Red Sky: Chapter 23
“My head is bothering me,” Max said as we were lowered down to the mine.
“It’ll be over soon,” I tried to comfort him.
We reached the bottom and stepped off the elevator.
He turned to me with gaping eyes. “They’re speaking to me every night.”
“Who?”
“The rebellion.”
“The rebellion?”
“They’re trying to communicate with me. They’re trying to tell me something important. Goodwell keeps jamming the signal. That’s why my head hurts.”
My shoulders slumped. I wanted to tell him there was no rebellion. It was a war between two states and neither of those states cared about Max. He was a prisoner in one and wouldn’t be a citizen in the other. Max told me he'd been sleeping less and less for the past week. He said he was pacing back and forth in his cell all night. I could feel that nervous energy seeping through the walls of his cell.
“I have to figure out how he’s jamming their signals.”
“It’ll go away,” I reassured him. I was afraid of losing him completely.
“I don’t want it to go away. I want their messages to get through.”
“What good would that do? You’re still trapped here.”
“They’ll tell me what to do. They’ll have a plan.”
I tried another approach and softened my voice.
“It’s best to forget it. It’ll get better. I promise.”
He looked at me coldly, from a far distance, light years away from where he stood.
“Let’s get our tools,” I said and turned towards the shed.
Cyclops was standing nearby. He was watching us. He had a pickaxe in his hands. His partner, Isosceles, was carrying a pickaxe as well. Two pickaxes. Who uses two pickaxes to mine? Max and I were defenseless.
I put myself in front of Max to shield him. I surveyed my surroundings. There was little to use for protection. Com and Tamo hadn’t come down yet. Dexter and Brin were already in the tunnels somewhere. The guards were nowhere in sight. We were vulnerable. I always expected the Lion would make the first move, but it was Cyclops instead.
He walked towards me. I sturdied my legs. Max said something. I was too focused on Cyclops to hear. I had no choice but to fight with my fists. If he swung the pickaxe, I would dive at him before he made contact, that would be my only chance. Cyclops stopped an arms-length away. He looked me up and down with disgust, sizing me up, determining how much energy it would take to cut me in half.
I raised my arms. Cyclops held his pickaxe loosely. He raised it off his shoulder and looked at the tip. I could poke him in his one good eye. That was going to be my new strategy.
His gravelly voice rose from seemingly nowhere.
“You didn’t deserve what they did to you.”
He looked me up and down again. He looked at Max behind me.
“Neither of you deserved it.”
My tensed muscles relaxed. Was it possible he wasn’t here to kill me?
“I wanted to say that. To both of you.”
Cyclops gestured to Isosceles and they started to walk away.
“Wait,” I called out.
He stopped.
“What’s your name?” I held out my hand as a sign of solidarity.
Cyclops eyed me warily.
He shook his head instead of shaking my hand.
“In here, I’m 27921.”
He walked away leaving my hand hanging in the air. Max and I went to pick up our tools. I could still feel the surge of adrenaline or whatever surges through one’s bloodstream before a fight.
“That man….” Max started then stopped suddenly. Max never stopped himself mid-sentence before the box, now it was a common occurrence.
“What?” I said to him.
Max looked at me strangely, like he had no idea what I was talking about. “You started saying something about Cyclops then stopped.”
“Cyclops?”
I laughed. It was easy to forget these were my private nicknames.
“The one-eyed guy who spoke to us.”
“Oh, 21.”
“Yeah, 21.”
“It happened on the moon,” Max said, confusing me.
“What happened?”
“His eye. They operated on him during our second month here. His eye was shattered by a flying rock. I saw it happen. On tunneling duty. He made a stupid newt mistake. Goodwell did the surgery. 21 passed out because of the pain. He would've been better off if they’d just put a patch over his old eye. Surgery with nothing to dull the pain. He’s tough, there’s no doubt about that. If he could withstand that much pain, no one’s going to challenge him. Not even 77.” 77 was the Lion.
“The same thing happened to my second cousin.” I couldn’t help but to break out into a wide grin as Max started telling the story of his cousin, happy to see my old friend again. Max noticed my smile.
“What?” He asked.
I shook my head and lost the grin. I didn’t want to break his momentum. I was elated. I knew they couldn’t break Max. His body was battered, but his spirit was stronger than Goodwell thought. We were all stronger than Goodwell thought.