On the last day of life as I knew it, somebody had mishandled the TNT.
On the first day of my life, my name, Safra Jung, was gifted to me via a tag on my foot. At the military prison camp, without a foot to tag, I was pronounced dead as inmate #10917.
This isn't a twist. I'm clearly not dead. Not a ghost haunting the living world or some other kind of fluid phantom. There was an accident at the camp. I survived and fled the country without telling my brother and sister. They think I'm dead but I am alive, far away in Meteor City.
What I've told you now, no one else knows.
But as you should know, this is just the beginning.
Beige billows below my eyes. I center my scarf at my nose and mask my face from the smell. The slight air filter saves my swaying stomach from capsizing. Somehow, the stench of garbage is worse today. Think moldy vegetables, rusty iron, and a dead skunk toasting under the sun for weeks.
Meteor City should have been named Fetor City.
Locals can meander easily on trash air without any cover. I'm not one of them. Even with the scarf, after two hours of working in the dunes, I wheeze like a chain smoker with black lungs. While searching the dunes, my cover kept slipping, and accidental whiffs burned my nasal passages, coating my tongue with the taste of pure garbage funk. I've been here for several weeks and every morning the repugnant smell punches me right in the face.
The smell of Meteor City never lets you forget you're in Meteor City.
Frustrated, overheated, and hungry, I want to go home and hide in the shade like some nocturnal creature. I have one job to finish and it should be easy. But my scarf isn't cooperating and the landmine I'm looking for doesn't want to be found.
Heat crawls up my neck like a spider. I'm wearing thick gloves, two layers on my head and my hair is tied to the nape of my neck, the scratch from my fingers barely reaches the itch.
Someone must have lassoed the sun and dragged it closer to Meteor City. The desert winds blow but bring no relief. The scorch makes everything worse, the rank smell, the orange smog, the temperaments of the sorry people living here, including me.
This bothers me more than it should but I'm not a wimp to high temps. I'm a child of the humid jungle. I only know two seasons: hot and monsoon. Strength against the heat is built into my DNA, with the curves of my shoulders and my pigeon toes. And I still can't crack the heat of Meteor City.
I fared better in a country that has been described by journalists as the Divine spark that lit the fiery gates of Hell. Ya hear that Meteor City? You're worse than Hell.
Arr! Arr!
I kneel and lean my right ear near the sand. I have to focus to hear over the crows and their constant caw.
Arr! Arr!
A pair of birds perch on scrap plastic at my eye level. Gorgeous green iridescence in their black feathers is made ugly by the fact that they won't shut up. They always spy from a safe spot, thinking I'm scavenging for midden they can swipe. Sorry birds, you can't eat what I'm about to dig up.
It's faint but I hear it. The low whistle of a mine, like a missile breaking the sky. The ring leads me straight on. I shuffle to the other mound and the ring grows louder, telling me I'm getting warmer.
The crows follow, clearly with piqued interest.
I press my ear against the tiny grains again. Phwww...phwww.
A car antenna sits conveniently within arm's reach, waiting to be put to good use. I poke it into the sand. Where are you, you son-of-a-CLING!
I double-check. Cling...cling.
Heat crawls up my neck again. I pour handfuls of sand aside, the winds whip fine grains into smoke that muddles my sight. By the fifth handful, green plastic peeks through.
There you are. I've been looking all day for you.
Soon, I have a mini crater and a green circle of plastic with a black rubber X facing me.
If you want to survive working with explosives, you must remember: Do not touch the pressure plate. Press any part of the rubbery X, it explodes. Upset the springs inside, it explodes. Hit the fuse by accident, it explodes. Yank it out of the ground without checking for trip-wire, it explodes. If it's been tampered with, frown or glare at it or breathe in front of it the wrong way, it explodes.
Mishandling is the #1 reason for 'accidental death' when working with high explosives. I have witnessed so many of my fellow comrades die because a mine slipped from their fidgety hands and hit face first on the pressure plate.
My gloves had fused with my sweaty skin and I have to peel them off like onion skins. I prefer naked hands for this.
"Wallahae," I pray in my native tongue. I've done this a thousand times and I still need to whisper a prayer before I fully uncover the unexploded land mine.
My soft bare fingers grace along the circle of gritty plastic. No dents from dropping or burying. The rubber X on the pressure plate is perfectly raised. No hooks for trip-wire. The green plastic casing is slightly browned from weathering, even slightly warped in shape from heat, but it hasn't been tampered with. It's in a safe state to handle, as long as I'm not reckless.
I take it out of the ground easily. Perhaps the only perk about these sand dunes: sand doesn't grab and hug the mine like soil.
The size of an ashtray, a little bigger than my palm. I always underestimate how light these things are. Something this deadly shouldn't be lighter than a glass mug. The landmine is so light a crow could thieve it and carry it to a nest. Something so small yet could obliterate the whole leg of an elephant. Obliterate an entire person, reducing the person you were just laughing with to ash.
Unlike a lot of the live weapons junked in meteor city that would wither with old age, if left in the ground for one hundred more years, this mine would still explode. Long after the humans who built it died, it would still be a live mine.
Landmines are like guns. There is a safety trigger you can use.
I carry a square tool in my back pocket. I begin to unscrew a compartment on the underside. Again, I have done this a thousand times and still each hard creak of the screw jolts my heart. I have to hold the mine tightly in one hand and turn with force before the screw gives. The cap falls off and bright yellow TNT peeks through the green plastic.
Arr!
The next compartment I open is the fuse, the safety plug. Pop it out and I can carry the mine into town to sell.
My palm touches the pressure plate but my grip is all in my fingers, holding the mine as I turn the screw. The cap falls and tucked inside is the fuse, chrome and round like a silver coin. I turn the mine over so the fuse can fall out. Ready to go home. Time to call it a day.
I give it a shake. Then another harder shake. The fuse doesn't wiggle even the tiniest bit.
Frustration itches my neck, the gross sensation of lice. Why isn't it just falling out? Is it glued in?
I hit the plastic casing with my tool but it won't dislodge from the pocket.
I hold the mine over my right eye, angling it get enough light and maneuvering to get a good view. Please don't be glued in-
The gust of trash fumes hits me with vengeance and sand stings my eyes. I can't see. I hack up a lung, coughing my throat raw and I still can't clear my airway.
Arr! Arr!
I duck but a crow's foot snags my scarf. A thread caught on a claw pulls and snaps and distressed flutter of wings into the distance. I shriek and wave my arms madly and blindly to shoo away the crows.
One fumble and the landmine slips from my grasp. Through watery, distended lids, I watch it in slow motion in the air, how it falls face first. A foot from my foot.
The soft boing of an internal spring disturbed from impact. Three seconds. Landmine, if you're going to explode, I give you three seconds. A brush of wind intrudes on the silence, not even the crows cawed.
Asshole puckered, gut sucked in, I don't even breathe. On a frying day in broad daylight, covered in layers from head to toe, a cold shiver ripples down my spine.
Nothing. The mine does nothing. The X on the plate, even checking from an angle, is still raised.
I inhale, gagging for it. Even Meteor City air smells better than death.
I pick up the mine avoiding the rubber X on the pressure plate. Now, clear as day, I spot the black rubber band holding the fuse. My torn scarf, the boing of the spring, those blasted crows over a fucking piece of black rubber. I scratch my neck and hair and sigh. At least it's not glue. I use my tool to tear it out. I club the plastic casing until finally, the round fuse plops out and almost disappears in the sand.
Last thing I do is put my gloves back on.
I really don't like Meteor City. And I'm pretty sure, Meteor City doesn't like me either.
The city of fallen stars isn't a city at all. It's a trash dump. A trash dump on a bone-dry river bed. I sleep in one of the many soulless concrete towers on the edge of town.
As much as I complain, the heat and smell, I'm afraid, are the easy part.
Living in Meteor City is dangerous. Another thing I wasn't told before I came here. Found out the very hard way. I should clarify though, it's less dangerous if you have some back-up. Find some people who need your skills more than they want to kill you and you're good.
Lucky me, I found some reinforcements on my first day in town. Before I found help, someone nearly cracked my ribs and I broke someone's nose. (I said I found out the hard way remember?) They deserved it. They nearly smashed my hand into a bloody pulp after snatching my bag of rice.
I had traded the dewy green jungle for a lawless junk jungle.
I wasn't expecting this when I defected from East Gorteau. Yes, that Gorteau. Not the free West Gorteau but the Republic of East Gorteau that is ruled by a despot.
Which brings me to my next thought that you must remember: I have a purpose for being in Meteor City.
I don't have to stick around forever, but I'll be stuck here for a while. For the first time ever, no one could order me to do anything. I had been told to come to Meteor City, but more as a recommendation. Defect and go there and be a nobody, they said. Fitting, because in East Gorteau, I hadn't ever learned about a place called Meteor City in school or in life. It makes me feel like I'm far from East Gorteau, not even on the same planet. I am a nobody here in Meteor City and that is a profoundly freeing thing.
This is a stark opposite existence than what I used to live in East Gorteau. The country had endured a civil war, a revolution, split from the Western half of the country and threw out the aristocrats. Then it all went to shit. A million people were purged in the arduous cleansing of the country. Which gave birth to anxiety and paranoia among comrades.
Everything is controlled. What isn't controlled by the state you control yourself for fear of whistleblowers among friends and family. In East Gorteau, all citizens are *equal. But don't let that fool you. We would recite that every morning as part of the pledge. All citizens are equal, we'd chant while knowing our names, future jobs, and marriages all pertained to our social standing long etched in the sand before our births. There is definitely a social class in East Gorteau and if I were cut from a better thread I wouldn't have been thrown into the military camp. Tainted lineage was their justification and I was sent away. Without a trial and without any way of contacting my siblings. In the middle of one random night, I disappeared like many Gortese do. My brother and sister aren't dumb. They surely know I was sent to a military internment camp.
We assembled high explosives in my division at the camp. As you can imagine, it's very dangerous work, accidents are bound to happen. An accident did happen. Through no fault of their own, my entire division was killed. Burnt to dust and ash in an uncaring instant. It was only by dumb luck that I wasn't there when it happened. By proxy and the false assumption of my being there, the camp officers think I'm dead. Because they weren't looking for me, I broke out of military prison and defected from East Gorteau.
Being an East Gortese in Meteor City means I committed the worst imaginable crime. I'm a traitor of the worst kind. Worse than the commanders who let us starve. Worse than the ego-maniac who murdered a million of his own people. Even thinking that about the Supreme Leader in the privacy of my own head is a crime.
I don't like to identify as a defector because that credits me with too much political motivation. Journalists and West Gorteau LOVE those kinds of defectors. Makes for a great news story: poor defector just yearning for freedom. I didn't leave to make a political statement or to betray my home. East Gorteau will always be my home, but I can't return.
I suppose I could have gone anywhere but Meteor City is the only place I know of that doesn't demand papers or an ID card to exist. Which leads me to one of the few things I actually like about Meteor City: here, I can stay dead for as long as I want.
Back to my purpose, I am here to uncover unexploded remnants of war, AKA, landmines. I only have a second-hand version of the events, but some group or someone had dumped thousands of landmines in the garbage fields and around Meteor City.
The Council of Meteor City had allegedly tried and failed miserably to address the dangerous situation. They tried metal detectors to find plastic mines. They tried hound dogs to sniff them out. The dogs were too heavy and accidentally triggered the mines they were sniffing. They even used martyrs... Fools. I am the only person in a hundred-kilometer vicinity who can go near the mines and still have all my limbs perfectly intact. I do the Council's job better than the Council, but I do not work for them. I work for my self. I find the mines and sell them to a dealer for a wad of Jenny.
Amazing. A prisoner treated as the dregs of society became immensely valuable in a land run by a council too inept to handle their shit. That fills me with an arrogance that I'm not familiar with. The Council is the governing body of Meteor City and for the first time, I don't worry about government or answer to any government.
I will never answer to anyone in Meteor City.
I am Safra Jung. I'm supposed to be dead and I live in Meteor City.
The Phantom Troupe is going to make their introduction in the next chapter...and it won't be pretty.
This is set pre-canon and is about the elusive 8th member before Shizuku joined. To jog memories, East Gorteau is the allegory for North Korea in the manga. The OC is Gortese. I studied political science and know a lot about failed states and despots so I'll try to channel that into Safra and her upbringing.
There are already some great OC involved with PT fics and 8th member fics, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. I haven't found any East Gorteau fics and when I watched the ant arc, I thought about defectors and the idea sprang from there. Pairings will be slow burn and you'll find out who I'm pairing her with soon. I'm a sucker for Canon CharactersxOC fics though the plot listed as crime. Crime and pairings... We'll see how this goes. Thank you for reading!
