Miner Six

The Gathering

Six waited impatiently for the gathering every year. Right before the gathering, the miners worked in a frenzy, trying to make up the week they would miss and maybe even to get a bit extra to share at the lake.

This year was the year that Six would be named. It was also the year that Zeke's tribe would have something truly valuable to share with the other tribes. Plug had said that Six could help carry it, but only if he was very careful. The Black Juice was carefully stored in two liter bottles, one for each of the other three tribes. There were four mining tribes in dump 346729, Zeke's, Imelda's, Julio's, and Jake's. Once there had been eight. Both Zeke's and Jake's tribes had once been part of the same group, but had split up when the single tribe got too large. Imelda and Julio's tribes were also related by pairings between the tribes. But the tribes had been getting smaller, and there was no joy in the increased space for exploration. All the miners knew there was plenty of room to mine. They just couldn't seem to keep the children alive on the food bars that World Corp. gave them in trade anymore.

Every year at gathering the leaders would say the same things. They needed to stand together and demand more for their metals. One year they'd done it, held out for weeks. The World Corp. representatives had looked worried, then frantic. Except Peter's group had broken the agreement, and then the representatives had looked smug. Peter's group was sick, and they had to trade for medicine. But even then, it didn't save them. It was their group that got droned. Six had seen the swarms of drones descending on their camp. No one in Peter's camp ever came to a gathering after that. From Peter's example, the leaders learned that they couldn't trust each other, and they couldn't trust World Corp. Clearly, World Corp. had made an example of Peter's tribe, showing them all what could happen to any of them at any time. Now the leaders made the same speeches, but even old Zeke didn't really have his heart in it.

Six listened to the speeches. He knew that World Corp. was bad, but it was nice to hear how bad they really were. It felt good to hiss with the rest of the tribes when Zeke or Imelda talked about the World Corp. representatives. At night one of the tribesmen from Jake's tribe dressed up in rags that looked like the World Corp. representatives' suits. The leaders took turns chasing him around the big fire, swearing at him and trying to cut off his head with a fake pick axe. It was great fun, and Six laughed with everyone else.

Even at gathering, there wasn't enough to eat. Six remembered gatherings from even a few years ago when he'd filled his belly to bursting with food bars. It had felt so good to have a full belly. Now he only got enough to keep the rumbling away. But he saw why. None of the other three tribes had brought extra bars. All of them took the extra that Zeke's tribe provided hungrily, almost grabbing from one another. Six even saw one of Imelda's tribe members take a bar from a miner child. It was an unnamed child like himself, so had no right to even complain. But Six saw the way the child looked at the bar, and broke off half his own bar and handed it over. He stared hard at the miner who had taken the bar until the big man looked away. There were no rules against what he'd done, because unnamed children had no tribal rights. But to Six it was wrong.

When everyone was sleeping, Six heard the leaders talking. Imelda, Julio and Jake were telling Zeke that they'd had problems with their hammers. Now they tried to only use the hammers on the toughest crust, and did the rest with the axes. Julio said it took them three days to break the crust. "That's three days with no trades, three days with no food bars. We've been lucky that we've found something each time we break through. If we don't, the tribe doesn't eat that week. We've lost three unnamed ones since the last gathering."

Zeke talked louder, but still in hushed tones. "The reps need to give us more food bars for the metals. They haven't increased the bars in all the time I've been a leader, and the bars have gotten thinner and lighter. I remember the day when a food bar could feed two people. Now it takes two bars to feed one."