Where we left off...
She'd been smiling; always suspect in a place where there is nothing to smile about because all are equal and should feel equally miserable. It took no effort at all to wipe the smile from her face, the problem now was how to not look guilty or afraid. Adopting the perfect facial neutrality best suited to avoiding suspicion was difficult at the best of times; nearly impossible now as her heart thumped and a bead of moisture her body could ill-afford to lose trickled down her spine.
At this worst possible moment, fragmented memories assail her - Darkness, confusion, the dawning clarity that her implant has awakened her in the middle of the night – but before she can be swallowed up by the compounding dread, she recoils in pain as a fellow passenger treads hard upon her foot.
Glancing up, she sees a dark-haired woman; her olive complexion not quite concealing the flush creeping up her neck.
“Sorry,” the clumsy passenger muttered.
Did the stranger’s dark eyes lock just a moment longer than necessary with her own? She decides to believe it was so. It makes no difference; she will never befriend this fellow passenger. They will never be confidantes. There is no such thing now that it is well known the implants monitor the spoken word. Still, the sense of camaraderie – whether real or imagined – helps her regain control.
“It’s okay,” she replies, feeling her face drain of emotion, returning to the disinterested mask she shares with every other person she sees. Eyes safely empty, faces slack, they stare out the side of the transport until the next stop, when her savior disembarks with a sidelong glance. It could be nothing, but it could be something and she knows she will be attributing greater and more embellished significance to this encounter for some time to come.
Arriving at her assigned labor location, she swipes her pass at the Nourishment Dispensary and four capsules fall out into her hands. When she places her water bottle under the nozzle of the Hydration Tank and repeats the gesture, a depressingly small stream of water is distributed. She moves on to the Tool Cart where another pass of the card precipitates the obnoxious clatter of a shovel and pick rattling out of the giant chute at its base.
The area is marked out as a massive grid, with numbers down one side and letters across the adjoining. Each section contains one thousand square feet of hard-packed dirt, and within each is a laborer tasked with digging. The grid lines double as tracks upon which glide Collection Carts conveying layers of earth that have given way before the picks and shovels.
The carts monitor the weight of earth moved by a laborer and this information is part of the calculation of nourishment allotted each day. Around her, some dig furiously in an effort to “up” their rations, either unaware or unwilling to believe that there is no net gain for them in this scheme.
Around her, full carts are hauling their cargo away to dump into The Pit: an enormous metal basin sunken into the ground and bottoming out into a tunnel to – well – to hell for all she knows. She remembers her father repeating a half-serious rumor that the dirt was sent to a mirror site where laborers spent all day filling in the holes that had already been dug. The rumor hadn’t lasted long.
Nor had those who dared repeat it.
She herself has never believed that story. Reason tells her the powers that be have something more than mere torture in mind when they send the laborers into the grid. She considers the careful way the sites are marked off and the complex system of assigning workers. How attentively they feed and water their hive. How diligently they discourage any coalescence of the people. How pointedly they prevent any possible comparison of notes, sharing of information that might allow for a bigger picture to emerge.
Yes, whatever their masters sought, it was more important than dirt. The dirt was incidental after all, the anomalies were all that raised interest. Anything “unnatural” was to be reported immediately to one of the roving Crew Chiefs who monitored the work site.
She always reported.
It was tempting, when she found some bauble, to slip it into a pocket or down the front of her uniform shirt. The opportunities were plentiful. She had dug into whole foundations covered by the brutal sands that swept along unimpeded by vegetation. She had found things she could identify and things she couldn’t, but she was sure she had never found anything that would make all of this digging worthwhile to even the most capricious overlord.
They took it all anyway, “Finders, keepers” doesn’t work in a society of perfect equality.
As she approaches she can see that extensive work has already been done on her location. This is standard. No one digs in the same location for more than ten days. They have been informed this is for the pleasure of the laborers, so they will not become bored with one task. She wonders how many of the people around her believe that. She feels a delicious thrill as she considers that her savior from the transport likely does not.
The hole is wide as possible, also to be expected. It is far easier to break up the surface and scrape large patches of it off than to dig down deep. With the exception of a couple of untouched inches around the edge of the Collection Cart track, the entire surface has been dug into. She approaches the nearest edge and tosses the pick and shovel down, not wasting the precious energy it would take to carry them halfway around the hole to the gently descending slope left behind for ease of entry and egress.
Arriving at the low point of the hole, she is relieved to discover it is easily six feet down, affording her not only shade in which to labor, but privacy in which to let slip her mask. Here, face turned down into her task, she is free to indulge in a reexamination of her morning’s near-disastrous ride, and the memory that had almost engulfed her.
The buzzing is insistent and she jerks awake, confused at the deep night still wrapped close around her. Always the sun is erupting over the horizon when her Juvenile Reveille alert strikes. As she lies pondering this strange turn of events, she realizes she is not the only one who has been awakened. Her parents whisper, their muffled voices unintelligible, but unmistakably edged with fear.
She is still uncertain whether she should interrupt to tell them she too is awake, when the sheltering darkness is ripped away and they are plunged into stark, blazing illumination. Though no one has moved from their cots, every light in the house has activated at once. Exposed in the unnatural brilliance, violated by its determination that she be seen though she herself is temporarily blinded, she shrieks with terror just a moment before the door crashes inward and her parents’ cries join her own.
To be continued...
Love it or hate it, Comment below!
Like it? Follow for the continuing story!
Think others might enjoy this? Resteem!