by J. N. Chaney
Once in the deeps, I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm. The rock walls in this section of the cave glowed red. Getting too close meant a trip to the infirmary. Once, I saw a worker venture too close to a bright red section of the wall. The man hadn’t even touched it. He just burst into flames. They said he’d had the blight to begin with. That was why he didn’t feel his skin boiling already. Others said he didn’t have the blight, that he was just tired of mining. Either way, it seemed like a horrible way to die.
I braced myself as the pod came to a halt. Adults bumped up against me, pushing my head into the glass. Then they filed out quietly, their boots shuffling along the rubber floor. I was one of the last to exit and braced myself for the overseer’s blow. If the burly man hit me on the way in, nine times out of ten, he’d hit me on the way out.
“Find us something nice tonight, rat, and you get a free ticket out,” said the man.
“Yes, sir,” I replied. It was a mistake to talk to the overseer… and it was a mistake not to.
“What was that?”
“I said, yes, sir.”
“Don’t you yell at me, boy!” The rifle’s butt struck me again. But instead of a rubberized floor, I crashed onto a grated steel deck. My knees tore open and I winced, knowing the wounds were bad. Fortunately, I had extra bandages wrapped around my wrists that I could use to stop the bleeding, but not until I was alone.
The overseer laughed as he walked back into the transport. The doors irised shut behind him, expending their gasses, and then the vehicle lurched away, grinding along the racks.
“Are you okay?” said a woman’s voice above me.
I nodded, then rolled over and sat on the floor to examine my knees.
“Oh, my,” said the woman. It was Mrs. Anders. Her family’s bunks were a block down from ours. But it was only her in the beds now, and the overseers had already started filling the empty spots with new people. “What have we here, Telmont?”
“I fell,” I said.
“I can see that.” She started patting her body in search of something.
“How about these?” I unwrapped the first bandage from my left wrist and showed it to her. She seemed pleased and sad all at the same time.
“Those will do nicely,” she said. “Here, let me help you.” I supplied the material while she wrapped my knees, confining the ripped flesh to the safety of the badges until the blood stopped seeping down my shins. Then she stood and offered to help me up.
“Thank you, Mrs. Anders,” I said, rising.
“It’s my pleasure, Telmont.” She paused, as if considering something about me, and then asked, “Tell me, how is your mother?”
“She’s in the first phase, but she’ll be in the second by the weekend, I think.”
Mrs. Anders sighed. She looked so sad. I wished there was something I could do to cheer her up. “It’s okay, Mrs. Anders,” I said, grabbing her hand. “She has me, and if I were in her place, having her put rags on my head and sing to me would be all that I wanted anyway.”
I watched as tears welled up inside Mrs. Anders’s eyes. I didn’t mean to make her cry. If anything, I thought what I said would make her happy. Then again, maybe these were those “happy tears” that Mama told me adults sometimes cried. That still confused me, but I hoped that was what Mrs. Anders had a case of.
The woman wiped her face with a dirty hand and then straightened her shirt. “We’d better get going,” she said. I nodded and walked with her down the corridor, still holding her hand.
The oxygen mask they gave me smelled like vomit. A puker, everyone called it. It was like losing the lottery, only worse. Having a puker stuck on your face for a fourteen-hour shift sucked because you had to fight not puking in it yourself, which only made the smell even more fowl. It was an endless cycle of horribleness that you couldn’t wait to get away from.
I stood in the bucket beside two other men, holding to the sides and looking down.
“Gods, kid,” said one man—Mr. Jensen, I think his name was. “How can you even do that?”
“Do what?” I asked, watching the lava flow meander along the floor a kilometer below.
“Look down like that. Don’t you feel like—I don’t know—like you’ll fall out or something?”
I turned to face the man. He was clutching the cables with both hands, his white knuckles shining through some grease stains. “No,” I said. “Plus, that’s illogical.”
“Illogical?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said another way for him. Mama said I had to be careful how I talked. She said most people wouldn’t understand me, insisting it was their fault, not mine. Still, I had to be careful not to stand out too much. So I tried to say things another way whenever someone questioned what I’d said.
“What do you mean it doesn’t make sense?” Mr. Jensen asked.
“I mean, why would looking down make me fall out of the bucket?”
The man shrugged, his shoulders sliding up beside his mask. “I don’t know. Just thought maybe you had a fear of heights like the rest of us.”
That phrase, like the rest of us, was one people had been using more and more around me lately. As if, somehow, I wasn’t like them. But I was exactly like them. I was trapped like them. A slave like them. Whipped and zapped like them. And I was destined to die like them. What did that phrase even mean?
“I’m not afraid of heights,” I said. “Nor am I afraid of falling. But… I might be afraid of the sudden stop at the end.”
The man studied me for a second, as if considering what I’d said, then laughed. “That was a good one, kid!” He patted my shoulder. “Damn bright kid, this one,” he said to Mr. Soules, who stood beside him.
Mama said that I should try to use humor whenever I could. She said it made people’s pain more bearable. I tried using humor with her, but she’d stopped laughing in the last few days.
The bucket continued to shoot across the chasm, the wind playing with my hair. I always liked this part of the commute to work—as the adults called it—because it was the one time that I didn’t feel like my skin was going to melt off my body. The breeze cooled my skin, and I so badly wanted to pull the puker off my face and savor the sensation. But doing so this deep meant I wouldn’t just catch the blight—it meant my insides would probably be liquified before my knees hit the ground.
I’d never seen that happen, of course. But there were stories of workers whose masks had cracked. People said those workers thrashed and spat blood, deader than dead in under a minute. So I’d keep my puker stuck on my head, choosing it as the superior option. But dying of liquified guts was a close second.
By the time I reached my designated dig site, I was already sweating more than I had at any other time in the last few days. That was because today, the overseers had led us further into this particular tunnel than any of us had ever been. Some workers even whispered that this tunnel hadn’t been carved out by miners—at least not the humankind.
“It was the monsters of the deep,” said Mrs. Boneshaw. She walked with a cane and pointed at my face whenever she talked. I honestly couldn’t believe the overseers made someone as old as she was work in these conditions. But she never seemed to complain, and—truth be told—some days she mined more tang than men twice her size.
“Monsters?” I asked, picking my spot on the wall to start digging. I’d heard all the myths before, but had never seen the legendary creatures.
“The monsters of the deep,” she said the same way as before, her voice quivering as if I should be afraid. “They used to inhabit this place. Made all these caves, they did. And it’s the ooze from their hides that turns the rock into the tang we mine.”
“That’s a very interesting hypothesis, Mrs. Boneshaw,” I said, one I had long suspected myself.
“Hypo-what? No,” she said, pushing her cane into my mask and tapping it.
“Whoa, Mrs. Boneshaw! Please watch what you’re doing with your cane!”
“This
old thing?” she asked, turning the stick on herself. Then she began pounding on her own mask with it—hard. “These masks are almost impossible to break, sonny. Ain’t no stick doing the deed.”
“Mrs. Boneshaw! Please don’t do that.”
She paused, still holding the cane poised for its next strike. “Very well. Didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted you to know it’s not a hypothinsia—”
“Hypothesis,” I corrected.
“It’s not one of those. It’s true.” I pulled my head back as her cane stopped short two centimeters from my mask.
“Okay, okay,” I protested, pushing her cane aside. “I believe you. Just please don’t poke me again.”
Mrs. Boneshaw studied my face again, moving to look at me from one side and then the other. “You’re more irritable today than normal,” she said. “Didn’t draw yourself one of those pukers from the wall now, did you?”
“You can tell that?”
“Just like I can tell the monsters of the deep once crawled through here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fair enough, Mrs. Boneshaw.” As the woman hobbled back to her place along the wall and prepared to start mining, I added, “If your hammer breaks down again, just yell.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” I said under my breath. I needed a break from fixing everyone’s gear anyway.
I thought about her premise as I prepped my pneumatic hammer for work. My mother had read me stories about giant beasts inhabiting the cores of planets. I guess I just never thought they might inhabit this one. And the tunnels had to come from somewhere if it was true that workers had never been this far down. I just always thought they were abandoned lava flow chutes. But the more I thought about the patterned ridges and the concentrations of tang that ran around the circumference of the tunnel, the more I thought crazy old Mrs. Boneshaw might be onto something.
I’d been pummeling the rock for several hours when I struck something that sounded odd. I pulled another long sip from my water line and then pulled my hammer away from the wall. My arms and back ached, desperately in need of a break. So I took advantage of the strange sound.
Resting the hammer on the debris-covered ground, I pulled my flashlight from my toolkit and clicked it on. The beam cut through the soupy haze, reminding me just how contaminated the air was down here, and shined it on a variation in the wall’s composition. I reached forward and touched the surface with my fingertips. It was hard metal and cool to the touch, which—given how everything was hot down here—surprised me. I thought about calling it in, but realized I still hadn’t actually found anything worth noting. So I decided to pick the hammer back up and keep digging through it.
The hammer had a hard time breaking into the material at first. I let the diamond-tipped tool vibrate against the metallic surface, but I was fairly certain the instrument was doing more damage to me than the substrate. Suddenly, the hammer gave a little, and I noticed a deep gouge in the material. I exploited the tool’s progress and increased the speed, moving the tool in wide circles to carve away at the wall.
The hammer struck layer after layer of metallic barriers until, finally, the tool’s head punched through into an open space. I switched off the hammer and withdrew it from the cavity. Then I squatted and peered into the hole, noting that the opening was large enough that I could almost fit my entire head in.
I withdrew, ran back through my day’s work, and then looked up and down the main corridor to make sure no one was coming. If overseers caught me without my jaw hammer on, I’d be beaten. Likewise, if other workers found I’d discovered a prize, they wouldn’t think twice about killing me to take it for themselves.
When I saw that the coast was clear, I darted back to the hole again and got down on my hands and knees. After wiggling as deep as I could, I shined the flashlight through the far opening to see a small space about the size of a utility cabinet. But unlike the rest of the caverns, this space was lined with metal, much like its outside wall had been.
I retreated just enough to pull more stones away with my hands. I hoped to make more room for my body to slide deeper into the fissure I’d bored. Satisfied that the opening was sufficient, I paused to listen for any approaching footfalls. But the main corridor remained clear.
I climbed back in, moving even farther this time. I put the flashlight over my head, pushed through the far opening, and then peered around. Some sort of seam bordered the far wall, as if the panel might push out somewhere—like there was more to this space than just this space. But what startled me the most was a strange-looking object on the floor. It was grey, and maybe ten centimeters square. It bore all sorts of strange markings along its surface, like someone had carved intricate designs in another language on it.
I stared at the box for a moment, considering what I should do with it. I had never seen anything like it before and desperately wanted to touch it. But was it safe? With all this metal, maybe it was connected to an energy generator and I was sticking my hand inside a reactor of some kind? The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized the object seemed fairly benign. In fact, the thick layer of dust on it made me believe it had been here for a very very long time. That, and the air smelled stale and lacked any of the electrical-charge odors that I’d grown up with in the mines.
I kept my flashlight on the object and took a deep breath. Then, very slowly, I moved my hand toward the box. The shadow of my fingers twitched on the far wall, so I clenched my fist and then opened it again, forcing my hand to stop shaking from excitement.
I reached out and touched the object. Nothing happened.
The box was as cold as the exterior wall had been. But unlike the wall, the object wasn’t attached to anything. I picked it up, surprised at how light it was in my hand, and then pulled it out through the hole I’d made. I shimmied back into my larger tunnel and rested against the wall. I listened for footsteps again. But all I could hear were the sounds of other workers’ jack hammers pounding away in the distance.
I blew the dust off the box, and then rolled it this way and that, wondering what it was, what purpose it served, and how it got all the way down here in its thick-walled metal container. I let my fingers glide against the troughs of the designs. The item seemed to have been made with great care, and the container had done an amazing job at preserving it. Normally, items found in Meldorn’s caves were corroded from all the toxicity in the air. So finding something in this condition meant…
“I’m going to be set free,” I whispered.
I stared at the item, realizing it was my ticket out of here. This was surely enough to buy my freedom from the overlord, and maybe even my mother’s. With the credits left over, I might even be able to get Mama the medicine she needed to get better. My heart was thumping so loudly in my chest that I swore someone would hear it over the beating of the jack hammers. It was time to call an overseer before someone else stole my treasure.
“He says he’s got something for you, boss,” the overseer said into a camera mounted in the wall. He was another big man, wearing a stained shirt with no sleeves and black cargo pants. There was a large knife—about as long as my chest—strapped to his leg, and a rifle slung over his back. He also wore a funny wide-brimmed hat with a strap underneath it, while chewing a toothpick.
“And?” said a deep voice over the rusty speaker.
“How the hells should I know, boss? The kid’s holding a box. Definitely not something I’ve seen before.”
“A box?”
“Yeah. Here…” The overseer snatched the object from my hands and held it up to the camera.
“Send him up,” said the voice.
The overseer shoved me into an elevator car all by myself and then pounded a button with his fist. A buzzer sounded and then stopped. As the doors closed, the man said, “Looks like today’s your lucky day, kid. Enjoy the relief.”
I didn’t say anything in reply. I just watched the doors shut and breathed a sigh of relief when I was alone. His kni
fe had been huge.
The car jolted up, startling me at first. But then it smoothed out. I rode in silence, savoring the solitude but grimacing at the smell. Urine and cigarettes pooled in one of the corners, and I tried to stay as far away from that spot as possible. The hum of the elevator was soothing, though, and I realized I might fall asleep if I wasn’t careful. I had worked thirteen of my fourteen hours and felt like I was ready to collapse. Yet another part of me felt wired, fueled by the thought that I was about to be given the greatest gift in the world. I had to stay awake or I’d miss it.
The rusty carriage jolted to a halt, and I heard footsteps approach from outside. Then something struck the wall and a buzzer blatted. The doors parted and fresh air filled the lift. In front of me stood yet another large man dressed in a business suit. I’d never seen one in person before. The data pad had a few pictures of them, though. I really wanted to reach out and touch the fabric. It looked fine and probably was really expensive.
“Are you the overlord?” I asked. My voice sounded smaller than I meant for it to. So I repeated myself, but with a deeper voice like adults used.
“No,” the man in the business suit said. He eyed the box in my hands, then looked back at my face. “Come with me.”
The man led me down a stone hallway, but unlike the tunnels in the mine, this one had a black tile floor. And the lights in the ceiling looked way more expensive. It didn’t smell as bad here either. In fact, I was pretty sure I smelled something cooking in the distance, and I felt my stomach growl.
The businessman used a card to open several locked doors. Each one led to a hallway more beautiful than the last. The lights were softer, the floors cleaner, and the smells more… well, they smelled like what I thought paradise might smell like, but I had nothing to compare it to. This was my first time above the mines… ever.
Normally, I was good at remembering directions. A life in the mines had taught me how to be. But up here, things were different, and I’d lost track of how many turns we’d taken and when. In the mines, I’d memorized the pit marks at intersections and the nuances in the floor, but here, all the surface looked the exact same.
