Climbing
NOTE: In the Stargate SG-1 Episode “Beneath the Surface,” the main characters are all brainwashed into believing they’ve always been laborers in an industrial dystopia. They are, in fact, slaves of highly stratified caste system, and for some reason the idea stuck with me. I felt the story was a little half-baked, and could have said something very interesting about our own purportedly-merit-based caste system. This short story was the result.
The sound of the mines echoes in my head. After so long, I hear nothing else. The sound of iron cutting into stone fills the air. The Iridium drills engines whirring away like grumbling dragons, chewing up the resilient rock, our secret weapons in the war for our lives.
They shit out gemstone, these dragons. Out their backsides the dull gray lumps of fused rock that is our heat, our energy, our livelihood. If the dragons stop, if we stop, our people die in cold and hunger. The ice-age that blankets the land above will break through out blockade, and a billion soldiers dressed as snowflakes will sweep through the tight passageways and kill us all. Men, women, children…they will spare no one.
We must hold strong. We must break our backs to save our species. Every stabbing pain is a reminder that we are sacrificing our lives for our people. I die so that others may live.
My hands are calloused. My sores weep. My arms hurt and they do not stop hurting. I cannot take a deep breath without coughing. It is a small price to pay for the future of our people. I have no regrets.
I am a pick. That’s what they call us, the picks. We are strong enough and slim enough to get where the drills cannot reach. We slip through the cracks and find the places where the stones are weak. We carve out tiny holes to place the blasting sticks, or lever out the hardest stones so the rest of our workers can do their job.
There aren’t many of us. There is always a need for hammers and shovels, and we are desperately low on engineers who feed and maintain the drills. Picks, we’re not always needed. We move about the mines more than anyone else. Hammers can spend their whole lives in a single vein. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.
It’s better than the farms. I’ve heard that too. The farms, underground sweat-houses where stinking garbage is turned into our meals of white slop. We’re not allowed to talk about it. More people die in the farms than in the mines. They die from starvation because they won’t eat. Not after seeing how our food is made.
We’re lucky, they say. We’ve got the best job. A lot of us die, a lot of us get sick, a lot of us go mad. But we get news from outside, and we’re doing okay. We’re doing better than anyone else, really. And that’s good, because if we stopped doing our job, if we stopped pulling fuel from the bones of the planet, the generators would shut down. No more heat, no more food, no more clean water. We’d all die.
We’re heroes, really. Every stabbing pain a reminder, we’re heroes.
Trav hasn’t come back.
They say he’s been transferred. His heart couldn’t take the mines anymore. I was there when he collapsed. We were down shaft B7, and I was squirming my way out of a crack in the wall. I had just placed the third stick, and was pulling the fuse along after me. I saw Trav before I saw anyone else. He had a look on his face, like he was scared. He had seen something, I thought, and right then and there, I knew I was going to die.
Death comes swift in the mines. Pockets of gas, sudden rockfalls, malfunctioning drills or loose fuel veins that explode and kill ten miners at once. Trav had seen something wrong, and I was going to die.
My body didn’t listen. It wanted to live. It wanted to fight! I pulled and scraped my body against the rocks, struggling to get loose in time to…I don’t know what. Save myself? From what? How? Where?
I was at the crack when Trav collapsed. He clutched his head and howled in pain. At first I thought gas, but then I saw the other Hammers looking around in confusion. The closest–was it Pris?–reached out and grabbed Trav around the torso. She hoisted him in the air and shouted at the others. Get him to the med-sec. Three others ran to grab his limbs as he cried.
Madness happens in the mines. The dead air, the same walls, no natural light, no place to rest, no quiet or solitude…I’ve almost gone mad, several times.
I see things. Strange things. Things that cannot be true. Visions of a world I’ve never seen, made of clear glass. The walls burn with a white light. Tall men and women dressed in robes of angelic soft. A sound, a pleasant sound, like our work-chants, but gentler. Kinder. Like water. So much water, more than one person could drink…
By the time I was out of the crack, the four Hammers had dragged Trav away. He was sobbing. We went back to work as soon as he was out of sight, but in all the confusion, I had dropped the fuse. I had to crawl back into the crack find it. My limbs screamed in pain from the cuts and bruises I had inflicted on myself in my panic. Stupid. Panicking in the mines gets you killed.
It took half an hour to find the fuse and squeeze back out again. After I had dropped the fuse in the hands of the closest Hammer, I went to med-sec. We don’t have much, but we have more than most. I didn’t need bandages, really. I should have soldiered on, wrapping my shirt around my palms if I really needed to. But I didn’t. I went to med-sec.
Trav had already been transferred. His heart, they said. He was going to rest for a bit, and then work in water-purification. Easier on the body, they said. I heard different. No space in the water-plants. It’s like being a pick. You have to squeeze everywhere, because there’s no space. No room. It could drive you mad.
Not mad, they said. It was his heart.
I went back to work. I tried not to think about it. But I know what I saw. He was clutching his head, not his chest. He was sobbing, not gasping.
I tried not to think about it.
I dream of food. It must be food, because I am chewing it, and it is good. It’s food I’ve never seen before. All the different colors in such vibrancy that I’ve never imagined. Green and red and yellow and blue. Flavors…I never knew there could be flavor in food…I never knew things could taste good. I’ve tasted blood. I’ve tasted sweat. I’ve tasted bile and copper and oil and choked on foul gas. This food was heavenly. Blissful. I’ve never tasted anything so good.
I can’t get it out of my head. I start thinking of all the friends I’ve lost over the years. I start thinking how some went mad, some died in accidents, some I just never saw again when they moved to another branch of the mine.
It’s them I can’t forget. We picks, we move all over the mines. There aren’t a lot of us, and we aren’t always needed. We go where there are cracks to slip through, and there are cracks all over.
Moved to another branch of the mine. At least five in all my years have been moved. I’ve never seen them again. Where are they?
I’ve heard explosions. I’ve felt the tremors of cave-ins. I’ve never seen anyone die. I’ve never seen the bodies. I’ve always heard, through rumor, over our bowls at meal-time.
Of course they’re dead. Or transferred. I know it. We all know it. They wouldn’t lie to us.
I keep working. What else is there to do? If I don’t work, our people will die. The world will win. We have to keep fighting, so I keep fighting.
But I can’t stop thinking about it. The food had tasted familiar.
I don’t talk about my dreams to anyone. No one talks about dreams. Dreams are private, and dangerous. Better to fight dreamless than be distracted by things that aren’t real.
I pause, now, at the intersection. There are thousands of crossing paths in the mines, but only one Intersection. In one direction lies the mines, in the other, the transport tunnel. Food, water, and supplies are shipped in from the Intersection. When someone is transferred out, or in, it happens at the Intersection. We pass by the Intersection every day, and no one ever looks. Its best not to dream.
I pause now. I look. I wonder. I’ve never seen the transport tunnel. I don’t know what lies beyond it.
I dream of breathing deeply, smelling the light air scented with flowers. I’ve never smelled flowers before, but the memory is still strong. The freshness of recent rain fills my mind with peace and joy as we play in the grass, cold drops of dew brushing my feet and hands.
I came to the mines. Why do I not remember the transport tunnel?
I came to the mines. Why do I not remember what came before?
I’m not mad. I know I’m not mad. I work for the people, I sacrifice my body for the sake of society. If I do not work hard, I am killing us all. I work harder. Harder than I ever have before. I talk about becoming a Hammer some day, so I can snap my bones in service to the cause. I’m not mad. They can’t know I’m mad.
I’m approached by three soldiers. No, not soldiers, they’re Hammers. They are dressed like Hammers, and their arms are strong. There are no soldiers, no guards, in the mines. We all work together. Part of the same team.
Why do I think they are soldiers?
I’ve been doing well, they say, but I need a medical inspection. Possible transfer to a new mine on the other side of the city. They need Picks and Hammers and Shovels, and they chose me.
Medical inspection. Come with them to med-sec.
I don’t resist. I follow them, flanked on either side.
But they don’t know, they don’t know that Geff…or was it Bri? We talked. Years ago, we talked. I’m being transferred, Bri whispered to me, a smile on their face. A new mine, on the other side of the city. I never saw them again.
In the med-sec, I sit on the cot and wait for the surgeon to finish with their other patients. Exhaustion. Malnutrition. Broken limbs. Broken souls. I recognize all their maladies. We kill ourselves for our society. We are glad to do it.
A medical inspection, they said. Why is the surgeon preparing needles?
I stand up. A cramp, I say, as the guards look at me funny. I bend over and make as if I am stretching. I wait for my time.
The surgeon raises a needle, and approaches me.
I raise my sleeve. The surgeon looks away, reaching for a cotton swab. My chance.
I duck under their grasping hands and reaching arms. I’m small enough. I know how to slip through cracks. I ignore their shouting, their cries of alarm. I won’t let them get me. I know I’m not mad.
Where did I come from? When I think of my childhood, why do I only remember a pick in my calloused hands? When I think of my parents, why do I only remember a belching drill roaring next to my head? When I think of the mines, why do I not remember ever being anywhere else?
Lies. They’ve been lying to me my whole life. Why would they lie? Am I a prisoner of war? Is my enemy not the frozen surface, but hidden soldiers within the mines themselves? Are we slaves forced to work for the twisted whims of some fiendish leech, gorging themselves on…on food while we only eat slop?
I know the mines, I’ve been all over. I make my way through the small passages and hide in the tiny spaces until they lose me completely. I double back and forth so many times, they run in to each other, thinking they were chasing me. I try not to laugh–there is little to laugh about in the mines.
I think as I run. I think of how I’ve never done anything but be a Pick. I crawl through cracks. I think of how I’ve never been transferred anywhere. I’ve never been anywhere else. But people come, and people go. Why haven’t I ever gone anywhere?
I think its time.
When I know its safe, when I know they are hunting me deeper down the tunnels, I slip back towards the Intersection. They’re all hunting for me. The way is empty. On the way, I grab a spare pick from the ground. They won’t miss it, and I know I’ll need it.
The transfer tunnel is separated by a simple airlock. I remember it when I see it. Why don’t I remember what is on the other side? My brain is dizzy, fogged with thoughts and memories that are not my own.
They drugged me, I think, as I use the pick to lever open the tight valve on the metal door. They brainwashed me. My life is a lie, and they are my enemy. They keep us trapped down here with beautiful lies that we are heroes, that there is nothing greater than to kill ourselves in service to our fellows, when they are out there, somewhere, reaping our harvest. I know it. I know it.
I dream of skin that is soft and smooth. I dream of smiles and laughter. I know its there, and it was ours. They took it from us.
The airlock is as big as the mess hall, large enough to be filled with crates of ore and fuel, food and supplies. The other door is locked from the outside. I close the door and hide, waiting. If I’m lucky, they’ll think I’m still in the mines. They won’t think to search for me here. They’ll keep working, because they need the fuel, they need the ore. Can’t stop the machine, or everyone will die.
An hour? Maybe more? That’s how long I wait before the other door opens. They bring crates in, and take crates out. An exchange of goods. A trade. Who bargains for us? How much are we worth?
They aren’t dressed like Hammers or Picks or Shovels. They aren’t even dressed like engineers. I don’t know what they’re dressed like. I’ve never seen it before. They’re dressed like the enemy.
I wait for my moment, and then I slip through the crates when they’re not looking. I hop through the open door, and run for the nearest hiding spot I can see. There aren’t any. I keep running. I hear a voice behind me–did they see me? I’m not running quietly, I need to get away. Get away from their prison.
The halls, they’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before. They are light gray and smooth. The floors are like stone, but smooth and clean. The walls are lined in perfect squares, with little grooves like riverbeds. I remember rivers.
The lights overhead are brighter than the lights in the mine. There aren’t shadows everywhere. It hurts my eyes, its so bright and clean and smooth and the air doesn’t smell like rust and oil and steam.
Keep running. Keep fighting.
I know then, I will take it back. I will take back everything that had been stolen from me. No, from us. I will tear it from their greedy fingers and throw it back to those of us who have lived and died for it. I will be a hero, returning the stolen fire to we divine vessels.
I find a place to hide. In the mines, we dug ventilation shafts, long tubes for air to flow from the pumps and to the recyclers. We hung scraps of old cloth over the tubes so we could see the air flowing in and out. This was similar. A vent. A covered tube. I pry the metal cover off and slip inside, pulling the cover on after me. It works. I hear footsteps outside, and they run past. Are they chasing me? They must be. I’m a fugitive. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be in the mines, dying.
Not anymore. I’m coming for you.
I wait in the vents. I ignore the hunger in my stomach–its easy to do. I’ve had practice. Let them wear themselves out. I rest, and wait for my time.
I dream of a ceremony. People everywhere. They’re applauding me. Not just me, there are others next to me. All of us. It is our time. We can’t escape it, no one can. It is a price we all must pay, to protect our way of life. We’re glad to pay. We have to be. Everyone is. We are all heroes.
When I open my eyes, the halls are silent. Listening carefully, I do not hear the hum of machines, the rumble of mining, the cries and calls of our toil and labor. I feel the flow of air over my cheek. I feel the cold metal of the vent. I hear nothing.
It is terrifying.
I climb out of the vent, and look around. It’s a hallway, with no doors. There must be a way out, so I keep walking, away from the mines.
My head is fuzzy still. Memories clash. I remember years ago, I was in the mines, and I was not in the mines. I remember my name, but it is not my name. I remember friends I have never met, and laughter shared with ghosts.
I turn the corner. I stop. I recognize this door.
Its in the side of the hall. I could pass it by, continue down the hall towards its end, but something about the door makes me stop. I know I’ve seen it before.
I step inside the door. Its a changing room. Metal lockers along the walls. They are clean and straight, built into the walls, unlike the rattling rusted cages we had in the mines.
I open the lockers, searching for something, I don’t know what. Some of them are locked, and I cannot open them. Others open freely, and inside I find what I am looking for.
Clothing. White clothing to replace my rags. Tearing the brown burlap from my body, I clothe myself in the soft white finery. At once, they are normal, unnatural, and familiar. Were these my clothes, once? Did they take them from me? Now I might pass. They might not recognize me as an escapee.
Might they? I look at myself in a mirror hanging on the wall. I see my face in clean clear glass, not black and dirty metal. I’ve never seen myself like this before. The crust and dirt of the mines is thick in my skin. I rub at my flesh, frantically peeling the marks of my imprisonment away. A sink is beneath the mirror, and I turn on the faucet. How did I know how to do that? How did I know this would cause fresh water to flow into the white basin?
I watch as my face turns into something horrifyingly familiar. It was me, but not me. What was I becoming?
“Kev? You back already?”
I spin about, eyes wide, at the sound. The voice. That was not my name.
I’m quick with my hands, faster than they are. The man is on the ground in seconds, a look of shock in his eyes before the steel hands of mine send them dreaming. There is blood, but I pay it no mind.
Kev? You back already? It was not my name, but they looked at me, I swear they looked me in the eye before they said it. Kev was not my name.
What was my name?
I don’t have time. I have to keep moving. I leave the room again, and return to the hallway. Someone will find my victim soon enough. I need to be quick. I have to get to the surface, I have to get where I belong. Where I deserve to be.
It was taken from me, the surface. They took it from me, and I would take it back.
At the far end of the hall is an elevator. On the way, I pass by countless doors and passages. I see signs I can’t read and hallways I remember walking down. Its all so familiar, and yet I know its not my place. I don’t belong here. I’m a Pick. A miner. I belong in the dirt, the dust, and the dark.
That was where they put me. They cast me into the darkness. It is not my place. I will climb higher, ascend to the apex and topple their smiling faces into the ground.
There are others here. I pass them with my head held high, and they don’t recognize me. They wave genteelly, as though we were long-time companions. I don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t care what I’m doing. I feel naked without a pick in my hand. But naked is good. Natural.
I follow my dreams. They take me to rooms of computers that I’ve never seen before, and doors that open at my touch. My name. What’s my name? The past that I thought I knew is slipping away from me, like water through my fingers. Like sand. Water is precious, and what I am becoming is something worthwhile. It feels good and wrong at the same time.
I am horrified at myself. Callouses flake away like tree-bark, the dirt drips from my flesh. I am metamorphosing into one of them.
But it is okay. I am hiding, like the viper in the bushes. I will strike out, hidden from their milky eyes. I keep walking, and then I find the window.
I look out, and I see the lie.
The lie that our planet was dead. That our only hope was sacrificing ourselves on the alter of drills and fuel. That for the sake of others, people we had never met, we had to choke ourselves to death in the empty hollows of the earth.
There was no ice. There was no snow. There is the sun, burning in the sky as bright as I had ever seen before.
I cannot look away. I know I have never seen the sun before, no one in the mines has, but I know those are birds, and those are trees, and those are clouds, and that is grass.
I see the glittering light shining through the large glass dome. I see the bright white buildings, standing as tall and proud as in my dreams. There is so much space, so much room! I can’t believe such a place exists. There are people everywhere, with no ceiling above their heads, walking, talking, laughing, crying, living.
Is this what we die for in the mines? Are these the ones who force us to bend double? Are the stabbing pains in my side and arms the price they demand to eat of our labor? Drink deep like leeches?
I look down from the window, and I am dizzy again. I am so far off the ground, I feel like vomiting, but I know even in my haze that I am not very far off the ground at all. Two stories, maybe three. There are buildings with hundreds of floors, and I have been at the top of them. I know I have. I couldn’t have been.
At last, I pull myself away from the window. My arms hurt. My legs hurt. The pain is immense. I am starving. I am thirsty. I am sick. It’s all wrong.
I dream of sickness, something twisting in my gut. In my head. The doctor is kind, says it will all be over soon. Before I know it, I’ll be back home. I will talk with my family and friends, I will share the stories of how it was, how now I am an adult. I have proven myself. I have earned what I have.
I have to keep moving. I feel the pull. Something deep in my chest is dragging me upwards. I have to keep moving.
They look at me as I pass, and I no longer feel afraid. They accept me as one of them, now. Their suspicions are not reasonable. How could I be here, among them, if I wasn’t supposed to be? I remember more and more each moment. The faces of my parents as they wave goodbye. The look in my sister’s eyes as she frowns, jealous of my age.
I hear music now. What I once thought was strange mining chant, I now hear the music. It flows through the air all around me. I smell the flowers and drown my thirst and hunger with food and water that is brought to me. Brought to us all.
People say my name and I recognize them. They are familiar to me, like ghosts. The clothing on my body chafes, it is so smooth and luxurious. The air is cool–I’ve never been cold before. I feel fresh and clean. I found a place to sit, and work to do. I remember how to do it. People I don’t recognize come to speak to me, as if I am one of them.
At first they looked at me strangely, wondering how I made it so far. They don’t look at me now. I learn quickly.
I don’t feel the pull anymore. Not nearly as strongly. This is such a wonderful place, I don’t want to risk being caught. I don’t want to return to the mines, where there is no light, no food, and foul water. Every time I move, I am reminded of the mines with the sharp stabbing pain in my back and arms. When I take off my clothing at the end of the day, I can see the scars, bright and deep.
How long can I last like this, hiding among my enemy? I keep thinking some day I will do something terrible, tear down this facade and bring my miner kin up to the light…but the light is alluring, and I cannot think of anything that would bring this building to its foundation.
I think I will survive. Today, at least I will survive. Perhaps tomorrow.
Eventually, I can’t take it anymore. I sink to my seat and place my head in my hands. I think no one is looking as I pray, I beg to unseen gods, demons, and spirits to please end this nightmarish dream of heaven.
My prayer is answered by a doctor, and two guards. They approach me.
“Feeling alright?” the doctor asks. I am, I say, cautious of their placid smile and calm tone.
“You still must hurt,” the doctor says. “You weren’t given the final injection.”
I don’t know what the final injection is. I don’t know what the first injection was. I don’t know anything. I don’t belong here, even though it is where I was born. These aren’t my people, though I lived with them all my life until…until…
“We thought to detain you several weeks ago,” the doctor admits. “But then you started working, and frankly, you’ve done a great job so far.”
Suddenly, I know everything is going to be okay.
“But if you’re not happy,” the doctor continued, “we’re not happy. I can give you the final injection, and everything will go back to the way they’re supposed to be.”
I am about to hit him, when he smiles. “Frankly, if everyone was like you, things would be a lot better. You’re a real hero.”
I nod.
The doctor is smiling now, the guards stand easy. The needle comes out, and I raise my sleeve. The needle gets closer. I indulge myself one more time with a clandestine thought: I’m very good at slipping between the cracks.
I remember my name. It still feels important, somehow, though we all remember our names. Daily, in fact.
I remember everything from before, and during, and after. I remember how proud I was to be standing among those who were born on the same day. There were ten of us. Some of us had died in a mining accident, they say. They say I was transferred because they needed a Pick on the other side of the world. The rest of us went mad. Its easy to go mad in the mines.
The water tastes sweeter than I remember it. The food tastes the same. I wonder sometimes what its like for others, but we don’t talk about our time in the mines. No one does. It’s not polite.
Instead we call for another bottle of wine at dinner, and share our tales of the day. I have found a place in the administrative building. I manage the daily intake and outflow from the northern quarter. It is a simple job, and I am fulfilled. I earn my keep. I don’t think about what is above me anymore. I’ve risen far enough. I don’t need anymore. When I relax, I relax in the rotunda. The trees calm me, soothe me, make me feel at home. I can feel my muscles release when I am there, relaxing and sinking back into the cool bench.
I don’t remember the pains in my back and arms. I don’t remember how bad they were. I remember feeling them, but now they are no more than memories. They were good aches, I think. The soreness of doing something good and important.
There is only one thing. One problem. The doctors say it cannot be fixed. I don’t know if I want it fixed. The dust of the mines coats my lungs. I still, even now, cannot draw a deep breath. I cannot let the fresh air fill my lungs to the brim, letting me relax and sink back into the peace and calm I once knew when I was young.
It is still with me, the mine. It is always there, lurking beneath my feet.
It is good it is there, I think. It is good I remember. I keep working, and enjoy every moment I have, relish in the pleasures that had been taken from me for so long in the dark and dusty depths.
Sometimes, when I feel my breath catch, I think of them with pride, those who even now cut their bodies and mark themselves with their own badges of honor. They are becoming men and women. They are growing up. They are earning their place among us, the real people. The heroes.