“I think we need to hire another bartender.”

Alex frowned as she stood opposite Ryan at the bar, waiting while he mixed drinks. “You do?”

“Not, like, full-time. But yea, I do.” Ryan set two cocktails on the tray in front of him, before grabbing a pair of beer glasses and filling them from the taps. “You and I are really the only ones who bartend and wait on tables. If one of us takes the night off, then the other has to do the whole front of the house by themselves.”

She considered his reasoning. “Both of us being able to take off the same time wouldn’t suck,” she conceded. “Coordinating date nights is a pain in the ass.”

“Agreed. Does that mean you’re on board?”

“I guess so.”

“Ok. I’m gonna put out some feelers, see if anyone around town wants the extra work.” He set both beer glasses on the tray. “Can you bring this to table six? I’m gonna check the kitchen.”

“Sure thing.”

Alex took the drinks out to the table, dropping them off for a pair of couples. They thanked her politely and gave her their food orders, which she quickly put into the register. She was just finishing up when the door to the bar opened.

“Hey, Alex.”

She looked up, flashing a quick smile. “Hey Jessie. How’s things?”

“Good.” She took a seat on the nearby bar stool, setting down a purse as she sighed. “Been a long day.”

“I bet. Ryan’s in the back, I’ll go get him for you.”

“Actually,” Jessie interrupted as Alex was mid-turn, “I wanted to talk to you.”

“To me?” Alex frowned, turning back to face the blonde. “Why?”

“It’s a… personal thing. Can you take a break for a few minutes and sit?”

She raised an eyebrow. “If this is about something with you and Ryan, I really don’t want to get in the middle.”

“Alex, it’s-”

The door slammed open, startling both Jessie and Alex as Steph shoved her way inside, raising her arms in mock celebration. “Your girlfriend is here!” she announced happily. “Beer and burger me!”

“Jesus,” Alex breathed, hand on her chest. “What the hell? Why can’t you enter the bar like a normal human being?”

“Being normal is overrated. What’s up, Jessie?”

“Hey, Steph.” Jessie exhaled slowly. “Alex is right, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Even better.” Steph leaned on the counter, batting her eyelashes. “Where did we land on that burger?”

“In a minute.” Alex nodded at Jessie. “She’s trying to get me to referee between her and Ryan.”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “I don’t need a referee, thank you very much. And it’s not personal to me, It’s personal to you.”

“Now I’m really confused.”

She sighed. “It’s about the collapsed mine, Alex.”

Alex’s chest tightened as she stared at Jessie, blinking several times. Steph turned to face the engineer. “… the one her dad is buried in?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Ted and I are finalizing the plans with the demo team. But we wanted to talk to Alex about them before everything was official.” Jessie turned back to Alex. “Like I said, can you take a break for a few minutes?”

“… yea. Sure.”

“I don’t know how much sense these will make to you. They’re a little technical.”

Alex watched Jessie pull several pieces of paper stapled together from her purse, setting them on the table where both her and Steph could see. She briefly looked over them, but Jessie was right; it was a lot of technical information, though she did recognize what looked like the layout of the old mine. “Yea, this looks like a foreign language,” she admitted.

“That’s okay, I can simplify it for you.” Jessie cleared her throat and began pointing at various spots on the map. “The plan is to execute simultaneous detonations at key points in the mine. They’ll destroy any remaining supports as well as collapse the ceiling. At the same time, a series of demolition charges going down each of the three ventilation shafts will compromise the structural integrity, which will cause them to fall in on themselves.”

“So the whole thing just collapses?” Alex asked.

“That’s the idea. It’s what the demolition team calls an implosion.” She nodded. “There’ll be pits left over from the ventilation shafts, but our environmental protection people will work to fix those at a later date.”

Steph leaned forward onto her elbows. “When is this happening?”

“We’ve been approved to set off the charges this Friday at noon.”

The brunette blinked. “… this upcoming Friday?”

“Yes. The demolition people are prepping them right now.”

“… oh.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Steph shook her head. “Keep going.”

Jessie frowned, confused, but looked back at Alex. “The miners have also asked to hold a service for the people who died, since they never had a proper one.”

“Really?”

“Well, they might be a bunch of roughnecks, but miners are a sentimental lot. Given the danger of the job and the number of hours spent in close proximity, it’s more of a brotherhood than you’d think.” Jessie sat back upright. “Of course, we’re extending the invite to anyone who wishes to attend. I assume that you want to be there?”

Alex nodded. “What about the families of the other miners?”

A blue aura washed over Jessie, as she sighed heavily. “… we reached out, but nobody else is really interested or able to come.”

Steph furrowed her brow. “Are you serious? How is nobody else going to be there?”

“Well, when we started trying to find families, we actually discovered that one of the dead miners was working under a stolen social security number. So we don’t even know who he really is.” Jessie shrugged. “Of the other seven, two were men who no longer have any living relatives. Others had, for one reason or another, alienated their family. One had actually spent fifteen years in prison for armed robbery.”

“So it’s just me? No other family members are coming?” Alex asked.

Jessie shook her head. “Only two other miners had family members interested in attending. One is the brother of Hector Garcia, but he’s currently deployed to the Middle East. The other, Joseph Kowalski’s mother, is in a nursing home in Florida and unable to travel.”

“That sucks.”

“It does.” Jessie looked at her. “We’re going to leave flowers in the mine for them, before we demolish it. If you’d like, you can place some for your father.”

Alex nodded silently.

“I’ll get the details from Ted for you.” Jessie closed the paperwork, taking it back. “Do you have any other questions for us?”

“I guess not.”

“Okay. I’ll be in touch.”

Alex’s chest had felt tight for the whole drive up the mountain, before the pickup truck stopped in front of the open gates later that week. She found herself staring at the opening to the mine and unable to move.

“Babe?” Steph squeezed her hand from the seat beside her. “You okay?”

“… yea.”

“Are you sure?”

Alex glanced at her. “Last time I was here…”

“… right. Jed.” Steph moved her hand to Alex’s back, rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. “It’s okay, babe. Everything’s okay.”

Ted looked over his shoulder as he turned the truck off. “Do you guys need a minute?”

Alex took a slow breath. “No,” she muttered. “I’ll be fine.”

“All right.” Ted nodded at the entrance to the mine. “I have to give you a safety briefing before we go in. The demo charges and det cord have already been connected, and the mine is still a collapsing hazard, so you can’t walk too far. We marked a spot on the ground, an X in yellow spray paint; that’s the furthest you can go.”

“Got it.”

“Also, make sure you don’t touch any of the wires,” he added. “You won’t set the charges off, that can only be done by the control panel. But you might knock something loose and cause a detonation failure. If you touch one by accident, just let us know.”

She nodded. “Anything else?”

“Nope.” He opened the truck door. “This way.”

Alex followed him, clutching the flowers in her hands. She’d picked them up from Eleanor earlier that morning, the older woman refusing to let her pay for them. Steph walked behind her as they entered the work site.

A second white truck was also parked nearby. Two men and a woman wearing yellow reflective vests and helmets were standing near the truck bed, talking quietly as they conferred with paperwork on clipboards. But as soon as they saw them, they stopped and turned to watch, removing the helmets from their heads silently.

“Who are they?” Alex asked quietly as they walked past them.

“A couple of the demo team leads and the demo supervisor,” Ted replied just as softly. “They’re going to do one last security check after we leave.”

Alex nodded as they approached the fence, which she noticed had been chained shut with a heavy padlock. Ted unlocked it with a key from his pocket, pulling the gate open for her. “Right in there,” he pointed. “Like I said, don’t go past the X.”

“Sure.” Alex nodded. “Thanks.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Steph asked.

She shook her head. “I got it.”

Ignoring the butterflies in her stomach, and the anxiety from the memory of dragging herself out of the mine five months prior, Alex stepped through the fence and took slow steps forward. It wasn’t long before she saw the X they’d spray-painted on the ground, just inside the entrance.

And the eight identical flowers that had been placed on the ground. The wires Ted had mentioned ran on either side of her, and she was careful to give them a wide berth as walked, eventually stopping on the X.

… hey, Dad.

She dropped her gaze, trying not to look into the deeper, darker part of the mine. She knew the area that had collapsed and buried her father was much further in, but it was still hard for her to make any sort of eye contact.

I’ve thought a lot about what I would say if I ever found you again. I know Gabe never stopped looking, so he could apologize for how he acted when we were younger. I know he felt like shit about it.

I wish I could’ve helped you guys more.

I know it was a kid. I know it wasn’t my responsibility. But… fuck. I still wish I’d done more.

I’m sorry you felt like leaving us was the only choice you had.

She tightened her grip on the flowers.

Did you ever intend to come back?

Did you ever regret leaving us to fend for ourselves?

… fuck. I really wish you could answer me.

I think I’m still mad at you. A little, anyway. We could’ve figured stuff out after you lost your job, you could’ve stayed in Oregon, you could’ve…

I don’t know.

But you didn’t deserve for fucking Jed to abandon you down here. Alex quickly glanced at the other flowers. If it’s any consolation, he’s paying for it now.

I hope you and Gabe found each other, wherever you guys wound up after all this. And that you guys made peace with one another.

And that Mom forgives you both, and doesn’t strangle you guys for fighting after she died. God knows she could hold a grudge.

She sighed, kneeling and placing the flowers on the ground in front of her. Then she reached into her pocket, producing her mother’s locket. She studied it, rubbing her thumb over the metal.

I think this means more to you than it does to me.

Alex set it beside the flowers, then stood back up. She took one last look before she turned around and started walking back.

The memorial was being held at SubTerra’s other site, just outside of the blasting zone.

Dozens of cars were parked in the makeshift dirt lot as they pulled up, and a crowd of what looked like a couple hundred was gathered. Alex let Ted and Steph lead them to the front, passing through the crowd of miners. As well as several of the town’s citizens; they walked around Eleanor, Riley, Duckie, Charlotte, Ethan, and Pike. All of them nodded at her as she took her place near the front, beside Jessie and Ryan.

A pastor cleared his throat as the crowd quieted down, opening a bible in his hands.

“He hews out channels through the rocks, and his eye sees anything precious. He sinks a shaft far from habitation, forgotten by the foot, they hang and swing to and fro far from men.”

He looked up at the crowd. “Eleven years ago, nine men began their day, as they worked, in darkness. In coveralls and hard-toe boots, a hardhat over their heads. the fruits of their labor, what so often we take for granted: the electricity that lights up our church or our home, our school, our office, the energy that powers the world. And most days they’d emerge from the dark mine, squinting at the light. Most days, they’d emerge, sweaty and dirty. Most days, they’d come home.”

He paused. “But not that day.”

Alex heard several people behind her sniffle.

“These men, these husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, nephews, they did not take on their job unaware of the perils. But they left for the mines anyway. All that hard work, all that hardship, all the time spent underground, it was all for the families. It was all for you.”

Steph’s hand found hers, squeezing it gently as she listened.

“We cannot bring back the nine men we lost. They are with the Lord now. Our task, here on Earth, is to remember them and mourn. To do better. And pray that such a tragedy might never befall us again. In the Lord’s name we pray, Amen.”

Several people behind them repeated ‘amen’ in hushed tones, as the pastor nodded at Ted. He un-clipped the radio from his belt and pushed the button. “Ops to Demo Super, clear to proceed,” he said in a quiet voice.

The radio beeped in response. “Demo Super copies.”

Alex looked at him as he twisted the volume knob. “Can we listen?” she asked.

He paused, then nodded, turning the sound back up as the radio continued broadcasting. “Demo Super to all team leads, pass a final Go or No-Go on your call sign. Shaft Three.”

“Go.”

“Shaft Two.”

“We’re a Go.”

“Shaft One.”

“Go for One.”

“Perimeter Two.”

“Go.”

“Perimeter One.”

“Go.”

“Safety One.”

“Safety One is a Go.”

“Entry One.”

“It’s a Go.”

“Copy. We are Go for demo at this time. All teams stand by.”

There was a brief pause, before the sirens around them slowly began blaring, the sounds cutting through Alex’s chest and gripping her heart tightly. Steph immediately pulled her closer, wrapping an arm around Alex’s shoulders as the blast warning emanated through the mountains.

“Demo Super to all call signs; fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole,” the radio chanted as the sirens began to stop. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

There was silence, at first. It lasted just long enough for Alex to wonder if something was wrong, before a loud explosion cracked through the air, startling her. A series of smaller explosions followed behind it, the blasts echoing around them.

Alex closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath, as the sounds slowly dissipated and the finality of what had just happened hit her. She swallowed, hard, determined not to cry in front of everyone.

… goodbye, Dad.