Crimson Dawn

By the time the verdict was handed down, he had endured a week in a makeshift cell, surviving on a daily ration of gruel and two glasses of water. The LEVIATHAN had already begun its return trip to Cetos V. When Lex was finally released from the prison at the order of the chief judge, he was even more emaciated than before, and far more withdrawn. He had fully expected to die. He hadn’t been given a defense attorney. It wasn’t a trial—it was a sentencing. Lex sat alone on the defendant’s bench, waiting for the judge’s decision.

"The illegal FLD movement is riddled with moles we’ve infiltrated into their ranks. One of them was your friend’s contact, by the name of Tayus Nraad. Under the guise of scouting a secret TC base outside Orongu, our agents lured him there. We have evidence against you, Lex Marrow, that you knew of his involvement and helped cover it up."

Wait—does that mean Tayus never really joined the rebels? He was being played by the corporation the whole time?

"Every prisoner knows that the punishment for failing to report someone is just as severe as joining the terrorist organization. However, due to your exceptional achievements, we are sparing you from the death penalty."

Lex furrowed his brow. "What achievements? I worked just like everyone else."

"The Selection Program," said the judge. "You would have won the Selection Program for the hardest-working prisoner. You scored the highest of all participants. That’s what’s saving your life. Instead of death, you are being exiled. But you will have no chance of release or of wiping away your inherited debt," the judge added. "After your death in exile, Lex Marrow, you will pay for your crimes in hell. Enjoy the time you have until then."

Later that same day, he found himself alone in an unmanned freight train, with less than five meal rations and a ten-liter water canister. The train began its journey toward the polar region, a place battered by years-long storms and shrouded in the eternal darkness of the moon’s far side—the Exile. Everything he had ever heard about the place was uncertain and unverified, so much so that it might as well have been a myth, a horror story told to scare children and keep the older ones in line. It was a place whose existence was based on speculation, if not for the fact that there was always someone who knew someone who had been sent there. What it really looked like or what awaited anyone there, nobody knew.

After all, no one had ever come back from exile.

The journey to the North Pole took eight days. The transition from day to endless night happened abruptly, without any gradual fade. The train passed through a long tunnel, and on the other side, the landscape was plunged into darkness. In the distance, the twilight still clung to the highest mountain peak, the last sliver of daylight frozen in the ice. Lex wanted to feel something as he looked at the scene—to find meaning in the view, to see some beauty in it, to feel even a flicker of longing—but nothing stirred inside him. No anger, no sadness, just… nothing.

******

The weather grew worse with every mile north. A blizzard raged above the cliffs, the storm’s fury only noticeable through the swaying of the train.

After days of waiting, the train passed through an airlock. Lex noticed only because the swaying stopped, and for the first time on the journey, the train moved smoothly. Soon after, the massive pressure doors of the train car slid open, and a squad of guards greeted him outside. He stepped down the stairs and found himself in a brightly lit cavern deep inside a mountain. Corporate workers in gray uniforms moved like machines behind computer desks, all wearing the same lifeless expression. Lex was surprised to find any corporate employees out here, in the farthest reaches of the prison moon.

The welcoming committee led him to a captain, who seemed to have been waiting for him.

"Follow me," the captain said.

The ground was slick like glass, overhead lights attached to metal rails, and above that, bare rock walls.

"What is this place?"

The captain didn’t answer.

Everyone was absorbed in their work, as if even glancing up or taking a breath would throw everything off schedule. As Lex walked by, he caught sight of a monitor displaying footage from a camera outside the airlock. It was nighttime, and a massive snowstorm raged outside. A radio tower stood buried in snow, gusts whipping across the screen in fast, fierce waves.

The captain used a terminal to unlock a rusted iron gate. Behind it, tracks ran down an endless-looking mine shaft.

"Am I supposed to go in there?" Lex asked.

"Just keep going straight," the man said as he pushed the gate open. "It’s a long walk, but eventually, you’ll come to a door on your left. Check in there. They’ll explain everything you need to know."

Lex stared down into the dark shaft.

"Sir?"

"Yeah?"

"What’s waiting for me down there?"

The man’s blue eyes gleamed coldly as he looked at Lex. "Hard labor," he said. "Until you drop."

Lex walked hunched over, following the tracks. Every now and then, when he wasn’t paying attention, he’d hit his head on a ceiling beam. Bare light bulbs hung from the support columns, casting long shadows on the damp stone walls. Black cables snaked along the ceiling. Sometimes the tunnel narrowed; sometimes the ceiling got even lower. But there was still no sign of a door. He’d been walking so long that he started wondering if he’d missed it.

Leaning against the cave wall, he took a quick break, watching his breath fade into the steady draft that pulled him further down. After a moment, he kept moving, wondering now if this was already exile—if there was no door at all. Maybe this endless march into the depths was the punishment the corporation had dreamed up for him.

The direct path into hell.