Chapter One: Twenty-Three Percent

He shouldered his pack and jumped out of the excavator. Reason told him to return to the shelter. His feet were already moving toward the blue light. Mining children developed an instinct for energy readings. Abnormal meant danger, but it also meant opportunity. Opportunity never knocked on slum doors. You had to rush in before it exploded. Sand lashed his cheeks. Leon filtered his vision through his goggles and followed a collapsed rail into an old shaft. Most of the support beams had snapped. Crystallized slag covered the floor. The deeper he went, the faster his wrist comm screamed radiation warnings. Blue light rose from below. Then the ground collapsed.