Nicholas Smith - Hell Divers

The warehouse trading post was the largest and most frequented room on the Hive. X could always hear the chatter of bartering patrons and smell the black-market foods before he rounded the corner and saw the open double doors that led to the dim, cavernous space.

X stepped through the doors, his thoughts as unorganized and chaotic as the flow of commerce going on around him. Days had passed since the dive that he swore would be his last, yet his muscles were still tense, his skin still burned, and his nerves were on edge.

He pushed his way through the throng of haggard faces: a blur of buyers, sellers, and hustlers. Some loitered, hoping to scrounge out a handout from him. He tried his best to ignore the murmured pleas and resentful glares as he walked through the close, sultry air. None of them seemed to care that he had saved their lives countless times. They only saw a member of the privileged elite in front of them, not the parts that X had risked his life scavenging to keep the ship in the air.

Not that he could blame them. Their focus was on one thing: survival. Most of them had never seen the inside of one of the ship’s classrooms. Education was reserved for the children of engineers and farmers—people who would grow up to play a vital role in keeping the Hive in the air.

X focused on the faded signs and dead lightbulbs that hung from makeshift huts and carts where merchants sold and bartered their wares.

Shouts of vendors echoed through the room. “Moonshine that’ll numb your senses!” a man yelled at a group of water technicians passing his booth. One of the men stopped and exchanged a few credits for a bottle of the potent hooch.

An elderly woman with waist-length gray hair waved X toward her stand. She wore a coat stitched together from colorful rags. He recognized her as the woman who had sold them a “cure” for Rhonda’s cancer. All Rhonda had gotten from it was a rash. Resisting the urge to rake the bottles of green liquid onto the floor and stomp on them, he contented himself with waving his middle finger at the snake-oil seller.

She turned away without a response. He filed his anger away and walked quickly through the next aisle of merchants, passing tables piled high with soap, candles, and other items that made life belowdecks a little more bearable.

Reaching the end of the bazaar, he paused at the cages of guinea pigs, rabbits, and chickens. He could empathize with them. The thing he loved most about diving was slipping out of his own cage for a few hours—something these creatures would never do except at the end, when bound for the stew pot.

“Only two hundred credits!” a child shouted, his hands cupped around his mouth so the words would carry farther.

X raised an eyebrow at the ridiculous price and walked on, to a stand filled with fresh produce. The potatoes and lemons looked small and shriveled compared to those that the farmers grew on the level above. These were the products grown in the two communal living spaces belowdecks, where there was never enough water or light.

Year by year, these small luxuries continued to dwindle. Soon, the last doe rabbit would die, or the grow lights would blink out and not come back on. With the rising prices and disappearing goods, people were growing more desperate. There would be more riots, more bloodshed. In the hallways, he had heard the whispered rumors of rebellion. X had ignored them. He had enough to worry about just keeping the Hive in the sky. If the people aboard chose to tear it apart, there was nothing he could do about it.

A cough rang out, and immediately a space cleared in the middle of the crowd as shoppers and browsers backed away in fear. Cancer wasn’t the only thing rampant on the ship. A flu could be just as deadly. Several passengers bumped into X while frantically pulling on their white masks.

X just pushed ahead through the crowd, toward his favorite merchant. A sign that read “Dragon” came into view. The lightbulb behind the “N” had burned out since the last time X visited. Looking at it, he ran smack into another passenger.

“Watch it!” the man growled.

X turned to find Ty staring back at him.

“Shit. Sorry, Ty.”

The technician flicked the herb stick in his mouth from the left side to the right. “No problem.”

X took a step back to let a shopper by, then closed the gap, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

Ty broke the awkward silence. Taking the stick out of his mouth, he said, “I didn’t have a chance to tell you at the funeral, but I’m real sorry. Shit luck, them sendin’ you guys down there in an electrical storm. You doing okay?”

X just nodded. Ty and everyone else wanted to know what had happened down there, what he had seen.

“How’s the kid doing?”

“Hasn’t said a word since he found out his dad died. He blames me. I can see it in his eyes.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Ty said. “My boy didn’t talk for two weeks after his aunt died of cancer. But he came around.” He continued to ramble on, but X was barely listening. He wasn’t sure Tin would recover. The kid had lost the sparkle in his eyes; his stare was cold and brittle. He was damaged, like everything and everyone aboard this squalid excuse for a home.

“I’d better get going,” X said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Ty jammed the herb stick back in his mouth. “Oh, right, I almost forgot: tomorrow you get your new team.”

“Can’t wait,” X said, turning to leave. He wasn’t sure who the new divers would be. Angel and Apollo both had extra members, but he didn’t know who they’d be willing to give up. He also didn’t know where Jordan would find new recruits to replace them. Not many promising candidates remained.

X stopped at the Dragon’s stall and sat down on one of the four bar stools at the counter. He rang the little bell.

He heard some clanking behind a partition wall, and a middle-aged man with curly red hair emerged a moment later. Stepping into the dim light, he cracked a toothless grin. “Ah, Xavier! Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Hey, Dom, how you doin’?”

Dom looked X up and down, his eyes stopping on the white arrow pattern embroidered on his red uniform. “Today’s not so bad. I always like feeding a Hell Diver.”

X gave a tired grin. “Good, because I want an order of noodles to go.”

“Give me a couple of minutes,” Dom said, disappearing back into the booth.

X relaxed, enjoying the moment of solitude. Dom had owned the place for as long as he could remember. As with so many others on the ship, the traditions of his family had been handed down from generation to generation. There was no concept of race on the ship. All were citizens of the Hive . But this didn’t mean everyone was treated equally. In some ways, it was even worse now than it had been in the Old World. The caste division of lower-deckers and upper-deckers was painfully apparent everywhere.

Dom returned a few minutes later with a steaming carton of the best noodles that remained in the world. The intoxicating scent pulled X back from his thoughts, and for the moment, he forgot about the ship’s societal problems.

“How much I owe you?” he asked.

Dom looked up at the broken sign dangling off the canopy. “You get me a new lightbulb, you get free noodles.”

X examined the sign. His brow furrowed. “Not many of those left on the surface, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Dom slid the bag to X, his gummy grin growing even wider.

X took the warm carton, eyed the sign one more time, and left. “See ya, Dom,” he shouted over his shoulder.

X walked back to his apartment, wondering what he could say to Tin. He knocked. Twice. It felt odd to be knocking on his own door, but he didn’t want to alarm the boy. X wanted him to feel at home.