by J D Huffman
Chapter 5
Chain Reaction
Sasha’s fingers moved delicately over the pages of the chronicle, her only source of light a narrow shard of crystal. The Totality would surely punish her if they knew she’d stowed away even a small sliver of the precious material. She felt it worth the risk to get in touch with her roots again. Fred was right. It’s been too long. The words didn’t come to her easily anymore. She struggled to identify each symbol, jostling bits of memory loose. She figured this was as good a use of time as any, since Fred took so long coming back she had to find her own way to the living area again. With nothing else to go by, she estimated that must have taken at least an hour of blindly fumbling through tunnels and narrow crevices before she got back to something familiar. Digging into the chronicle let her forget about all that, forget about this William Pearson, and lull herself to sleep.
The chronicle went back twenty-five generations, or so she remembered from her father’s stories. There were symbols for different names throughout the volume, but their visual styles were difficult to interpret since they did not match the vernacular words in the chronicle itself. Fred speculated to Sasha that at some point the convention for written names must have diverged from that of common vocabulary, leaving no transferable rules between them. Sasha may not have known all the family names recorded in the volume, but the one on the cover, she did know, and made a game out of getting Fred to guess it. “The best I could tell you based on your family sigil is that it has something to do with trees. Sasha Tree?” She knew, in fact, that it was “Oak.” As the years wore on, she felt less and less attached to it, however. Her family was gone, after all, and she was all that remained. What good was a family name with no family?
Reading back through the chronicle’s pages, she realized it was the sort of thing that would surely bore outsiders: descriptions of what each of her ancestors did with their days and nights, how many children they had, where they lived, how they stayed in touch. Her family was not an adventurous bunch. They rarely went into the cities, preferring the rural life. In truth, its value to her was in realizing that she had a history in which she was not a slave, that her family was not a family of slaves, but people who lived and died freely, someplace far from this dismal world. Within the volume, she identified the story of her parents by the placement of her name-symbol between theirs. According to the book, her mother’s parents believed their daughter had married “too low,” to wed a farmer and live on the fields. Her father was, of course, a man of the soil, a man with simple expectations and simpler needs. She ran her finger down in the dimple between pages, feeling the jagged edge that told her a page had been removed—this was the page that described her birth and young childhood, before her mother died. She knew no more than that, recalling having seen the page before her father tore it out and burned it in a crying rage. I wish he hadn’t done that, she thought as she came across the proof once more. What did it say about my mother that I’ll never know?
Soon, the lights came up to indicate “morning” had arrived, followed by the relentlessly loud chiming of the morning bells for the benefit of any who didn’t respond to the light. Damn. I should have paid closer attention. How am I going to hide this now? She had no one to blame but herself for such carelessness. To be caught with this piece of contraband would also earn a punishment, and she wondered grimly if the Totality would beat her twice as hard for having the book and the crystal, or simply for twice as long. It occurred to her that they might be cruel enough to do both at once.
But Sasha was not the type to idly fret. Instead, she took her sliver of crystal and buried it in a spot of dust in the corner of her alcove. The chronicle being far too large to obscure in such a way, she hid it under her shirt, then hunched over while bolting out of the living area. To a casual observer—as well as the Totality monitoring devices—she would appear to be ill. She put on the full performance, stumbling and grunting through the corridors, doubled over and clutching her gut, past the feeding area and toward the latrines in the main mineshaft. Coming upon an all but exhausted vein of crystals, she knelt down and forced her body to tremble as if she had great difficulty moving, and wedged the book down into the cracks before dusting a good helping of debris over it. It was not a perfect way to hide it but it would suffice until she could move it back to the proper place Fred kept it, behind some of the machinery in the feeding area. She then completed her ruse, hobbling into the latrines, then jammed a finger into the back of her throat to induce vomiting. She spat globs of stomach acid into the reeking trench, then padded away weakly. By this point, her body really did feel ill, and desperately hungry. Even so, all she had to look forward to were the day’s flavorless rations.
After trudging through the light tunnel and consuming her daily meal, she retrieved her tools for the day, noticing that one more set remained after hers. She knew she was slightly late—not late enough for punishment but late enough that everyone else had already come through, except for that last set. Must be Fred, she surmised, having never heard him return last night, and certainly his presence during mealtime would’ve been hard to miss. She wondered if he would be so tardy as to earn a penalty. That would have to be a first for him, she thought, moving into the mines to find a rich subvein to dig into. Those were harder and harder to come by these days, requiring a significant hike down the slope of the main shaft, and then a turn down a couple of the access tunnels before she hit something substantial. With a sigh, she pulled up a cart, pulled down her protective goggles, and went to work. Her mind wandered as it usually did, and thoughts turned to the stranger encountered the night before. I wonder where he’s from. Fred says we can trust him. I don’t know if that’s good enough for me. What if this William Pearson actually killed Fred and that’s why he hasn’t come back? What if they’re betraying me right this moment, telling the Totality I’m plotting a revolt when I’ve done nothing of the sort? Fred’s the one putting that idea in my head. I’m not stupid. I know better than to fight these creatures when they have all the power.
She was interrupted by the sight of something out of the corner of her eye. She released the trigger on her plasma-blade and turned to see who it was. Fred approached. “Good morning,” he beamed, walking past her to work on the crystals a bit farther down.
“I was starting to think you were dead,” she whispered, then turned back to her duties.
“That would be quite a feat,” Fred retorted. “Our new friend will be a great help. But this means we have to advance our own plans.”
“We don’t even have any plans,” she protested, her voice barely a rasp over the grinding sound of her mining instruments. “You’re talking about this like we have some grand plan coming together.”
“Don’t we? You want out of here. So does everyone else. We now have outside assistance. Is that not enough?”
Sasha hoped the Totality didn’t have listening devices in this area, otherwise Fred’s carelessness would easily get them all put into isolation for a week, or worse. They could just eject us onto the surface and that would do the job, too. “Should we even be talking about this?”
Fred grinned. “Ever vigilant, I see. The Totality are profoundly uncreative with the placement of their monitoring equipment. They don’t bother with it this far from the living quarters. What are we going to do, plot a revolt?” he chuckled.
“Just don’t get carried away with all this optimism,” Sasha warned him. “We weren’t even talking about any of this yesterday, and now it’s as if you’ve been working on a plan for months.”
“In truth, I have been plotting my escape since I first arrived. I have simply lacked a solid opportunity to facilitate it, until now.”
“You really are crazy,” Sasha said, shaking her head.
“Then it shall fall to you to prevent me from going too far afield,” he suggested, his wide grin telling her he wasn’t completely serious.
Thi
s is so unlike him, she thought. Has he been down here so long that all it takes is some stranger appearing out of thin air to give him a little hope, and he’s giddy like a little kid?
The conversation died down and the two of them continued their work, speaking no more of William Pearson or revolts. While Fred gave his assurances that the Totality weren’t listening, Sasha didn’t want to take any more chances than they had to. The hard part will be getting everyone else to join in. They monitor the living area. They’d know if we talked about it there. Same in the food dispensary and the showers and the latrines and the main shaft, as far as I know. It would be too suspicious if all of us went down to the other access tunnels together. I’ll have to think about how to pass the information along. And everyone will need a job to do. This is all Fred’s idea. Shouldn’t he be the one thinking everything through? Why is this my problem? I wish—
A loud blast broke through her thoughts and shook the tunnel around her. She blinked, then visually confirmed that everything was fine with her own tools. No fire, no disruption. She looked down toward Fred, who stared back at her with just as much concern. Then, her eyes went to the right. She saw nothing there, which meant the trouble was elsewhere. The main shaft? she guessed. Both of them rushed quickly but cautiously toward the main shaft, climbing the slope to see what was going on. As they drew closer, Sasha heard unmistakable screams. Then, she saw what had happened: one of the tunnels near the latrines had caught fire, no doubt from someone’s careless use of a plasma-blade. She darted into the tunnel, being mindful of the flames, looking to see if anyone was down there and needed help. She found Tau crying out in pain, slamming his arm against the rocky wall, attempting to put out the green and blue flames that threatened to engulf his torso. Before he could even see her, Sasha threw her arms around him and tackled him to the ground, the pressure of her body extinguishing the crystal-dust flames on Tau’s tunic. His cries grew louder now, Sasha guessing that was due to the pain of her landing on his burns. Better I make you hurt more now than let you burn. Once she was satisfied his flames were out, she released him, but the ordeal was far from over. The fire still raged in the crystals nearby, the heat making Sasha light-headed even though it was over a meter away. She helped Tau back to his feet. “Come on!” She pulled him by his unburned arm, away from the spreading flames.
Fred was waiting for them in the main shaft. Sasha called out, “Crystal fire!” Fred repeated it in his booming voice with such volume that all the others were sure to have heard. Moments later, a blaring alarm sounded. Sasha knew what that meant. “They’re sealing us in.” Moments later doors came down in front of the latrines, the food dispensary, the living quarters, the showers. Down near the bottom of the main shaft’s slope, large metallic slabs rolled in from both sides and locked them in. Even escape to surface would not be possible now. Meanwhile, the flames had grown out of their original tunnel and began to spill into the main shaft.
By this point, the rest of their mining unit had converged on the conflagration. Janus, Angel, Serim, and Demeter arrived in quick succession, noticing at once the fire Fred had announced to them. “We’re all going to die,” Janus declared despairingly, dropping his tools on the floor with limp hands.
“Shut up,” Sasha snapped, turning her eyes on Fred. “Are the water faucets still active?”
Fred zipped down the slope a few meters to one of the pipes from which they could obtain drinking water. He turned the handle and sure enough, water flowed forth. Sasha knew that water could put out a crystal fire if you had enough, but they lacked a good method for spraying it at the fire as it spread. Tau clutched his burned arm, turning in circles and seemingly oblivious to what was happening around him. Janus ran down the slope to beat on the doors that sealed them in, crying to his dead ancestors. Sasha had no time to deal with him. Before she could say anything else, Angel rolled up with an empty cart. “We can use this, can’t we?”
Sasha nodded. “Good thinking. Let’s get it over to the faucet.”
While the two women pushed the cart down toward the pipe, Serim removed his shirt and batted at the flames with it, trying to beat them back into the tunnel before they could consume all the crystals in the area. Sasha watched him as Fred filled the cart, and observed that Serim’s efforts appeared not to be helping. Once Demeter joined in, the flames began a modest retreat. The cart was maybe one tenth full and Sasha knew Demeter and Serim wouldn’t be able to hold back the fires for long. This is going to take too much time, she realized, and none of the other water faucets were close enough to help. Her eyes moved to the ceiling, where she noticed several pipes did cross and run along the carved-out surface, and if they contained water they could rain it down onto the fire. “I have a better idea,” she announced to Fred and Angel, the former seeming more curious than anything, with Angel doing a poor job of hiding her anxiety. Sasha climbed up to the ledge above the tunnel where the fire burned, not far from one of the latrines. She recalled that this was close to where she’d put the chronicle. No time to worry about that now, she thought, looking up to the ceiling again. She reached but wasn’t tall enough. On his own, Fred wasn’t tall enough, either. “Fred, get over here.”
He saw what she intended and knelt down, holding out his arms in a crossed position so she could climb onto them. From there, she stepped onto his shoulders and he carefully raised her up. Fred then passed up a plasma-blade to Sasha. She bit her lip, angling the tool so it would cut a straight line down the length of the pipe, pulled the trigger, and drew it with some haste down her intended course. Water sprayed her face almost immediately, which felt better than she could have imagined. It also obscured her vision, water seeping in around the seal of her goggles, and made Fred’s shoulders slippery enough that they threatened to send her tumbling down to the main shaft, far enough away that an uncontrolled descent would cause serious injury. Fred gripped her ankles so tightly she thought he was going to crush them. She winced at the pain, still trying to open up more of the pipe to increase the spray. She looked down, saw the flames had moved up through the cracks and were licking at Fred’s feet. The troll didn’t react, which only made her more concerned. “Fred!” she cried through all the water trying to fill her mouth.
“I’ll be fine,” he promised, looking up at her. “Are you done there?”
She nodded, so he let her down, careful to give her a boost away from the flames emerging through the cracks. The water worked, gradually drowning the blue-green tendrils until they had nowhere to burn but the short tunnel in which they’d originated. Fred, Sasha, and Angel returned to the top of the main shaft where Demeter and Serim had taken a break from fanning the fires with their clothes, looking disappointed that they hadn’t been more helpful. Janus’ cowardice relented long enough for him to join them. “Are we safe?”
Sasha gave him an angry glare. “No thanks to you. It doesn’t look like this was a very big subvein. It should burn out quickly and then we’ll be fine. I think we’ve spilled enough water that the flames won’t be able to spread for hours, at least. That should be enough time.”
As if on cue, the water flow ceased and a different alarm sounded. The crystal fire alarm was three high-pitched wails every several seconds. The new alarm consisted of midrange tones that sounded for a few seconds, then offered just as much silence before triggering again. It was the one alarm Sasha most dreaded.
The Totality are coming.
Chapter 6
Punishments
Sasha was soon reminded why the Totality needed to “visit” them so rarely. When they came, they came in force, and on wings of terror. The door in front of the mining unit’s living area opened. All the others remained shut. It was obvious what the Totality intended.
“Everybody get up to the living area,” Sasha ordered, as if she was in charge. She took the lead, climbing the steps to the walkway, then turned through the doorway into the place where they slept, stopping in front of
her alcove and standing at attention. Everyone else followed her example while the alarm sounded.
After they’d been standing stiffly for a while, the alarm shut off. This was not a good sign. The sounds of footsteps against the rocky floor grew near, several pairs of boots striking the ground in unison. Sasha tried to guess how many. She thought it might have been seven—one for every member of the mining unit. As gray-clad Totality filed into the room, they eventually numbered eight. I forgot about the overseer, she realized.
Individual Totality stood in front of each slave in her unit. Sasha found herself face-to-face with a sniveling creature with eyes devoid of compassion, a curled lip, and a deadly weapon in his arms. The overseer stood in the entryway, hands clasped behind his back. He had a stern face with a well-trimmed beard, and a brow permanently wrinkled from years of furrowing. “The Totality do not tolerate carelessness,” he said, his tone that of a disappointed parent. “Today’s mistakes were costly. You have damaged the infrastructure that delivers water to you—water you need to stay alive. Precious crystals were burned away. Tools were dropped, probably damaged. Any exposed to water or flame are now defunct. It will take a day or two to restore this unit to full effectiveness.” He paused for a few moments to let them absorb the details. “I suppose you all expect to be fed and housed for that period. How shall we manage that? The other mining units are earning their keep. Must I take food and drink from them and offer it to you, even though the lot of you will contribute nothing for the next few days?”
“Punish me,” Tau said, still wincing as he clutched his burned arm to his chest. Blood and moisture had already soaked through most of his shirt, and he stood unsteadily. “It was my fault. Punish me,” he practically begged.
The Totality standing in front of him raised up his rifle and, without a word, rammed it into Tau’s gut. Tau cried out and collapsed to the ground, producing quieter but more sickening sounds. The man who’d struck him returned to his former position and looked unmoved.