Diggers: The Sharp Edge of the Universe

by Shannon Heather

  “With your kind of…substandard parenting, I’m sure it will happen again,” Lee Fishborne screamed in Maggie’s face.

  Finn watched helplessly as his mom fought to keep herself under control. Under different circumstances, Maggie would have had a fair amount of choice words for Lee Fishborne.

  “Yes, Mrs.…” the Captain glanced at Maggie’s nametag, “O’Reilly. And I will further guarantee this never happens again by restricting your son to your quarters until there can be a full inquiry. I don’t take a breach in security lightly.”

  Finn walked back to his quarters with his mom following behind. He didn’t dare look back, but he didn’t really need to because he could feel her eye daggers piercing the back of his head. Every once in a while she huffed and mumbled something incoherent.

  The moment ELAINA whooshed the door open behind them, Finn made a break for his bedroom before his mom had a chance to follow.

  A half hour later his mother called them for dinner. Readying himself for the worst, he stepped out of the hallway and took his seat at the table. Quinn ground his fist in his hand. Maggie cleaned more than usual. Gus said nothing. He just stared at the Newspad without sliding to a new page, and with each passing moment Gus's face became a darker shade of crimson.

  Finally, Gus looked up from the Newspad. “Why, son?”

  “Why are you being nice?” Quinn demanded, turning the same dark red as their father. “What he needs is a good kick in the—"

  Yes, Finn thought, anything is better than a guilt trip.

  Gus held up a hand to quiet Quinn. “Tell me why you did those things, Noodle…sorry Maggie…I meant Finn.”

  “Because I don’t want to be a Digger.” The words rushed out before Finn could stop them, and to make things worse, he babbled on, “I want to be a Scientist. I want it more than anything. I want to make discoveries and help humanoid-kind. I don’t want to dig holes and push dirt around.”

  Finn watched for a flicker of understanding in Gus’s face, but nothing came. He looked to his mom, but she just seemed sad. Quinn grew even angrier.

  Gus started in. “Eleven generations of O’Reillys have been Diggers. We’re inventors, explorers. We make grand discoveries. Elbert O’Reilly, your great-great-grandfather, invented the Triamond Tip made from the gem discovery he'd found at the triamond mines of Euglor…while Digging. The same mines your great-great-great-grandmother on your mother’s side pointed the first Digger to. You probably haven’t gone to enough classes to know, but we still use Elbert’s Triamond Tip, which is a thousand times stronger than old diamond tips. Digging is what we were put on this Space Station to do.”

  “The point Gus is trying to make,” Maggie said, “is that we make discoveries of our own, we Diggers…and Janitors.”

  Finn couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d been completely honest with his parents, and they answered by trying to compare a Triamond Tip to Mikaylimide? They weren’t even in the same solar system, in his opinion. Mikalyimide, well, besides the stupid name, was so much cooler.

  “Never mind.” Finn stared at his dinner, mad at himself for even attempting to explain something so complex to simple Diggers.

  “We do mind!” Gus’s anger finally exploded. “We understand you better than you think. But there are things you're refusing to understand. Fine! Let’s talk about what you did. You stole your mother’s identification card and used it to break into the Science Lab. And while you were in the Science Lab, you broke a sample of a new discovery!”

  No words formed in Finn's brain. In the face of his dad's anger and disappointment, his lifelong desire to be a Scientist didn’t seem like such a strong defense.

  “On top of everything else,” Gus momentarily regained control of his anger, which made him seem more dangerous, “your lies and sneaking around may cost your mother her job.”

  Guilt punched Finn in the gut. He'd always been afraid he’d get caught, but his fear stemmed from what would happen to him. In all the nights he snuck into the Science Lab, he’d never once considered the possible consequences to Maggie, or anyone else.

  “But they can’t do anything to her,” Finn reasoned. “She didn’t do anything.”

  Maggie gave a harsh laugh. “No one is going to care that you‘re just a curious kid. You breached security with my card and smashed a new discovery. Besides, they can’t really punish a boy. But they can punish me.”

  Finn’s face flushed and heat burned his cheeks, just like the time when he had the Transparian Flu. The weight of his actions threatened to break his ribs.

  “But they can’t…I mean, I did it. All of it,” Finn said again. “It was all me.”

  “Finn.” Maggie refused to look him in the eye. “We’re your parents, and that makes your actions our responsibility.”

  Finn couldn’t think of anything else to say. This was the worst day of his life.

  Chapter 10: The Galactic Quake

  Finn sat in a bedroom he’d never seen before. It had all of his things, but it glistened, and not just the usual clean Maggie required once a month. Quigley’s fishbowl hovered over the actual nightstand and not a pile of trading holodiscs. If anyone opened the closet, they’d find clothes hung up, not piled in a wad on the floor. Gus came in every morning and dropped a money credit on his bed. If it didn’t bounce, gaining air between the coin and the bed, Finn had to clean all the bathrooms with a toothbrush. His mom and dad had instituted the military-style punishments the morning after “The Episode,” as it already had become known in their house.

  Captain Windblown wouldn’t allow Finn out to attend Digger class, so Maggie started her own classes. He spent every evening and night working on detailed history lessons regarding everything Digger. She started him with his father’s long family history and achievements, and he'd progressed halfway through his mother’s family history too. At every meal the family quizzed him on the information he’d just read, and if he gave a single answer wrong, he had to reread the section.

  It felt like torture—plain and simple.

  As he read about Colonel Beck, his great-great-great-great…great grandfather, Finn marveled at how expertly his mom could institute some of the worst punishments of all time.

  “Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly,” ELAINA cooed, “you have a call from the Security Breach Magistrate, Mr. Cha’an Chandelier.”

  “’Kay.”

  Mr. Chandelier’s puke-green head slowly glided up and down in the holoscreen. “Well, hello again, Finnigan. I just wanted to make sure you will be at the inquiry Monday morning, 0900.”

  Finn hated Mr. Chandelier’s voice. He'd hated it from the first time he came to “meet” the family, which turned out to be more of an interrogation.

  Mr. Chandelier blew out extra air with every word, which made him sound like he was lodged in a wind tunnel. He came from Charsinian, one of the windiest planets in the Universe, but that still didn’t explain why he sounded that way while living on a space station.

  “Yes, sir.” Finn avoided looking directly at him.

  “Good boy.” The wind sound hissed from his nose holes with each word. “Your mother’s inquiry will take place right afterward.”

  Finn slumped further in his chair. “Okay…sir.”

  Mr. Chandelier’s face disappeared, and Finn threw himself onto his bed. In four days the punishment his mom had given him would seem like a vacation. Visions of being hung up by his toes, or being forced to kiss the gruesome boils on Mr. Chandelier’s face, sent a shiver through him.

  Finn rolled onto his back and summoned Quigley. In seconds, the fish bowl bobbed up and down over his head. It was enough to garner a lazy yawn from Jasper, who’d taken up residence on Finn’s pillow.

  The only thing Finn was allowed to do besides become an expert in his family’s history was clean…or clean…or there was always…cleaning. His parents kept the Newspad locked with a parental control password that he figured out the first day, but the headlines were too depressing to read. The new
s reports either covered Lee Fishborne and another dozen discoveries, or hashed out updates on The Alleged Criminal Boy—and he already knew more about that story than he wanted.

  Finn yawned and gave the air next to Quigley a frustrated punch.

  Bam!

  The room shook, and Finn fell off his bed, rolling toward the side wall. The lights flickered, and the temporary loss of power caused Quigley to crash onto Jasper, who hissed and made a break for the door, which kept whooshing open and closed.

  “Hello, Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly. Goodbye, Mr. Finn…Hello…Good…Mr. F—” ELAINA cut in and out.

  Jasper had almost made it through the door when the entire room began to shift to one side. Finn tried to stand but couldn’t because the entire Space Station seemed to be tilting at a forty-five-degree angle. Items not attached to the floor hurtled toward Finn and Jasper. They barely dodged the desk chair that flew straight at them. Jasper hissed again, leapt onto the bed, and hung on with his claws.

  “N-no, no, no!” Finn’s dresser slid toward him, and all he could do was brace himself for the hit.

  Bam!

  Finn opened his eyes and gave a huge sigh of relief. The corner of the bed had caught the dresser just in time and sent it careening through the door and into the hallway. The hover light, along with Quigley’s fishbowl, leaned almost sideways— which made no sense because all hover-capable items used the electromagnetic pull of the Space Station’s power core to maintain an absolute vertical.

  Crawling on the wall, Finn pulled himself out of his room. Just as he made it over his dresser in the hallway, he tumbled to the floor with a thud. Vortex had righted itself, which sent everything crashing around again.

  “Ow,” He rubbed his head. “What the….”

  Inching his way to the ComPad, he pressed in his mom’s code.

  “Mom! Mom! The Space Station just went sideways,” Finn’s voice cracked.

  “I know! I’m on the Space Station too,” she reminded him. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. But what the heck happened?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie. If I had to guess, though, I'd say—“

  “Mom? Mom?”

  “We have interrupted all communications for the following announcement from Captain Windblown,” The sugary voice of ELAINA sounded over the All-Station Com.

  “Uh…yes. We uh…well there’s been…a…well, collision of some sort,” Captain Windblown expertly stated the obvious. “We uh…well, we’re working on the problem. We uh…we need everyone to stay calm. We will let you all know what’s going on when we have new information.”

  Finn grabbed the ComPad and practically screamed Reggie’s name into it. He was grounded from communicating with anyone outside his family, but this called for breaking the rules.

  “Heya, Finn,” Reggie said after his face popped up on the Compad.

  “Reggie! What the heck just happened?”

  “Space Station hit something,” Reggie said.

  “I know!” Finn’s usual patience with Reggie’s lack of information vanished and he screamed at the revolving holopicture of Reggie. “What’s going on? Who’s working on this? What’s the plan?”

  “Don’t know,” Reggie said.

  “What do you mean you don't know? You’re on duty…right?” Finn yelled.

  “They’re scanning. Problem is there isn’t anything there.”

  “Nothing there? What do you mean?”

  Reggie pointed into space. “Look out the window.”

  Finn climbed over piles of furniture to the portal and looked out at black, empty space. The region in front of Vortex looked to be empty. He saw no distant sun. No planets. No stars. Just black.

  “There’s nothing.”

  “Yep,” Reggie said.

  Finn’s jaw dropped, and a bit of drool made it out past his lip. He shoved a hand in the pocket of his brown uniform his mom insisted he wear every day so he'd remember where he came from, blah blah blah, family pride, blah blah blah.

  “Ouch!” He yanked his hand out and blood dripped from his finger. More carefully this time, he reached in and drew out a lab slide sample he’d managed to save the evening they'd caught him in the Science Lab. As he sucked the blood off his finger, he stared at the rectangular slide.

  “Reg, have they figured out how big the thing is? Do they have a size or…a shape?”

  “Big. Thousands of meters in all directions.”

  “Have they scanned it?” Finn asked.

  “Yep,” Reggie said.

  “Well? What did it say?”

  “Silica-based,” Reggie said.

  Finn thought for a moment, “Like…sand?”

  “Yep,” Reggie said.

  “What could be silica-based in the middle of space?” Finn questioned.

  He sucked more blood off his finger and flipped the slide over and over.

  “Window,” Reggie said.

  Finn sputtered, “Reg! Meet me at DUMP Launch Pad One in fifteen minutes!” Finn scrambled over the kitchen table, now wedged in front of the entrance.

  “'Kay,” Reggie said.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly,” ELAINA cooed.

  Finn skidded to a stop at the Science Lab for a moment to watch Lee Fishborne, and his assistants, race from one WorkPad to another, probably analyzing the space anomaly and talking about things he could only wish to hear. A few people righted tables and chairs, and some of the assistants tried to salvage pieces of their work off the floor.

  “You again.” Mikayla’s voice forced Finn to turn his head. “We finally got your nose smudges off the window, and it took us hours to fix your mess, just so you know. I thought you were grounded until the inquiry. What are you doing here?”

  Finn stared at Mikayla while his mouth opened and shut, like Quigley's, as he tried to decide what to say to her. “A window,” he finally said.

  “Yeah, I know. You like to smudge up the glass,” she fumed.

  “The thing…in space…” Finn said.

  “What are you talking about? Is this about the anomaly we just hit?” Mikayla didn’t bother to hide her hatred for Finn.

  “N-never mind.” Finn backed away and ran for the hover.

  “Wait!” Mikayla glanced into the Science Lab and ran after him. “What are you talking about? Where are you going? You’re just going to get into more trouble!”

  “Probably,” Finn called over his shoulder.

  “You’re crazy!” She ducked into the hover with him before the doors closed. They held on to the safety bar as the hover whooshed down toward Launch Pad One.

  “Yep,” Finn said.

  Chapter 11: Technically Speaking—Totally Illegal

  Reggie stood next to the DUMP with his hands shoved in his pockets, as if it were just another day. The chaos of people frantically maneuvering around debris and running from one ComBoard to another seemed to never affect Reggie, but their frantic orders shouted across the dock bay conveyed a true sense of urgency.

  “Hey,” Reg said as Finn reached him. Mikayla followed right behind.

  “Reg!” Finn had run all the way from the hover, mostly to try to lose Mikayla, but she’d managed to keep up. “I need to borrow a DUMP, but I’m locked out of all the security codes. Will you help me?”

  “Where we going?”

  “To. The. Anomaly.” Low on patience, he frowned at Reggie’s lack of excitement. “If that thing is silicone-based, we can get a sample and find out some more information. Will you take me?”

  “That is not going to happen.” Mikayla crossed her arms and stepped between the boys. “Until my dad and his team can do some more scans, no one is cleared to leave the Space Station.”

  Finn pushed her out of the way. “So, will you take me?” he asked again.

  Reg thought for a moment. “Sure.”

  “No way! You can’t just steal a DUMP and take a joyride to the anomaly. You’d be breaking about a million Vortex rules!” Mikayla grabbed their arms, but Finn
yanked his away.

  “Yeah,” Reg said. “We’ll probably get in trouble.”

  “No doubt about it,” Finn said.

  “Sure, I’ll take you.” Reg didn’t hesitate this time.

  “You two are crazy.” Mikayla threw her hands in the air.

  “Let’s go.” Finn ignored Mikayla’s mini temper tantrum.

  He followed Reg into the shiny new DUMP without a second look from anyone but Mikayla, who stood riveted at the opening, so angry Finn thought her head might pop off. He smiled at the vision and waved at her, hoping it would be enough to make her head burst off her body like an angry zit.

  Mikayla suddenly lunged toward the closing door, managing to slip through it with seconds to spare.

  “I’m going too.” Mikayla’s commanding voice reminded Finn of his mother's and he gave an involuntary shudder.

  “Oh no, you’re not.” Finn’s voice cracked.

  “Oh yes, I am.” Mikayla leaned into his face and gave him the eye. “I’m going.”

  “No way,” Finn said.

  “Yes. I. Am.” Mikayla stood there, hands on hips, looking more like a lioness than a girl.

  Finn tried to stand his ground, but Mikayla reminded him too much of his mom when she got really angry.

  “Why do you want to go?” Finn looked away from Mikayla’s glare. “We’re just stupid Diggers looking for trouble.”

  “Because,” she said as she moved away and began to strap in, “without me, you’ll just mess it up. You two don’t know the first thing about making discoveries.”

  Finn thought about protesting the injustice of her unfair assumptions, but the look on her face made the hair rise on the back of his neck, so he kept his mouth shut.

  “Let’s get going,” Reggie said, and the DUMP rumbled to life.

  Finn scanned the launch pad for signs of anyone who might try to stop them, but everyone scrambled around, too busy trying to solve a one crisis or another to worry about why a DUMP was leaving.