Rusted Sky

By Nicholas "Tac" Whitcomb

Dig to live.

It's all Lynn has ever known: scouring the tunnels and caverns of metal and trash for ancient relics of glass and plastic, then selling them in the Commons to the Technicians for enough platelets to get by another few weeks. The Technicians trade with the Ceiling above. The Ceiling sends down food and supplies. Lynn and her team return to the tunnels. It's the circle of life.

But life isn't easy for a Digger. There's Trappers waiting to grab you and Gangers ready to steal your dig. There's hounds feeding on whatever poor sap gets lost along the way.

Lynn knows the risks. She does the job. She has a good team behind her. She knows what to do should anything go wrong.

But what happens when everything goes wrong?

What happens when there's no way out, with the injuries piling up and the food dwindling down as the ravenous hounds grow closer and closer?

And what about the sounds? Lynn's pa died many years ago; her ma too. Why can she still hear them, their nearly forgotten voices echoing along these abandoned tunnels?

Only one thing is certain: If Lynn and her team can't dig to live, they will no doubt die down here, trapped for all eternity among the endless remains of things long abandoned.

Rusted Sky is the thrilling, claustrophobic new sci-fi novella from Nicholas "Tac" Whitcomb.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733110136

Book preview

cover.jpg

Copyright © 2020 by Nicholas Tac Whitcomb

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America.

First Printing, 2020

ISBN (Print): 978-1-7331101-2-9

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-7331101-3-6

Bookbaby Publishing

www.bookbaby.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This novella is dedicated to all the memories that refuse to fade.

Stephanie and Richard Whitcomb, my parents, for your readings of my first draft and your encouragement. All your critiques helped form this book, and your support never ceases to amaze your son.

Thomas Farnsworth, Melissa Ingram, and Jeff Roberson, for your first draft readings. Your feedback and observations were momentous for this work. I can’t thank you enough for the strength you’ve given me.

Harrison Demchick, for the developmental edit and cover copy. Thank you for pushing me hard. My style and writing abilities have greatly improved because of you. (You can check out Harrison’s webpage at: www.harrisondemchick.com.)

Meredith Tennant, for being such a great editor and teacher. You astonish me once more with your in-depth knowledge, and you continue to sharpen my writing edge each time I work with you. (Please visit her website at www.meredithtennanteditorial.com.)

Angela Brown, for your wonderfully detailed proofreading. I have learned much from your feedback, style and directness. If you would like to work with her too, she can be found on Reedsy.

Xander Brown, for your incredible cover art. Your talent continues to awe me and your professionalism is top notch. (He can be found at Twitter: @spectrum_shift and www.artofspectrumshift.com.)

To the fox who told me it was broken, thank you for all your positive criticism and writing advice. You’ve given me some tools to help perfect my craft and make sound writing decisions.

BookBaby, thank you for all your hard work and being a solid rock in the storm I can stand on. Especially you, Patrick Aylward. Their staff is incredible and talented. (Check them out at: www.bookbaby.com.)

Thank you Reedsy for helping me find great and talented professionals to work with. The service you provide is a boon to all writers. (Visit their website at www.reedsy.com).

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

About the Author

1

My fingers ache as I pull dirt from underneath the rusty metal machine. It used to be something once. Scrap now. I push each digit deeper into the slurry of dust and muck. My mind is turned off. The movements are automatic, done thousands of times. It seems pointless. There isn’t anything here. Then my fingertips slide across it: smooth metal. Not like the other stuff.

My heart jumps. My breath seizes. What is it? Does it matter? It’s mine. It’s a little thing made of tin tucked in the mud, buried under a rusted flat husk in a forgotten tunnel. Only luck allowed me to find it. With blood-crusted knuckles, I scrape it from the entangled steel. Somehow, in its little tin, time hasn’t reached it yet. I don’t have the words for what it is or what it means.

Sweat drips from my brow as I roll it through my grubby, childish hands. A glass figure, clear with streaks of green inside—intact. So rare, glass. The object has four legs, a long tail, and angular face. A lioness, something long extinct.

Others offer to buy it. They hold platelets like ransom before me, dangling the palm-size metal squares. The holes punched in their centers show their value. My stomach complains emptily. But I can’t part with the lioness.

I can’t sell her. Selling is for lesser finds. Today she becomes part of me. I feel the excitement of finding her with each shovelful of dirt, each beep of the scanner, under every crap pile, and down each trash tunnel. Memories like that drive a person.

2

I snap awake from the memory and put down my powdered orange juice cup. It clacks when it meets the steel table. Both are metal, like just about everything in the room. I rub the lioness between my fingers, trying to forget the past for a while. Never can shake your first good find, but it’s time to get moving. A living to make.

I push away my breakfast bowl and pull on my overalls. These days there are more dirty black patches than the original gray-green material. The damn shoulder strap creeps under my bra’s back strap, tweaking it—a sign these are indeed my overalls. Carefully, I pull the strap out. Afterward, my leather boots crawl up to my knees, and I lace them. My old reddish-brown hardhat with its full brim still sits on my noggin snugly. Hopefully I won’t need it this trip.

My worn blue backpack rests on its hanger near the front door. A fanny pack and holster dangle from it. They’re as frayed as my leather jacket and overalls but sturdy. They hold all my tools: foldable trench shovel, bit of plate-money, couple days of water and food, debris scanner, extra flashlight, pair of heavy work gloves, multitool, camping kit, lighter, extra junk-gun mags, medical kit, survival knife, extra breather filters, and radiation alarm. When I put the backpack on, the gear feels good, familiar.

I remove the junk-gun from its holster and check that the safety is on. Curious inventions by the Technicians in the Commons. From their labs, stuck neatly between each Residential Shaft, the Technicians create all manner of nifty things: UV lights to prevent rickets, antibiotics, extra-long-lasting breather filters, portable hotplates, and the good old time-tested junk-guns made of scrap.

Heck, the Technicians even foster trade with the Ceiling. They ship up valuable finds or scrap then send down farmed produce. Long rail lines and stations are used to get access. It can take days to reach the Ceiling, which is why paying for a spot on one of the railcars costs so much. Not to mention the cargo you’d displace.

I scrape my hair back into its routine ponytail, feeling its roughness from the long hours under my hardhat. Pulling gloves over my calloused hands, I watch the tendons and veins pop up over my bones. Too many days with a shovel. The gloves feel loose, a half size too big. Sometimes I can’t shake that tired feeling. Like I’ve been thinking too much, wondering where that little girl who digs in the dirt went. Hard to tell time here.

Yet I should be the first to get to our meeting spot, like always. This dig had better be a good one. I need it. Last time I bent my scanner coil. Tripped over a damn piece of rebar and fell on it. Cost a fortune to get it back up again. My room heater was off for a week to make up the difference.

I reach for the door, the mirror hanging on, it catching my eyes. I stare for a minute at brown hair, russet eyes, then give my reflection a smirk. Turning at the door, I see that my room is exactly as I like it. Small but cozy. The bed is made. The table is clear, and all the cabinet doors are closed. I step out and lock the door behind me. A big white seventy-seven marks the rusty door as mine. My smirk turns into a smile.

Metal clanks under my boots and into the center of the Shaft. A walkway of ancient steel twists around the central support; a blue fifteen marks it. My Shaft. The walkway goes all the way to the Ceiling, forty floors in total, or down to the filthy Commons. The Commons is much closer from my doorstep, only seven floors down. The walk will wake me up.

The rooms where families live line up along the far wall from the central support; small lights shine near the entrances. Everything is enclosed. Most doors to the homes are shut, a few ajar, and others wide. Several people stand vaping outside their rooms. I wave as I go past.

Dirt indicates the bottom floor, a doorframe at the base of the Shaft that separates me from the workday. Deafening chatter blasts through the entrance. I go out into it. Bunches of people jostle one another as they rush to their labor. I slide among them, past them.

Eager now, I move toward the standard meeting spot, The General. That old hunk of junk is about a mile walk toward the fringe and two miles from the center of my native Commons. I trip over a haggler who’s trying to pull along an overloaded basket of wares. Spitting out a sorry, I keep hustling.

The Commons is a chaotic cluster of slipshod booths and pathways created from simple use and sprawls haphazardly around the jutting Shafts. Those Shafts hold the Ceiling up and house about 1,500 residents each. Strange how those above need those below, but it costs too much to go up for a visit. Almost like they want to keep us down here. Dust forms cloudlike clumps under the bottom of the Ceiling hundreds of feet above. The UV lamps that sag under crisscrossing catwalks cut the grime. Technicians are paid generously to keep the lights on and everyone healthy.

As I walk, I pass familiar sights: a craftsman hammering the shape of a shovel, merchants shoving food at me, kids chased by their mothers. Several homeless people, covered in tattered blankets, try to sneak warmth from the