Ice Breaker

Justin thought about the request for a moment as he walked around to the front of the Mongoose and fastened the red fuel canister to its luggage rack. After securing it for the ride, he stood up and scanned the horizon with concern.

"Get on."

Justin practically ordered Chris as if he were a tough-loving father speaking to his child.

Chris obediently hopped on the back of the Mongoose to ride pillion, placing his weight on the rear boot pad and his grip around the handle just aft of Justin's seat. It wasn't exactly a comfortable position to stand for long periods of time. He knew he'd be in for some chop.

"Why do you want to come with me?" Justin asked while he donned his helmet.

"I thought you could get me acquainted, show me the ropes."

"Guess it wouldn't hurt you."

Justin gunned the throttle to get going, then eased off into a brisk cruise over the smooth, dirt landscape. The thick clouds overhead laid lifeless, almost low enough to touch if they chose to traverse the small outcropping due west of their vector. Motoring along parallel to the landmark, it was probably the only topographic feature on all the planet of such height. Then again, Justin had never seen much of the planet beyond his own, small existence here. He had a domain. He kept to his usual routes and establishments, and kept to himself. He never ventured out into the unknown, not without good reason. There was just no need to, and no want to. The world was a dangerous place, teeming with felonious activity from street to street and beat to beat, a wretched hive of existence. For the kid's own sake, Justin hoped he would mind his own business and learn to settle into a routine.

But to the horizon he was headed, a great deal of distance to go.

"Alright, your in-brief." Justin glanced rearward to Chris before locking his gaze ahead. "In case you haven't noticed, it's cold here, get used to it. And the sun doesn't set in the way you're probably accustomed to. Here, it's the North."

"Why the North?"

"The planet's spin-axis is locked at ninety-degrees striaight towards the star. North is truly up."

"Well, if that's the case, then wouldn't it be light all the time in one spot and dark everywhere else?"

Justin's grip tightened on the handle bars. "I'm getting to that. Something large smacked this planet upside the head x-billion years ago and we move on two axes now. We're not just spinning, we're tumbling. This means it's hard to tell when it's dawn or dusk. The two are more or less the same in most places."

"But there was a night...last night."

"That's because we've recently entered a solstice, which means there's a definite night-day cycle now, one you could set your watch by for years to come."

"Well, that seems normal. How long will it last for?"

"I don't know. You could find out by researching the geologic record, looking for the layers of different magnetization. But you're not that smart. And I'm sure if you had access to the UNSC Public Astronomy Archives, you'd find out. But you won't."

A sudden gust of headwind kicked up, blasting the Mongoose's occupants rearward a slight amount. Justin countered with more throttle and Chris hardened his stance on the bootpad, shouting over Justin's shoulder into the incoming current, "Why do you live so far away from the factory?"

"So people can't find us."

"No one knows where you live?"

"Just the four of us."

"Not even your boss?"

"Not even my boss."

"Why?"

"Because you can't trust anyone here. You remember that."

"You trust Pete and the others."

"That's different."

Chris tried to understand and took Justin's word. "But you know…it wouldn't be that hard for anyone to find you. You're a straight shot from the city."

"Makes it easy for us. No twists, no turns. No chance of getting lost."

"No chance of trouble."

"You catch on quick."

Chris couldn't tell if Justin had meant that sarcastically or not. He was stone-faced, incredibly hard to read, and he was one tough cookie by the sheer looks of it. Justin obviously had seniority over the group too. As if his transition to a new world hadn't been hard enough, Chris wasn't off to a great start with him so far, which wasn't in his best interests. Chris needed to make friends quick, but he surely wasn't about to go kissing any ass. He was new here and kissing ass would only leave a first impression he didn't want. He would become everyone's bitch for his time here. Chris chose right then and there on the bumpy Mongoose ride to sit on the sidelines, spectate, and observe the lay of the land before stepping out of his box. Still, human nature couldn't change in an instant nor even overnight. The ways of men were deep-seeded and hard to break. To no fault of his own, Chris was simply good-natured. But he felt the overwhelming need to tighten up from here on out and ruffle his feathers a bit.

At a place like this, he had to be on his guard. All kinds of people he'd never imagined lived here.

"How the hell did you put in a full day's work and make it home in one piece anyway?" Justin asked.

"I…I don't know. The workers at the factory were very helpful. They got me through the day."

"Just when I thought this place was running low on surprises." Justin mumbled.

"What?"

"Nothing. How old are you?"

"Just turned sixteen last month, by Sol calendar that is."

Justin's eyes widened. "Sol, no shit? Always dreamed of going there, the place where it all started."

"It's not all that special. Just another sphere with people on it."

"Yep."

The Mongoose trotted along. The outcropping of rock to the west gradually faded and tapered down into the rest of the barren plains, revealing a broader field of vision. More cities could be seen—two that were visible to the naked eye, and more still that were fully obscured by industrial fallout and the hazy nature of Traxus IX itself. Suddenly, Justin tightened his grip on the handle bars, raised himself in a half-stance and shouted, "Hold on!"

The Mongoose surged forth at breakneck speed just before the mutli-link suspension jounced up with sudden ferocity. Chris felt his spine compress as his view angle tilted unnervingly upwards, and before Chris knew it the Mongoose went airborne.

All the weight in his body fell to nothing as he hung on for dear life in brief freefall. Totally horizontal, he pulled himself as close to the Mongoose as he could, almost resting his chin on Justin's shoulder until he regained his footing on the boot pad. He risked a look down: they were more than twenty feet off the deck and coming down awfully fast for what looked to be a hard landing. He gritted his teeth to prevent concussion at the fall and held on as tight as he could.

But the stinging rebound didn't come. Instead, he opened his eyes and saw firm ground underneath them. He exhaled.

Chris looked back and saw they had landed on an incline not unlike the one they ascended a moment before, one of many natural formations scattered across the planet. "Nice move." Chris complemented.

"Yep. That's an old impact crater. I hit it whenever I need a jump-start. You held on good back there. You were Superman there for a minute."

"Superman?"

"Don't worry, kid. We'll break you in to comics too."

Chris placed his hands on Justin's shoulders and stood taller, looking on ahead. Chris held a stinging sensation in his tensed hands from the engine's vibrations channeling through the passenger handle. It seemed to worsen now that he let off for some relief. He tried to shake it away and looked back to the horizon ahead. It didn't seem that any more surprises were in store, so he relaxed a little and took the most comfortable stance the Mongoose would allow him, and saw that Justin's jacket had ruffled from the fall, revealing his bare neck. At the base of it was a peculiar, metallic ring. Chris instinctively went to touch it, but checked the motion. He wasn't about to go touching the back of someone's neck. Especially, someone who seemed so volatile. If Chris had any people skills whatsoever—and he did—he knew that Justin was a moody guy. So instead, he eyed it more closely. It was definitely metal with some sort of flat, hexagonal fastener securing it to the skin. The apparatus itself looked hollow—like a receptacle of some sort, complete with a dust cap covering the hole. He had heard about these sorts of apparatuses before. "Hey, you've got a Neural Interface!"

Justin didn't say a word—instead flipped his collar up to hide his neck—and sped on.

The rest of the ride went on in silence as the factories grew bigger and the lights grew brighter. And the smoke became almost omnipresent. Managing a breath on Traxus IX was already hard enough from the high elevation. And the thickening smog made it that much harder.

Finally for what seemed like a thirty minute ride, they reached the outskirts of City 17, Chris' inadvertant new livelihood.

Even though Chris literally came from this way not even an hour ago from his first night shift, he couldn't help but look around. The sights were still unfamiliar to him. So far, Justin had made it sound like he needed to learn quickly—to hit the ground running and show his game face. So far, he'd been damned lucky he didn't lose his way back to Justin's home; he'd been damned lucky that it was a straight shot to and from work. He seized the moment and took a good, hard look around: the city wasn't actually all that bad. He figured that every major establishment had its good and bad parts, but the present scene was actually quite inviting. The streets were clean and there were broad courtyards all around. While barren and lackluster, they held a quaint attempt at a town square. He could imagine on a more forgiving planet there would be grass and trees and swings, kids playing, road signs that were perhaps overinformative, and shopping malls and bazaars around the periphery.

"Get used to calling this place home." Justin announced, keeping his gaze straight ahead.

The Mongoose moseyed further on into town. Another short outcropping slowly lifted itself from the plains to their west, maybe two men high. It cordoned off the west side and stretched on for miles into the unknown. Justin darted a short distance to one side of the street where a fork in the road beckoned. At the split, Justin came to a dead stop. "See the way off to the left?"

The road was straight and ran right alongside the drawn out ledge to their left, fading into a grim darkness of fog and chemical. It was a forbidding path, chilling and menacing as if traveling down that road meant traveling straight into the pits of a nightmare. "…Do you see it?"

"…Uh-huh."

"You don't go that way. You don't ever go that way. It's bad news."

"What sort of bad news?"

"Gangs, war lords, black marketeers, you name it. You go down that way, you're as good as dead. People will kill you for the clothes you wear."

Chris had never seen anything like it, the never-ending welcome mat of rust-yellow chemical haze. "…Okay."

"Not okay! You wouldn't last thirty seconds down that road!"

"I said okay!"

Justin looked away. "Good. Let's move on."

He goosed the throttle and sped over to the street stemming off to the right, the good street. Directly off this right fork was a huge courtyard of dirt surrounded by a few structures, maybe five stories tall each—what looked to be office buildings pockmarked with windows. The low-flying clouds and the smog binding to them cradled the rooftops. The easements were a swept-clean, bleach-white concrete. High standards considering the makeup of the rest of the world. Chris even made out Doric order columns at the façade of each establishment, more dressing than anything structurally-beneficial. All of the buildings were pre-fabbed to begin with, easily mass-produced and transportable in sections, and already equipped to handle the pedestrian traffic of any large city. However, the mix of Khrushchovkan and Greco-Roman architectures not only exuded class, but did so on a planetary scale as every other factory-city's admin district was identical. Even the microdistricts near the factories themselves were all homogeneous in layout, right down to the centimeter (as consistent as the fabrication facilities off-world could make them).

"These are the administrative offices." Justin announced with one hand on the throttle, one hand gesturing outwards. "You go here to discuss any issues with management or just to get away for a while. They have nicer bathrooms and excellent snacks, but don't linger for too long. Remember that they pride themselves on high production numbers."

Chris shook his head in confusion. "So, we don't get paid...why do you like to spend so much time here at work?"

"The factory is more of a home than my own. I take it you didn't spend too much time in my metal igloo."

"Just partied with you guys a little last night, then I went to work. That's what I came here for."

"Right." Justin said with a frown. "Well, here at the factory is everything you need. Showers, hot meals, entertainment, everything."

"Why?"

"At first, it was company strategy to keep people there as long as possible. Business would only benefit from such an extravagant facility. But now it's because nowhere else is safe, and most people that live outside the factory have nothing just like me."

"And your igloo. That's not safe?"

"As safe as it gets without living in the factory."

"Why not just live here?"

"You get tired of the same walls after a while, and you have to look at the same old faces everyday and put up with all their bullshit. The less people, the better."

Chris shrugged his shoulders.

"Trust me," Justin cautioned, "try it out for a while. It won't take long."

"So…you have the best of both worlds." Chris offered.

"You could say. But it couldn't have been done without the other guys and this Mongoose." Justin broke out into a snickering grin. "We stole it during the heat of a gang war far from here."

"Where exactly was that?"

"Down the road I told you to stay away from. Now that you've arrived, I'm thinking of stealing another so we don't have to keep sharing the same Mongoose all the time."

Chris remained silent.

"Recognize this place?" Justin asked as he sped towards the end of the courtyard.

"Vaguely. I came here when it was dark and I left when it was dark, too. Plus, I think I was still loopy from last night."

"So what was your poison last night—smoke or drink?"

"Little bit of both, I think."

"Thatta boy!"

For the first time since they had met, they shared a smile. "But I can't say I really enjoyed it all that much."

As they neared the very end of the open courtyard, the Mongoose approached a downward slope, probably somewhere around a negative fifteen degree gradient. The ten-meter wide path ran right under an impressively-fortified wall—the perimeter of the factory complex.

Now that it was light out, Chris could see an inscription on the face of the wall they were about to delve through.

LET THE FREE MARKET REIGN!

Just as Chris finished reading the statement, the world around him grew completely dark.

The only illumination from under this dense bulwark was from the headlight of the Mongoose itself—coasting to a titanium-meshed gate in the shadowy distance. Sentries stood post on either side with shotguns and pistols at the ready. They eyed the ATV's riders cunningly as it approached.

"You remember these guys, don't ya?"

"How could I forget?" Chris mumbled.

"Did they treat you okay last night?"

"Yeah, got through just fine."

"Well, it's a miracle you didn't get jacked up your first day. Take it from me, these are words for the wise: keep your cards close to your chest, if you know what I'm sayin'. Keep a straight face, don't make any sudden movements and don't mention anything about this vehicle being stolen. And don't say anything about drugs because they'll probably want some from you, and I don't feel like wasting time on bullshit today. In fact…it's better if you don't speak at all."

"Gee, thanks."

"You're talking."

Chris huffed in frustration.

"You're huffing."

Chris literally bit his tongue as he remained perfectly silent and perfectly still.

"Better."

Justin crept the ATV up to the gate at a snail's pace so the guards could get a good look at them. A third sentry from behind the entryway appeared from the darkness and slowly approached the two of them. With the two other sentry's weapons trained on the ATV, the lone guard had them dismount the vehicle. "ID please." the officer ordered.

Justin handed over a memory cube—a clear crystal with microscopic bits of data embedded within. Pits and lands invisible to the naked eye.

The man ran a handheld cobalt-blue LASER scanner over its surface, and instantly the electronics verified his credentials. The guard then focused on Chris.

"Um-uh…" Chris began.

"He's new here." Justin offered coolly.

"How lucky." he replied back with a smirk.

"He'll be with me the whole time."

"Very good," the guard uttered with no particular expression on his face, "proceed."

A quartet of deadbolts cycled out of both the ceiling and the floor from the twin partitions of titanium mesh. They smoothly split in half and opened inwards, revealing the path to the interior. Justin fired up the Mongoose once again and Chris mounted his boots on the back.

Once clear of the threshold, Chris said, "Sorry. I looked pretty stupid back there, huh?"

"At ease, soldier, you did well."

Chris looked over his shoulder past the woven gateway, past the sentries, and up the ramp—at the world outside they left behind. For some reason, he felt so much safer now. "So why aren't the Admin offices protected? Aren't the bosses like the most important people here?"

"Yes, they are. Which is exactly why they don't need the protection that the factory has."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Look where you are, kid. This whole place is senseless. Why would anyone want to live here?"

"I don't know. I guess no one would."

Justin smiled. "And yet you came."

"I didn't know it was going to be like this." Chris said defensively.

"Relax, man, I'm just yankin' your crank. Nobody else knew either. You see, everyone knows now—even the gangs and the dealers and the junkies—that you don't mess with the company. And the bosses are company property. Everyone knows now that if you cut off production, the company cuts off supplies. Nobody wants that."

"Where do supplies come from?"

"From a THI space station in low orbit. Space planes from the station fly by the facility and air drop our sustenance once a week. Happens all over the planet at each factory-city."

"Okay," Chris said, "I think I get it."

"We have our own little ecosystem here, no matter how twisted it seems. You'll come to learn that quickly. Very quickly if you go down the left fork. The road we don't go down, right?"

"Right. So the only people vulnerable are us?"

"Factory workers, yes."

"So why doesn't the company treat us like their property. I mean, we're working for them. What's the deal with that?"

"We're expendable." Justin said resolutely. "It takes too many company resources and too much money to provide protection for every employee. Plus, the factories aren't big enough to provide shelter for everyone. You have to work your way up and earn that priveledge...or wait until someone grows old and dies or gets picked off by the way of the world. Then you can move up one rung in the corporate ladder. To those that are forced to live outside the factory, they live a good deal from it so they don't get messed with after their shift ends, but at least the company gave away a decent amount of transport. Even the fuel is free, but it's not like we don't pay for everything here with our lives anyways. I mean, we keep hearing that quarterly profits are going towards expansion of the city walls, but it's all a crock. As long as THI has a lead in the Big Three, they could care less about a few peasants being offed every now and then."

"What's the Big Three?"

It's a competitive business triangle between Traxus Heavy Industries, Cobb Industries, and Tterrab Industries. All in the freight business and Traxus has a stranglehold on them for having this world in its possession."

"What about the population? With all the violence and the treatment here, how does the company find the manpower to sustain their operations? I doubt any guy looking for a job would come here if they knew what this place was really like...right?"

"Believe me, if THI recruited their prospective employees by pitching the location and living conditions, they'd be out of business. And guess what? That would mean the United Nations Space Command can't go any further in the colonization effort. Not to mention, the flow of shipment anywhere would bottleneck itself. If that ever happened, some kind of intervention would need to take place."

"So where do the workers come from? Are they all criminals?"

"Most of them, yes. But...there's a sucker born every minute. And Traxus Nine pulls 'em in all the time like a black hole. Take for instance, you."

"It's hard to believe I'm stuck here."

"Better start getting used to it because it ain't gonna change, and don't screw yourself by hoping it will."

"I can't believe this." Chris whispered into the surrounding darkness. "I had plans."

"Well, you can forget about plans. You can forget about hapiness too. Survival is as good as it gets. What kind of plans does a sixteen year old kid have these days anyway? Why would they bring you here? Shouldn't you be in school right now or some shit?"

"I may be young, but I didn't plan on making this my home!"

Okay, relax, relax. Let's hear your plans. Sound off."

"I came here for the money. I just needed a little to hold me over until I hit a certain age."

"What then?"

"I was going to enlist in the Marines."

Justin didn't answer.

"You don't like to talk about it, huh?"

"Anyone ever tell you you ask too many fuckin' questions?"

"Do you always answer a question with a question?"

Justin nailed both the front brakes and rear brakes all at once and the Mongoose screeched to a halt, the sudden inertia almost flinging Chris over the driver. Justin spun around on his seat and bored his steely gaze right into Chris. "Rule number one:" Justin said in a preprogrammed tone. "You don't ever ask me about the Marines. I don't talk about it. You don't care. Got it?"

Chris suddenly felt alone. He swallowed and nodded in reply to Justin as the emptiness of the tunnel seemed to grow darker around him. He then mustered, "Okay."

Justin hit the throttle and accelerated again, his disposition instantly changed as if nothing bad ever happened.

The remainder of the trip was silent again. Chris took the opportunity to study his surroundings while Justin drove through the straight tunnel of darkness. Chris knew they were en route to the main complex, but he wished Justin would speed it up. Chris didn't like being alone in the dark. It was a wonder he made it through here before all by himself. He silently uttered his thanks that the ATV's lights were in good working condition. He was also grateful for the tunnel being a straight shot, much like the way home was.

Home—Chris just realized he might never see it again. The reality of it just hit home. He forced back the tears. He was strong. He had made it for weeks as a stowaway, across light-decades of endless space surviving off the cargo of space-faring vessels like a shoplifting rat. He could surely make it on this planet if he made it this far. And on a brighter side, he would never have to journey alone again. He had a new set of friends that would look after him, hopefully. They seemed hot-headed and short-fused, but was there anything really wrong with that? Could anyone blame them for it?

Justin was an ex-Marine, the kind of figure Chris so admired and aspired to be. Though, that dream of Chris' fizzled into extinction the moment he set foot on Traxus IX just like most dreams here.

But some individuals here were already living their dreams, their criminal underworld. Pawns in a race for sovereignty—

—for an empire in Hell.