Click here to listen to Inconvenienced by Truth by Steve Lowe as read by Robert Eccles
Inconvenienced By Truth
by Steve Lowe
Toby leaned against the handles of the homemade periscope and rotated 180 degrees from east to west. No sign of life on the surface save for the occasional scorpion. The thermometer mounted on the side of the scope registered 163 degrees Fahrenheit topside. Not many organisms left up there that were designed to exist in such a climate.
"She's another hot one today, my friend."
He shot a look at the Mite, but the scruffy young man simply sat slumped against a rock, sliding his wrists along the metal handcuffs that anchored him to the mountain.
Just like an animal. Always probing, always looking for some weakness or opening. A one-track mind, only focused on one thing. Survival.
Toby didn't know why he bothered to speak to the Mite. He grew more certain with each day that this feral child, likely in his late teens but trapped in the underdeveloped body of a ten-year old, didn't even speak or understand English.
Man craves companionship, even if that companion is savage.
"What I wouldn't give for some fresh ground coffee. Of course, on a day such as this, a hot cup of coffee wouldn't be very satisfying, I suppose." Toby turned from the scope and faced the Mite with a friendly smile. "Now, an ice cold beer would definitely hit the spot."
Toby ran out of beer months ago. That was a sad day. The whiskey was still plentiful, but Toby and whiskey were a dangerous combination. Not a good idea with so much daily work for one man to do. It was exceedingly difficult to service the solar arrays, scavenge for supplies, maintain the electrical units, among a dozen other tasks, when one is swimming in a drunken haze.
He crossed the room, little more than a cave within the bowels of the mountain, but made somewhat homey over time, and checked his instruments. With little else to do during the scorching heat of the day, simple tasks took on an air of grandeur and importance. The night was the time for fresh air and work on the surface. Then, the air temperature plummeted to around 80 degrees, making topside work tolerable.
Toby confirmed the status of the solar panels and typed in minor adjustments. He noted the output from the panels and double checked the storage batteries. They resided in a chest freezer that had taken him two months to lug down into the cave. Even hidden in the mountain, with the sun baking the rock for 18 hours a day, the temperature indoors regularly exceeded 90 degrees.
"You see," Toby told the Mite, "the storage batteries need to be kept nearer to 60 degrees to retain their capacity. That was always the toughest issue with the arrays out here in New Mexico: transferring the solar energy without losing half of it to dissipation. But I figured it out eventually. Too bad it ended up being too late."
The Mite looked up at Toby and he detected the slightest hint of recognition in the boy's eyes. A twinkle where there wasn't one before.
"Of course, you probably have no idea what New Mexico is anyway, not to mention solar arrays and battery capacity." He waited for a reaction, but the Mite simply stared, his head cocked slightly like a dog that picked out that one familiar word from a string a nonsensical human blathering.
"Do you have a name?"
No response. The Mite simply crouched on his haunches and watched Toby's mouth.
"How about Grover? You remind me of Grover from Sesame Street. Boy, I'm really dating myself here."
Grover wiped at his nose.
"Are you hungry? Were you here looking for food? Or are you a scout? Huh? Come for a little reconnaissance mission ahead of an attack? Are the rest of them coming tonight? … Do you understand any goddamn thing?"
Toby waved his hands and turned away from Grover. There was too much to do rather than waste time talking. The Mites likely had very little formal language as it was. Toby had observed them once before, moving as a pack, using visuals cues and unspoken commands to conduct their operations. He tried to imagine how they lived, on the other side of this once dormant but recently awakening volcanic field.
There were at least five volcanoes on the western side of the Albuquerque field. They made excellent respites for what few survivors were left. Fissures and cracks and cool, comfortable caves leading away from the ever intensifying sun. The Mites could come from any of them, but Toby had yet to actually figure out which they called home. By now, they likely had tunnels and passageways all through the area, and now they were closing in on him.
"You are as the others say."
Toby jumped at the sound of Grover's scratchy, guttural voice. He turned to face the boy, whose filthy body appeared as little more than a shadow against the glow of the work lights strung about the cave. Grover's wide eyes glittered in the halogen illumination.
"What'd you say?"
"The others. They were correct about you."
"Oh yeah?" Toby was still recovering from the shock of hearing Grover's voice. Clearly he knew nothing about these people. "What is it they say about me?"
"That you are weak."
Toby laughed, unnerved by this sudden change in mannerism from the Mite. "That's what your pals think of me, huh? That I'm weak."
"Yes. And because of your weakness, we now live as we do."
The boy's voice had a direct, piercing quality. The content of his comments added to the effect. Toby had not heard this familiar accusation in some time, but it stung the same now as it did then.
"I suppose this is all my fault, right? I am the cause of all the world's problems today?"
"Yes."
No beating around the bush with this kid. Toby pointed to the ceiling, toward the surface. "What do think all those solar panels out there were for, huh? Or the wind farms? Decorations? We did everything we could to reverse this, everything humanly possible."
"What you did was like a drop of water in a river. You did not do all you could."
Toby was stunned that he was having this conversation now, with this subhuman creature. After all this time, the same old arguments still reared their ugly heads. Only back then, it was he who said such things to the men who came before him. In the beginning, it was Toby who enjoyed the advantage of righteous indignation and the veil of innocence. But in the end, it all amounted to juvenile finger pointing. Whistling past the graveyard.
He thought of the inquiries that came, the Congressional hearings. The droughts and heat waves, the eventual breakdowns. The wars that came and went, Civil and otherwise. American cities turned into ghost towns or morgues. The scores of human corpses lying along the highways, shriveled in the heat to puckered husks.
The data that came later. The models that were adjusted, eventually leading to the truth that, like the ice ages before, this was nothing more than a curve on the cycle of this planet's life.
"We may have made mistakes early on, but it didn't even matter. None of it mattered. This was going to happen to us no matter what, global warming and ozone layers and ice caps be damned."
Grover sneered. "Ideas built upon a foundation of lies."
"You don't get it. This was as inevitable as the rise of the sun. This wasn't something we could stop. You can lay blame where you wish, but if there was anything more I could have done, I would have. But I am just one man."
"One man is innocent. The whole of men are guilty."
Toby had no response. He looked away to watch dust particles swirl in the glare of the work lights.
Grover scuttled forward until his chains pulled tight against the iron ring sunk into the ground. "What did you think we were? Animals? Savages? We live as we do because we have no choice. You once did have a choice. But no more. Now, you are like us."
"No. I'm not like you. I have no interest in any more confrontation. I lived a lifetime of confrontation and war. I only wish to be left alone. I only wish for peace."
"Then you are as foolish as we thought. Peace does not exist. It never did. This is the world now. We have adapted and you have not. You still wish to recapture some form of life you once had. You spend your days with these instruments, making your artificial sun and artificial air, but it's all for nothing."
"How did you learn about… the past? How do you know these things?"
"We study the past. We find what is left of your books and newspapers and we read and we learn. We search for all the ways you went wrong so that we may do the opposite. We are the rulers now. And we will come and you can do nothing to stop it. A familiar position for you to be in."
Toby stood and considered the boy for a moment. His façade of calm belied a torrent of acidic anger inside. Instinct screamed for him to lash out at the boy, to assert himself. But instinct had not served him well over the course of his life. What good would it do, to stand here and debate with this little beast something that Toby had only recently come to understand for himself? About as much good as it would do to strike him. Instead, he swallowed his anger and stalked over to the opening in the cave that led up toward the surface.
He paused at the entrance, noting a sudden change in the air.
It began as a rumor, a tension before the shock, like the mountain was girding itself for the temblor. A perceptible drop in pressure, a sucking removal of the ducted, cooler air brought up from deep underground. A whiff of rotten eggs just before the jolt. Stones and dust shook loose and showered down on them.
Grover looked at Toby with his wide, clear eyes. He was smarter than Toby expected, but a great many things appeared to remain foreign to this young man.
"Earthquake."
Grover looked on, fearful and uncomprehending.
"The Earth grinding against itself. Must not have come across that old National Geographic just yet, huh? Under all this rock, in the middle of this planet, are great pools of lava and molten earth. From time to time, it finds its way to the surface. Through orifices like the one we've chosen to hide in."
Grover stepped lightly and looked at the rocky floor under his bare feet.
"It's kind of ironic, really. To escape from the heat outside, we'll likely meet our end in a geyser of liquid fire."
Grover sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose at the scent.
"That's what you smell. It's sulfur. The smell of impending doom. You didn't think you could actually escape it, did you? You can't run from death. It always finds you. There is no accounting for it."
Toby turned and disappeared into the consuming dark of the tunnel.
* * *
Grover sat alone for a long time with nothing but his rattling chains and the occasional click and whir from the electronic console to break the silence.
He wondered if the man had left for good. Surely he was not stupid enough to venture topside, where the terrible sun would cook a man in minutes. The elders, those who survived the early days, spoke of the sensation of your blood beginning to boil inside your own veins. Stories to scare the young ones and keep them in line, but all who listened came away frightened from such tales.
Grover had studied the worn pages from the collected books in their home every day, the spines and bindings long since having fallen apart. He practiced rewriting them so the knowledge they contained would not be lost for future generations, but suitable materials were increasingly difficult to come by. There was only so much distance one could travel away from the mountain and still be able to return before the sun rose again to bake the world anew.
Resources were running short as their community expanded. And here, in the bowels of this mountain, this lone man had amassed a wealth of supplies, enough to sustain Grover and his people for many, many days, but horded for the use of just one. Grover yanked at his bonds and scratched at the rocks around the metal circle that tethered him to the ground.
The man returned at that moment, dirtied and streaked with sweat, a wild look in his eyes.
* * *
"You're free to go."
Grover blinked, showing no signs of comprehension. He massaged his wrists where the handcuffs had rubbed the skin raw. He took a hesitant step forward but kept his eyes fixed on Toby.
Go on, you little shit. Run back and tell the others.
Toby painted on his saddest face and spoke with dripping reticence. "Go ahead. You're free. I'm sorry I kept you here this long. You're right. It was all my fault. I don't wish to do you or your people any further harm."
Make sure you tell your pals all about this place. Bring 'em all back with you.
Grover backed up to the cave's entrance then turned and sprinted off toward the surface. Toby smiled.
"See you soon."
* * *
When they came, Toby was gone, tucked away in a hidden passage off the main tunnel, his escape hatch for just in case. He held a small television the size of his palm and watched the video feed from inside the cave as they swarmed in, only to find the rear opening that led deep inside the mountain sealed off. A Mite shuffled up and sniffed at the camera before moving on. At least two dozen of them scoured every inch of the cave, turning over tables and rooting through the coolers and benches and chests.
Toby crawled up through the tunnel until the gritty, arid night air hit his face like sandpaper. He carefully trudged down the rocky slope and turned back toward the cave entrance when he finally found solid footing that did not threaten to crumble beneath his feet. He held a hand to his eyes to shield against the stinging grit that swirled across the land. With his other hand, he removed the plunger from his pocket and thumbed off the safety.
The entombing blast sent a plume of rock and dust into the night sky. Toby heard this more than saw it as the bits showered down from the pitch black. 
A fresh sheen of dust washed over him and he laughed, a maniacal sound. He stifled his giggles and listened for any noise emitting from the closed portal, but he heard nothing but the even pump of blood in his ears.
"How do you like that, you ungrateful sons of bitches?" He kicked rocks and spat on the ground.
He stalked off into the darkness. His broad smile gradually dissipated the further he got from his lost home. He turned back to look at it again, the large, angry mountain little more than a faint cutout in the inky backdrop. The ground trembled beneath his feet and he sensed that it would awaken soon. But he would not be around to see it happen. He stumbled out into the desert until he could walk no more and flopped down on the cracked crust.
Toby sat, sweating and exhausted, in the vast, barren expanse. The eastern sky had just begun to turn pink, but already the temperature crept up. Heat like a lead blanket pressed down.
For the first time in a very long time, Toby welcomed the sun. As the punishing orb inched up over the stark horizon, he lay on his back. He opened his arms wide and closed his eyes and fell asleep to the swish of the sandy wind and the grumbling vibrations from within the Earth.