Megwit Gaston had spent a long time working contracts in godforsaken pits like Starshine Mining Facility #4. From his point of view, his life had been mostly wasted, as all he’d managed to do was make some faceless landed nobleman rich.
His great grandfather had come to Ignis Glace with plans of rising to the rank of an earl, or perhaps that of a duke. Such fantasies had ended like those of a thousand others before him: in utter failure. Megwit’s rank was that of an unskilled serf. Like most serfs who were assigned to labor in the grimmest of conditions, his character was predictably surly and self-indulgent. In Megwit’s case, however, these traits had grown extreme.
Sitting in his office with runnels of bluish liquid spirits dribbling down his chin, he became dimly aware of an alarm chime. He tapped at a screen irritably until it went away. He knew it would return eventually, but right now, he couldn’t be bothered. He was far too busy with the consumption of his daily cocktail of alcohol, heavily-laced with caffeine and blur-dust. The concoction wisped with tendrils of blue vapor which drifted in a lazy spiral toward the exhaust vents in the walls.
Megwit sipped the beverage periodically and tried not to think about anything at all. His eyes were puffed red and two-thirds closed. He sipped his beverage each day because few men were capable of gulping such a harsh mixture straight from the thermos. If he’d been strong-stomached enough, however, he’d have guzzled it all right down.
It had been a ten-day or more since Megwit had done any actual work. He’d given up on such niceties after he’d received his termination notice. The company had cheerfully informed him his contract would not be renewed after the close of the season, and once the sandstorms let up sufficiently, his replacement would be shipped out to this hellhole, which was generously referred to in the official termination email as ‘the operation’.
Well, let them have the place! Let them have his job too, if they wanted it. He would sell his contract more cheaply to someplace in Twilight next time. The money was better for those who were willing to work Sunside, but it wasn’t worth it. He was sick of everything here. He was sick of the crappy rations, the sandstorms that continually knocked out satellite reception, and more than anything else, he was sick of the blinding light and heat of the place. You couldn’t even sit on a steel toilet without getting your buttocks burned. If ever there had been a true Hell on a planetary surface where men were expected to perform work, Ignis Glace’s Sunside was it.
Megwit shook the last drops out of his thermos. He nursed and licked long after it was gone, and then he experienced a wave of dull despair. He’d just killed his one and only allotted of refreshment for the day. It would be at least seven more long hours before he could open a new thermos and sip it, sending his mind away to a fresh oblivion. He heaved a great sigh, and put his feet on the desk. Unfortunately, his boots kept slipping off the surface, such was his level of intoxication. After a while he gave up on the effort.
Each thermos was supposed to be comprised of only caffeinated liquids to keep the operator awake, but Megwit had altered the brew. What was supposed to be his limited ration of daily stimulant had done far more than just stimulate him throughout his tenure here at the mine. But despite his having managed to tamper with the contents, the machine that controlled the allotments was a harsh master. It would not allow any alteration of the schedule itself. He was to be given a single dose of liquid refreshment per day, and thusly the stingy allotments would continue to be doled out slowly until he signed out of this place for the last time.
Within a few minutes of completing his beverage, Megwit was bored. His mind was still numb, but he was not yet ready for sleep. Besides, the monitoring systems would protest and prod him if he attempted to climb into his bunk now. He eyed his bunk with longing anyway. The steel chair and angular steel desk were not terribly comfortable to nap upon.
The alarm chime began again. Megwit gargled with rage. He slapped at the screen with floppy fingers. It would not stop its infernal beeping! Finally, he managed to silence it. How many times had he done so? How many times had he silenced that particular alarm? He could not be sure.
He frowned and squinted through bleary eyes, trying to focus on the screen. Normally, the system would have given up by now. It would have taken his repeated acknowledgements and dismissals as a lowering of priority. In time, it should have forgotten about whatever was upsetting it, much as Megwit himself had given up on such trifling matters long ago. But the system had not given up. It had continued to insist.
Grudgingly, he checked it, dialing up a menu with one sloppy forefinger. It was not out of any sense of duty or responsibility that he was moved to follow-up on the alarm now. He did so out of a sense of curiosity, heightened by boredom and the random behavior common among those affected by blur-dust.
A map of the complex sprung up on a small screen. A blinking red light showed an external hatchway was open. Megwit frowned. The hatches all sealed themselves automatically when a storm blew up, and this storm had been raging for hours.
He checked outside, but saw no change in the grim conditions. The winds screamed in excess of fifty miles per hour, with gusts up to ninety. All of the mech laborers had long ago been safely stored or had taken shelter inside the mine itself. How could this door have been opened? The only answer that came to his foggy mind was the most likely one: the hatch had not been properly secured in the first place and had somehow been blown open.
Relieved it was nothing more serious, he all but dismissed the matter from his mind. If it had been something truly damaging, he might be held liable, even after his termination. This open hatch could be safely ignored. Certainly, the mechs would have a lot of sand to clean up when the storm passed, but that did not concern him.
A nagging thought, however, made him check into the situation further. He had the feeling he’d forgotten something. Exactly which chamber had been left open to this blasting storm?
He frowned at the screen in his weak-fingered hands as it zoomed in and showed him the source of the trouble. What was that? The processing chamber? He shook his head. There was no one in there.
Then he sat back and laughed suddenly. He shook his head and licked the rim of the thermos, tasting the final stinging drops of blur on his tongue. Why was it, when one waited long enough, a few more drops always seemed to accumulate at the bottom of a vessel?
Megwit now recalled working in the processing chamber. He’d been there when he’d gotten the news, when he’d learned of his contractual termination. He’d been doing something in there…
He recalled what it was now: he’d been working on a mech in that chamber, a fresh delivery. Frowning, he activated the cameras. He was liable for all the equipment at Facility #4, and the mining lords weren’t known for their compassion when losses were traceable to a clear-cut source of negligence. They might even sue him, attaching a rider to the wages of his next contract.
The security cameras showed an empty chamber, filling with sand. There was no one on the table, and the clamps were open. Megwit slapped himself in the temple, but his mind did not respond by operating with greater efficiency. He flicked to the records.
Sixty-Two, the records stated. Prisoner number Sixty-Two had been there, in those clamps. He was sure of it. The mech had been left there during processing-which had never been completed. But where had the prisoner gone? How had he left?
Megwit spent the next several minutes consulting one camera after another. It was difficult to see anything other than blowing sand. Piles of it had drifted over some of the video pickups. Others could rotate and scan, but he saw nothing other than the dark humps of half-buried buildings.