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ENFANTS TERRIBLE (2nd Draft)
[2nd Draft] PRELUDE TO ACT I: THE FOUR WHO RAN AWAY

[2nd Draft] PRELUDE TO ACT I: THE FOUR WHO RAN AWAY

A disembodied scream echoed down the graven corridor. The four men running through it were like brothers. When they reached the wall, the one leading coughed as he accidentally inhaled the acrid gas produced when the stone disintegrated. Gagging, he pushed ahead, crawling on hands and knees, leading his comrades through the escape tunnel. There was no time for nausea—just as there had been no time to process the sight and sound of the mining laser they had turned on their prison guards moments earlier.

The end of the tunnel had been visible, illuminated by the excavation ray, but now the light faded just a few feet inside. The leader popped out of the narrow horizontal shaft into complete darkness. He stood, wincing as though expecting to hit an unseen ceiling, even though he knew the walls stretched far above. Turning back, he began helping the other three men out.

The leader, with his long, dark hair, helped his next companion—a squinting, angry-eyed man—out of the tunnel. After him came the third man, heavier set and muttering complaints under his breath. The last to emerge was a guy named Dave.

Once they were all out, the leader whispered, “See? Just like I said. Only a few meters between where we were working and the rocky underbelly of the port scaffolding. They plated it all over above, with those massive metal girders holding it up, supported by the cave bottom.” He stamped his foot for emphasis. “One quick turn to the left, and zap—our way out.”

To prove his point, he reached out and rapped a nearby metal girder. The metallic sound filled the space, prompting excited murmurs from the others.

Dave moved toward the sound and felt his way around until his hands gripped a smooth cylindrical shaft that ascended vertically. Running his hands along its length, he found it connected to another pole by zig-zagging metal struts. He grabbed hold and began to climb.

“Good as a ladder. Socrates would be proud. Let’s use his method and get out of here.”

Their fraternity, strong only moments earlier, began to crack under the strain of this next challenge. From the back came the voice of the heaviest man: “So we have to climb up from here?” He punctuated his words with an exasperated huff.

Squinty, who had remained silent since the escape began, laughed bitterly. “I had to dilate the laser beam just so you could fit through the tunnel. And because of that, I had to kill the guards who saw me do it! I had to kill people because you’re too fucking fat. If you’d been here long enough to start starving like the rest of us, we could’ve escaped through a smaller hole, and I wouldn’t have had to take lives!”

“Shut up, both of you,” groaned the leader. “We need four people to pilot that ship. If all four of us don’t make it out, none of us will.”

“It’s a good thing we can’t see anything, because secretly, I am very afraid of heights,” Dave said as he kept climbing, followed by the leader and Squinty. The heavier man looked up at the dark, listening to the sounds of the others scaling the structure. His stomach growled.

Muttering about hunger, he pulled himself up to the lowest diagonal rung he could reach. The rungs were spaced half a meter apart, so mounting it was like doing a pull-up. He pressed his feet against the rock wall that ran close to the opposite side of the column, using the rough surface to support himself.

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Tiny shards of stone broke off into his palm, unnoticed until he reached out for a metal spoke and his bloody hand slipped. He gasped and clung to the vertical pile for dear life as his body swung out into the empty darkness. How far had he climbed?

The leader and Squinty descended to help him, grumbling about it. But from above, Dave called down for them to keep going. He’d reached the top. His voice, not far off, motivated the heavier man to wipe his hand on his shirt and grab the structure again. Together, they all climbed to the top.

They emerged onto a narrow support beam, half a meter wide, with open space yawning on either side. They couldn’t see this, of course—there was no light. They had no map, only the plan to keep moving upward until they found a way to the port above.

Their persistence paid off. At the far end of a horizontal plane, the leader felt a secured plate with a slight give. He pushed eagerly, and it popped out of its brackets. Bright light poured in, blinding them momentarily. They cried out in surprise as the plate fell, but its soft clang a few meters below silenced them.

The men held their breath, standing still in the dark doorway. But no one came. After a few tense moments, the leader pointed. “That’s the retro spacer!”

The others followed his gaze and saw the ship: a symmetrical craft shaped like a spindle with a ring around it, illuminated by a large hooded light-bar hanging from the cavern ceiling.

They started climbing down. “It won’t hit C,” the leader said as they descended, “but it doesn’t have to. We just need to get to the Kuiper Belt, and the Russians can’t touch us. This is an Imperial prison, and their jurisdiction ends the moment we land on any old asteroid out there.”

“And once we’re on that thing, we’re safe until your boss comes to pick us up?” Squinty asked.

The leader nodded. “We’ll send out a distress beacon. The Russians won’t follow it—they’re not allowed. Worst case, we land on a random rock and wait.”

Dave pointed at the ship’s door. “What does that big ‘T’ symbol mean?”

The heavy one finally hauled himself onto the platform and answered, panting. “That’s the brand logo for that Wu Tang guy who used to sell shoes and shit.”

The leader frowned. “I don’t know what it means, but I’m positive that’s not it.”

Their debate was cut short when Dave opened the door. The symbol in question—a magenta trefoil with a central circle and three blades spaced 60 degrees apart—split in two as the pressurized doors parted.

Nearby, a freight-truck was loaded up with large sealed cases made of white metal. These were standard emergency kits for spaceflights. They contained a multitude of useful items they might find themselves in need of soon.

“Dave, if you can, load one of those kits up.”

“Only one?”

The leader chastised him, “Weight is a big factor in space travel. The boss told us what to do, and he said only to take one if we wanted to optimize our escape distance.”

The fat one said, “Did he tell you anything else?”

“That it would take all four of us to command this old spacer.”

With the last of their energy, they boarded the retro spacer, barely managing to prepare it for takeoff. Each man took a seat at one of the four mandatory crew positions and got to work.

The escape itself was uneventful. No close calls, no authorities on their tail. It was both unnerving and satisfying.

As they sped into the Kuiper Belt—the Horror Vacui, as some called it—the four men began arguing about the rocks they saw in space. They were so far apart that it was hard to tell if they were asteroids or meteors. Then, they saw the blue one.

A massive, blue snowball appeared in the distance, swirling with scintillating ice.

The leader stared. “What is that thing? Could it be a Dyso-?”

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