by Erik Hyrkas
“Lady Luna and Lord Sol,” a high-pitched voice said from behind Brit. The voice was nearly identical to the creature who had destroyed the enkeli.
“Lord Jumala,” the enkeli destroyer said.
Brit kept her eyes low, but in her peripheral vision she noticed that the two creatures before her had lost their vaguely human shape and become blobs that hugged the ground. Brit first speculated that this was some form of greeting, but then when Jumala came into her peripheral view as well, she noted that he remained tall and both of the other creatures quivered, two pools of gelatin in an earthquake.
“I apologize for being late,” he said. “I had matters to attend to with my son.” He paused, standing in front of the two blobs for a moment, then said, “You may rise.”
Brit was unsure which of the creatures in front of her was Luna and which Sol. She found their undulating forms mesmerizing and stared in amazement as their flesh became less translucent and transitioned to a shade of deep green. Slowly they rose and took on the form of kneeling creatures. The creatures radiated a green glow. Recovering her senses, she looked down at the ground.
“Lord Jumala, here is your payment for the souls,” the enkeli destroyer said. From the flesh of its hand, a shiny metallic cube the size of a tennis ball emerged.
Jumala raised a hand in the direction of the cube, and it flew to him. He casually plucked it from the air. “Thank you, Lord Sol. You also owe me restitution for the destruction of my property.” Jumala gestured at the ash on the ground that had recently been an enkeli.
“Allow me,” said Luna. She produced a metallic cube identical to the one that Sol had produced, except that it was considerably smaller—approximately the size of a six-sided die. “This should more than cover the cost of the disrespectful slave.” She gestured at Brit. “We’d also like to purchase the human.”
“The human?” Jumala said, sounding as if he hadn’t noticed that there was such a thing. He turned toward Brit and studied her intently. “I do not sell my slaves.” The small cube shot out of Luna’s hand and to Jumala. “I will arrange for a fresh human to be sent to you.”
“Thank you, Lord Jumala,” Luna said.
Sol rose and picked up the bin of souls that Brit had set down, and together the two lords boarded their ship. Waves of force and burbling emitted from the ship as it rose steadily upward. In moments, it was too high to see.
“Why is there a human delivering product?” Jumala asked the enkeli who had been silent throughout the ordeal.
“Captain Raguel ordered it, my Lord” he said with a gesture to the ash.
Brit instantly recognized the enkeli who had spoken. It was Adriel.
“Then I guess Raguel was lucky he died before I found out,” Jumala said. “Only enkelis shall ever interact with lords. Send this one to the mines.” He let out a sigh. “Now I’ll have the other lords pestering me for live humans for the next hundred years. The moment a fragile human left the atmosphere it would be killed and I’d be dealing with an angry mob of lords wanting refunds.”
“Yes, my Lord,” Adriel said. He was still kneeling and didn’t look up.
Jumala walked away, and after a long moment, Adriel stood. He nudged the ash with his foot. Buried deep within it was an ilo. Adriel bent and retrieved it.
“As I thought,” he whispered. He tucked the device into a seam in his suit and turned to Brit. “You may rise.”
Brit stood but did not look at Adriel.
“Follow me,” he said.
He led her to the room that Marcy was in. Adriel ordered her to follow him, and both human’s obeyed. He continued to lead them through the massive building, then outside to another building, the one with the statue of the man nailed to a pole. Then he walked to the door with an image of Hunter cowering in the corner. Brit noticed that Peter was still sitting in the dark in the next room over, looking serene and untroubled.
When the door opened. Hunter gasped and covered his eyes.
“It hurts,” he croaked.
Brit remembered that he had been punished with not only a prison of darkness and solitude but also with only enough water and food to survive so that he would be perpetually hungry and thirsty.
“Help him up,” Adriel ordered.
Marcy and Brit helped Hunter stand. He was considerably thinner than he had been, all skin and bones, and the remnants of his clothes hung loosely on him. Brit noticed that there were sections of cloth that had been stripped away, and she wondered if he had tried to eat them.
Adriel touched the halo on Hunter’s forehead, and it gave a brief glow, acknowledging his gesture. He then repeated this on Marcy’s halo, and then Brit’s. She felt no different, and even when it emitted light, she didn’t feel warmth.
“Do not speak and follow me,” he said.
Brit knew that Marcy hadn’t spoken in years, and Hunter seemed too parched to speak. Hunter could barely walk, and Brit and Marcy struggled to help him.
Adriel led them to another building, one that Brit recognized. This was the building that contained the soul harvesting cycle. He led them to the room where new souls were brought in to be separated. Those souls not meeting some criteria were destroyed, while others went on to be sold.
“He will recover,” Adriel said with a gesture toward Hunter. “It may take time. For now, the three of you will weigh souls. New slaves may rotate through the open spot, but send the others on for now. When he is strong enough, then the three of you may continue to the cycle together.”
“Thank you, Captain Adriel,” Brit said.
He walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Marcy knelt, held the cross that dangled from her neck, and bowed her head briefly after every transition of the fourth person at their table. She didn’t speak or hum or make any other sound. Brit had hoped that when Adriel freed Hunter he also reinstated Marcy’s ability to speak, but whether she was unable or forgot, it was not apparent and Brit was afraid to ask.
Hunter sat covering his eyes and softly moaning. The station required sight to sort the disks, and there was nothing he could do. After a few dozen slaves had transitioned through the fourth spot, she had asked him if he could see. He had pulled away his fingers from his eyes briefly, but he only moaned more.
As she studied him, Brit noticed that he had the occasional gray hairs mixed in with his brown curly beard hair, which had now reached the middle of his chest. The hair on his head was not as curly, but it too reached the middle of his back, giving him a hippy look. There were the faintest signs of wrinkles on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. He had definitely aged, even though he had probably spent much less time in the mines than she had.
She returned to sorting, but she glanced at Hunter repeatedly, noticing changes in his physical appearance. He was not bone-thin anymore. Much of his original muscle had come back, despite his exercise since escaping solitary being little more than moaning and rocking in his seat. Brit imagined what good their halos might do if put to good rather than enslavement, though she doubted they would ever be fashionable on Earth.
Brit wanted to transition like the other slaves and to find her way back to the mine, but neither Hunter or Marcy were pulling their own weight at the station and she was afraid that, if she left them behind, eventually some guard would notice and punish both of them. She couldn’t take them with her to the next stations because some required sight, and Hunter was certainly in no fit state to attempt them. On Earth, she had disliked Hunter, and she didn’t feel any sudden warm feelings for him now; but if he was punished again and it was because she didn’t prevent it, it would be on her conscience.
After another dozen cycles, Hunter stopped moaning and pulled his hands away from his face.
Brit looked over at him, and his eyes were darting around in her general direction as if searching for something that he couldn’t quite find.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Fuck no,” he said. “But I am feeling a little bet
ter. I can see blurry colors and shadows. The excruciating pain of the light is more like the dull burning you feel after getting shampoo in your fucking eyes.”
Shampoo. Brit couldn’t remember the last time she had showered and reached up to feel her hair. It felt soft but wasn’t matted or gross. She ran her fingers through the strands, and they moved easily. The sensation was pleasant. She observed for the first time that her hair fell to her mid back, the same length she could always remember it being. Some of those hair strands were gray. When the slave working alongside her cleared his throat, she remembered that she was responsible for doing most of the work for three people.
More slaves transitioned, and Hunter began reaching for disks, touching them and sorting them. Brit kept an eye on him, watching for any missteps. But at this station, the work was merely a matter of sorting those disks that glowed from those that didn’t, and he made no mistakes that she noticed. Not for the first time, she wondered why some souls glowed while others did not. She remembered that each of the millions of disks she had touched represented the memory of human lives, and it was this station where they would be initially judged to have value for others to then witness some small portion of those lives or be destroyed and forgotten.
Marcy began to pray again.
“I think that I know you,” Hunter said.
Brit saw Hunter looking at Marcy. “She is Marcy,” Brit said. “She came with us here. She was Aiden’s wife. Do you remember Aiden?”
Hunter nodded. “I remember him. I think of him sometimes. It was my fault.”
Marcy let a small sob out. The first sound Brit had heard her make in ages. She opened her mouth and indistinct sounds came out as she cried.
“You can open your mouth!” Brit said.
“Why wouldn’t she be able to open her mouth?” Hunter asked.
“Shortly after we arrived here, she was…muted,” Brit said. “She wasn’t able to open her mouth to speak.”
“The people here are dicks,” Hunter said.
The slave sitting with them looked stricken. “Do not speak of our masters in such a tone! If she was muted it was because she was disrespectful. The punishment always fits the crime.”
Hunter glared at the slave, who was nearly twice as big as he was. “Fuck. That.”
In one swift motion, the slave backhanded Hunter so hard that he tumbled back off his seat. Hunter rose slowly, blood coming out of his mouth.
“Show respect,” the slave demanded.
Another round of slaves arrived.
“We should transition,” Brit said. “We’ve been at this station for a long time now, and it seems that you can see well enough.”
Hunter glared at the slave who had challenged him, and the newcomers stood stalk still, sensing the tension and trying to decide what was happening.
Brit tugged on Hunter’s arm, and he looked down at her, sighed, and then nodded.
The three of them left the sorting table for the last time.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Brit had remembered how to perform each simple task at each of the stations, hoping that Marcy and Hunter would be able to make their way through without falling behind. The regurgitation chamber was as putrid as she remembered, and the soul capturing station was equally frantic and heart wrenching. She would never forget the screams of the infants. Finally, she stepped onto the platform to be transported to the mine.
She stood there in the fresh air, looking across the fifty yards to the other mine entrance searching the mass of people for the one person she wanted to see. Despite it being years since seeing the grassy hills, tall trees, or the burbling stream, she took in none of the beauty. She had always known that, when this moment came that she would see Jax at the other mine entrance, he would wave to her like no time had passed.
The disappointment was staggering. The possibility that he wouldn’t be there had not even crossed her mind. She saw now how unlikely it was that they would be on the same cycle schedule now, but she couldn’t imagine any other possibility.
Marcy arrived behind her, made a soft sound, and pulled on her arm. Brit didn’t move, despite Marcy’s insistent attempts to move her, until Hunter arrived.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
“Jax is always over there at the same time I appear here,” she answered.
“Well, if we don’t get fucking moving, we’re going to be in solitary for the rest of our existence,” he said.
Then images of Jax in solitary confinement crossed her mind. What if, when she hadn’t appeared, he had tried to cross the distance between here and there and was knocked unconscious and woke up in one of the cells that Hunter had been sentenced to? The possibility was crushing.
Hunter handed Brit a chisel for mining and a bin.
“We need to mine,” he said.
She followed Hunter and Marcy reluctantly into the mine and out of the sunlight. Once in the dimmer light of the mine, Brit began to plan. She decided that she would help Marcy and Hunter get to the cave, and then she would continue her search for Jax. If he was in solitary, maybe she could find a way to rescue him once they had help.
When they came to the turn to her secret passage, she whispered to her friends, “This way.”
They both looked at her.
“That’s not where the vaalia is,” Hunter said.
Brit looked desperately at Hunter and glanced at the other slaves to see if they noticed that the three of them were standing when they should have been walking to the elevator.
“Please, follow me,” she said. “There is plenty down this way.”
Hunter squinted at her, then nodded. Marcy was trembling uncontrollably and Hunter had to pull her along as they went into the dark. He pulled a small LED flashlight on a keychain out of his pocket and shined it into the dark.
Brit found the half-globe light she had hidden away, and they used it to find the cave, which was right where she remembered it.
Hunter looked into the dark cave. “What the hell is in there?”
“It’s a safe place,” Brit said. “We don’t have to be slaves anymore.”
“If we don’t get back with a load of vaalia soon, we’re going to end up in solitary,” Hunter said. “I never want to go back.”
“We can hide here,” Brit said. “There are other slaves who have escaped and they are living in these caves.”
“You need to understand,” Hunter said. “They aren’t going to kill us if they catch us. We’ll spend eternity suffering, and nothing you do will allow you to kill yourself. Believe me, I tried.”
Marcy was making moaning sounds and trembling even worse than before.
“It’s okay,” Brit said and put an arm around Marcy.
“No it fucking isn’t,” Hunter said. “Every second we spend here is another second we aren’t doing what we are fucking supposed to do.”
“Don’t you understand,” Brit said. “This cave leads to freedom. I spent years digging to it and marking the passageways.”
“Maybe you forgot about these,” Hunter said, and he tapped his halo. “If they realize we are missing, they’ll zap our ass. They probably have some sort of GPS in them and they’ll find us.”
“They don’t work down here,” Brit said. “Notice how hungry you feel?”
Hunter felt his stomach with his hand. “You’re right. I am hungry. What the fuck are we going to eat if we go in there?”
“Like I said, there are other slaves living in there. They must have food,” Brit said.
“Even if being hungry means that the GPS stopped working, which I really doubt, how do you know we can eat the same food as the others? They look human, but they aren’t human,” Hunter said. “We might die in there.”
“Isn’t freedom worth dying for?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “But I don’t think it is freedom you are looking for.” He glared at her. “I think you are trying to find your way to Jax, and I think you are more likely to get us all
sent to solitary than to actually find a place to survive and be free.”
“I want to find him more than anything,” Brit said. She looked into Hunter’s eyes. “But I want freedom for all of us, too.”
“I would kill myself if I wasn’t sure this would stop me,” he said with a gesture at the halo. “The only freedom that I want is death. I don’t want to remember the things that I remember, and I don’t want to continue being miserable for eternity.”
“Down here, we age,” Brit said. “You would grow old here. Don’t kill yourself, though. We need you.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you need,” he said, and he turned to walk away. “I’m not going to end up in solitary again.”
“Please,” she said. “You owe me.”
“Why the hell do I owe you?”
“Because if it wasn’t for me, you’d still be in solitary,” she said. This was stretching the truth microscopically thin, stretching it to the tearing point. Adriel had chosen to free Hunter, but not until after Brit had been nearly sent off with a pair of lords, none of which she had control over. Adriel’s motive was completely unknown, but she had an inexplicable feeling that it was because of her.
“I seem to recall an enkeli letting me out of solitary,” Hunter said. “Whatever influence you had on him is deeply appreciated, but I don’t want to waste my second chance.”
Before Brit could say another word, Hunter ran down the tunnel and back to the mine.
“Damn!” Brit said.
Marcy looked after Hunter and took a step in that direction.
“Let him go,” Brit said. “After we find a safe place, we’ll figure out how to rescue him.”
Marcy slowly formed her next words. “I am scared,” she whispered in a cracked voice. Despite these being the first words she had spoken in many Earth years, Brit was able to distinguish them.
“Me, too,” Brit said.
Marcy held her throat as if it hurt. “Hide,” she whispered.
Brit nodded. “Let’s find a safe place.”
The markings that Brit had left behind Earth years before on the cave floor and walls were still there. They found their way to the underground river, and the X was still marked in the floor where she had once met the escaped slave, Avrox.