The tiny dust particles blew across the landscape, covering it like a thick fog. They struck the buildings in their path, painting the structures with an orange hue. On either side of the settlement, buildings rose up from the sand, their tops disappearing into the Martian night sky. Piercing through the center of the mining settlement was a barely discernable road. Overhead lights aimed down at it, somehow managing to penetrate the thick haze.
The road led into the caverns of the mines. A flimsy-looking handrail led up to the mouth of the cave. Its presence meant to give the miners a way to guide themselves to the unfulfilling job of extracting ore, despite any attempts by the sandstorms to get in the way. Mining machinery was kept in a garage adjacent to the road. There it would be protected from the harsh elements when not in use.
The compound was located in the Tharsis region, east of the extinct Tharsis Montes volcanoes. Other mining operations existed in the region, but none like this one. It had the distinction of using cheap labor flown in each morning from Thyle Prison.
The convicts would be cast into the mines to work their shift. Those that survived the day would be flown back to their prison cells. Sometimes, fewer would return than had arrived. Few safety precautions were taken to protect the workers. If what returned to Thyle Prison was dead, nobody cared. They would just check to see if all the proper documentation was submitted, and that would be the end of it.
Overlooking the compound was the administrative building. Rows of windows, most of them shuttered, lined its walls. A single window had its shutters open, exposing a lit office behind it.
Inside the office, wood panels adorned the walls, doors, and furniture. A bookshelf covered one side, while pictures of Mars’ landscape covered most of the others. The only seemingly modern piece of equipment in the entire office was a holographic projector that sat in the center of the room. Near the window stood a desk where the lone occupant sat.
Jack Dagiri reclined back in his chair while looking out at the Martian landscape. Gusts of wind blew fine, orange dust against the window, forming liquid-like trails that traversed like rivers against the transparent metal.
A chime sounded at the door. Dagiri pressed a button on his desk and the double doors to his office swung open.
Three men appeared at the doorway. The first was his main henchman, Hargo Lawrence—as always, an intimidating figure with a black trench coat and long hair braided with beads down his back. The black bandana around his forehead cast a dark shadow over a face that seemed to wear a perpetual scowl. His massive figure moved to the far corner of the office.
The next two men wore the same dark green mining fatigues that most mining company management wore on Mars to separate them from the fugitive workers, who typically wore a dull gray.
One of them was Steve—his last name escaped Dagiri and really did not seem important. The portly lapdog managed the tedious details of his operations—and that was all that mattered.
The other man was Victor: the main subject of this meeting. The two of them took seats across the desk from Dagiri.
Dagiri looked to Steve. “Any news on when this storm is expected to clear?”
“Yes,” Steve said. “Within the next couple of hours. It will then be safe enough for the miners to get back to work.”
Dagiri raised his eyebrow. “I don’t care about their health. I just want to make sure the prison transport make a landing.”
He turned to the other man, as if noticing him for the first time.
“Oh, Victor! Glad to see you made it here intact. How was the trip?”
“Long and boring,” Victor said.
“I see,” Dagiri said. “I’m pleased with the job you did on Stromond.”
“Yeah. Look, that’s great, but I really need to go,” Victor said while fidgeting in his seat. “We had a deal. Now can you give me it?”
Dagiri motioned to Hargo, still standing in the corner. The henchman nodded back and left the room.
“Of course, Victor. It’s on the way,” Dagiri said.
He reclined back in his chair again before continuing.
“Tell me: to your knowledge, are there any other Elation operations?”
Victor shook his head. “No, I already told you. Stromond’s was the only one left. The UEP and Confed burned up all the others. And what’s left of Stromond’s people split up and are scattered all over the system. It’s over.”
“Leaderless and scurrying like scared rats, I take it?” Dagiri asked.
“Yeah, I guess,” Victor said, his eyes wide and focused on the door that Hargo had left through.
Dagiri studied Victor with some amusement: the constant shifting in his seat, the foot tapping on the floor, the nervous twitch in his eye. It was reassuring to know that the allure of his product was so strong.
“How much longer?” Victor said.
At that moment, the door opened. Hargo came in, pushing a hover table with a container on it. He moved it to the center of the room and then returned to the corner of the office.
Victor jumped up and rushed at it.
“There it is… enjoy,” Dagiri said as he watched Victor digging into the contents of the box.
Inside the case, sat stacks of white sheets. Each sheet had rows of square perforations that were pink in color. Victor grabbed one of the sheets and tore off a square.
“I hope you enjoy that,” Dagiri said. “It’s a bit more powerful than anything you’ve ever had before.”
Ignoring him, Victor peeled off a thin covering from the square and pushed it against the side of his neck. He stood with his eyes closed, apparently waiting for the Elation to take effect.
After a few seconds, he dropped the sheet onto the ground and looked down at Dagiri in a daze. He began to lean over and then stumbled to the couch, collapsing into it. His apparent nervousness faded, and he stared off into the ceiling with dilated eyes.
“Are you enjoying it, Victor?” Dagiri asked.
Victor said nothing.
“Stromond had some great chemists,” Dagiri said. “Now they work for me and they have produced the purest batch of Elation possible. However, what you just sampled is far more powerful than what I will be selling. I just can’t have all my customers dying from the product. That would hamper any repeat business.”
Victor’s eyes began to close and his head bobbed forward until he appeared to be out cold. Dagiri motioned to Hargo, who went to check Victor’s pulse. Hargo looked at Dagiri and nodded.
“Put him in cold storage,” Dagiri said.
Dagiri watched as Hargo picked up Victor’s body from the couch, lifting it like it was a rag doll. Then he carried it out of the room, leaving Dagiri and Steve alone.
“Uh, why are we keeping the body?” Steve asked.
“Fresh meat for Nelly,” Dagiri said with a smile. “The Elation-tainted flesh seems to appeal to her.”
“Oh… uh, I see.” Steve swallowed hard. “Well, then I guess this means we succeeded.”
“Yes I did,” Dagiri said. “I am finally free to divert resources away from fighting our competitors. Now, finally, I can diversify.”
“Diversify? What did you have in mind?” Steve asked. “A new business venture? Maybe expand the mining operation?”
“Petty aspirations for petty minds,” Dagiri said, as he stood up from his chair. He gazed out the window, gesturing to the Martian landscape.
“We live in a galaxy of slaves and slave masters. I’ve squeezed some profit out of the slaves. But my reach is limited—and the galaxy is a big place. We need to go after the other the masters now and put them under our control.”
He turned around, clenching his fists in the air.
“We need to squeeze them—and see what profits pour out.”
“And who, exactly, are these slave masters you’re talking about?” Steve asked.
“The corporations!” Dagiri said. “Who else! They are the true masters of the system. They are the ones with the con
trol, with the slaves… and with the profit. But… I want them to be my slaves.”
Dagiri took in a breath and sat back down in his chair. Steve just sat there, staring back at him, obviously not catching on to the bigger picture.
“Bottom line: no new Elation operations,” Dagiri said. “We let run what is in place. From now on, we’re going to deal in secrets and information. That’s the Elation the corporations feed on.”
When Steve remained silent, probably in mild shock, Dagiri turned his chair and again gestured to the window behind him.
“There’s an awful lot of talent living down in Thyle Prison,” Dagiri said. “Untapped talent rots away in cells, perhaps mining themselves to death at other settlements. There’s much more they can accomplish working for me.”
Turning back to his desk, Dagiri reached into a drawer and pulled out an information disc, which he handed to Steve.
“Those are the prisoners I want transferred here immediately from Thyle.”
Steve waved the disc over his wrist-link. Once the data was downloaded, the disc turned into powder. The wrist-link then projected a holographic image in front of them. Dagiri watched as Steve touched the hologram with his fingers and paged through the data.
“But these guys aren’t miners,” Steve said. “They’re hackers.”
Dagiri gave him a grin. “Exactly,” he said. “The talent. We’ll bring them in as miners working one of the deep veins here. A tragic accident will happen that collapses the vein and kills them. In reality, they will be sent with new identities to Earth, where they will head up our new operation.”
“Interesting, but how are you going to assure their loyalty?” Steve said.
“Oh, that’s the easy part,” Dagiri said. “All that hackers want is something to hack and the tools to do it. We’re going to give them both. Plus, we’ll give them a challenge that will be irresistible. Even more though, most of this bunch happen to be Elation addicts. They’ll be easy to control. If they do get out of line, we can dispose of them; nobody’s going to miss a few convicts. And there’s plenty more hacker talent where those came from.”
“Okay, but what about these tools you mentioned?” Steve said.
“Right,” Dagiri said. “That’s going to be the difficult part. Pull up the last page of data.”
Steve pushed a holographic button. A long list of items appeared in front of him.
“A shopping list?” Steve said.
“Yes,” Dagiri said. “Our hackers are going to need some very high-tech equipment. Some of it is off the shelf, but for a lot of it, you’re going to have to do some shifting through black-market channels. I added some preferred contacts at the bottom of the list. It will be expensive and tedious to obtain it all, but it’s necessary. Use whatever means.”
Steve glanced the listing, scrolling down through it.
“This is very comprehensive,” Steve said. “You’ve been planning this for some time.”
“Of course,” Dagiri said. “Since before we planted our mole into Stromond’s organization. Stromond needed to be out of the picture before we could go into this phase of the operation.”
“I see,” Steve said. “Okay, I’ll get on this shopping list.”
With the meeting between the two over, Steve left Dagiri alone in the office. Dagiri again looked out the window from his chair. The dust storm was now settling. In another hour, it would subside completely.
Dagiri looked at the time. It would be morning soon and he had not slept. He could go now and get a couple of hours of rest, but he had too much work to do. Instead, he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a small, handheld device. He pressed it against the side of his neck and closed his eyes. A soft hiss sounded. By the time he opened his eyes, he was reinvigorated.
“Sleep is for those who just want to dream,” he said aloud.
******