by Gavin Zanker
‘And I suppose you and the doctor get a nice bonus for every person you sign up,’ Aiden said, folding his arms across his chest.
Peter pushed his glasses up his nose and glared. ‘Elliot Munkh is a personal friend of mine, and I would ask you not to impugn the man’s ethics or character.’
‘The guy is a creep,’ someone commented.
‘Yeah, he doesn’t give a monkey’s,’ Barker said. ‘Last time I was in the guy’s office with a busted knee he just told me to walk it off!’
‘You couldn’t walk anything off at the best of times, tubby,’ someone said. ‘How the hell do you even get so fat with the food in this place?’
‘That’s enough!’ Peter shouted, jumping out of his chair. ‘The next person to mention Elliot will be getting written up and sent to solitary!’
The room fell silent at the outburst. A few people fidgeted and coughed uncomfortably. It seemed no one wanted to see the inside of a solitary cell.
‘Good,’ Peter said, his face flustered as he took his seat again. ‘Now we have some quiet again. Would anyone like to discuss any feelings they might be struggling with after the incident in the yard?’
‘I heard the jumper fell on Stumpy,’ Barker said. ‘Squashed him flat as a bug.’
‘Bloody unlucky spot to be standing in. Imagine the odds.’
‘Nah, it wasn’t Stumpy. I was out there with him when the guy came down. He definitely landed on someone though.’
‘How do you know? Last I heard-’
‘The blood,’ Aiden said, interrupting. Everyone turned to stare at him. ‘There was too much blood for just one person. And there were pieces of one of these jumpsuits in all the mess.’
‘Jumpsuit,’ Barker said, giggling to himself. ‘Jump. Suit. Get it?’
‘So who the hell got squashed then?’ someone asked. ‘How can no one know? Don’t the guards keep records of people down here?’
‘I can see group is not going to be very productive today,’ Peter said, his tone resigned. ‘I’m going to call an end here. Now everyone join me in the prayer.’
Peter and a few others bowed their heads as the rest of the group kept talking, trying to figure out the identity of who had been killed in the yard.
‘The quicker you’re all quiet, the quicker you can all leave,’ Peter said without looking up.
The room quickly fell silent. Aiden watched as most of the circle followed Peter’s lead in reciting the Dawnist prayer.
‘We thank you, lord, for bestowing a new Dawn upon us when we were lost in the darkness. We look to you for guidance always, and pray for the wisdom to understand that only you can illuminate our path. May we fulfil your will, and carry out your word so that we may be reborn in your kingdom of light. Amen.’
Peter dismissed the group and everyone began shuffling their way out of the musty recreation room. Aiden saw Peter pull out a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and hand them to Hulio. Aiden shook his head as the blinking man enthusiastically handed the poor guy a pen and told him he was making the right decision. Even after the world ended, people still found ways to prey on the unfortunate.
Aiden turned and left, glad to get away from Peter and his agenda. It seemed every day gave him a new reason to want to get out of this place.
CHAPTER 3
AIDEN STOOD IN line beside the construction site with the other selected prisoners. A few had tried to start a conversation but the watching guards had quickly put a stop to it. Sergeant Wilkins was there along with a few other guards, all of them looking worried as they passed a cigarette between themselves.
A tall man with a large, skeletal face strode into view. The guards stamped out the cigarette and jumped to attention as he approached the Sergeant. Aiden watched as the usually cavalier guards acted meekly in the man’s presence. This work detail must be important if someone with authority was here to personally oversee the project.
‘Convicts,’ the man’s voice boomed out as he stepped up to the assembled line of prisoners. ‘I am Captain Ellington, commander of the city police. Many of you know me. Others will come to know me. Especially those who do not cooperate, or decide to cause trouble.’
The Captain pace up and down the line, his square jaw moving as he spoke to reveal a set of immaculate white teeth. Aiden was unable to decide if the man was ex-military or had just seen too many old war films.
‘You have been selected for this project,’ the Captain continued, ‘because you possess some knowledge or skill which we will be putting to use. Consider yourselves lucky, convicts, that you are being offered this opportunity. Do your job and you will be rewarded with extra rations. However if you so much as look in the wrong direction, I will personally put my foot so far up your behind that you’ll be spit shining my boots!’
‘What is it we’ll be doing?’ Aiden asked.
The Captain charged towards Aiden, stopping well inside his personal space.
‘What’s your name, convict?’ he demanded, his face hovering so close Aiden could smell roasted meat on his breath.
‘Aiden Fielding.’
‘Well, Fielding. Next time you have the urge to speak, you raise your hand first. Understood? That goes for all of you.’ The Captain swept his gaze over the prisoners. ‘You will all do as you are told when you are told. I’ll suffer no lack of discipline or-’
‘You’ll give us the boot, sir?’ someone said.
A ripple of laughter spread through the other end of the line. The Captain strode over, stopping in front of the smirking man who had spoken.
‘And your name?’
‘Saunders, sir.’
‘Well, convict. I hope you enjoy the next month you’ll be spending in solitary.’ A cruel smile spreading over the Captain’s angular face. ‘I’m sure you’ll still be laughing then.’
The smirk fell away from the prisoner’s face as one of the guards stepped forward and dragged him back towards the prison.
‘Now unless you have the brains of a cockroach, you will have no doubt noticed the construction site behind me,’ the Captain said. ‘This is the future site of a steam generator facility which will power the city above. Now you can probably guess that you will be building the damn thing. Under the watchful eyes of my correctional officers at all times, of course.’
Aiden raised an eyebrow. Steam engines were old fashioned, but he had to admit they were practical in the circumstances. The city had plenty of scrap metal and no shortage of water from the nearby River Seneca. As he wondered where the fuel would come from, the Captain continued.
‘Old steam locomotives will be lowered from the surface using cranes. These will then be cleaned, re-purposed, and constructed in to a functioning power facility. Some of you will be working with the engines and boilers, others will work to lay the foundations and walls. There is a schedule which I expect to keep to, so if any deadlines are missed then you will be the ones to suffer.’
An inmate raised his hand and the Captain motioned for him to speak. ‘What is it all going to run on? The forests are miles away and there’s no wood around here.’
‘Correct.’ The Captain turned and looked at the construction site. ‘Our gracious Mayor is in the process of securing a trade agreement with Kiln Commons. Not smart if you ask me, those Kiln Boys are about as trustworthy as my first wife, but would he listen to me?’ He glanced down at his wristwatch, tapping the face. ‘Now, I must leave. Work will begin sometime in the next few days. I have arranged for someone to oversee the project. An engineer. He tells me he’s quite the genius. He had better be anyway.’ The Captain turned back to the prisoners giving them one last look. ‘Do your job and do it well. That is all.’
With that he strode away, and the nearby guards visibly sagged with relief. The Sergeant barked out an order and the guards stepped up and began jostling the prisoners back towards the facility.
‘You don’t believe that, do you?’ someone said as a conversation started up near Aiden. ‘There are people starving up ther
e. You reckon they give two tugs of a dead dog about us criminals down here?’
‘Speak for yourself, I’m innocent.’
‘Hah, aren’t we all?’
‘I dunno, that guy seemed pretty no-nonsense,’ another said who Aiden recognised as Barker, the one who broke the chair at the support group. ‘You don’t think he’d lie about something like food would you?’
‘Is your brain in your fat gut or what?’
‘You telling me you’re not hungry?’ Barker said.
The guards shouted for quiet, and the rest of the walk was made in silence. For the first time in a while Aiden felt a smile form at the corner of his mouth. The food was irrelevant to him, it was the construction job he was interested in. Construction meant tools, and tools meant escape.
OVER THE COURSE of the next day, the first steam locomotive had been lowered into place from the surface. The process had progressed without incident, even when a strong crosswind had blown through the canyon, dangerously swinging the heavy metal train on its thick steel cables and almost sending it crashing through a busy walkway.
Aiden crawled out from under the engine, torch between his teeth. He leaned back against the locomotive and wiped his blackened hands on a rag stuffed in his tool-belt.
The sun had gone down hours ago and the construction site, lit by sweeping floodlights, was still awash with activity. Prisoners moved back and forth, yelling and whistling over the grinding of machinery as they worked to lay more concrete and steel foundations.
‘What’s it look like under there, inmate?’
Aiden looked over to see Sherman, the engineer placed in charge of the project, walking towards him. The engineer had an arrogant air about him, making it seem that everyone else was beneath him.
‘It looks like there might be some rust on the underside of the tank,’ Aiden said. ‘But it’s hard to see anything down there without daylight.’
‘All right, we’ll get a better look tomorrow,’ Sherman said, examining his clipboard. ‘As long as there are no holes we should be able to stay on schedule.’
Aiden wiped his face on his sleeve. ‘Even with no holes, any sign of corrosion and we’ll risk blowing the boiler when the pressure builds.’
Sherman glanced sideways at Aiden with a look of irritation. ‘And what would you know about steam engines, inmate?’
‘I was a civil engineer once,’ Aiden explained. ‘A long time ago.’
‘Before the Event I take it?’
Aiden nodded. The Event had changed everything. He could still remember the weeks of darkness that followed as he and Kate hid inside the house, worried they would never see sunlight again.
‘Well, not all of us had the opportunities you did. Some of us had to work harder to learn our trades after the Dawn.’
Aiden thought better of speaking up. He had enough enemies in this place without going out of his way to create more.
‘Is the water level stable?’ he asked, changing the subject. ‘That would go a long way to showing no leaks.’
‘Yes, I think so,’ Sherman said flicking through the papers on his clipboard. ‘My measurements seem to signify no drop.’
A guard’s whistle blew, signalling the end of work for the day. Aiden looked over at the construction team who were still pouring concrete at the other end of the site. He saw Luke, his stocky cell mate, drop his shovel and stretch out his back.
‘Looks like we’re packing it up for the day,’ Aiden said, turning to Sherman. ‘I’ll see you back here tomorrow then.’
‘Right,’ Sherman said awkwardly. ‘Well, bye then.’
Aiden watched the strange man appear lost for a moment, as if unsure where he was supposed to go, then turn on his heel and walk away towards the cable lift which would ferry him back up to the city. Aiden was glad to be on the maintenance crew, but suspected Sherman was a fraud. He wondered how the puffed-up engineer had managed to talk his way in to this assignment.
‘Oi oi,’ Luke said, appearing alongside Aiden. ‘How’s it going over here?’
Luke pulled out a cigarette and sparked it with a disposable lighter before offering one to Aiden. His cell mate seemed to have a bottomless supply of cigarettes in his pockets, but he was always happy to share so Aiden had no complaint.
‘He’s an odd one, ain’t he?’ Luke said, nodding towards the retreating figure of Sherman.
‘Yeah he is a bit.’ Aiden lit the cigarette and inhaled the thick smoke. ‘Not sure where they found him, but he knows a lot less than he lets on.’
‘Oh, bit of a blagger is he?’
‘Yeah he’s mostly talk. I had to point out to him where the pressure gauge was earlier.’
‘That’s important right?’
‘It is if you don’t want the boiler to explode.’ Aiden glanced across as the other inmates stood around smoking and finishing the bread from the extra rations handed around earlier. ‘How’s the foundation going?’
‘Simple job,’ Luke said, hawking and spitting on the ground. ‘Done it a thousand times before. Should only take a couple of days, as long as we get no rain. We can probably stretch it out though. No rush, eh?’
‘You seem at home on a construction site,’ Aiden said.
‘Spent most of my teenage years on one site or another. Labourer, brickie, plasterer. I’ve done the lot.’
Another whistle blew, and guards began signalling everyone to head back to the prison. Aiden finished his cigarette, then dropped it and stamped out the embers, kicking the butt away.
‘Any plans tonight?’ Luke asked.
Aiden frowned. ‘You mean besides watching the flies on the walls?’
‘No nightclubs? No drinking with hookers? No late night on the card tables?’
‘Not my scene. Though even that would be preferable to sitting in a concrete box with your ugly mug every night.’
‘You’re a weird guy, Aiden.’
‘Considering what’s normal these days, I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘True enough,’ Luke said, ‘people are in to some weird stuff these days. Come on, let’s keep up before the guards start having a baby.’
The two of them shuffled along with the rest of the prisoners, making their way back by the guards’ torchlight. Aiden glanced up at the scattered electric lights in the city above, weakly illuminating clusters of buildings and walkways. He realised that the city was actually quite beautiful when there were no people around.
CHAPTER 4
AIDEN UNCLIPPED HIS tool belt and passed it through the open grate. The guard inside the store room took it, checking the tools were all in place, then hung it on the wall behind him.
‘Name?’ he asked.
‘Aiden Fielding.’
The guard waved him along as he marked the return of the tools on his notepad, and the next prisoner in line stepped up to the grate.
Aiden made his way along the corridor towards the canteen. They were already serving in there, and his stomach had been burning with hunger all day. The promise of extra rations on site had quickly been forgotten by the guards after the first day, now everyone was back to the one basic meal per day.
As he neared the canteen, Dion and his two followers came into view, heading towards him from the other end of the corridor. Aiden kept his head down as he walked. He was in no mood for trouble today.
‘Aiden,’ Dion said, stepping into his path. ‘Not planning to ignore me now, are you?’
Aiden shoved through him, trying not to break stride, but Dion was much larger than him and stood his ground. A hand grabbed Aiden’s shoulder and pushed him back against the wall.
‘What do you want, Dion?’
‘No need to cause a scene. Me and my buddies were just wondering if you’d made your decision yet?’
‘What decision is that then?’
Dion sighed theatrically. ‘You know this ends with us beating your worthless hide. Do we have to go through it every time?’
‘Looks like it, because there�
�s no way I’m becoming one of your lackeys like these two.’
The smaller man Pedge lunged forward, bringing his fist up into Aiden’s stomach. Rather than trying to dodge, Aiden tensed his abdomen making the punch look ineffective.
‘Your girlfriend still hits like a woman,’ he said to Dion, gesturing with his head.
‘Not here,’ Dion warned Pedge, who bared his teeth and snarled. ‘Like I said, Aiden, we don’t want a scene. You should know though, the game has changed.’ Dion pulled out a long screwdriver from his sleeve and held it in front of Aiden’s face. ‘Your time is running out, and you better start cooperating. Or it’ll be more than Pedge’s fist that finds your stomach.’
Aiden tried to ignore the images of disembowelment that flashed through his mind. ‘I see you made a trip to the construction site. You know, if they aren’t already looking for that, they will be soon. You won’t be able to hide it for long.’
Dion grinned, showing his silvery metal teeth. ‘Long enough to stick you with it though.’
‘Hey, what’s going on over there!’ a guard shouted from down the corridor.
The screwdriver disappeared inside the folds of Dion’s jumpsuit as the guard strode over, his hand resting on the baton at his waist.
‘Do we have a problem here, Chavez?’ he demanded.
‘No problem, sir,’ Dion said. ‘Just a chat between friends.’
The guard turned to Aiden and raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that right?’
‘No problem,’ Aiden said. ‘Dion was just asking me to help him out with his janitorial duties, but I’m due back at the generator site after dinner.’ Aiden looked at Dion and smiled. ‘Sorry Dion, maybe another time.’
‘Right, well, move along then. All of you. Can’t have inmates loitering around in the corridors.’
Aiden headed for the canteen while the others walked in the opposite direction. He had to figure something out soon, there was no way he could avoid Dion forever.
‘Problem?’
Aiden looked up to see Luke appear in front of him. ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’
