Justice Rocks

JUSTICE ROCKS

by Trae Hawkins

Content warnings: Violence, death, racism, classism, mentions of sexual assault.

We called ‘em justice rocks.

For lack of a better term, mostly. They wasn’t no rocks. They was living.

Found one when I was mining for boss. He had a temper something foul that day, using those fancy taser sticks to burn our flesh when we moved too slow. It was dark like always, but something about that day felt darker. The tunnels narrower, the walls harder. And there it was, all rough and jagged and glowing beneath a pile of useless minerals. As soon as I touched it, the thing started to shake in my hand. Told boss, but when he came to look at it, the rock stopped glowing and played dead. Like it was scared of him. Boss beat the shit outta me for wasting his time.

Same night, we was all gathered in the sleeping quarters. I showed mom and pops ‘nem the rock, and it glowed like before, all pink and humming and vibrating. Devil’s rock, pops called it. Everyone else shrugged me off. I kept it, though, and when I was sleeping, the thing burned in my pocket. Hopped right outta my hand when I pulled it out, then started rolling away. What was I supposed to do? Ignore it? I followed it through the tunnels, up into the city where we stayed when we weren’t on mining shifts. It was a beautiful city, so dim with towering skyscrapers and neon lights and canals and a sky of bright stars. Pops used to say they made the city pretty to keep us complacent. Back then I ain’t know who “they” was, or what it meant to be anything but complacent.

Anyway, the justice rock led me to a spot I never been to before. A lake right at the outskirts. We used to avoid it, ‘cause it was supposedly toxic. Supposedly. The rock jumped into the water, so I did the same. It ain’t disintegrate or nothin’, so I figured I’d be fine, too. Besides, I been through too much to be scared of a damn lake. I swam after the rock, which shuffled through a tunnel. Easy to keep up ‘cause the water was crystal clear and the rock glowed all pink like a beacon. Just when I was about ready to choke and drown down there, I broke the surface. All around me was a funnel of steep, wet rocks with footholds, so I climbed up toward some sort of brightness. Know what I saw when I reached the rim, for the first time in my life? Sunlight.

Oh, yeah. Didn’t know the sun existed. Most of us didn’t, ‘cause of the—well, guess I gotta run it back for you.

Long ass time ago, the world got a taste of utopia. Technological advances, artificial intelligence—they ended the suffering of humans ‘round the world. I mean, everybody was living good for hundreds of years. People was practically immortal, well-fed and wanting for nothing. Some shit happened, though. Pollution and waste stripped away some of the ozone layer, and that paired with space contamination turned the sun into this spiteful, ravaging thing. It would flare up, and all technology would shut down for hours or days or even months. All-natural EMP, courtesy of the boiling gas ball in space.

And you know there’s a saying? Something ‘bout history repeating itself. It’s meant to be a warning, but those fuckers at the top used it as a blueprint. No technology meant no labor, so they did what they did best: exploit. I’m talkin’ state-sanctioned enslavement of the poor. They did it before, only they reserved their cruelty for people with dark skin like mine. This time, though? Anyone with empty pockets was a target. Yeah, the way they saw it, they was just puttin’ all the undesireables in their place. They’d gotten used to utopia, and they weren’t gonna let it go. And so I was born in the mines, in that underground city where they bred us to be laborers.

So imagine my face when I saw sunlight for the first time. Shit hurt my eyes, but the tears was from something else. Something deep in me.

The rock funnel I’d climbed was in the middle of an ocean, and in the distance I saw an island with a white castle surrounded by sparkling buildings. There were boats on the water, too, with guns on their sides. I knew what a gun looked like; boss would use them sometimes on the ones who were extra lazy. That’s how my uncle died. Bullet to the head when his appendix ruptured and he couldn’t finish his mining shift. Ain’t want my head blown off, so I slid down into the funnel and back in the water.

Told mom and pops about the sun when I got back to the city, and about the big White Castle, and how I was sure the night sky hanging over our city was fake. That’s when they told me about how we’d been living as tools for a long time. They was acting weird, like they was scared. Told me I better not go back into the lake, and to forget what I saw. I said how the hell I’m supposed to forget magic rocks and flaming celestial bodies? Pops popped me on the mouth and said to take my ass to bed.

Next day, I found more justice rocks and snuck ‘em home. Kept them beside my bed at night. When you hold them just right, tap their sides in a rhythm they like, they purr and nuzzle up against you. And when they really take a liking to you, they… shed, sort of. Peel back layers of dark roughness, and underneath they shine purple and blue and silver. Sometimes they would talk to each other, scratching against one another to make squeaky noises, then jiggling as if in response.

Boss caught me smuggling some justice rocks outta the mine one day. Tried to tell him again they was special, but he just beat me. The justice rocks back home consoled me, quivered in a way to say: who did this to you? That night, they melded together, becoming one hulking figure half my height. I followed it from my room, through the city again, and into the lake on the outskirts. The justice rock swam through a different tunnel, much faster this time, but I kept up. Mom always said I got the feet of a swimmer.

When I resurfaced this time, I was in a different lake in a different city. Same look to the place: shadowy and bright with neon lights—this city’s lights were blue; mine were orange—and teeming with people who existed to work and do nothing else under the gaze of a fake sky. The people in this city appeared the same as the ones in mine—no distinct look to ‘em, just a collection of bodies in tattered clothes and dirt-stained skin. Standing at the bank of the lake was another boy like me, a big justice rock at his side. He told me his name, but I called him Blue, ‘cause his city was a blaze of sapphire. He joined me in the lake, and we followed our justice rocks through more underwater tunnels. Few hours later and we was a group of twelve, all from different cities with different colors and all partnered with our own rocks. They had the same story as me: found their rock while working for their boss. They’d all been to the surface, too, and saw the White Castle. We decided to gather again in two weeks. ‘Til then, we would ask around, try to figure out more about how this world worked.

Continued in Augur Magazine Issue 6.2...