We wait to sneak out until the sleep shift -- it doesn't correspond to night outside -- has started. As the rush wears off, my own exhaustion returns, and I startle awake when Margie steals over to my cots and prods my shoulder. I move like an old man, fighting the bone-deep aches in my limbs, and she gives me a sympathetic look.

  "I remember my first shift," she says. "I thought I'd die."

  "How long ago was that?"

  She shrugs. "Maybe ten years? It's easy to lose track."

  Ten years in the dark, breaking rocks. Twelve above. The thought makes me shiver.

  I'm sure at least some eyes are on us as we head for the door, but nobody speaks up. According to Margie, prisoners are in theory confined to the barracks during this time, but in practice the guards only patrol a few main tunnels and are mostly interested in keep the different shifts from attacking one another. We avoid these larger passages and squeeze through a succession of rough galleries barely wide enough for my shoulders, eventually emerging into a bigger corridor ending in a hinged iron grille. Margie raps on the metal with her knuckles, and after a few moments we hear a staticky buzz.

  "If nothing has literally actually exploded," Racnaea's sleepy voice says, "please go and jump off the edge. I was a little bit completely asleep."

  "It's me, Racni," Margie says. "Sorry about that, but I need to talk to you."

  Buzzing silence for a second. "Sprocket will fetch you, I suppose."

  The buzz cuts off. Margie looks at me. "You've heard about Racnaea?"

  I nod. "The queen of the mine?"

  "And smartest person in the world," says the girl Sprocket, coming down the tunnel on the other side of the grille. She unlocks it with a cheerful smile. "Mistress is waiting in the kitchen. Do you want beetle tea? I'll make some."

  Without waiting for an answer, she hurries back up the passage. Margie and I follow more carefully. Up ahead, the faint green light of the buglights is overwhelmed by a blue tinge, and I can hear the low thrum of an engine. A faint vibration shivers through the floor.

  The cavern we enter is about the size of our barracks, but feels cramped thanks to being packed near to bursting with machinery. Much of the clutter is obviously derelict, rusted out and caked with grime. But several projects looks like they're in the process of assembly, with halos of carefully laid out parts around them. The engine noise comes from the back wall, where pistons churn and gears whirl furiously around a central cylinder that leaks the bright blue light of burning viscid from a small window.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Sprocket!" Racnaea shouts. "! Number three is jammed again! Change the filter before it explodes."

  "Yes, mistress!" Sprocket says eagerly, scuttling expertly through the mess.

  Toward the edge of the room, away from the equipment, there's an ordinary-looking iron stove and a small table with three chairs. Racnaea is already seated, sipping something.

  "Hello, Racni," Margie says.

  Racnaea gives me a suspicious look.

  "This is the new boy, I suppose?" she says. "The one who a little bit completely lost my class three."

  "That was hardly fault," I say, surprised.

  "His name is Kal."

  "Well," Racnaea sniffs. "I am Racnaea, I suppose, and my assistant is the miserable Sprocket."

  "Hi!" Sprocket yells, lugging something heavy up the gantry around the big machine.

  "It's good to meet you," I say politely. "I understand you're the smartest person in the world."

  "Possibly," she says, looking oddly demure. Her green goggles are perched on her forehead, revealing intelligent blue eyes. "Probably, I suppose."

  "Definitely," Margie says. "Racni, Kal showed me something interesting."

  I unfold the note again and slide it across the table.

  "This came from a guard captain," I tell her. "We made a plan to get in here, steal something, and get out again. It's gone a little wrong" -- well, more than a little -- "but she's still on my side. She can help us."

  "Suspicious," Racnaea pronounces. "Why would a guard captain help you, now that you're in here?"

  "I saved her life," I say. "And there are people waiting for us outside. They can help too."

  "Small assistance they'll be down in the mine, I suppose," Racnaea says. "Mar, why are you taking this a little bit seriously? Nobody gets out of here."

  "I was watching when she passed him the note," Margie says. "It's real. Nobody's ever had a guard captain's help before." She lowers her voice, as though someone might overhear. "They haven't changed anything, have they? Since we talked about it."

  In the background, some piece of machinery has started to hum, the sound getting steadily higher-pitched with every second. Sprocket is still struggling with something heavy on the gantry.

  "Changed?" Racnaea scoffs. "Nothing changes unless I change it, I suppose. None of those up above do even a little bit of work, never. But we still have all the same problems, don't we?"

  "Can you fill me in?"

  "Racni and I planned an escape eight or nine years ago," Margie says. She colors slightly. "Back when we were, ah …"

  "Fucking, I suppose," Racnaea puts in, sipping her beetle tea.

  "Right." Margie's face is firmly red now. "There might be a way to get to the surface."

  "But what ?" Racnaea puts her mug down and leans forward. "A fortress full of guards. A gate that won't open. And past that, a desert completely a little bit impassable, full of cannibals and sand and -- and --"

  "Hellpit trappists," I supply.

  "Exactly!" she says. "Hellpit trappists."

  The whistle has reached the shouting teakettle stage.

  "Mistress?" says Sprocket. "I think --"

  "Not now, I suppose!" Racnaea snaps.

  "If Kal's friend can help --" Margie begins.

  " she can get us to the gate. Can she get us outside? No, not even a little bit. Can she cross the desert? Can she fly like a beetle?"

  "That's where my other friends come in," I say eagerly. "We have a ship."

  "A ship?" Margie says sharply. "You didn't tell me --"

  Something explodes.