“We’d better get some sleep.”
“Yes.” Masi’s voice is low and sad as he lets go of the bars and steps back into the shadows. I turn my attention to the girls and we go through our nightly routine of getting ready for bed. We wash our feet, hands and faces, then put our jackets in a pile or hang them against the bars. We sleep in our underwear under thin sheets, huddled together for warmth.
This time instead of telling them stories from the books I read, we brainstorm names for our cell like I promised them we would. It sounds stupid, to name our cell. But these are young girls caught in the middle of a thirty-year-long war. All they’ve known is fear and Kreon rule. They deserve five minutes of silliness. I deserve some silliness. I lay back on my mat as we come up with names, each growing more and more ridiculous. None of us have had a normal childhood, at least not like the ones I read about, or my parents told me about.
We finally decide on the name after one of the new girls, Natia, tells us about a castle full of brave fighting girls and women, high in the mountains, who were responsible for defending the nation’s treasure. The castle was called Mutso. I tell the girls it’s a perfect name since they are all like those girls; wild and brave mutts, digging in the dirt, a mix from all over.
“But we don’t have anything valuable to protect,” Janice frowns.
“We have each other,” Natia says. “Maybe that’s enough.”
I blink tears out of my eyes, and fall asleep to girlish whispers and Claryce’s warm arm slung over me.
***
The next day my muscles groan against the hard surface of the cell floor. For a moment I think I’m back in my cabin and my confused mind is about tell Jamie to brew some strong coffee. Then one of the girls coughs and Claryce shoves me awake. The light on the cell is already green. I splash some water on my face and pull on my clothes quickly, tying back my hair just as Edward opens the main door. Still groggy, it’s all I can do not to trip down the steep stairs and break my neck before we collect our gear.
I realize I haven’t thought about Jamie in several days, and it bothers me. I can’t let myself get too comfortable down here. I should be looking for an advantage; some way to escape. I keep my eyes fixed on the back of Edward’s metal shoulder, where a small panel is nearly flush with the rest of the armored machine of his suit. There are no screws, but I knew from working on drones I could probably pry it open with a chisel or screwdriver. If I was lucky, the wiring would be similar enough I could at the very least incapacitate the mech guard, not that it would do me any good. He’d probably fry me the second I laid hands on him. I blinked against the bright lights of the main cavern, watching the drones zip by overhead. If I could reach one and hack it, I could try to send a message outside. But who would I even send it to? I have no one. Only my brother, and he’s the one who sent me here.
Or maybe I could reprogram a drone, and ride it all the way to the surface. I wonder if it would carry my weight, and if I could even find my way back through the tunnels. The flash drive bites sharply between my toes, a constant reminder that I’m in danger. I’d been willing to risk it when it was just me, but now I’m courting disaster. What would happen if they found it on me, or in my cell? What would they do to the girls? The last few days had been full of surprises. First Masi, then Elan. Either one could get me killed if I wasn’t careful. I didn’t know which one I trusted less. It was tempting to consider them allies, but I was raised to be skeptical, and used to looking out for myself. And Jamie.
Guilt gnaws at my stomach as I claim my rations and tools. I couldn’t stay down here, playing make-believe with other people’s children. It would be too easy to focus on surviving, on getting up, doing my work, and getting by. Each day I was left with barely enough energy to think, let alone plan a harrowing escape. But Jamie needed me. Once the Kreons finish reeducating him and ship him off to wherever he’s meant to serve, I’ll never see him again—and he’s the only family I’ve got.
“Careful,” Masi puts his hand on my shovel to stop me. I flinch away and look up at him. He points down to where I’ve been digging. In my frustration, I’ve been chipping absently away at another flat shard of rock like the one we found earlier. It’s smooth and polished, making it utterly incongruous against the dark earth and rock. I could swear the corner displays a bit of embellished stone work.
“It’s nothing,” I say quickly, heaving it into my arms and placing it deep into the anti-grav car. Masi grabs my wrist and pulls me closer. I want to fight him off but his grip is like iron. Plus, the gesture isn’t threatening, it’s secretive—like he’s about to confide in me. Just when I think he’s going to say something, he releases me again.
I gape at my own reflection in his helmet, which merges strangely with the picturesque scene projecting on it today. Mountains, forests. It reminds me of home, but it’s not a comfort. Instead it feels like a taunt, and suddenly my frustration boils out of me.
I shove him with both hands, as hard as I can, then instantly regret it as he tumbles over a loose rock and falls hard on the ground.
“Don’t ever touch me,” I say, crossing my arms. He groans, and I lean forward to offer him a hand. I’m not going to apologize, but he is injured after all. I pull him to his feet but don’t let go until he’s stable. Just as I’m about to back away again, his helmet glitches and for just a second, I see through the projection. I scramble backward like one of those crabs I’ve seen in the river, until my back is against the rock. My chest squeezes painfully and I can tell by the dust on my tongue that my mouth is open, but nothing comes out.
I glance over quickly to the girls. They’re all working on the other side of the two carts. None of them are looking this way.
Masi comes over and kneels down next to me. “Are you all right?”
My breath comes out in quick shallow wheezes.
I point to his helmet, which looks perfectly normal now.
“Rya? What’s wrong?” He feels around his helmet and neck.
“There was something wrong with your helmet. I thought I saw—” I clamp my mouth shut. What did I see? The screen is placid again now, showing a pool of water with bright orange carp. It must have just been a glitch. I pull myself up into a sitting position and grasp my shovel tightly in front of me.
“Rya. Tell me exactly what you think you saw.”
His tone is resigned, but not angry.
“Nothing,” I say finally. I shiver although I’m hot and sweating.
Masi looks down the tunnel, and then back at me. He steps towards me, and it takes all my self-control not to get up and run. My heart is racing in my chest and I’m losing grip on my shovel because my hands are sweating so much. I hold it defensively in front of me.
“Are you afraid of me, Rya?”
Am I? Maybe Elan was right not to trust him. He’d been kind to me, but what if that was just a ploy to gain my sympathy? Something about him was off, and it was more than just the weird suit and helmet. He knew something. More than he should.
“It depends,” I look around the cavern. I’m alone with Masi in the far corner. The girls can’t see us, and neither can any of the guards down the tunnel.
“Will you tell me the truth?”
“Even if the truth is awful?”
I nod. “I can work with the truth. And if we’re going to be digging down here together and sharing rations, I’d like to know exactly what is going on. That helmet isn’t just covering a bad burn, is it? Did they… experiment on you?” I end in a whisper, daring to lean toward him.
“Not an experiment. But maybe something even worse. The truth is, you would treat me differently if you knew what I really am.”
I bite my lip as a strong shiver shoots up my spine.
“You don’t know that,” I argue, immediately defensive.
“You’ve read a lot of strange stories in your childhood, Rya. But none of those would prepare you for a monster like me.” He gives me a muffled ch
uckle.
I don’t have anything to say to that. He’s being coy, almost playful, and I wonder if he’s teasing me. Suddenly my fear feels misplaced. Right now his helmet is back to normal. Maybe I just imagined it. The lighting is dim down here in the cave, and I didn’t sleep well. But mostly, I’m annoyed by his games and done with this conversation.
We stand up and watch as the girl’s cart moves down the tunnel.
“We’d better catch up,” I say, with a bit of anger in my tone. I hated being treated like a little girl. Dad used to say stuff like that. That I wasn’t ready for the real world, that I wasn’t prepared for the monsters out there—and he didn’t just mean the Kreons.
I start digging again, throwing dirt into the cart at a faster pace than I usually do. Frustration keeps me working without a break until our cart is full, and we finish most of the next load before the lunch alarm sounds.
I feel like I want to throw up as I go check on the girls. I take my time, eating with the girls, not wanting to go back over to Masi. I find excuses to talk with the girls until our break is done. I give the girls an encouraging smile and slowly walk back to the other side, where Masi is already digging. I’ve cooled down and am thinking more clearly.
I want to let it go. But I can’t. The curiosity is too great. Maybe I was too preoccupied to ignore it before, but nothing about Masi makes sense. I knew he could be violent, but I thought what happened in the cell was just self-protection. Part of me even pitied him. But now… why did he grab my wrist over a chunk of broken stone? What was it to him? He seemed to know more than he was telling, and if he wasn’t New Terra, or a regular prisoner, what was he doing all the way down here? Fear and mistrust swarm in my brain until I can’t keep quiet any longer.
“I need to know about the helmet,” I whisper harshly. “Are you a danger to us?”
“Only if you don’t stop asking questions and keep your distance.”
He kicks his foot against the edge of his shovel, hefting another mound of dirt into the anti-grav cart. I cross my arms and glare at him until he looks up again.
“No,” he says slowly. “I’m not a threat. Not to you. But it’s a long story.”
“Short version,” I say between clenched teeth.
He pauses to look at me, then leans on his shovel. “I had a disagreement with the Kreons and my punishment is to be banished down here for the rest of my life.”
He starts digging again.
Seriously? That’s it?
“Hate to break it to you, but that’s why all of us are here.”
“You wanted the short version.”
I step in front of where he’s about to jab his shovel.
“But what about the helmet?” I press.
He stops and sticks his shovel into the dirt.
“I know it freaks everyone out. I understand if you need to hate me for it.”
I frown, this conversation isn’t going anywhere.
“I don’t care about the helmet,” I snap. “I care about the truth. That rock we found,” I whisper, “it meant something to you, didn’t it?”
This gets his attention again. His head swivels to check the empty tunnel around us, before leaning in closer, close enough I can hear his labored breathing.
“What did it mean to you, Rya?”
This is dangerous territory. Neither of us is willing to trust the other, but someone has to open up first. I decide to play my hand.
“When I was brought here, we stopped at a ship landing strip and I saw the Kreon royal family.”
“You saw the royal family?” Masi sounds incredulous.
“Well nobody has seen them. Nobody has seen any Kreon. They were projected on some kind of energy wall. I could just barely see their forms, not specific features.”
“A visitation,” he nods.
Whatever that meant.
“They said… they said they were looking for something.”
Masi shifts nervously, before leaning in even closer.
“Not here,” he whispers. “We’ll talk later.”
I look over at the girls. They’re still concentrating on their work.
“Why, are you here to spy on me?” I ask.
We’re completely alone at the end of a dark tunnel, surrounded by miles of solid rock.
“No. But there are listening device everywhere in the mines.” He points up to the ceiling. There, not a dozen feet over our heads, blending in with the rough dirt ceiling, is a small square box.
“Crap,” I say. Goosebumps rise on my arms.
He laughs at my reaction.
“Yes. So you see, they don’t need spies. And they definitely wouldn’t trust me with that job, anyway.”
“Do the sentinels know about whatever is wrong with you?”
“Most definitely,” is all he says.
We start digging next to each other again. The stolen flash drive between my toes is digging into my skin, so hard I think it must be bleeding. I curse myself for being so eager to find allies that I almost condemned myself instead of just keeping my mouth shut.
I’m not even sure why I care so much what Masi is hiding.
After a few minutes of me constantly looking for other surveillance devices, Masi stops me. “Just assume they’re all over. You haven’t made any plans for escape or anything like that, have you?”
His tone is light, but I know he’s being serious.
I shake my head. “No, but I wonder why they need to eavesdrop if we all have trackers.” I hold up my arm.
“To keep an eye on what we’re digging up?” he suggests.
I shrug, turning away. I hate that they could be recording our conversations.
We dig the rest of the day in silence. I kneel down and use my trowel to pick around a large rock embedded in the wall. The earth holding the stone is looser than the rest of the tunnel and soon I have to step back as a river of soft dirt falls away, leaving a dark hole. I gasp as I peer inside at the smooth, flat surface.
My heart races as we clear away the fallen dirt. This isn’t just a broken shard of rock. This one has design, and purpose.
“Look here, Rya,” Masi points to the bottom of the stone, which has some sort of markings on them. We both get on our hands and knees and brush away the dirt, uncovering neat rows of symbols.
“Do you know what language this is, Rya?”
I look up at Masi with surprise. I’d assumed they were just some kind of decoration. I lean closer, tracing my fingers over the soft, curving squiggles, so unlike the hard boxes and slashes of the Kreon script. A touch of gold pigment clings to the marks, gleaming against the dark stone.
“No, I have no idea.”
His eyes scan the stone, almost like he can read the writing. Masi moves closer to me, our heads almost touching. “Don’t tell anyone what you’ve found here today. Not yet.”
He fills the hole furtively, packing dirt over the symbols so they are hidden from view again.
“Why?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“I think this might be what the Kreons are after,” Masi whispers so quietly I almost don’t hear him.
“How do you know this is what they’re looking for?” I tighten my grip on my shovel. “And why should I trust you?”
“Don’t say anything,” he repeats sternly, facing me until I nod my head in agreement. I know that holding back discoveries from the Kreons could earn me a death sentence. But whatever it is, it’s been buried here for centuries, maybe longer. It can wait another day, until I hear what Masi has to say.
I jump as the tunnel fills with the evening alarm, and Masi and I scramble to fill the rest of the cart. I push the glowing button to send it down the tunnel, then glance towards where we were digging to see if I can see the mysterious stone with the ancient writing, but it’s a solid wall of dirt. I look over at Masi who is holding his shovel loosely over his shoulders.
“Fine,” I say, confirming the terms of our
arrangement, “but tonight you talk, or I’m telling them everything.”
FIFTEEN
MASI FOLLOWS ME OVER TO where the girls are waiting for us. We get in line like any other day’s end. But this was definitely not a normal day for me. I turn my face to a cool breeze that flows through the center of the compound, feeling my hair stick to the sweat on my neck. I study the exhausted girls, feeling pride swell as their small arms carry mining tools without complaint. Masi’s helmet is displaying that yellow smiley face again, as impenetrable as always. Of all the masks he wears, this one is my least favorite. A memory tugs at the corner of my mind, of a leering pumpkin. I think my mother and I carved one with a face when I was little and Jamie was just a baby. Some kind of ritual, something from before the invasion. I’d been too young to understand at the time, and she’d disappeared not long after.
It only took one generation for the Kreons to destroy human culture and reduce us to this: insects scratching at the dirt for survival. Maybe that’s all we ever were. I shake my head at myself. We’re more than that. But it was hard not to let fear dictate my choices. Masi and I are trusting each other with a deadly secret, which meant he had my life in his hands. What if he just wanted to tell the guards about our discovery first, maybe earn his freedom by betraying me as a rebel? I remember the dread I felt each time I went to the trading camp, angry that the Kreons made me fear my own species, when we could be supporting each other. The Kreons were invisible puppet-masters in the sky, their omnipresence like a buzz in the back of your ear. The mechs brought death or capture swiftly, like a hawk diving for a mouse. Easy enough to avoid if you were careful. Humans were the only things who could lie, steal, cheat and betray—wearing a smile while stabbing you in the back.
Masi leans forward and whispers, “Calm down, you seem agitated.”
My face warms and I nod, squeezing my lips tight.
I had a habit of talking to myself when anxious.
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