The Cage

DATE: Year 302-B, Sol 581

LOCATION: Sagan City 1 (Jupiter)

Sagan City 1 was quiet and clean. The gravity was a constant weight, a heavy hand pressing everyone into the carpeted floors of the various halls. It kept the blood where it belonged. It kept people from floating away.

Himalaya Market stood at the viewport. Below the city, the clouds of Jupiter churned. Huge. Indifferent.

-Himalaya. Adjust your collar.

His mother’s voice was like the air in the city. Filtered. Sterile. Victoria Market looked at the schedule on her wrist-link. Poteau, his father, was already at the airlock. He was checking the seal on his Directorate robes.

-We represent the Table Chiefs today, his father said. Civic goodwill. A bridge between the heights and the depths.

Market followed them. The shuttle was white.

The descent to Io High Port was a controlled fall. The light of the shuttle cabin flickered as they broke through the sulfur haze.

The Io port was a scab on the moon’s surface.

The shuttle docked with a jolt that rattled Market’s teeth. The airlock cycled. The smell hit him first. The metallic tang of ancient, overworked machinery.

The delegation stepped onto the gantry.

Market looked down. The mining platforms were suspended over the lava flows by massive, vibrating gravity anchors. Dwellers moved through yellow fog. They were thin. Their suits were patched with sealant tape.

-The yield is up three percent this quarter, a local MTC rep said. He was a small man with a wet cough. Efficient. We’ve optimized the shift rotations.

Market watched a miner near the gantry. The man was kneeling by an intake valve. A red light blinked on his chest-unit.

-What’s the light? Market asked.

The MTC rep didn't look. Low credit. Air subscription is entering its grace period. He’ll fill it at the end of the shift.

-And if he doesn't?

-Then he doesn’t. It’s math.

They walked on. They talked about quotas. They talked about shipping lanes and botanical exports. Market looked at the miner. The man’s shoulders were shaking. A cough he was trying to hide. He was paying the MTC for the right to breathe the poison he was mining.

Back on Sagan City 1, the silence felt louder. The heavy gravity felt like a trap.

Market sat in his room. The walls were soft and calming. He pulled up his link. He flicked through some botanical charts then opened the transit logs.

He started with the hauler routes. Sulfur ships. Ore carriers. The dirty vessels that moved between the moons and the Belt. He traced the vectors. He looked for the gaps in the sensor net.

He didn't know where he was going. He just knew the math was wrong here.

He mapped a route to Phobos. Then one to Ceres.

-Every breath is a struggle,-he whispered.

He deleted the search history. He stood up and adjusted his collar. He waited for dinner.

He was fifteen and felt like he was at the end of the line already.