The boy had barely slept more than two hours; he’d had to put in overtime to make up for the work hours he lost during his own recovery mission. Late that night, he’d fixed the ore transporter and parked it in the hangar. He’d taken his friend’s body to the crematorium and reported his death to the authorities, listing it as an ordinary work accident. He could only hope—because there wasn’t much else he could do—that the administration wouldn’t start asking the right questions until he was long gone aboard the LEVIATHAN.
He felt tense, exhausted. He’d packed his bag and left his living container before dawn. The train station was on the southern side of the settlement, with only a few workers waiting on the platform. Someone sat next to him on the train, a man in his late twenties or early thirties. They started talking. The man told him he was on his way to Architope because they were looking for men with his qualifications. He’d worked as a paramedic his whole life and, two months ago, got promoted to a lab assistant, where he now helped produce medicine for the western sector. His experience was paying off, he said, since he was now earning double what he used to as a medic. He even managed to save some money, hoping to have enough to get by in his old age—something most people on Limbo could never hope for.
"And you?" the man asked.
"What about me?" the boy replied.
"Where are you headed?"
"Bancarduu."
"Still a long way to go."
"As long as I make it by tomorrow afternoon."
"Tomorrow afternoon? You’re in the Selection Program, aren’t you?"
"Yeah."
"And you think you stand a chance as a welder?" The man pointed to the welding goggles hanging around the boy’s neck.
"They belonged to a friend," he said. "I’m a certified mining engineer."
The man nodded, impressed. "So, you went to school in Bancarduu too?"
"Yeah."
"I did as well."
"Good for you," the boy said.
The man nodded quietly, watching the pale, one-tone landscape as the train rolled along a high plateau. The view out the window stretched farther than usual. They both got off in Architope. With just over 9,000 workers, it was the third-largest settlement in the sector. Everything here was produced for the prisoners. There were three massive factories supplying food, medicine and consumer goods to the western sector. In large lab complexes, workers synthesized proteins and vitamins, extracting starch from various hydroponic crops. These were the basic building blocks of the meals the cafeteria workers slopped onto trays for the prisoners across Limbo. Each day.
******
The connecting train to Bancarduu was canceled, leaving Lex stuck in Architope for the entire day. He found a dingy bar, settled into a corner and tried to study for the competition. The noise and chatter made it hard to focus. Worse than the noise were his thoughts—he kept trying to bury the memories of the previous day, but they kept pushing back into his mind. He missed Tayus. He missed Mori. After several mugs of miner’s piss, he eventually passed out at the table. His sleep was restless and broken, full of short, uneasy dreams.
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The next morning, his alarm woke him up, and he killed three more hours waiting at the platform before finally catching the train to Bancarduu.
The train car was packed. Behind the fogged-up windows, the passengers were pressed together like they were part of some twisted experiment to see how many bodies you could squeeze into one small space before breaking.
The stench of bad breath filled the air around him. He couldn't help but overhear snatches of conversations. They were talking about the Selection Program. The prisoners next to him were quizzing each other on possible test questions, making themselves—and Lex—more nervous by the minute. Others cursed about missing the LEVIATHAN’s landing because of the canceled train the night before. Lex silently cursed along with them.
They reached Bancarduu in the middle of a fierce sandstorm. Metal shields were raised in the station, and overhead lights flooded the place with artificial brightness. Lex made his way through a connecting tunnel to the MultiComplex, a structure that offered various activities for prisoners. There was a gym filled with old weights and torn-up benches, a cinema with a crooked screen replaying the history of the colony, and plenty of bars where the workers drowned out their days with cheap booze.
He walked into the first bar he saw, ordered a mug of miner’s piss, and after paying for his drink, asked the bartender if he had a place to sleep. "Three nights. I can give you two silver pieces for it."
"Per night?"
"For all three."
The bartender glanced at him while sliding a glowing shot down the counter to the next customer.
"Hope you don’t mind sleeping on the floor," the bartender said. "’Cause I sure as hell don’t have a guest bed for you."
******
Across the corridor from the apartment doors, a row of overflowing trash bins lined the wall, and a damaged vending machine flickered dimly in front of the lift. Lex stood in front of it, slid a copper coin into the slot, and a can of miner’s coke crashed into the tray below. Grabbing the can, he headed to the elevators and rode up to the top floor.
The apartment was in terrible shape. The walls were covered in meaningless graffiti, and the freezer had been pulled out and was now broken, something rotting inside. Lex placed the coke in the fridge and yanked the door shut—it stuck a little. He sat down at the table by the large corner window, his thoughts drifting back to Tayus, to his reckless rescue attempt, and to how his only friend was gone.
He checked his inbox—still no message from the corporation about the accident. Three days. Three days until the LEVIATHAN would leave the moon again. Three days in which he needed luck more than ever. He took a deep breath, opened the first chapter of a math book on his tablet and began reviewing everything he had spent the last year teaching himself.
At some point during the night, the storm shields came back down, making a hell of a racket as the motors hummed. Lex woke with a start, the imprint of the table's edge pressed in a straight line across his forehead. He looked out the window. It was 3 a.m., but the sky outside was bright. The sky was a hazy orange behind the dark silhouettes of buildings, and where the sun was supposed to be, the storm clouds were tinged a milky yellow. Pipelines snaked through the gaps between buildings, transporting waste from the apartment complex. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, he grabbed the coke from the fridge and went back to studying.
The next morning, freshly shaved, Lex stood in front of the massive, unremarkable administrative building. His backpack slung over one shoulder, he looked up through the glass ceiling at the hexagonal structure that rose dizzyingly high above. From up there, the TC headquarters controlled the entire moon colony. The dark facade of the building had two things that caught everyone’s eye: the massive corporation logo in pure gold and a screen about as big as the maintenance hall in Orongu.
The screen was currently broadcasting a live address from Zara Thandros. Her speech echoed through the connecting tunnels via loudspeakers. The blonde woman emphasized how important it was for her that even a prisoner had the right to earn forgiveness in their lifetime.
Her words made Lex’s blood boil.