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The crowd of red-tinted greyish green miners sat on their benches in hushed silence; a few let out soft sobs for the death of their hero, the one who would defend the honor of their benefactor Gov. Xavier Bright. Some Diggers unashamedly and loudly wept.

No. 248 spit on his opponent's body, lying unmoving on the floor of the gladiator pit. He strutted to the center of the sunken arena, still clutching the chain in victory. The spectators booed him some more, so he swung the chain about to show off, adding to their agitation and aggravation. The flying camera drone caught it all.

Unnoticed by the crowd of miners that were frenzied with rage, No. 360- Clyden- stirred where he lay. At first, only his hand twitched. Then, he reached up to his neck and rubbed it. In a flash, he leaped to his feet and caught the chain as 248 swung it about in his premature victory.

Surprised, No. 248's partner George/No. 317 shouted out, much too late, "Watch out, 248!"

248 spun around to see who had snatched his chain out of his hand. There stood Clyden, and Clyden smashed the chain into No. 248's face, over and over. He knocked 248 to the ground.

The amazed miner spectators on their benches above the gladiator pit only stared at first, dumb-founded, once more experiencing disbelief. Then, as if one, they all began to cheer and hurrah and clap wildly for Clyden.

The announcer exclaimed, "It appears No. 360 has fooled No.248! He fooled all of us, as well! He only pretended to be dead! He- he played possum on us all!"

Now it was 248's turn to be sprawled out on the dirt floor, 248 reached out while lying there, searching for a weapon. He found a large stone and hurled it into Clyden's gut.

Clyden/360 doubled over and George/217 seized another of the weapons which the guard had tossed down into the pit before- George grabbed a huge club and slammed it into Clyden's spine. This made Clyden crouch in terrible pain, but yet he still managed to backhand George, knocking him silly.

Shaking off his pain, Clyden/360, like a bolt of lightning, clutched George and lifted him overhead. He actually threw him at No. 248, who just now staggered to his feet. 248 and George fell together into a tangled pile. Before they could free themselves, Clyden leaped upon them both, holding a short knife blade- Where'd that come from?? He must have picked up while he lay "dead".

The miners loved this. "Woo-hoo! Go, No. 360, go! The champ!!"

And so the gladiator match continued- a mean, bloody, noisy affair, until, finally, reaching a point where the three combatants, worn out and full of wounds, struggled merely to be able to still stand, let alone to battle- They could barely move. All at once, all of a sudden, all three of them just collapsed, exhausted, onto the floor of the fighting pit, wheezing and gasping for air.

The miner spectators waited for more action. But nothing else happened.

Finally, the announcer proclaimed, "Well, it looks like this match is over- What a match it was, indeed, miners! It's obvious that our No. 360 is the uncontested winner! He has defeated those who refused to honor our beloved Gov. Bright! Let's show No. 360 our appreciation!"

Ear-splitting cheers and rumbling applause shook the gladiator cavern. It continued nonstop for a good five minutes.

Meanwhile, several robot guards arrived, carrying stretchers. The robots lowered themselves into the pit.

The announcer informed the spectators, "From here, our fighters shall be moved to the recovery room. As everybody here knows, since they are miners, I assume that after a few hours of rest, they shall be good as new, and ready to go back to work. Thank you, one and all, for attending today's exciting event. Have a good day, and for those of you who will now be going to your work shift, we can safely say that we know No. 360's example shall inspire you to dig, Dig, DIG fuel ore! For the Governor! For Hope!"

"For Gov. Bright! For Hope!" the miners chanted as they exited. No one had yet told them that, from now on, it was Hope Leader Bright.

In the pit, the robots hoisted up the injured gladiators and effortlessly tossed them over their metal heads and out the fight-hole onto the rock floor above them. Then the mechanical beings climbed out after the injured miners. 

The robots carefully laid out No. 360/Clyden on a stretcher. After that, they simply tossed trouble-makers George and No. 248 onto their respective stretchers, and then they used the thick chain, in which they had brought the two trouble-makers from their cages to here, to again bind them together, hand and foot, stretching the chain between the two on their stretchers, so the bound pair of miners could not escape.

The three gladiators groaned and couldn't move a muscle. The robots carried them to the nearby recovery room down the rock hall. In the recovery room, the miners were plopped onto cots. A trio of robots stayed behind, keeping blasters at the ready, to guard the convalescing Diggers, especially the pair of no-goods.

The miners sunk into oblivion- not even the ever-present beat of the miners' blaring digging music could keep them awake. And so, they rested, in a dingy, dusty, dark cave-room, for about a half hour.


Then Clyden sat up, his eyes wide open and alert.

One robot guard came over to him. "Lie down and rest, No. 360. After a few more hours, the doctor shall come and check you and give you a clean bill of health, so that you three can resume your work schedules. In the meantime, rest and rejuvenate."

Clyden stood on wobbly legs. "I- I can't lie down on the job. My shift starts in a few minutes!"

The other two robot guards came over to help their robot comrade to force Clyden to lie down again. None of the robots waved blasters at him, since No. 360 never presented a threat to them. 360/Clyden brushed them aside.

Clyden clumsily walked toward the door, insisting, "The Governor's counting on me. I must make my quota!"

One of the robots got too close to him, attempting to take him with both its arms and guide him back to his cot. It left its blaster wide open and unprotected. "No. 360, our orders are to see that you rest- No. 360, what are you doing? Put that down. You know miners are not allowed to touch blasters-"

Zap!

Clyden whipped about to get the other two robot guards. Zap! Zap!

Clyden chuckled. "The Warden probably figured I could help the robots keep you two miserable miners in line, so he didn't post any real, human guards. Good, I'd prefer not to blast any of 'em. Even though they kept me stuck here at the mines, I still feel a kinship for them somewhat- They used to work for me, for crying out loud. I'd hate to have to shoot any of 'em, except maybe for that Osmo Martin punk!"

George and 248 made no attempt to stir.

"Hey, c'mon, guys, get up!" ordered Clyden. "Nobody'll be here for hours, so you got no reason to pretend to be dead to the world."

"Who's pretending?" groaned George, trying to rub his sore body parts despite his chained wrists and ankles.

Clyden mightily kicked over the cot upon which George lay, spilling George onto the floor. The heavy chain clanged on the rocky floor. "Knock it off, you loafers!" shouted Clyden. "Quit acting like babies! We gotta get moving!"

George forced himself up, still chained to No. 248. 248 tried to hop off his own cot, despite the cumbersome chain. "Okay," moaned 248, "we're up. Now what?"

"First, this. It'll sting as you catch it sideways," answered Clyden. He blasted off their chains, taking care not to accidentally cut off any limbs. "Hey, No. 248, how'd you know McCleer and I were only pretending to fight?"

"I didn't actually know, but I decided to chance it. I thought George acted mighty strange, the way he looked forward to this gladiator match so much. He's not usually so violent. But I do know he is usually always trying to escape somehow. So I added it all up. It seemed too crazy to be possible, but what else could explain the change in George, except that it was another escape plan? That's why I merely acted like I was trying to choke you. And when you acted like I really was choking you, then I knew I had it right- It's another of George's schemes! But I cannot figure out what the plan is this time, for the life of me."

Clyden nodded enthusiastically. "You guessed right, 248. We are indeed making a run for it."

George filled in the gaps of the story for 248. "Clyden and I had joined forces awhile back in order to break out of the mines. The gladiator match fits into Clyden's plan somehow, but, to tell you the truth, I can't figure it out either. We wanted to bring you along with us, and we wanted to tell you about it, but we never got a chance to tell you. I know Clyden was once the Security Leader, and I know it is he who put me in this place- and you, too, most likely- But if we're going to have any chance of escaping, we must work with him- even though I know he's a low-down rat!"

"Yeah, that pretty much is it," agreed Clyden. "Now shut your yak and let me try to remember something..." He studied one of the walls of the recovery room, then he walked over to its corner adjacent  with another wall and stood there a moment. Clyden measured from there along the wall, one foot in front of the other, heel to toe, heel to toe, counting. At last he took up a position directly before a certain spot on that wall, facing it and pulling out the blaster he had snatched from the robot. "This should be the right place, although my feet have grown larger since the last time I measured it off."

No. 248 watched. He turned to his miner friend. "You seem different, George. It seems like you have more confidence, more sureness about you now. Why is that? And how can No.360 know he is the former Security Leader, since the rest of us, even though we recognize his face, are forbidden to discuss amongst ourselves who he was, and most certainly we did not talk about it with Mr. Clyden."

Clyden started to tap around on the wall, listening to the sound each tap made. He told 248, "I took a pill to keep my memory of who I am, and I gave one to George, as well. I planted a pill I had for him in the mines, back when I was yet the Security Leader, as a Plan B, in case my Plan A to take out Gov. Xavier failed. Now shut it, so I can hear the hollow spot-"

Clyden blasted a hole in the wall. Behind it they saw a dark passageway,  going in both directions up and down. "Good! I found it!"

No. 248 asked, "Um, do you have a pill for me, too?"

"Nope. But if you wanna know, you're Billy Boob, a fanatical preacher from the illegal house church back in Sparkle City. I put you in here because you caused too many problems, talking always some stuff that Gov. Xavier did that was wrong, like how he wants to dictate to people how to worship and pray. Of course, you were usually right, but that's besides the point. You made the people question him and his ways. What he prefers, in order to make it easier to run the World ofn Hope, seems to be blind obedienceand following his leadership unquestioning. Pfah, what a egomaniac!"

George could not help but nod his head. "Oh, he is, he is."

248, very curious, asked, "So, my name is Billy Boob? And you are the one who put me in here?"

"Well, truthfully, it is Billy Boy. Like I said, Gov. Xavier wanted me to take care of the problems you made, so here you are. Nothing personal, 248, but at the time, I viewed what you and your church pals did as defiance, that you thought you were too good to have to get the state approval for your church services like anyone else. So you see, it really is your own fault."

George smiled at his friend. "At least now you know your name... Billy Boy."

"I wish I could remember myself being Billy Boy. Now I understand my dreams, though."

"Well, at least God remembers for you," said George. "And one day, I imagine He will give you back your memory, so that you, too, will remember your memories."

"Guys," Clyden interrupted, "we don't have all day, ya know. We should get outta here and be long gone before the Doc comes to check up on us."

"You are right," George answered. He went over the the hole in the wall and stuck his head inside, looking in the dark. "This is the exhaust vent for the secret fuel ore processor, isn't it?"

"Yup. And it's also our escape route. Hey, don't be so dumb- You guys pick up those other blasters that the robots had and bring them along. Sheesh, do I gotta tell ya everything?"

Billy Boy put in a hand, testing the temperature of the air inside the vent. "What if the processor starts running? Won't the exhaust be very hot, maybe even too hot for miners? When George and I had planned to try to escape through this vent, we made certain the processor was not in use at the time."

Clyden tapped his own sore and aching skull. "Hey, I'm the one who figured out Plan B, right? Ya think I didn't account for that? I figured the brass would reward the most loyal miners, who run the processor. For their loyalty the Warden let them be able to see the gladiator match. And it turns out, I was right. Now, if those loyal dupes were there at the gladiator pit, watching us, then there's nobody left to run the processor, so the vent's not in use. For the time being, anyway, but we better shove off, before they fire it back up."

Clyden climbed first into the vertical tunnel. He grinned. "Let's go do this- for the Governor!" he shouted with mock enthusiasm, and then spat in disgust. "Notice, there is a ladder on the far side of this hole to grab hold of. We use it and climb upward to the top of the shaft. The ladder is for miners, for when they must go inside this vent to do maintenance on the shaft and clean the deposit build-ups."

Clyden started the long climb.

George followed next, right behind Clyden. "Where does this exhaust come out, Clyden?" George found the shaft to be wide enough to accommodate a bulky miner, with adequate room to move about inside it as they climbed.

Billy Boy came last.

"We come up at the bottom of the moat with the Eaters." said Clyden. Clyden heard George gulp in fright at that news. "The vent comes right out in the middle of the Eaters' moat, on the side of the mining mountain that's opposite the entrance to the mines. The heat and gasses of the processor are masked from Earth's spies- should any look in on that side of the moat- by the inky black clouds that surround the Eaters' bodies. The Eaters' bodies generate the clouds, like squids, only the Eaters are a lot more deadly!"

"Oh, boy," muttered Billy Boy apprehensively. ""How do you plan for us to get past them? No miner ever has, not that I know of. Not even when a couple of miners were tossed in together at the same time. The Eaters always win."

"Well, Billy Boob, we got weapons, our blasters. Those other miners did not have that advantage. The weapons won't do much, of course, unless you get a lucky kill-shot, but the blaster fire will temporarily hold them off, until it makes them so angry that they get wild and attack us anyway. As you can imagine, it won't be easy. And with those dark clouds they give off, it will be hard to aim for their centers, which is the place to hit if we hope to actually kill them- It makes them blow apart into pieces."

The three of them ascended the long, long ladder.

"That's it? This is your plan?? How do we get out the pit?" worried George.

"We fly." Clyden laughed at his own joke, but he was the only one. "Okay, okay, relax. As we blast away at them, we run to a grappling line I had hung down from the edge of the moat as part of Plan B. Nobody goes out there that way, inspecting the moat or anything, so, hopefully, the line is still there. Unless the Eaters found it too interesting and tugged it down."

George's limbs ached from the battle, but now they were not his main concern. "We must blast through the Eaters and run to get to your rope- if it is still there- to climb out?"

"I can see why this was not Plan A," remarked  Billy Boy.

"Yup. That's why I need you, McCleer. We can cover each other's back as we make it to the rope. One fires and keeps them monsters at bay while I climb out, then I will cover you as you in turn also climb out."

"Yeah, so you go first, I see," grunted George.

Billy Boy asked, "Why should we trust you to do your part, once you climb out the moat, since you are the one who put us here in the first place?"

Clyden replied, still climbing, "It's up to you. What are your choices? I got nothing to gain by backstabbing ya."

"What are our chances?" wondered George.

"We'll soon find out. I'm at the top of the vent. See that grate over my head, and the gloom of the moat above it?"

"Say, just how big are these Eaters, anyway?" asked Billy Boy.

"Very big."

(c) 2012 drk