The rumble of the burn was silent and loud. You could see it, though; you could see the fabric of the air bending under the heat and the red-yellow-orange near-white light that bathed the room. But really, there was nothing. There was the limping march of Grey. There was a falling drop of blood oil like a moving metronome for the two men, the sound like a line of water falling into a bowl. And perhaps, now and then, a whine or the scrape of a collar against the metal cage. Or, perhaps, they didn't. The sounds didn't even make a vibration. They just faded or remained in such a low crystalline state of placidity and endurance. Oppressively so, disruptions fading to a twinkle out.
Their boots grazed the plated floor surface. They were in that government wing they had met each other in, but there was no sense of nostalgia. That feeling is reserved for other times, times dissimilar to the one they faced. There was really nothing they felt. Nothing really at all.
They walked in the tempo like a string of soldiers, wounded. They did not check the rooms as Grey had done before. It was just the sound of boot spokes, of crampons, or the music box tune of the computer digitizing away. The room was dark but their eyes adjusted. They were walking out, departing, absconding, eyes transfixed on the nearly-unilluminated exit sign. They would never return to this area. They were at peace with that.
And during this, the data sat in the cabinets. It had not changed since Grey first opened it; the endless lines of data were still there. They were silent, basked in the darkness, now only getting light during power surges where the fluorescents suddenly flicker to life for a second. But otherwise, they remained untouched and entombed and undisturbed. They would remain undisturbed.
As the miner and Grey passed through that fateful entrance, the air in the mine was different. It was cooler. There was the frigidity of moving air. That much was perceivable. Deep in the mines, there were still the melodic squeaks of minecarts against tracks or the twisting of oil lamps. But there was also the low tenor of marching somewhere else, and that met with a siren of some kind, one easily forgettable or mistakable.
The two stood there in that central nexus of that cave and its arms. Neither said a word, there were just the ambient sounds of the underground—that smallest protrusion into the crust that man had found. Not a word was uttered. And so they continued forward, down the spiraling out passageways of the earth that took them deeper and deeper into the heart of the heat and the heart of their darkness.
The miner and the geologist walked with each other like partners in conflict. The miner, unbitten, moved faster but not at a rate so fast that he needed to stop for Grey to catch up. Grey hobbled along, committed to some unknown cause. But the two of them seemed to know where they needed to settle. Grey, academically curious, was met with an equal level of curiosity in the man he once wrote off as a mere brute that chipped away stone. But perhaps for the miner, it wasn't curiosity that drove him, but determination. Was it grit? A focus on retribution or reconciliation?
Their path took them down the areas of the mines that Grey used to study with a focus unbroken. They were going to the areas that everyone spoke about, the ones always behind the walled-off arms of the mine—the arms where people enter and get lost and so everyone thinks the government sells them. They don't. People know that now. They are the arms marked with 'PRIVATE' signs on the locked doors and the company logo beneath. That door that does not say Arizona Oil but Zonaco. Those that the miners are constantly told never enter. The miners weren't planning on it, anyway, but the arms were always there.
These were the branches where something new popped up and they changed Grey's agenda that day when they appeared. Where a puddle of crude oil would rise from the areas of Zonaco's mine that even he was restricted from entering. Where, a few days later, a Zonaco team would arrive to begin the drilling operations to construct a well. That's where they were moving to.
Above them, was the sterile white of the LEDs that lined the carved caveways. In his memory, the computer music echoed. This was only in his mind. And, if only just for a second, he could see the light of the computer screen reflected off of the never harvested raw minerals, glittering like an underground sky. But that image faded, it was a part of a life that was much different than reality now. An unstudied look of what was truly happening around him.
After walking for some time, a time of silence and mental preparation, they could tell this was where. The light was dusty as if the particulate on the ground had recently been disturbed by the passage of men and women in a mass. The miner slid his fingers along the layer coating the metal of the cart track. Grey squinted his eyes and peered deeper into the mine.
"There," he said, "I think it's right there." He pointed to the area of the mine that he was last directed to avoid, the location he had studied for the longest before Zonaco gave him a different assignment. The miner nodded his head. He grabbed his last flare in his hand but did not uncap it; it was not useful yet. Grey kneeled on his good leg and, grabbing a discarded shirt in a nearby minecart, tied a tourniquet around his black-stained leg. Then they continued down their way and arrived at the evidently new construction.
The door was open, much like the government door earlier that day—if it was still the same day. It was another staircase, metal and wobbly and like a scaffolding that was meant to be temporary and then reinforced with additional bolts and screws and beams. It was lit not by lanterns but by small lights inside larger gem formations that, like bulbs, scattered the light all throughout the space, almost in amazing ways. So their descent was not bright, but it was visible.
Far, far below the miner and Grey was the cry of some unknown animal. It could've been an animal or it could've been human or it could've been both, at the same time. The distinction between the two was blurred. It was low in the ground though, so its ability to make its way up the shaft pointed to a loud initial volume.
The miner descended first. He held his flare. Before Grey followed, he grabbed the fire ax from the emergency box. No alarm sounded when he opened it. There was no more electricity there either there was only their own mechanics
Down, down the spiral, they went. The staircase shook beneath the force of their weight. It swayed and hit the side of the chute but never did seem to lose any more integrity. With each lowering step, the temperature increased. It grew hotter and hotter. But that was all they could feel as a difference. The only other signs of their movement were the increased sensitivity to sounds around them and the growing size of the crystals.
A few levels before they reached the bottom, the steps grew sticky and black. That much they could see by rock light. Grey tightened his grip on the ax: a bad omen.
On the lowest level, it was the warmest. The miner seemed unfazed; this was the type of condition the company trained him for. He was, after all, the many sons of sons of knights—or so we believe. And Grey, although uncomfortable, was doing what was against all aspects of him. He had shed that feeling of continuance and compliance, he was fully curious, ready to cast off the blackness that had guided his sight in order to set his knowledge aflame. It had started and it would not stop. This was spontaneous. This was exothermic. This was a life, aburn.
The lowest door was locked. From the other side, there was no sound but there was knowable movement. They could feel that now. The miner shoved himself against the door, once, twice, and then stopped and shook his head while he wiped his hand. Grey and he switched places. The scientist took a deep breath. The ax, held over his head, reflected the mixture of red and blue and even a few bits of green and brown light from the crystal. If this was any other day he would've stopped to take a sample, or he would've taken note or he would've reported it.
Now? The ax came down on the handle. The door lock sparked. The door frame bent. It ruined the logo printed on it—who cares? Grey kicked it with his boot and it swung open. They stepped inside.
The cavern was massive. It was a raw cave. There were crystals that cut through the space like the rush of a bird flock but had no real movement. They crossed the span of the area. They even seemed to play music of some kind of soul trapped inside but only tapping on glass for freedom. The air was full of something, fumes of gas that floated around and dissipated through the many vents of this den.
From where they stood they could see far on the other side of the space a group of soldiers. They wore a modified uniform, a fusion of the public and private that only serves the private. And they were actively combating the other being in the room. But the effort seemed futile, or at least for the soldiers to be facing the other beast. At the entrance of the two men, it slowly moved its head over, just enough to see who it was entering. But something about the process seemed to suggest that it already knew, that it felt them descending through the space this entire time. That it was just confirming what it had already sensed, perhaps what it had already written. Maybe even stored in a supply cabinet deep in an office in its mind that it read long ago too, that it used to find some truth for itself.
It flayed itself over a mutated piece of the earth. From it, Grey knew, was the source of the heat and the gasses and perhaps all other things. It was hard to tell but Gre also felt that it was bleeding, but for a lifeform, as it was, that was not an important thing to consider. It would not really die, or if it did it was not in a way that was similar or even mattered to people.
The two turned their attention back to the private soldiers. They wore masks, and many held weapons like rifles and ammunition or tools that neither could recognize but could assume were for destruction. And the ones that didn't have weapons held people, people that looked ruined and bare and hungry and absurd but nevertheless human—impossible to erase human. They were chained up if they still had any energy for power, or they were just dragged along. There was a miner or two as well. And they stood behind whatever was the front line formation of this operation that was launching at the beast that did not even seem to care.
Until there was a flash of light and more that followed as soldiers launched explosives near the edge of the gap where the creature's flesh met the soil or where the crystals around her grew most intricate, organic, and pure. From these came bursts of lights and a moment of silence and the rolling over of a beast of unknown and unimportant morality against a human force. It let out a bellowing cry that was both silent and audible in absolutes.
In the short time that the beast moved the back line of the soldiers grasping the people moved forward. Those that could register what was going on clawed at them soldiers. They could not form the words to beg. They tried, though. But their systematic torture was nearing its end with one final sweep. They brought them to the edge and dropped them inside the crevice, a crevice blacker than the color black people saw during their day-to-day that now seemed like nothing but a color imposter. A black that nothing seemed to escape from, really. And that the people couldn't. Where as soon as they fell in they seemed to seek. And then the levels seemed to rise and more was produced, more oil.
The creature cried at this, mournfully, as if it could sense what was going on. It rolled back over and the soldiers retreated, their task incomplete, and readied for their next advance.
Grey and the miner slowly marked over, crossing a plane of sand and soil and gemstones so beautiful you would forget injustice for a second. They reflected color magically, but there was no time to focus on this. There was a job at hand, a job to fulfill, a world to question, and a new life to prove. There was the rattling of gem shards hitting the ground and the reloading of a weapon's barrel, aimed both at the beast but now at the two men.
Orders were shouted at both the mercenaries and at the newcomers to this battle as if this battle was only big enough for two opposing forces and could not account for a disruptive third variable. Like it was some experiment that wanted to control all the variables, like these were some bad scientists. Like it was a showdown that continued happening over and over and never ended but the offensive group didn't care because it served them well. Because it got rid of people they thought were undesirable, because it produced oil where it should never have been produced, because what seemed like a miracle could never be one and what was an anomaly was never really one, not if you looked hard enough.
They continued their march, the team armed only with an ax and a flare while the beast flared her nostrils and Zonaco's oil production team reassembled their marks. The officers that had thrown the people into the crevice were now equipped with weapons or supported the remaining group that thought they still needed to die for oil. A group that did nothing wrong.
Deep, opaque smoke filled the air from behind them and disguised the space. It moved like a serpent through the air and formed a barrier between the soldiers and the duo. The duo's back was to the beast. They faced the soldiers. Grey expanded his stance and readied the ax. The miner lowered his gaze and readied his grip on a miraculous flare. The soldiers kneeled and inched closer. And then it was silent. They stared at each other. Brows furrowed. Breaths were taken. The world seemed to stop. The moment seemed to last forever, time slowed or moved so fast that it was impossible to tell the difference.
From behind the curtain, the soldiers whispered, it seemed, but it only came out as small wisps of whistles and sounds. The miner uncapped the flare. The sound of the crunching soil started from behind the gas. He struck the end. A cloud of that red gas flicked its tail towards the flare and the world lit up in red, technicolor and dusty.
The world roared for a second. It was combustion, expansion, pushing—incredibly so. There was rain, there was the decay of the structure. Things were crashing down. The soldiers fell back and the miner did as well and Grey did even more so. The miner still held his flare, his weapon of destruction. It disarmed all the other members of this space. Some lay motionless on the rock floor, and others had their clothing burned. The miner felt his skin scalded lightly. There was no longer any growing crimson cloud. And when the miner looked to his side, there was no longer any Grey. The ax was cut into the ground.
He first looked back at the soldiers. Those that were still alive, seeing the scorched scene, were retracting. They were collecting their peers and retreating. They left their sacrifices in the soil, unconcerned if they were dead or alive. The miner then looked for Grey. He turned to his side, in front of him, and then finally to his back. Cautiously, he inched toward the crevice.
During the explosion, the geologist was launched back. With his weak leg, he could not stand the force of the blast. He was gifted flight, like that of a plane energized by oil, or now like something flying by less corrupt force when energy sources change. At that moment, there was a hope of comfortable silence. And during this, he could see the crystals he loved earlier in his life and he could see his oil-wounded leg, and below he saw the endless seas of black that he was falling into. Falling but not failing and dying but not dying, the oil enveloped him. He did not struggle. There was something sweet about it, to him. The connection to something that he had loved for some but was now wavering. And there was the comforting feeling of oblivion, slightly, as the oil pooled around him, as he slowly descended, as he was covered in the substance. He was a living thing, covered in the pressured remains of the formerly living and joining them. At least for a second.
From above, a red light, a shooting star, and a burning morning flare landed beside him. And in that moment, again, the world was ablaze. And it was the release of more energy than he had ever known. There was blooming and decaying and blooming again. There was flying and falling and flying and falling. There was everything and nothing. There was Grey, and there was oil, and there was the miner, and there was silence. Perhaps there was the twinkle of crystals, the rattle of rocks against the world, the cry of a beast dying, but that was that.