So We In The Mines

The next step was down in the mines, much to Kaiwi's chagrin. He was permitted a night in his cell to rest before the same two guards woke him up abruptly for another day of labour.

"Am I nearly out yet?" he asked acerbicly. Guerilla sighed, clearly tired of the raptor.

"Soon, couple more tasks left," he grunted. 

"You'll let me go then?" Kaiwi asked.

"Better than that, we'll see you off with a banquet after all this," Mantell grinned. The Iguanodons had to crouch down to squeeze into the mines and Kaiwi felt like suggesting they stayed outside, though he imagined that wouldn't go over well. The tunnel expanded slightly the more they moved into it, like years of Iggy mining had adapted the environment for their enormous bodies. Unlike the relatively peaceful dock, the mine was a hive of activity with a number of dinosaurs running around or chipping away at the walls. As they moved further into the tunnels, Kaiwi could see a faint green glow lighting the area ahead of them. It was different to the buzzing electric lights lining the walls, it was barely visible and would have probably been unnoticeable if not for the dark surroundings. When the tunnels and their wooden support beams opened up, Kaiwi found himself in a large room with several tracks leading out of it, like train tracks but smaller. Each one had a wooden cart braced with metal sitting on them, with train-like wheels too. Little trains underground, like a miniature subway, he thought to himself. His pondering wouldn't last long as a loud braying came from the other side of the room.

"What is that doing here?" This irate Pachy was the source of the strange green light, glowing bioluminescent. His companion was equally furious, pawing the ground and flaring her crest feathers.

"Get back to work." The voice wasn't raised, but it still reverberated through the room in a low timbre. A white feathered Iggy was leaning against the wall, wearing the same armour as the guards that had been supervising Kaiwi.

"Shells, we can't work with that!" the female Pachy protested, dropping the armful of rock she had gathered from the mine carts.

"Tough, you'll have to," the white Iggy grunted. She refused to acknowledge the protests from either of her prisoners and looked up to the other Iguanodons. "Mantell. Guerilla," she greeted in turn.

"Cheerful as always, Agnus," Mantell teased, but the white Iggy's expression didn't change.

"We have a prisoner due for some work, where do you want him?" Guerilla asked plainly. Agnus huffed, long and low, and looked around the mine from her post. 

"Get him mining in the south-east tunnel, bring the cart back here when it's full," she ordered and the grey Iggy nodded.

"Alright then, little man," he said gruffly, "Grab a pickaxe, follow me." Kaiwi looked at the metal tools lying against the wall and picked up the one he thought looked most like a 'pickaxe' before following the two guards down the tunnel. Mantell grabbed hold of the cart and pushed it along the track behind them. They stopped just in view of the main room and Guerilla turned back to the raptor. "Use the pickaxe, chip away this section of rock, put the chunks in the cart, bring the cart back to the room when it's full, tip it out, repeat. You understand?"

"Understood, chief," Kaiwi said drily. Guerilla nodded and walked back to the main hub, leaving Mantell to guard the other exit of the tunnel. For once the spiked Iggy didn't seem to be very chatty so Kaiwi focused on the task at hand, trying to figure out how a pickaxe worked. His low slung arms didn't seem that well suited to this kind of work, not letting him swing the axe over his shoulder the way he saw Iggys further down the tunnel doing. Still, he could break off some pieces even with his short swings and eventually had enough to warrant pushing the cart back to the hub. The track thankfully did most of the work and he managed to push it all the way along without throwing his back out. He stopped at the end to catch his breath and heard the snort of disgust coming from the glowing Pachy.

"You got a cold or something?" Kaiwi asked sharply. The glowing Pachy only scowled at him and the other stepped forward.

"Leave him alone!" she growled and the raptor rolled his eyes, turning back to the minecart and pushing it further down the shaft before he took up the pickaxe again. He saw his smaller guard standing at the entrance of the tunnel and called to him in an exaggerated whisper.

"Hey, Mantell!" The Iguanodon looked startled to be addressed by name. "Can you put me back in the river? And just hold my head under for a real long time?" It took a moment for the joke to land but the spiked Iggy chuckled.

"You're a dramatic sort, you surface dwellers," he laughed. Kaiwi felt a victorious thrill at charming the guard and set back into his mining work, reinvigorated. He was making so muchj progress, it wasn't long before he had to return to the main area with his cart. Dreading the two Pachys, he tried to make it quick but ended up startling the glowing one with his sudden appearance. He flinched away, but not fast enough and Kaiwi caught the strange scent that he had rarely smelled before.

"Ah, you're an Alpha Labs refugee," he said, the realisation dawning on him, "No wonder you're so twitchy."

"What do you mean?" Embargo snapped back defensively.

"I mean there was all sorts of weird aggro shit down there, no wonder you're so twitchy," Kaiwi reiterated. He tipped the cart, his feet leaving the ground as he did so and leaving him dangling for a moment until Agnus came over and pushed it back down. "Thanks, this system isn't really built with little guys in mind," the raptor said. She didn't respond, just went back to leaning against the wall. Tougher crowd than his two, at least Guerilla and Mantell would talk to him, even if it was just to tell him to shut up.

Agnus watched over her charges with a faint disdain, irritated by their insistence on complaining about the work conditions and their fellow prisoner. The purple raptor at least had the right idea, get your head down, finish your task and get out of your cell faster. These two thick skulls didn't seem to grasp that concept, or even grasp that they had done anything wrong. She looked down the tunnel to see Guerilla and Mantell chatting, barely keeping an eye on their prisoner and it made her blood boil. The little carnivore may be placid, but that didn't give them the right to slack off.

"How much longer?" Deerlegs asked, rubbing the grit from where it gathered on her skullcap. Agnus didn't dignify that question with an answer. "Hello? Are you just ignoring us now?" Deerlegs stomped her foot and huffed loudly, trying to avoid ramming dead ahead into the Iggy's legs. She walked to the other dark Iguanodon, the one that had brought the carnivore in and decided to ask him instead.

"Even longer if you keep asking questions instead of mining," he replied simply before turning to watch his charge instead.

"I'm going to lose it," she hissed to Embargo as she returned to the wall.

"If you want to go for the attack I'll back you up," he said gravely and Deerlegs' stomach turned at the sincerity in his words. 

"We'd never make it out alive." She shouldn't encourage that kind of thinking, Embargo was still recovering from whatever toxin the plants had poisoned him with, he was in no condition to fight. The other guard, she had seen him before guarding the entrance to the court, maybe she'd have better luck trying to talk to him. To get to him, however, she'd have to get past the raptor. The thought of stepping near that rotmouth made her stomach turn and she decided to bet on the honesty of the Iguanodons and keep working. She grabbed more of the rocks in the pile and crunched her skull directly into it, reducing it to finer rubble. It didn't hurt, surprisingly, most of the work was done by it being hacked from the wall and all she had to do was finish it off. She cast her eye over the rubble and saw nothing but dull stone staring back at her. 

"Anything?" Embargo asked.

"Nothing," she replied shortly. She bit her tongue after, feeling bad for acting so snippy towards him when he was literally the only one on her side in this scenario. He was being a really good sport about all this, she wondered if she could swing him a cushier position back at Highcliff when they finally managed to escape this place. Between the carnivorous plants, carnivorous dinosaurs and the uptight herbivores she was getting real sick of this place.

Embargo swept the discarded rock away into the designated pile, the slag pile as Agnus had called it. He could tell Deerlegs' temper was at breaking point and didn't take her tone personally. He was raring to break out, only discouraged by Deerlegs' assertion that they wouldn't survive the fight. Something else was bothering him, causing him to delay his sweeping long enough for Agnus to clear her throat at him. How had the sharptooth known he was from the Alpha Labs? Was he telling the truth and it could somehow be staining his scent?

"Deerlegs?" he asked, making Agnus to scowl at them again, "Do I smell bad?" Deerlegs stopped in her mining and seemed to ponder her answer for a minute.

"A little, but I thought it'd rub off by now to be honest," she admitted.

"Huh," was all Embargo could manage before sweeping up the rest of the stone. 

"Not these ones," Deerlegs gestured to a pile she was sweeping away with her tail, "These have the shiny stuff in them." Once they were separated out from the rest she gathered the rocks in her claws and dropped them into a larger cart next to Agnus. The feathered Iggy opened one eye, seeming to check her work before leaning back again. Stuck up tree-hugging shortnecks, Deerlegs thought to herself. She couldn't wait to finally work off whatever these freaks thought they owed them. She kept an eye on the tunnel but the raptor seemed to be entirely engrossed in his work, not sparing them even the shortest glance. Still, she couldn't keep her eyes off him, letting a carnivore out of her sight was just asking for trouble, especially one as quick as a raptor. She couldn't believe they were being forced to work in the same place, not when they hadn't done anything wrong and this rotmouth was probably imprisoned for killing someone. 

Before she could try and circumvent the carnivore, a loud whistle sounded throughout the mines. Kaiwi and the two Pachys ducked and winced at the high pitched noise but the Iggys barely reacted. The Iguanodons working in the mines began to pack up their equipment, slinging their tools over their backs and filing out slowly through the tunnels.

"Quittin' time," Mantell remarked, trudging down the tunnel to meet back in the hub again. 

"Prisoners, back to your cells," Agnus grunted.

"Haven't we done enough?!" Deerlegs complained, ducking the spear Agnus was trying to herd her with.

"Not. Yet," the white Iggy growled. The crested Pachy looked ready to argue but Embargo put a tired arm in front of her. She looked worried for a moment, then guilty, then finally settled on grumpy resignation.

"Fine, back to the hole. At least we'll be away from that," she sneered at Kaiwi.

"Nice meeting you too, you both have a good night," the raptor called after them. Guerilla gave him a soft tap on the back of the head.

"Don't antagonise them, prisoner," he grumbled. "You need to get back too."

"One more day of community service, right? Then I can go?" Kaiwi asked as he dragged his feet through the tunnel, too tired to pretend to be excited about tomorrow.

"One more day, then the banquet, then you get to leave," Mantell reminded him. Right. One more day, then this stupid dinner. Then he could get back to his apartment, his normal garden, his polite and unobtrusive neighbours. He never knew he would miss all of it so much, having prided himself as a drifter for so many years. If anything good came from this situation, it was his new-found appreciation for home.