Chapter 2
"NYOO. NYOO."
The klaxon blares its bellowing call as it signal it is time to work.
I always feel lucky that we don't work to tethered hours, like they did before The Vessel.
Instead, we work when we are just behind The Agony so we can be stationary as possible whilst the drillers gather resource.
I shudder; imagine being a driller: I had seen them around, tired faces stained grey with Salithite, the material that keeps the vessel moving.
Luckily, Salithite is basically the only material that we need mined, and it's predominantly close to the surface.
The tethered knew Salithite as silicon, but we renamed it because silicon is more processed then the huge amounts of Salithite that we harvest.
We have huge tips of the stuff stored for every eventuality, including the solar running out, as the engines can act as generators.
I got up, and father wasn't home.
Again.
Mom was making Buckwheat pancakes, which are my favourite; I love drenching them in syrup.
"Mia!" Mom says, smiling in the way only she can, not with her mouth but with her eyes and the crinkles in her face.
I tried to smile like her, but I always end up looking like a terrified emoji.
I love the old tethered slang like emoji and milf (that means mother I'll love forever, right?)
My assignments are before and after school, but because I am one of the few teens, they are much easier then adults and younger kids, because pre-Vessel, they discovered that teens can not function with as much work as kids or adults, because of sensory overload.
I glanced the the steam clock, and my eyes widened; it is nearly time for dust duty!
I crammed in my pancake and slung my gear over my shower, before pecking mom the cheek, then sprinting for the shuttler.
Thankfully I made it, and sunk down in my seat; that was close!
أنت تقرأ
The Agony
الخيال العلميA final tug, and the guards had finished tying me, so they finished by putting the placard around my neck, then snapping a picture, not as a sick memento or a sadistic laugh, but to prove that they did their job. They climbed back into the buggy and...
