The Cerulean Mines: A Lost Tales Novella

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12-13-0066 – The Edge

It was night. It was always night in the Dead Zone. Not even the stars reached into its cold depths. The only light was the flickering fire from my torch that struggled to stay lit as I climbed out of the cerulean mine covered in the dust of the rarest natural material known to exist, and perhaps the most powerful.

The streets of the town felt deserted despite a population of several thousand men and women, all of whom were under a death sentence, trying to earn enough time to escape before the Dead Zone claimed them.

The town would fill up later, at the end of the shift. My team had been sent up early due to equipment failure. They would expect us to work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for it, but for now I had a few hours of extra freedom.

I sighed and pushed through the town to my house in the Edge. It had cost me six months for a place so far out, and I lost a little time every day walking to and from it. I had bought it before arriving, not yet understanding the value of time, but it was worth every second of it. In the Edge, some technology still worked. It was unreliable, but at least it functioned.

As I approached the Edge the torch in my hand flared to life, sending sparks everywhere. My wrist comp started blinking as it came back online, slowly powering itself up, running its diagnostics and reporting in. The air grew a little lighter, and a moderate number of street lights lit my path, allowing me to extinguish the torch. These lights could not be seen from even a meter into the Dead Zone.

The door to my small home opened as I approached and the house said gleefully, Welcome home, Coryanthar! I have great news for you! You have twenty-seven messages. Would you like to hear them now?

House, delete all messages and seal the door behind me, I said.

Okay! the house cheerfully replied, tempting me again to spend the fifteen minutes it would cost to purchase an optional voice pack with a more reasonable tone, but that would be fifteen more minutes in the Dead Zone: fifteen more minutes under a death sentence.

Before I could go into the bathroom to wash, the house announced, Coryanthar! You have a call coming in from an unknown caller! Would you like to accept or reject the call?

House, respond with the standard ‘I’m not home’ message, and then drop the call. Block all calls for the rest of the night, I said.

It will be my pleasure! responded the house.

Sighing, I went into the bathroom, took a very low-powered hand vacuum and slowly and gingerly vacuumed up all the dust from my clothes and skin. Then I dumped my clothes into the laundry chute and vainly tried to wash the blue stain from my skin. It was permanent at this point—nothing short of skinning myself would get rid of it—but that didn’t stop me from trying.

Gathering the bag from the vacuum, I entered my bedroom, removed a false floor panel and brushed aside the earth to reveal another panel. Opening that, I found the lockbox I was looking for.

Opening the box revealed a great treasure. I had been working in the mines for over two years now, and every day I walked out dusty. I collected all that dust in this box. One day I would leave the mine and take this dust with me. Selling it on the open market would bring me more than enough to restart my life as a free man.

Coryanthar! You have a meeting! said the house happily.

House, a meeting with whom? I asked as I carefully replaced the earth and floor panel, hiding away my treasure.

Coryanthar! You promised to help Mrs. Simons with her Instachef as soon as you got home!

Ah, yes, I said. I dressed and headed out.

Mrs. Simons was the wife of my former partner in the mines. Like so many before him, he had died of exposure before earning enough time to get out. She lived beyond the Edge, on the Life side of the station, where technology worked correctly and life could flourish; almost paradise.

Mrs. Simons was the last of the people I’d known before being arrested and sent to the mines. Everyone else had died of exposure, a fate that would also befall me if I didn’t earn enough time to get out. I wouldn’t let that happen; I would get out, no matter what it cost.

Between the Edge and the Life Zone was a massive security checkpoint. Almost no one who lived in the Dead Zone was allowed to leave unless they had earned enough time to pay off their debt. To the best of my knowledge, this had never happened, but I would change that. Until then, these little trips back to the real world where life could still function were like cool water to a man trapped in a desert for all eternity.

I was one of the few permitted to cross over, but only when I was summoned by a client. Thankfully, though I was a slave, my skills as a repair technician were in high demand, as supply ships were few and far between.

As I approached the gate, I opened my tool kit and prepared myself for the full body scan and potential physical search required when moving between zones. The security complex sat completely in the Life Zone, which gave it full access to technology, unlike the limited power of the Edge and the mind-numbing suck of the Dead Zone.

The guard on duty didn’t even look up as I dropped my opened bag on the conveyor belt for inspection. It was whisked away into a metal box as I walked through the scanner.

What business do you have out here today? asked the guard.

I presented my worker’s pass and said, A client has called and asked for assistance.

The guard jammed my pass in the computer, which flashed a green light.

Okay, you have two hours. Any longer and we will deduct it from your account, he said, waving me through.

I nodded, reclaimed my bag and left before they could change their minds. Two hours should be plenty of time to help Mrs. Simons and perhaps stop by the market to purchase some goods to trade.

She lived in a poorer section of the Life Zone, which was still considerably better than the Edge. It was clean and well-lit, with fresh air and comfortably stable environmental controls. The lights here were much brighter than the dim ones we had in the Edge, forcing me to don my protective shades.

The street was empty, and for once I made it all the way to her home without being harassed. Her door slid open as I approached and she looked up from the table where she sat alone, nursing a steaming mug.

Cory, I’m glad you could come, she said. Her voice was empty and emotionless. Stacy, the cheerful young woman I used to know, had died with Jack, and the person left behind was a stranger to me. Now she simply was Mrs. Simons, my best client.

Mrs. Simons, you really should lock that door, I told her.

She smiled in reply. The smile didn’t reach her blue eyes—it never had since Jack had died. Her blonde hair fell to her shoulders, contrasting with a black jumpsuit with three-quarter-length sleeves which was far more modest than the current fashion.

Without another word, I went back to check on her Instachef, knowing what I would find. Every few weeks she would call me out here because the machine wasn’t working. I would take it apart and find that she had jammed too many dishes into the recycler. I would clear the blockage, do some basic maintenance and go on my way.

She had followed Jack here when was been arrested. Her plan was to live here and earn money to help him finish his contract sooner. Before coming here she had been a pilot for a respected training corporation and had been able to use that experience to get a job as a trainer for the local shipping companies.

We never spoke. I didn’t know why she kept calling me out. Every time I showed up it was the same she would be there at the table with her mug, in her black outfit. She said as little as possible and, while not exactly cold, her manner was distant. Jack’s wife was intelligent and certainly capable of keeping her Instachef from jamming, and yet she kept calling me to fix it.

If I made it out—no, when I made it out—I would take her with me. I owed Jack that much, at least.

When the job was done, I bade her farewell and departed. My wrist comp beeped, telling me payment for my services had been received. As always, I applied half of it to my outstanding contract and then moved the remainder into my working funds.

A quick glance at the clock told me that I had one hour, thirteen minutes and five seconds left; plenty of time for a trip to the market.

The market was packed full of vendors selling the latest technological wonders, but they knew better than to bother me. My blue skin marked me, and none of these devices would work where I lived, not even in the Edge. Simple tech, such as the lights or even my sadistically cheerful house, struggled to function. My house and wrist computers only worked because most of their processing was offloaded to a remote system. Anything more complex, like the newest forms of self-augmentation, were probably not even capable of being turned on.

My meager working funds could not have afforded such things anyway. Someday that box of dust back in my home would buy me a new life in a place far from here, where light and clean air were free and there was no such thing as a Dead Zone. I just had to earn enough time to get there.

As I wandered through the market, I came upon a trio of magi. One was causing small children to float in the air, another was making it snow and the third was juggling fireballs. A large crowd had gathered around them, cheering them on. A hat was being passed and people were throwing in credits. They kept the hat away from me, which was fine as I had nothing to give.

It was rare to see magi here on the planetoid. The market might be safely outside the Dead Zone and we were far from the Edge, but it was still too close for comfort for most people—doubly so for magi. Their powers would be stripped completely away in the Dead Zone, leaving them helpless, or at least as helpless as mundane people, which was unthinkable to them. Who could blame them? The ability to bend reality to your will must be somewhat addictive.

I paused to watch for a while, wondering at the strange turn the universe had taken. Less than a century ago, magic was the stuff of children’s fairy tales. Everyone knew this, but it turned out that everyone was wrong. Something had changed, some dam had broken or the like and suddenly magic and magical creatures were real. As a result, magic wielders of all kinds, known collectively as magi, sprung up throughout the known universe with representatives from all the species. There was no denying it, magic was real. The only question left was where all this might