Subterra Heart

Chapter 3: Connor Rocha

Work went slowly that day. Connor's headache stayed with him, and his hands wouldn't stop shaking. That's what he got for playing roulette with his illness.

"Damn," he hissed. His hand had slipped, and he'd cut himself trying to pull off a panel to deal with some faulty wiring. Connor was a mechanic for Green's Air Co., the company that processed raw Park's crystal into breathable air for Flores Green's. Sure, it wasn't his idea of a dream job, but him needing to keep up on his parlin had derailed any plans for University. Being a mechanic was a good enough position to cover most of his bills - so long as being sick didn't derail that too. 

He still felt like shit, and his boss didn't want him anywhere near the sensitive processing equipment today, so Connor had been sent off to do busy work fixing busted pneumatic tube stations. Connor bundled up his hand in his sleeve and pressed against the wound. If this got infected, it'd be almost as irritating as being off his meds for too long. He got sick far too easily, and he couldn't afford to miss work because of a stupid infection.

Beside him came the faint whoosh of constant air intake from the tube station. Workers on this floor had been complaining for weeks about how it wouldn't turn off, even though there were no packages to be sent out. Connor sighed. He did not want to deal with this mess. He pulled back his sleeve and took a look at his bloodied hand. Lucky him – the cut looked shallow. He'd come back to this in a minute. The washroom was just around the corner, and he needed to clean the cut.

Connor kept his head down on his way to the washroom. This floor was filled with open office spaces and datalogs, and it was lit brightly enough to set his skull throbbing. He was more focused on that than looking where he was going. Probably too focused. He didn't see the crowd of people huddled around one of the datalogs in front of him.

"Hey – watch it!"

Connor grimaced. He turned and faced the man he'd bumped into.

"Sorry," he grunted.

The man raised an eyebrow and adjusted his glasses. "Aren't you the guy who's supposed to be fixing our tube station right now?" he asked.

Connor nodded. "Yeah – I'll be done soon," he said.

The man shrugged and turned his attention back to the datalog, waving his hand at whatever was on the screen.

"This just isn't right," he said to one of the women standing next to him. "Tammy said she went out for drinks with her just two nights ago, and now...?"

Curious, Connor looked back to glance at the screen. He caught a brief glimpse of the image before someone shifted, blocking his vision. It was a young woman with brown hair and large glasses. Connor shrugged and continued on towards the washroom. The girl must have worked on this floor.

"Hold on," said a woman's voice, "Mark, it says here that she had Rocharogosis. Why didn't she ever tell us?"

The hairs on the back of Connor's neck stood up. Odd for the news to report that.

That makes three... He ducked into the washroom without a word.

The cut was easy to clean. After that, the workday ended without further incident. Connor stepped out of Green's Air Co. and caught a nearby transport tube back to his sector, jostling other passengers for space. He tried not to think, but the disappearances nagged at the back of his mind.

The metal transport tube's doors hissed open at his stop, and he hopped off, shuffling along his corridor with his hands shoved in his pockets. Throngs of people bustled around him over the green-and-white tiled floor, talking noisily over each other. The chatter and heat from the mass of bodies filled the air and bounced chaotically along whitewashed walls. It was enough to set his head hurting again. Connor glanced suspiciously at a cluster of gossiping old women and a pair of suited businessmen as he passed through the crowd.

A side corridor branched off of the main hall to the right. Connor took the turn, following the path back to his apartment. It'd finally started quieting down now that he was here. The people who lived along the main stretch must go nuts with all the noise from shift changes. To his right, whitewashed plaster briefly gave way to an open balcony decorated with a twisting brass railing. A pair of kids sat against it, still dressed in their school uniforms. They were playing a hand clapping game and sang an old tune about one of Heart's Founders to keep to the rhythm:

Oh, now here's a little tale

'Bout a miner boy named Rourke

Who had got real sad

When he lost a friend at work

Cuz the air's sick, you see

Hope there's nothing wrong with me

Then he up and ran away

In the tunnel's dark murk

Oh, we searched real high

And we searched real low

And we asked his Ma and Pa

"Do you know where he did go?"

And we never found nothing

'Till we saw a little note

Said "Made a deal with the devil"

"And I won't come home"

Connor glanced their way and got a good look at the Reservoir at the center of his sub-city. All of the cavern's overhead lights were on now, and he could clearly see Sophia Flores's mottled marble statue rising from the Reservoir's waters.

When he'd still been in school, Connor had been taught that Flores Greens was named after Sophia – one of Heart's Founders. She'd been the one who started up Heart's underground forests and farms nearly a thousand years back. Heart had just been a small mining settlement on the planet Par-12 then, freshly abandoned by other worlds after the emergence of Cynwrig's bloodrot, and left to its own devices. That's as much history as he'd ever gotten though, and Heart only kept vague records and statues of its Founders. 

A few other statues rimmed the Reservoir as well, but they were mostly obscured by trees and mist. There was only one other that Connor could get a clear look at though: Rourke Cynwrig, the youngest of Heart's Founders. His figure guarded the dam where the Reservoir spilled out of the Greens – just like he guarded any and all other exits from Heart for nearly a thousand years.

Connor tore his eyes from the Reservoir and kept moving before the kids could start up the next verse of their song. He passed apartment 2832, 2833, 2834, and then stopped in front of his. He'd given his door a fresh coat of dark green paint a few weeks back, and the yellow door light glinted softly above it.

Connor held out his wrist so that the door reader could scan his shae band. There was a soft click, and he pushed the door open, back home again. He kicked the door closed and began undoing his boots until his eyes fell on Lenny's crumpled up letter that still sat on the floor where he'd tossed it that morning.

Two years. He'd gone two full years without hearing a single peep from his cousin, and now all of a sudden, the man leaves him a flimsy little note? Connor frowned. Fine. He'd at least open the damn letter.