white-knuckle grip.

[00:16:32.152] Speaker 1: He released it and stowed it back in his boot. Maybe he wasn't getting that much better. I think I have a plan that won't get us shot, at least not right away. I like the sound of that. Agreed. Big Nose watched Trit carefully, like he might punch a hole in him. He wouldn't. It wasn't right to kill people for no reason. You should at least have a reason. I've walked the entire train, except the Fairlane cars, and I think Trit's right. There aren't very many shock troopers. Doesn't take many.

[00:17:06.952] Speaker 1: Besides, the vault car is locked. That's sort of the point. I'm all out of explosives, too. Regulus and Sandel shared a concerned look before Sandel continued speaking. We don't have to get through the vault door, though, Trit. Because I'm a drifter. A what? A drifter. So you're not a server? No. What? She's not just a server. She's also the bird expert.

[00:17:41.732] Speaker 1: [sighs] You don't know what a drifter is? No. I reckon it's a good time to learn, though, if it keeps people from putting holes in me. Okay. I'll try to explain. Sandel cleared her throat, pulled out a ballpoint pen from her suit coat, then started writing directly on the table. From the look of it, she wasn't the first person to do so. First of all, what do you know about frames? Uh... That's fine. I'll start from the top. So the whole universe is made of the same kind

[00:18:16.652] Speaker 1: of stuff. We call that stuff delirium. Are you with me so far? Sure. There's a whole lot of that stuff, delirium, in its raw form just outside of the present frame. A frame would make a terrible present. Will you just shut up for two minutes? Hmph. Okay, so that's where we are right now, the present frame. Everything in the future is delirium, pure potential, real physical stuff that hasn't been shaped into the world we know and love. Me,

[00:18:51.868] Speaker 1: you, this table, the train. So in a way, the present frame is like the leading edge of a wave that moves through the delirium. Trit, you're drooling. Huh? He mopped up the drool coming out of his mouth. So the future is a kind of uniform, unshaped potential, and the present is, well, it's the present. Just look around. But what about the past? I'm sure that's what you're thinking. The past doesn't just turn back into delirium, not right away anyway. It lingers

[00:19:26.687] Speaker 1: around for a while in frames, frozen moments of reality that you can visit if you have the right set of skills, if you're a drifter like me. I can't tell if you're lying or just crazy. It means I can do this. Then she disappeared completely. Oh. Trit stared at the spot where Sandel used to be for a good twenty seconds. Then slowly, he waved a hand through the air where she'd been sitting.

[00:20:01.468] Speaker 1: Sandel popped back into existence in the aisle next to their table. Now that's impressive. You really should lead with that instead of a lecture. Sandel rolled her eyes and sat back down. But the mood had changed. This didn't seem like such an impossible task anymore. If she could go right through walls, robbing the vault car just got a lot easier. Of course, there were still two shock troopers inside the vault. An inkling of a plan, one that wouldn't get them all killed, started

[00:20:36.508] Speaker 1: forming in Trit's own mind. So, you can time travel. Sort of. It's more like physical memories. Memories of a place? I can go to a frozen image in the past. A frame. So, could you just go into the vault when they're loading it and come right back with whatever's inside? It doesn't go that far back. An hour at most, usually, and I can't bring anything with me. Trit nodded slowly, chewing on his bottom lip.

[00:21:12.148] Speaker 1: Why aren't you naked? What? You said you can't bring anything back. Why aren't you naked? If that were true, you should be naked. If you knew how many times I'd heard that one. Trit ignored Big Nose. There was something to learn here. He needed to understand the limits of what Sandel could do. The world looked a lot different than it did just a few minutes ago. I can only really move things that belong in the present frame. Delirium works on

[00:21:47.188] Speaker 1: identity. It's complicated. The plan that had started forming in his mind finally settled into place. Guards probably change shifts every few hours. Everyone's got to piss. That means the vault opens. Could you go back in time and see the combination to the locks? Sure. And they won't notice you? It's the past. Nothing I do there can directly change the future. Everyone's like a statue.

[00:22:22.588] Speaker 1: If my intelligence is correct, the Fairlane vault also requires a key that only the head of house carries. I've done some groundwork there already. I should be able to procure it if we need it. Trit nodded and then took Sandel's pen and started drawing a map of the train next to her drawings. It took them half an hour to argue through a coherent plan, but it seemed feasible. Not bad for three strangers. All right. It's settled. Bandy, you get the combination, learn the

[00:22:57.408] Speaker 1: guard change patterns, and tell us what the inside of the vault looks like. Big Nose, you get that key, then you stay out of the way. Then yours truly will take out the guards, open the vault, and take out more guards. Then the job's done. A perfect plan. Easy as that. The best plans were simple plans. Plans with room for error. There was a commotion at the end of the dining car. A flustered aristocrat was screaming profanities at a group of men in armor. Haven't you been listening? We've been robbed, you sand

[00:23:32.448] Speaker 1: eater. Trit couldn't see the faces of the shock troopers beneath all that armor, but the body language told the story. They didn't look happy. Did she just say robbed? That's him. The one who tricked my sister. Uh-oh. Why are you just standing there? Arrest him. Arrest all of them. Trit ducked back into their seating booth. The sound of metal feet came racing down the corridor. I think we need a new plan. Trit reached down for the hole puncher in his right boot. His heart raced. They had to do this

[00:24:07.308] Speaker 1: perfectly. Even then, it looked bad. Okay, when the first one grabs Something nagged at Trit. He looked over at the empty seats. They were gone. They'd just left him here. Metal boots came to a stop next to him. You, up against the wall. The two of them hauled him out of his seat and pressed him against the wall while they searched him. They found the hole puncher in his boot. I can't believe they left

[00:25:32.488] Speaker 1: me.