From Ice to Ashes

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “Do it, skelly,” John said. He stood as tall as he could. “I’m begging you.”

  The Sunken Credit went silent. Everyone stopped what they were doing and gravitated toward the debacle. Skelly wasn’t a term anyone with a brain would use in the Lowers. It originated because many of the Ringers stuck in quarantine looked like skeletons, with their pale skin, their emaciated bodies, and the black bags under their sunken eyes.

  I hurried over to a structural column and leaned against it, chin in my palm, sanitary mask pulled as far up over my nose as possible. I had to fight the urge to join everybody else in approaching them. With my mom in quarantine, skelly hit closer to home than ever before. But knowing that I was about to hit his wallet was reprisal enough.

  John wrapped his hand around the handle of his baton and glared at the bouncers. “C’mon!” He lost his footing for a moment but caught himself on the back of his chair. “Give me a reason!”

  The crowd around the Earthers’ table continued to swell. John didn’t back down, but the two others with him were getting shifty-eyed. Strong as they were, they were vastly outnumbered. The only reason fists hadn’t started flying after what he’d said was that the Sunken Credit would have lost some of its best customers. That, and it was never smart to hit an Earther out in the open in Darien, Lowers or not. You never knew who they were connected to with their extensive clan-families. Any Earther could be related to a member of Pervenio Security, a Director, or worse, a Collector. If there was one thing any Ringer knew, it was not to do anything bad enough to have one of them hired to hunt you down.

  “Leave them, John,” one of his team said, dozens of glowers sobering him up quick. “Let them enjoy their shit-filled cave.”

  John scanned the crowd one last time, then broke out into laughter. He patted one of the bouncers on the shoulder. “You Ringers can never take a joke,” he laughed. “Let’s go, boys, before we run them out of credits and have nothing to come back to.”

  He shoved through the bouncers, his crew following so close behind they were almost stepping on his heels. The gathered crowd parted to let them pass, but their glares didn’t shift.

  “I fuckin’ love this place!” John shouted. He pointed to the craggy ceiling. “So much more fun than up there.”

  His path toward the exit was going to take him right past me. The hand-terminal was in the left pocket of his jacket. I’d watched him place it there before he went for the server.

  My fingers wriggled in anticipation as I started toward him, head down. My palms were clammy and my heart racing. I should’ve had that second drink. It’d been so long since I’d lived in the shadows. It felt natural, though, anxious as I was. Going back to something familiar always seems easier than leaving it behind.

  I braced my body for the impending impact. I knew from similar undertakings that walking into a muscle-bound Earther was like slamming into a stone wall. I fixed my gaze on the floor until I saw his feet, then held my breath.

  My long fingers slithered into his pocket as we collided, and I snatched his hand-terminal. The fact that he was drunk and wasn’t stepping with purpose was the only thing that kept me from falling, but the force still caused me to stagger backward. I transferred the device into my pocket behind my back as I did.

  “Watch where you’re going, Ringer!” John barked.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. I turned my head and squeezed between him and one of the other drunken members of the Piccolo security team. I made it only a few steps away before John must’ve realized something was missing and patted his coat.

  “What the…” he mouthed. “Hey, my terminal!”

  I didn’t wait to start sprinting. I blew past the Ringer bouncers, who made a half-assed effort to grab me and gave chase for a few seconds just to seem like they cared before giving up. I was counting on that too.

  “Get back here!” John shouted, surprising me with how near his voice sounded.

  A glance down at the elongated shadows cast across the floor told me that he and the other Earthers were in hot pursuit. I’d expected them to be slower in their drunken state, but weighted boiler-suits under their coats held them tight to the surface. That allowed them to move quicker under Titan’s Low G conditions, whereas my stringy frame protracted every one of my long, hopping strides. I leapt over a dealer’s table, John’s baton just missing me before it came crashing down and snapped off the edge.

  My chest heaved. There was a service hatch at the back of the Sunken Credit. I’d made sure to slice the lock earlier that day as I planned my escape route. Maybe I was out of practice, but I wasn’t stupid enough not to be extra cautious.

  “I’ll break your skinny neck!” John roared, sobered by rage. His crew couldn’t even keep up with him.

  I yanked open the hatch and rushed through, and as I tried to seal it behind me his baton poked through the gap to pry it open. The move didn’t buy me much time, but it was enough for me to distance myself as I took off again. The service hatch led directly into the upper level of a water purification plant, where I was welcomed by a forest of massive vats, pumps, and pipes being used to siphon water out of Titan’s subterranean ocean. Steam poured out of exhaust vents, obscuring the floor like I was in some sort of mythological grotto.

  John’s heavy feet slapped against the grated metal of the catwalk we emerged onto, echoing down to the plant’s imperceptible bottom. Ringer maintenance workers and engineers shouted in confusion. John yelled something, but I couldn’t hear what. The racket of the purification equipment was exponentially louder than it had been next door.

  I took a twisting path along the catwalks strung between each vat to try to slow John down. It didn’t work. My weight forced me to take wide turns, whereas his allowed him to whip around corners. He grew so close that I could hear him wheezing.

  “Got you now!” he said. One of his hands extended to grab me, but it caught only air as I leapt up the side of one of the lofty water vats. My rangy fingers gripped the sloping edge of the lid, and I heaved myself up. There was no way he could copy that move at his weight.

  “I’ll fucking kill you, Ringer!” John continued to shout obscenities while a group of clamoring workers wearing ear protection arrived to see what was happening. I quickly stood and scurried across the top of the vat through a wall of steam. A service ladder ran up the wall, only a short jump away. Everyone was too busy staring up at where I had been before to notice me clamber up and pull myself through the access hatch at the top.

  Warm, humid air stemming from the Uppers blasted my face and in an instant my brow was dripping with sweat. I rolled onto my back to gather my breath.

  I was in the service tunnels running beneath the Darien hydro-farms. A second access above led directly into them, but the lock controls were well beyond my ability to slice. The tiny porthole in the center provided my only light, and allowed me a glimpse of the world above.

  Row after row of green leaves extended for kilometers in two lateral directions—all different shapes and sizes, growing fruits and vegetables I’d never tasted in their natural forms. The farms surrounded the two-kilometer-long, rectangular enclosure of Darien and were considered part of the Uppers, despite being sunken into Titan’s frozen crust. They were constantly patrolled, so that the mostly Ringer workforce tending the plants had no chance at stealing anything.

  About twenty meters above its floor, beyond a series of suspended planters and water-channels, was the farm’s transparent ceiling. Thick, polished trusses braced a layer of glass against the ceaselessly stormy skies of Titan. All I could see beyond it were wisps of white sand and flashes of lightning.

  I sighed before continuing my crawl through tunnels so cramped only a Ringer could fit. It’d been years since I’d used that escape route, but I found my way back toward cold air through the labyrinth of increasingly dark passages with relative ease. After a short slide down a vertical shaft, I was able to exit through a busted exhaust vent into the heart of the B3 Lowers’ Central Nod
e.

  Not a soul cared enough to notice me emerge. A sea of Ringers were all too preoccupied with their own affairs, swarming the market stands for ration bars or “fresh” produce covered almost entirely in brown spots. The enormous lift-shaft running up the center of the spacious cavern was currently letting off. It pierced every level of the Lowers, and Pervenio Security Officers in full regalia were posted along the decon-chambers wrapping it. John and his team already stood at one of them, probably giving a report. The officers wouldn’t care. The shiny pulse-rifles on their backs meant they had more important things to worry about than some Earther dumb enough to get too drunk where he shouldn’t.

  I headed down one of the tunnels branching off the node. Familiar smells of salt and soldered metal greeted my nose—the scents of the many factories and water-plants sprinkled throughout the Lowers. It was impossible to go far without running into one of them.

  I leaned against the wall in a shadowy nook near an opening to a series of residential hollows and took out John’s terminal. It was a beauty. Seeing it in my hands got me to crack a smile, my first in Trass knows how long. He’d been practically begging someone to take it. I opened a slot in the back using a pin I always kept in my pocket while on a job and removed the fingernail-sized battery so that the device couldn’t be tracked.

  “New hand-terminal?” someone asked me.

  My gaze snapped upward. Approaching from the direction of the central lift, I saw what had been the only pleasant thing to look at while serving my two-year stint on the Piccolo: Cora Walker. She was the chief navigator on the ship since before I started. A lofty title for someone born in the Lowers.

  I momentarily lost the ability to formulate words. Even being within a few meters of her usually made me freeze. Her skin was fair as snow-powder and the cascading blond hair tumbling over her slender shoulders was so light that it appeared silver when struck by the right light. Together, they made her rich blue eyes stick out on her face like two brilliant sapphires.

  “Cora, I…,” I stuttered. I’d kept my past life a secret on the Piccolo, and as much as I hated lying to her, I planned on keeping it that way. I didn’t want to disappoint her. “Yeah. Just got it.”

  “Looks nice,” she replied, her voice so gentle that you had to really be paying attention to hear it.

  “Looks it. No wonder the thing was sold used, though.” I shook it playfully to show her the blank screen. “It’s busted.”

  “Want me to take a look?”

  I hesitated, then realized that I didn’t want her to think I didn’t know how to replace a battery. Being a navigator within Saturn’s tumultuous atmosphere meant she was a whiz with technology. “No, that’s okay. I’m just going to bring it back to the scrap shop and get my credits back.”

  “Oh…okay.” She glanced down at her own hand-terminal. “Well, I better get moving then. I’m supposed to be meeting with Culver soon to discuss the next shift. See you in two days?”

  My heart sunk as I remembered that was when the next Piccolo shift was scheduled to start. A shift I wasn’t going to be taking part in. I hadn’t told anybody that except for the ship’s captain, obviously, and my mom, who couldn’t leak the news considering where she was. I hadn’t told a soul about that yet either. It would’ve made the whole situation feel more real. I had this image in my head of Mom strolling back into our home, completely cured before anyone realized she was gone.

  “Yeah,” I lied again. I didn’t have the heart to let Cora know. Seeing her around the Piccolo was the only thing that made scrubbing filth out of canisters while dealing with John and the rest of the crews’ bullshit tolerable. She was the only thing I’d miss.

  The corners of her lips twitched a bit as if she was considering smiling, then she nodded. “Good. Well, I’ll see you around then, Kale.”

  She went to walk away, but I tapped her shoulder to stop her. She turned her head, eyes glittering like she expected to hear something thrilling.

  “You have the time?” I asked, gesturing to John’s ineffective hand-terminal. Earth-time, that was. Titan’s days were extremely long, and even the first Ringers sent by Trass continued using the far more manageable Earth-time since they were within enclosed settlements anyway.

  “Oh, sure…Four thirty-five.”

  “Shit!” I yelled. “I, uh, I’ve got to run. Bye!”

  She said “Bye” and watched quizzically as I sprinted past her. Visiting hours at the Darien Quarantine Zone weren’t going to last much longer, and I had to find someone who would take care of John’s hand-terminal before I went to see my mom, then make it to the Uppers for the lawful job I’d taken after resigning from my post on the Piccolo—cleaning the floors of Old World Noodles.

  Sometimes I wondered what it’d be like to have been born into some wealthy Earther clan-family. There’d be a lot less to do.

  Chapter 2

  The Darien Lowers were cluttered with factories, gambling dens, and clubs that put the ones in the Uppers to shame. Like pretty much everything else on Titan, they were almost all funded by Pervenio Corp, even if their managers liked to pretend they weren’t, so the only relatively well-off Ringers I ever knew were fences working the black market. They tucked themselves into the shadows of legitimate enterprises, and even though I was only eighteen, I’d met more than my fair share. Some were safer to work with than others.

  One by one I hurried between the shops of all my old connections with John’s hand-terminal as my ticket in. They wouldn’t even open their doors to see what I had to offer, let alone say hello. A step onto an Earther-run gas harvester, and it was like I’d betrayed my people.

  Growing frustrated, and with the end of visiting hours at the Q-Zone rapidly approaching, I decided I’d skip to the last fence I wanted to see again, but the one I knew was my best shot. Dexter Howser was the grubbiest, greediest man I knew, which meant he’d never say no to easy credits. We’d met when I was very young because he liked to use children who hadn’t developed any connections and bring them into his fold. His front was a chop shop in Level B6, the lowest occupied section of the Darien Lowers, almost fifty meters below the surface of Titan. The hollow where my mother and I lived was four levels up, but down in B6 the smell of salt was so pungent it made my nostrils sting.

  I pulled my sanitary mask tight over my nose. The beggars lining the walls of the level’s central node were so skinny their long chins were like knives. A few here and there were even coughing. It was likely from breathing in the fumes from a dozen factories escaping through the worn-down air recyclers, but I wasn’t about to risk getting sick.

  Dexter’s place was down a long tunnel, right beside a factory transforming chunks of metal imported from throughout the Ring into circular hatches. The clamor of welding torches and machine belts was so raucous that I couldn’t hear my footsteps. It was just how any fence would like it. Nobody could listen in even if they tried.

  I knocked on the hatch of the unnamed chop shop, and after a few seconds a voice spoke through an intercom.

  “What’s your business?” a man said.

  “I’ve got a delivery for Mr. Howser,” I replied. “It’s delicate.”

  A camera was nestled into the ice-rock above the hatch. I watched the lens tilt, aim at me, and zoom in. I was out of the life for only two years and, even though I’d grown a bit taller, my gaunt face hadn’t changed. Not a hint of stubble, let alone a beard. They’d know exactly who I was.

  “Mr. Howser will see you immediately.”

  There was a click and a hiss as the hatch popped open.

  The space inside was little more than a waiting room with a rusty counter. Scraps of metal lay against the walls and a haze of dust floated in the air, so thick that everything appeared speckled.

  Howser’s muscle consisted of four grungy Ringers, two on either side of the counter and two by the entry-hatch. Their narrow faces were covered in grime, matching their rotting teeth, which appeared even more yellow in contrast to their past
y skin. The area beneath their noses was chapped from snorting foundry salts—a synth drug made from residue in water purification plants.

  They had the kind of look in their eyes that said they weren’t just willing to use the decade-old pulse-rifles strapped to their backs, but would enjoy it.

  “Kale Drayton!” Howser said, sitting behind an unexpectedly new-looking console set on the counter. “Mr. Gas Harvester. Never thought I’d see you all the way down here again.”

  His appearance was similar to his henchmen’s, only dirtier. Wild hair fell down to his shoulders and his messy beard went even farther. He grinned as he saw me, and I could smell his putrid breath from across the room. I counted only three natural teeth in his mouth; the rest were fillers made of chrome.

  “Neither did I,” I admitted.

  I started forward cautiously, my eyes darting between his armed henchmen. Their weapons may’ve been ancient, but if they were actually able to fire they’d still be enough to riddle me with holes. It’d been a long time since I’d dealt with people of their sort. Earthers like John could be cruel, but they weren’t desperate…or hungry.

  “Hurry now. Let me get a look at you.” Howser snorted a bit of white powder sprinkled on the counter before he rolled out from behind it on an automated wheelchair. Both of his mangled legs were covered by loose pants that dragged across the floor. Rumor had it that they’d been crushed by machinery a long time ago. The finest doctors in Sol probably could’ve put his lower half together again, but a man like him wouldn’t pay an Earther for help even if he could afford it.

  He rolled in a circle around me, scanning me from head to toe. I couldn’t help but stare at the handle of the razor-sharp knife I remembered being hidden in the arm of his chair. My muscles tensed.