Hole 18

The breeze. Man, it feels so good, Johnny thought as he lay in his bed with his eyes closed. His hands behind his head serve as a makeshift flesh-and-bone pillow. A fan nearby emits waves of stale air towards Johnny Salvador's face, inciting the hairs on his pubescent mustache to dance like blades of grass on a windy day.

"It must have been so awesome," he mutters as he takes a big whiff of some imaginary breeze that has swept him and his imagination away. He savors the smells his imagination has infused into the fan air. "Not like the fake shit at the museum. I mean, how do they even know what fresh air smelled like anyway?" Johnny's daydream is shattered by the calls of his mother.

"Johnny!" a strained voice sounds from down the hall. "¡Ya son las 5:15! You're going to be late again, and I'm not dealing with those pendejos anymore! Ya, get up!"

"Ahí voy," he shouted back with the resentment 17-year-olds carry silently on their backs. He puts his dust-resistant overalls on, straps up his boots, and heads down the hall.

"I'm sorry, mijo, but you know if you're late to your assignment again we'll lose your ration of the bars. You know we're just making it. Especially since your dad passed away." Carmen heads for a minimalistic futon in the living room and sits quietly as if those words made her relive the funeral.

"I know, Ama. Sorry. I was just thinking about the stories Apa used to tell me. I guess I got stuck."

“Ay, tu padre,” reminisces Carmen, fighting back the tears welling up in her brown eyes. "He was a good man with wonderful stories, but you're the man now. You need to go to your assignment, or we'll struggle to have enough to eat. If it wasn't for my age, I'd get assigned more work," Carmen laments, shaking her head. Johnny stares aimlessly at a flickering hologram being projected onto the living room floor from three video cameras in the ceiling, forming a triangle.

The hologram of the government official anchored to the floor touts, "Humanity is thriving because we're all in it together." The projection flickers in and out, making the hologram dance. Carmen places a Pure-gy bar in a small lunch pail along with her share of the bars for the day. "La news says there's going to be blackouts today, be careful." She hands the container to Johnny.

A reluctant smile and an "Okay, Ama" are the only response. He grabs his hard hat from the kitchen table and heads towards the door. "Hello, Johnny," says an automated voice emanating from the door. It scans him and begins to open. A defining noise of people, hums, and zooms begin to creep in from the outside. Johnny turns around, raises the lunch pail towards his mother, and steps out.

I hate this fucking assignment, don't know how Apa did this every day, Johnny thinks, as the door behind him shuts with a tight thud. The smell of sewage and mold instantly perforates his nostrils. The red and blue, and green flickering glow of a government hologram bounces off his cheek. Sheila, the neighbor hooker goes up to him. Her pointy alloy nipple dressings almost poke him in the eye, launching him back some.

"Damn baby, you're turning into your daddy," she grunts in his ear. "A bar, and I'll be your supa-star." She clutches his crotch in a death grip.

"Get away from me! As if I'd spend my Pure-gy bars on an old piruja that smells like cigarettes and dry chocha!" He sidesteps her and begins to walk away.

"Half a bar then!" she desperately cries as Johnny disappears amidst the hustle and bustle of the city that incarcerates him.

People walking to and from assignments flood the scenery. He hears the booming soundtrack of the government's holograms playing in the distance and looks up at the limestone ceiling. It looks to him as if it grows lower and lower, encasing him in its white walls, with no escape, every time he stares up.

I wonder if it had ever been the way Apa told me, Johnny thinks. Before food rationing, before the population limit, before everyone was forced underground, and before the OHB, he ponders as he makes his way to the communal transports. Johnny's dad spoke to him about Earth when it wasn't a giant snowball. When one could indulge in the green outdoors and not be bound by the extreme, white cold and the stipulations set by the One Humanity Board. Or better known as the OHB. The wonder of sunrise and sunset, the yearly browning of leaves in fall, and the renewal of spring all intrigued his dad. And in turn, his dad's intrigue spread to Johnny and mesmerized him.

Endless red strawberry fields and open plains with grazing fat cows were favorite topics of his dad's. "What my Apa wouldn't have given for a plate of carne asada tacos," he recalls, inside the bouncing and shaking of the cylinder of the transport. Johnny's dad's stories would whisk both of them away to an alternate Earth. An Earth, the way they envisioned it. The way it used to be. But that version of Earth was a fragment of their yearning imagination built by old tales and wise men. But they didn't care because reality was no place they wanted to inhabit.

It was an accepted fact that in the year 2091, the polar ice sheets finished melting as a result of the depleted ozone layer, releasing billions upon billions of gallons of fresh water into the world's oceans. Effectively stop the oceanic conveyor belt, thus initiating another ice age. The world's leading scientists and leaders told the public everything was going to be fine and that this was a natural phase the Earth went through every millennium or so. Until it wasn't. Two hundred years passed, but by now, billions upon billions of people had died off as a result of the extreme cold and lack of food. World leaders met in Geneva, and a plan was hatched, circumventing the objection of leading scientists, to deplete the ozone layer even further in hopes that it would allow more insolation. The hope was aimed at ending the new ice age. But that had devastating results. The UV index of the world shot up to dangerous levels.

Almost all species of animal life, marine life, and plant life that had survived the harsh cold went extinct because they could not tolerate the high UV index. Only bacteria survived to rule the above. Forty-three percent of the landmass had been lost to the world's oceans. It was the rapture the ancients foreshadowed. Humanity was holding on to life like a fat kid on the monkey bars while his crush watched. The world population dwindled down to less than 100 million, and a decision was made that would have humanity living underground for the next 350 years. Something needed to be done.

The newly formed OHB established two underground cities. A board consisting of nine society leaders, five political bigwigs, and four A.I. units called protectors. The capital of the two cities, Transata and Micron City, was established. Transata was established in an ancient tunnel system in the territory of Turkey. In North America, what was known as Iron Mountain now lies Eco-City. Ghost-white limestone walls encapsulate it like a pill, and an underground network of alleys and dwellings known as pods inhabit it. It's where Johnny calls home.

The population eventually began to rebound, and strict regulations came into play as the new cities took shape. But now the regulations have evolved to the extent that the OHB controls nearly every aspect of its citizens' lives. They have molded humanity to be a race of submissive workers with the facade of safety pasted over it.

A limit of one million people per city was established. It was now a crime punishable by death to conceive an unsanctioned child. The OHB holds massive rallies in the city centers every twenty years or so, where the most submissive segment of the population is chosen to conceive the next batch of workers and keep the population at an optimal level. It was decided by the OHB that at the easily influenceable age of ten, a human was fit enough to work. So, everyone at that tender age is given a work assignment to perform for the good of humanity.

Everyone has a specific assignment or job to do. From wiping the scum off the L.C.D. bulbs that keep Eco-City illuminated to the hookers that walk the track and are there to soothe primal urges, each assignment handed out was based on the citizen's skin pigmentation, with darker-skinned people given the worst assignments with the least distribution of Pure-gy bars, the only source of nutrition available. The bars are a conglomerate of chemicals created by OHB’s A.I.s, formed into a cardboard-like substance that provides all the essentials for life to survive. But that tastes like stale raw almonds.

Rights and freedoms have been replaced by duties and servitude for humanity to survive. This is according to the OHB. The OHB only appears in the constant holograms spewing propaganda to every dwelling, assignment place, and alley corner in Eco-city. People's visions of a world without them are unavoidable and as fake as the holograms that play over and over again throughout the day. Even the restroom stall is not safe from the influence of the OHB. A little hologram appears on top of the toilet paper holder as one sits on the toilet to take a shit. The holograms and their messages of fear and despair have humanity clinging to the OHB in fear and hope that the umbrella they are in will not cave under the pressure of the world above.

Johnny continues to stare out of one of the small portholes of the transport rushing him to his assignment. It zooms by various pods stacked on top of and side by side to each other. It looks like a jailhouse unit. Light flickers on Johnny's face as the transport, resembling a shiny Twinkie, twists and winds closer to its destination. The transport makes various stops along the way to drop off numerous workers that inhabit the vehicle. From the sewage clearing units to the physicians, they all must ride together and accept the fact that some of their fellow citizens are better off than others because of the color of their skin.

Solomon, Johnny's co-worker and best friend, sneaks up behind him. A violent flick of his ear gets Johnny to look away from the streaking porthole. "Órale. What the fuck!?" Johnny exclaims as he rubs his thumping, red ear.

Solomon busts out, "Ya ponte las pilas, buey. We're almost there. I bet you were daydreaming about your dad's stories again.

Johnny shakes his head. "No. I was dreaming about your mom, stupid!" Solomon gives him a gentle shove. They both share a laugh as the transport begins to slow down. A voice plays over the intercom that says, "Expansion Tunnels," and the doors slide open. A multitude of men with hard hats get up and file out like trained ants.

"What do you think they'll have us doing today?" asks Solomon. The pair walks down a long corridor to a softly lit staging area in the expansion tunnels.

"I don't know, but what I do know is that this is some bullshit."

"Right!? We don't need more space. We need more rights!" Solomon exclaims. The two exchange a schoolyard handshake.

"Martinez, Lloyd, Tunnel 4-b. King, Gonzales, tunnel 5-j," yell a statuesque foreman looking at a hologram emanating from his wristwatch. "Salvas, Michaels, tunnel 3-m".

"Great," says Johnny in a sarcastic low voice. "We got the shittiest tunnel. All the way to the end. It hasn't even been fully reinforced."

"Ya, Johnny, don't complain. At least we'll be far from that guy," Solomon whispers back. "Easy street. Come on, vámonos," instructs Solomon. They grab their plasma rock cutters and head towards tunnel 3-m.

The sound of exploding rocks thunders and dominates the ambiance of the tunnel. They pass multiple tunnels with workers digging like moles. Johnny and Solomon finally arrive at their assigned tunnel at the far end of the cavern and assess the situation.

"See. No one around!" Solomon proclaims, sweeping his arm and displaying the emptiness around him.

"I guess," responds Johnny. He goes up to a wall and begins to melt away the rock. Three hours pass like three minutes. By now, they had managed to penetrate into a good portion of the limestone wall. Their faces and clothes are covered in a chalky layer of dust. The remaining particles float around, resembling a light snowfall.

"Okay. According to the imaging scan we were given, we need to leave this wall alone and begin blasting the adjacent wall. Alright, Johnny?"

"What? Why? That's making us cut all the way around and then back again! That's going to take an extra day, and I need this damn tunnel completed! We're running out of food, and the faster we finish this thing, the faster I can get my bars," roars Johnny, staring down Solomon like a starved dog.

"You know what I'm thinking?"

"What?" asks Solomon reluctantly.

"I'm thinking we should just cut across it anyway. No one's around, like you said. Everyone is busy over there. Plus, they wouldn't expect us to go against their orders."

"I, I don't know, man. The image shows a weak point in the rock.” Solomon shows Johnny the holographic image beaming from his wrist.

"Screw it! You can blame it on me if we get in trouble. I have to risk it for me and my mom's sake."

Johnny wields his plasma cutter towards the wall and begins slicing rock in a back-and-forth motion. The rocks begin to dissolve into dust particles as he runs the plasma cutter across the surface of the limestone wall. "Quick!" gloats Johnny through the fog of dust cocooning him. "You see, nothing to worry about." Suddenly, a cracking like lightning in a summer storm is heard. The roof of the tunnel begins to fracture.

"The roof, buey! The roof!" Solomon yells as he lunges at Johnny like a linebacker. At the same time, a massive piece of limestone dislodges from the ceiling. Solomon manages to push Johnny out of the way before the piece of rock falls onto the ground and shatters into various sizes of sharp shards.

The dust begins to settle around them as they lie on the floor, coughing and gasping for air. "¡Ya ves, buey!" Solomon bellows at Johnny as he tries to fight off the coughing.

"I, I didn't think it was going to crack like that," says Johnny. Solomon sits up with fury in his fists and grabs Johnny by his collar. "I fucking told you, man! Now I'm going to lose my rations!" Johnny grabs him right back, and the two are at each other's noses.

"I told you I'm-," Johnny stops mid-sentence-, and lets Solomon go. Johnny can't help but be fixated on Solomon's face. A ray of wonder beams on his cheek.

"Qué cabrón! What are you looking at?" Solomon snarls. Johnny wipes the sweat from his face. A beam of light shoots Solomon in the eyes, causing him to tumble back against the rugged floor. He shut his eyes in pain. "Aah! What was that?" he asks, readjusting his vision to his surroundings.

"Look," says Johnny in a subdued voice. He points to a hole in the ceiling. A beam of light shoots down between the pair, exposing the composition of each dust particle. It forms a circle on the floor. Johnny gets up and extends his hand into the realm of the light. He moves his hands in and out of the beam. He absorbs its warmth and looks up towards the small opening in the ceiling of the cave.

"It's coming from up there," he tells Solomon. He extends his hand toward him, helps him get up.

"What do you think is up there?" Solomon, asks Johnny in a fragile voice.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. C'mon, give me a boost." Solomon boosts Johnny to where he manages to grab onto a nook in the wall. He pulls himself up. He steps precariously on a small ledge, rock crumbling under his boots. Almost there, he thinks, as the small opening with the blinding light becomes nearer and nearer. He's there on the precipice when he stops dead in his tracks. He smells something. He feels a warm, soft breeze blow across his forehead, and his eyes become as big as dinner plates. He takes a whiff of a strange scent he's never smelled before.

"What is it!?" Solomon asks in thickening anticipation.

"Shhh. I hear something," says Johnny as he puts his ear to the opening. He can hear muffled voices, and Johnny distinguishes them as two males. The voices become clearer as he carefully begins to tear the earth from the hole. He peels enough to where he can slowly raise his head through the hole, up to the bottom of his eyes. But the intense light bearing down on him makes him squint. He begins to reopen his eyes. The left eyelid is ever faster than the right. What the hell!? Johnny thinks, as the intense light begins to fade and morph into a baby blue and green color.

As his sight gets acclimated, a white golf shoe steps into view momentarily obstructing his view and making him duck. Then he hears a voice shout, "Four!" Followed by the sound of a plink caused by aluminum striking aluminum.

"Great shot, you old dog," a voice that sounds like it's been sucking on too many cigars yelped. Ever so cautiously, Johnny begins to raise his head to the opening again, just far enough to get a glimpse. He sees blades of manicured grass, a thin white pole with a small triangular flag advertising the number eighteen flapping against a baby blue sky. Another white shoe momentarily steps into view, but this time Johnny holds his ground. He sees two stocky old men with their bellies protruding out of their too-small polo shirts step into full view.

The two old men are wearing full golfing attire. One wears a pink polo shirt accompanied by white slacks, the other a white, checkered polo shirt and brown khakis. -They both sport hats with fuzzy pom-poms on top. One of the old men pulls an aluminum putter out of a self-elevating golf bag next to him and heads to where his golf ball is resting on the lush putting green. The old man begins to size the ball up with his putter, shimmies his butt back and forth.

"This will be my third birdie in a row. For the win!" he gloats as he taps the golf ball with love. The ball begins to roll closer and closer to the cup. The old man and the ball seem to be one entity as he mimics the ball's moment, snaking/willing it on. The ball hits the edge of the cup, circles the outer ridge, and spins out. "Goddammit!" the old man wearing the pink polo shirt yells in disgust. He slams his golf club on the ground.

"Oh, that's too bad," chips in his golfing buddy, sizing up his golf ball. "Well, at least it's a marvelous day. The anniversary of the great cleansing is upon us. Are you attending?"

His buddy, still bitter and reeling from the missed shot, nods yes.

"Best idea the board ever devised, in my opinion. I mean, poisoning the atmosphere and causing mass panic was brilliant!" He pulls a cigar from his checkered polo pocket and sparks it up with a match. He says, "Minorities were born to be working for us, Dick". He takes his cigar out and rotates it back and forth in his thumb and index fingers, savoring the Cuban tobacco. "Besides, the world was not going to be able to sustain everyone. Someone had to go, so why not them? The A.I.'s have it all figured out. Out of sight, out of mind," he says. He takes another puff of his cigar. He exhales a plume of grey smoke against the marble blue sky.

"Well, I'm glad. We need the provisions they produce. Plus, I wouldn't be able to bear their stench. If I ever saw one of those scums, I'd give ‘em one right in the kisser,” responds the old man, ready to strike the ball. He taps it. The golf ball's trajectory is as straight as a laser on its way to the cup. It hits a small pebble on its way, bounces, and falls into the cup. The old man, reminiscent of his youth, jumps up and shouts, "Yes, victory!" He walks up to the other old man, offers his hand as a sportsmanlike gesture, and says, "Good game, ol' chap. Guessing the Bourbon’s on you."

"Yeah, yeah. A small price to pay for leisure. Let's go, it's happy hour." They begin to walk away, chatting about the ball that didn't drop in, when one of them feels a tug on his ankle. The old man turns around, and Johnny is at his tan khaki pant leg.

"Sir, help me, please! I come from Eco-City. From beneath!" Johnny pleads with the old man, shaking his wobbly legs violently.

"Aaahhh! Get away from me! Authorities! Help! Help!" the old-timer yells, his shrieks gripped in fear.

"What the heck! Get away from him!" the other old man yelps, swinging a golf club like a machete at Johnny. Johnny rolls away and takes evasive maneuvers.

In the process of ducking, Johnny manages to blurt out, "Please! Listen! We need he"

Johnny is left mid-sentence as the first old man he clung to begins to grip his left man boob and falls over. "My chest, my chest," he cries. He slowly becomes parallel to the putting green.

"Dick!" yells the old man who swung at Johnny. He proceeds to take a knee next to his buddy suffering from a heart attack. Johnny hears sirens wailing in the distance and decides to make a break for the hole he came out of. Johnny runs with all his might, his stride struggling from his heavy suit. The sirens become clearer and clearer. He looks back and can see the blue and red lights reflecting off the floor. A reminder of the holograms of home.

"Halt your movements! Now!" a voice erupts from behind him. Johnny can see the opening to the hole, to his world, and he can taste the dust. He's steps away, one last lunge forward would do it, when suddenly a man wearing black tactical gear riding on a craft resembling a ski jet [MD5] drops down in front of him.

Johnny stops, raises his hands towards the man, and says, "I just want to get home." The enforcer quickly takes out a shiny rod from the side of his craft and points it toward Johnny. He hears a humming, and notices heat waves radiating from the rod. An invisible wave of energy hits Johnny and instantly incapacitates him.

"We have a breach in sector 13V," relays the militarized enforcer, talking into his collar. Johnny, in a haze, struggles to focus on the officer standing over him. The city enforcer says to him, "I thought I'd never see scum like yo/u-." Johnny hears a thud followed by a grunt and the tumbling of the enforcer falling next to him on the fairway. He looks up to see the shape of a hand extending his way.

"Levántate buey, get up! You were right! Your jefe was right!"

"Solomon?" questions Johnny, still reeling from the matter wave. He grabs Solomon's hand and gets up.

"I knew his stories were real, I knew it!" Johnny keeps repeating, rubbing his head.

"Come on, let's go tell the others before he wakes up! I didn't hit him that hard!"

The sand scatters from around the bunkers, and the ground trembles, as enforcers riding various hovering vehicles begin to surround them. They both raise their hands, and Johnny says to Solomon, "I'm sorry, dude. I didn't mean for this to happen."

Solomon stares at Johnny and tells him, “Don’t be sorry, carnal. You opened my eyes to the possibilities of another world I didn't want to see. But being here now, having seen and experienced it, it makes me question everything I’ve been taught about our world.”

The two have resigned themselves to the fact that this is their end. "I have visuals of the breachers," the head agent says when suddenly his flying jet explodes, leaving in its place a flame ball. The shockwave of the blast sends Johnny and Solomon flying backward, and they land at the feet of their foreman, holding a plasma cutter.

"Let's get 'em, boys," the Foreman yells at the arisen workers behind him, ready to strike like a ripple of reality. A barrage of plasma beams is unleashed onto the enforcers’ vehicles, causing them to scatter and retreat like ants being burned by a magnifying glass. Cheers and raised fists and unsuppressed yells follow.

"Are you boys, ok?" the foreman asks the interracial friends, taking in his surroundings. They both nod yes.

The foreman grips Johnny's shoulder and tells him, "You know, your dad would be proud." He lets go of Johnny and proceeds back to the hole to help the countless awakened people emerging from the darkness and into the light. Squinting their eyes, but not being able to withstand their curiosity, they welcome the burn of the sun on their retina.

"I'm going to go help out the foreman," Solomon says, rushing to the opening in the ground.

Johnny is separate from the moment, though. Separate from the commotion going on behind him, from the laughter and joy, from the emotions. He walks toward the top of bunker eighteen, where he is met by a vista of a valley with grazing cattle and strawberry fields. He can see the enforcer’s/s’ vehicles leaving waves of energy as they race toward a metropolis that stands tall before him in the distance like platinum bars. But the skyscrapers protruding in the distance are of no concern to him.

He can only think about one thing: His dad. “I wish you were here to feel the breeze, Apa," he whispers. Then a gust of wind kicks up that springs Johnny's mustache into dance. Just like his father once described to him. At that moment, he knew his father was right there with him.