Trickery of the mind I keep telling myself. I know what I've seen, making certain not to second judge my self in this bountiful yet however dangerous world. I'm in tundra wilderness, alone. No one is out there, man; the mountains are safe!
I feel slightly paranoid, a sense of familiarity with this man-creature I have been catching recent glimpses of, scampering away deeper into the mountain pass, where the shadows are more permanent. I swear he is trying to lure me deeper inland, away from my heavily built weather stations and observational posts near the coast. It could just be this freaking cold, or this damned cabin fever I've forever felt after two weeks of setting on this forbidding death-scape.
I originally had three others with me. They are long gone now, saying there was nothing else of worth since the Creep'an'Blow Co. strip mined the nearby caverns of all its iron and coal deposits.
I told my colleges there was bound to be more precious minerals, if only we could dig further, harder into the solid ice and stone. I couldn't allow our selves to stop work now, not with some bastard holding my family's throats at knife-point. I withheld that till the day I take my dying breathes over this journal. My mind is cracking, I can't quite hold it together out here, with no one to comfort me. Sealing windows, doors with furniture was a little extreme I admit. What I have done underneath the flooring of my cabin however, is far from ordinary.
To ease my mind and collect myself, let me harness my thoughts, remember how this could of happened to such a poor sod like myself, stupidly sobbing at my callous emotions, bringing death upon one of my dearest friends.
Our economy is a terrible world, destroying what little politics of peace we have left, donating it all to profit and global commercialism.
The Grand Crafter his called - that loathsome, greedy son of a pig. He controls the ores, the refineries, where we mine and who to mine it for. Where he points, we mine.
He owns but a small, yet terribly influential branch of business: Creep'an'Blow Co. - a renowned mining company that has managed to steal, sabotage its way to the highest rung in our worlds largest exports of minerals and anything else beneath the earth. If you want to build, you need to mine; if you need to mine, you've got to go through C'n'B. Pay with cash, or pay with what you can shovel. The latter is almost always the case, seeing how the company can boast any over absorbent price, swayed by a second feeding hand: the Cubic Bliss Federation, a cut-throat trading partner in land deeds and farmland sales. A perfect couple.
They had considered my idea, petitioning my request with the board to explore deeper into the uncharted tundra wastes of the upper icecaps of our planet. Charles, my lead engineer was with me all the way in my ideas. I was feeling terribly confident, even cocky, seeing as the Master Engineer of the company was absolute in his request in front of the advisory. Nothing like a good handful of diamonds to sway any mind. (Damningly, they did cost me an entire months wage. Prospects of this new untouched resource however, would surely make up for it, undoubtedly.) We left with the message we would be given confirmation within six hours.
We parted ways down a long t-junction in the metal corridor. Charles had said my idea was maddening, suicidal without profit. To hell with him I say. If this works, I'll be rich and finally move my family from the slums and coal works. No black smog anymore, a quiet, simpler part of the city would do better for all of us.
I bore my way down the corridor, towards the cafeteria. Steam which usually enveloped the foundry and most of the workshops had a distilled flare of intense heat, thickened with hydraulic oils and smog that made it hard to breath. In the cafeteria, it was a small oasis within a desert. Industrial air purifiers hummed in the domed ceiling while happy and carefree mine workers rambled to their friends and co-workers. My friend, Andy was sitting by his lonesome, as usual; propping himself against the table and the wall, swinging gently on two chair legs and talking to a canteen staff lady working the trays. He puffed on a terribly dog-ended cigar while laughing from the corner of his teeth with the girl.