TRANSCENDENCE, page 10
We walk into the tunnel. It’s over ten feet in diameter and lined with the glowing, blue rock. Up close, I can see that they’re partially translucent like quartz, and like Brian said, the glow seems to come from every inch of them. We walk deeper and deeper into the tunnel until we hit a place where there are no more rocks. The darkness ahead is deep and impenetrable.
“We work these tunnels backwards so we don’t have to walk through the dark. I’m not scared of much now, but no one wants to travel through that pitch. Let’s start on this one, here.” Brian says, motioning to a hunk of rock the size of my torso embedded in the rock.
We take up on either side of it, and alternate our swings. There’s a rhythm to it, a flow, and we both work to it. With each strike, a flash of blue light comes from the end of the pick that cleaves through the rock. We chip layer by layer back around the Indigo until we have to split sections off of it to continue. Each piece we remove we carry back to the mouth of the tunnel where an empty mine cart waits. I feel the weight of the work in my shoulders and back already, and know the strain will spread from there to my chest, hips, and thighs until it covers my entire body. It’s not fatiguing yet, but it will be soon.
The air in the mines is naturally cool. On the descent it felt cold, but now as the sweat beads on our skin it feels like a welcome reprieve. The air is completely still, but with each swing from Brian’s pick a rush of air blasts over me and dries my skin. And so we find a stasis point in the work, a sustainable balance of pick strikes, rock hauling, breathing in, and drinking from the canteens at our hips that we filled at breakfast.
My muscles are just starting to feel tight when a loud buzzer sounds from the main cavern. I pause in my strikes and turn to Brian, a questioning look on my face.
“That’s lunch, then,” he says, grinning, and slings his pick over his shoulder.
From the darkness, we emerge. Dust-covered and sweat-stained in our workwear, the lift raises us back into the sunlight. A jumpsuit was delivered for me by the guards at breakfast, and the clean fabric looked out of place amongst the miners. Now I fit in. As we breach into the sun, the smell of food is visceral, like an assault of complexity after the dusty mine air, and I can feel the hunger that’s building in the miners around me like a tidal wave.
The same as it was the day before, a large, flat craft has landed next to the lift. The center of it is covered in a variety of food. A moveable feast. We all filter off the lift towards it, and a line forms peacefully and naturally. In front of me is a youthful blonde woman, her hair pulled back into twin ponytails that fall on each shoulder. She stands a head shorter than me, and when she turns around her eyes are like two flecks of blue ice.
“Brian told us that you come from a far away city, but I’ve only ever heard of this city here. How far away is it?” she asks. Her voice has a musical, childlike lilt to it.
I smile back at her, wondering how to explain. “I think you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Her brows furrow up at me, frustrated at my non-answer, so I continue. “At the top of your city is a door, and if you have the right key it will let you travel between every other city. There are thousands of them, but they’re spread out across the galaxy impossibly far apart. That door links them together in some higher dimension. It’s a strange place.”
She stares at me for a moment, and then laughs uproariously. “It’s good to have another storyteller. Living here, I’ve learned to prefer fantasy. It’s always so much more fun that way. I’m Josephine by the way.”
She shoots her hand out to me, and I stare at it, and then back to her. I see a little girl from my city, an innocent little thing that’s growing up without a father now, and I wonder if she still wears her hair the same way. I wonder if she stopped working for Allen’s family, like I told her to. I imagine her free, and living outside the city, and it breaks my heart with happiness. I take Jospehine’s hand in mine like a man on a sinking ship.
“Mister, why’re you crying? Was it something I said?”
“You just reminded me of someone very dear to me.” I say, wiping my eyes. Josephine smiles sadly at me, and then grabs a plate from the buffet and starts to her lunch. I follow suit behind her.
When the day is finally over, Brian and I take our dinner back to the cave. My body is exhausted from the work in the mine. At any moment, I think I’ll drop my plate of food and fall asleep on the ground. But there are things to talk about tonight, and I still have to meet Charon before I let myself sleep. When we reach the cave, I slump down onto the carved stone floor and start to eat mechanically.
“Work’s hard, eh? You’ll get used to it quick,” Brian says.
I nod, focusing my thoughts. I think I’m understanding most of this world, but there is a piece missing.
“I was wondering, where are the children, Brian? Surely a group of this size couples off? I haven’t seen anyone younger since I came through the city nearby.”
Brian arches an eyebrow at the question, and then laughs. “You’re a quick study, boy. Keen of you to notice that. Mind, it took us a few years to figure that same thing out. That drink I told you they were making from Indigo? Nearest we can reason it makes us sterile. Not sure if it’s the men, or the women, or both. But sure enough we haven’t had a kid in this mine, and there’s been plenty of tryin’.” He winks conspiratorially at this, and chuckles.
It’s like a puzzle piece falling into place. The soft treatment from the guards, the abundance of food, even allowing me to not work while I recovered. They need these miners, and they can’t replace them, or at least not easily. I think back to the city I came through, to Jasmine and Ash, and think how enticing fresh blood would be. But with the city’s defenses, it would be suicide for anyone to try.
“So the city nearby, they’ve never been exposed to Indigo? When I came through, I saw both the young and the old there.”
Brian nods in response. “They don’t leave their sanctuary, and King Allen isn’t going to give it to them otherwise. Not sure they want it though, to be fair.”
I nearly spew food out of my mouth. “King who?” A pit opens in the bottom of my stomach.
“King Allen Cloudspire, senior mind you, there’s a prince with the same name.”
In the fading light, I stare at Brian in disbelief. There’s no trace of the sleepiness that threatened to overwhelm me moments ago. My heart thrums hard in my chest, adrenaline coursing through me. Allen Cloudspire is king? This repetition of names, it’s not a coincidence. This has to be the Narrator’s hand at work, somehow. It’s not safe for us here, we’re too linked to this story already. I have to get out of this pit mine and find Dotty.
“Brian, if I told you that I have an idea to break us all out of here, what would you say to that?”
His frown is quick and deep. “I’d say someone with your name already died trying that, and he took others with him. People aren’t happy being stuck here, but they’re comfortable and safe. If we did try to escape, they’d just kill us all.”
“I think if you all left, there might be safety in that. How many mines do you think there are?”
Brian shrugs. “No way to tell, but we’ve never seen ships flying elsewhere overhead.”
“It’s a gamble, but if this is one of the only mines, and population numbers can’t increase, and they can’t get people from the city, then you’re all irreplaceable. I think that’s why the guards treat you okay, why there’s so much food and water for you.”
Brian opens his mouth to protest, but from the furrowing of his brows I can tell I’ve caught his full attention. “I can’t rightly speak for the people here, but I don’t think anyone is interested in an armed struggle with the guards. Even just the two of them. Whether or not they need us, a few are likely to get killed in the shuffle.”
I nod, and walk to my bed roll. From behind the pillow, I pull my canteen from the night before, and unscrew the cap. A pungent, earthy smell immediately fills the room, and turning back to Brian I show him that the canteen is full of the weeds that grow along the crevasse. His eyes search mine questioningly.
“When you gave me this stuff, and I’d never been exposed to it, I was asleep in minutes. Now, you all chew this stuff regularly, and it barely affects you. But I’m betting those guards don’t, and they drink from the same cistern as the rest of you. If we wait for it to get low, and then sink this into it, they’ll pass out and we can take their craft to escape.”
“Now, that’s actually a clever idea,” Brian says, and grins deeply.
“Do you know how long until the cistern will be refilled?”
“Can’t be much more than a few more cycles, water’s starting to have some sediment in it.”
“Good, can you talk to the others? See if we’re all in agreement?”
“Aye, I’ll talk to them. You think you can fly one of those things?”
“Not a clue, Brian. But to me, it’s worth a try.”
He grins at that and shakes his head. Then he grabs my dishes to take them back down the hill. A large chunk of chicken remains, and I grab it and set it on the table. Brian arches his eyebrow at the move.
“A midnight snack, I’ll get hungry.”
He nods and leaves the cave at that.
The day slides towards darkness, and as the sun leaves us, finally so do the guards. I wait for the caves to quiet. Sleep pulls at my eyes, and with every fiber I want to give into it. But I can’t let it take me. Not yet. As the final shades of daylight wink out, twin moons appear in the new darkness, and light everything in their eerie glow. I slide from the cave, carrying my treat for Charon.
Slowly, quietly, I make my way to the edge of the crevasse. The camp is silent now, people have found their homes for the night and are resting. For a moment I try to imagine how long this same cycle has repeated, these same moments again and again, unending. I imagine what not aging and being stuck in this endless loop of work would be like. The only sign of progress they have is the changing mine.
When I finally reach the edge, I peer upwards into the darkness. Two eyes shine like gems in the void.
“Charon, I brought some chicken for you.”
I throw the meat as hard as I can towards his eyes in the darkness. Pain lances through my overworked muscles at the sudden motion, but I hear it land far above me, and Charon’s eyes disappear as he hunts it. The sounds of his eating echoes quietly down the cliff wall.
“Have you been able to find anything to eat up there?”
“Just fruit,” his voice purrs back to me.
It pains me to think of him starving on a diet of only fruit. I imagine him wasting away while I eat my fill from a buffet three times daily.
“I’ll bring more tomorrow night, I’m sorry boy. I have a plan for us to steal the guard’s ship, but it may be several cycles before we can still. Do you think you can get down here?”
“Yes. Not too steep. Only in daylight.”
“Okay, once we knock the guards out, we can steal the ship and escape to the city.”
“Dotty?”
“Finding Dotty? I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
He doesn’t respond, but even in the darkness I can sense his concern.
“It’ll be okay, boy, we’re not leaving here without her. Stay safe, I’ll find you again tomorrow night.”
And with that, I make my way back to my cave to finally give myself over to sleep.
Eleven
Dorothy
The evening swirls around me in a flurry of cocktail dresses, clinking glasses, and micro-food on platters. If I ignore the faces, and the white marble everywhere, the scene could be lifted directly from my own city. Piano music layers over polite laughter and the boasting of men and women.
“I have so many questions for you, but I’m a better man than to exhaust a guest, so I’ll stay focused. Is our world strange to you?” King Allen asks me, refocusing my attention.
We sit together on the edge of the party at a small marble table with an army of attendants and guards only paces away. One of them walks forward and deposits a crystal tumbler of whiskey for each of us, and then retreats. It reminds me of nights at Allen’s house, of time spent sipping whiskey in their family garden. It reminds me of the Allen that existed before Nick. It feels like a far distant past.
“Only in how familiar it all is. How is it that you expected my arrival?”
“Ah, it’s not so mysterious is it? The Narrator told me a long time ago that you would visit our world,” the king says, and smiles.
“The Narrator? How do you know him?” How did he tell him a long time ago? It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks since I left our city.
“The current state of our world begins with that man, or whatever he is. He came to me years ago—”
The king trails off as a man impetuously makes his way through the room towards us, nearly pushing others out of his way. He has the same bold chin and thick eyebrows, but his face is softer and younger. His matching gold-lined dinner jacket can barely contain the muscle that swells underneath it. Around his neck hangs a pendant of white marble. He approaches us and bows to the king, but when his eyes meet mine he colors slightly.
“Father, you sent for me?”
“Yes. Dorothy, I want to introduce my son, Prince Allen. He is much better at entertaining than an old man who likes to sit, drink whiskey, and talk about mutual friends.”
An old man? He’s no older than I am. How the hell does he have a son that’s nearly the same age?
“A pleasure,” the prince says to me, bowing again in my direction.
“My boy, I was just starting to explain the history of our world. But I fear from me it would sound boastful. You’re much better suited to tell it. Would you give our guest a tour of the palace, and fill in the details?”
“Of course, father. Dorothy, please come with me.”
I stand and nod to the king, then follow the prince as he cuts a path through the throngs of revelers. He walks like a peacock, chest held high and chin jutting upwards. The crowd parts for him, and it's clear he expects them to. Their conversations turning to whispers after we pass. Well, this is causing a stir. When we reach the far side of the room, opposite of where I entered, two attendants open the wide double doors so we can pass through. On the other side, a long white marble hallway stretches into the distance.
Prince Allen basks in the impressiveness of the hall for a moment, a moment of reflection that seems entirely curated for me.
“The palace is impressive, don’t you think?” he says, not turning to look at my reaction.
“It is very white.”
“Yes, one of the first abundances we found on this planet was marble. My father had it extracted because he had the vision to build a monument.”
He talks about his father with a nearly religious exaltation.
After saying this, Allen starts slowly forward down the hall, and I follow beside him.
“Before our city was opened, my father told me that he had been given a vision of the outside world. My father is in no way a religious man, so it was a strange claim from him. He told me that there existed a new natural resource that would change all of our lives.”
“Did he tell you how he had this vision?” Or who gave it to him?
“He never told me the details of the vision. I see it now as the first of his miracles.” I blanch at the word. “When Dorothy, our Dorothy that is, convinced the council to change the disease transfer machine, she was elected as the person to enter the control room.” He swallows hard at this. “Thankfully, she wasn’t harmed, but one of the outcomes was that the city sprawled open.”
So, she’s also met the Narrator then.
“My father immediately led an expedition into the jungle. The men that went with him told me he seemed to know exactly where to head. My father led them into a cave, and there they discovered Indigo.”
“Indigo?”
“A mineral native to this planet that has several strange…properties.” Allen turns to me and smiles viciously.
The hallway ends in front of us at a door that’s different from the rest. It’s a single polished metal plate with an access panel mounted to the wall in front of it. Allen rests his hand on the panel, and the door slides noiselessly open. Behind it, a spiral staircase descends. I follow Allen into the passage.
Gone now is the ostentatious marble and plush carpeting, replaced entirely by functional austerity. The stairs, walls, and ceiling are formed from a black metal that’s lit by occasional sconces. It gives the eerie impression of sinking into a dark cave that expands in every direction. Pipes mounted to the ceiling follow the stairwell downwards, our only connection to the world above.
“This was the start of my father’s second miracle. He brought back an abundance of the mineral, so much that others doubted his sanity. A few others led expeditions into the planet at this time, but only returned with some native fruit. Most were still content to live as they were, inside the walls of the city.”
I can barely restrain laughter at the way he talks about his father. But I stifle it, and keep listening.
“My father went to work with the minerals, and very soon had distilled it into a drink. He’s no chemist, but as I watched him work in his newly constructed lab, he seemed to work like he’d been given instructions on what to do. He told me that the drink reversed aging, and named it Indigo after the rock that gave it birth.”
As we descend further, a strange blue glow starts to grow at the end of the hallway.
“And it worked? That’s an incredible creation, if so.” Is that how everyone I met is the same age? The Narrator said, “A gleaming white mystery that never grows old.” Is this what he meant?
