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For the first twenty or thirty minutes after discovering that the trap door wouldn't open, Jason lost all concern about being discovered. In fact, he wanted to be discovered. To have someone, anyone, hear his shouts, his pounding, his curses. But no one did. Finally, he remembered the small com-box, and with sweat dripping from every pore, he grasped the box in his hand and shouted for help.
Nothing. Not even so much as a spark of static. Was the box not working? They had tested it back at the apartment. Surely it hadn't gone on the blink so quickly. He had inadvertently banged it against the coffin wall while he was trying to get someone to notice that here was one body that was still alive and kicking and a long way from being ready to be barbecued over an open flame. He didn't think he had damaged it, but he couldn't be sure. At this point, all he was sure of was that their plans were not going anything like they had hoped and he was trapped as a consequence of it.
He lay there exhausted, smelling the sweat of fear and exasperation. What was he going to do? He had to get out of here. Sooner or later, his coffin would be moving, along with all the rest. No doubt, the next stop would be the final stop. If he didn't find a way out by then, the heat he was feeling right now that he was generating himself would be nothing compared to what would come from the outside.
For the first time in his life, Jason realized he was afraid to die. The feeling shocked him. He had led a life where, on almost a daily basis, his life was on the line. Whether it had been at the Rumbuc table, at the Lottery, at the Wheel or at a dozen other games of chance, his life had been on the line, and he hadn't cared, not really. Not like he cared at this very moment.
He didn't want to die. He didn't want to never see Seattle again, never smell the soft fragrance of her hair or feel her soft caresses. He felt like his life was just beginning since coming to the family. He had so much to offer to the rest of the family—to Tinker, Wompun and Cinder, and the dozens of others he was just getting to know.
It's ironic, he thought, as he lay in the darkness. On the verge of losing my life, I suddenly realize that I have a life worth keeping.
It just wasn't fair.
––––––––
JASON LOST TRACK OF how long he lay in the narrow box. The air seemed to grow stuffier and more difficult to breathe. Perhaps he dozed off, he couldn't be sure.
Suddenly, the box jerked, and he realized he was moving again. He peered through the peephole and could see the other coffins moving as well. It appeared that they were slowly being funneled down a narrow channel. At one point, he could just make out the arms of several attendants who were using long poles to push the coffins around until they were able to pass one by one through another conveyor belt.
The belt took him through a long, dark passage. He was thrown into darkness for several minutes, and at first, as he gazed through his peephole, he could see nothing but blackness. Then, slowly, a faint blue light appeared ahead. As he continued to stare at it, it grew brighter until he could finally make out that it was light escaping from around the line of coffins in front of him.
He could also hear a new sound through his earpiece. It wasn't the dull drone of the conveyor belt, yet it was strangely familiar. It wasn't quite a hiss, but close. As he continued to strain to make out more detail, it slowly dawned on him what the light and sound were.
They came from the flames of the incinerator. He was only moments away from being turned into a cupful of ash. He pushed himself back down to the foot of the coffin and again tried kicking out the trapdoor with all his might.
When this failed, he started banging on the lid in an attempt to loosen the nails, but neither the door nor the lid would bulge. He scooted back to the peephole. It looked like only three or four coffins were now between him and the bright blue flame.
Jason stopped banging on the lid, suddenly mesmerized by the sight before him. The steady blue flame, so bright as to make it impossible to see what was on the other side. How many yards of flame did it take to turn a coffin and a body to dust? What would it feel like to be burned to death? Would he suffocate first or pass out from the intense heat? Or would he feel the layers of skin as they blistered and smoldered? Or maybe his clothes would catch fire first.
What did they do with the ash? he suddenly wondered. He had heard stories about the tons of ash that had to be removed from Sleeper Stations each month. Some people said it was recycled into food products. Others joked about it being used to pave new roads. Most people simply didn't discuss it.
Less than two coffin lengths away now. He should be feeling the intense heat any moment. He felt light-headed, as though he was going to pass out, and realized he had been holding his breath. He let it out with a gasp and took a new lung full of stale air. He was a little surprised that it wasn't any hotter yet. Perhaps the coffin would give him more protection against the heat than he thought. Were the coffins flammable or were they used to keep the ash separate? Why did he even want to know? Maybe my brain is being fried and I don't even realize it, he thought, as the blue flame drew closer.
As the tip of his coffin entered the edge of the flame, Jason held his breath again and thought of Seattle. He realized he had no regrets. He would do it over again. Perhaps meeting her had shortened his life, had brought him to this moment, but it didn't matter. In the short time he had known her, he had lived his life in a way he never had in all the other years. Still, he would miss her and miss that he would not see the end of their work together.
Several seconds went by. He continued to stare through the peephole, although all he saw was a swirl of blue. And through it, he thought he could just make out the coffin in front of him. He started to count the seconds off, expecting the coffin in front to burst into flames at any second.
Fifteen seconds. The interior of the box was definitely warmer now. Twenty seconds. It was getting more difficult to breathe, as the air grew hotter and drier. Thirty seconds. This could take quite a while at this rate and the slower it was, the more painful it would be.
Forty-five seconds, he counted. And still, he was able to breathe, and the coffin in front of him had not burst into flames. Then, suddenly, its dull image disappeared. Not in a blaze of glory. It simply wasn't there anymore. What had happened to it?
He was still asking the question when he felt his stomach turn a flip. He was falling or at least moving much faster than before. No. He was definitely moving in a downward direction. He pressed his face against the peephole again. The bright blue had been replaced with black. Had the hole been covered from the outside? Maybe the coffin in front had burst into flames after all, and the soot from it had covered the lens. But what was the sensation of falling? None of it was making sense.
Jason pushed himself back away from the front to try the trapdoor again. He had just pulled his feet back to give the door a good kick when the coffin suddenly jerked to a crashing stop, and he was flying forward again. Before he could get his hands out in front to catch himself, his head smacked into the front end of the coffin. He saw a flash of stars, followed immediately by the blackness of unconsciousness.
––––––––
JASON AWOKE TO FIND himself crumpled up against the front panel of the coffin. Although he had no way of knowing for sure, he didn't think he had been unconscious for long.
He pushed himself away from the wall and checked for injuries, finding only a small lump on his forehead that seemed to get larger as he felt it.
Where was he? Alive, for starters, but how was that possible? Before he could start to answer his own question, he felt the coffin jerk from one side to the other and then felt it being lifted into the air.
He pressed his eye against the peephole and watched as he was swung through the air. He was in a large room. Although the lighting was poor, reminding him of the Pipes, he was certain he wasn't in the Pipes. The room was much too large. As his coffin swung around, he could make out row upon row of other coffins, lying side by side. He noticed several other coffins also suspended in the air by large cranes.
Staring at the cabs of the cranes, his breath caught in his throat. Huge insects manned the cranes, not unlike the praying mantis that Tinker had shown him in his book of extinct insects.
On closer examination, he could see that there were several differences, the most obvious being that these creatures were over seven feet tall and were a bright, blue, iridescent color. They were working the controls of the crane with delicate hands that had well over five long fingers. They stood on spindly legs, as well as supporting themselves with a long, tapering tail. At the end of their tail, it looked as though they had a third hand. As Jason focused on the nearest mantis, he noticed from time to time the creature would use this third hand on some of the controls behind him.
The scene before him was so bizarre, Jason began to suspect he was still unconscious and only dreaming. He shook his head and felt a sharp pain behind his eyeballs—pain too pronounced for him to still be sleeping.
What were these creatures and what were they doing with the coffins? As Jason wondered about it, he felt his own coffin being lowered to the ground beside several others. His view was much more limited now, but he could still see several of the creatures walking around. He noticed that there seemed to be two distinct groups. Most of the creatures were dressed in a clingy silver-blue material that adhered closely to their shape. Stationed every few yards would be a similar creature wearing a heavier exterior of armor—like plates. It was much more firm and appeared less comfortable. Each holding a long, slender rod in its hands.
Guards, Jason thought, and those others must be prisoners. But from where?
The stars. The answer came unbidden.
No, that's ridiculous, Jason told himself. But even as he prepared to argue the point, he remembered the book he had read countless times. It had to be true. These creatures couldn't be of Earth. They were simply too...too alien.
As Jason lay there studying the strange creatures, he slowly became aware of a draft. The trapdoor! he thought, as he turned and looked down at his feet. Sure enough, the door was open and probably had been for some time. He grabbed the comm-box and stuck it in his pocket, then crawled out of the coffin. He pressed himself close to the line of coffins and looked around.
He found that he was on another conveyor belt. One that was moving very slowly to his right. As he raised his head above the line of coffins and looked down towards the end, he could just make out several more of the alien shapes. It appeared that they were opening the coffins one by one, but they were too far away for Jason to make out any more details. It would be quite some time before they got to his coffin, he thought. By then, he would be sure to be a long way away.
There was a definite flow to the activity of the room. It was an assembly line that had started back on the surface in the Sleeper Station and continued far underground, below even the Pipes, Jason suspected. No doubt he was in the passages that his mother had written about in her journal, but what exactly was going on?
What were these strange creatures doing here? No doubt, the answer could be found if he continued to follow the assembly line. The subdued lighting was to Jason's advantage. He found it fairly easy to move within the shadows of the large plant, staying out of view of the few creatures around him. Most of the work was automated, making it possible for a large number of coffins to be moved by just a few of the creatures.
He pulled the comm-box out of his pocket, turned it on, and made several attempts to reach someone, with no results. He decided to leave it on for a while, in the hopes that Tinker might be able to get through to him. He switched it to vibrator notification, a feature Tinker had added at the last minute so someone calling him wouldn't give his location away if he were in a tight spot.
Jason started making his way slowly down towards the area where the coffins were being opened. As he got closer, he could see the rigid corpses being pulled from each open box. The passageway took a turn to the right, making it impossible to see what happened next.
It took Jason about thirty minutes to reach the corner. Although he had to stop several times and hide from one of the passing mantis creatures, he found it easy to do so. No one was looking for him, and they all seemed intent to go about their tasks.
Still, he made sure to creep along as quietly as possible and to stay in the shadows whenever he could. Jason knew it would only take one of the creatures seeing a walking corpse to sound the alarm. It would be all too easy to be added back to the assembly line.
As he drew nearer to the next part of the assembly line, Jason was shocked by what he saw. As each coffin was opened, there was a team of three mantises waiting. Two of the creatures would lift the rigid body out of the coffin, while the third one would loop a thick wire around the body's ankles. They would then haul the body up to a line of hooks that slowly moved above their heads. The body, hanging head down, was then carried to the next station several yards away.
Jason watched the action for several minutes with a morbid curiosity, then slowly made his way around to the next workstation. As he stood there in the shadows, the scene before him felt more like a nightmare than reality. A half dozen lines of hooks with the human carcasses attached passed in front of the first mantis. It took a short rod, and with a sizzling sound and a flash of blue light, slit the carcass open from just below the neck to the pubic bone. The next mantis then scooped out the abdominal contents into a large vat, while the third mantis in line concentrated on doing the same for the thoracic cavity.
As Jason stood there watching in horror, it slowly dawned on him what he was witnessing. This was a processing plant, and the food that was being processed was humans. Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place. The cycle of deaths, the Sleeper Stations, the whole complex bureaucracy of the Patriarchy and the ULC. All of it was for this one purpose. Earth had been turned into a food processing plant to support the nutritional needs of an alien civilization.
Jason fought back the urge to retch. He could taste the acid fighting its way through the tightness in his throat. He wasn't going to win the battle. He turned and covered his mouth with his hands, crawled as far away into the darkness as possible. Finally, when he could hold back no longer, he relaxed and let the contents of his stomach come up. He continued to dry heave for several minutes.