Chromium

11.2

First draft

Dia had found a little notebook in Manny's pocket. She knew very little about engineering, but it seemed like some kind of journal. There were some blueprints and a bunch of technical terms she didn't understand, but the gist of it was that the mine was running dry. Manny had tried to save it by expanding it to improve the output. It hadn't gone well. The mine was old and the past Supervisors, or morons as Manny called them, had been more interested in meeting their quota than preserving the mine's structural integrity.

To sum it up, the place was potentially unstable, and that's why it was closed at the moment. The interesting thing was that Bedford was indeed south of Fideon Prime, just a few miles away as the crow flies. The problem was there were tons of rock separating her from the city.

Wait a minute.

She remembered that part of Manny's project was to cut the transportation costs shortening the distance between the mine and the refinery. Dia browsed through the notebook until she found it.

Here! It says that the miners drilled through the rock wall and created a new tunnel. It's like a highway leading directly into the city.

The obvious problem was she had to go through the mine. She looked at the door and shuddered, involuntarily taking a step back. She didn't know if what Manny had said was true, but those bodies were very real. Still, considering that there was an army of droids, mechs and god knows how many junkies roaming around those tunnels, going back was not an option. Therefore, she worked up her nerve and crossed through that door. 

Contrary to her expectation, the road wasn't littered with bodies, and no monster was waiting to pounce on her. It was eerily quiet, almost like a ghost town. Well, it wasn't really a town since there was just a road, plus twenty, maybe twenty-five prefab houses that looked a lot like containers.

Living underground was bad enough, but spending every single night in a windowless metal box seemed a bit like sleeping in the cargo hold of a ship lying at the bottom of the ocean. She felt sick just thinking about it. She tried to explore the town, but as expected, it was deserted. No one answered when she lightly knocked on a door, but she was surprised to discover it wasn't locked. Apparently, Bedford's folks were very trusting.

...or they didn't have the time to lock it.

She warily walked through the house until she reached the dining room. Then she stopped. The table was set for four and the plates still full, but no one had finished their meal. As soon as she glanced down at the food, she understood why. That gray blob was so disgusting she had the sudden urge to puke. She remembered that so-called porridge well. It was the standard meal on the Siren. It was extremely nutritious, and that's why the Empire's Hierarchs had decided that it was the best meal for grunts and junior officers. Probably, however, none of them ever tasted that grainy and smelly vomit. Dia knew from experience that no one wanted to eat that stuff.

But probably that's all they could afford. The mine is closed. No work, no pay.

Which meant that whoever lived in that house had left in a hurry. Dia kept going, exploring the town as she looked for more clues, but the result was the same. She still found no gun, tool or electronic device of any kind. Actually, aside from those house-containers and some forklifts, everything made of metal had disappeared. It was like the town had been stripped clean. It was odd, but she couldn't linger anymore and went straight to the mine. However, she soon realized the entrance was blocked. Someone had piled up a lot of crates, mining equipment, and even stones to make a barricade.

Everything had been useless.

Whatever the miners wanted to keep outside, had found another way in, and completely bypassed the barricade. A chill ran down her spine when she looked at the man-sized hole, almost like a door, opened on the rock face.