Diggers: The Sharp Edge of the Universe

by Shannon Heather

  “Come on, Reg.” Finn pushed Reggie through the crowd of red and brown uniforms to the front. “Get us a better view.”

  Finn’s excited smile slid off his face when they made it to the front of the group. He’d expected to see Lee Fishborne and his group of the best and brightest Scientists running the entire Digging operation. Instead, Lee and the Scientists stood on a platform high above the action, nervously watching Belch—and Quinn of all people—barking commands in every direction. Lee stood shuffling papers in a corner balcony of the metal frame surrounding a hole almost the size of the Space Station. Every time Quinn yelled, Lee jumped a little and some assistant had to go chasing after a piece of paper. The other Scientists stood around and watched Quinn, Belch, and the rest of the operation.

  None of this looked right. All of the holopictures showed Lee Fishborne in the command position while the Diggers were always left out of the picture. Finn thought back to the revolving 3-D image he’d seen just a few days ago—Lee had stood with Captain Windblown, like the god Finn knew every Scientist was. But the scene actually kind of made sense. Scientists didn’t need to be involved with the digging, just the discovering.

  A hot flash of jealousy pierced Finn as he watched Lee completely ignore the Diggers. He wished he could see what nuggets of information those sheets of paper held. Maybe they were secret codes only a select few people were allowed to see, people like diplomats, the President of Earth, or the Grand Minister of the Milky Way.

  “Keep those kids on the observation deck, Bones,” Quinn yelled up to their teacher.

  Someone yanked Finn back by the uniform and dragged him up the stairs he’d been creeping down.

  “What the—” he protested, ready to throw a punch and take the electric shock that came with it.

  “That means you too.” Mikayla let go of his collar and wiped her hand on her knee like she’d just contracted some alien flesh-eating bacteria by touching him.

  He tried to think of something brilliant and mean to say to Mikayla, but nothing came to mind until it was too late, as usual.

  The Science and Digger classes observed as Belch raised the VirtualBot Arm and swung it deep into the massive hole. Finn thought it qualified as the stupidest, easiest job ever, controlling the massive arm that had a dirt-collecting bucket attached to the end of it. Belch pressed the electrodes he’d just attached to different muscles in his own arm. The electrodes, attached to a sensor, allowed the VirtualBot arm to mimic every movement Belch made. Belch gave a great yawn and moved his arm like he was digging a moat around a sand castle. Then he lifted his arm high up in the air, opened his hand, and the VirtualBot Arm let go of its load on top of a pile of dirt next to the hole.

  Finn quickly grew tired of watching the digging and turned his attention to the Scientists. Lee Fishborne gave a small wave to his daughter, then resumed his discussion with his team. At barely six feet tall, Lee Fishborne was one of the thinnest men Finn had ever seen. A few Diggers were kind of skinny—Mr. James, their instructor, was one of them—but most of the people Finn knew were thick and muscled.

  Mr. Fishborne's light brown hair and tanned skin gave him the look of a healthy person who hadn’t spent his entire life on a Space Station. He traveled to different worlds for all sorts of meetings and conferences, so he didn’t have the strained, pea-brownish-green color most space station dwellers received from the luminaries. In person, his skin tone made the other people on his Science team look like they had leather for skin. He had the same startling blue eyes as his daughter—the only thing Finn hated about him, though right now his pencil-line mouth wasn’t very appealing either, because it made it difficult for Finn to read his lips from this far away.

  The Scientists were all focused on a single piece of paper, whispering. Finn peeked around to see if anyone was looking at him, then crept away from the group. Edging his way along the high rails, he advanced up the rows of metal stairs until he stood next to the Scientists.

  “Yes, but is it new?” Lee gave an angry hiss. “I don’t want another close call. If we aren’t sure, I refuse to say anything about it.”

  “I believe it’s new, sir,” a young Scientist said. “It is similar to the Mikanleum we found on T3. Under a microscope you can see that living organisms inside it help to keep the metal hard by continuously building thick walls at the cellular level.”

  Lee stared at the Scientist. “And you expect me to look into a microscope? Do I look like I’m in the Journeymen Program?”

  The group fell into a babble of “no sirs” and “of course nots,” while Lee stomped his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets. Finn envied how much everyone practically fell on their knees around him.

  Lee forced a calmness into his voice. “Tatum, I want you to take a second look tonight and review all of your tests. If you still conclude this is a new discovery, I will tell the Captain in the morning.”

  Finn couldn’t believe his luck. He’d just found out about a possible new discovery before the Captain had! He needed to find out where they were going to hide this new discovery while they processed it, so he could see it before the Captain got to congratulate Lee.

  The young Scientist nodded and began recording notes into his Verbal Memory Unit. “Yes, sir, Lee…I mean, Mr. Fishborne! I’ll work on it all night…starting the moment we return home.”

  Finn listened to the Scientists mumble about different tests they were working on, and what parts of tests they’d finished.

  “Oy, Science folks,” Belch yelled at them, interrupting their conversations.

  Finn glanced over at the students and received a nasty look from Mikayla. She waved her hand toward her face, and it looked to Finn like she might be hot and was trying to fan herself. But when she pointed at him and then to the spot next to her, Finn knew she wanted him to get back with the field trip group. Luckily, she was easy to ignore.

  One of the Scientists kept whispering to Tatum. She wondered when anyone else would get a chance to finally discover something, but Tatum hushed her, throwing glances at the other Scientists.

  Finn knew how the woman felt.

  He could just barely see the bottom of the hole from this high up. He imagined himself down there discovering awesome new metals, fossils, and maybe even a new kind of limitless fuel.

  “Heya, Lee!” Belch scratched his armpit, then flipped his massive biceps behind his head, the Virtualbot Arm mimicking his every move, “I think I found something new.”

  Lee stopped in mid-sentence and turned to Belch with the usual disgust people showed toward a Digger. It didn’t help that Belch had lost his hand inside his other armpit.

  “I’m sorry…uh, Belch. I don’t know what you’re seeing.” Lee tried to smile, but the effort transformed into a sneer. “I’m sure the Scientists will make the discovery if there is one.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised. It’s not a metal, or any of the other stuff you folks are always looking for. It’s an animal. Look at the top of the hole. Looks like one of them mountain sheep-type things.” Belch pulled his hand out of the depths of his armpit long enough to point at the animal, then went back to scratching again.

  The size of an Earth elephant, the animal had stick-thin legs, and shouldn't have been able to hold up its own mass. The horns circled round and round the sides of its head into tight spirals, which made the animal look like it had two gigantic cinnamon buns attached to its head. It stood on a rocky cliff halfway in the hole, chewing on a mouthful of the dark green dirt.

  “See, the Diggers find stuff,” Reggie said.

  “AAAAAAAHHHH….” Finn jumped up and let out a high scream, like the girls always did at the roller skating arena on the old earth virtual deck.

  Stumbling into the groups of Scientists, he tripped over a foot and fell backward, screaming, into the depths of the hole. He slid and bumped down the side, until he bashed his head against a boulder.

  Finn woke up to the smell of rotten hamburgers piled high with too many onions. H
e blinked hard. Something pressed against his throbbing head, and he tried to figure out where the disgusting smell came from.

  Then he knew. His face was pressed into Belch’s armpit, a mass of sweaty pit hair tickling his nose. He tried to move, but was only able to cradle his aching head.

  Belch marched up a long stairwell back toward the group with Finn hanging over his shoulders like a towel. Even though Finn refused to look, he knew every single person—all of the kids from the Science Journeymen and the Digger Journeymen, every Scientist, Quinn, and every Digger—were staring at the spectacle he made slumped over Belch’s shoulder.

  Belch climbed up the stairs, laughing his deep guttural laugh. “I told yuh I could catch him before he hit the bottom.”

  Chapter 8: Busted

  Finn held his head in his hands and leaned hard against the kitchen table. A picture of Belch carrying him out of the hole burst from the front page of the NewsPad and rotated in a slow circle. A second picture of his limp body hanging by the metal arm Belch controlled on the BELCH, his face inches from the bottom of the hole, followed the first picture.

  “Digger Boy Falls In A Hole,” read the caption at the top of the page.

  “Well, you made the front page, Noodle.” Quinn ignored the “tsk” from Maggie.

  “What were you thinking exactly, Noodle? Sorry, Maggie—I mean Finn?” Gus couldn't keep the irritation out of his voice.

  “I wasn’t.” Finn stared at the rotating picture and let the waves of embarrassment beat him down.

  “Well, that’s true.” Quinn’s jaw tightened, and Finn wondered if he could still breathe.

  Finn would have given anything, even his fish Quigley, to be able to tell his dad what he'd been doing if he thought his dad would understand. But for Gus—the head of all the Diggers—having a son who wanted to be a Scientist would have been like changing species. Absolutely impossible.

  “You’ve been late to class, or missed every day but yesterday.” Gus sipped his coffee carefully, but his white-knuckled fist gave his anger away.

  Finn gave a very happy Quinn a crusty look and nodded. Of course, Quinn had told on him.

  “Maybe if you were on time and actually going to class you’d be able to handle something as dangerous as…stairs.” Maggie patted Gus on the shoulder to try to calm him down, and went back to prepping the evening meal before her shift started.

  “I want you to be on time to Digger Training from now on. Do you understand?” Gus’s face glowed blood red, and the forced calm in his voice sent a shiver up Finn’s spine.

  “Yes, sir.” The moment he said the words, Finn felt his dreams of becoming a Scientist start to slip away.

  Gus pushed his mass away from the table, gave Maggie a peck on the cheek, and headed for the door.

  As soon as the door whooshed shut, Finn got up and started for his room. As he passed, Quinn grabbed his arm.

  “Don’t,” Quinn growled, “make me look stupid again.”

  “Don’t worry, Bear—sorry Mom, I mean Quinn. You look stupid no matter what I do.” Finn yanked his arm out of Quinn’s vise grip.

  “Boys…” Maggie warned without turning away from the dishes.

  “That’s right! And don’t you forget it!” Quinn said.

  Quinn was as thick in brains as he was in body. Finn could see him sitting at the table trying to figure out what just happened.

  Finn walked into his room thinking about how to make it to the Science Lab and still be on time every day. He could just shove all the microscope slides into his backpack. That might work.

  Nothing had been in the NewsPad about the new discovery, so the Scientists must have still been performing experiments on it. He would have to slip into the Science Lab tonight, but he’d have only about thirty minutes before Digger training and it took him twenty minutes to take the hover and make it to class on time.

  Ten minutes each night would have to be enough.

  He snagged his backpack and headed out of his living quarters. Quinn had already left for work, so Finn didn't have to worry about him. Finn raced down the hall and slid around the corner. He took a quick peek in the window to make sure the Science Lab was empty and ran for the door.

  He pulled out his entrance key and the door slid open. “Hello, Mrs. Margaret O’Reilly,” ELAINA’s sultry voice greeted him.

  Once again, the only light in the room shined on the glorious new piece of metal. This time, Finn didn’t bother to creep under the tables. He ran straight to the new discovery.

  Mikayladite.

  “Ah, geez,” He gave a nearby chair a frustrated kick.

  He’d be the happiest kid in the universe if he never had to see or hear that name again.

  He grabbed the microscope with a sliver of the metal still under it and took a long look at the microscopic animals living within the metal.

  He gave a low whistle. “Holy asteroids.”

  He could actually see the organisms burp and fart, and every time they did, a thick wall formed in the metal.

  Finn pushed the microscope away, and made his way through the chairs and tables to the box of slides listed “trash.” When he reached the box, he smiled. None of the slides had been thrown away yet. Grabbing handfuls, he carefully pushed them into his pockets. Studying the slides would make up for the boring evening he would soon endure when he got to class.

  As Finn crept over to the microscope for one last look at the metal sample, he noticed a discarded hammer with the head broken off lying on the floor.

  “What in the universe?” he whispered.

  The Scientists had used the hammer to test the strength of the new metal, and it had ripped the metal head in half! Without thinking, Finn grabbed the sample of metal. He’d expected it to be heavy, but it felt so light the metal slipped out of his hand and hit the floor.

  He watched as the sample smashed into a million pieces, leaving a large dent where it hit the floor.

  “No, no, no….” He slammed to his knees and picked up the pieces. “How in the universe could this stuff be so fragile?” he mumbled to himself as he scrambled around the floor searching for stray pieces.

  By the look of the hammer, the metal could take a hit. Maybe it shattered when hit in the wrong place, kind of like a raw, uncut diamond. He knew he shouldn’t have touched the metal sample. Silently, he cursed himself for the moment of weakness. As he stood to put a pile of metal shards on the table, the lights in the Science Lab clicked on.

  “What,” Lee Fishborne demanded, standing at the door with a small group of Scientists—and Mikayla— “are you doing?"

  Chapter 9: Busted—Galaxy Sized

  “His name is Finn?” Captain Windblown surveyed Finn like some kind of feral animal.

  He’d imagined how his first meeting with Captain Windblown would go hundreds of times, and most of them included the Captain congratulating him for his first amazing discovery. Never had he imagined a scene quite like this.

  “Yes, sir,” Mikayla said.

  Every adult Finn hoped he’d never see while he snuck around in the Science Lab now stood in a circle around him. Captain Windblown, Lee Fishborne, and his mom—summoned from her shift—each wore differing amounts of anger on their faces.

  “And what was your reason for being in the Science Lab?” Captain Windblown asked.

  “I was cleaning, sir.” Finn hoped the lie would work.

  “Were you?” Captain Windblown eyed him with two decades of experience behind his glare, and Finn fidgeted under the pressure. “Why does the entry log show a Mrs. Margaret O’Reilly entering every night, sometimes three or four times a night? Surely it doesn’t take her four trips just to clean this one room.”

  Finn studied his shoes and searched for an explanation, a lie, anything that would get him out of this mess, but nothing came to mind.

  “Hand it over.” Maggie held out a hand.

  Finn pulled out his copy of her security card, and she snatched it out of his grasp.

  “Yo
ur son made an illegal copy of your security card,” Captain Windblown gaped at the card in Maggie’s hand. “And he’s been using it to break into the Science Lab? What else is he breaking into?”

  “Nothing else.” Finn finally found his voice, but not for long. “I…I just wanted….”

  “What about the discovery?” Spit flew out of Lee Fishborne’s mouth. “He’s ruined it!”

  This hadn't been the way he thought he’d meet Lee Fishborne either. His daydreams had always included his holding up a new shiny metal and Lee Fishborne carrying him, and the new discovery, on his shoulders and hailing him as a hero.

  “Wait.” Mikayla eyed the bulk in Finn’s pocket. “What’s in his pocket?”

  Finn closed his eyes and silently pleaded for them all to ignore her just this one time. He couldn’t think of a single person on the SS Vortex he hated more than Mikayla.

  “Turn out your pockets, son,” Captain Windblown said.

  Finn knew his life would be over if they saw the contents of his pockets because his mother would kill him before Captain Windblown even tried.

  Reluctantly, he pulled the wad of rescued slide samples out of his pocket.

  “You’ve been stealing slides?” Lee Fishborne and Mikayla said together.

  “It’s not stealing if they’re in the trash!” Finn said. “Whoever is going through the slides is the stupidest person on the Space Station! They’re getting rid of all the good slides and keeping all the lame ones!”

  Mikayla winced at the sting of his words, and he smiled with evil joy.

  “Yes,” Mr. Fishborne faced him, “it’s not illegal to take trash. But, it is illegal to break into the Science Lab with a fake identification card and destroy a new discovery!” His chest heaved and his fists tightened.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Fishborne," Maggie said. It was the only thing that made this moment worse, his mom apologizing for him. “I’m sorry, Captain Windblown. I guarantee this will never happen again.”