The Gravediggers of Orpheus [20]
A Sci-fi flash fiction
[20]
“Pssst, Cap! What the heck is this?!” Jimmy whispered.
Derek didn’t answer. He exchanged annoyed looks with Jimmy and the rest of the Gravedigger guys; that was not real food. Just some blob smeared on crisp-white plastic boards. Soundless bots moved gracefully around them, taking away, and bringing new boards with different coloured goo on them.
“I hope you’re enjoying our little molecular cuisine, Captain Derek?” The Rebel leader Nolan asked after a long pause of silence. Derek could barely swallow the so-called food - the disguising blob tasted like soap.
Derek cleared his throat. “Thank you for inviting us. I’m afraid me and my crew would have preferred an old-fashioned meal.”
The Gravediggers smiled at their Captain approvingly. Sophie supressed a chuckle, because Jerome turned red gritting his teeth; obviously nobody dared to slight the hospitality of Nolan. The latter, however, appeared to be happily amused.
“I have read your file, Captain. You were one of the best pilots on Orpheus! You had a bright future ahead of you, when you decided to devote your life to… digging graves,” a hint of ridicule glared through Nolan’s words.
“I believe it’s a noble mission. Especially in times of war. I…” Derek paused thinking, “we would gladly offer our services to the Rebels. All of the dead deserve a bit of dignity, whether it be a Ghoul or a Rebel.”
The Rebel officers stirred whispering to each other.
“Oh, you suggest we could use Gravediggers here?” Nolan gave a quiet laugh. “Oh no, Captain! We will give you a guided tour to demonstrate our ways of dealing with death, but not before the dinner is over. Let’s not spoil our appetite!”
***
A large white elevator took them down below the building. It wasn’t a dark basement, the large space reminded Derek of a lab, white and clean. A secluded cylindric space with windows marked its core. Nolan himself and Jerome, and some of the officers guided the tour.
“Look there, Captain! What do you see?”
Derek and the rest of his crew stared into the windows. At first it looked like a pile of organic trash or food leftovers, illuminated by a violet light. But after a couple of minutes Derek began to distinguish the silhouettes of human limbs, or even whole bodies lying on top of each other like a pile of dead meat. Derek pulled back from the window in horror.
“You see, Captain, we use death to our advantage. The rotting bodies produce gases, which we convert into power. Each building has its own little power plant underneath it. Functionality above all - as we say here. Isn’t it grand? Death gives us power in every sense of the word,” Nolan said, his face beaming with pride. Captain Derek had seen many gruesome sights during his Gravedigger years, but this giant pile of rotting flesh dressed in a pure, white container surpassed all the massacre left by Ghouls.
I like the horrific twist about using gasses from rotting corpses, it does make sense if they are optimizing.
Concerning food, as they are so used to eating they would only mention the experience if it was noteworthy, so it must have been discomforting. Well written. Thank you, Kathrine Elaine.
Wow. The Rebel world is looking less appealing by the second.