A courier in a pressed Syndicate uniform delivers a single cream-colored card to Gunnar's workshop: Silas Vane requests his company for lunch, today, aboard the Syndicate's private dining car parked on the depot siding.

Vesper calls it a trap or a performance; Calloway warns that men like Vane don't invite you to lunch unless they've already decided something about you. Both are right. But Gunnar has their intelligence and their analysis — what he doesn't have is Vane himself: the specific quality of a man who builds systems that eat other people's choices and calls it efficiency.

You can't understand an engine from a schematic; at some point you have to put your hands on it. So Gunnar pockets the invitation, locks his workshop like a man who intends to come back, and walks to the depot to meet the architect of the Syndicate's control grid face to face.

Iron Rails & Ruin is a steampunk Wild West adventure for boys 8-18 — a fourteen-year-old engineer in 1882 Montana finds out his father is alive, and the Syndicate has fourteen days to seize every locomotive in the territory.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love trains, invention, and frontier adventure. For fans of Mortal Engines, steampunk machines and mysteries, and Wild West stories with a clever hero at the controls.

📚 Grab your copy of Iron Rails & Ruin: Smoke & Suspicion (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

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00:00:00 — A regulator in seven pieces — and a knock at the door
00:02:06 — A Syndicate courier, in a uniform pressed twice
00:04:15 — The card: Silas Vane, lunch, The Argent, the depot siding
00:04:39 — Vesper's voice in his head: "It's a trap"
00:05:07 — Calloway's read: "Men like Vane don't invite you to lunch"
00:06:21 — "You can't understand an engine from a schematic alone"
00:07:16 — "Already know what you think. Going anyway."
00:08:06 — The walk to the depot siding
00:08:15 — The Argent — lacquered black and brass, a statement
00:10:00 — Silas Vane rises — taller and stiller than expected
00:10:31 — The handshake
00:25:24 — The summary document — the deal on the table
00:25:43 — Seven days left on the Syndicate's deadline
00:27:01 — Gunnar crosses the yard, back toward town
00:27:41 — He does not look back at the Argent
00:27:43 — CH 11 — What Comes Next

I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself? Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening! This is Reed Sterling. Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.