The throaty hum of maglev rails rocks the car beneath you, scenery whizzing past outside in a mix of silver spires and dirty, sodden stretches that might be where the other half lives. If you listen close, you can hear the blast of the whistle as the train shudders, brakes moaning to slow the monstrous speed to a steady crawl. And, if you press your face to the window, you can almost see it outside. The vast, silver spire of the Laboratory, rising up out of the ground and cast against a backdrop of stars.

Stars, glittering in their fundament. Legend has it that people live on the rocks circling them, although no one's ever told you much about it. Which is reasonable - Heirs, after all, don't need to do terribly much: grow up healthy and strong, learn how to swirl and curtsy before their ancestors, and take the gene train to fulfill their destiny.

Destiny. One hell of a word, that, you have to think, staring out at the stars. You never really wanted this, the petticoats and the bodices plucked from the distant past all a bit... much. When it comes down to it, really, finding a Suitor and performing the Experiment and all that isn't quite what you would've wanted, as a girl. But it's time, you suppose, and they've done the checks to make sure you're unsullied.

The stars seem to beckon for a moment - white points of light in the inky black, twin red ones growing -

Growing?

With a glittering crash, something slams into the side of the train, and the window explodes like a cloud of fairy dust. Black ropes sail through the carriage, lashing themselves to the far wall with metal mouths, and, with an elegant swing, a figure drops to the floor with a bow.

Pirates.

Pirates on the Gene Train.

Just a little imagination for the morning, a mysterious ritual, a reluctant heroine, and a world caught between modernity and Victorian times, between freedom and fairy tales. A world where things might be more sinister than they appear, on the track of the Gene Train.

But... well, there are pirates.

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