This episode contains the following topics: substance
abuse and suicide. Listener discretion is advised.
Check out the show notes for more information.
Thank you for tuning in. Thank you, Jess, for requesting
that song! For those now tuning in, we're
taking requests! The lines are open!
Call us on 007-008. Who do we have here, Matt?
Levi! And he wants to request a song
for his older brother! Isn't that right, Levi?
Yes. Hi.
How old are you, Levi? Fourteen.
Isn't it a bit late for you to be awake, Levi?
Why are you requesting this song?
Uhm. For my brother.
He has to work all day tomorrow. Him and me both!
I want to request a song in solidarity with the miners who
died in the collapse. My brother says the Von Leirkovs
are responsible. Thank you for that!
We'll add your song to the list. Let's have a look at our written
messages. Matt.
What about Levi? Let him talk.
We can't have the audience spreading lies on live radio!
Read the next message, Matt. Now we are spreading lies.
Okay! We're going to listen to the
next song that Lena requested. She's in love!
And hope still hear this song. This one is for you, Edward.
Let Lena know how you feel about her.
Good luck with your romantic conquest, Lena!
Wake up, New Vilirth! Chapter 7 In the Dust.
A hundred and twenty-four thousand five hundred shards.
To the Inis Dara mainland, please.
I placed a request form on the counter.
The man behind the desk looked at me over the rim of his
glasses before taking the paper. He read every line carefully.
That will be a hundred and thirteen thousand seven hundred
and ninety-three Koperium Shards after registration and shipping
costs. And an extra two thousand for
the fast shipping. The currency change will be done
once it arrives in Inis Dara and you will receive the receipt at
your home address. What?
No, it won't cost that much. The shipping rate is six point
one percent. There was a change in the raid's
last moon, miss. Travel is getting more
treacherous. The man behind the desk tapped
the flyer that hung behind him. Eight point six?
Costs are always changing, miss. He looked at the form.
Ohfogolad. Ó Foghladha.
He tapped the desk. I sighed and placed a stack of
notes on the counter. I then had to dig through my bag
for the rest of the money, robbing me nearly dry.
The clerk started counting, pausing at every note to feel it
and check it against a small light on his desk.
I watched him as the stack of counted notes grew taller on his
desk. I will also be needing your
registration card. I handed it over.
It underwent the same scrutiny as the money had.
The man took a stamp out of the drawer and went through the
process of cleaning the stamp meticulously.
Taking out an ink pad, cleaning that, putting the stamp on the
pad, allowing the ink to soak in, setting it down on the form,
taking it off the paper, scrutinizing it and then waiting
for every spot of ink to dry. I waited impatiently, tempted to
do it myself. A signature here, please.
He pointed at a line under his stamp.
I did as he asked. Do you want to leave a
personalized message? No.
That was it, right? He frowned at me and then gave a
slow nod. Mm-hmm.
That was it. I stepped out of the post office
and into the mall. The shopping center was one of
the few above-ground facilities still in use.
It was three stories high with columns reaching all the way to
the ceiling. To me, the mall had seemed like
the pinnacle of the big city the first time I came here with my
father. And to this day, it impressed
me. The post office was at the
highest level of a circular hall with a glass dome as a roof.
At one point, the sun would have flooded this place, but I had
never seen it like that. All the windows had been boarded
up for a long time. Half of the shops were closed.
Some promised to reopen soon, but the yellowing notices and
broken windows told a different story.
Still, it was always crowded here.
People flooded the shops from the underground entrance that
led straight into the mall. I moved against a stream of
people towards the stairs. My mind wandered and I let my
feet lead me home. I turned the lock of my door
before the morning traffic slowed down.
The piece of cloth I'd kneeled over the window bulged in a soft
breeze of wind. One edge had come loose.
More dust than usual was coming inside.
I was sick of it. I had to sweep the floors twice
a day. But the money I could have spent
on repairing the window was now waiting to be shipped overseas.
I tugged at the cloth and taughten it around the nail.
The fabric ripped further. It was no use.
I'll send someone to fix that. I whipped around, gun in my
hand, before the sentence was even finished.
My pistol almost touched Rhea's nose.
Fuck! Rhea!
I put the safety back on the gun and tugged it away.
Don't do that! I didn't mean to.
Rhea held up her hands. That's a second gun I've had
pointed at me today. It's your own bloody fault.
I pushed past her to fill my kettle with water.
I filled it for exactly one cup. Have you thought about Von
Leirkov's offer? Rhea didn't respond.
I looked up from the kettle. We need more work.
If we're turning down his offer...
I fell silent. What was I going to do?
I could beg to get my old job back, but I doubted much had
changed there, even if I could get over my pride.
I have thought about it. And?
I turned the water off before it boiled and scooped some char
into my cup. I'm taking the job.
Oh. Good.
Right. Good.
I was half-relieved, half-anxious about what that
meant. Rhea stayed silent.
Rhea? I can give you a cut to make up
for what we lost on our travels. I'll do the same for Tuula.
What are you talking about? I should hope you are paying us
with what that Von Leirkov boy is willing to spend.
I'm taking this job on my own. You're not coming.
Of course we are. While I do agree that all our
bases were covered between the three of us on our hunting trip,
I don't think that's the case with this job.
It's not defending against possible monsters that will
definitely be a monster. A big one.
I need fighters. I am a fighter.
The moment I said the words, I realized how childish they
sounded. Rhea didn't respond.
She let me sit on my embarrassment.
And Lu? I'll pay her to make some
weapons. Years ago, when I still traveled
to New Vilirth with my father every couple of moons, one of my
father's clients had gotten in trouble with the Räsänen family.
Finding him missing one of his hands had left quite an
impression on me. The infected stump had stank of
rot under the bloody bandage. I thought it disgusting but also
exhilarating that one family had so much power.
Although my father had never said it out loud, mostly not to
edge on his already prickly client, I knew he thought the
same. Every now and then I was
reminded of their power. They might hide in the dark of
the Underground but they loomed like a shadow over Upper New
Vilirth. That allure hung around Rhea
when I first met her. And sometimes it still did.
On a good day I wouldn't have dared argue with her.
Today wasn't one of those days. So that's it then.
You didn't do your job properly and now you're off to find
another squad. Good luck finding people insane
enough to join you. Naturally you'll be compensated
for your work over the past moons.
I won't forget that. I slammed down my mug.
Char spilled over the sides. Keep your damn money.
Don't be childish. You will get what you need.
And you will be alive to spend it however you like.
We are doing this together. As a team.
He came to us, didn't he? Not just you.
He wanted us to help. All three of us.
It's been decided, Willow. The discussion was over.
My cheeks grew hot. I turned on my heels and I
stormed out. The slam of the door followed me
all the way down the stairs. My legs were outrunning my
thoughts and my anger. Or trying to.
That your house will fall upon you.
Fool. I walked, nearly ran past the
market towards the south exit of the Underground.
With every step to the surface, the heavy smells faded, replaced
by a combination of steam and salt.
The wind tried to push me back into the tunnels, but I didn't
allow it. The sea wasn't visible from
where I stepped out of the Underground, but I smelled it
and heard it and felt it. My stomping changed into a fast
stride and then slowly into a walk as I deflated.
Part of my anger faded. I followed the road leading
towards the boulevard. I passed the docks where workers
shouted at each other. Hot winds whipped up my hair.
The sun burned. If I didn't know the
consequences, I would have dipped into the sea.
Shipments no longer came in regularly and boats had to be
remade every few moons after they were pulled to the depths
by the monsters that roamed the sea.
And then there was the water. We called it the Sour Sea.
It slowly ate at whatever touched it.
Nothing could make it long, even if they didn't get attacked by
something. This had once been the thrumming
heart of New Vilirth's economy. It hadn't completely
disappeared. I watched as the workers hauled
long planks. Like the workers in the mine,
these people had come to New Vilirth hoping for better
chances and ended up stuck here, in grueling conditions under
even more grueling command. The port wasn't pretty.
Beaches had been replaced by concrete, first for easier
access and then it was built higher against the storms,
against the tsunamis. Wave breakers appeared as the
water retreated and then disappeared again under the
surface. Still, I have always felt freer
here, close to the sea. I turned around to watch New
Vilirth as it lay behind me. I would like to see it from the
sea again someday. I sat down at the edge of the
water. Workers shouted at each other
above the crashing sound of the sea and crackling of music from
a work radio. I watched as they hauled cargo
from a large ship. It didn't look much better than
our hover hat upon our return. After I'd been sitting there for
a few minutes, I heard flashes from the news coming from the
radio. Some words were carried away on
the wind, but it was the same message they had been repeating
for the past day, every bell. The rescue workers have been
unable to find a safe way into the mines.
This morning, a spokesman told us they have started installing
a lift over the shaft the miners are in.
They will use it to get food and water to the miners to sustain
them until they find a safer way in.
That was the news. We will return with more
information when we can. This was Corina Severlin from
NVBC. Have you spoken to Jason lately?
He didn't reply to my invite for tonight.
I assumed he was busy with work. You didn't know?
He's no longer working. He quit?
This was one of the ads that had been repeating over and over.
The anti-memory campaign was relentless.
By now, I knew every word to this ad.
Well, actually, he was fired. And then it clicked.
Is it because of the...memories? Oh, that's it.
Oi! What do you think you're doing?
Get out of there, lad! I blinked and stood up.
But not because of what the man just said.
I'd show her. I'd show her I could be of use.
I was insane. There was no other word for it.
Yet a small flame inside of me ignited at the idea, and that
small flame had now led me here. I used the key that I should
have handed in when I was fired from the paramedics.
In the chaos of the layoffs, no one had noticed my stuff hadn't
been brought back. It was out of resentment at
first, and after that it would have been too awkward to bring
up. Turned out, it now came in
handy. The room was silent as the dead,
which made sense seeing as it was filled with them.
I managed to chuckle at my lame joke.
I clamped onto the strap of my bag and stepped towards the
metal doors lining the wall. I'd combed through the
administration. It was vague on several of these
bodies, almost as if they were trying to hide information.
Thirty-six. Thirty-seven.
Forty-three. I scanned the numbers next to
the doors. One of these, I guess.
I opened the door with number forty-seven, putting my weight
into it. I pulled the metal bed with the
body on it out. The wheels jingled happily on
the rails as the body rolled out.
Bingo. Evening, sir.
He was a mine worker, right? They had done their best to
clean him. At least they had given him that
last respect. He was large with a square face
and dark curls, but what gave him away as a miner were the
calluses on his hands. He was in bad shape.
What was left of his arms was mangled and unrecognizable.
His chest had a gaping hole in it.
He must have had a run-in with the krenir.
Exactly what I needed. Still, I hesitated.
When you were in the job, you sort of got used to it, or at
least numb, but it had been a while since I'd seen a dead
body. I shivered, but I managed a knot
in sign of respect. There is a sorrow on me.
I'm sorry. I'd long stopped believing in
anything, but if there was any time to pray for my soul, it
would be now. I rummaged in my bag and pulled
out a medical kit. I looked at the body, unsure how
I was going to proceed. I knew the theory, but doing it
to someone who had been dead for over a few hundred years was
different to this. This was still a man.
Right, I'm going to turn you, sir.
Don't worry, you'll still be comfortable.
Flipping a dead body was always a lot more difficult than you'd
expect. Bodies, when they weren't yet
deteriorated nor alive to roll themselves around, turned out to
be quite heavy. I spent minutes struggling to
get the man on his side. He flopped over, rather
indignantly. I winced.
Sorry. I set a hand drill against the
back of his skull. I tried not to think too much
about my hand touching his cold skin.
I pushed the point into his skin and started to twist the drill.
It took a while to get through the skull, but when it did, it
shot through the bone and into something soft.
I gritted my teeth. I had never done any procedures
that weren't for the purpose of helping someone.
This felt wrong. Focus, Willow.
If I was off by an inch, this opportunity was wasted.
I inserted a small needle and slid it through the hole I'd
just created in the skull. I knew the theory.
I needed the pineal gland. But as a paramedic, I hadn't
necessarily gone around extracting people's memories.
I held my breath and tried to trust in my knowledge.
This should be it. I very slowly started to extract
grayish-red goo. It seemed to still be in great
condition. Relief flooded me.
This might actually work. I kept going until nothing but a
few clumps were coming out. I didn't want to suck out prey
matter and muddled the retrieval.
That would take another day of filtering.
The entire road back I felt as if someone was following me.
I tried not to look too suspicious as I sped through the
underground in my hover in the middle of the night.
I didn't have much time. The procedure would take a few
bells and I didn't know when Rhea was going to go into the
mines. She was such an arse for
ditching us. As if we hadn't deserved the
trust nor friendship in the five moonspans we had been together
on that hover. Let alone that we needed this
job as much as she did, maybe even more.
She could cozy up to her family in the Vanguard.
In the best case, Tuula and I would spend all our lives paying
off our debts. In the worst case, we and our
families would end up on the streets.
I parked the hover close to my house and checked over my
shoulder before hurrying to my front door.
I made sure my extracting gear was properly hidden before I
stepped in. The couch was empty.
I didn't expect Rhea to be there, but it somehow
disappointed me further. The artificial lighting in the
Underground told me dawn was breaking.
The kitchen was a mess. I had been doing this process on
a camping stove for the past moons, and having the whole
kitchen should have made it a lot easier, but somehow it
didn't feel that way. And it didn't look that way
either. My ponytail now sagged at the
base of my neck and sweat clung to me.
It had taken bells to get it exactly right.
Extracting memories from dried remains took longer as the
process of rehydration was involved, but by now I could do
that process in my dreams. This involved techniques I
hadn't quite mastered, and if I messed this up, I looked at the
vial of thick clear fluid. It clung to the flask like a
syrup. This memory was pristine, fresh.
It had only taken someone to die.
I already felt a strange pressure behind my ear.
My hands shook as I cleaned the needle.
Just do it. Whatever could go wrong.
I connected the needle to the flask with a tube.
What would be the best place to sit?
Or should I lie down? I didn't have professional
equipment to make an IV, so it would have to be makeshift.
I looked around the small room. I stepped on my threat bear but
comfortable chair and set the flask on top of the shelf.
I then secured it with books to make sure it didn't smash on top
of me. Trembling hands, I sat down and
took the needle. My sweaty fingers left marks all
over the flask. This...this...this better be
worth it. I closed my eyes, set the needle
against the soft skin under my ear and shoved it in.
It wasn't instant. I watched an air bubble rise to
the surface in the glass flask pop and then reality faded away.
It was as if someone pulled me into a water tank except that
the water felt more like oil. Everything dissolved into that
thick liquid. For a moment I thought
everything was going black, but no, that wasn't right.
It was the mineshaft I stood in, dark and cold.
I shivered. I wanted a step forward, but the
thought came and went and then the thoughts didn't come anymore
but were replaced by something else.
Exhaustion and determination. I had been working all day.
I could smell my own sweat. My arms were tired from swinging
the pickaxe up and down and up and down.
My headlamps shone on the dark wall.
Although there wasn't anything special about it, I knew there
were riches beyond. I didn't care.
It didn't cross my mind anymore that I could pocket those.
I would be checked at the gates and fired.
And then what? My stomach grumbled, but I
continued in the same rhythm as all the Huers next to me.
Oi! What was that?
His words echoed around the cavern.
I didn't look up. Keep going!
My axe came down again, chipping away at the wall.
No, I swear, I heard something. No one responded.
The rhythmic hammering continued.
The man stopped again. This time I looked up.
He was staring down the mineshaft.
Keep going! The explosion blasted away my
words. I wasn't sure if it was me or
the explosion that threw down my body.
I hid myself under my arms. The ground trembled.
I didn't want to get up. My body was tired from working
all day. Even the adrenaline wasn't
enough to stop me from wanting to fall asleep here.
But I knew I couldn't keep lying here.
Something was stomping around. Something other than the mine
workers or the mine carts pulling stones up to the
surface. I dared look up.
It was completely dark. My lamp no longer sat on my
head. But I was alive.
I ran towards the sound of the mine carts.
If I could hitch a ride to the surface, I'd be safe.
My legs trembled under me. I hadn't taken more than two
steps when I tripped over and fell.
My knees split open. I didn't know what it was, but
it sounded like a nightmare. Everything trembled because of
it. I ignored the pain and started
to crawl. A beam shone a few meters up
ahead, illuminating the falling dust.
A headlamp. I crawled towards it and grabbed
it. It was wrapped around someone's
head, but whoever it was didn't protest to be taking it.
With trembling hands, I placed the lamp on my head.
It lit up the destruction. A small beam showed rocks
smashed down on the entire row of miners that had been standing
next to me. I got to my feet and started to
run, following the tracks into the mining shaft.
There were bodies mangled beyond recognition.
My knees screamed in pain, but I ran purely on adrenaline.
Something was with us, doing this.
The next roar shook me. I nearly toppled over again, but
I forced myself to keep running. Please, ancient mother from
where you reside under the mountains, protect us from
whatever dwells here. There was a stomping behind me
and it became louder. I've served you, believed in
you, sent half of my earnings to you.
Please protect me and thereby my family that relies on me.
It is not my time. Please.
This time the roar did knock me over.
Or was it the beast? I slammed to the ground,
screaming I rolled on my back. The beam shone straight onto the
black eyes of... something. Something big and reptilian.
Everything from its claws to its teeth looked like the
surrounding rocks. And when it roared it showed the
blood stained inside of its maw. Please!
It came closer. The explosion had ripped a tear
in the beast's belly, but I wasn't sure if it was the
beast's blood or the miner's blood that clung to it.
I tried to get up. If only I could get to a
pickaxe, a weapon of some sort. But the beast lunged forward,
closed around my arm. The pain lit up like fire.
The monster pulled me off the ground and shook me around like
a toy. I soared through the mineshaft,
the headlight smashed against the rock next to me and the
cavern fell into darkness. I waited for the beast to come
for me, but I heard it on the other side of the cavern.
I knew I wasn't dead, but it was coming.
I felt it pull at me, it was dragging me slowly towards the
edge and every second of it hurt.
I didn't know how long, just that I had enough time to think,
to really feel it. At least I couldn't see the
damage to my arm, but I felt it, adrenaline no longer numbed the
pain. Guilt gnawed at me, this would
be their death too, my beautiful daughters.
The hunger would gnaw at them for weeks until it took them
away, or they would catch a virus.
Or worse, sell their memories, trade their innocence and their
brains to save their younger sister and their mother.
But the beast had left, left us for dead, not even worthy to
feed on. The cave was silent but for the
moans of others close to death. Another jolt of pain shot
through my arm, or what was left of it.
Even if I got out of here, even if they saved me, I would no
longer be of use. With my good arm I grabbed
around me, felt for something sharp or heavy.
My hand folded around a sharp piece of stone, a shard perhaps
that had come loose from the monster.
I felt for the tip and aimed it at myself.
I drove the shard into my chest, once, twice, thrice, until I no
longer could. Blood gushed out, I coughed wet
and gurgling, and eventually, not long after, either blood
loss or the pain dragged me under.
I woke up on the floor, gasping. The flask tumbled from the shelf
and smashed on the ground. It was empty.
I was on my hands and knees. Everything was wet from sweat.
My body was trembling. I convulsed until my stomach was
empty, until all I could do was lay on the floor and cry.
Thank you for tuning in. We hope you've enjoyed your
stay.