Training Engine 03

Benjamin Hale had spent twenty-two years building things that were not supposed to move on their own.

Carriage bodies moved, of course, but that was the horse's business. Benjamin's responsibility ended at the timber sills. If the frame sat square, the ash pillars held true, and the doors shut with a clean, airtight click, his job was done.

If a brougham refused to move afterward, he could point with complete confidence at the animal in the traces and say: Not my department.

A motorcar offered no such comfort.

On the sixth morning of class, Benjamin walked through the institute's double doors and found three cast-iron engines mounted on heavy timber stands down the center of the bay.

He stopped dead on the threshold.

Samuel Croft ran straight into his shoulder. "Keep walking, Benjamin."

Benjamin didn't budge. "Look at the benches."

Croft peered over his coat. "Oh."