The Kebab Plan

Story so far

The kebab plan is the engineering answer to a specific problem: the Vermillion trains fit their tunnels so tightly that a normal wedge cowcatcher would simply clog the bore like a drain. Carl, Katia Grim and an architect among the Brynhild's Daughters instead combined a bulldozer-style scoop with a low forward comb, then studded it with thick metal spikes at chest height and above, like a sea anemone or the third floor's street urchin mobs.

The spikes are the trick. Anything impaled dies faster, and the moment it is truly dead Katia Grim can suck the corpse — and, it turns out, loose blood and viscera — straight into her inventory, keeping the scoop clear. Because a dead body is required, Princess Donut and Hekla stand at the smashed windows finishing off whatever is still moving on the comb. Rubber layers insulate Katia from the third rail, yoga mats cushion her mounting plates, and speed is itself a defence, since Katia's constitution rises with the train's momentum. It works, more or less: the horde is threshed apart on the run to Station 101, at the cost of broken spikes, two unconsciousness debuffs, and a cab flooded knee-deep in living gore.

Appearance

A train nose transformed into a flesh-colored steel scoop bristling with chest-high spikes, blood and bone spraying back through the broken windshield.

Role

The tactical centrepiece of the station-101 rescue, and the reason a single subway train could cross a horde of thousands.

Relationships