RECAP: Iver and Abis travel through the chaos of Teris District to reach the long-abandoned Bellgast mine, where a mysterious message sent to Iver originated. Regrettably, the mine is under blockade by militia forces who have trapped illegal miners inside the caverns. Iver confronts Abis when he attempts to recruit young women into his human trafficking circle, which brings unwanted attention from militiamen who discover Iver is a “lux” and give chase…
Iver sprang onto the parapet and launched herself forward, sailing over a narrow alleyway. She landed on a tin roof, rolling as bullets ricocheted off the plating near her feet. She sprinted a few meters and jumped onto the roof of another squat.
“Don’t go killing that lux,” she heard Ballistic growl. “Slow her down or knock her off.”
She could hear their footsteps and grunts as they gave chase across the rooftops, parapets and balustrades. Iver kept sprinting, jumping, tightroping. The dammers were too close behind for her to launch her m-drones before getting shot; she had to try to outmaneuver them.
Iver hopped onto a sharply pitched concrete canopy, slid downward. She curled into a crouch, eyeballing the edge speeding toward her.
Shaved Head’s UXP rattled as bullets slammed into the roof behind her. She flinched, forcing herself to keep the lip of the roof in sight.
Iver vaulted as her boots hit the edge, propelling herself toward a tall antenna rod perched between two hovels. She gripped the rod, using her momentum to pirouette ninety degrees around it. The antenna tottered from her weight, groaning in its foundation as Iver launched herself toward a rickety buttress.
“Motherfuck,” shouted Shaved Head as Iver landed.
She teetered, then toppled off, grunting as she caught the edge of the buttress with both hands. She quickly clambered toward the far side of the abutment, trying to find cover from Shaved Head’s submachine gun.
She peeked around the corner to see him fumbling onto the sloped canopy, then leaping for the antenna. As soon as Shaved Head grabbed the rod it buckled. He bellowed as he plummeted between buildings, hitting the ground ten meters below.
Iver swung herself onto the top of the buttress. She couldn’t see Ballistic. She heard a wheeler roar down the street below, multiple men’s voices barking. From the sound of it, other militiamen were searching for her.
She hopped from the buttress onto the flat rooftop of a three-story hovel and tried to catch her breath. Just beyond the cluster of squats, she could see the perimeter of the mines. Iver exhaled; at least she’d bypassed the militia’s barricade.
She spotted a shack on an adjoining roof that could provide enough of a hiding place for her to launch her m-drone cam and strip down to her quantum suit. She heard another wheeler screech to a stop below as she vaulted onto the roof and ran for the shack.
Iver ducked just as Ballistic lunged from behind the shack, swinging his UXP at her head. She rolled but the scant size of the rooftop prevented her from gaining much distance from him. Ballistic charged, locking his large hand onto her arm.
She kicked out, striking him in the gut. “Dumb giz,” he grunted but didn’t release his grip. He yanked her off her feet effortlessly as he pulled her toward him.
Iver planted both her boots onto his torso, jamming her thumb into his eye. She kicked out, breaking his hold, sailing through the air away from him. Ballistic’s arms thrashed as he toppled over the edge. Iver flew backwards, cursing when she realized her momentum wouldn’t carry her far enough to land on the next roof.
She tumbled between two hovels, arms flailing, fingers straining to catch a hold of anything. Iver hit a clothesline strung between two balconies, snapping through it. She grabbed a rotting sill that hardly slowed her fall as it crumbled in her palm.
The air was knocked out of her when she crashed onto the pavement. The alleyway walls spun and danced as she struggled to get up. Shouts from somewhere nearby, she couldn’t tell which direction. Her feet wouldn’t carry her the right way and she stumbled into a rusty receptacle. Her boot caught on a pipe and she fell onto her back.
Two quick hisses from behind her. Iver turned her head to see a wooden flap at the base of a hovel hanging open. Just inside, a boy hissed at her again. He motioned for her to come closer. Did he want her to climb into that dark, dirty place? He waved his hands again with urgency as voices echoed at the far end of the alley.
Her mind couldn’t fully calculate her immediate options, but Iver scuttled toward the boy inside the hatch.
She wobbled her way down a shaky stepladder as the boy pulled the wooden flap shut. Iver leaned against the wall and let herself slide onto the dirt floor. When the boy hopped down and crouched to peer into her eyes, she could see facial hair above his lip and on his chin.
“How old are you?” She knew there were more important questions to ask but she couldn’t stop herself.
“Seventeen. I’m Poms,” he said with a smile. “You doing okay?”
Iver nodded her head slowly, still fighting off the spins. Boots on the ground above stomped past. Voices shouting, swearing, barking orders.
“Don’t sweat,” said Poms. “They’ll never think to look down here.”
The undersized teenager carefully took Iver’s arm and helped her to her feet. He led her down a dark passageway, around a corner and then more corners, trekking deep into a gloomy labyrinth of tunnels. A small needle of fear pricked the back of her mind, but Iver was too disoriented to do anything but follow.
She could see dim light drifting from the end of a narrow passage. The scent of garlic, onions and unfamiliar spices grew stronger as they approached.
“Visitor coming,” said Poms as they stepped into a larger chamber.
Five children younger than Poms sat quietly on a woven rug that covered most of the dirt floor. An elderly woman sat near an electric coil, stirring a large pot of stew cooking on it. They all turned to look as Poms guided Iver into the room and motioned for her to sit on an empty corner of the rug.
“I don’t want to inconvenience you –”
“Are you a lux?” asked the youngest of the children, a girl with thick hair and soil-stained coveralls.
“Keep it down, Jala,” hissed Poms. “She was running from the dammers.”
The children instantly fell silent. Iver reluctantly took a seat. Her mind raced, jumbled recollections of recent events silently sending her into a downward spiral. Abis was gone. He’d given her up to the militia to save himself. And to seal her defeat, she now had no way to return to Avalon. She took a deep breath, trying to control her mounting panic and shake off the effects of the fall.
The old woman smiled at Iver before returning her attention to the stew she was cooking.
“That’s our Grams,” said Poms. “She doesn’t speak.”
“Thank you for saving me, Poms.”
The small young man shrugged. “I’ve saved plenty others. ‘Specially lately.”
“There’s been a lot of fighting around the mines, hasn’t there?” Iver noticed the children giggling, huddling into each other to try and stay quiet. Poms shot them a stern look.
“They think you talk funny. They don’t know better,” he said.
“I do talk funny,” Iver smiled at the children. “Do you all live here?”
“We got more rooms than this,” said Poms as he pulled a curtain aside, revealing another chamber with bedrolls and blankets covering the floor.
Iver tried to hide her discomfort over their wretched living conditions. “You know, more soldiers are coming. It’s going to be very dangerous. Is there some safer place you could go?”
Poms shook his head. “Grams is all we got, and she ain’t going nowhere. We’re staying with her. Like I said, nobody looks down here.”
Grams poured some lumpy stew into a tin bowl and tottered toward Iver.
“On no – I couldn’t –” Iver’s protest went unheeded as the old woman placed the bowl and a spoon in her hands.
“You better eat,” said Poms. “Grams is fierce when you don’t eat.”
Jala crawled next to Iver as she took a sip of the stew. “Why are you here?” the child whispered to her.
“I’m here to help.”
“Why?”
Iver looked at Jala. She wanted to answer the girl truthfully, but found herself still unable to align her thoughts. She realized they were all staring at her, waiting for her response.
“I – I want to change things,” she began. Shook her head. She sounded like a fool.
Kosa...
Their drudge materialized in her mind, along with a flood of fragmented childhood memories. The echo of Kosa’s booming laughter. The scent of her hair oil. Her warm skin when she lifted Iver into her arms. The stories she would tell Iver and Phaen of brave warriors and plucky children adventuring in the outer districts. The fear in Kosa’s eyes when the transmission announcing Aniere’s death arrived.
Aniere...
Iver had regarded her older brother as a distant parent figure. After he’d enlisted in the CCDF when she was nine, he was hardly ever home. When Aniere’s squad was killed by BTU Bloc insurgents while he was stationed in Ozek District, her mother was inconsolable. For days Marsander prowled the estate, screaming, ranting for justice. Then she turned her fury on Kosa, convinced their drudge must have known the faction members who killed her son.
Kosa’s body...
In the central hallway. Lifeless. Blood pooling on the floor near her head. Iver ran to find Marsander. Her mother sat on the fourth floor deck, staring into the pool water. She still gripped the bloody statuette of an eagle…
Iver cleared her throat. Forced her thoughts back to the present.
“There was someone very important to me,” Iver whispered, blinking back tears. “She was from Ozek.” The children’s eyes grew wide at the familiar district name. “I wasn’t able to help her when she needed it.”
“So now you help others,” said Jala.
Iver frowned. She wished she could confirm the child’s statement. But she’d be lying. Had she actually helped anyone? Had she manifested any change? Iver took a long breath, then smiled at Jala.
She gulped back the remaining stew, to Grams’ delight, and stood. Her ribs and spine still ached but her mind felt sharp, like she’d just woken up from a soothing sleep. “Thank you. I must go.”
Poms peeked through a slat and nodded. “All clear.” He hopped down the ladder and smiled at Iver. “It’s getting dark. You sure you wanna go back out there?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. She took her goggles from the gearpack and handed them to Poms. His eyes went wide as he turned the high tech eyewear over in his hands. “That’s for you.”
Poms’ expression went flat. He held the goggles up for Iver. “I didn’t help you for prof.”
Iver took the goggles and placed them over his eyes. Poms gasped as the scotopic lenses revealed the inky tunnels in detailed clarity. “They’re for helping people,” she said. “You’ll be able to run circles around the militia in the dark when you wear these.”
Poms laughed, barely able to contain his excitement. “This is magged!” He hugged Iver, his head bumping her chin. He unclasped a thin braided leather bangle from his wrist.
“Oh, I couldn’t –” Iver said as he fastened it to her wrist.
“Deal done.” Poms smiled before turning to head down the passageway.
She could still hear him chuckling as she climbed the ladder and crawled out of the gap into a dark alleyway.
Iver crept down a narrow space between two squats situated near the south-most edge of the Bellgast site. She crouched behind the empty carcass of a long-abandoned wheeler and checked the locator.
The coordinates pointed toward a two-story substation hugging a ridge on the north side of the crater. Through slats in the patchwork fence, she could make out searchlights and vehicles positioned inside the crater near the mine entrance. Armed figures moved from the darkness between the lights. Iver figured they must be more dammers, securing the mine’s adit and keeping the miners trapped inside.
She stripped off her tunic and pants, folding them into her gearpack. She pulled the mask of her quantum suit over her head. Time to put The Beacon to a true test, she thought as she activated the suit’s cloak, folding into the shadows.
A specter leapt onto the top of the rusted wheeler chassis and vaulted over the fence, sprinting into the rocky basin and toward Bellgast Mine.
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