Cagon Mines
by the Chronicler
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Chapter 9
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Blue and pink dripped down the rock wall, falling into puddles on the cold floor. Each drop added to its respected pool. The bright colors spread, reaching out. The edges touched, the colors mingled, blended, creating a soft, beautiful purple.
And, then, the chemicals reacted.....
The explosion shook the entire mine. Support beams cracked and splintered. Rocks, rubble, and discarded equipment was thrown into the air to slam into anything solid enough to stop it, whether it was rock, steel, wood, or flesh. Waves of heated air rushed through the tunnels from ground zero, pushing before it clouds of sharp dust, sending the mine into an unnatural dusk.
----------
Big Norse stumbled.
Worried for a moment that her head injury was worse than New Jersey's quick inspection had revealed, Pecos reached out for her. But then she too felt the ground beneath her feet shake.
It wasn't a rolling, like an earth quake, but a deep, rumbling shake that could be felt through the soles of the feet and vibrated right to the inner ears, creating a sound that could only warn of disaster. It seemed to go on forever, a horrifying sound that put a soul in mind of the biblical Apocalypse.
When it finally ended, the town sat in a deathly silent moment. And, then, an old, long-time unused alarm began to sound from the roof of the little mining office.
"Oh, great!" the bartender grumbled, swinging his handcuffed hands around. He turned away from the state troopers and turned accusing eyes on the woman. "Now what the hell did you do to the mine?"
"What are you talking about?" Pecos growled, taking a moment to righted Big Norse. "What is that thing?"
"That is the mine alert." The bartender returned. "There's been a cave-in."
Pecos and Big Norse turned to each other in shock and horror. Having nothing to say, the two Cavalier women spun about and headed for their hummer.
Well rehearsed in what to do from generations of living in a mining town, the citizens of Cagon were already piling into trucks, with shovels, pick axes, and stretchers and heading for the mine.
----------
Panic.
Knuckles wasn't the type of girl that panicked. Or so she had thought.
But, as she laid on what she hoped was the ground, eyes blinded and lungs burning from dust, palms of her hands sticky with... blood?, and heart racing as if it might beat itself right out of her chest, she took a moment to reconsider her self-evaluation.
Suddenly hands grabbed her shoulders and hauled her back until she was leaning against the cold stone wall.
Instinctively, she pushed the hands away, but her wrists were caught.
"Take it easy, Knuckles. Calm down."
Knuckles froze. "Hotrod?" She tried to see through the dust, but could only pick out shadows.
One such shadow waved in front of her eyes. "Yea. How's the eyes?"
She shrugged. "I was looking down a tunnel when I got walloped by this wall of dust. I can't see much." She coughed.
A canteen was pressed into her hands. "Stay here. Wash out your eyes." Something tugged on her shirt front. A pale green light glowed at the edge of her fuzzy vision. "I've tied a glow stick to your chest so you can be seen. I'll be back." She felt him pull away and stand up.
"Hotrod..." she called after him. "What about the guys?"
Silence... then, Hotrod repeated "Stay here. I'll be back."
----------
Buckaroo Banzai put a hand to his head. Why, he wondered, when all hell broke lose, was it always the head that got whacked? Maybe not his, but someone's head always ended up bleeding.
A big hand rested on his arm. "How ya doin', boss?" Rawhide asked, pulling a glow stick from Buckaroo's coat pocket. He cracked it and held it up so he could get a better look at any possible damage to his friend.
Buckaroo waved away his concern. "I'll live." He glanced around, but, outside of the glow of the light stick, everything was black. "Perfect Tommy?" he called out when he couldn't see the man.
"I need a drink." came from the dark just a little further down the tunnel.
Rawhide handed Buckaroo the light stick, then, cracking one from his own pocket, he went off to find their companion. He took three steps into the darkness and nearly tripped on the younger man. Crouching down, he grabbed Perfect Tommy's shirt front and hauled him up into a sitting position.
"Watch the threads." Tommy grumbled, dusting away the helpful hands. In the green glow he glanced down at his most beloved clothes and sighed loudly. "Ah, the hell with it. I'm gonna have to burn it anyway." He looked up at Rawhide. "If Mayor Cagon doesn't get his come-uppings for this damn mine, he sure as hell will get capital punishment for this shirt. This was silk!"
Rawhide glanced back to Buckaroo who was cautiously approaching. "He's fine." One on each side, the two men hauled Perfect Tommy to his feet. Rawhide handed the glow stick to the youngster, then pulled another from his pocket for himself. "Some one want to tell me what the hell just happened?" he grumbled.
Perfect Tommy shrugged. "Something went boom."
Rawhide groaned. "Genius at work."
Buckaroo ignored the snide comments. "That wasn't as big of a boom as I thought it would be."
Tommy dusted at his clothes. "That's because it wasn't THE boom. Most likely something somewhere somehow busted one of the stations and the chemicals poured out and mixed."
"Good news, then." Rawhide concluded. "The stuff isn't continuing down to the switch."
"Right." Perfect Tommy looked up at him. "It is all pouring out into one spot rather than spread out through the mine. Good? Bad?" He shrugged. "It's a binary bomb, Rawhide. The more that stuff mixes the worse this is going to get."
"How worse?" Buckaroo wanted to know.
"Depends on the slurries... the chemical mixes." He turned to face Buckaroo straight on, his tone taking on an uncharacteristic serious note. "For instance: Triex and Quadrex come together in a fine union of a subatomic level."
"Well," Rawhide breathed, resting his hands on his hips, "that is just fine and dandy, isn't it?"
----------
"Reno? Come on, friend, don't cash out on me now."
Reno groaned. "I do not want to do that again." he said, saying each word slowly careful not to disrupt the earth. Just the wrong word and it just might have another violent protest.
Moses laughed that big booming laugh that fit a man of his size so well.
Reno winced.
Moses patted his chest. "Friend, no one wants to do THAT again." grabbing his smaller companion with one hand, he lifted him to his feet. "Still in one piece?"
"Not sure. But I'm not hanging around here to find out." Reno answered him. Truth was, he felt numb all over. He was sure he should be thankful for the lack of pain, but he was just as sure that he should be hurting at least somewhere. Figure it out later. Get up (oh, yea, he was already on his feet) and get out of this damn hell pit.
"Easier said than done." Moses lost some of his good humor. Not all of it, but enough that Reno began to worry. He nodded to where a handful of people were fussy under swinging oil lamps, digging at a wall of rocks.
It took Reno a moment to figure out what they were doing. "A cave-in." he breathed. It was a statement, not a question. "This just keeps getting better and better."
A heavy hand walloped him on the back, a friendly pat that sent him stumbling forward. Moses laughed again. "Ah, cheer up, Reno. We finally get to use all these mining skills these bastards taught us for our own good rather than theirs." He started for the fallen rocks. "it'll feel good."
"I've worked for my own good before, Moses. It still feels like hard work."
Moses' booming laugh shook loose gravel from the walls. He patted the backs of the miners as he stepped up between them with the same energetic force that Reno's back still ached from. Then, with ease, he hefted a boulder out of the way, while directing his fellows in where and how to brace the fragile ceiling.
----------
Pecos recognized the green glow at once. She couldn't see much as she rode the elevator down, but that glow was like a beacon in the foggy darkness. She turned to her go-phone to tell her which BB was closest. By the time the elevator had stopped, she knew who it was. And the fact that the glow wasn't moving was of great concern.
Knuckles NEVER sat still for anything.
"Knuckles?" Pecos called, carefully making her way through the debris littered platform to where her team mate sat.
"'bout time you all showed up." Knuckles growled. Feeling behind her for the wall, she creaped up until she was standing. "You have any idea how discouraging it is for a blind person to vaguely point an newly freed miner to the exit? I'm not sure, but I think half of them went the other direction."
"Blind?" Pecos repeated, alarmed. She quickly stepped close and held a flash light up so as to get a better look at her face.
Knuckles winced, turning away. "Hey!" She pushed the flashlight away. "It was getting better, thank you very much."
Pecos waved to two men who were part of the rescue group who had ridden down with her. "Get her top side. And be careful. Blind or not, she can still kick your butt. And, consider how your friendly little neighborhood has treated her thus far, she might do it just to top off the evening."
"Hey, girl, our guys are still down there." Knuckles reminded her. "The go- phones aren't doing so well through the rock."
"I know. I've got the booster from the Beast." Pecos assured. "It'll get us China if need be."
Knuckles huffed. "Considering how deep that pit is, you just might have to."
"Get topside, Knuckles. And ring up Billy. Tell him to get all the BB help he can find out here. And we need at least an estimate on how many people are down here." Pecos nodded to the two men. "Take care of her." Then she turned and headed away, looking for a good, solid place to set up the booster.
----------
Moses scooped up an unconscious woman, broken and bloody, and handed her back to a man who limped behind the work crew. "You sit and take care of the two of you, John." the big man encouraged. "When it's safe, I'll help you forward."
The man nodded, sliding down the wall to wait.
Reno pushed a post into place to brace the crumbling ceiling. A miner leaned over his back to put a spike through the post, hoping that that would be enough to hold it in place.
Moses moved behind them, offering words of encouragement and a helpful hand here and there when it was needed. He paused beside Reno. "Look up." he suggested.
The Cavalier glanced up to see, torn from the ceiling, a smashed and shattered electric light.
"Fifth level. They didn't have electricity lower than that." Moses informed him. "This is good."
"This is good?" Reno shook his head. He was exhausted. His hands were bleeding from the work, his head boomed with each beat of his heart, his muscles felt stretched to the point of just hanging off his bones, his lungs burned, torn and damaged from the dust he was breathing in...
Moses' head bobbed up and down. "Follow the light. It will lead us to freedom."
Reno frowned at him. "How biblical."
Moses barked out a laugh, careful not to let it get too loud. The walls were to fragile here for a whisper, much less a booming laugh. "true, friend. but, in this case, this is literally, not figuratively." Again he indicated the shattered light. "They only put them in the main tunnels. Cheap bastards didn't want to waste money on, God forbid, electricity. So it runs from the elevators down to the labs and the guard quarters... on the fifth level. We stick to those and they will take us right on up to that beautiful sun we've lived far too long without." he looked down at reno. "And that, my friend, is very good."
Reno couldn't argue with that. "Beautiful sun, smack perfect Tommy, and hug my girl." he sighed. "All the good things in life." His nose wrinkled. "And a shower."
Moses nodded. "All the good things." He smiled, lost for a moment in some thoughts. "My wife and my kids."
The Cavalier smiled, moving forward to help place another post. "You have kids, eh?"
One of the younger freed miners chuckled. "Moses'd make a good dad."
A couple of others added their agreements.
"Well, then." reno spoke to them. "Let's make sure the big fellow gets home to them."
Despite aching bodies and exhaustion, that was all the encouragement they needed. Moses had been there constantly for each and everyone of them. They could think of no better repayment then getting him back where he belonged, where every father belonged... with his family.
----------
Chapter 9
----------
Blue and pink dripped down the rock wall, falling into puddles on the cold floor. Each drop added to its respected pool. The bright colors spread, reaching out. The edges touched, the colors mingled, blended, creating a soft, beautiful purple.
And, then, the chemicals reacted.....
The explosion shook the entire mine. Support beams cracked and splintered. Rocks, rubble, and discarded equipment was thrown into the air to slam into anything solid enough to stop it, whether it was rock, steel, wood, or flesh. Waves of heated air rushed through the tunnels from ground zero, pushing before it clouds of sharp dust, sending the mine into an unnatural dusk.
----------
Big Norse stumbled.
Worried for a moment that her head injury was worse than New Jersey's quick inspection had revealed, Pecos reached out for her. But then she too felt the ground beneath her feet shake.
It wasn't a rolling, like an earth quake, but a deep, rumbling shake that could be felt through the soles of the feet and vibrated right to the inner ears, creating a sound that could only warn of disaster. It seemed to go on forever, a horrifying sound that put a soul in mind of the biblical Apocalypse.
When it finally ended, the town sat in a deathly silent moment. And, then, an old, long-time unused alarm began to sound from the roof of the little mining office.
"Oh, great!" the bartender grumbled, swinging his handcuffed hands around. He turned away from the state troopers and turned accusing eyes on the woman. "Now what the hell did you do to the mine?"
"What are you talking about?" Pecos growled, taking a moment to righted Big Norse. "What is that thing?"
"That is the mine alert." The bartender returned. "There's been a cave-in."
Pecos and Big Norse turned to each other in shock and horror. Having nothing to say, the two Cavalier women spun about and headed for their hummer.
Well rehearsed in what to do from generations of living in a mining town, the citizens of Cagon were already piling into trucks, with shovels, pick axes, and stretchers and heading for the mine.
----------
Panic.
Knuckles wasn't the type of girl that panicked. Or so she had thought.
But, as she laid on what she hoped was the ground, eyes blinded and lungs burning from dust, palms of her hands sticky with... blood?, and heart racing as if it might beat itself right out of her chest, she took a moment to reconsider her self-evaluation.
Suddenly hands grabbed her shoulders and hauled her back until she was leaning against the cold stone wall.
Instinctively, she pushed the hands away, but her wrists were caught.
"Take it easy, Knuckles. Calm down."
Knuckles froze. "Hotrod?" She tried to see through the dust, but could only pick out shadows.
One such shadow waved in front of her eyes. "Yea. How's the eyes?"
She shrugged. "I was looking down a tunnel when I got walloped by this wall of dust. I can't see much." She coughed.
A canteen was pressed into her hands. "Stay here. Wash out your eyes." Something tugged on her shirt front. A pale green light glowed at the edge of her fuzzy vision. "I've tied a glow stick to your chest so you can be seen. I'll be back." She felt him pull away and stand up.
"Hotrod..." she called after him. "What about the guys?"
Silence... then, Hotrod repeated "Stay here. I'll be back."
----------
Buckaroo Banzai put a hand to his head. Why, he wondered, when all hell broke lose, was it always the head that got whacked? Maybe not his, but someone's head always ended up bleeding.
A big hand rested on his arm. "How ya doin', boss?" Rawhide asked, pulling a glow stick from Buckaroo's coat pocket. He cracked it and held it up so he could get a better look at any possible damage to his friend.
Buckaroo waved away his concern. "I'll live." He glanced around, but, outside of the glow of the light stick, everything was black. "Perfect Tommy?" he called out when he couldn't see the man.
"I need a drink." came from the dark just a little further down the tunnel.
Rawhide handed Buckaroo the light stick, then, cracking one from his own pocket, he went off to find their companion. He took three steps into the darkness and nearly tripped on the younger man. Crouching down, he grabbed Perfect Tommy's shirt front and hauled him up into a sitting position.
"Watch the threads." Tommy grumbled, dusting away the helpful hands. In the green glow he glanced down at his most beloved clothes and sighed loudly. "Ah, the hell with it. I'm gonna have to burn it anyway." He looked up at Rawhide. "If Mayor Cagon doesn't get his come-uppings for this damn mine, he sure as hell will get capital punishment for this shirt. This was silk!"
Rawhide glanced back to Buckaroo who was cautiously approaching. "He's fine." One on each side, the two men hauled Perfect Tommy to his feet. Rawhide handed the glow stick to the youngster, then pulled another from his pocket for himself. "Some one want to tell me what the hell just happened?" he grumbled.
Perfect Tommy shrugged. "Something went boom."
Rawhide groaned. "Genius at work."
Buckaroo ignored the snide comments. "That wasn't as big of a boom as I thought it would be."
Tommy dusted at his clothes. "That's because it wasn't THE boom. Most likely something somewhere somehow busted one of the stations and the chemicals poured out and mixed."
"Good news, then." Rawhide concluded. "The stuff isn't continuing down to the switch."
"Right." Perfect Tommy looked up at him. "It is all pouring out into one spot rather than spread out through the mine. Good? Bad?" He shrugged. "It's a binary bomb, Rawhide. The more that stuff mixes the worse this is going to get."
"How worse?" Buckaroo wanted to know.
"Depends on the slurries... the chemical mixes." He turned to face Buckaroo straight on, his tone taking on an uncharacteristic serious note. "For instance: Triex and Quadrex come together in a fine union of a subatomic level."
"Well," Rawhide breathed, resting his hands on his hips, "that is just fine and dandy, isn't it?"
----------
"Reno? Come on, friend, don't cash out on me now."
Reno groaned. "I do not want to do that again." he said, saying each word slowly careful not to disrupt the earth. Just the wrong word and it just might have another violent protest.
Moses laughed that big booming laugh that fit a man of his size so well.
Reno winced.
Moses patted his chest. "Friend, no one wants to do THAT again." grabbing his smaller companion with one hand, he lifted him to his feet. "Still in one piece?"
"Not sure. But I'm not hanging around here to find out." Reno answered him. Truth was, he felt numb all over. He was sure he should be thankful for the lack of pain, but he was just as sure that he should be hurting at least somewhere. Figure it out later. Get up (oh, yea, he was already on his feet) and get out of this damn hell pit.
"Easier said than done." Moses lost some of his good humor. Not all of it, but enough that Reno began to worry. He nodded to where a handful of people were fussy under swinging oil lamps, digging at a wall of rocks.
It took Reno a moment to figure out what they were doing. "A cave-in." he breathed. It was a statement, not a question. "This just keeps getting better and better."
A heavy hand walloped him on the back, a friendly pat that sent him stumbling forward. Moses laughed again. "Ah, cheer up, Reno. We finally get to use all these mining skills these bastards taught us for our own good rather than theirs." He started for the fallen rocks. "it'll feel good."
"I've worked for my own good before, Moses. It still feels like hard work."
Moses' booming laugh shook loose gravel from the walls. He patted the backs of the miners as he stepped up between them with the same energetic force that Reno's back still ached from. Then, with ease, he hefted a boulder out of the way, while directing his fellows in where and how to brace the fragile ceiling.
----------
Pecos recognized the green glow at once. She couldn't see much as she rode the elevator down, but that glow was like a beacon in the foggy darkness. She turned to her go-phone to tell her which BB was closest. By the time the elevator had stopped, she knew who it was. And the fact that the glow wasn't moving was of great concern.
Knuckles NEVER sat still for anything.
"Knuckles?" Pecos called, carefully making her way through the debris littered platform to where her team mate sat.
"'bout time you all showed up." Knuckles growled. Feeling behind her for the wall, she creaped up until she was standing. "You have any idea how discouraging it is for a blind person to vaguely point an newly freed miner to the exit? I'm not sure, but I think half of them went the other direction."
"Blind?" Pecos repeated, alarmed. She quickly stepped close and held a flash light up so as to get a better look at her face.
Knuckles winced, turning away. "Hey!" She pushed the flashlight away. "It was getting better, thank you very much."
Pecos waved to two men who were part of the rescue group who had ridden down with her. "Get her top side. And be careful. Blind or not, she can still kick your butt. And, consider how your friendly little neighborhood has treated her thus far, she might do it just to top off the evening."
"Hey, girl, our guys are still down there." Knuckles reminded her. "The go- phones aren't doing so well through the rock."
"I know. I've got the booster from the Beast." Pecos assured. "It'll get us China if need be."
Knuckles huffed. "Considering how deep that pit is, you just might have to."
"Get topside, Knuckles. And ring up Billy. Tell him to get all the BB help he can find out here. And we need at least an estimate on how many people are down here." Pecos nodded to the two men. "Take care of her." Then she turned and headed away, looking for a good, solid place to set up the booster.
----------
Moses scooped up an unconscious woman, broken and bloody, and handed her back to a man who limped behind the work crew. "You sit and take care of the two of you, John." the big man encouraged. "When it's safe, I'll help you forward."
The man nodded, sliding down the wall to wait.
Reno pushed a post into place to brace the crumbling ceiling. A miner leaned over his back to put a spike through the post, hoping that that would be enough to hold it in place.
Moses moved behind them, offering words of encouragement and a helpful hand here and there when it was needed. He paused beside Reno. "Look up." he suggested.
The Cavalier glanced up to see, torn from the ceiling, a smashed and shattered electric light.
"Fifth level. They didn't have electricity lower than that." Moses informed him. "This is good."
"This is good?" Reno shook his head. He was exhausted. His hands were bleeding from the work, his head boomed with each beat of his heart, his muscles felt stretched to the point of just hanging off his bones, his lungs burned, torn and damaged from the dust he was breathing in...
Moses' head bobbed up and down. "Follow the light. It will lead us to freedom."
Reno frowned at him. "How biblical."
Moses barked out a laugh, careful not to let it get too loud. The walls were to fragile here for a whisper, much less a booming laugh. "true, friend. but, in this case, this is literally, not figuratively." Again he indicated the shattered light. "They only put them in the main tunnels. Cheap bastards didn't want to waste money on, God forbid, electricity. So it runs from the elevators down to the labs and the guard quarters... on the fifth level. We stick to those and they will take us right on up to that beautiful sun we've lived far too long without." he looked down at reno. "And that, my friend, is very good."
Reno couldn't argue with that. "Beautiful sun, smack perfect Tommy, and hug my girl." he sighed. "All the good things in life." His nose wrinkled. "And a shower."
Moses nodded. "All the good things." He smiled, lost for a moment in some thoughts. "My wife and my kids."
The Cavalier smiled, moving forward to help place another post. "You have kids, eh?"
One of the younger freed miners chuckled. "Moses'd make a good dad."
A couple of others added their agreements.
"Well, then." reno spoke to them. "Let's make sure the big fellow gets home to them."
Despite aching bodies and exhaustion, that was all the encouragement they needed. Moses had been there constantly for each and everyone of them. They could think of no better repayment then getting him back where he belonged, where every father belonged... with his family.