John & Martha

“To Martha, with all of my love. From John”

I ran my fingers over the inscription, now worn from years of close handling. The chain was broken and tarnished, which was fine -- I would never have worn it, anyway.

It was a strange piece of jewelry, shaped like a heart, and similar in color to lustrous pyrite. It was more delicate than the materials I ordinarily handled. Regardless of the condition of the chain, the locket itself never chipped or tarnished in all the years that I kept it with me.

I never knew Martha or John personally, and it took me some time to understand what, precisely, those names meant. It took me even longer to understand how the names would end up on an artifact like this one. The sector that I lived in was owned and administered by an organization called StarSpring. We who labored for StarSpring were told that we produced the world. We made the foodstuffs and commodities that sustained sentient life beneath the surface, and we had long ago replaced the archaic amalgam of individual and family names with a comprehensive catalogue of serial numbers.

As a smelter, the idea of having a personal name seemed a bit silly to me. My work required very little interaction with others, and allowed for no unproductive socializing. Our tools, tasks, and resources were given to each of us individually based on job and rank. Equipment and raw materials were circulated by automated transport systems, so our interpersonal contact was negligible. Our armbands, attached to our dominant wrists as infants, had long since grafted onto our skin. StarSpring alone bore a name.

I am a subterranean organism. As a lifelong smelter, I have developed an affinity for metals and minerals. After so many years spent with them, they have become a part of my nature. I suppose John and Martha have as well. I spent so many nights communing with the locket, hoping that my touch might unlock its secrets. Was Martha the last person to hold it before I did? Was John? Did they live down here, or had they once known the feel of organic grass? I wondered if they could describe the ocean to me.

We smelters have, with rare exception, never seen the surface in person. The surface has supposedly been inhospitable to almost all lifeforms for a long time. We’ve been told that there is nothing productive to be done and nothing worthwhile to be found above. I chose to believe that the surface once sustained John and Martha, but I can’t imagine how much time has passed since that would’ve been possible.

To optimize our labor capacities, StarSpring began modifying our anatomy shortly after birth. These “mods” allowed the company to regulate our biological processes in ways that augmented efficiency and diminished waste, tailored to our respective occupations. Despite the mods, we all still experienced emotions within certain parameters. Fear kept us safe from accidents on the job, comfort within our pods kept us vital and productive. All within regulation, of course. This all changed after I heard the locket speak.

I kept my coy talisman for many years. It slept in my left boot. We were not permitted to possess irregular items, so initially, I did not know where it should live. Our superiors required us to turn what they called “old tech,” which consisted of anything not issued to us by StarSpring as part of our rations or equipment. I could not tell you why, but when I found the locket during a routine mineral sweep, I felt compelled to give it a better future than it would find in the molten vats of the refuse processing center.

I found my thoughts turning to the locket and its former stewards at all hours of the day. My ongoing curiosity began to turn to non-regulation anxiety, only remediable by discreetly taking out the locket and holding it for a few seconds at a time. I’d let my calloused thumb gently caress the engraved inscription before returning it to its home in my boot.

Things took a turn one day when I felt a crack in my precious pyrite friend. I became despondent, believing that I had broken it. I abandoned my workspace, hoping to not raise any alarms, and returned to my pod to assess the damage. I realized then that it had not broken -- it had opened! The subtle ridge on its side was a hinge! The inner core of the locket was an even more lucid gold than its timeworn shell. I hoped to find another inscription, a note, a photograph, anything to help reveal what this locket was and who it came from. The locket’s pristine inner plane was crushingly blank, and approximately the size of an average thumbprint. I caressed the surface for the first time as my senses and faculties found themselves floating to another place.

“Martha!”

A tall, kind-faced man called after a woman with the bluest eyes and goldenrod hair. Martha ran to him and pressed her face into his. “I love you, John,” she said, moving her face further from his. Her smile shone a row of straight, white teeth. She took him by the hand and led him to a patch of grass next to a bank of moving water. It must’ve been organic because it smelled like nothing I had ever experienced. Crisp and wet and vegetal. This must have been the surface. They sat down, and she laid her head in his lap. They stared into each other's eyes.

It was over so suddenly. When I returned to myself, the wetness of my eyes crossed the banks of my cheeks, and I lost control. I pushed my thumb against the same spot once more. The memory played again and ended exactly the same.

In my pod, I remained awake. When the door opened to signal the new day, I did not move. I did not sleep or eat. I did not return to my workstation. By then, I had lost control of my body. The throbbing current inside me was too heavy. I only wanted to follow it downstream until it took me back to John and Martha. My friends.

My pod door sealed shut with the click of the lock.

A voice, quiet but so thick with mods that it sounded inhuman, filled the small space:

“Please return the old tech in the receptacle provided or you will be nullified.”

I could not try to think or negotiate my way out of this. I could only wail in defiance, banging my fists against the stern, unmoving door. I heard the patter of heavy footsteps a split-second before feeling a metallic pinch in the side of my neck as the dark began to crowd me in. In the waning light, I hoped that my friends still had each other, even if they no longer had their locket. I wanted so badly to see them. I pushed my thumb into the heart of the locket once more as I prayed that John and Martha would see me, too.