Bottleneck

The first thing Ernest Teucher discovered about railway freight terminals was that nobody actually liked working in them. The second was that when things went wrong, everyone blamed the nearest person.

"The train was late!"

"The train pulled in twenty minutes early!"

"Warehouse hasn't finished sorting!"

"We finished sorting yesterday, you idiot!"

"Then where the hell are my crates?"

"Go ask the bloody warehouse!"

Ernest stood right in the center of Helmarte's Northern Freight Terminal, listening to three yard hands yell themselves hoarse over a missing shipment of industrial bearings. Hollen Vane lounged beside him, arms crossed, while Arthur Pendelton stood a careful distance away, eyeing a foul, greasy puddle on the cobbles that neither man cared to identify.

The shouting dragged on for another five minutes. Finally, Ernest raised a hand. "Excuse me."

Nobody noticed.

He tried again, raising his voice. "Gentlemen."