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Bravado

Tears began to roll down Kory's face. He had never seen anyone die before. Sure, it had frequently flashed by on the headlines of the news, but he had never actually been there when it happened. The bloody phantom shrieked through his mind, spinning and whirling just as the silvery saw had. It played over, again, again, again, and again. Kory broke down. After a few minutes, he drifted back to reality on the top of a breaking wave. He sat at the bottom of a long ladder shaft, faint rays of moonlight stabbing through the clouds and down the hole. The foul water around him reached ankle high as he rocked to his feet. It was tinted a black and oily color, obviously tainted with the grim of the factories above. A short tunnel extend away from him, shrouded in gloom and oppressive shadow. The water lapped at the base of its grayed concrete walls, painting their bottoms a sickly black. That was the way. He leaned down, rummaging through the contents of his swamped bag. He carefully removed the waterlogged pistol and a small flashlight, avoiding the broken glass fragments of an antiseptic vial as he went. That was unfortunate. His medical supplies had been either soiled by the water, or shattered by the fall. If he acquired any wounds, he wouldn't be able to treat them. He flicked on the flashlight, casting its feeble light into the darkened tunnel ahead. It extended only a short ways ahead before ending in a large metal door, rusted by time.

Reluctantly, Kory sloshed through the water towards the heavy entrance, pistol and flashlight raised. He gave the door a light push and -- when that proved ineffective -- leaned in with his shoulder and gave it a hard shove. It swung slowly open, moving one inch at a time. The black water rushed past Kory's feet as it went, draining out of the hallway and down the steps beyond the door. It left the thin sheen of sludge as its afterimage, caking the space it had filled and sticking to his booted feet. Kory poked the light into the next room, inquisitive and cautious. The light flooded into the room,  reflecting off of cold metal walls and the top of the foul water, gently lapping over  rusted rails. Kory glanced up and down the length of the tracks.  He was in a metro tunnel, one of the older lines, long ago abandoned.  

To the leftmost side, a large hermetic door, similarly worn and rusted by time, stood. Having no way of opening such a device, Kory reluctantly turned to walk into the darkness to his right. After a few steps, his flashlight beam began to dim and then, after a few more feet, died entirely. He cursed, and moved to the right. The cold and water slicked side of a pipe met his hand, giving him at least some bearing in the dark. One foot was laid in front of the other a countless number of times as he walked down the tunnel, exhausted, aching, but nevertheless determined to keep going. His drive to find out what was happening down here remained fully undamaged. A few minutes later, a chill breeze began to drift amongst the previously stagnant tunnel air, signifying the presence of some unseen vent or exit. The tunnel banked to the left, slowly revealing the red glow of an emergency light, illuminating a small door, slightly ajar and labeled with a metal sign inscribed with a string of words: NO TRESPASSING. Kory promptly disobeyed this order, squeezing through the space between the door and the wall. The dim red light seeped through the open crack, shining down rows of metal steps and glinting off of the heavy concrete walls to either side of them. Kory stepped lightly on the first, wary of where they may lead. The heavy clang of machinery echoed somewhere below him, getting steadily louder as he took the steps two at a time, the strange type of energy that occasionally takes place of exhaustion spilling into   his limbs. 

By the time he finished the buried descent, the clanking and hissing of industrial equipment smothered all sound. Bright light flooded into his eyes from the doorframe at the base of the stairs, combining with the concussive sound to render him both blind and deaf. He leaned against the wall for a brief moment, letting his eyes adjust and catching his breath. Kory took one last deep breath, and plunged into the light. The sound that he thought was already at its full intensity ascended to even more defining heights, making Kory certain he would never be able other as well  again. He had emerged onto a long catwalk, suspended high on the wall of a massive cave, flood lights hanging from ceiling wires casting everything in their harsh glow. Dust and small bits of rock covered everything, small bits of faux snow. Below him stretched the cave,    huge machines sinking their teeth into the rock, backed up with various orange-suited people with picks and drills. Foremen with mega phones -- surrounded by armed soldiers --  barked commands, steering the swarms of workers like so many remote controlled toys. As the raw ore was mined, it was carted away by both vehicles and workers alike to large blast furnaces in the far south of the cavern, their tell-tale glow the only marker of their presence. 

There was only one logical explanation for what required so many workers and resources. Either Denton was gearing up for war, or they were willing to provide some else the money and materials to do it on the city's behalf. And Denton wouldn't want news of this seeping out...so they wouldn't have hired any private mining companies. Things began to connect in Kory's mind, silver strands of thought wrapping and tangling together to form a plausible truth. The city needed a large workforce, but they couldn't risk their plans being revealed. Free citizens were able leave their places work, able to go home where they couldn't be as easily monitored. Hiring was out of the question, so Denton resorted to other means. Scanning the faces below him, it became clear. The workers had familiar expressions on their faces, spinning Kory back to his brief time in the cities main prison. It had been years ago, a necessary consequence for his foolish act of thievery. He beat the memories back, focusing on the faces. As he stared, there was no doubt in his mind: The bulk of the workers were convicts. But, occasionally, a face flashed before his eyes that was far different from the rest -- the face of an average citizen. Denton needed metal, so the emptied the prisons. But even then the labor was not enough, more workers were needed. They had found that extra toil in average people -- like Amanda. The war raging around Denton was all that the news ever covered in depth, so it would have been easy for the government to hide the disappearance of a large number of people, as long as it was slow. This was not a new thing, Amanda just happened to be the latest victim. Kory strengthened his resolve. He knew he wouldn't be able to bring it all to a halt -- that much was certain -- but he could at least try to save his friend from the jaws of war. With his nerves steeled, Kory moved towards the metal ladder at the end of the catwalk, ready to climb into the heart of the confusion below.