The Reaper Diaries # 16: Redemption, Part 7
19 Nov 2015Michael Wolfe
The first thing I felt was a rock floor. A cold, wet, rough rock floor. I was laying face-down on it, feeling it press against my cheeks and hands. Then- sounds. People’s voices. I willed my eyes to open. The world was fuzzy at first, but as my eyes focused, I could make out two shapes. Shoes.
There was a pair of shoes next to my face. Little shoes.
Katie’s shoes.
I looked up, and there she was. Katie. Sitting in front of me, holding a candle.
But not just her. I was surrounded by several slave miners, emaciated-looking men and women- and a few other children. I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t get up too quick, son. You’ve been out for a long time. “
Rolling onto my back- which still really hurt from the rifle-butting and kick it had sustained- I was able to find out who was talking to me. An older man had been hunched over me. He was dirty and had a drawn, haggard look to him- but he had kind eyes and a concerned look on his face.
“How long have I been out?” I asked.
“The better part of a day” he replied. “Hits to the head are nasty. You might have a concussion, but if you’ve woken up, then the worst is over.”
He reached set a small metal bowl of watery brown liquid in front of me. “You’d better eat this. It isn’t much and it tastes like shit, but it’s all the sustenance you’re going to get for awhile. They don’t feed you unless you work.”
I picked it up and placed it to my lips. Taking a sip, it-
Blech.
It did taste like shit. Someone was feeding these people ground-up, watered-down ship rations- the old, cheap kind that doesn’t even try to have any flavor.
“Thanks.”
The old man stood up and helped me to my feet. “I’m Mitchell. I’ve been here the longest, so the others look to me.”
We shook. “I’m Ma- Virgil.”
Mitchell gestured towards Katie. “This little one hasn’t left your side since her shift ended. She’s been with you for hours now. Are you kin?”
I looked at her. She was still staring at me, as though she hadn’t fully decided if I could be trusted yet.
“No. She’s- it’s complicated.”
I staggered up to Katie and dropped down to one knee. “Are you ok?”
She looked me in the eye and nodded.
An older woman put her arms around Katie from behind. “This little one doesn’t say much. Just swings a pick, helps with the meals, and curls up to sleep. We think she might be simple.”
Standing back up, I looked at the woman who was holding Katie. She had a look that suggested that under any other circumstances, she would be a fat old grandmother who spoiled her grandchildren. But she wasn’t- her face was as sunken as everyone else’s, and her eyes almost as desperate.
“She isn’t. She’s just been through a lot.”
Mitchell walked up and placed the bowl of gruel back into my hand. “We all have, son. But there will be time enough for questions later. The next shift starts in five hours. I know you’ve been out for awhile, but it’s a good idea to get some sleep. There's plenty of blankets”- he pointed to a pile of old, filthy moving covers- “…but it’s best to huddle up. Adults with adults, and children with children. It’s about body heat. If you can avoid catching cold, you live longer.”
Mitchell and the older woman were already starting to lay down together under a blanket. I must have had a reluctant look on my face. He looked up at me and shook his head.
“There’s no room for modesty down here, lad. “
There was no way I could just curl up and go to sleep. I had to figure out a plan.
“I’m not tired.” I raised the bowl of gruel. “And thanks.”
He nodded. “Suit yourself, newcomer. Welcome to the pit.”
I looked around for Katie. She wasn’t far away, and was already under a blanket herself, in-between a boy and another girl. I walked by her, and saw her follow me with her eyes. I took a blanket from the pile- it was cold in the mine- and settled down a short distance from her.
The other two children were asleep. Katie was still staring at me. I tried to smile.
“I came a long way to find you.”
Katie smiled. Just a little.
“As long as I’m down here, I’m going to try to find a way to escape.”
Her smile vanished. Frowning slightly, she laid down and pulled the blanket almost over her head. Underneath, I heard what sounded like sniffs. Crying, probably.
Well, so much for making her feel better.
I pulled the blanket over me. Maybe getting some shuteye is a good idea. You have no idea what’s in store for you.
I wrapped myself in the blanket and laid down. The ground was still cold. And hard. And damp.
I’m never bitching about a ship bunk again.
**********************************************
“Wakie- wakie, pretty-boy. “
I opened my eyes to see the same guard who had knocked me out standing over me, legs spread and rifle held over one shoulder. He dropped a pickaxe by my side, almost hitting my face.
“Time to go to work. Your quota is three carts of ore. You fill it, haul it up to the top, and the nice man by the lift puts a check next to your name. Three checks and you eat that day. Less and you don’t. If you’re late, no check. If the cart ain’t filled to the top, no check. If we catch someone helping you, no check. For either.”
The burly roughneck started to walk away, and then turned around. “I almost forgot.”
He tossed a pair of pills onto my chest. “These are your lungs. You take these, and you can breathe in the thin air. If you don’t, you’ll be gasping like a fish after five minutes of swinging a pick.”
I picked them up and held them in my hand. They were small, white, and looked homemade.
“And if you don’t get three marks, you don’t get no pills the next day, either. The line’s forming up. Get on the tram, find a spot by an empty cart, and start swinging. Get with it!”
Struggling to my feet, I popped the pills, and tried my best to swallow them. It was hard- I didn’t have much saliva. I grabbed my pickaxe and walked over to behind Mitchell.
“Where the hell is the water?”
We stated walking towards the tram. It was automated, and would take us to the dig site. “You get a ration twice a day. Drink it all when you get it. You can’t take it with you.”
Great.
I was transported on a hover- tram towards the dig site. It was much further into the mine than I had anticipated. Once there, I beheld several long tunnels, all lit with work industrial work lights. I stayed in line, and collected a hardhat and flashlight from a giant rack. A guard was standing by them noticed me.
“Fresh meat, eh? Find a cart that no one is using and start breaking up ore. Fill it to the top, and take it up that elevator to the surface“- he pointed towards a light and a door in the rock wall- “Once you’re up top, put it on the scale. Wait for your mark, and get back down. When the shift is done done, return your hard hat and get back on the tram.”
There must have been dozens of miners down there. I had to go pretty far out to find a cart that wasn’t occupied. Well, how hard could three cartfuls be? I took a swing, and
Tink!
Nothing. I hadn’t even scratched the surface of the cave wall.
Oh, shit.
The slave next to me must have noticed my flight suit. “It’s a little different when you ain’t got industrial lasers doing the work for you, huh?”
I took another swing. Harder, this time. I was rewarded with a few loose rocks.
“Shut up.”
***********************************************
Thirteen hours.
Thirteen hours it took me to fill three carts with enough ore to get my three checks next to my name at the weigh station on the surface. It was a good thing, too, because I barely made the cutoff for when the shift ended.
Needless to say, I was exhausted. Finally sitting down on the tram felt amazing. I could barely walk, and my hands were bloody messes from the newly- formed blisters from all the swinging. Mitchell sat down next to me and looked down at my hands.
“Wash your hands and put some clean rags around them. Try to wrap them before tomorrow’s shift, or they’ll be even worse. You don’t want them to get infected.”
I looked at him. This was the second time in two days he had given me advice. “You a doctor or something?”
He didn’t look back at me, just straight ahead. “Yes, once. Before I spoke out against corruption in the Federation backwater. I had been on a humanitarian mission to a remote Federal world, working for Felicia Winters’ organization in the early days. The conditions there were terrible. Much like here.” He looked around at the dark, stony ceilings that were moving by us.
“So what happened?”
Mitchell smiled. His eyes lost a bit of their kindness, and now only looked sad and regretful. “Idealistic naivety. The others and I thought we could help the local community with an outbreak of yellow fever, but the local Federal marshal seized our medical supplies. They’re worth a fortune on the black market, especially the medicine. Appeals to the law that far out were useless- he was the law- and the other members of my team knew to not cross him.”
We hit a bump, and Mitchell adjusted his seating. “I, of course, foolishly threatened to report him to sector authority. I thought my seniority might sway him to return the supplies so that we could help his people. That very night, I was bound, blindfolded, and dragged from my bed by some of his deputies. They forced me into a stasis pod, and”- he smiled bitterly- “My medical career was over, along with any hope of freedom. I woke up in the middle of a slaver’s camp, light years away from Federation space. That was ten years ago.”
He looked up at me and sighed. “Since then, I’ve been bought and sold a dozen times, and now here I am, though I don’t expect that I’ll be leaving this place.”
We were approaching the slave’s living area. “I would have thought that being a doctor would be worth more than being just another axe-swinger.”
Mitchell nodded. “It was, at first. For the first four years or so, I was put to work caring for other slaves, and sometimes even my captors.” He sighed again and rubbed his eyes. “But I didn’t find any satisfaction in my work. Every time I saved someone, what was I saving them for? A longer life of misery and servitude? Of being a brutal oppressor? So I stopped telling people that I’m a doctor.”
The tram stopped, and we got off. Jesus. My feet hurt, too.
“It was simpler that way. I was no longer a party to further extending other people’s suffering. I was free, in a way- free to just be no one.”
Katie was already at the slave’s area, next to a table. She was ladling cups of the brown rationwater into the small metal bowls that the slaves ate out of.
“Surely, they don’t work the kids the same as us?”
Mitchell looked over at her. “The children do their part. They mine, too, but not as long. Usually, they distribute the food and water.”
We proceeded in a single file line to the table. There was a crude, handwritten name next to each bowl and cup of water- the names of those who had met their quota for the day. Not everyone had met theirs, and a small handful of desperate-looking slaves stared intently at us.
Mitchell placed his hand on my arm. “If you have a shred of decency within you, save a few sips of food and water. Most of us do, and then we pool our leftovers so that all may eat and drink. It’s our way of taking care of each other.”
I nodded, and went to sit down by myself. Katie was still serving. Like usual, she didn’t say a word or look people in the eye.
Jesus. How the hell am I going to get out of this one?
You ain’t. That’s the point.
Giving the slaves a few hours to themselves every day might seem like a kindness, but it really isn’t. We were always hungry, always thirsty, always tired, always cold- and the mind wanders to terrible places in situations like that. Even with the guards being as brutal as they were, the mine wasn’t even that violent of a place. It couldn’t have been. No one had the strength or the spirit to raise their hand against a guard, and doing so would have meant certain death. Even the guards’ first job wasn’t to brutalize the slaves- it was to keep them swinging a pickaxe so that the mine’s quota of ore was brought to the surface.
I wanted to walk up to Katie and say something- but what? What could I realistically promise her? What could I say that would make a damn bit of difference?
Well, at least the cold wasn’t much of a problem. My flight suit was pretty tough- it had been designed to keep me alive in a vacuum, which meant that the thin layer of insulation gel could hoard body heat if the temperature called for it. So there was that.
I quickly downed my watery meal, saving just a bit like Mitchell had said. Same for my water- there wasn’t enough for even me, not compared to what my body was screaming for.
I set the cup and bowl away from me, and curled up in a blanket. As tired as I was, I just didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Even Katie. No matter. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other, I thought cynically.
My pickaxe was next to me, blood stains on the handle from where it had rubbed my soft pilot hands raw all day.
I’m never making fun of ship-based miners again. They’ve got it figured out.
I laid down to sleep. The ground was just as hard as before.
And bunks. Again with the ship bunks- I’d even take a nosedive into Goddamn Hell-Bitch’s rack right now, weird smells and all. And I’d do it with a smile.
In the dark, I chuckled to myself.
Never thought the day would come when you’d be thinking that, did you, Matt?
**************************************************
I lost my flight suit the next morning.
“Wakie-wakie, pretty boy.”
Same guard. Same spread-leg pose over me. Same goddamn annoying greeting.
“The boss likes that pretty black getup you’ve got there, and there ain’t no use for it in these mines. Put these on. And don’t be long.”
A pile of heavy clothes landed next to my head, along with my pills. They were thick, brown, and heavy… and filthy.
Well, they’ll keep me alive. I guess.
I tore some strips of fabric to wrap around my hands. They hurt, but they didn’t get the skin rubbed off of them like the day before. This time, I tried to pay more attention to my surroundings.
Long, poorly-lit tunnel to the work area.
Lots of different dead-end caves with picks and shovels.
A single elevator that leads to the surface.
Guards at every entrance.
If I make a run for it without getting my pills, I’ve got maybe five minutes of running time. On a world where going too far away from the terrformers means asphyxiation.Or death from the cold.
And even if I got to my ship, I’d need do everything really gentle. I’m out a flight suit, and I don’t exactly have time to change.
Thirteen hours of swinging a pickaxe and looking around didn’t yield any plausible escape plans. I did get another bowl of gruel. This time, it was blue-ish.
Katie still didn’t say anything to me, even though I tried to talk to her. She sat by me while we drank up our meals, though. After that, she followed me around while I made small talk with Mitchell.
That night, when we all bedded down, Katie still huddled up with the two other children. But she was a little closer to me. I myself now had two blankets around me (it was a lot colder in miner gear, no matter how many layers you added). Like before, I was curling up by myself. Yeah, I was cold, but I wasn't spooning-with-geriatrics-cold. Just before I set my head down on the wad of blanket I was using as a pillow, I mouthed “good night” to her.
It might have been my imagination, but I swear she smiled and mouthed it back.
*********************************
“Wakie wakie, pretty boy.”
Jesus. Does this guy ever let up?
I sat up, feeling like death. The cavern was dark, and everyone else was still asleep. From what my body was telling me, I had only been asleep for a few hours. Behind him were other hunched-over figures. I recognized a few of them as miners who hadn’t filled their quota.
“What the hell do you want?”
The guard ripped off my blankets and gave me kick in the gut.
Ow.
“Get your arse up, flyboy. New slaver’s just arrived and unloaded some stock. Now we’ve got more bodies than we have clothes for ‘em, and Smitty’s tired of watching you swing a pick on the cams.”
I struggled to my feet. “C’mon, I was just settling in! So, you’re going to hand over my ship, and we part ways as gentlemen, right?”
He laughed in a slow, guttural way that reminded me of Squigly. “You’re even dumber than you look. Nah, mate- it’s garden duty from here on for the lot of you.”
That sounds ominous.
“Sorry pal, I ain’t much good with a rake.”
He prodded me with his rifle. “Go on. Get in line.”
I fell into place behind the other unfortunates. “Where are we going?”
More guttural laughter. “End of the line, mate. You’re finished.”
From behind him, I heard a woman’s voice. “Couldn’t have said it better myself!”
ZAM!
A flash of bright light illuminated the mine. The guard stumbled forward, looked behind him in shock, and knocked us both to the ground as he collapsed on top of me. The hole from the pistol blast was still burning a purplish, glowing hole inside what was his chest cavity. Immediately, it smelled like plasma residue and scorched flesh.
What the hell is going on?
A slender female silhouette stood over me and spoke in a familiar voice. “You gonna lay there all day, or are we gonna finish this?”
It can’t be. My eyes adjusted to the dark again, and-
No fucking way.
I stood up. “What in seven hells are you doing here?”
One eyebrow of hers shot up. “Rescuing you-" Kyndi glanced around- "Or was all of this part of your master plan?.”
I could barely speak. “But how did you- where-? I mean, this whole time, what have you-”
Kyndi put a bare fingertip on my lips, drew me to her, and gave me one of the best kisses of my entire life. Her lips, her tongue- she tasted amazing. For the first time in days, I felt warm.
“Will that do for now?”
Fuck the hell yes it’ll do. “I reckon it will, darlin'.”
She smiled her Kyndi smile. “Good. Because you smell terrible.”