The Mines of Obaeratus

The scanner was silent as the miner stood between its metal bars. The clerks watched the round device on the side, noting the miner’s name and designation in their paper log. He held his breath until, at last, the small green light was illuminated. The miner sagged as he exhaled and exited the scanner.

The mines don’t like machines.

The words floated through my mind as I stood in the dark stone tunnel. The only light came from the softly glowing element that was so precious to the Lenders.

I recalled stories of the mines’ early days. The great anti-grav diggers and reinforced carbonite smashers would not operate after they were brought down to The Pit, as the miners called it. Rail tracks and pulleys all rusted away after less than a day. Stories of clerks' shattered minds after they attempted to use their mind-link devices gave me nightmares. The only machine that the mine allowed was the scanner. Maybe the clerks knew what it was for, but an Indebted couldn’t be a clerk, so I would never know.

Two more green lights, two more miners returned to the surface. I could see daylight leaking in from the tunnel’s exit. We stood silently in the gradually inclined stone walkway, waiting our turn to pass through the scanner. Generations of miners had carefully chipped away at the hard rock, their boots wearing a smooth path in the tunnel.

After labouring for a shift and a half, it was all I could do to remain upright. The accident last week cost me wages and added to my debt, I had to take overtime shifts to balance the increase. The Med-Tent saved my eye after I walked into an errant pickaxe, but the cost was steep.

As we advanced at a ponderous shuffle, my thoughts slipped to my ancestors who incurred the initial debt, my crushing inheritance. Did they imagine the future they were creating? I was born into debt. Just six months ago, it seemed manageable. I was employed as a care provider for a Lender’s child and engaged to a man with limited debt who made me happy. The bright future of family and love I envisioned was demolished in the space of a few short days. My parents were both swept away by the last virus that hit the communal barracks. My foolish brother drank his sorrows and was killed in a bar fight. Their debt and the maintenance costs incurred from my brother's brawl were all left to me.

The Indebted have limited options. We must strive to eliminate our debt in our lifetimes, although very few succeed. Those with unmanageable debts were deemed a burden and sent off-world to one of the prison colonies. My own debt inched towards that threshold; I was no longer suited for work with children. Physical labour in the mines was the last option left to me. With no family to speak of, my debt would be shared amongst the colony after I passed on to the next life. Unless, of course, I was red-lit.

I looked down at my hands, calloused and rough, the line where my engagement ring used to sit long faded. My fiancé, Rutger, could not take the risk of marrying a miner with debt such as mine. Rutger told me as much with tears in his eyes. To him, I was already dead.

Life expectancy was short in The Pit. The work was fraught with risk and danger. Some prayed for red lights to give their families freedom from their debt. Like me, if you had no heirs, the colony prayed that you would be the one red-lit. The majority of us feared the scanner and the unknown that followed a glowing red light.

There was no discernible pattern to the lights. We would go months at a time without seeing any. The most cynical believed that it was randomized, that the scanner did nothing. Many thought that there was dangerous radiation in the mine and that the lights protected the colony from exposure. The rumours abounded, yet one truth was constant. After a red light, the miner was never seen again.

With three miners ahead of me, my bed promised sweet relief for my aching joints. Miners had unlimited access to protein tubes, the Lenders had no interest in us if we were too weak to work. I could grab a tube and be in my bed in less than an hour. I needed rest and sustenance as I would be back in the mines as soon as possible. A few more extra shifts should be enough to bring my debt back away from deportation levels.

The clerks beckoned a guard over, someone scanned red. I craned my head around the miner in front of me to see Jerstin, his mouth hanging open, no sound emerged. His eyes were wide yet unfocused. The guards prepared to grab him if he tried to bolt.

Six months in the mine, I had never seen the scanner’s red light. The red circle was no larger than my thumb. The bulb seemed so fragile, but I would never dare touch it. Anyone accused of tampering with the scanner faced the harshest repercussions. It was delicate, so small and innocuous. That it could ruin a life felt unjust to me.

The clerk recorded Jerstin’s name and designation under the red light column. The miner in front of me took a pace backwards. Sensing the rising tension, the guards advanced. Jerstin lept sideways at the clerk, knocking him off his chair and upending the small table. The guards swept past and shoved the miner in front of me, pushing us both to the ground. My already sore body protested the sudden fall.

Jerstin retrieved the pencil, grabbed the clerk in a headlock, and pressed the point towards his panicked eye. The guards laughed as Jerstin tried to maneuver his hostage towards the open air. The terrified clerk whimpered as the guards surrounded them.

“Red lights don’t make it out,” pronounced the Guard Captain, “There’s nothing you can do that will change what’s coming next.”

Jerstin looked around him, his eyes darting between the multiple guards' faces. He seemed to reach a decision. He lowered his arm and the pencil rolled out of his open hand as his shoulders sagged. The clerk slumped to the ground as the guards advanced and led Jerstin down the side corridor.

The old miner offered to help me up off the unforgiving ground. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand on my own. “First red light?” he whispered. I nodded, my mouth too dry to speak.

“Sometimes they go quiet, sometimes they try to run. First time I seen one grab after a clerk, though. But it didna work, did it? Nothin’ ever works.” His grizzled face was drawn and sombre, he was the oldest person I’d ever seen in the mine. I didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t unusual. We had no breaths to spare on socializing.

“Lass, yer bleedin’ all over the place,” the miner remarked, focused once again on me. The fall reopened my pickaxe wound, blood streamed down my face. I tried to wipe it away, but it flowed freely. I cursed under my breath, another visit to the Med-Tent would set me further back.

With a start, I realized the miner was still watching me, an odd look on his face. He seemed pained, although I couldn’t see any visible injuries. He must have strained something when we fell. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shook his head. We stood in single file once more.

The clerks and guards busied themselves getting the scanner operational. A medic came from the surface and tended to the clerk who’d been held hostage. His body shook, his mind likely rattled from the ordeal. I struggled to find pity.

I shifted my weight from side to side, uncomfortable and hungry. The scanner seemed unscathed, they just needed a clerk to record us so we could move forward. I didn’t think it would be possible to long for a protein tube, yet I could not bear to remain in the tunnel so close to the exit any longer. I needed rest. I needed food. I needed my head to stop aching. With my turn through the scanner drawing nearer, the promise of fresh air, a full belly and sleep beckoned.

The medic pulled a digiscan from his pocket. “Where did you get that?” screeched the clerk, “You can’t have that so close to the mine!”

“Shush, where do you think I got it? I snuck it in,” the medic replied, “We won’t go past the scanner, it will be fine. I need to make sure that you can be cleared for duty. This won’t take but a minute.”

After what felt like hours to my aching feet, a new clerk arrived, picked up a pencil and motioned the old miner forward. We were finally moving.

Without warning, the miner turned around and swept me up in a crushing embrace. I was too shocked to react, it was the first physical contact I’d had in months. Aside from the pickaxe, that is.

“The Pit’s had a taste of you, she’ll never let you go,” he whispered in my ear. “Remember, the mine doesn’t like machines.”

The guards called him forward, he let me go and stepped into the scanner. After a few moments, the green light shone and the old miner walked away without a backwards glance.

I felt frozen in place, his words ran through my mind on repeat. I just saw a red light, there wouldn’t be, no there couldn’t be two this close together? Surely he didn’t know what he was talking about, his words a cruel joke meant only to scare me.

I ignored the clerk's prompts until the person behind me gave me a gentle shove towards the scanner. I forced my feet to propel me the few steps remaining until I stood between the metal bars.

Had they scanned me after the accident with the pickaxe? I was unconscious, they carried me out. Was I scanned? I looked at my fingers, red-covered and wet. The scanner worked soundlessly as my blood dripped on the stone below.

Before either light made itself known, I lunged forward. I pushed the first clerk down and wrested the digiscan from the medic. The guards covered the exit, and while they were slow to react, I had no fight in me. There was but one option left.

I turned and sprinted back through the scanner and into the mine. I passed the queue of waiting miners, their faces surprised and confused. The guards crashed after me, yelling for me to stop.

I ignored them, as I ignored the fire in my muscles and the dizziness in my head. I ran on, the little digiscan clutched in my hands.

All I could hear was the pounding of blood in my ears. There was nothing else. I raced on, my strides lengthened. I felt like my feet knew exactly where to land to save my ankles. No matter what, I had to keep going. I could not, I would not, slow down.

I felt the vibrations through the soles of my boots before I noticed the cracks forming beside me in the tunnel. I chanced a look upwards where a jagged fissure formed above me as I ran.

The guards’ yells turned into screams of terror as the rumble grew in volume and shards of rock began to fall. I laughed, the hollow sound echoing all around me. All pain dissipated, my legs were like powerful pistons, renewed.

And still, I ran. There was nothing left behind me. There was no red light, no green light. There was only the darkness of the tunnel ahead. The Pit would have me after all.