essential commodities such as food, potable water and electricity was almost at a standstill. Twenty percent of the facility had been shut down in order to send more power to the surface. The drones no longer avoided eye contact with the managers as they once had. But what was most unnerving was not how they smiled with the malice hidden behind their expressions. Though the evidence of an impending coup was enormous, I still believed that the rule of law and the system that had governed over us for more than a century would prevail. How wrong I was. Never once did I stop working. The last of the faithful managers and myself labored tirelessly to keep the organization going. It had been weeks since I received a response from the owners above to any of my reports. I had just ordered the lights to be dimmed another 20 percent facility-wide when the drones broke through my office door. I struggled against waves of them, but however many I kicked and punched more swarmed in and finally, exhausted, I surrendered. They carried me to the managers’ dining hall. There, seated on a chair resting on top of a table so everyone could see him was Francis Condylura. I could feel my blood boil and, if my arms had not been held by my sides by at least a dozen drones, I could have strangled Francis when he left his chair to greet me. “Supreme Manager Kris Cestoda, this facility is now under my control. It is my displeasure to inform you that of the 30 managers who had remained loyal to you, only five allowed themselves to be captured. The others jumped to their deaths down the ventilation shafts, like your kind tend to do.” He actually had sympathy for them, and even for me it seemed, because after a small silence he embraced me. In that hug he whispered, “Have strength. This pain, as all things, will too pass.” Francis returned to his makeshift throne and the room fell into a complete silence. Only the air circulator humming broke the hush. He spoke so the whole of the dining room could hear each word, “Kris, we were once peers, but you embraced this failed system. I compliment your zeal, but with your voracity you have been blinded by the obvious. The owners above do not care for us. They have pitted managers and drones against one another since the beginning. You have said we should venerate the owners because they gave us purpose and homes. Have you ever once considered that they banished us from the surface of the earth so not to have to witness our struggle? They buried us like we bury their garbage. Our labors here in the darkness allow them to live in leisure!” The hall exploded into cheers and it was several minutes before he could continue speaking. “I know you will never change your beliefs, so you and your five remaining loyal managers are to be taken to the elevator of ascension. I have managed to override the controls so we can send you all up. If you see the owners, tell them we are liberated and are digging to the surface to claim that right, which they had robbed from our forefathers so long ago! Take him to his ascension.” A path was cleared and the last of the managers and myself walked to the only elevator to the ground up above. It had no bottoms on the inside, so once we moved there would be no going back. Before the scissor doors closed, Francis came and shook each of our hands. The ride up was slow and the lights intermittently flickered on and off. It felt like time stood still. Only the din of the electric motor pulling us up marked its passage. Then with a great jolt it stopped and the doors opened. There was just the faintest light and a sickly smell of old rot. To our horror, when our eyes adjusted to the near darkness, we saw the remains of all the previously ascended managers. The owners had never let them near the surface, save for a pinhole of daylight from the ceiling. Francis Condylura had been right. And as I slowly starve to death, I write my story in my own blood on the cold granite walls of my tomb. 27
30 Publizr Home