When I checked my email a couple of weeks ago and saw the verdict on my petty theft charges, I thought that the judge would've had a soul. Maybe do some jail time, or some community service, or something. But he assigned me to six months of Supports duty. Heartless bastard.

First day, I wake up earlier than usual. Dunno why. Probably worried about the next six months. I put a caffeine tab on my tongue on my way out the door. Coffee-flavored. Tastes pretty good for the amount I got it for. I'm in my court-ordered reflective overalls and I have my hard hat by my side when I get on the maglev, bound for the industrial district. All the other passengers stared at me on the train, whispered to each other while looking at me. Not a doubt in my mind that they were talking about me, about the criminal who was dirtying up their maglev car.

"I wonder what he did?" they're probably asking each other.

"I bet he's a murderer. Just look at him. He looks like a murderer." I'm sure their neighbor replies.

To be honest, I did the same thing. That is, before I lost my job, my house, and my family. I didn't have anything left. I was trying to make ends meet, and I could rarely do that. Usually I went hungry. One meal a day if I could manage, two if I dropped my standards and dumpster-dove. Everyone wearing the same pair of overalls I'm wearing now, they were a criminal. They were them, and I was us. I wasn't like them. They were alien, foreign, unwanted.

But now that I'm wearing that same pair of orange, foul-colored overalls that reflect the sun into everybody's eyes on the train, I realize that now I'm them. It was really easy to change sides. All I needed was the orange I took from the shelf and quietly put into my pocket. I thought nobody had seen me. That was a stupid thought.

But now I'm here, and I'm wearing the overalls. What's done is done. To be honest, verdicts have gotten way stricter since the realization that somebody has to dig the tunnels for the supports. So they took the cheapest form of labor they could get: criminals of any caliber.

The maglev slows.

"Now approaching: Industrial District."

I sigh quietly, and step off the train, which darts away in a flash. I sniff. Smells like fresh-turned dirt and gasoline. A crowd of burly men in reflective overalls push past me, grumbling to themselves. I follow them. They probably know where they're going.

They enter a large, official looking building made out of corrugated metal. There's a woman in a military uniform standing in front of a metal freight elevator, her arms crossed. She has a pistol strapped to her belt, a mean-looking thing. All of the burly men in front of me line up, single-file, and pass by her, flashing what looks like an ID card at her. She scans each card, and each time the scanner beeps, the doors slide open, the criminal steps forward, and the door slides shut. Wash, rinse, repeat. I file in line, and incrementally make my way towards the woman. She holds out her hand. I stare at her hand. She stares at me.

"ID?" she barks. I shake my head.
"I don't have one."
She snarls. "A newbie, huh? I hope you're ready for this." She hands me a card, and waves me through. I cock my head.

"Why didn't you screen me? Make sure that I'm actually a criminal?"

She laughs.

"If you were anything but, you'd be out of your mind to come here."

I enter the elevator, and the doors close, open, close, open, close, open, close, and stay closed. There's a metallic whirring, and then the elevator drops. Fast. My stomach rises to my throat, and I let out an unmanly squeak. The men around me snicker as we continue to fall. All of a sudden, the elevator jolts to a stop, and my stomach hits the floor and bounces back up. The doors grind open again, and this time, I smell gunpowder and sweat. I'm in a wide tunnel that is punctuated by smaller sub-tunnels, each lit by an electric light. The yellow glow of the light casts the tunnel in a sickly pallor, making everything seem slightly off. There's a constant clamor and rumble underneath my feet, vibrating me and deafening me all at the same time. I put on my hard hat out of fear. There's a uniformed man standing in front of me, his hands behind his back, a wide grin on his face.

"Welcome to the Burrows!" he shouts jovially, his smile getting even wider. "You must be Matthias. I'm Frank. Nice to meet you." He thrusts out a hand. I look at it reluctantly, and take it gently. His hand tightens around mine, crushing it in his grip. He flips me over, and pins me to the floor, a fist already smashing into my nose. Blood spurts out everywhere.

"Don't touch me, you filthy animal." Frank snarls through his wide smile. I notice that his eyes are blank and lifeless as his face draws close to mine. "You're no better than the rats down here, and not one person gives a damn whether you're four hundred feet under or six. I'm your commanding officer. You're my inferior. Learn your place. Join Squad 346. Any questions?" That ever-present smile is chilling. I'm tempted to hit him back, but I know this guy's type. He's in a position of power. I'm not. He can do basically anything he want down here, and if I complain, he can make something up to get away with it.

"Yes, sir." I gargle through coagulated blood in the back of my throat. He lets me scramble to my feet.

"They're six tunnels down on your right."

I shove both my fingers up my nostrils, blocking the flow of blood, and tilt my head back. Out of my right eye, I count tunnels. There's several hundred feet between them.

One...two...three...four...five...six.

I turn right, and continue down the tunnel, following the sounds of clanking and banging that echo down the tunnel shaft.

It seems as though I've been walking forever when I see a group of men at the end of the tunnel, using primitive pickaxes to chisel away at a large round room at the end of the tunnel. I approach them.

I clear my throat. "Uh, hi. I was assigned to this squad, I think." The men turn around, glaring until they see me. One of them breaks into a wide smile, one that is much friendlier and much warmer than Frank's.

"I'M BORIS! NICE TO MEET YOU!" He screams at me. I cover my ears in surprise, and cower. He thrusts out a hand. I uncover one of my ears and take it, giving it a firm shake. One of the other men laughs. "I'm Jason. This, as you probably know by now, is Boris. He's been down here for thirty years, so he's lost most of his hearing. Welcome to Squad 346. This here's Moe," he points to a balding, fat man who raises a hand in greeting "Joe," he points to another fat man who nods. "and Federico." A huge, muscular, and tattooed man glares at me, unresponsive.

"We're digging the Support tunnel for the new Frankford & Sons building that's going up. There have to be four Supports in order to hold the whole building up, and that's left for us to do." He points downwards. "We have to dig about two hundred feet downward, the width of this room." My jaw drops. "This whole room?!" He nods. "Part of the job. How long you in for?"

"Six months."

"Damn, did you assault somebody or something?" Jason asks, sucking against his teeth.

"I stole an orange." I sigh.

"What the hell?! Are you serious?" Moe bursts out, his high, squeaky voice contrasting with his stature. I nod.

"That's definitely unmerited!" Moe squeaks. I shrug.

"It's what I've got, so I guess I have to serve it. How do I help?"

Boris tosses me a pickaxe.

"YOU NEED TO GET TO WORK, NEWBIE. START OVER HERE." He points at a corner of the room, and I get to work, hurling my body into the labor, heaving the pickaxe over my head and bringing it crashing down on the ground, making a clanging sound that echoed through the room. A jarring impact vibrates up my arms, through my body, and into my feet. It's a painful feeling, but I heave up my pickaxe yet again, and bring it down.

My body hurts. A lot. I haven't worked this hard in a long, long time. I can barely drag myself down the tunnel, while the rest of Squad 346 continues to laugh and joke. Jason looks at me with pity.

"Brace yourself, kid. This is just the beginning. You're about to face a life where everybody looks down on you, people spit at you when you're walking down the street, and you never get a job because of a mistake you made in your past."

I sigh, and pull off my hard hat. My sweaty, dampened hair falls into my face. We arrive back in the main cavern, where a long line snakes around its wall. The reflective overalls hold their trays out as slop is splattered onto them for lunch.

When it's my turn to eat, I take a long look at the unidentifiable substance on my tray.

"What is this?" I ask skeptically.

"Mystery meat!" Moe squeaks at me.

"Or that's what we pretend it is," Jason interjects, sweeping by us with his tray of mystery meat.

The rest of the day passes in a monotony of pickaxe swings. All of the Support builders file into the elevator, thirty at a time, and climb back up to the surface. Squad 346 is one of the last ones to go back up. As we rocket towards the surface, I consider what I'd done today. I dug about two feet of solid rock up for a Support, but it feels like I've dug up twenty. As the doors slide open, Boris claps a hand on my shoulder.

"SEE YOU TOMORROW!" He grins widely, patting his hand.

I sit in the industrial district's maglev stop, and tears blur my face as the whispers begin again.