Wrought In Hell

"Wrought In Hell"

By Clint Hall

         The Molotov cannonball cratered the marble floor of Lottery Square and flung jagged, acid-glazed shards in every direction. All the miners attending the lottery scattered and fled, running for cover from the attacking 'Clink' ship; all except Vissyan. He hurtled his massive, muscular body over benches and chairs and stairs toward the Response Base to man a Molotov cannon turret.
         The Clink ship hovering overhead noticed the hulking man's dash and spat more flaming glass balls all around him, trying to slow or kill him before he could do what he did so well. Acid exploded on the ground near him and nibbled meekly at his genetically toughened skin and the shards of marble that accompanied it dared not enter his taut flesh as they would surely have been spat back out. He leapt over the craters and past the smoking chapel to the heavy turret where he threw himself into its seat. He effortless pulled the heavy lock-lever beside him and grabbed hold of the ergonomic handles, caressing the triggers. He swung the turret and watched the mechanical men panic inside their ship through his crosshairs. He smiled.
         "Your number's up," he said coolly.
         He pressed both triggers, but his aim was so deadly accurate that one would have been enough. The cannon belched a flaming ball and then another at the cockpit of the ship. The balls exploded ferociously, covering the Clinks with acid. All he could do now was wait and watch, his trigger fingers desperately hoping they would come around for another pass, but the ship instead swooned and flew away, raining burning meteors of melting metal down on the surrounding stone buildings.
         Vissyan knew the Clinks were determined to never allow them to mine sanguisium from planet Zurvan, but he didn't think they would go so far as to attack unarmed miners during the lottery.

***

         After the fires were extinguished, the lottery proceeded as if nothing had happened. The Company was probably expecting the Clinks to attack at some point, so all that could be done was continue day-to-day operations. Lottery Master Gron did just that as he heaved his large, wrinkled, worn down body over debris to the podium. He resumed calling employee numbers of the dozen men who would be transported deep underground to a particularly nasty region referred to as 'Hell's Kitchen', where Satan's fires burned hot enough to incinerate the hopeful sots who dared remove the nectar of Hell.
         Mining in Hell's Kitchen for a couple weeks usually reaped enough sanguisium to end one's duration and put them in a position to return to the Colonies, or even Earth. However, all the miners on Zurvan were orphans adopted by The Company at a young age and knew only this intemperate home. Besides that, very few miners had a high opinion of an un-modded human.
         Because of the thin air, high gravity, high heat and all-around treacherousness of Zurvan, it quickly became fashionable for The Company to 'encourage' genetic modifications to their orphans. From a young age they were taught that mining was the most important aspect of life and more sanguisium meant more money and therefore more options for their futures, so becoming a mutant wasn't so bad. And if it meant you could more easily tolerate a stint in Hell's Kitchen--it was perfect. Winning the lottery was winning your dreams.
         Vissyan knew his number wasn't going to be called. Ever. Vissyan wasn't just adopted by The Company; he was adopted by The Boss. Years ago, The Boss had watched Vissyan evolve into the fastest, then the strongest miner that The Company had ever known. And Vissyan, for some strange reason, seemed to be able to feel when there was a healthy vein of sanguisium underfoot. For these reasons, he knew that The Boss would never let him leave this place. The dream of winning the lottery never died within him, but to expect The Boss to give up his greatest asset through the luck of the draw was simply unrealistic.
         Thinking of all this made Vissyan's gaze instinctively drift to the tallest stone building surrounding the outdoor amphitheatre of the square. It was a forty metre tall obelisk where The Boss could view all of what he controlled. It was known as 'The Outlook' and rumour had it that it was lush and plush and even had its own heavy control so the un-modded could enjoy an Earth-type gravity. No one knew for sure, though, because miners weren't allowed to interact with the un-mods in The Tower. It seemed The Boss was more of an overlord or a slave-driver than a 'boss', but he could get away with murder as long as the sanguisium kept flowing.
         Tarj manoeuvred his way around the small, un-modded man-sized amphitheatre seats to find his buddy Vissyan sitting on his own. He nudged Vissyan's massive bicep as he flopped down beside him, forcing Vissyan to lose track of his Clink and Company reverie.
         "Hey, Vizzy, they call my number yet?" He said and winked beneath his gaudy green helmet, which seemed to tilt on its own at the question.
         Tarj was a man that Vissyan only tolerated at the best of times, but he didn't tolerate the others. Being an adopted son of The Boss didn't make one many friends, so Vissyan decided he didn't need any. Most men who made the attempt were swiftly turned away by Vissyan's sharp temper and surly demeanour. The only reason Tarj had insisted on pushing past all that was a matter of circumstance. Three years ago Vissyan had single-handedly killed a grappler--beast with a bad attitude the size of three miners--who was trying to turn Tarj into a snack. Tarj didn't understand that Vissyan would have intervened for anyone, so he took a shine to his saviour and hadn't left him alone since.
         Under Tarj's worn green helmet, his eyes pensively darted back and forth from Lottery Master Gron to his pal Vissyan. There was obviously something on his mind that he was having an impossible time trying to spit out. Tarj was genetically modified to mine on Zurvan, like everyone else, but Vissyan was the largest of them all and a man who could destroy a monster with his bare hands, so Tarj always seemed to choose his words carefully when it came to delicate matters.
         "Vizzy? He finally said, scratching at the flaking paint on the brim of his helmet. "You've never told me what you'd do if you earned enough money to end your duration."
         "Boss won't let my duration end," Vissyan barked.
         Tarj squirmed in his seat at Vissyan's harshness.
         "But let's say it does ... one day. You must have plans for your fortune? I sure have plans for mine! I'm going to buy an apartment on Earth--yeah, that's right, I said 'Earth'--meet a nice girl with no limits in the bedroom and start a big family--like REAL big. I'm talking two boys, two girls, two dogs, two cats, three goldfish ..."
         "Reproduction cap on Earth is one child," Vissyan said.
         "So I'll have illegals! I'll be rich! ... Who'll tell me 'no'?" He nudged his bicep again, this time repeatedly. Vissyan glowered at him, but Tarj was too excited now to be terrified. "Come on, now! What about you?"
         Vissyan didn't have to think about it. He knew exactly what he wanted and dreamt about it constantly on the thin mattress of his bunk in the barracks. He stared into the auburn sky and tried to pretend that he hadn't given it much thought, but the starry way he talked about it gave him away.
         "There is a man five light-years from here who owns a small planet. Recently, he has been selling plots of land and says he won't sell to more than a hundred people, but the cost of that land would rid me of my entire duration pay." Vissyan sighed happily as he envisioned the exact lot he had chosen in his mind. "But I won't need a fortune once I buy the land as there are animals to hunt and an endless supply of fresh water. I could live the rest of my natural life without ever running into another soul."
         "Wow! I think I've heard of that place! I'm pretty sure the owner of that world used to mine here ... either that or he owned this place before he sold it to The Company. I'm surprised you've never told me that before."
         "I rarely have a chance to speak when you're around."
         "That's because I'm always trying to make you laugh! One day you will ... mark my words!"
         Master Gron called a number that turned Tarj's face pale. Tarj stared at the old man, mouth gaping like a chasm, until he slowly turned to Vissyan with eyes desperately pleading to hear the numbers again.
         Vissyan plucked the numbers from his eidetic memory and repeated Tarj's employee number to the stunned miner. Tarj returned his stare to the weather-beaten face of the Lottery Master, who had already begun reading the final number, and slowly rose from his seat. He clumsily tripped over what seemed to be every chair in the amphitheatre and made his way to centre stage to stand with the others. His mouth still gaped as he stood on stage, as apparently the news had not yet reached his brain. Finally his colour returned and his mouth opened wider into a face-splitting smile and he waved at the audience like an idiot. His green helmet bobbed and danced around on top of his narrow skull, desperately trying to escape its moronic owner.
         Vissyan couldn't help but smile for the man and wondered if he would actually do the things he was dreaming about.
         The Company had their twelve.
         Vissyan pierced The Boss's obelisk with a glare of fire and left Lottery Square.

***

         Vissyan stood atop the mighty chasm as a god-king might stand upon Olympus, surveying all that was his--or at least all that should be his. Zurvan's two suns had recently set behind him, but a bloody crimson washed the land and cast dark shadows over the mouth of the drop. The other side of the mouth was a good kilometre away, east and west went on for eternity and there was no discernable bottom. Just a darkness that led straight to Hell.
         Vissyan squinted with his enhanced eyes to try to see the bottom, but he never could. He never really had to squint, but he wanted to use his powerful senses to see what he would never get to see in person. His future was the mine, not Hell's Kitchen. He was destined to become a decrepit, senile Lottery Master like poor old Gron.
         He leaned further over the chasm, straining his sight. His senses were always actively working at full capacity helping him survive this planet. His eyes could see farther, his three lungs busily processed the thin atmosphere, his hulking frame battled the heavy gravity and his ears heard every whisper the wind made to the craggy walls of the chasm.
And his ears heard the footfalls approaching from the rear.
         His heart immediately raced, adrenalin and fight boiled his blood. But he recognized the pattern very quickly and he cooled as fast as he heated.
         "Hey, Vizzy. Hope I didn't startle you." Tarj's footfalls slowed on approach and became sloppy as they dragged. "I thought I might find you here. This is where I always used to come to think about what it might be like to be called to Hell's Kitchen, digging up enough ore to take me home and win me my dreams. Actually ... I think this is about the spot where you killed that grappler for me."
         Vissyan briefly took his eyes off the chasm's depths to point at a shadowy area about forty metres east where he had kicked the beast into oblivion. "It was there," he corrected, and resumed his peering. All miners came here at some point to dream of the ultimate score, but none so often as Vissyan. He didn't know why he was there now, but the depths were always calling to him--teasing him with their bounty.
         "I'm sorry you don't get to come. I asked if I could give you some of my keep, but Boss said 'no'."
         Vissyan previously wondered if he was upset with the results and jealous of Tarj, but that comment tossed all that away and Vissyan smirked at the darkness. He suddenly remembered why he tolerated that short, stocky man in the gaudy green helmet. "I'm happy for you Tarj. This place ..." he said, looking around as he spoke, "won't be the same without you annoying me."
         Tarj laughed heartily, too heartily, in fact. Such a laugh would have been awkward from anyone but Tarj, but he somehow managed to do it and make it seem natural.
         After his outburst, there was a moment of silence that was uncharacteristically broken by Vissyan.
         "Two point two-three-eight kilometres," he said and finally turned around to meet the eyes of the only man he might ever call 'friend'. "That's how far away you are to reaching your goal. It seems a lot farther to mine."
         "When you buy your little slice of heaven on that rich guy's planet ... I will bring you a housewarming pie. The wife will make it, of course. She will have to be a good cook, but if she boiled dirt, it would probably be better than Company rations." He extended his hand, obviously a little unsure if it would be received.
         Vissyan grabbed onto it warmly and gave a few sturdy pumps. "Bring the kids."

***

         The next day, the first of the two suns peeked over the horizon to spy on the winners' ship descend down the chasm to Hell's Kitchen. There was a brief celebration on the ledge before the descent, but the festivities had to make way for the cleanup in Lottery Square.
Vissyan pushed his hovering ore collector out of a storage hut into the square and stopped inside a crater in the middle of the shattered marble floor. He glanced at The Boss's ominous tower while tugging on his mining gloves, wondering if he was scrutinizing the cleanup effort.
As he began pantomiming the retrieval of the broken stone, the ore collector hummed, responding immediately to the signals from his gloves and dug out the marble for him with its four spindly arms. Loose marble took much less manipulating than the igneous in which sanguisium chose to hide, so it was almost mind-numbing work without having to use his punch-drill. The heavy phantom punches that released the spiked knuckles of his glove could be a lot of fun sometimes. The harder he punched, the more resistance he could feel up his arm; the denser the rock, the more the resistance. After a full day's worth of punch-drilling, even Vissyan's powerful arms would be in danger of becoming fatigued.
Vissyan brought his arms to his chest and waited as the ore collector opened its belly and deposited the rock. The ore collector was an extension of his body and Vissyan felt a special kinship with it. It followed the gloves he wore like a loyal pet and was responsible for returning the mineral that made him money. It had been his only friend for years and he even had a name for it that he was careful not to utter very loud: 'Yuna'--the name of the woman who had given him life. Before Tarj, the ore collector was his only pet that followed him around.
         The collectors had to be stupid and faithful because the human race had once relied on Clinks to mine sanguisium. After a time, their intelligences increased and they didn't want to work in a dangerous environment for their human overlords anymore, so they revolted. There was a fair amount of fighting before some bleeding-hearts back in the Colonies fought for Clink emancipation and won. That was all fine, except for the fact that sanguisium is the most valuable substance in existence, so the mining needed to continue. Genetic mods made things run like they had in the time of the Clinks, but these mods led to a lower life expectancy for anyone who had them done, which was ironic as sanguisium--in its refined form--was used to extend the life expectancy of the wealthy.
His mind stopped wandering and became quite focused and acute. He abruptly stopped the collection, as his surroundings seemed to slow and his senses warned him of something, but something non-specific. It was similar to the sense he got when he was near a healthy vein of sanguisium. When he moved past the others, he noticed that none of them had stopped working, but that was not surprising. He had long suspected that he could sense things that his co-workers could not and his mind was unique in ways that he didn't fully understand. Those characteristics were at work again.
He walked away from his cleanup and entered the smoking ruins of the chapel, working his way slowly up to the highest remaining point, which was still lower than The Outlook. He sped his ascent as his senses urged him, prodding him to see what he needed to see. There was a gaping hole in the masonry near the top where he was able to look to the horizon and confirm that his senses never lied.
A Clink attack ship was descending into the chasm, following the miners who were on their way down to Hell's Kitchen.
Following Tarj.

***

         Vissyan ran at his top speed to the chasm, his brawny legs eagerly surging and rippling, propelling him swiftly through the strong gravity at a blurring pace. He skidded to a stop at the precipice, his busy lungs never forcing him to breathe heavy, but when he looked down, all he saw was blackness. The Clink ship was already shrouded by dark and the walls were packed with ores that made communication to Hell's Kitchen impossible, so in Vissyan's mind there was only one possible solution to stop the Clinks.
         "If you want to go to Hell, rusters, you're gonna meet The Devil!"
         He ran back fifty paces, skidded to a stop, turned and ran at full speed to the mouth of the chasm. His wide stride felt too slow to him, each step gave him new reasons not to do this: (step) there was nothing but blackness and the clawing grasp of gravity; (step) he thought of Tarj's illegal children; (step) two point two-three-eight kilometres to the bottom; (step) he thought of Tarj's new life on Earth; (step) less oxygen at the bottom if he somehow survived; (step) he thought of Tarj offering him part of his keep....
         There were no more steps.
His foot hit the edge of the drop, toes touching air.
He didn't stop.
He leapt.
Time slowed further, but his fall was fast. The craggy wall of the chasm seemed to be closing in on him--there must be a slope rushing forward to kill him. The rocks got closer and closer and closer, and all he could think to do was put his hands out to protect himself from the approaching wall of jagged rock, but when his hands were before him, he saw he was still wearing his mining gloves! Would the repellent force of the punch-drill give him the inertia he needed to push away from the certain death of approaching rock? He didn't have a moment to wonder, so pressed a button on his knuckle with the pad of his thumb and pulled all his strength into a phantom punch toward the wall. The spiked knuckles shot violently out of the glove and impacted the rock with a thunderous crunch. Vissyan felt an incredible jolt of pain that made his right arm tingle to the shoulder, but it worked! He back flipped out of the way of the approaching rock and tumbled end-over-end through the dark.
         His enhanced eyes saw the Clink ship a few hundred metres down and north--not near close enough to grab. His spiked knuckles had returned to his glove and wouldn't be able to reach the wall again as the chasm was yawning to cavernous and his flips had brought him toward the centre. How long before he hit bottom? Why did he jump in the first damn place?
Just then, he heard a familiar hum from above and looked up.
Yuna! Vissyan's ore collector was faithfully following his mining gloves down to Hell. She was close and getting closer. He tried grabbing for her, but missed. He looked down and saw the ground approaching. He reached again with his gloved hand, and the spindly arm responded by reaching for him. It felt like Yuna was trying to save him, even though it was only copying his movements. Vissyan caught the arm! He pulled her in quickly and rolled on top, hoping that the hover motor was strong enough to stop them from becoming a stain on the floor of Hell's Kitchen.
The gentle hum of Yuna turned into a whining whir, then a grinding and spitting squeal as she tried to accommodate the large man. It was working and they were slowing, but not nearly fast enough. They hit the ground hard; Vissyan was ejected and rolled across the ground for metres and hit his head on the craggy wall.
He was out cold.

***

The smell of mining came to him: dust from crushing rock, metal heating cutting oil, laser scouring. His powerful senses felt the ground shuddering with anticipation of revealing ore. His eyes could no longer resist and they opened.
He was apparently not dead, which was pretty good for jumping two kilometres without a chute.
Yuna was fifty metres away in a miserable heap--she was dead, and he wanted to weep for her passing. The last thing she did was save his life and now her giddy hums would never be heard again. He never realized how much his mechanical pet meant to him until he saw her like this. She wasn't really his pet though; she was his partner and another friend whose touch he would never know again.
Vissyan summoned his remaining strength to push himself off the ground and looked around this monstrous cave that led to Hell's Kitchen. Stalactites plunged downward like teeth from the ceiling, the walls were rough and craggy like the walls he had seen on the descent and fifty metres away was the landed Clink ship. He smeared away blood that streamed down his forehead and stumbled toward it. His whole body felt rattled and hollowed out from his crash landing and his soul felt burned from the death of his companion, but he didn't know how to stop his pursuit. His last friend might still be alive.
He reached the ship, pounded on its hatch. His gloves were still on, his punch-drill had turned itself off, but he still dented the door with each angry knock.
"Come out and fight, rusters!" He visually inspected the ship for damage, hoping the winner's drop ship had put up a fight. There was none. "I'll burn your ship like I've burnt the others! I'll do it with my spit this time!"
He hammered on the hatch a few more times, but stopped when he saw something lying upended forty metres away near a man-sized opening carved through craggy rock. The door opening itself was probably the entrance to Hell's Kitchen's Rig, but that was not what interested him. It was the object before it that interested him. It was semi-circular, but the orange fiery glare from the man-door to Hell's Kitchen was blinding, so he walked cautiously toward it, fearing he knew what it was.
It was a green helmet, flaking paint--covered in blood.
He ran as best he could in his rattled condition to snatch the helmet off the ground. It was Tarj's, all right.
For the first time in his life, he had no thoughts in his head. He wasn't sad, or afraid, or even angry. He didn't know what to be; he didn't know what to think. He slowly and delicately placed the helmet back down on the ground and ran at full speed into Hell's Kitchen. As soon as he stepped through the opening it was like stepping into Hell itself. He stopped abruptly while his brain tried to process the images he was seeing.
The Clinks were fighting the grapplers.

***

The grapplers were massive beasts at three times the size of the humanoid Clinks, with four powerful, double jointed, boney legs. The legs tapered to a deadly point in lieu of feet and two arms hooked in front in the fashion of crab-like chelae. The globe that periscoped a metre above the torso was a compound eye the size of two fists. The torso was exoskeletal; its top was a delicate-looking shell, divided in half as if it carried wings.
There were two silver Clinks to each grappler, ripping and clawing at each other; Titans brawling in a drunken rage. There must have been twenty of these battles being fought along the narrow isthmus and islands that refused to burn from the heat of the rolling seas of magma surrounding them.
Far off, near one of the massive laser drilling rigs, there was a grappler attacking a group of six miners. The miners were fighting valiantly, ducking flailing chelae and parrying with boney legs, but the grappler had already made two kills and was hungry to make more.
Vissyan knew he needed to get to them, but he had to first get past all the brawling monsters in his way to help his brothers. The Clinks were moving in a blur of calculated ferocity, their joints making clinking sounds when they applied maximum force against their assailants. Vissyan watched the first group of combatants jump from side to side and punch and kick the grappler and leap onto its colossal body. One snatched at the grappler's long neck, but was savagely crushed by the beast's left chelae with a deafening crunch of machinery. The monster threw the twitching Clink into the molten sea and focused on the remaining machine, but it was too late. The other Clink successfully made its way up the neck, pulled off the thing's eye and tossed it after its vanquished partner. The grappler swooned, wires erupted from its stump, spitting electrical fire, then the beast collapsed and the Clink was off to help in the next m. The grapplers were machines!
Vissyan sprinted to the next group, picked up a dying, twitching Clink by its leg and arm and threw it into the flurry of mechanical monsters engaged in battle. The dying Clink collided with the midsection of the grappler and knocked all three combatants into the fiery sea below. He wasted no time in running to the next, leaping over one Clink and above the grappler, grabbing the beast's eye and twisting it off with one powerful motion. Before the Clinks could adjust their attack, Vissyan kicked the twitching behemoth he had immobilized into them and they all tumbled into the roiling rock. He was able to run right past the next group of fighters, but had to heave his punch-drill's spiked fist into a Clink before passing the next. By the time he reached the miners, the grappler they fought had made another two kills, so he had to act fast. He used one miner's back as a launching pad to leap through the air and grasp the thing's neck, climbed up the neck to clutch its eye and twisted it off as easily as a bottle cap. He let the beast sag to the ground.
The three survivors were panting and beside themselves with fatigue. They looked at him gratefully and one came up to him and used Vissyan's broad shoulder as a leaning post.
"Thanks, Vissyan," he said, trying to catch his breath.
Vissyan surveyed the dead miners, still breathing normally as if he hadn't just killed monsters, then asked, "Where's Tarj?"
The miner didn't answer right away, then forlornly pointed near the laser scour, which continually hammered cold rock ten metres away. Six more miner's bodies lay still near the busy machine, piled around a demolished grappler that had been pulled limb from limb. A growing pool of blood surrounded the monster like a moat. It was difficult to decipher where the torn flesh ended and the broken mechanical parts began. A few of the bodies continued to squirm and twitch as they clung to the last threads of their lives.
And then he recognized Tarj.
His friend was trying to get up, trying to signal to him. Vissyan ran over and pulled him to a sitting position, resting his head on his bulging forearm.
"Vizzy," Tarj said with relief.
"Don't move. I will take you home."
"I'm not going home, Vizzy." Tarj shuddered and drooled blood over his chin. "The Company made sure of that."
Vissyan scowled and gave him an inquisitive look.
"Look at the grappler."
He did, and recognized the familiar technology.
"They aren't animals ... they're miners." He drooled more blood, his eyes were glazed with tears. "They've probably been tossing 'winners' into these fires for years. This was never about miners making enough money to go home. This was a cryptic explanation to the Colonies for why they can still bring in so much ore. This was about making it look like they weren't using robots to mine." A tear ran down his cheek and he forced a wan smile. "Sorry you won't get to live your dream, Vizzy."
Vissyan couldn't cry--he didn't know how. But he wanted Tarj to know that every time he felt annoyed by him, he was also glad that he was by his side. He wanted him to know that his simple kindness of saying a few words to him in the mine, or at Lottery Square was all it took to make him feel like he was a part of something greater than himself. He wanted to tell Tarj what a fine friend he had made, but when he opened his mouth ... nothing came out. He closed it, tried again, but it was too late.
Tarj went limp in his arms.
Vissyan roared in anguish and thought about Tarj's crushed dreams. He leaned in and whispered into his dead friend's ear: "The Company will never ruin another dream!"

***

         The surviving miners in Hell's Kitchen dodged the rest of the fighting machines and fought their way to control the Clink ship--the miner's drop ship had left before the fighting began. The radio beacon from a severed Clink head was all it took to unlock the hatch. Once inside, Vissyan tore off his gloves, tossed them blindly aside, took the control station, fired a half-dozen Molotov balls through the man-opening to the drilling installation and lifted off to the mining settlement above.
         When they reached the glare of the shining midday suns, Vissyan pulled into a hovering position over Lottery Square grounds and opened the gangplank.
         He turned his head ninety degrees, not looking at one man in particular behind him and said:
         "Take back your life," he said. "Take back your dreams."
         "Where will you go?" one asked.
         "I'm a Pawn," he said turning his head forward and fondling the weapons' control panel, "who's about to take the King." He glowered at The Boss's Tower.
         The men jumped off the gangplank, screaming battle cries, and Vissyan flew to the Tower and started firing everything he had at it. He didn't want The Boss dead, though. No. He wanted The Boss to know exactly who had come for him and why.
         Response Base briefly started firing volleys at Vissyan's pilfered Clink ship, but soon stopped as they must have been made privy to the situation by his liberated brothers. They would steal ore. They would hijack transport ships and supply ships. The men would be rich and The Company would burn. Hell, some miners may even stay and keep the operation for themselves. But all Vissyan wanted was to stand over the man that everyone feared--the man that had sent Tarj to his death and killed so many dreamers before him--his surrogate father.
         The Tower crumbled and fell flaccid to one side. Vissyan's accuracy ensured the top of it was still holding life. He drove the starboard wing of the ship into the highest point of The Tower, tearing a gaping hole that he could position himself over. The gangplank was still down, so he jumped from his seat, ran down the plank and leapt to the slanting office space below.
         In the demolished office, cowering behind a sleek, hand-carved wooden desk was a frail-looking creature wearing black dirt-less garments, shoes that shone like the suns and a chest decoration that seemed to be wrapped around his neck. Vissyan rushed to him, face burning with rage, grabbed the small man's face with one massive mitt and lifted him off the ground like a pebble. His thick, long fingers curled past his ears and tightened slowly to crush his skull to powder. Vissyan clenched his teeth and grinned like a madman.
The Boss whimpered. Was this what all people from Earth were?--he wondered. Small, fragile, scrubbed to the point of sterility, sobbing when they met their own doom? Vissyan had almost met his own doom many times, but never whimpered. He dropped the thing as if he had grown tired of playing with it. Then Vissyan did something that he had never done before and did not know he was capable of doing: he laughed.
         It was a frightening, booming laugh that shook the disintegrating walls of The Tower and probably echoed all the way down to Hell's Kitchen. It was a laugh made at an awkward occasion and so made him think of his friend again. He studied the man again. Vissyan had more in common with a Clink than he did with this worm. The man tried to stand on the slanted floor, but staggered.
         "Now, Vissyan," he said, putting up his hands, left ear bleeding.
         Vissyan's joviality immediately stopped. "I ANSWER ONLY TO 'VIZZY'!"
         He bent his head to look at the floor. "Vizzy, I--"
         "You will give my brothers whatever they desire and announce to the people of the Colonies that you have betrayed the Clink and their treaty by using mechanicals to do your dirty work. If you don't ... I will hunt you down. I will hunt every human who ever worked for The Company and I will bring them here to live as my slaves! Mining until I see fit to release them!" He quaked with rage; his bellows fell masonry.
         "I don't know if The Company will listen."
         "If they don't do as I ask ... I will return."
         Vissyan bounded onto a wall of the office, grabbed a broken slab of rock and leapt onto the gangplank of the hovering Clink ship in a graceful display of agility. He turned to give The Boss a final glare, then slapped the button to close the opening in the belly of his new ship. His acute senses heard a strange whirring behind and he twirled around in an attack position, ready to confront the new threat.
         "Yuna!" he exclaimed and relaxed.
         The dilapidated ore collector's final hover motor sputtered busily as it made the machine weave figure 8's, thirty centimetres above the mining gloves Vissyan had discarded on the deck.
         He walked over and slapped Yuna on the side as if welcoming back an old friend. The collector's final motor clicked and banged, then Yuna fell to the floor. He shrugged--Yuna could be fixed later. For now there was one thing he needed to do and that was fly like a bat out of Hell. He darted over to the ship's controls, sat himself comfortably in the pilot's chair and guided the ship up and out of the atmosphere.
         Vizzy didn't know where he was going, but he was free. He could no longer buy his dream, but maybe he could find another along the way. And maybe this time he would dream bigger.