Feed the Machine (4 page)

“I got paper,” Raj commented over the low hum of his electric winch.

“Me too.”

The bugs crawled over the paper, lighting it. It was covered in three-letter codes, rows of numbers and symbols.

“Financial stuff.”

It was a common find. It was as if every skyscraper had been filled with people moving money from one place to another and writing papers about it.

They continued descending into the dark, Kin counting the depth. One hundred meters. One fifty.

Ash tried to keep his focus on the wall in front of him (what wasn’t blocked by Kin’s body) but his mind seemed intent on informing him of all the terrible things that could happen. The walls collapsing in on them. The junk shifting, bursting their skulls like a bug under a shoe. Their quotas stuck on the Machine for the next seven years unless someone happened to come this far out to dig up their collars. The junk collapsing above them, leaving them hanging over a deep dark hole with not enough power to cut their way back to the surface. A slow starvation…

Ash blinked away these macabre thoughts and risked a look over his shoulder at the hole beneath them. It kept going down without end. As Kin read off one-seventy, he felt the first of the rope patches telling him he was close to full length.

“Large metal mass on both sides,” Kin said. “Safes, maybe.”

“Fuck yes,” Raj said.

Ash locked the rope and let the winch and harness take his weight.

With both his arms free he swung closer to the wall and used his cutter to carve out a hole. At this depth the junk was so compressed it was like cutting through rock. He used a small pickax to clear out the center of the hole, letting the junk clatter down into the darkness. As soon as the hole was big enough, Kin climbed down his body and stepped off to sit on the impromptu shelf.

“Feel like sacrificing a bug? See how deep it goes?” Raj asked from behind him.

“Can’t afford it.”

“You think I can?”

Ash spun around to face his friend. He’d already cut a small flat piece of metal out from the wall and had one of his glowing bugs sitting on it. They both looked down as he dropped it. The bug fell straight down, a single pinpoint of light that showed the hole was at least three times as deep as they’d already descended. Then it bounced off something, spun sideways and vanished.

“Looks like it went on an angle at the bottom,” Raj said.

“Hey, the bug survived.”

Ash pointed at the very distant dot of light that appeared beneath them. Raj’s bug, slowly making its way back to its owner.

“This one is two meters back. On the other side it’s three,” Kin said, sniffing around the junk.

Ash pulled himself back to the wall and extended the shelf sideways so Kin could move out of the way. Two meters back meant a lot of cutting and reinforcing so the tunnel he was about to create didn’t collapse in on him. He turned the cutter up and sliced a rough hole, alternating swinging with his pickax to pull junk out. Most of it he let drop beneath him but he kept some pieces of metal aside for reinforcing.

“Found batteries. Pure, no split,” Raj said.

“I have nothing,” Ash answered, digging deeper. There were a few fragments of circuitry but most of the junk was no different than what he could have found near Cago.

“Sealed food tin, no label. Dated 2052. Plus another battery.”

Ash turned around to look where Raj was digging. Behind the surface layer of metal and concrete, his hole turned colorful. Green circuit board, bits of bright yellow and red hard plastic, packages of electronics smashed but sealed in thin see-though bags.

He turned back to his hole and kept digging. Once he’d gone in as far as he could reach without pulling his body in, he turned the cutter down and started welding bits of metal into the sides of the tunnel to strengthen it. He found a few flat pieces which he laid on the bottom so he could slide forward without shredding his body on the spiky edges.

“Going in,” he called back to Raj.

“Found a gold necklace, half a necklace anyway,” Raj answered back.

Ash pulled himself into the tunnel and once it held his weight he let some rope out so he could inch forward. The two bugs followed, lighting the small area a dull green. He turned on his side and freed his pack, pulling it out from under him.

Then he turned the cutter up and kept digging.

It was slow going. He had to slice the junk smaller and push it past himself, down to his legs where Kin would then pull it with his claws over the edge. The air was smoky as he hit fragments of wood and bits of old paper and sometimes the metal sparked as he cut through it, sending out glowing embers that burned his skin when they landed in any gap between his hasdee strips.

Raj kept calling out his finds. A piece of silver necklace. Half a circuit. More sealed batteries.

Ash had nothing to call out. It was just metal, concrete and shattered wood. Finally Raj went quiet (a miracle in itself). Ash looked back down his body and out the hole. Like him, Raj was fully inside the tunnel now, the bottom of his feet sticking out as he cut his way towards the large metal box Kin had detected.

“Twenty centimeters,” Kin murmured from near Ash’s feet.

Ash turned the cutter up again and sliced through the final wall of junk separating him from his prize. The rubble fell away to reveal the black undamaged gleam of a safe door.

“I’m here. It’s a safe,” he called back.

“Same,” Raj replied, his voice faint.

The bugs ran forward and climbed over the safe before creeping off to the ceiling.

“Kin, how big and where am I?” he called back.

He felt Kin creep up next to his leg, his cat stepping on his back. He popped his head over his shoulder.

“It’s two meters tall and one meter wide. You’re near the top. I think this might be the back. Can’t see inside,” Kin said. He wriggled back, pricking Ash with his claws.

Ash checked his cutter. Down to seventy-five percent reserve. Plenty of energy to cut through a safe.

He turned it to maximum and sliced a glowing X across the safe. Then he cut down one side and used his pick to pull at the metal. Nothing budged. Ash held the cutter closer and cut in deeper, pulling with his pick until a chuck of door came free. It was a good ten centimeters thick. He pushed the metal aside and cut along each side of the X until he’d made a rectangle hole in the door.

He gave the metal a moment to cool. He moved forward, sliding his hand into the hole and feeling around. At first there was nothing but air but then he bent his arm and felt the touch of smooth metal under his fingers. It slipped aside from his grasp and he heard the slide of metal on metal. He felt around, finding something round and metal and then pulled it out, awkwardly twisting his hand as it came out of the hole.

With perfect timing Raj called out, “Find anything good? Mine’s empty.”

“A gold pocket watch,” Ash answered, looking at the perfection he held in his hand.

It was immaculate. A glass front, two large golden hands and a fine golden second hand sitting frozen. It was attached to a gleaming golden chain.

It was money.

It was salvation.

If there were more it was paying off the quota a hundred times over.

Ash stuffed it in his pack and reached into the hole again. He pulled out another watch. This one had a crack running across the glass.

“Another one!” he called out, stuffing it into his pack.

He checked his cutter. Getting through the safe had drained it down to twenty-five percent but that didn’t matter now. He fired it up and enlarged the hole, slicing downward.

One of the bugs crawled inside, lighting it.

Watches. The safe was half-filled with them. Some of them were busted but most of them were pristine and perfect. There was more there than they could carry even if they emptied their backpacks of everything and filled them to the brim.

More wealth in there than they could use in ten lifetimes.

The junk creaked ominously around him. Ash started filling his pack as fast as he could. For an instant, it crossed his mind he wished he was there alone. He had somehow found this without Raj. He could fill his pack and come home and they’d be rich. He’d take all that money and get five hundred bugs and go back out to bring the entire safe to the surface. The bugs would carry it back for him and he’d walk into Cago a rich man.

The selfish fantasy came and went in a heartbeat but Ash still felt it throbbing through him like a sore tooth. There was enough gold here to get Raj’s family well and truly warm too. Together they’d been able to pull their families up, get them out of the slums and move them to the rich side of Cago.

Ash kept scooping watches into his bag. He considered dumping the pap to make more room but he still needed to get home. He dumped his bedroll and anything nonessential. Reluctantly he finished filling the pack and then closed it, pulling at the threads to make sure it wasn’t going to burst apart. Then he wriggled back out of the tunnel with the pack. He used a clip to hook it to the rope above him. Raj told him his safe was empty and passed him his pack. Ash crawled back into the hole and filled it. Behind him Raj swung on his rope, stunned into silence by the find.

He was halfway out of the tunnel, a grin on his face, when Chirp dived down the hole, yelling.

“Fuck no, fuck no, fuck no!”

His high voice echoed down the hole and Ash’s joy was replaced by icy fear.

It had to be Scabs.

Raj grabbed his feet and roughly pulled him out of the hole. Ash nearly dropped Raj’s pack but managed to crush it against the wall at the last moment.

“We gotta go,” Raj said, grabbing his pack off him and looping his arms through it. He slammed his hand to his winch and started ascending.

“Kin!” Ash called, unclipping his pack from the rope above him and putting it on his front.

Kin climbed out from the ledge and onto Ash’s chest, digging his claws into the harness webbing. Ash hit the button on his own winch which slowly powered on before jerking them upwards.

“Stupid bird probably saw a bug,” Kin whispered in the dark.

Ash looked up at the circle of hot daylight far above them. Raj was already a good five meters above him, his superior winch pulling him up. His own was groaning and when he put his hand to it, it was hot.

“Fuck,” he swore and opened his pack. He grabbed a handful of watches intent on dumping them but then he froze. This handful was a pile of money. Food. Medicine. Bugs. Meat.

Freedom.

“Hurry!” Raj called back down to him.

But you couldn’t eat food if you were food for Scabs.

He threw the watches out and then grabbed another handful. All around him the junk had started creaking, protesting and transmitting the sound of something coming closer.

Ash emptied half his pack, the precious wealth clattering down into the dark. The winch on his harness stopped groaning. He looked up. Raj was ahead of him still but not accelerating away so fast. Ash closed the pack and slipped it on telling himself it didn’t matter he’d lost so much. If they were caught by Scabs, they’d be tortured or killed or maybe made into slaves to dig the junk until they died of starvation.

He still had enough to get clear the quota. Enough for food and more bugs. He could return for the rest with Raj after Feed. Hope the Scabs hadn’t climbed down and taken the watches for themselves.

Ash willed the winch to pull him faster. Raj reached the top, briefly blocking out some of the sun and clambered up. He looked down at Ash and waved his hands.

“Scabs are fucking coming!”

The climb was torturous. Ash wanted to grab the rubble to pull himself out. There was no point dumping the pack now—the winch wasn’t going to lift him and Kin to the top any faster.

Raj was kneeling on the edge, his hand outstretched. Ash saw him look up, his eyes widen and in a clatter of junk he stood and vanished.

Half a meter to go and Kin leapt, dug his claws into the side of the hole and scrambled out. Moments later Ash grabbed the edge, the winch pulling him up as he dug his feet into the hole and hauled himself over. He stood and turned around.

The Scab was covered in scars. He was only young, not much older than Ash himself but years in the Scour had dried out his skin. His body was disfigured by old wounds sliced open, packed with dirt and clay, spiraling lines and dots running up his torso, down his arms. His skin was a deep burned brown, leathery and when he bared his teeth at Ash from the far side of the hole, he saw they were sharpened to points and tipped with metal. The crossbow in his hands was half polished metal and half fused junk. The bolt was a steel rod sharpened to a point, fine metal fins running down the length of it.

Ash stopped breathing, his heart thudding wildly. All the Scab had to do was pull the trigger and the bolt would go straight through his heart. He’d fall, dangling by his ropes in the hole, soon to be pulled up and eaten at leisure.

Ash heard noise behind him—footsteps on metal—receding into the distance. Faintly he heard Chirp shouting
fuck no
. There were other voices too, men and women yelling from the other side of the hill behind the Scab.