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Conviction

Kory climbed down the cold steel rungs of the ladder, hoping with all his being that he would be overlooked in the commotion. Sharp bits of flying rock dug into his back, biting into skin despite  his heavy coat and underclothes. He winced, but endeavored to bear it. Eventually, his feet made contact with the dirty stone floor. Kory quickly threw off his gas mask, willing to trade the distinctive article for the anonymity of the crowd. As he filled his lungs with the dust-ridden air, his lungs and throat began to alight with pain and fire. He doubled over coughing, small droplets of blood falling from his mouth and painting red splotches on the cavern floor. He had to find Amanda and get out of this Abyssal grave. The crowd milled all around him, acting exactly like an oversized colony of ants, burrowing into the walls and carting off large rocks in long lines. Every movement required a great deal of pushing and shoving, every breath had to be snatched from the air another person had occupied just a second prior. Kory threw off his jacket and donned a jumpsuit that was hanging up on a rack nearby. He began working his way through the sapient sea, hefting a large boulder to better blend with the mass. All the while he scanned the crowd, searching for the familiar eyes of Amanda. Eventually, he fell into line with the other workers. The best way to find her would be to simply watch and wait, if he went calling her name his voice would surely not be heard over the cacophony around him. He labored for what felt like years, drilling and carrying away rock after rock. All the while the foremen continued to scream orders to the convicts, their voices barely audible even when magnified by their megaphones.

The, after working for hours, something happened. One of the convicts tackled a foreman, snatching his megaphone and scrambling up the massive tire of an excavator nearby while a wave of workers crashed upon the rigid line of black and blue clothed soldiers, cutting into them with drills and picks while the men fired their rifles wildly into them -- the hot lead biting into the worker's flesh and sending them sprawling on the floor. "People! For too long now,you have labored for a war that is not your own! Rise up against those who hold you in shackles, break your bonds of servitude and claim your freedom! Fight for your rights, do not let them be suppressed! War against their war, for you deser--" A sharp crack cut the man off, a bullet tearing its way through his neck and splaying his limp body across the excavator. But it was too late. All around the laborers turned their tools against soldiers and foremen, the imprisoned mass of sheer power finally being awoken to its own strength. Kory starred about frantically, the roar of machines and constant spray of rock being replaced with screams of pain, passion, and anger. The crowd buffeted him from all sides as it rush eagerly and -- in some places -- reluctantly to meet the hails of gunfire. "Amanda! Has anyone seen Amanda Mason? Amanda! It's Kory! I'm here!" He yelled, hoping his voice and  sheer will would pierce the veil of noise that surrounded him. Nobody seemed to answer.

However, up on a high catwalk leading into a hole in the rock, Amanda heard him. She was running, her own unaided escape well underway. She scanned the surging riot below, searching desperately for the source of her friend's voice. She had tried calling out, but the sound had snatched away her voice and made it inaudible on the cavern floor. Kory was swept up in the crowd as it surged towards a long line of soldiers, rifles and machines guns killing man and women alike. Amanda screamed desperately, trying to save her friend from the approaching massacre. She looked for a way down, but would never be able to reach him in time. As he was shoved into the line of fire, their eyes finally locked. And as Kory Rothschild was felled like a sad sapling before an axe, points of hot metal snapping the tender cord of his life, he finally knew that his friend was safe She would survive, even as he fell onto the cold stone floor, bullet-ridden, and was trampled -- the last vestige of life crushed out of him by the onrushing crowd.

Amanda turned her gaze away, the pain of losing a life-long friend far too great to bear. And she ran from the catwalk, into on of the lantern lit tunnels extending into the walls of the main mine. Kory had come to save her, risking -- and losing -- his life for her, and it had all been for naught. She nearly screamed at the futility of it, her friend dead because he was too loyal to trust her with her own rescue. As she ran she tried to rationalize, this was Denton's fault. Not Kory's. Not her's. It was the government. It was the war. So she ran. Her footfalls came quick and fast, hitting upon the rock to the same beat as her frantic heart. It took a while, but the tunnel eventually connected to a medium sized room. She slid inside hoping for a brief respite from her flight. Pulling the strong steel door of the room, shutting it and locking out the outside world, she gazed around her new surroundings. The room was lit by the dull red glow of dim emergency lights, giving it a sinister facade. From somewhere deep below, an explosion rocked the caverns. That was probably the mob reaching one of the generators. On a far table, a radio set sat, connected to the wall by tangle of multicolored wires and cables, likely connecting to a transmitter and receiver on the surface. Beside it there sat a small knife, pinning a sheaf of papers to the wooden table. Amanda was alive, she had to focus on that. Her friend was dead, but that was a problem for later. She could confront the seething stew of pain, grief, and hatred sloshing at the back of her mind later. For now, she had two simple initiatives: Stay alive, and -- if possible -- find out what exactly this entire operation was for. She was well aware that it  had to do with Denton's place in the war, but she wanted specifics. If she had those, she could bring the reign of the current -- and obviously corrupt -- administration crashing down. And that's exactly what she intended to do.