Adam woke with the sound of screaming still ringing in his ears. Last night’s riot had been a bad one, so bad that celestial enforcers were called in to help “deal” with some of the worst people, the people with past records. He got up and walked through his small apartment to the food preparation area. He poured some boiling water into one of the dehydrated breakfast meals, eggs and bacon. “I know that eggs used to come from chickens” Adam thought to himself “but what the hell lays bacon?”
Earth had died long ago, the air much too toxic in most places to support life, and the weather extreme. Lightning was constant because of the pollution in the air and some storms raged for 90 days, flooded cities and killed millions. Earth hadn’t always been like this, once in the past it was clean and prosperous. But in the late 21st century, they came. Like a plague from the sky they crushed all human resistance. Humans were now slaves on their own planet, slaves to the beings known as the celestials.
Fruit and vegetables were grown in orbit, either on the moon or in great orbiting stations; everything else was created from base elements in giant vats heated by the earth.
Humans were limited to living in levels 800 down to level -200 where the temperatures were as high as 50 degrees Celsius.
Adam gathered his materials for work and ran out the door, he walked down the hall, turned left once, right twice and entered the HSTS. The High Speed Transit system was a maze of tubes and tunnels running throughout the city, without it to city would die, walking would take days and only the celestials were allowed to have personal aerial vehicles.
The HSTS pulled up to the platform, Adam saw a group of hollow eyed men in a line with 6 armed guards. These men were criminals, rioters, thieves. They were forced to work in the mines, to dig 100 meters a day or die in the process. Adam was lucky, he was the mineral expert on the crew, no digging for him, and he just had to point them in the right direction.
The intercom sounded “All yellow level personnel, proceeded to lift 27, all green level personnel proceed to lift 13.”
Adam watched as the convicts shuffled into the lift as he made his way to lift 13, the high-tech mag-lift was quiet and fast as he descended into the darkness of east wing mine.
The mines were a dangerous place, the temperatures were as high as 50 degrees, and if a cave-in ever occurred, you would only be dug out if the metals were worth your life. The mines were essential for just about everything, iron and other metals to construct the buildings, carbon to create food and phosphorous to fertilize the great greenhouses of the moon. People died in the mines, always a flow of new, inexperienced workers.
“Morning!” the Forman greeted Adam “the nigh-crew dug another 50m, found some interesting metal you should look at”
Adam kept walking down the tunnel until he got to the dig site; he found a group of workers crowded around some dull thing on the ground. For a second, Adam thought that they had lost another worker, but as he got closer he could see it wasn’t humanoid.
“It fell though the ceiling” one of the workers exclaimed “gave Jonson quite a scare”
Adam walked forward and saw a dull piece of metal, not an ore, but a solid piece of machined metal, “did someone put this here?” Adam asked, “Because there is no way that this could have formed naturally”
“How do you know?” argued one of the workers.
“Nature can do a lot of things, but it can’t rivet metal together, and it can’t write in Celestin”
Adam looked at the strange symbols; he wondered how this metal had made it one and a half kilometers into the earth, and what it was made of, being strong, yet so light.
“Should I bring this metal to the surface?” asked Jonson.
“No, let’s just move it off to the side, I would like to study it in more detail” Adam said calmly, he picked up the mysterious piece of metal and carried it back to the hollowed out area by the lift where he had his workshop.
The metal proved difficult, it would not bend no matter how hard he hit it, none of his acids had any effect and when Adam touched it to the tabletop grinder, the high speed wheel exploded, the metal probably saved his life, stopping all but a few of the pieces that flew his way, without a scratch as usual. Adam went home exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time “what could this strange metal be?” Adam thought as he rode the HSTS “And where did it come from?”
Three months later…
“It was official, the war had begun”, thought Ba’kell, a young Celestin, “the most oppressed are rising, all of the mistreated laborers are fighting back, I warned them of this”
He turned his head to scratching at the door, just as he moved towards his rifle the door ceased to exist. Ba’kell was thrown back 15 feet across the room, only his chair stopped him from going farther. He looked up as shadowy figures swarmed into his room, he couldn’t move his legs and he could see a piece of his door embedded in his shoulder. Red started creeping into the corners of his vision and his entire body felt broken, and just as one of the shadows detached itself from the group, he blacked out.
Adam sat on his couch, feeling lethargic after a long day; the shaft he worked was now down more than 12 kilometers from the surface, cooling suits with an oxygen supply were required because of the pressure and heat. It was unknown to him why they were told to keep digging this deep; it was hard and expensive, with little to show for their troubles. The metal down here was poor at best, fissures everywhere and heat damage to most of the rock. They had lost two men today when part of the ceiling fell.
The news reports flashed by on the screen in front of him, a dull mechanical voice announcing each. “3 people killed in labor riot.” “Terrorist attack on HSTS, 20 killed” “celestial officer missing and supposed abducted by rebel forces”
“Our world is falling apart at the seams” Adam thought to himself, “I don’t know how much longer the world can handle the stress
Ba’kell opened his eyes to a dark room, he tried to move his arms, but they were tied behind his back. Out of the darkness came a blinding flash as a door was opened and more shadowy figures, humans, scrambled into the room. They were thin, ragged and terrifying. One split from the group, the leader he assumed, and strolled up to him.
“You Celestin scum” the human said in a rough tone “You living a life of pleasure while we, the original inhabitants of the planet are treated as slaves.”
In the crowd, a voice called out “Make an example of the beast”
“Yes” the leader said “we will punish our oppressor, you, Darby, remove his mask”
As the one called Darby approached, Ba’kell tried to stop him, he felt the seals loosen and suddenly, his face, his lungs, his eyes were filled with molten lead, burning and heavy. The crowd gave a collective scream; Darby threw the mask to the ground and the crowd shoved each other out the door. As he slowly died in agony, the lone Celestin cried out, for help, for mercy, and for pity.
To be continued
I am absolutely fascinated with works of this genre. Although, at first, I was kind of confused with the setting until a little later on. But still, GREAT story.
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