The Art of Rails®

Chapter 2. The Rails Concept

W. Web approached the picnic tables set up for breakfast cautiously, clutching the orientation binder in his hands. He waved as he saw Vik, the man he had met preaching on the street outside the hospital after being discharged. Here in the camp outside the city, all the cult members he remembered from the recruiting sessions were much more relaxed, their nervous edge gone.

Web grabbed a paper plate from the serving line and began perusing the platters, deciding what to eat.

"Excuse me; I'm new here. Do you know if there is a serving spoon for the eggs?" he asked the woman in front of him.

She turned, amused, and smiled with a quizzical brow, "Serving spoon? No, just imply to the platter that you'd like some."

"Imply to the .. I'm sorry, what?"

The woman held her empty plate out to the platter and looked expectantly at it. W. Web couldn't tell whether he had blinked while she pulled a fast one or he just hadn't noticed the eggs on her plate all along, but when she pulled the plate back, it was full.

"We always felt serving spoons were redundant, anyway," she said with a smile. "After all, what else were you going to do with them?"

Web inched his plate toward the inanimate platter, looking a bit confused. He jerked his hands back as an omelet suddenly weighed down the plate.

"There you go! A natural. If you want scrambled, try not to look so confused. And smile for sunny side up."

Web offered a timid smile back and muttered his thanks, shuffling away to clear his ...