• Date: 19/10/2375
• Depth: -750 Meters

Tunnelling. Chipping away at the borders of the roads made by those who came before them, the adventurous miners cling to their pickaxes, shovels and pikes with a familiarity that came from years, decades even, of duty. The rock cracks under the pressure of the pickaxe, the gravel is shovelled away by those standing a bit behind the frontline, and the pikes are jammed at the sides of the tunnel to support the structure while the miners keep chipping away.

"Mierda."

Amongst the group of rough men, feeble children and all-around depressive workers, a feminine voice exclaimed in frustration as yet another pickaxe blow was landed incorrectly, and her arms tingled with discomfort.

That'd be me.

"Use your shoulders, not your wrists."

Another voice reverberated from my side. It was another worker, much older than me and the rest of the men further ahead. He was an old man, but an absolute mountain of a man too. He could probably break my arms with a flick of his finger. I nodded to his words, but the task was not something I was even used to just yet.

Ah, right. I didn't go over what happened, did I? Everything started around two weeks ago, when my deadbeat of a Dad decided to pass away from some kind of lung disease. Hereditary shit that I didn't really give a shit about since Mom walked out on us long ago, and all I could really do was try to find work here and there to support us two. He might've been a bad Dad, but he was my Dad after all.

Oh, how much I regret the decision of staying. There was a reason Mom left, a reason I had no knowledge of. Dad was indebted far beyond repair at this point. He owed so many denars that not even selling the shithole of a house, our entire closet's worth of clothes put together, down to our own organs, could cover.

And that very same father decided to pass away two weeks ago, leaving me the only one those in the crime syndicate could extort for the money they were owed. And I'd rather not sell my own body, literally or in pieces, so mining was my best option.

Mining was a dangerous job. You were given a tool, a respirator with limited oxygen, and you were told to dig for twelve hours straight with as little rest as legally possible. It was the worst, but it paid well. A citizen could live a very comfortable life with the payment if they lived on their own. If they survived long enough to see the money in their hands that is.

The poisoned air down here was nasty. Clouds of dust, minerals and debris was almost a permanent thing since the sheer number of miners allowed for entire districts to be carved in the span of a few consecutive shifts. But progress was as plentiful as the casualties they suffered. One third or slightly less of the entire mining corps died within their first five shifts. And I would need to go through a shit-fucking-ton of them to pay out my debt.

Shame I was absolute shit at it though. I was never a strong person, my body was not really great at living in fact, but it did its best and I appreciated the effort. Probably inherited the same lung shit from Dad's family, and who knows what I got from Mom besides her gender. Luckily I didn't inherit her taste in men, though. So far, I'd consider my twenty-seven years of life fairly acceptable, specially taking into account the state in which the world was right now.

The surface of the earth was almost completely inhabitable. Tunnels were the way to go, mined through sheer manpower in the poorer cities, and complex machinery in the upper levels and richer districts. We were near the middle-ground, so I could hear the occasional machine in the distance, carrying away the dirt or drilling through massive boulders of tough rock that pickaxes and tough men couldn't power through.

But anyway, I'm going off-track already. As I shake my head from the momentary recollection of my memories, I nod to the old man. I didn't know his name, but he seemed to be kind enough to give me a few words of advice, or just felt irritated at watching another new kid not knowing what the fuck they were doing.

As I started to gain momentum with my strikes and learned through first-hand experience how these tunnels were really made, or at the very least how the big chambers were cracked out of the earth, I noticed people starting to shift away into wider angles. It looked like the chamber was to be expanded further, and the numbers of the people jamming the pikes to support the entire cave seemed to grow by the second.

The ground rumbled. It was not a peaceful rumble, but the sound of an empty stomach. The earth itself seemed to threaten to eat us up if we continued any further.

"You sure we should keep going? That didn't sound good." One of the other workers asked his supervisor.

"Shut up and dig. We already scanned the area ahead, shut up and do your job." Although the words were not kind whatsoever, the supervisor did seem a little worried too.

Maybe those "scans" were just speculation? I wouldn't really be surprised since our little shithole of a city was ruled not by an actual Corp or one of those rare families that populated the rest of the cities out there, but by a criminal syndicate. They weren't the smartest people around, but they outnumbered everybody else and they had almost if not all the guns in the city at their disposal. Including control of the machinery and half of the food supplies.

By what I've heard on them it seems they took control like...Two generations ago, so like two hundred years of rule? Some people, those who could afford to replace their innards with metal, had lived far beyond what they were supposed to, a few of them had been thrown into the dirt with the rest of us down here, so the kids would often just sit around and hear them talk about the time before the caves and the tunnels.

Of times when we could actually see the sun, and not just some holographic recreation. I used to sit for hours on end hearing those old people ramble about their past until they eventually short-circuited and one by one passed away. The last one, if I remember correctly, must've died two weeks ago. Lung infection, same as almost everyone that doesn't get stabbed in their sleep that is.

But no matter, we went back to work and so we chipped away at the rock. Up and down. Clink and clank. The pickaxe felt heavier with each swing, and my arms were starting to hurt really bad, but it wasn't time for rest yet, and I didn't want to get my pay reduced because I was too tired to keep digging. Luckily, I wouldn't have to.

The chamber was already halfway done when I joined in with the miners, so only half a shift later we were done tunnelling, and it was time for the machines to drill the boulders above, install the electronics and start air circulation into the rest of the city's ventilation system. By the time I was told work was done for the day, I had gone through six hours of my shift. Not bad for a rookie, I was told.

Shame that almost all the money disappeared from my hands the moment I got back to actual civilization around a hundred meters above. Debt collectors came and took almost everything, they were kind enough not to beat the shit out of me though, so I should probably be grateful for that. Luckily being a miner paid well, even if I didn't finish an entire shift, I still had more than enough to afford the food card for the day and some new canisters for my respirator.

All in all, it was a productive day at the tunnels. And the first of many to come.

Still, that rumbling bothered me. I went over what it could be inside my head while I walked over to the dining grounds to exchange my card for actual food, or what best resembled it at least. The earth didn't usually shake like that unless it was a tremor, but the next one wasn't meant to happen until two weeks from now, and the actual alerts are not often wrong about their schedule. Only real bit of working tech we got aside from the air ventilation systems.

"Here." A familiar voice received my card and handed me a tray with far too familiar food.

Nutrient bars. Synthetic juice. What I guess was a roasted blindrat and some mashed potatoes. An entire feast by the looks of it.

"Thanks, Jason." His name was Jason Hacket.

He was around my age, was a bit on the slender side since his body was notoriously frail ever since he was a child. His main interests include biology, chemistry and cooking some good food. He was my best friend when we were younger, but we sort of started seeing each other less and less. Used to have a crush on him too, but that feeling's gone now.

"No problem. Your spot's free, by the way." I gave him a nod and moved on with my tray of food.

The line moved a few steps and stopped, then moved again and stopped once more. Like some sort of gigantic worm made of people, the line moved and seemed to be infinite. It was longer than the entire dinning grounds, even if that wasn't saying much since we had very limited space down here.

I walked over to a discreet looking table on the far corner of the cavern. It had six chairs, only five actually looked stable enough to be used, but the sixth remained there since nobody bothered to sit there ever. In any case, I took my usual spot and sat down to eat. From my position I could see many others doing the same, but occupying their time on fixing their devices, reading old books or just staring into nothing.

I read once that there was a time people used to modify their bodies to a degree that you couldn't tell machine and human apart, it sounded crazy at the time, but the more I look at these people repeating their same routine day after day without change for weeks, months or even years on end, was really starting to make that random quote make sense. These people seemed to be programmed to keep on going with their lives like nothing else mattered.

They ate. They slept. They worked, and repeat.

As a child I would look at the adults and wish I could grow older, but now that I'm sitting here, looking at the depressed state we were left down here, I'm not even sure if I should just stop paying the debt and have those syndicate guys take me away from this shithole of reality.

And there it was again. That rumble.

The ground below shook with strength again and the ceiling followed suit. A low growl could be heard in the distance, and I snapped outside of my daydreaming, nutrient bar still halfway in my mouth.

'Maybe I should be more careful with what I wish for.' Was my last thought before power was shut-down and we were thrown into absolute darkness and the screams started to painfully tear at my ears.

My heart started beating faster, and I could hear the trampling of a mountain of people moving everywhere. This was not going to be a fun situation whatsoever.