by Erik Hyrkas
She sighed, picked up an empty bin, and in the same way other slaves were, replaced a full bin with it. Then she carried that full bin of dark gray disks to the next room, which was the exact sorting room she had started in. She wondered how long she had been at this work, as she would wonder every time she returned to this room.
Years might have passed as she went from station to station, never sleeping, never eating, never resting. The whole time she tried to avoid looking at the screen that showed the tortured slaves. She had counted how many times she visited the sorting room until she reached four hundred, but sometime after that she forgot to count. Occasionally, she caught glimpses of the others: Marcy, Hunter, and most importantly Jax. Their clothing was much worse for wear over time, but she always knew when she saw another human even at a distance because of their Earthly clothing. Both Jax and Hunter had long beards that reached their chest the last time she caught a glimpse of them.
At one point, she had gone so long without speaking that, when another worker fell and she tried to ask if he was okay, she found that her voice barely worked. After that, she began the habit of softly singing old songs as she walked between stations or when she was alone to make sure her voice still worked.
She found that some details of her former life were starting to slip away, stupid stuff like the combination number to the office supply cabinet. But the realization that there were many details she couldn’t remember from her life was terrifying. She began rehearsing the things she did know, like Jax’s mobile number, their social security numbers, their address, the list of Jax’s favorite foods, and on and on. More than anything, she tried to keep a clear image of Jax’s face in her memory.
Most of the other slaves only talked when they had to, but there were a few who would talk. In fact, most of the slaves seemed beyond speech, and she suspected they were the ones who had been here the longest. Not one slave revealed their name to her, and she had taken to asking every time a slave spoke. She was sure that they each had been given names, but either they didn’t remember or refused to remember.
She didn’t know what hope there was of escaping, but each time she had visited the mine, she felt hungry and tired and, in some twisted way, more human. She was sure that, if she was going to escape, somehow it would be from the mine. She knew from experience that on the surface her halo was perfectly capable of jolting her unconscious, but she wondered if that was true when she reached the depths the slaves had dug for vaalia.
Each time, no matter which continent she collected souls for, she returned to the same mine. Each time she saw the gaunt faces of those imprisoned in solitary confinement, which she would avoid looking at. Instead, she would look across the short distance to the other mine and catch an occasional glimpse of Jax. They exchanged looks every time, and she knew that he longed for her as much as she longed for him.
It was with her desire to be with him that she always dug on the wall that she felt was in his direction. The mine entrances were fifty yards apart, but who knew how far apart they were at the deepest level or whether she was keeping her bearings. But she returned to the exact same spot each time and dug on the exact same bearing, even after new passages in the mine were opened and the other slaves no longer returned to that tunnel. She was required to return with vaalia, and it was sparse now that she was farther from the vein of it, but she only dug faster and with greater determination.
Eventually, there was no vaalia at all, and the light from the mine was getting far away. She was forced to dig for only twenty minutes before going to another shaft to mine her quota as fast as she could. She found that, with the use of her power chisel, she could dislodge the light from the wall and carry it with her. She would return it to the same spot each time so nobody noticed how long her tunnel was. No slave ever questioned her deviation from the line of slaves going to the current vein that everybody else was mining. No slave ever asked what she was doing. There was such a slim chance that she would intersect her tunnel with one from the Jax’s, but she was determined to try, and from everything she had been told she had all of eternity to dig.
She had two fears: Jax would somehow get killed before she could get to him or she would find a way to his mine and he wouldn’t recognize her or want her anymore.
After visiting that same tunnel hundreds of times, maybe even thousands, she finally broke through into a new passage. It took twenty more visits for the small hole to be large enough to crawl through safely, and when shining her light into it, she realized that it was a cave with uneven floors and no light, not a different mine. She didn’t lose hope of reaching Jax, but rather, she felt inspired. The fifty yards that had separated her from Jax might be considerably closer if she could navigate the cave to a point it intersected with the other mine.
Brit noticed a dark spot on her hand. She studied it a full five minutes without moving, and it slowly dawned on her that this spot was a liver spot. She was getting older and she still wasn’t any closer to her goal. She wondered how much older she was. How many years had gone by? How much of her life had she wasted on this wall, and would there still be enough time left to find Jax? Standing there looking at her hand wouldn’t get the job done, she told herself. She needed to keep moving, to keep trying.
Brit took to carefully exploring the cave. She marked the floors and walls at intervals using her chisel to make arrows leading back to the mine, and though she still could only explore for a few minutes at a time, she learned the caves better than she had learned any other building, even her own home from her youth. The cave was treacherous to explore, and often she’d leave with many scrapes and bruises after slipping or tripping. But she managed to avoid breaking any bones, which she was pretty sure would be a death sentence.
Everything changed on what had to have been her thousandth visit. She discovered an underground river, and she was able to walk along its shore in the direction she believed would take her to Jax’s mine. Not long after she began walking, she heard a voice.
“Don’t move,” a man said.
Brit froze. Had a guard finally caught her? She didn’t dare even turn to look to see who was addressing her. As she prepared to be killed, she pondered how close had she made it to Jax before this moment.
“How did you come to this place?” the voice asked.
Brit risked turning to see the speaker. He was a man, but unlike the guards who wore the black and gold wetsuits and the slaves who wore the napkin-sized loincloths, this man was wearing azure leather, possibly the skin of one of the creatures she had seen. He held a chisel similar to the one she held, but he brandished it like a weapon.
“Answer me!” he demanded.
“I discovered it while mining,” she said.
“You have a tool of a slave but not the garb,” he said. “Why is this?”
“I am from Earth,” she said. “I was not born here.”
“Only enkeli are born here,” the man said with a grin. “And even then, many of us were made elsewhere and only those who fell were sent here.” He studied her. “You will age here,” he said.
“Everybody ages,” she said.“Enkeli are immortal,” the man said. “You are human and only age slightly with each trip to the lower mine. You should return to the mine now while you have your youth.”
“I’m already aging,” she said. “I didn’t have this on my hand when I first came here.” She showed him the liver spot.
“You are only aging when you are too far from the power web,” he said. “You must have realized that you were outside of the power web by now or you would have been knocked unconscious for attempting to leave your duties. Even now, as you dally here, you risk death when you return without your quota of vaalia.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I am one of the escaped,” he said. “I am called Avrox by my friends.”
“I am Brit,” she said, and she held out her hand.
He looked at her hand in confusion. “I have nothing to give you.”
He held out his hand in the same way, and then he shook it left and right, almost like waving.
Brit repressed a laugh. “Grasp my hand,” she said.
He did, and then she gently shook his hand, which he then took to mean that he should do the same and he shook her whole arm vigorously.
Brit burst out laughing.
“What? I shook your hand as you requested,” he said with a note of irritation.
“Yes, you did,” she said. “I have to return soon or, as you pointed out, I won’t have time to get my vaalia quota. You said that you are one of the escaped. Are there more of you?”
“Only a few of us,” he said. “We are the ones who dug far enough to find this cave. We’ve survived here for centuries without the notice of the masters. You must swear not to reveal us.”
“I swear,” she said. “I will return on my next visit to the mine.”
“You should not,” he said. “You are too far from the power web here, and you will certainly age and eventually die. Stay as close the mine lift as you can. It is still powered.”
“Living forever as a slave is not really living,” she said.
“This cave isn’t freedom,” he said. “It is simply a new type of cage. Return now, while you can.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I must find my husband,” Brit said. “I can see him enter a different mine only fifty yards from mine.”
“Husband,” the man said, as if pondering the word. “I have seen one like you before,” he said.
“Is her name Marcy?” she asked.
“I do not know your Marcy,” he said. “Return to this place on your next rotation through the stations, and I will take you to the other one like you. You must hurry or you will be punished for your delay.”
Brit glared at him. “I’ve got to find Jax.”
“You’ve got to live,” he said. “I don’t know that the food we eat is even suitable for humans, and I am quite certain that, without your halo, time will kill you if the food does not.”
She growled in frustration. “I don’t care if I age as long as I find Jax. I’ll eat pretty much anything.”
“I am going to return to the others,” he said. He gouged an X on the floor with his chisel. “I will meet you here.”
He dashed into the darkness, leaping over a pile of rocks and out of sight. Brit watched the darkness of that passage for another long moment before letting out a sigh. She carefully retraced her steps back to mine and the spot she had left her bin.
To her surprise, her bin was already full of vaalia. Somebody had helped her. Was it Avrox? She couldn’t imagine who else would have guessed her bucket was even here. She picked it up and returned to the surface.
The sun was above the horizon in the same place it had been for dozens of trips. She remembered back to when she had arrived in the predawn of her first day. How many Earth years had passed now? It felt like a hundred, but she remembered somebody once saying that it took a hundred years for one day to pass. Maybe ten years had passed. She was no longer in her twenties, even though she still looked like a twenty-seven-year-old.
She returned her chisel and took the transporter back to the sorting room to begin her final cycle. She knew this was her final cycle because she would choose to starve to death in that cave rather than returning even once more.
“Brit! I didn’t know you were in this cycle,” Hunter said. He was already sitting at the sorting table. “Glad to see another human!”
“Hunter?” she asked in disbelief.
“Have you seen Marcy?” he asked.
If the other slaves at the sorting table cared about what they were talking about, they showed no interest.
“Not in a long time,” Brit said. “I never had the chance to thank you.”
“For what?” he said.
“Back when we first arrived,” she said, “you saved the rest of us from that creature.”
“Honestly, I think it probably wouldn’t have hurt me if I hadn’t jumped on it,” he said. “You’ve seen those things returning with the souls. I don’t think they eat people.”
“What do you think they eat?” Brit asked.
“Not sure, but I suspect that they are given some sort of food reward for fetching the souls,” he said.
“Well, whatever they eat, it’s pretty gross,” she said.
“Yeah, really fucking gross,” he agreed. “I’ve been in the cycle with Marcy for a while now. She isn’t looking too good.”
“Where is she?” Brit asked.
“She finished her sorting when I arrived,” he said. “She won’t speak to me.”
“I don’t think she can speak,” Brit said. “The masters did something to her when we arrived because she spoke out of turn.”
“She can’t speak at all?” He looked stunned. “What a bunch of fucking pricks,” he said.
“Careful,” one of the slaves said. “Do not speak ill of the masters.” The slave pointed to the screen on the wall with a tortured slave banging his frail hands against a blank wall.
“I’ll say whatever the fuck I want to about them. Besides, they can’t hear us,” he said.
“For your lack of respect, an example must be made of you,” said a guard from the entry.
Hunter was tall and muscular for a human, but the guard was much bigger and was certainly not human. Hunter stood and looked up at the guard, appraising him. Brit was sure that he was trying to decide how to inflict maximum pain or even kill the guard, but she could see no way that he could win a fight with the guard.
The guard smirked. “Kneel, human.”
Hunter grasped his forehead, where the halo touched his skin. He gritted his teeth as if battling a great pain, but he did not kneel.
The guard growled. “Kneel!”
Hunter let out a defiant scream, but still he kept his feet. “Never,” he shouted.
“You will feel different after a few days in the dark, slave,” the guard said.
Hunter fell face first to the ground, clearly knocked unconscious by his halo, in much the same way Brit knew she had been the time she had attempted to run to Jax.
“Carry him,” the guard said to Brit and the other slaves.
Brit and the other two slaves carefully lifted Hunter.
“Follow me,” the guard said.
They followed him down a corridor Brit remembered once taking many years ago. It led to an entranceway and to the city. She had only seen the city on her first day when brought to the slave cycle.
Hunter remained unconscious and completely dead weight, but the two other slaves helping Brit were strong and seemed to show no sign the task was remotely difficult.
They carried him out of the building and into the daylight. People were walking briskly, all clearly with places to be and no time to get there, down the road in different directions. The buildings were exactly how she remembered them. They were low by human standards, but still large and rather plain.
None of the people seemed to take even the slightest notice that they were carrying an unconscious person.
They approached a building with a white stone statue of a man nailed to a single tall post. His hands were above him, like he was pressing his palms together as if he were hearing the 80s tune “Walk Like an Egyptian,” except the post was between his hands and large spikes clearly protruded from his flesh. He had a look of pain on his face and a halo on his forehead. There was a plaque below the figure, but Brit could not read the symbols.
The guard noticed her looking at the statue. “Human, do you recognize this man?”
She shook her head and looked anywhere but at the guard.
“Jumala’s son, Hanen, Lord of the planet Ilthunithia, took refuge on Earth after losing his position to a group of more powerful lords from Xixionica. Jumala let him hide there, despite the fact he had decreed no lords should ever interfere with or talk to the humans again.” He
pointed at the statue. “Hanen bioengineered a human son who was born of a human teenage woman. The child, born of the virgin, was respectfully named after Jumala, but that child, realizing who his grandfather was, started whipping up a following on Earth. Jumala does not put up with anybody’s shit, not even from his grandson. There haven’t been any sane lords to disobey our Lord’s orders.”
“Sane lords?” Brit asked.
The guard squinted at her. “There have been a few dozen lesser beings who have tried to whip up a following, but they lack the power and common sense to actually do anything. Jumala usually lets the humans kill them.”
“Aren’t the lords immortal?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Unless they are killed. The Elder Lords have made themselves invulnerable, and our Lord Jumala is the most powerful and wisest of them all. He has dominion over Earth and all humans, which is why he made us, his enkelis, in the likeness of humans.” The guard spat. “Not that we are as weak or fragile as humans, and we’d never make fools of ourselves for the entertainment of others.”
The guard led them into the building. Hunter remained unconscious until they were ordered to carry him into a dark cell at the end of a row of dark cells. On the outside of each door was a video showing the inside of the room. Some people in the cells felt the walls as if they were unable to see but searching for a way out. Some made tormented thrashing motions and their mouths were open in screams. Others sat huddled in a corner shaking or were lying prone and quite still. One man stood out among the row of prisoners. He sat peacefully in the middle of the room. She knew his face. It was Peter, the reason they were here. Apparently, he had found his way into the custody of the same people who held Brit and her friends.
The cells had no windows or lights, no bed or other amenities. This led Brit to believe that, despite the videos making the rooms look dimly lit, they were in fact without any light and it was some form of colorized night vision that gave the videos the illusion of light.