Dana McAllen is a member of the urban exploration association that is currently investigating remnants of the worlds previous civilization. She initially made her debut in the Tunnelrunners side comic. She has been Ian's closest friend since early childhood, and is still his closest confidant.
Not an ideal place to be standing, but with a train parked just behind them, and a tight curve beyond that, anything coming through is definitely going to be moving at walking pace.
OTOH the potential threat level of the situation has escalated to the point Dana should be screaming Code Red! and getting Ian, Miko, Targeter and half the House military for backup.
No rust on the rails means they’ve been used within the year. Not standing on the rails might be a very good idea. After all, there are likely to be maintenance vehicles around somewhere.
Iron doesn’t rust quite as fast in a desert, what with the lack of water and all. Still, the connecting bits do look a bit rusty, so the tracks have definitely seen use for quite a while after they were installed.
The railhead now makes sense as an initial staging area, with a gate feeding people / materiel from the other side. And IIRC, there are no obvious signs of defenses around it and it’s not concealed from airiel / orbital observation. That would seem to argue against invasion / covert recon.
Biggest immediate question, though: where is everybody? The gate seems to be “on”, though that doesn’t mean things can necessarily pass through. What happened on one or both sides to suspend operations?
Enki sent them home before he left. Hell, they were already gone when he brought Jennifer there. That was on the order of a hair over a year, comic time.
Which universe does this connect to?
Before they do anything else, now is the time to report.
OTOH the potential threat level of the situation has escalated to the point Dana should be screaming Code Red! and getting Ian, Miko, Targeter and half the House military for backup.
Biggest immediate question, though: where is everybody? The gate seems to be “on”, though that doesn’t mean things can necessarily pass through. What happened on one or both sides to suspend operations?
http://requiem.spiderforest.com/?comic=02182010