by Taki Drake
“Do what?”
“That humming. It sounds too happy. You are meant to be heading into a twelve-hour shift down a hole that shudders to the tune of ongoing quakes. The Lucen gives you nightmares and keeps you awake. Put a little gloominess into your expression. Some despondency. You know, start acting depressed.”
Brechal had stopped his humming and started to grin. Even though he understood that Tina was right, he couldn’t help it. It was Tina’s voice talking to him from a face carved from decades of anger. He found the juxtaposition impossibly funny.
“Stop it!” Tina had hissed. Brechal knew that she would have hit him if they had been somewhere private. As it was, she had reached for him in an automatic gesture, just brushing the tips of his fingers with her own before holding back, unwilling to show such familiarity while wearing a stranger’s face. He could still feel the tingle of energy as it had passed between them.
He had nodded. Looking back, it was clear to Brechal that his good humor was beneficial. Better to respond to danger with laughter than with fear or anxiety. For him, glee gave him an edge. It kept his mind focused and sharp.
Apprehension, on the other hand, could make him hesitate at just the wrong time.
“You’re going to get us both caught!” Tina had remarked, obviously annoyed.
Her waspish remark had been enough. Brechal managed to reign himself in just as they reached the front of the line. Even though he still wanted to laugh, he had stared at a security guard with a suitably morose expression.
The guard was a head shorter than Brechal and wore full body armor. The armor would give the guard more than enough strength to match Brechal’s own, and they were heavily armed. The mining company took security seriously. Lucen was much too valuable to risk.
Yet it could have been worse. Neria 7 was far out on the rim, a long way from the main hubs of commerce. That in itself afforded some protection from thieves.
Perhaps, if Lucen had been found on a more central world, the security would have been impenetrable. Brechal and Tina had found multiple ways of getting around the company precautions. They had simply taken the most risk-free choice.
The guard signaled for Brechal to stop. He did so, striving to look bored.
“Prepare for scanning,” the guard said, their voice sounding metallic and entirely devoid of humor.
Brechal had no idea how to prepare for scanning, so he remembered just standing there and waiting. He had wondered if the scan would detect his elevated heart rate. His raised blood pressure. Or worse, that he was using a holographic projector, and did not match his ID tag.
The thought of that day made the bartender pause again in his cleaning, pondering what it might have felt like to be shot by the security guard’s blaster. Would it have vaporized him completely? Or would it have punched a fist-sized hole through his chest, cauterizing the wound as it went? Would it have been quick enough not to even hurt?
Or could he have dodged?
The scanning seemed to take forever in Brechal’s memory, stretching time into an impossible teetering of motion, stopped on a critical step for their plans. He had started to tense his muscles, getting ready to dive out of the way should the guard so much as twitch. But, just as he had feared all was lost, the guard signaled to him forward.
“You may proceed.”
And that had been it. Brechal unclenched his jaw as he remembered his relief. There was no foreshadowing of the sorrow and pain to come, so when the iris doorway had opened in the wall of the dome, and he had casually stepped through.
Catching his breath in a painful knowledge of what would come after, Brechal felt himself trying to warn his younger self, desperate and helpful to avert what would follow.
Chapter 4 - Bowels of the Mine
A moment later, Tina had joined him on the inside of the dome.
It was as clean and sterile as in the rest of the subterranean city. In the middle, an elevator shaft led into the bowels of the mine. There was a fully-enclosed elevator car suspended above it, big enough to comfortably hold more than a hundred workers.
Brechal had taken a moment to savor the relief of not having to find out what it felt like to be shot with a blaster. He remembered his reprieve and his over-cheerful comment to Tina to “come on.”
The door to the car had been open and was nearly full. Almost ready to drop. He had known that another would appear within minutes, but even so, he had been unwilling to miss this one. Not only did every minute standing there increase the chance of discovery, but he had been eager to get down to the raw Lucen deposits at the bottom of the mine.
Without any hesitation, they had crossed to the car and climbed in to join the miners already on board. The elevator car hadn’t been built with someone his size in mind. He had needed to duck his head to fit in, but he didn’t care. Almost as soon as he and Tina were in, the door closed and a metallic voice advised them all to prepare for descent.
<<<>>>
The drop itself had been smooth and easy, with barely a wobble. There were no windows, but there was an electronic map that showed their descent in relation to the caverns outside. The miners were largely quiet, as despondent as Tina had mentioned, simply waiting to get to the bottom so they could start the next shift in their sad little lives.
There were no seats. Everyone stood close enough to each other that Brechal could smell them, an unpleasant odor of bodies and sweat from a dozen different humanoid species. Most of them had their arms raised so they could clutch the metallic handrails over their heads for balance.
Tina was too short to reach the handrails. She held onto Brechal’s elbow instead.
The drop had taken several minutes. On another day, Brechal might have grown bored and started to prod those sad workers standing too close with his tentacles, just to see what they might do. Just to see if they had enough life in them to show a spark of anger. But not this day. Not when there was security personnel among the miners. There had been too much at stake.
Instead, he had stood quietly with Tina at his side, trying not to grin at the mischief he was considering.
Then the car had shuddered and slowed to a halt. The miners seemed to collectively exhale as if they had been secretly anxious about the ride down into the depths of the mine and were relieved to have made it. The door opened, and they all had spilled out onto the concrete platform.
Brechal and Tina had not left immediately. Their plan called for them to wait. Ignoring the irritated muttering and complaints of those who sought to get past them, the two had remained in a calm island of purpose. Only when the elevator car was nearly empty had they moved.
The bartender stopped once more and was lost in the remembered moment. It was a pivot point that occurred each time he and Tina had pulled a caper. A glorious collision of brash confidence and strength, decorated with nervousness and the giddiness of a young girl on her first date. He had wanted to run and jump out of the sheer joy of it, luxuriating in the less than standard galactic gravity.
It didn’t matter how many times he had lived through it, he had always responded that way. He loved it. The surge of adrenalin in his veins was one of the two things that gave his life meaning.
The other had been standing beside him. Tina. Even though she had looked like a grumpy, middle-aged woman, Tina was still in there. Still exuding the calm confidence she always possessed.
She had always been much more professional. More able to do needful things without being distracted. Her simple presence had been enough to keep him focused on the task at hand. She didn’t even have to look his way.
They had followed the miners and guards out onto a floating corridor complete with metallic handrails. They were in an enormous, oval cavern that felt more like a stadium. The whole space had been lit by a scattering of those same miniature suns affixed to the walls, just like in the town above.
It was breathtaking and inspiring. The walls were more than just dull-colored rock. They were metallic and shone brightly in
a variety of vibrant hues. It looked like an iridescent rainbow or a prism of cheerful emotions.
Either way, it had been all that Brechal could do not to stop and stare in amazement. Even Tina had been impressed. Despite her iron control, Brechal could remember the low, wordless exclamation of wonder that has escaped her mouth at the incredible sight.
Then she had gripped a handful of the jumpsuit fabric at Brechal’s waist and tugged him along. “We don’t have time for sightseeing,” she had said, true to her practical self and ignoring her momentary lapse.
Together, they had followed the group as they followed the corridor until it turned into a tunnel that seemed almost too round to be natural.
<<<>>>
To Brechal’s mind, there was no such thing as a perfect sting. No plan was foolproof. Whether by pure chance or something more sinister, something always went wrong and kicked up an issue at the worst possible moment.
A contact might have lied about some crucial detail. The technology guarding the prize could be more advanced than expected. A guard more vigilant, or less prone to bribery. Anything.
The success or failure of any mission then depended on Brechal and Tina’s ability to cope with the problems and challenges. Brechal’s size and strength and capacity to think on his feet. Tina’s talent for mind-reading and ability to project innocence tinged with confusion. In every heist and con they had carried out before, their combined skills had been enough to at least get away with their lives, if not with whatever prize they were after.
But this job seemed to be different. Right from the start, everything went smoothly. Their work at the tavern had put them in just the right spot. The jumpsuits, the ease with which they had passed the security check at the dome, it had all gone very well. They even managed to find their way to a side chamber, away from where the miners were doing their work, without any false steps.
The side chamber, too small for the mining machines to quickly enter, had been described to them in detail by a drunken miner. The wiry, bitter man liked old-fashioned red wine over any of the more modern drinks the bar was able to offer. He had waxed lyrical about his desire to visit the chamber one day and stuff his pockets, and Brechal had no doubt that he would have forgotten what he said as soon as his hangover cleared.
But Brechal and Tina hadn’t forgotten. They incorporated the side chamber into their plans, and it was everything that either of them could have hoped for.
If it hadn’t been for the drunken miner, they would never have found it. At first, it looked like nothing more than a cleft in the wall of a side tunnel they were following. Spying it from the description, Brechal and Tina had moved further away from the other miners and allowed distance to mask their motions.
Unable to see the others, Tina had been the one to investigate. She had slipped discreetly into the cleft, which then lit up as she triggered the light built into her jumpsuit, a miniature version of the luminescent globes found everywhere else.
“This is it,” she had said, just loudly enough for the words to reach him. “Squeeze your oversized butt in here and have a look.”
He had done so and had grinned with delight as he saw the piles of Lucen, a white, translucent powder heaped randomly against the far wall. It was just sitting there as if waiting for him and Tina to scoop it all up.
Then the stench of it had slammed into him. Even now he could taste it in the air of memory. Like sulfur, it had been nearly enough to make him gag. He had coughed and hacked for a moment, seeing through watering eyes the light of Tina’s grin, an incongruent expression on the illusion of her anxious, bad-tempered face.
“The sweet smell of success,” she had said, her voice playful and teasing.
Brechal swallowed painfully, turning to drink a glass of water from the bar tap. His heart was pounding, and he could feel a presence around him that was trying to comfort him, but he could not let go of his memory. The big man feared and needed to remember, the conflicting demands ratching his tension higher. Placing the glass back on the counter, he laid his palms flat on the bar and slipped back into his memories.
<<<>>>
If they had just stuck with the plan, perhaps everything would have continued to go as well as it had until then. Perhaps they would have completed their first job without any real hiccups, gathered their Lucen and made good their escape. They could have sold it on the black market and lived like kings for a time.
It would have been simple. Even without digging tools, Brechal had no trouble scooping the Lucen into the large sack he’d brought along for the purpose, with Tina holding it open. The substance was light and easy to shift with his bucket-like hands, and Brechal was already thinking of what they needed to do to smuggle it back to the surface.
But before the sack was half full, Tina had started to look vaguely puzzled.
“Something’s wrong,” she had said, her voice anxious.
Brechal remembered looking down at her, immediately concerned. “What is it?”
“I don’t …I’m not sure.” She had seemed confused. “I’m sensing something and don’t know what it is.”
Brechal had come to an immediate full alert. He trusted her and her talent implicitly. If she said she sensed something, then there was something serious going on.
Two quick strides had taken him to the chamber entrance. He remembered how he had looked left and right, searching for the source of Tina’s confusion. But there had been no sign of any danger. Nobody in the corridor outside. Nothing at all.
“No,” Tina had whispered. “It’s not coming from there. It’s not…”
“Not what?”
“I don’t know. It feels alien.” She had shivered, although whether out of fear or revulsion, Brechal could not tell then and didn’t know now.
Brechal had not known what to say or do. He had hesitated for a moment before commenting, “If you think we need to leave, just say so.”
Tina had shaken her head in dismissal. Brechal knew that she wanted this score as much as he had. She would not let it go for just a feeling.
“No. It’s nothing.” Yet the uncertain look on her face had remained. She had drawn a deep breath and closed her eyes in concentration.
Brechal remembered the tension of the wait. He had been taut and alert, ready to do anything. Run, fight, whatever it took. He had been willing to murder someone if necessary. He had just needed a target.
Suddenly, Tina’s eyes had flicked open. It was hard to interpret what she was thinking, but the expression on her face had been one of pure terror. The fear in her face was etched in the depths of Brechal’s mind, forever.
“This way!” she cried. She hurried deeper into the chamber, away from the corridor. Brechal had followed without question and had found himself squeezed into a corner that he had thought to be no more than a shadow. “There’s a hole,” Tina said urgently, “Make it bigger.”
Brechal did as she had asked, pounding on the wall with his fists. If they had been ordinary rock, he would have torn the skin of his knuckles and perhaps broken a few bones. But the walls were made of what appeared to be Lucen, aged and compressed. In fact, the whole chamber was created from it. It had crumbled under his exertions like chalk, sending clouds of dust into the air.
In moments, Brechal had opened a hole that led to nothing but blackness. Another chamber, Brechal guessed, although how large he couldn’t tell. He had looked to Tina in confusion. “How did you know this was here?” he remembered asking.
She had ignored him, instead plucking the small, luminescent globe from her jumpsuit and playing with the dial on the back until it shone like a star. It had been too bright for Brechal to look at for long, searing his eyes with painful intensity. When Tina lobbed the light through the hole, Brechal could feel again the wash of relief that had eased the pain, followed by the shock of surprise.
It lit up a cavern nearly as large as the one with the luminescent walls.
The walls of this one were not luminescent. They were pal
e and chalky instead. Compressed Lucen again, Brechal thought. But that was not what drew his attention. It was not what had caused Tina’s confusion, or fearful response.
Below them, creatures were lying at the bottom of the chamber. Monsters. Massive things the like of which neither of them had ever seen before.
Neria 7 wasn’t supposed to have any indigenous life. But there they were, real and undeniable.
They were pale and transparent like the Lucen Brechal and Tina had been trying to steal. Huge and vaguely cylindrical, they looked like vast, transparent maggots, or the bloated corpses of stranded whales, rotting in the sun.
They were repulsive to look at, but that had not been the worst assault on Brechal’s senses. Within moments, his olfactory senses had been overwhelmed by a stench so foul it had made the smell of Lucen almost pleasant by comparison. It was fetid. Disgusting. Like the bowels of a dead thing rotted to the most noisome point, and beyond.
It had been so horrible that Brechal could feel the bile rising in the back of his throat as he stood behind the BHB bar. He had no choice but to turn his head to the side. He kept his stomach from rebelling by force of will alone, but even then he had to swallow several times before he could be sure that he had it under control.
The memory had hold of him, and it pulled him along for the ride through the slide of remembrance, dragging his aching heart and pounding dread with him. That dread echoed from both sides of time as the fear from what Brechal and Tina had experienced then joined forces with the scars of his mind now.
It might have been something that he could have fought more easily if it were just the memory of sight and smell. But the monsters also had projected waves of terror the like of which Brechal had never experienced before. It was as if all the hope and happiness in his life had been washed away, crushed under a wave of fear that left little behind.
The attack had left Brechal gasping. “What are they?”
Tina’s face, still cloaked in the illusion of the angry woman, had been a sickly green. “Horrible,” she had murmured.
