Ten years and I'm still not used to the heat. The leather suits trap it in, soaking up the sweat and crating a film of moisture on my skin. All the tunnelers create a stench like this, the oldest dug tunnels being the freshest smelling. If it weren't for the bits of chipped rock skipping across the floor as I dig, I would go without the thick, leather suit, dyed in sweat. Can't though. Wouldn't do anything else either. The feel of drilling out new areas in the thick rocky soil down here is tremendous. Just the whir of the motor as it revs, all the other noises unable to penetrate the headphones. The way it slowly melts away, leaving a new frontier, that makes the days go by so quickly. Work all collapses into a rhythm, no thinking besides a glance down at the blueprints and plans for the rest of the tunnelers as we push out the edges of our society.
We keep growing, some of the kids never having seen the surface in their whole life. They must think its some type of fantastical dream. Loose earth litters the floor, every so often I take a rest and see that the way behind me is cleared, one of the younger ones on the crew would have come around and taken the waste off to the refinery. Nothing much in the rock in this part of the outskirts, just stone and dirt and worms. They check a load every so often anyway, and if they don't want to, they throw it out. Somewhere there's records of each day's digging all filed away individually, but that doesn't hold my interest for long.
I have to make a sharp turn to avoid another tunnel, and with the mapping tool, it says I just got to the spot I planned to. The tunnel had been flat going on for the past while, but I tilt downward as I carve off at a left angle. It goes slower this way, more crouching, more breaks waiting for a cleaning crew to grab the waste-dirt. I don't have much to do in the time between.
Time is just vague enough that we kept it, though the concept is changed down here. We sleep when we need to, we take our shifts when we can. Laziness means you get new work, or you find what you want to do down here. We support the layabouts, to some extent. Either they find something to do, or they find that boredom gets old quickly. Three years ago, though the term means less these days, there was a huge slacking movement. There wasn't really any enforcement, but pretty soon people realized they didn't like being cramped in with finicky temperature controls and sub-standard food. Things shaped up quickly, and slacking too hard is a bit of a stigma since then. It could have been much worse. That's when we arrived on the current model for these things. Four bosses you might call them. They're like elected officials, but they head the guilds, as they get called. Miners, mechanics, farmers, and keepers of the peace. The last group always has some drama with it. When I'm off shift, I try to listen into it, cast a voice about matters. I get more news about the miners, what with what I do. Sherman is head of us, he looks over the plans, tells us where to start digging, what to be doing, assigns groups for bigger projects. Nice guy, though he's lost the last of his hairs lately. He has us clearing out ore in certain areas, shoring up the foundations and tunnels where we can. I'm personally on the expansion crew, stretching out the web of tunnels to the edge of our settlements in preparation for who knows how much population in the future.
We live down here, so we expand down here, growing out from around the center where the Moon Chamber is. That hasn't been touched. Nobody really thinks it could be improved, either for safety or style. I make it a ways farther down, maybe ten feet or so before I head back. The route is easy, smooth floor lit up by inset lamps. If I didn't come out this far every day I might get lost, tunnels branching off every so often to criss-cross, merge, or split. Back farther towards the developed area signs start popping up, carved into stone plaques that are inset like the lights, though up on the wall.
Finding my way to the baths is relatively easy, even with around a thousand people, the halls aren't crowded. When they designed this place at the start it was for more people. Either they were an optimist who expected more people to be around when we moved in, or they were planning ahead for a ways so that we could grow easily. Hard to say, really. Nobody on the original construction crew is here. Once they had finished up the major work they left some recruiters in-charge and headed to the next dig-site. Maybe they got another one built before they settled down, or maybe they didn't get that far.
The baths are well done, if not as impressive as the Moon Chamber. They take on the look of a network of pipes, filled a third of the way up with warm water. It all drains out through grates in the floor, and hanging lights and more plaques point the way to the entrance. Even with the directions, the steam blurs the way, giving you privacy for sight, if not for sound. Splashes in the water echo all through the area. Back at the entrance I peel off the leather in one of the changing rooms and set my pack down beside it on a bench.
The soak is another way to let time slip by. The place isn't deserted, it never is. Four people glimpsed as shadows through the steam so far, their sloshing steps taking them to their own favourite nooks and corners of the baths.
I never really register the feel of my muscles tensed up while digging until it washes away in the warm water, and I look forward to the feel of relaxation immensely. Were it not for my stomach, I would have stayed in longer, but it growls like nothing down here but our stomachs do. I keep a change of clothes in my bag: a light, yellow dress with what would have been a scandalous and dangerous length back in the sun. Might have even been called a sun dress way back when.
It fits the style though. The hive of tunnels that we live in is hot, even without all the work and walking around we do. Most of the guys don't wear shirts, and shorts are pretty much standard dress. That's what's comfortable down here. Some people who remember farther back than I do make jokes about the beach, bikinis and floral print are here mostly because of them. Well, somewhat. We can't easily bring down flowers here, so it's a comforting sight, if a bit painful if I think on it too long. I pass a few people with one of the newer designs, stylized in the new current trend as I head toward the kitchens.
It's not far, not compared to walking in from the outskirts. I pick up some bread, potatoes, onions. Some other vegetables all mixed up into a salad. Nuts too. People still complain about the lack of meat, but I don't miss it. Not much anyway. Pigs would be too hard to keep down here, even if we had been able to get a hold of them. They'd just tunnel out, and risking a collapse of some sort due to a wild pig population doesn't sound like a good risk. Kids who get it into their heads to dig tunnels are bad enough as it is.
I load up a tray for a meal and stash some more bread for snacks in my pack, then drop it off at my house on the way to the Moon Chamber. It isn't out of the way, it's even on ground level of the large wall of apartment-style housing that fills a long hall that acts as a main thoroughfare through town. Nobody says anything about the smell of my work-suit that I've got stuffed half into a pocket of my pack. Either because the steam of the baths made it smell less or because they're polite. This area has enough people that both might be true to varying degrees, but the reactions aren't huge either way. The street isn't teeming with people, no, but there are about thirty or so on the stretch of hall I can see, which is more than I'd see in a week out on the outskirts.
Nothing much to say about the apartment itself. I don't spend much time there. Most people don't spend time in their housing, really. From the moment that we entered the Moon Chamber that first day we claimed it as a place of socialization. A plaza, a forum, the town hall. Stepping into it now there are tents set up where people have set up carvings or drawings, either just for display or for barter. There are a few games going, re-purposed plateaus or divots in the ground acting as makeshift fields. I sit down on a hill near the edge and pull out my lunch. There must be a third of everyone here, at least. When people aren't sleeping, bathing, or working, they're usually here, and people nap and work here too. Scattered around the area are likely a few groups of people planning and coordinating their projects, sitting in the silvery light with the rest of us. Just a normal day.
No comments:
Post a Comment