Squatting in the dark a mile underground, a feeble headlight her only illumination, Rene fiddled with a coffee can and double boiler. She leased time from a mining company to dig up cinnabar to smelt into mercury. The mining company needed mercury to extract gold, but mercury mining was illegal. Both the mercury and the vapor produced when refining it are deadly. In poor neighborhoods surrounding the mines, hundreds of backyard smelters used to cook cinnabar, but the mercury vapor tended to settle in low-lying areas. Due to mass kills of fish and birds, the authorities banned above-ground smelting, so Rene and her kind went deep underground, hoping to find a tunnel with at least a slight breeze and not too much water dripping from the ceiling.
Rene had plenty of fuel, but bunker oil must be warm in order to flow—otherwise, it’s a block of tar. The filthy and much cheaper cousin of diesel fuel, bunker oil is technically outlawed in most of the world yet remains in heavy use. It is the pitchy gunk left behind from gasoline distillation, sold in shady secondary markets. Disposal of the stuff is expensive, so refineries often give it to their employees with the agreement the gunk quietly disappears. This black market of low-grade fuel finds its way into the shipping industry, the tanks of long-haul trucks across Asia, and the furnaces and stovetops of the underclass.
Gentle heating was the key, using a double-boiler or copper coils of hot water. Heating the oil too fast released methane igniting the tar into searing globs of shrapnel. And there was almost no way to put out a bunker oil fire. It burns underwater, inside an airtight vessel, and no fire extinguisher can put it out. The fire just creeps deeper into the sludge.
Boiling water was the first step, which Rene achieved with wood chips in a coffee can. With the double boiler going, the sludge softened to the point it flowed, lighting a ringed burner of smudgy, orange fingers.
To extract the mercury, Rene put the cinnabar into two metal urns and packed on mud to hold them together. She put the muddy ball on the burner and left it for a day, feeding the coffee can wood chips to keep the water hot and the bunker oil liquid; careful to stay upwind as best she could.
The next day, once the ball of hardened clay cooled, Rene broke it open with a chisel. The sooty interiors of the containers sparkled under her headlamp. Rubbing her finger along the inside of the urns, she gradually milked the mercury from the soot. A pool of shiny liquid grew as she worked her way to the bottom of each container. In the end, she had a shot glass-worth of mercury. She poured it into a sandwich bag, packed up her supplies, and made for the elevator.
Above ground, mercury merchants hunkered near the exits, fingers and teeth blackened, the silvery liquid making them agitated and sometimes violent. Rene walked up to one, holding her bag of soupy metal. She poured it through his sieve onto a scale, her hand poised to receive her payment. The merchant put a few coins in her palm, emptying the contents of the sieve as well. Rene was surprised to see a metallic worm squirming over the coins, its eyes blinking against the light. Rene looked to the merchant as she tried to process what just happened, but he had already moved on to lessen his chances of being robbed.
The worm raised its head and squinted at her. Rene worried her exhaustion was making her hallucinate, so put the coins in her coat pocket and headed back to her dormitory, but stopped to buy a pancake sandwich stuffed with goat meat and squash. She put it in her pocket to eat once she was in the safety of her bunk.
Her cot was up seven flights of stairs, many of them rotted or gnawed through by vermin. Each floor of the dormitory was an open room filled with dozens of bunk beds. Each bunk was inside a cage with a tamper-proof lock that sealed the sleeper in for safety. In them, renters stored blankets, clothes, soap, and other low-value items. Being locked inside the bunk was reasonably safe since a sleeper would wake if someone tried to break in. Rene hung a drape around the inside for privacy, and so nobody could know where she was on her bunk. She intended to clean up with some wet-wipes and eat, but fell asleep as soon as she hit the mattress.
Rene dreamt she was in a luxury hotel with high ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and attendants scurrying everywhere. Flowers, food, and champagne-filled her room as did a gigantic feather bed with layers of plush covers. She lay on the bed, and it hugged her in a soft embrace. But then she felt a sharp pinch on her hip. She moved to ease it, but it kept on. Like a little needle piercing her skin over and over. She tried to squirm away from it but in so doing, woke herself, her dream melting into the reality of her caged bunk bed. Rene jumped up, afraid someone was attacking her in her sleep but quickly realized her drape was intact and undisturbed. She reached to her hip and felt something moving. She pulled her hand away, and a food wrapper from the previous day fell from her pocket, now empty with little holes nibbled through it. Then she heard a croak coming from her pocket. She instantly removed her coat, flinging it to the far end of the bunk. She heard another croak and saw movement within her rumpled jacket as a creature emerged. Only its snout appeared, sniffing about to muster any clues about the world beyond the coat. A bit of its head poked out as its eyes rolled around, assessing the bunk bed. It was as shiny as chromed steel with cone-shaped eyes like a gecko. Rene held very still, not sure what the creature might do. It crawled out her pocket, like a silver yam on four legs, still moving with caution. Rene realized the pain in her hip was the creature clawing to get free when she rolled onto it. The shimmering animal finally fixed both its eyes on Rene and tilted its head like a curious dog. It let out another croak, then a purr as it carefully made its way across the bed. Then it stopped and started flexing its body into the shape of a comma until finally, it passed a clear stone, followed by four more. Rene realized it was shitting and recoiled. Once completed, the creature walked toward Rene with a jaunty stride of relief. As it neared, she grabbed the coffee can and hit the little sparkling spud, producing a loud clang. She watched as the creature shook off the hit and continued toward her as she backed herself into the corner of her bunk. She eyed the lock that would release her but had to go through the little silver finger moving toward her. Pulled up into the corner as tight as she could, the imp touched her leg as Rene shuddered in fear until realizing it was nuzzling against her. The purring resumed, and Rene relaxed a bit, still nervous that the metallic critter might bite or stab her. In short order, she offered it her hand, and the creature happily climbed aboard, still nuzzling and purring. Rene touched it with her finger, surprised to find it warm, and stroked its back. It curled up in her hand, and they both fell asleep.
When she woke, she noticed the creature crawling around the bunk, exploring its new home. In her hand were four more clear stones which in her half-awake state, she realized meant she would never have to return to the mine. As she sat up, she saw dozens of them scattered across the bunk. The little chrome creature noticed her and wagged its tail as it continued its exploration.
Rene named the steely critter Shimmer, and it grew to the size of a French bulldog. It loved to sleep on her lap, eat pancake sandwiches, and shit diamonds.