Mina Stokely Eternity

Screams echo mutely through the grey concrete fog, the high pitched noises punctuated by the bass roar of the earth’s movements. Mina presses through the throng of shocked bystanders coughing as their bodies reject the stone in the air. They need help, but others can direct them to safety, and it is not long before she hears Fatima’s voice yelling orders at them behind her. What the former Enforcer lacks in bedside manner she more than makes up for in her ability to get people to move.

Mina comes to the mouth of the collapsed tunnel. There is an opening just large enough for her, despite the bulky rescue suit. She pauses a moment, looking into the blackness of the crevice in the mountain of precariously balanced rock. She remembers being trapped. So many times. She knows she can’t leave Betty trapped there.

She presses herself between the rocks. Jagged teeth sundered from the earth by the explosion tear at her, painful despite the thick padding she wears. It's hot, the nearby flames having scorched the air and the ventilation being too damaged to offer any reprieve.

“Help!”

Mina hears the cry. The trapped woman was close, yet with the air so choked with dust she would have been easily missed. Mina scrambles down into the cavity around the trapped woman. She seems to have taken an injury from falling debris, evidenced by the bloody stain in the back of her dress, and her leg is trapped beneath a boulder.

“It's alright, Betty,” Mina reassures her. “We’re gonna get you out.”

She can only nod and sniffle in response.

Mina braces herself beside the fallen rock, beginning to take the weight. She heaves, breath quickly growing ragged with the exertion, but with a slow groan it begins to move. The woman desperately tries to pull herself free, but it is not yet loose enough.

Just a little more…

Crack.

Mina’s long abused prosthetic finally breaks under the load. As the rock begins to fall, and Betty shrieks as the weight once again crushes her leg, Mina throws herself under the boulder, taking it on her shoulders instead. She arrests its fall, and slowly, painstakingly, she forces it back up. Eventually Betty manages to struggle out from under it, but Mina is shaking with the effort of holding it by this point.

Betty’s leg is badly mauled, clearly unusable. That is ok though. Once upon a time it would have had to be amputated, but with modern medicine, really modern, as long as she is alive she can be fixed.

She turns back to Mina, still under the boulder. Terrified but still ready to wait for her rescuer.

“Go,” Mina grunts, shaking her head though she knows it can't be seen. “Can’t… say how the rocks might fall… when I let this one down.”

Betty nods, and begins crawling to safety, leaving Mina alone in the darkness, straining under the massive weight.

Slowly. She begins to crouch. There is no safe way to set it down, not with a broken hand. Soon fire is dancing across every muscle. One slip and everything could collapse around.

But she isn’t afraid.

It wouldn’t be the first time Mina has been buried.

It certainly won’t be the last.

Mina paces back and forth, around an empty classroom in Cubile. It's 6pm, school's out. She takes a piece of paper out her pocket. Folds in it well-creased, from reading it back so often. Her last memory of Edwin, who was there when she started it all. Who was the reason this all began. She folds the paper back up, and puts it away. It's normally kept on a shelf, at home, but this felt… fitting.

“You're early, I thought you said it started at 7?” Director Mirax is standing by the door. Mina checks her watch. 6:27. “I need to get everything right”, Mina replies, “It's… I've wanted this for so long, Mirax. What if no-one shows up?” “They will” “I hope you're right” “I know I am”, at this, Mirax takes a seat at the back of the room, as the door swings open again. Willow. He gives a shy smile as he enters, cane in hand. “I'm glad you could make it” Mina smiles, “take a seat, others are coming soon”.

More people begin to enter. Elias Shaw, taking the seat next to Mirax. Enforcer Fatima, a sceptical expression on her face. Ash Keifer, nervous, but committed. A robot, which would be grinning from ear to ear if Princess could make it. A ping comes from Mina's phone. An email. Jubilee Line sends his apologies. They haven't installed railroads in Cubile yet. More people enter, members of the previous fire department, Enforcers, citizens of Terminus, of the Republic, of the Underground, filling the compact classroom.

Mina takes her position at the front of the classroom. “Thank you all for taking the time to come here today. The Director, Mirax Caspian, has given me the opportunity to make the Fire Brigade official. To bring a force of good to the Underground. To keep the Underground alive. I was hoping you'd join me in this, I could use as many hands as I can get”

The meeting progresses. Mina finishes her speech. There are questions, answers, hope. For the Underground and its people. For the future.

After the meeting, people file out. Mina thanks each and every one of them for turning up. Eventually, Mina is left in the room alone. She sighs, and begins to tidy up.

“That went well” She hadn't even heard the door open, nor the footsteps as the masked figure walked in. Mina looks up, meets his eyes, and takes his hands. “I thought you weren't coming”, she says. “I wasn't”

She looks down at the Firefly's hands, laced with her own. One flesh, one steel. The letter wasn't the only memento of Edwin, she realised. She stares down at her hand, remembering the past, then back up at Stanley. Into the future.

By Harry S.