In a tunnel deep beneath the city of Nox, a sizzling sound, like grease popping in a hot skillet, crackled through the air. The erratic noise rose from the monofilament mattocks as they scooped out chunks of solid stone from the tunnel walls. The rhythmic rise and fall of the mattock blade, guided by toned muscle and past experience, sent plumes of dust into the hazy air. The choking mist muted the pale light hanging above, casting a foreboding pall across the underground passageway and the four men within it. The diminishing light forced the laborers toiling at their tasks to turn on the integrated light built into their ONI bracers. While two men carved their way into the tunnel walls the remaining two directed their lights toward the area being excavated.
“Just a few more meters, fellas,” Peter said, his fingers moving rapidly across the screen of the datapad as he entered in a new string of measurements. “Once you’re finished digging out those alcoves we’ll slide the auger over and take the last two core samples to make sure we struck the vein.”
“You said that an hour ago, old man,” Victor snarled from across the tunnel. The frustrated Laborer savagely swung the mattock he’d used to threaten Rathaniel. The dull thump of another smooth chunk of rock striking the tunnel floor seemed to punctuate his words. “The next time you tell us we’re ‘almost done’ I’ll be taking that datapad away from you, you senile old coot.”
Rathaniel didn’t bother to look over his shoulder when he heard Victor’s aggressive tone. It took focus, more than strength, to use the broad monofilament blade at the end of his mattock. Every swing of his arms sent the head of the mattock slicing through solid stone so easily that he felt virtually no resistance. The last thing he wanted was to shear through his own leg, or someone else’s, with the devastating tool.
Besides, he’d already seen Peter and Victor’s sideshow. Despite Peter lecturing him about ‘being a professional,' the old man had been quick to give up on any thoughts of camaraderie. For most of the past two hours the two veteran miners had been exchanging verbal barbs with one another. It began with veiled insults muttered under their breath. It soon escalated to insults spoken loud enough to be heard above the sounds of the excavation. Over time, the grumbling had grown in both fervor and frequency. By now, it had devolved into obscene gestures and shouts of colorful profanity that echoed down the dimly lit corridor.
“Is everyday in the mines going to be like this?,” Julius, the youngest of their crew, asked with a forlorn sigh. Despite his words being muffled by the respirator he wore, the weariness in the recent graduate’s tone was unmistakable. That didn’t keep him from dutifully gathering up the loose rock that cascaded onto the floor with every swing of the mattock in Rathaniel’s hands.
“No. It absolutely will not be like this,” Rath replied while he watched Julius gather up the loose stone he’d carved away from the wall. “I’d be surprised if we even see each other again after today, much less work the same job.”
“Have you been shuffled to the mines often?,” Julius asked as he turned away with an arm laden with loose stones. A sound like the roar of a landslide ricocheted down the tunnel when the young man unceremoniously dumped the rocks he carried onto a disorganized pile. Somehow, despite the cacophony of rattling stones, Peter and Victor managed to continue their argument without missing a beat. Rath felt a hint of admiration for the veteran miners’ commitment to winning a petty argument. It reminded him of Mary. She would fit in perfectly among the delvers who worked in the Pit.
“I know you’re worried about what Peter said, but you shouldn’t let it bother you. There will always be people trying to tell you that they know the secrets of the city. Today it's Peter claiming to know why citizens get shuffled to the mines. Tomorrow it could be someone on the tram telling you that they put poison in the nutricubes. Or maybe they have some long speech about the surface being fake,” Rath replied, his mattock cleaving another chunk of stone from the wall.
“When you were growing up in the Dorms, other people told you what to think and how to feel. It was alright to believe in them because we all need to believe in something. But you left that part of your life behind when you became a citizen, Julius. You have to decide what you want to believe and who you want to believe. Maybe your truth is what you heard in the Dorms. Maybe it isn’t. I know the magisters told you that the city and the Eternal Council are infallible. The truth is that nothing is infallible. That doesn’t necessarily mean the city is undeserving of your loyalty. A thing doesn’t have to be flawless to be worthwhile.” Rath looked across the alcove he’d dug into the tunnel wall with a critical eye. Slow, careful work shaved stone from the floor. He needed the floor to be as flat as possible to make it easier to mount the auger.
As the dust billowed around him, Rathaniel continued in a halting voice. He spoke slowly, choosing his words with the same painstaking care that he displayed with the measured swing of the mattock in his hands. “My entire life, I’ve believed in Nox. Or I thought that I did. What I’m beginning to realize is that my idea of Nox is different from its reality. I want to live in a world where the city is fair and just. I want the people in it to be the same. I know that’s not always going to be true, but if you stop believing in justice then everything becomes a crime and everyone becomes a suspect. Some people can spend all their time being afraid of each other. I'm beginning to understand that living like that is impossible for me. Instead of being scared of the things I can’t change, I’d rather be angry about the things I can. Angry enough to find a way to make a difference.”
Julius rocked back on his heels as if Rathaniel had punched him in the gut. The younger man took a moment to glance toward the bickering seniors before he hesitantly replied, “You sound like one of those Eclipse people. Are you trying to recruit me?”
The smooth swing of the mattock in Rath’s hand came to an abrupt stop when he turned his pale hazel eyes back toward his partner. “What are you talking about?,” Rath hissed, his tone nearly sharp enough to draw blood. After a quick glance toward the crew members working on the opposite side of the tavern, he dropped his mattock and leaned toward Julius. Julius’ wide eyes gleamed with sudden fear as the skittish boy began to flinch away from the intensity of Rath’s reaction. “I’m not part of Eclipse. I’ve never even met anyone who was a part of it. I don’t even think its real, Julius. Its an urban legend that kids like you tell each other when you’ve drunk too much mushstein.”
Julius frantically waved his hands in surrender as he stepped away from Rath. “Its true! I’ve met people from Eclipse! They took me with them when they pai…”
“Quiet!,” Rath interrupted, stepping around Julius to block off the younger man’s avenue of retreat. “Whether its real or not, do you have any idea how much trouble we could get into if that shit head Victor tells a Keeper that we were down here talking about Eclipse?”
Rath was trying to control his reaction. He could feel the volume of his voice rising to match the growing heat radiating from the ONI bracer clasped around his wrist. It wasn’t until he took note of the glassy, terrified look in Julius’ eyes that a cold, bitter wave of shame quenched the rage building within him.
“Its dangerous, amicus,” Rath said, after taking a deep breath and a half-step back to give Julius some space. “My best friend was detained yesterday because they thought he might have had contact with an active dissenter. Imagine what they’d do to someone who admitted to participating in an act of rebellion.”
“I didn’t do anything! All I did…,” Julius paused then, cutting himself off when he noticed Rathaniel’s growing agitation. The younger man paused, visibly gathering himself before he tried again. “All I did was watch,” he said, his voice soft as a rose petal. “That’s it. I saw them painting the overlapping circles and listened to what they had to say, but I didn’t do anything. I’m not a part of their movement.”
“I’m a good citizen, Rathaniel,” Julius continued, his hushed voice rising an octave as it took on an unmistakable note of desperation. “I would never betray the city. I want to do my part like everyone else. You believe me, right?”
“It isn’t about what I believe. That’s the point,” Rathaniel murmured. “It’ll be fine, but you can’t tell anyone else about it. Where did you even meet these people? What were their names?”
For the first time, Julius seemed reluctant to cooperate. “I can’t even remember. I was at one of the Verdant Parks. Evergreen. And just ran into them. We talked for a bit and the next thing I know they’re talking about Eclipse.”
“Julius…,” Rath began, feeling a spike of frustration dig into his brain. He had no way of knowing if Eclipse had anything to do with Ovid, but any potential lead was worth investigating. Some of his impatience must have shone in his hazel eyes because the object of his ire immediately wilted.
“You are more intense than that Victor guy. By a lot,” Julius said in a defeated tone. “We were somewhere around Residential Building 26. C Sector. I don’t remember most of their names, but the one who did most of the talking was a guy named Donovan.”
“If you find them you can’t tell them that I told you.” Julius clasped his hands in front of his chest in a pleading gesture. “There was a girl with them named Rebecca. The shiniest girl that I’ve ever met. I think she likes me but if she finds out I broke my promise she’ll never talk to me again.”
When Rathaniel’s silence made it apparent that his request was falling on unsympathetic ears, Julius tried a different tactic. “I can help you find them! We’ll go together and I’m sure Becca will be happy to introduce you to some of her friends. A big, strong guy like you could probably take your pick!”
Rath’s respirator hid most of his angry scowl. Despite that, the flinty look in his narrowed eyes and the exasperated tone of his voice was enough to make Julius slump. “When we get out of here,“ Rath said, “we’re going to have a long talk about women.”
Before he could ask any more questions about Eclipse, Peter yelled from across the tunnel, “Are you two planning to do any work or am I going to have to finish this dig myself?”
Rath groaned as he turned around and stepped back into the tunnel. He made a show of inspecting the alcove Victor had dug before turning back to admire his own handiwork. Julius took advantage of Rath’s movement to scuttle past him and out into the tunnel beyond.
“Might want to put a shade on all that nonsense, Peter,” Rathaniel said, his hazel eyes drifting lethargically back toward the older man as he spoke. “We managed to do as much as you two and with a lot less noise.”
The older man bristled like a grumpy cat, straightening his shoulders as he took a threatening step forward. One of his gloved hands rose, pointing a shaking index finger at Rath’s broad chest. Behind him, Victor let out a bark of laughter that sent a distorted echo bouncing down the tunnel.
“He’s got us there, you old coot. If you’d kept your mouth shut I could have finished this job hours ago. It says something when even ol’ tiny cock over there has gotten tired of putting up with your flickering superiority complex,” Victor said in a lazy drawl.
Peter’s shaking finger turned into a clenched fist when he cast a venomous look toward Victor. A heartbeat later, Peter threw both his hands up in the air as an inarticulate growl violently clawed its way up his throat and past his lips. The sudden motion sent dust swirling through the pale glow of the coldlight suspended from the roof of the tunnel.
“I hope both of you live long enough to appreciate the kind of pests you are,” Peter grumbled, shaking his head as he began walking toward the augur. “Get over here and help me set this up, Julius. We’ll anchor it as deep in these alcoves as we can manage and still keep it stable. We’ll start with the one I was digging out.”
“What do you mean the one you were digging out?,” Victor spat with enough acid to dissolve steel. “Are you so senile that you can’t remember which of us was swinging the mattock?”
While the older Laborers resumed their verbal spar, Rathaniel cocked his head to try and catch the sound he’d heard before the tunnel filled with noise of their disagreement. Rath likened it to the whine of a drill bit, or a wet saw slicing through stone. In fact, it sounded almost exactly like the sound the auger made when it bored into the tunnel walls earlier.
“Do any of you hear that?,” Rath asked. His question drew a confused look from Julius and went totally ignored by the arguing duo who were growing more animated by the second.
“Quiet!,” Rathaniel barked. A sudden, tense silence descended upon the four man crew as Rath’s voice rushed down the tunnel. In the wake of his shout, Rath was certain that he could hear something now. What he thought only a moment ago was a grinding hiss had become a scream that reminded him of metal being cut by a grinding wheel.
“What is that noise?,” Rath asked as a sudden fear closed around his heart like a vice. Somewhere, deep down, he knew what the noise was, even if he’d never heard it before. Only one member of the crew knew exactly what the sound meant. He was the only one among them old enough to have encountered it before.
The look of abject horror shining in Peter’s eyes was all the answer Rathaniel needed.
“Run!,” the old man cried, a note of primal fear adding a jagged edge to his shout.
Before anyone could move, the tunnel wall opposite Rathaniel exploded outward in an eruption of dust and stone. Plumes of coarse grit billowed down the tunnel, further dimming the pale glow of the coldlight above. In the wane light, Rath saw Peter get knocked down and Victor thrown to the side as a sinuous shape undulated from the gaping hole in the tunnel wall. The dust was still so thick that he only had the vague impression of a serpentine shape arcing itself high above Peter’s prone form.
Then the screaming started.
Rath had never heard a human make a sound like that. It was a combination of pain and fear compressed by the pressure of the moment until there was no room for any other sensations within that wordless cry. As the dust began to clear, Peter’s cry continued to warble down the stone hallway as if the vocal agony could not be contained within the boundary of a single note.
Distantly, he heard Julius’ plaintive when the air cleared enough to expose the tableau across the tunnel. He saw Victor, frozen on the other side of the scene, dragging himself backward with one hand while he held the other hand defensively in front of his face. Some part of Rathaniel was aware of Julius and Victor, but his attention was dominated by Peter and the dweller that towered above him.
The dweller looked like a nightmare made manifest. Rath guessed the creature to be more than two meters in diameter and long enough that it remained partially hidden within the hole it had emerged from. The dust made details difficult to discern, but the monster’s body appeared to be covered in interlocking plates of red chitin. Between these plates, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of thin, multi-jointed legs lay folded up against the length of its enormous body. Rath knew from his xenobiology classes that the dweller’s legs were wickedly sharp and capable of digging into solid stone. The dweller used them as a means of locomotion, deploying hundreds at a time in order to push itself through the passageways it drilled through the bedrock. The fact that the sinister limbs were also used as a tool to incapacitate prey had not been covered in class.
Now Rathaniel could see where Peter lay pinned to the tunnel floor by two of the dweller’s jagged legs. Each leg was the size of Rath’s clenched fist. One was plunged into the old man’s stomach while the other pierced his left shoulder. Thrashing against his captor, Peter’s agonized wail had trailed off into a hiccuping sob that sounded as wet and sticky as the growing red puddle surrounding him. Even that pitiful resistance began to subside when the creature looming over him began to lower its tapered head toward the captured human.
The head of the dweller looked like a pyramid with each side formed by a single triangular piece of red chitin. While the Laborer’s watched in spellbound horror, the tapered head began to open with a sound like a thousand bones snapping. In a vision of macabre beauty, like a flower blooming inside an empty skull, the chitin spread apart as the dweller leaned closer to Peter’s paralyzed form.
For a half dozen thundering heartbeats, darkness was the only thing Rath saw as the monster opened its alien maw. Then, in the blink of an eye, the space between Peter and the dweller's open mouth was filled with countless black tentacles. Like roots in search of rich soil, the shadowy tendrils sank into Peter’s waiting body amidst the gruesome sound of tearing flesh. Fresh screams erupted from the man’s lips, sending a symphony of pure suffering skittering through the corridor.
A shocked detachment had settled over him as soon as the shadowy tendrils erupted from the dweller’s maw. It was like his skull had been stuffed with synthcloth. It was all too much to process. Because in this dreadful scene Rath had stumbled upon something familiar. He had seen those ephemeral black tendrils before. The shadowy tentacles consuming Peter looked exactly like the monster that had chased Rath through the streets of Nox in his dream.
He knew, without a doubt, that it was the also the same thing he’d seen emerging from beneath his own ONI only hours ago.
A cocoon of hazy confusion closed around him like a thick blanket. Sounds became muted by a ringing in his ears and his awareness began to drift aimlessly across the tunnel. He noticed the way the motes of dust floated, unconcerned and uncaring, through the glow of the coldlight above. He saw the way the auger had been tipped over, it’s sturdy frame forming a dam that finally halted the advance of the red puddle beneath Peter’s twitching body. Victor’s movement caught his attention as the man looked toward where Rathaniel and Julius stood. With the distance, and the dust, Rath couldn’t see the fear in his eyes, but he could see it in the shaky way the man stumbled to his feet and took off down the tunnel in a sprint. Rath calmly noted that Victor had a chance to escape since the dweller didn’t stand between him and the lift. He and Julius were not so fortunate. They would die down here. Just like Peter.
Thoughts of Julius caused him to slowly turn his shoulders toward the youngest of their crew. Julius clutched at his bicep, tugging frantically while he shouted something over and over again. Rathaniel couldn’t imagine what would be so important, nevertheless, he tried to be considerate and strained to hear the younger man despite the thunderous roar in his ears.
“Rathaniel!...Rathaniel!..,” Julius screamed, a note of hysteria lifting his words into a higher octave than his usual tone. When he saw Rath's eyes finally focus on him, he tugged insistently at the taller man's arm. "We have to run!"
Something about Julius’ desperation pulled Rath from the grip of his fugue. He lunged toward his discarded mattock, speaking before his hand had time to close over the handle, “Take the first two rights we come to. Maybe we can loop our way back around to the lift. Go! Don't look back.”
To his credit, Julius didn’t wait any longer. He fled down the corridor in an adrenaline fueled sprint without another look back. Hot on his heels, Rathaniel’s long legs chewed up the distance between them with every loping stride. Soon he drew even with the younger man and, for a few moments, the tunnel was silent save for the thump of their boots and the hiss of their respirators when they breathed.
The silence was eradicated by the echoing sound of a landslide roaring down the tunnel behind them. Rath couldn’t resist the urge to glance over his shoulder to see their doom with his own eyes. What he saw would have made his blood run cold had he not already been baptized by the trauma of recent terror.
The dweller, having finished its meal, had closed its maw and extracted itself from the hole it had bored into the tunnel. The sound they heard was the noise of hundreds of legs digging deep furrows into the walls, ceiling, and floor as the creature corkscrewed it's way through the tunnel. The lithe grace of the massive monster lent the sight a nearly hypnotic quality until it’s advance sent its legs digging into the ceiling. Perhaps by accident, perhaps by design, the dweller crushed the coldlight fixture, plunging that section of the tunnel into darkness. Moments later it emerged from the shadows only to disappear into the darkness again when it shattered the next coldlight it passed.
When the duo finally turned down the first tunnel they came to, Rathaniel’s steps slowed to a stop. Julius slowed as well, looking back in alarm as Rath carefully unfastened the sheath on his mattock.
“Keep going,” Rath said, his voice eerily calm as he turned to face the tunnel behind them. His thoughts turned inward, searching for the rage that had been his constant companion since the last Shuffle. He knew he’d found it when he felt his ONI growing hot to the touch. Abigail’s tittering laughter echoed in his ears as the heat radiating from his ONI sparked a flame of defiance deep within him.
"Go on. Take the next right and don't stop till the path leads you back to the lift," Rathaniel said. "The only things that belong down here are monsters."
The clatter of the mattock's sheath striking the tunnel floor was overwhelmed by the rumble of the dweller's approach.