DusktoDust_Final3 by adrian felder Read Free Book Online Page B

used a combination of cabs, rickshaws, buses and walking to reach the outskirts.
    David had no illusions. He doubted that the surreptitious route they had taken had thrown off any of their Peacekeeper pursuers. They weren ’ t that easily shaken. They had drones to assist them. But hopefully the trip had tired the PKs out. Even with the confusion of the Pit, the smugglers would need every advantage to lose them.
    The final rickshaw dropped Alana and David off on the side of the road near one of the Skull Pit ’ s more respectable entrances. The driver wouldn ’ t take them any closer and David didn ’ t blame him. He had only been to the Pit once before and he wasn ’ t very excited to go back. The place was a cesspool of the lowest forms of human life. It was unmonitored and unregulated. Not even TNS Galactic ’ s security, whose jurisdiction the territory fell under, dared venture into the place.
    After following the road west for a few minutes, David and Alana reached the top of a hill. There they could see it. A desolate expanse that stretched for kilometers, pockmarked by holes and tunnels of various sizes. This was the Skull Pit.
    The Skull Pit had once been a mine, a trivisium mine, one of the first mines ever established. The holes on the surface were from years of surface drilling. The Pit had long since been abandoned by the mining corporations. They had not left because the ore had dried up, but because the place had become overrun.
    Trivisium had very few useful applications. It wasn ’ t used in industry, space travel, or computers. It had some use in medicine, but there were better alternatives out there now. The main use of Trivisium was as a hypnotic drug. The soft, violet ore, when ground up, could be smoked or ingested. The effects were unique, unlike any other drug on the market. Users entered a cerebral hypnotic state which lasted for hours.
    Trivi was highly addictive. While under the influence, users neglected to sleep, eat, or work. They devolved to a near catatonic state, with only the drug sustaining them. Because of this, trivi was highly illegal on Earth and many other planets. But Prospect was different. Because of the limitations placed on the UN by the Prospect Denationalization Pact, it was perfectly legal to produce, distribute, and use.
    The Skull Pit was the result of this lack of regulation. Once a profitable mine, it now stood in ruin, overrun by the very miners who had worked it. They were all trivi users now, also known as glassers. They spent their miserable lives on their hands and knees with pickaxes and homemade tools, gathering from the earth the only sustenance they knew. They lived in the vast labyrinth of tunnels and passages that made up the Pit, never seeing twilight. These tunnels were what brought Alana and David here. With hundreds of entrances and exits, and having never been mapped, they would be able to lose the PK tails once and for all in the Pit.
    Alana looked at David. “ You sure we have to go in there? ”
    David nodded. “ We stay together. If we get separated we ’ ll never find each other again. ” He pulled out his pistol and checked that it was loaded. “ Move hard and fast. It ’ ll get the PKs off our ass and won ’ t give the glassers enough time to react. ”
    “ Got it, D. ” She checked her weapon as well. “ It ’ ll be a walk in the park. ”
    Not quite , David thought. But it’ll work .
     
    Two kilometers away, Staff Sergeant Letsego sat in the back of a taxi staring at a tablet. The image on the screen was a black and white aerial view of the outskirts of the Skull Pit. He watched as two white spots moved across the screen and then disappeared. Damn it.
    “ Staff Sergeant, I ’ ve lost them. They ’ ve gone out of view, ” Gio ’ s voice said in his ear.
    Letsego threw the tablet across the cab in frustration. “ Yes, I see that. ” He turned to Sergeant Conway, who was sitting next to him. “ They ’ re in the Pit. ”
    It