They say there ain’t no sound quite so terrifying as a collapsing Rust mine. From how the older Extractors tell it, the worst of it ain’t the rumble of Martian rock and mud all around you, but the silence afterward. 

    Today I found out for myself.

    I felt it in my bones before it reached my ears. A low moan, like Mars herself crying out for help, followed by the loudest crash I ever heard. Then nothing. I’m sure for poor Kai down in Sector L, it stayed real quiet. Above ground, the silence didn’t last no more than a second, ‘cause Mr. Fillster was in my earpiece, screaming for me to keep away. 

    “For pit’s sake, Jack, don’t you get any ideas!” he shouted, before his voice went all solemn-like. “That boy’s already done for. No use risking more of you.”

    Safety wasn’t going through the old man’s head, and I know him better than most. Only thing he was worried about was his precious Rust. 

    Once the early Mars settlers discovered Rust made them all tingly when they shot it into their veins, Fillster and the Hawkes Corporation and the rest of the big shots have been grabbing every last speck of the stuff. Well, getting us young’uns to grab it for them. When they brought me here from Earth, I was too young to understand. Now that I’m nearly grown, I know it ain’t right. But with Fillster being my legal guardian, what on Mars can I do?

    After Fillster was done hollering, I switched on my mic. I’m not much of a talker, but I tried explaining best I could that I’d be able to blow out an escape path. The old man wasn’t having it, screaming at me about how I was gonna destroy the whole damn mine.

    I didn’t want to go against orders, but the thought of leaving Kai just didn’t sit right. Only reason he was down in Sector L in the first place was ‘cause of me. Once I turned thirteen—well, seven here on Mars, but my brain keeps wanting to count in Earth years—I got moved out to Sector E. It’d be me in L instead of him, otherwise. Trapped in the dark, choking to death, or maybe even dead already.

    Would Kai have come for me if I was trapped? That’s the question that kept rattling round inside my head. Back and forth I went, tying and untying myself in knots. If orphan boys like us ain’t got each other to count on, what have we got? After that thought drilled its way into me, there was no going back.

    So I shimmied down toward Sector L with a tank of oxygen, a half-dead torch, and a bag stuffed full of fuses, batteries, and charges. A suicide mission to try and save a boy who was more than likely already nothing but a corpse.

    I stopped at the entryway to Sector K. One of the columns was bent, making the hole even smaller. Busting my way through felt like getting born all over again. Just as I was making some progress, my shoulder snagged something hard and popped, like the cork to one of Fillster’s fancy drinks. I tried to wriggle onwards, but my shoulder screamed. I was too close to blast out the hole, so I had to turn back. But when I pushed against the upper wall, it crumbled into thick plumes of dust. The air turned muddy brown as it mixed with the water outflow from my respirator. One-armed, I dragged myself out, kicking with all my might at what was left of the tunnel wall.

    By the time I pulled myself out of the hole and back to my feet, my right arm was dangling loose, like a puppet with half its strings cut. Dust spewed through the main route out toward Sector L, so I chose a secondary channel. Spinning around, I shone my torch across the atrium. I knew there was an old series of tunnels just on the other side of the far wall, but they weren’t connected to this chamber. I dragged myself over to where I reckoned the tunnel started, and set my smallest charge against a half-covered drainage shaft. 

    Fillster must’ve heard the fuse go, ‘cause he was back in my ear, calling me every name under the distant sun. But I didn’t see why he was cussing, since it was only a quarter bang, and I’d put it under the perfect jut of rock. Sure enough, it opened up a new channel, clean as a whistle, without even a tremor under my feet.

    It led just where I thought it would, ‘cept the further I crawled, the thicker the air got, till I could hardly see my hand in front of my own face. Dirt and debris clogged the tunnel, and my torchlight was useless. If this were a regular dig, I’d have turned back quicker than you could say boo to a dustbug, but with Kai ‘bout to breathe his last, turning round weren’t an option. 

    I switched off my earpiece, closed my eyes, and let the paths criss and cross in my mind. I might not be what you’d call booksmart, but I have a feel for the mines. Most Extractors start off wandering round in circles, and couldn’t tell you up from down from sideways if you gave them half an afternoon. But even my first time down in the tunnels—two days shy of my ninth birthday—I felt right at home. Just had a sense of what size charge to use where, when the bedding was gonna give out, where a new channel might lead. I guess that’s why Fillster decided to take me in. Certainly wasn’t out of love, ‘cause in the two times this planet’s gone round the sun, that man ain’t given me much more than a shaky roof over my head and two daily protein-in-a-bags. Always just enough to keep me digging.

    So I dragged myself on and on into the swirling darkness, until I heard a weak groan up ahead. Then I got real close and saw Kai’s twitching arm poking through the rubble, bloodied and bruised.

    Digging one-handed was painfully slow, so I grabbed my shoulder with my good hand, closed my eyes, and wrenched. Now it was my turn to cry out, but my screams weren’t all soft and gentle like Kai’s. Still, I must have got it back near enough in the right place, ‘cause my right hand was now able to dig just as good as my left. For the next few minutes, I pulled away all the rocks I could, which ripped through my gloves like sandpaper. Soon, I got enough cleared to crawl through. Kai was sprawled out, still moaning, but so soft I could barely hear. 

    “My respirator’s done,” he whispered. He pointed a weak hand towards the far end of the tunnel. “Disused elevator. Over there.” That’s all he managed before he fell silent. 

    I dragged Kai towards the doors, but now his lips were blue, and I could see how pale he was, even with the grime on his face. 

    I took a deep breath, pulled out my own respirator, and shoved it in Kai’s mouth. But now it was me turning faint. Little white dots scribbled into the corners of my vision. I reckoned I had less than a minute before I passed out and doomed us both.

    The service elevator’s cage controls were covered in rust—not the capital-R rust, of course, just oxidized metal—and loose wires spilled out of the thing like maggots from a wound. I pressed every button, but the fuse box was trashed. My lungs cried out for another gasp of air, and my brain was just as fried as the electronics. I thought about taking the respirator back from Kai, but I hadn’t come this far to let him die. 

    For pit’s sake, do something.

    I grabbed a battery from my bag, connecting the cage control wires to either end. The sparks brought the elevator to life, slamming us to the cage floor and shooting the elevator up, up, up, past sectors that hadn’t been visited for years, relics the old Extractors mined dry before I was born. 

    The track ran short of the surface, though. And we needed out. I opened the top hatch and threw in one of the fat charges. We were within the blast zone, but no time to worry about that, ‘cause my mind was already blurring at the edges. I covered Kai with my body, then pressed the detonator. The last thing I heard was an explosion ringing in my ears and—

    I awoke to the other boys dragging me up to the surface. Lyle threw a respirator into my mouth, and I sucked the oxygen like it was the sweetest candy I ever tasted.

    Kai had his eyes open, thank God. He didn’t say a word, just forced out a little smile.

    Then Fillster stormed up, waving his arms in the air, asking what in pit’s sake I was thinking, and shouting about how I was this close to ruining everything. 

    “It ain’t right,” I said, the words spilling out of me even though I didn’t mean for them to. “Them mines are gonna be the death of us Extractors, and for what? So folk can get high? And while you’re getting rich, the rest of us ain’t got enough to pay for our own damn funerals.”

    Fillster got right up in my face, spitting as he talked. “You’ll be back on your shift an hour early tomorrow, and I’ll be taking the repairs out of your wages. And don’t you even think about speaking back to me again, boy. You know nothing about how this world works. Nothing!”

    It was true Fillster knew more than I did. He knew how to keep a dozen pit boys in line. Knew where to cut corners. Knew how to eat well while the rest of us fed off crumbs. But he didn’t know everything—what it felt like doing a good deed and getting a smile in return. He knew nothing of fairness, or kindness, or compassion. 

    Oh, and he didn’t know about all those charges I’d left down in Sector L, placed in just the right spots to end his operation for good.

    I hauled out the remote fuse, and his eyes got all wide. Couldn’t say what sort of life waited for me after mining, but it had to be better than this.

    I pressed the button. 

    An earsplitting boom. 

    But this time, the silence was blissful.