Chapter Two: Masks

I was heading out the door when the overhead lights started to brighten, signaling that it was dawn. The paper was late, as always, and I went to the sidewalk to look up and down the street to see if the newspaper hovercraft was coming. Nothing of that sort. However, the water men were coming, stopping and spraying each yard for a minute or so to give the grass the supply it needed. Of course, any homeowner could water their grass to their heart's content, but with the water men, it was easier. I was far too lazy to get up and go water the plants outside.

The mill was only a twenty minute walk from my house, so I let my wife take the hovercar into work each day. We only had one. We could afford two, but we didn't really need it, so we stuck with the vehicle we had.

I took the same path to work every day for ten years, knowing every house, every business, and every crack in the sidewalk. I passed the street where my mother's house was, and remembered that I needed to stop by after hours. With someone finally buying it, I was instructed by my mother's old realtor to take everything out. Even though she died hating me she still left me all the junk she had collected over the years. Hundreds of trinkets, broken plates, and unbelievable amounts of trash.

Perhaps that was her final revenge.

The mill was coming into a better view. There were two large smoke stacks on the western side of the building, and they went straight through the underside and emitted the fumes on the surface. It was one of the largest mills in the colony. The largest was, of course, the mineral processing mill.

I was never really sure who owned the mill. Some company that was bigger out in the universe that I didn't know. Big Sky Incorporated owned the mill, I think, but it was unclear.

I was at work a few minutes early, putting on my protective suit and strapping the goggles to my face. It was Friday, the last day before the weekend. I didn't have much planned. I knew I wanted to go to my mother's house and take out a few of my childhood belongings before the new family moved in. I had been trying to sell that house for ages, but there wasn't a single buyer. And now, finally, some guy who worked in the city who had a wife and two kids was going to take it. A little too cute, if you ask me. It was the cookie-cutter family. I had met the father; he was a nice enough guy, and so was his wife. It just seemed strange to me that suddenly they wanted to buy it, and at first glance, too. They had only walked through the house once when they told their realtor they wanted it.

I figured I'd do that and then go down to the graveyard and tell my mother and father that the house was being sold. I still did that every now and then. It doesn't comfort me, and it doesn't make me feel any better. It just seemed that I owed it to them.

As I was standing in my working area, strapping my gloves around my wrists, Steroc came in, rubbing his goggles with his shirt. He looked at me briefly and smiled, then clocked in and sighed as he stared at the furnace. I switched on the mold maker as the first bell rang, indicating that work was to start now, and anyone showing up was late. A few seconds after that, Lee scrambled in. He nearly tripped over himself as he jumped to the wall to clock in. He did so, and then tried to act as if nothing had happen.

I laughed as I started to feed the furnace, and Steroc helped me. Hour after hour went by as we shoveled and pressed the molds and talked about the old days. Days when we would come home from school and screw around for hours on end. We'd be running across lawns, messing up my neighbor's flowers… boy, old George really thought I was a brat when I was a kid.

And when we got to high school we started to think seriously about our future. I guess Steroc was the only one who didn't seem to care too much. He knew his job would be based around something mining, and he was right. He didn't try too hard, he didn't push himself to the max… he was lazy. So was I, don't let me fool you, but I wanted to be able to enlist in the army. Not so much to fight for the army I trusted, but to escape this surrounding.

But no matter how much I put into my studies, I never achieved anything. I finished Algebra II my senior year, and passed with a C-. That wasn't good enough for the Confederacy somehow. But I would look at the soldiers that they had enlisted; you know the ones who were guarding us? They were morons. I mean, they couldn't do tech math if their life depended on it. The only soldier I had seen that had a resemblance of brains was the CO around here, Captain Harris. He came by our school once a week to watch us during gym class. My guess is that he wanted to see who was in shape. But he also bugged our teacher for other stuff. He wanted grades and class rankings.

And as bad as mine sounded, I was still proud. Out of fifty-eight, I was twenty-first. Lee was thirty-second, and Steroc… well, we won't worry about Steroc's grades.

But in the end, only one of us was drafted. You'd think they'd want more soldiers to help the war effort, but Harris always assured us that the Confederacy was maintaining peace and keeping all the colonies in line. We'd always ask him when he came in, and we'd see him on holovision that night. He'd be on the screen giving a war report. I forgot where he said the report was from… Confederate High Command, I think.

Harris hand-picked the soldier who he thought would be perfect. It was Mason, the genius of the class. He completed Calculus and Differential Equations his sophomore year, and was eligible to graduate early. I thought that he would just be one of the patrol guards around town or something, but Mason was put into some special program for psychologically enhanced people… or something like that.

Mason was sent off to an academy at eighteen and we never heard from him again. He never wrote anything to his mother.

He was pretty quiet most of the time, but all in all, not a bad guy. Steroc teased him every now and then, but Lee and I always made sure he knocked it off. But Steroc always hit Mason hard when he entered the science fair. We had to do it every year, and every year Mason came up with something amazing.

It was junior year that Mason created an engine that could run on such a minimal amount of vespene gas that a full tank could last up to a year in a wraith, and half a year in a siege tank. And Steroc just made the same thing he had made the two years before; he made an electric chair for action figures.

"Egghead's got an engine, huh?" laughed Steroc. "Does it run on farts, too, Mason?"

I was standing behind my display of a miniature goliath model that was cell-operated. I couldn't help but laugh. Mason just sat there, hanging his head down as he was awarded first place.

His idea was perfect, but it was never put into use. Harris said that there was plenty of vespene gas throughout the universe, and that it wouldn't be needed until there was eternal peace in the galaxies.

But still, Mason was sent to the academy, and he brought the designs for the engine with him. A year or so after that Harris passed away, and this new guy, Killaghen, was put in charge. Harris was pretty young when he died; fifty-six if I remember correctly.

And Killaghen was still here, giving us war reports and always going to the schools, at least that's what my neighbor told me. His boy was a senior who would graduate this year, and the kid said Killaghen was always evaluating them. I wondered which kid would be sent to the academy this year, and I always wondered what happened to Mason.

"What do you guys think happened to him?" I finally asked them after we had a break in the reminiscing. "You think Mason is still out there somewhere?"

"How the hell should I know?" asked Steroc. "But if he is, I hope he comes back. I got a lot of questions for that guy. I want someone to come back and tell me what's really going on out there."

"You don't believe that the Confederacy is winning?" asked Lee.

"Oh, I don't care about who's winning," said Steroc. "I'll just bet that it's different from what we're told."

"Well, it doesn't really matter, Steroc," I replied. "There's a lot of things that we don't know about, and it's probably better that way. With what we know, we're happy. That's good enough for me. And if Mason ever came back, you'd have to apologize to him."

"What the hell for?"

"Oh, come off it, Steroc!" Lee laughed. "You gave that guy so many wedgies it's a wonder he didn't split in two!"

I chuckled as I pressed the mold down over and over again. They continued to argue about the bad things Steroc did to Mason. But soon enough the games were over, and Redman came by to visit us. He would always pick up what we had completed, but today he only had forms in his hands. I was a little worried at first, because I knew that management had seen us goofing around a lot.

Redman handed me the papers and smiled. As I began to read, I sighed. Not release forms.

"What've you got there, Thad?" asked Steroc.

"Not sure," I said, shaking my head. I looked up at Redman. "What's this for?"

"It's pretty simple," he began. "Management wants you three to go take the hovertruck over to the graveyard. Some asshole miner decided not to bring his shipment all the way to us, and that's where he dropped it. It's not a big load; you all should be able to do it in an hour or so. Just grab your shovels." He fished in his pocket and retrieved the keys to the hovertruck. "Here you go." He tossed them to Lee.

Redman looked at the little progress we had made so far and shook his head as he loaded it onto a cart.

"You know, I get yelled at when you guys turn out practically nothing. I don't know why they do it to me, but I'd appreciate it if you guys actually worked for a change."

"Ah, you're welcome, Redman. You're the only one we want to get in trouble," Steroc stated. "Otherwise it's just cruel."

Redman smiled and punch Steroc in the arm as he pushed the cart away. Lee grabbed two shovels, handed one to me, and jingled the keys in his hand. Steroc took the last shovel and we went to the truck, not eager at all the shovel the bullshit.

----

Lee pulled up to the graveyard and slammed on the brake. Steroc and I nearly slammed our heads into the dashboard as Lee grinned. We jumped out as the truck slowly lowered to the ground where it finally rested on the soil. It was dark here; the graveyard was a very grey place.

We almost immediately saw the pile of minerals which was probably about four feet high. It would take much more than an hour for us to put all these marbles in the truck, especially since it was us. We wasted time horribly.

The pile had been dropped on a hill that overlooked the entire graveyard, and Lee had parked the truck about thirty feet away behind a storage shed for the gravediggers.

"Hey, Lee; go back up the truck so that it's closer to us. I don't feel like walking back and forth," Steroc ordered. Lee saluted dumbly and paced away to the hovertruck.

I stuck the edge of the shovel in the ground and rested one foot on the top of the spade. I leaned against it, looking out into the dark graveyard. Steroc was doing the same, his hands on his hips. He turned around and looked for Lee. We hadn't even heard the hovertruck start, and I could hear Steroc cursing under his breath.

I was too busy gazing at my mother's grave which was so far away. Even with all the stones in that enclosure, I still knew which one she lay by. But my eyes began to wander, and I soon saw two Confederate soldiers walking out into the middle of the field. I perked up and watched as a third soldier entered the yard, walking backwards with his gun pointed at something I couldn't see.

Suddenly, soldiers of an unknown faction emerged from the same location the Confederate men came from. I didn't recognize their armor at all, and they were so far away that I could barely make them out.

The two soldiers that had first entered the field spun something onto the end of their rifles as the unknown marines dropped to their knees, hanging their heads down with their hands behind them. They pointed their rifles at the men as if they were going to shoot, but they sat still.

Without moving my horrified gaze, I swung my arm in an attempt to gain the focus of Steroc, who was still looking for Lee. I finally smacked him and got him to turn around.

"What the hell do you want, Thad?" he said angrily.

"Look!" I pointed to the center of the graveyard where the executions were about to take place. Steroc mumbled something, and I could tell he was confused.

Soon, another figure entered, dressed in Confederate officer's uniform. He took his time putting on some leather gloves before retrieving a pistol from his side. I dropped the shovel and froze in terror. Never before had I seen anything like this… and that man… that officer…

It was Killaghen.

He aimed the pistol at the first man's head, and I turned around and tripped at the sound of the fire. Steroc backed away and picked me up as another shot rang throughout the graveyard. I got up and looked back as he fired three more shots, finishing off the last of the soldiers.

We scurried away and went for where the truck had been parked, but we slid to a halt when we saw Lee was being taken prisoner by Confederate guards. Steroc dove behind the small shack, and I did the same. We'd have to figure out some way to save Lee, but at that moment I had too many thoughts running through my head.

There was fear, anger, confusion, everything spinning around me and slapping me side to side. I curled up and took one last fateful look as the Confederates took the bodies and threw them into caskets that already contained bodies. They lowered the caskets into the ground and began to shovel dirt over them again… and I could only think back to a few weeks ago when I came to my mother's grave:

The dirt around the stone was fresh and moist.