The suit and helmet glowed hues of orange, red, and yellow on the outside, radiating huge volumes of heat from the magma away from her. Anybody who approached her unequipped would instantly combust. Inside the suit, the effect was of intense cool. She got to her knees and disconnected what was left of her hooks and drill. She turned back to see her suit had burned her imprint into the rock she had landed on.
Rina raised her visor to catch her breath. The suit was cooling down fast, the timer read three seconds. She would need a better suit, and no matter what Eitan thought, she would get the modifications she wanted. Fifteen seconds was not enough for one, and she would do something about that blasted helmet for two. And someone else would finish the tunnel. They would have to slag the rock to glass, seal the hole shut and double back, but they were close, very, very close...
The caves’ collapse sent a ripple through the illegal tunnels, opening a large sinkhole directly under the Fish quarters and swallowing up houses, crushing scores of Fish, Beasts, and Ants in the middle of the night.
Conveniently, it was Eitan and his crew who were called in by the Priests to investigate the damage and prevent another crater from opening. They were quick to clear out the debris and even quicker to fill the hole. What could be identified as Ant and Beast would be recycled in the morning; the Fish would tend to their own body parts. He would need someone on the Council to brush off the incident and some Moles would pay for this, but they all knew the risks. Close as they were, time was running short.
Do you fear the fire?
Do you feel the flame?
— Carvings on the colony walls
“Hmm, you could, sure, you could, you wouldn’t be able to move much, but you could. Yes,” said Councilman Tamhidi.
Rina turned away from him. No matter how high they rose in the community, Ants rarely climbed above their station in relation to each other. The old man had built his reputation as a personal equipment mechanic, and that alone had gained him enough respect from the other Castes to join the Council, but that was all he would ever be to other Ants: the best personal equipment mechanic in Ant memory.
His underground lab was connected to the illegal tunnels, as were the three maintenance workshops he ran in the other quarters. Tamhidi was one of the few people Rina knew she could trust not to talk to the Fish. Conspiracies have their benefits, although she was not as confident that he would not talk to Eitan, she knew the challenge intrigued him, and she had placed all her chips on his enthusiasm.
The lab was the most cluttered place Rina had ever seen. The ceiling was lined with hanging propeller engines and other large experimental models too heavy for a person to carry. He cleared a table by brushing off all its contents onto the floor and laid out schematics of mole fire-suits and helmets to ponder over, oblivious to Rina’s curiosity.
She slipped on a screwdriver, kicked it under a table, and picked up one of the books Tamhidi stacked up in a corner and used as an occasional table or seat. She could not read much beyond the title—there were more symbols than she was used to, some of which were missing entirely, others completely illegible.
“You read the old tongue, girl?” Tamhidi chuckled from the other side of the lab. He left the map and approached her, making his way around a table, stepping over a mechanical hand-drill, and crushing a roll of scrolls on the floor.
“There is not much for you to find in here anyway, unless you’re suddenly interested in gravity reversal, but that’s not why you’re here.” He took the book from her hand and put it back on the pile. “Try this. You should understand more.” He walked back to the map. “And if you don’t,” he chuckled again, “why, you made it here once, you’ll make it again.”
Rina glanced at the cover.
“That first word is guerrilla!” he laughed, without turning his attention from the schematics.
Guerrilla warfare. She put the book down. The old man was irritating. She was not going to ask him what it meant, choosing to nod silently instead.
The councilman raised an eyebrow, but remained silent too.
Tamhidi was one of the councilmen who frequented the comfort houses. Rina had not met him before being dragged into the rebellion, but the old man had discontinued his practice after siding with her brother. Ants were usually distracted, and engrossed in thoughts known only to themselves and understandable only by other Ants and apprentices. She had never heard of an Ant harming one of the girls but she would not vouch for the purity of his thoughts right then and there.
What she was doing was dangerous, forbidden, and much worse according to her brother, frivolous. But if Tamhidi thought he had himself a comfort girl on his hands he would find out how precious his hands were and would never take Rina, or any of the former comfort girls, for granted again.
His long blue robs swished as he spun from the table, grinning at her. “Come back in a week, girl! Come back in a week. You might want to hide, your brother being who he his...” He paused as if about to add something, but changed his mind. “Well he’s been kind to you, so I hear, but he wouldn’t like your being here you should know!” and winked as he mentioned Eitan.
He would not talk, but he might ask for something in exchange. He was a councilman after all, no matter how hard he pretended otherwise. His robes were soft and thick, unlike the other Ants’ blue working shirts and slacks meant for ease of motion, thin-threaded and loose for air and comfort. Ant forges could be scalding hot, barely less than the deeper caves. It was obvious that Tamhidi had not wielded a hammer himself for years; whatever strength he had had in his youth was long turned to fat under his bulky robes.
He pressed a button under the table, and the wall slid into a circular opening onto the tunnel. Rina activated a glowstick and ignited the strips along the walls. She sped down the tunnel shutting down the lights at every intersection, less for the Fish than for Mole patrols. Eitan’s sister could get away with a lot, but it would not do for her to set other girls the wrong example.
Running in the dark would have been safer but she had only caught a glance of the map and the maze was complex and booby-trapped, and she had left her helmet behind on purpose.
Tamhidi might talk, but Hades was rising and Mole women would no longer be subjected to comfort houses or pregnancy duties—otherwise what were they fighting for?
She turned a dark corner and slammed head-on into a band of three Moles, two helmetless, heavily armed males and one female with a slit burlap sack hiding her face.
Rina slammed her glowstick on the wall flooding the cavern with light, momentarily distracting both guards. The closest shut his eyes and reached for his glowstick. She spun and caught him in the back of the neck with the flat of her hand, knocking him unconscious before he hit the lights in the tunnel. The second guard was hastily tying his helmet; she tipped her weight on her right leg and slammed her left foot in his face, crushing his visor. He stumbled back and slumped against the wall.
Rina turned to the girl, and ripped the sack from over her head. She did not know her name, but recognised her as one of the former comfort girls. She pinned her to the wall. “Where are they taking you?”
The girl looked her square in the eye and grinned. “Sorry, we’re not all privileged enough to be Eitan’s sister,” she said belittlingly.
Rina slapped her across the face, drawing blood from her lower lip.
The girl spat it on Rina’s suit. “Yeah, can’t expect any better from you either, can we? There’s things you don’t understand. Look at you. You’re not one of us, Rina Arfazadeh. You never really were.”
Rina did not understand what the girl meant, and could not place her. She knew her from one of the teams, but she was not a team leader, so why would she have known? But that was not what she meant. Everybody knew Rina, but she implied that everyone was in on a little secret except for her. And she did not like the scorn in her voice.
The girl kept her eyes locked on Rina’s, but her hands took hold of Rina’s glowstick and the ligh
ts went out. Rina’s eyes took only a few seconds to adjust, but not before feet shuffled on the floor and a hand grabbed her by the neck pulling her back, another twisting her arm. A Coil wrapped around and locked her arms, chest, and back.
She leapt in the air, bringing her knee up into the person’s chest, bounced back and landed on her ankle, twisting it. Her efforts only made the Coil tighter, and the muscles in her arm were met with twice the resistance every time she flexed. She could feel her chest cave in slowly as her ribs threatened to crack and crush through her heart.
She heard Dov’s voice as he flipped her over, loosened the Coil, and tied a collar around her neck. “So, causing the death of three djangi was not enough for you? How many more warriors will you take from us? Do you have any idea of the stakes? You’ve had it easy enough. This time...”
“This time I’ll talk to Eitan myself.”
He looked at her, his irises flashing through barely noticeable iridescent shades that were not unlike the glowstrips on the walls, his pupils expanding and shrinking frenetically in the dark, filtering the little light in the darkness into an infrared he could make sense of.
“This time you will. This time I think he will want to talk to you himself. You’re gonna have to learn some things if you want this arrangement to continue.” He turned to the girl. “Are you alright?” She nodded, and placed the sack back over her head.
He turned and kicked his partner awake in the chest. “Get up! Drag her to the secret council hall. I’ll deliver this one to Tamhidi and meet you there. Look out for that one; she thinks she’s special.”
The second guard lifted Rina up and placed a board under her body, tied it to hooks on his shoulder pads, locked his helmet around her head, turned the visor blind, and dragged her behind him down the tunnel.
The hall, a simple, brightly lit circular room, was crowded with members of other Castes resting against walls. A large central table lay covered with maps of the tunnels and reports of weapons caches, sinkhole locations, and designs for explosive devices.
Representatives were seated at the table, each Caste occupying a separate side, with four openings, one on each side, into an open space in the centre.
Ants were nearest to the entrance, in shades of blue. Bees were seated further up on the right in hooded yellow windbreaker coats, some holding cattle poles they also used for stick fighting. The poles were light, hard, and telescopic, they could also be split in two and reattached, and were very flexible. Farming leaves a lot of time for fighting so Bees knew how to put their poles to good use. Across from them, Beast representatives wore their characteristic reddish working clothes. Even without them, their intricate facial tattoos marked them apart from the other Castes. Beasts were after a few hundred years much larger than other members of the colony, but they made it a habit to send only their largest representatives—male or female—to any meeting, secret or public, making them appear intimidatingly more powerful than the other Castes, and occupying much more space at the table.
At the head of the table, Eitan was whispering to a Priest dressed in a white robe. No one had paid any attention to Rina as she was dragged in. Each Caste was busy preparing, agreeing on final talking points; each plotting their seat at the table once the Fish were overthrown.
The guard dragged her through the nearest opening past the Ant delegation, and rolled her onto the floor stopping the buzz of greedy murmur around the room.
Their sudden movement had made the Mole delegation visible. Even with lights, especially with lights, Moles’ brown suits and helmets made them almost invisible against cave walls. It was hard to estimate their number until motion made them appear against the background. There must have been a hundred Moles at the meeting, as many as the other Castes put together, but no more than twenty had been visible at the table. The other members reacted with surprise and anger at Moles appearing among them from what they thought was solid wall.
There were only three Priests, two male and one female, but Priests never came in large numbers. At first they had wanted to keep their Caste separate from the rebellion, as advisors, but Eitan insisted on a permanent delegation that could be held accountable if, for reasons of their own, the Priests decided to throw their luck in with the Fish. He could not win the rebellion without the Priests yet there was little sympathy for their presence. Priests were manipulative and deceitful. They had never given the Moles their freedom, instead playing them as pawns in their power struggle with the Fish. But without them the Moles would never sway the entire colony, not even with the help of those present at the meeting and their many cells throughout the settlements.
The slamming of the doors behind the guards was the signal for the clamour to start again. Rina could not make out the individual accusations thrown at her, but she could tell from the few looks she glimpsed curled up on the floor that no one in the room was happy to see her, least of all her brother.
Eitan silenced the room by rising from his chair and stepping into the open space. He flipped Rina over. For a moment the coil tightened and she could feel sharp needles of pain shooting down her arms. The pressure faded as Eitan pressed the coil, removed it, and dropped it to the floor where it recoiled with a whiplash into a small two-inch rubbery circle.
He yanked her up by her braid until her toes touched the floor and then dropped her. Her scalp throbbed under the strain. She jumped up and swung at him, but he caught her blow and sent her tumbling back.
“Three Moles had to die for your carelessness, and you haven’t had enough?”
Rina had been told about the executions. The Fish had insisted on them, backed by a mob of Ants and Beasts.
A towering Beast female sprung from her chair, slamming her hands down on the wood and sending a shockwave that lifted her quarter of the table from the ground. “Three Moles?! Three?! We lost twelve Beasts in that ‘accident’, Mole. Twelve!” Rina did not know her, but had the sense that she had precedence over the Beasts present at the meeting. She leaned over the table glaring down at Rina. “And this one gets to walk? How convenient. No one gets to walk.”
“What Councilwoman Majidi means,” said a Bee, impervious to Majidi’s knuckles grinding on the table, “is that Moles may have suffered a public execution, but Beasts and Ants have their own grievances. Indeed, the Bees-”
“Bees have no business in that neighbourhood at night; likely, he was trading favours for food, yes?” an Ant Rina recognised as Ariel Jafari started. “But we have only a few grievances, three as well as a matter of fact, but they count double, Eitan, for they were children. The adults we recycled, but the children were too young. They will know neither Neptune nor Hades, so how do you expect to compensate us for their souls?”
Eitan spun on him. “Compensate? Compensate? So it is only Moles who should die? Only Moles who should dig, and bleed, and lead the return to the Cave? Your involvement has a cost; you want a seat at the table when we overthrow the Fish? Then pay the price in blood.”
He sat back down at the table and stared at his sister. After a pause, he nodded to the wall on either side of the door. Two Mole guards unfolded themselves from the stone, only their faces visible for a short while against the rock. They donned their helmets. “Strip her to her underwear and throw her into one of the sweathouses. Give her one day’s supply of water, no more.” He turned to Rina, “I tried, but you’re gonna have to learn hard. I’ll speak to you in three days, if you live. Get her out of here before she starts a riot.”
Three days in solitary confinement gives you time to reflect, and despite the pain and thirst, Rina found traces of clarity between blackouts. She was certain of two things: that she and the comfort girls—those who were willing to fight for it—deserved as much respect in the rebellion as the men, and short of Eitan giving it to her, she would take it.
Remembering the comfort girl’s scorn and her words in the hallway stung as she shifted uncomfortably from warm rock to warmer rock. She would make sure that changed.
&
nbsp; She woke up inside a healing tank. Two Priests were leaning over it with devices that emitted low-level radiation over her burns activating the healing agent in the thick, translucent ointment that glowed on her skin.
Naked under the Priests’ scrutiny, a memory of the comfort house flashed across her mind and anger bubbled up under the slight tingling of the ointment binding itself to her burns. It hit her in the stomach and spread throughout her body right to the tip of every hair strand like static. The feeling grew warm, turning her muscles to jelly and making her bones ache. The warmth turned to shaking, an uncontrollable thought-shattering quiver.
Every emotion she had swept away night after night and built walls and lies around, shot through every nerve. A flood of images, of shame, satisfied confusion, blinding pleasure and agonising pain, hit her in waves.
In the midst of mindless sensations, one thought seemed to make its way against the gales of primitive instincts, steadying her with every heartbeat.
Never again.
First it was one thought in the flood of vengefulness and self-loathing, but it started echoing every thought, settling in her spine, answering each trampling of her esteem, each violence endured, each submissive humiliation.
Never again.
When she opened her eyes, the anger was gone; the memories were there, but they read like someone else’s story. The shame—the itch under her skin, the prickling she could never scratch—was gone. In its place she sensed a strange sense of calm, of being both supercharged and yet at her most peaceful. She had not felt the electric tingle ahead of a storm for almost ten years, that nanosecond when the wind abated and the world froze before unleashing Hell, but she recognised it in herself. No storm could shake her anymore, and no stone could burn her.
Never again.
“Don’t you feel any regret for the lives lost, girl?” asked Councilwoman Majidi.
Across the dais from Majidi standing in a helmetless fire-suit Rina sensed the question was loaded.
The hulking woman sat on a chair next to Eitan, atop a flight of steps. The room was not completed yet, ending abruptly behind the podium, the walls and ceiling still filled with cracks and holes.
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