Rusty red water dripped from a leak beneath the sink. The ruddy liquid trickled into a grimy puddle, dully reflecting a negative image of the rest of the ammoniac cesspool. Jet sat on the toilet staring intently at the time-clock counting down directly across from him.

  What began as a 90 second countdown had only 50 seconds left with milliseconds being shaved off the back side before his eyes. The red numbers vanished by the moment.

  Jet berated himself for not selecting the ‘large waste’ option before entering the restroom. But he’d already hit that option twice. A third time could trigger a medical review which he knew would produce no positive results and thus would result in him having his wages reduced. Enough reductions and work-reviews and he could be cast into Wreckage and labelled a Wrecker.

  Jet was no wrecker.

  Sure, he gave himself one or two extra bathroom breaks a day so he could rest or think, but who didn’t?

  The time-clock was flashing at less than 40 seconds now.

  Jet massaged his neck. It had felt tight for days. He could wait out the rest of the sanctioned time for his supposed ‘bio-evacuation’ or he could make himself look good and finish the business early. That was the best option.

  Groaning, he stood, pretended to fasten his pants for the benefit of the motion sensor, and flushed the toilet.

  Knob in hand, he opened the door, freezing the timer and leaving the red numbers frozen in time at 00:00:19:67. They momentarily turned an aqua green before resetting to baseline.

  -00:00:00:00-

  Jet scrubbed the scabs off his knuckles for the fourth time that day. When he was first slated for work in mineral extraction, he found the special soap noxious and caustic, but now it had an uplifting air to it. On the days where his mask wasn't fitted properly it was the smell of anything-but-coal... And on the days when his mask worked, it was the scent of anything-but-silicone… The soap smelled like absentmindedness.

  Knuckles and nails dried, he swung his hard helmet off the peg and onto his short black hair. Back in line. Back to the grind.

  He swung left down the hall back to the main line. His foreman leaned against the gate with a disapproving frown. He opened the latch wordlessly as he waved Jet back into the tunnel.

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  Jet passed through the steel barrier and unplugged his brain completely.

  No thoughts- he fell victim to the dragging tides of tedium. This one into bin 1, this one into bin 2, this one to ore processing, this one to bin 1… and so on… and so on… AD INFINITUM.

  Head empty, he was free to expand beyond the blank grey walls of the facility, into the hidden earth beyond, up above the surface and out into the light. All light in the lower levels of The Colony was electric. The Holders who lived closest to the surface had shafts of mirrors and lenses that brought fresh sunlight from the skies above down to their quarters. A little of the pale light was reflected back into the Great Halls and forums where Jet and the other workers spent their days.

  In the beginning, The Colony ran solely on artificial light sources. But it was soon clear that nothing could completely replace the Sun, so The Holders ordered engineers to design the mirror shafts to bring light to The Colony.

  Jet thought he remembered being told as a young boy that his father’s father was one of the fortunate few who was chosen to go above and dig the first trenches for the solar shafts. It was so long ago, so blurry, he couldn’t be sure. His grandfather couldn’t have been an architect. Nor an engineer. Such a favored position would have guaranteed the family’s prosperity for generations. In truth, Jet’s father was in oil refinement and was killed in an industrial accident. His mother was alive, last he heard, but was transferred to Desalination, which was a 2 day train ride and pile of clearance papers away. No, he decided, Old Grandpa Jet, or whatever his name was, couldn’t have been any higher in rank than a foreman. And the foreman was only the highest of the low. The watchdog of the production line. A traitor to his class. In any case, most folk were all the same in the hours before and after their work for The Holders.

  Jet, like everyone else, resented life underground. Sooner or later everyone wondered what the point was of life underground if it was so miserable. How long ago had the war ended? Surely it was safe to live on the surface again? Everyone hated it. Everyone but The Holders who lived in spacious suites of chrome. They ate fruit. They kept animals. They had surgeries and sugars, pills and pornography, and were spared the brutal realities of chemical burns, black lung, broken bones, and aching backs. And yet, The Holders were not known for being great artists or scientists; they spent their days fussing over how intoxicated they could get. They were helpless but all-powerful. Though The Holders might try to hide it, but beyond their garish eccentricities, beyond the softness of their skin and volume of their hair, they were just a soulless and despicably bored as any blunt fisted, chip toothed, bloody knuckled, coughing, spitting miner that Jet knew. Something had to change.

  Jet often stayed awake long hours into the night wondering what could be done to improve life. What could be done to improve life for everyone?

  Jet, like everyone in the lower levels, knew someone who died of a work hazard or from chemical exposure, from malnutrition.

  Everyone knew The Colony had problems. It was badly rigged. Junk. But no one thought beyond that.

  Anyone who worked for change was called a wrecker.

  Wreckage was treason.

  Treason meant exile.

  Threat of exile kept people afraid.

  And in their fear, people did nothing.

  So The Colony survived.