by J. N. Chaney
“You… you can talk to him this deep?” he asked.
“These crates have repeaters in the walls.” I tapped the sides. “As long as they stay relatively close to one another, they should communicate to the secondary repeater we placed in the top of the elevator shaft just fine.”
“You… placed a repeater up there?”
I nodded. “Sure did, kid.”
“Who are you?”
“I already told you, we’re here to help.” I looked at Rachel. “Are all kids this dense?”
She shot me a death glare.
“What?” I asked, lifting my palms and shrugging my shoulders.
Rachel looked at the boy. “Monty, you’ll have to pardon him. He can be…”
“Careful,” I said.
“…Slow.”
“That’s not being careful.”
“We want to help you escape,” Rachel said.
Monty pulled away from Rachel. He probably thought this was just some sort of trick from the overseers or something. That’s what I would think in his position. This sort of thing just didn’t happen. But, then again, maybe that’s what I was now in the business of… delivering this sort of thing as a day job. First it was saving hostages, now it was rescuing miners, and all while keeping the galaxy safe from an ancient super weapon falling into the wrong hands. Yeah, I could get used to this… so long as I didn’t get shot. That would really put a damper on my day.
“Listen, kid,” I said. “She’s telling you the truth. I know it might seem outrageous, and I get that. I do. But sometimes good things do happen out of nowhere. And today, we’re your good thing. You’re just going to have to trust us.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else you and your mother are gonna die in these tunnels.”
“How do you know about my mother?” he asked, growing defensive.
I looked to Rachel. “We’re posing as buyers for the mine,” she said. “When we got the grand tour, we saw you trying to reason with the guards for medicine.”
“She’s very sick,” he said, clutching his elbow with his hand.
“We figured.” I removed a med pack from inside a utility pouch on my hip. “That’s why we brought you this.”
Monty stared at the med pack as if it had been sent by the gods themselves. His hand moved toward it but hesitated. “Are… are you actually giving this to me.”
“Sure am, kid.”
“Get that to your mother right away,” Rachel added. “But don’t let the guards see it.”
He nodded, stuffing the pack inside his shirt.
“You really came to free us?” he asked, looking at me.
“Truth is, kid, we came for something else.”
“To buy the mine,” he said, restating what was mentioned before.
“Yeah… no.” I raised an eyebrow. “We came looking for some buried treasure.”
“Like the bedtime stories.”
“Like the bedtime stories, yeah. But in order to get access to it, we had to—”
“Pose as people who were interested in the whole mine,” Monty concluded. “Doing so would get you access to the tunnels for a couple days while the acquisitions rights process was initiated. Then you could sneak down and look for your buried treasure without anyone suspecting you.”
“Damn,” I said, letting out a low whistle. “Smart kid.”
“And these,” he said, tapping the top of the case. “You probably said you wanted to sample the mine’s walls. But I’m guessing these are scanners of some kind.”
Rachel looked to me and then back at Monty. “You’re a pretty bright little man,” she said.
“I read a lot,” he said.
“Well, now I know where I went wrong as a child,” I said with a wink.
“Read?” Rachel tilted her head. “They let you download books?”
“Nah. But we have access to data pads to control equipment, and a few of us know how to hack their wireless system. It doesn’t get us access to much, but the overlord has a library we’re able to scrap from. We’d be noticed it we tried to hack the gal-net or something, but no one seems to care about books. So we download anything we want without being noticed.”
“Impressive,” I said, and I meant it. This kid was resourceful.
“So why do you want to rescue us?” Monty asked.
“Why do we want—?” I cut my sentence short and looked at Rachel, taken aback by the question. “Why wouldn’t we want to rescue you, kid?”
Rachel leaned toward Monty, using her physical presence as a communication tool to emote empathy like few I’d seen. “Being down here, I’m sure it’s been difficult for you. And it does things to you… makes it feel like you’re not valuable. Like someone’s thrown you away and forgotten about you. But you are valuable. What we’re after down here is very important. But, Monty, you’re more important. You hear me? Even if we don’t find what we’re looking for, you were worth the trip. And we’re going to get you, your mother, and the rest of your people out of here.”
“But what we’re looking for is still pretty important,” I added, not wanting to miss the point.
The elevator slowed and then jolted to a stop. When the doors opened, Monty was the first out, tugging on the crate’s handle and pulling it clear of the lift. A guard watched us emerge, but most of his attention went to Rachel. She gave the man a small wave. Once we were out, the elevator doors closed, and the car headed up to the surface.
“Can you still read me, Lars?” I asked softly, putting distance between us and the thug.
“Loud and clear, sir. Our connection integrity is at 95 percent.”
“Works for me,” I replied, giving Rachel a quick nod.
We rounded a corner when Monty asked, “So what are you guys looking for?”
“Well, that’s a little complicated,” Rachel said, pulling up the holo map she’d created, displaying it from a wrist comm. “We need to get this crate to this location.” Rachel pointed at a blinking red dot at a crossroads.
“That’s this way,” said Monty. “Not far.”
We followed him as he set off down the tunnel at a quickened pace. The case’s casters squealed as we moved along the polished rock floor, kicking up bits of rock and dust.
“Not too fast,” I said to Monty. “We don’t want to give Lars too much editing work to do. Too fast and we’ll raise suspicions, right?”
“Right.” Monty slowed a little, but he still pushed the crate with enthusiasm.
“So you after gold? Silicon? Cadmium?”
“No,” Rachel said. “We’re after…”
“Ancient artifacts from a technologically advanced though extinct civilization,” I blurted out. Rachel looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. Hey, if she was going to be up front and honest with the kid, so was I. Plus, I didn’t see what the fuss was about. If this kid or anyone else in his community were going to help us, they needed to know what we were after, and we didn’t have any time to waste.
“What, Rachel?” I asked, stressing her name on purpose. Two could play the game of being upfront with the truth.
“Hey…” Rachel shrugged. “It’s your show.”
“Yeah,” Monty said without missing a beat, “I found some of those.”
Rachel and I jerked our heads toward the kid. “What did you say?” I asked.
“These artifacts you’re after. I found some a few weeks ago.”
“Some?” Rachel said, clearly astonished. “As in, more than one?”
“Yeah, but I only showed Ozzie one.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa… hold on, kid.” I slowed the crate and eyed the closest security camera. “You’re telling me you found multiple artifacts down here?”
“Sure. I think there might even be more, but I haven’t been able to get to them yet.”
My heart was beating faster than I expected it to. Apparently my brain was pretty excited about this turn of events. “What’d they look like, kid?”
“Small, gr
ayish. I could hold them in my hand. But they were each different, and they had a funny language etched on them.”
I smiled at Rachel. This—was—it! We’d scored on our very first run for Oragga, and I couldn’t wait to tell our benefactor. But I also knew we had a long way to go before we were in the clear. So best not to get ahead of yourself, Flint.
“Where’d you say you found them?” I asked.
“I didn’t say where yet. But I can show you.”
“Is it far?” Rachel asked. A good question.
Monty nodded. “Very deep.”
It couldn’t be good if a miner said it was deep—we were already deep enough for my tastes. I’d never been in a mine before, but I was beginning to suspect that my fear of heights was also paired with a fear of the deep. Perfect, I thought.
“How long to get there?” I asked.
“About half an hour. We’ll need to take an RTV.”
“An RTV?” Rachel asked.
“The Repulsor Transport Vehicles that travel the tunnels underground, down where all the best myst is.”
“Great,” I said, having no idea what one of these RTVs looked like or exactly how deep we were headed. “Let’s get the scanners set up, and then you can take us. If anyone asks, we’ll just say you’re helping us investigate the mine’s quality before we buy it.”
“Also, don’t use our real names, kid,” I added, feeling the payoff coming for Rachel’s quick thinking earlier. “We’re not really buying the mine, remember?”
“Just getting your artifacts and rescuing the miners,” Monty said.
“Right. When we’re around the others, I’m Mr. McBride, and she’s Miss Mason. Got it?”
Monty nodded.
“Good.”
As we pushed the crate the rest of the way to the location on Rachel’s map, I couldn’t help but feel hopeful about this mission. Things were going according to plan—maybe even better than our plan. But that also made me a little nervous. If I’d learned one thing, it was that life was a cruel mistress, and if you underestimated her, she’d knee you in groin without a second thought.
“How are the other crates looking?” I asked Rachel.
She pulled up the live holo feed on her wrist comm. “One’s just come down the lift, the other one’s still up top. As long as those miners are as efficient as Monty here—”
“They are,” he said.
Rachel smiled at him. “Then we should be triangulating within the next fifteen minutes. Twenty tops. Then, depending on how deep these tunnels go, I’m guessing we have a detailed composition analysis within three or four hours.”
“Plenty of time for us to hit Monty’s jackpot, by the sound of it.”
Monty nodded.
“And all while doing due diligence in our attempt to purchase the mine,” Rachel added.
We brought the crate to a stop. Rachel popped the lid and started setting up the scanner. Meanwhile, I looked at the closest security camera. “You on that feed?” I asked Lars.
“Affirmative, sir. Proceed.”
I nodded and then knelt beside the crate, reaching under the bottom and undoing the recessed latches in the base. A panel swung open, giving me access to several weapons. While I desperately wanted the MX090, I knew it would draw too much attention. Instead, I opted for two of Oragga’s RP11 pistols. I passed one to Rachel.
She quickly stuffed the weapon in the waistband around the small of her back while I did the same. I also really wanted to retrieve some of Oragga’s multi-function grenades—not that I wanted to use them in a mine, for so many obvious reasons—but I decided to leave them for later. Right now, we needed stealth over power, and those bad boys would blow stealth right off the planet’s surface.
“We set?” I asked, looking to Rachel and then Monty. They nodded at me. “Then let’s do this.” I rubbed my hands together. I was starting to feel like Lady Luck was blowing on my dice.
13
We passed a few overseers who were marching chain gangs of miners through the upper tunnels, but none of them seemed to pay us much attention. I got the impression that—aside from the thug who boarded the Horizon to search the crates—word had spread to “leave the new mine owners alone.” I hoped it lasted long enough for us to do what we needed to and get out.
For his part, Monty lead us at a steady pace toward a large inset section of the tunnel where several of the soot-covered RTVs sat in a line, awaiting passengers. A raised platform led up to the train-like pods that sat in the recessed corridor. While each RTV was mostly cylindrical in shape, they had very clear top and bottom halves that boasted dozens of repulsor panels. Monty explained that when the vehicles had sufficient power—which wasn’t always—the panels could keep a pod suspended in the middle of whatever cavity it was in, clear of the narrow spine-like track that ran along its belly. This allowed for maximum speed and the smoothest ride. However, when an RTV was old, or the tunnel was too unstable, the vehicle could sit on the conventional track and progress “the old fashioned way,” as he called it.
From the look of them, each RTV could hold about twenty to twenty-five people, making the pods larger than I imagined them being. We boarded the next available vehicle and waved off the closest overseer who tried to asked us if we needed assistance. Again, it was Rachel who the man spoke with—Monty and I were irrelevant. Gods, how long has it been since they’ve seen a woman who is not a miner down here? Judging by everyone’s obsession with Rachel, I guessed a hundred years.
Monty entered a code on the RTV’s sparse console and told us to hang on. The vehicle lurched forward and then began to steadily accelerate before reaching a top speed of maybe forty kilometers per hour. The track descended gently at first. But as the tunnel began banking left and right, the angle steepened, and we plummeted deeper into the mine.
“Where you from, kid?” I asked Monty from across the pod.
“Here,” he said.
“Yeah, but before that, I mean.”
“Still here, Mr. Flint.”
“Hold up. You mean to say you were born down here?”
“A mine baby, they call us.”
“Us?” Rachel asked. “So there are a lot of you then?”
“I don’t know… what’s a lot?”
“That raises an important question.” I started to count “one” on my fingers. “Well, a couple of questions actually. But let’s start with how many of you there are.”
“Mine babies? At least a hundred. Maybe thirty the generation before mine.”
“Generation?” Rachel asked. I could tell she was trying not to show her dismay. “Are you saying there are several generations living down here?”
“Three as far as I can tell. Mine’s about fifty years old, give or take.”
“And all these people…” I blinked, trying to rationalize how anyone could keep innocent lives underground for so long—let alone at all! “These miners of yours, they’ve been down here that long?”
“Some haven’t. Some are new. People that were arrested or taken prisoner for one reason or another. But everyone else? Yeah.”
“So you’ve never been anywhere else?” I asked.
“I think he made that point, Flint,” Rachel said, an edge to her tone. But I knew it wasn’t directed at me. She was probably pissed, just like me.
“That was the first time I’ve seen the sun…” Monty said, his eyes trailing off to something in the distance. “It was beautiful…”
“Holy hells, kid! Are you serious?”
Rachel leaned over, trying to catch Monty’s eyes. “That was your first time out of the mine, Monty?”
He nodded. “It was nicer than I imagined it would be. But I still felt scared.”
“Scared? Because the overseers might shoot you?”
“No,” Monty replied. “There weren’t any walls to keep me safe.”
I caught Rachel’s eye and held her gaze. If I’d hated Ozzie and his ilk before, I really hated them now. “Right…” I said slowly.
“Well, we’re going to keep you safe, Monty. Walls or no walls.”
“I believe you,” he replied. I was taken aback by the sincerity of the comment. “Just promise me that you’ll take care of my mother too.”
“We will,” I said, then corrected it by saying, “I will.” I considered Monty for another moment, recognizing that this kid had grown up far too fast. He was twelve, sure, but he was a hardened miner, he’d probably watched plenty of his people die—we hadn’t even heard about his father yet—and here he was demanding that we help his mother.
“What’s she suffering from?” Rachel asked.
“The blight,” Monty said. “Clings to the walls. The deeper you go, the worse it gets.”
“How come you’re not sick?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Don’t right well know. Seems to affect older people… adults and stuff. Most of us kids stay clear of it.”
“They just put you higher in the mines?” I asked.
But Monty shook his head. “Nah. They put us just as deep as everyone else.”
“And your father?” I asked. “Where’s he at?”
Monty lowered his head.
“Hey. Sorry, kid. I didn’t mean—”
“They shot him.” Monty’s lower lip trembled. Then a tear swelled in his eyes, skimming down his soot-stained cheek. “He was just trying to get mom some…” He reached inside his shirt and pulled out the med pack I’d handed him. “Some of this. And they shot him. Wasn’t three weeks after that they raped my sister. Took her upstairs to the offices for more. When they brought her body back down, they’d slit her throat. Took me a whole day to…” Monty choked. “To clean her body.”
“Gods, I’m so sorry, kid.”
“So am I,” he said, stuffing the pack back inside his shirt. “I thought maybe I was really going to be able to help my family this time… to at least help my mother. With the artifacts.”
“How do you mean, kid?”
“If you find something special down here, or if you strike a myst vein, you can get out. At least, that’s what they say. But I’m not sure it’s all true. They take you to see the overlord… Mr. Oppenheimer.”