Content warnings: Violence, death, racism, classism, mentions of sexual assault.
We called ‘em justice rocks.
For lack of a better term, mostly. They wasn’t no rocks. They was living.
Found one when I was mining for boss. He had a temper something foul that day, using those fancy taser sticks to burn our flesh when we moved too slow. It was dark like always, but something about that day felt darker. The tunnels narrower, the walls harder. And there it was, all rough and jagged and glowing beneath a pile of useless minerals. As soon as I touched it, the thing started to shake in my hand. Told boss, but when he came to look at it, the rock stopped glowing and played dead. Like it was scared of him. Boss beat the shit outta me for wasting his time.
Same night, we was all gathered in the sleeping quarters. I showed mom and pops ‘nem the rock, and it glowed like before, all pink and humming and vibrating. Devil’s rock, pops called it. Everyone else shrugged me off. I kept it, though, and when I was sleeping, the thing burned in my pocket. Hopped right outta my hand when I pulled it out, then started rolling away. What was I supposed to do? Ignore it? I followed it through the tunnels, up into the city where we stayed when we weren’t on mining shifts. It was a beautiful city, so dim with towering skyscrapers and neon lights and canals and a sky of bright stars. Pops used to say they made the city pretty to keep us complacent. Back then I ain’t know who “they” was, or what it meant to be anything but complacent.
Anyway, the justice rock led me to a spot I never been to before. A lake right at the outskirts. We used to avoid it, ‘cause it was supposedly toxic. Supposedly. The rock jumped into the water, so I did the same. It ain’t disintegrate or nothin’, so I figured I’d be fine, too. Besides, I been through too much to be scared of a damn lake. I swam after the rock, which shuffled through a tunnel. Easy to keep up ‘cause the water was crystal clear and the rock glowed all pink like a beacon. Just when I was about ready to choke and drown down there, I broke the surface. All around me was a funnel of steep, wet rocks with footholds, so I climbed up toward some sort of brightness. Know what I saw when I reached the rim, for the first time in my life? Sunlight.
Oh, yeah. Didn’t know the sun existed. Most of us didn’t, ‘cause of the—well, guess I gotta run it back for you.
Long ass time ago, the world got a taste of utopia. Technological advances, artificial intelligence—they ended the suffering of humans ‘round the world. I mean, everybody was living good for hundreds of years. People was practically immortal, well-fed and wanting for nothing. Some shit happened, though. Pollution and waste stripped away some of the ozone layer, and that paired with space contamination turned the sun into this spiteful, ravaging thing. It would flare up, and all technology would shut down for hours or days or even months. All-natural EMP, courtesy of the boiling gas ball in space.
And you know there’s a saying? Something ‘bout history repeating itself. It’s meant to be a warning, but those fuckers at the top used it as a blueprint. No technology meant no labor, so they did what they did best: exploit. I’m talkin’ state-sanctioned enslavement of the poor. They did it before, only they reserved their cruelty for people with dark skin like mine. This time, though? Anyone with empty pockets was a target. Yeah, the way they saw it, they was just puttin’ all the undesireables in their place. They’d gotten used to utopia, and they weren’t gonna let it go. And so I was born in the mines, in that underground city where they bred us to be laborers.
So imagine my face when I saw sunlight for the first time. Shit hurt my eyes, but the tears was from something else. Something deep in me.
The rock funnel I’d climbed was in the middle of an ocean, and in the distance I saw an island with a white castle surrounded by sparkling buildings. There were boats on the water, too, with guns on their sides. I knew what a gun looked like; boss would use them sometimes on the ones who were extra lazy. That’s how my uncle died. Bullet to the head when his appendix ruptured and he couldn’t finish his mining shift. Ain’t want my head blown off, so I slid down into the funnel and back in the water.
Told mom and pops about the sun when I got back to the city, and about the big White Castle, and how I was sure the night sky hanging over our city was fake. That’s when they told me about how we’d been living as tools for a long time. They was acting weird, like they was scared. Told me I better not go back into the lake, and to forget what I saw. I said how the hell I’m supposed to forget magic rocks and flaming celestial bodies? Pops popped me on the mouth and said to take my ass to bed.
Next day, I found more justice rocks and snuck ‘em home. Kept them beside my bed at night. When you hold them just right, tap their sides in a rhythm they like, they purr and nuzzle up against you. And when they really take a liking to you, they… shed, sort of. Peel back layers of dark roughness, and underneath they shine purple and blue and silver. Sometimes they would talk to each other, scratching against one another to make squeaky noises, then jiggling as if in response.
Boss caught me smuggling some justice rocks outta the mine one day. Tried to tell him again they was special, but he just beat me. The justice rocks back home consoled me, quivered in a way to say: who did this to you? That night, they melded together, becoming one hulking figure half my height. I followed it from my room, through the city again, and into the lake on the outskirts. The justice rock swam through a different tunnel, much faster this time, but I kept up. Mom always said I got the feet of a swimmer.
When I resurfaced this time, I was in a different lake in a different city. Same look to the place: shadowy and bright with neon lights—this city’s lights were blue; mine were orange—and teeming with people who existed to work and do nothing else under the gaze of a fake sky. The people in this city appeared the same as the ones in mine—no distinct look to ‘em, just a collection of bodies in tattered clothes and dirt-stained skin. Standing at the bank of the lake was another boy like me, a big justice rock at his side. He told me his name, but I called him Blue, ‘cause his city was a blaze of sapphire. He joined me in the lake, and we followed our justice rocks through more underwater tunnels. Few hours later and we was a group of twelve, all from different cities with different colors and all partnered with our own rocks. They had the same story as me: found their rock while working for their boss. They’d all been to the surface, too, and saw the White Castle. We decided to gather again in two weeks. ‘Til then, we would ask around, try to figure out more about how this world worked.
Me and Blue met every night, though. Mostly ‘cause we was bored, but also ‘cause he said I had a pretty face, and the only other person that ever called me pretty was boss. But when Blue said it, it ain’t sound like a threat. Our justice rocks would nip at each other while we talked about how much we hated our boss or swam in each other’s lakes with synchronized strokes or played marbles or kissed each other like we saw our parents do. And when Blue was really excited, he would spread his arms wide and roar into the artificial night sky like the creatures his mom and pops would tell him about. Dragons, he called them.
When two weeks passed, all of us gathered and pieced together information we got from parents or friends or aunts or not-uncle-uncles. Yellow said the people in the White Castle were the ones who run everything. Purple figured there was dozens of cities underwater, all used for mining minerals for the White Castle. Mint discovered there was cities in the sky, too—the real sky, far above the water’s surface—where people mined the clouds, which were apparently dense and solid and packed with materials that generated energy. We ain’t really believe Mint, ‘til she brought us to the surface and we climbed the rock funnel and saw all the bridges connecting the clouds. Shit was creepy, mostly ‘cause I ain’t never seen no cloud before. When we angled our necks just right we got a glimpse of the people up there striking clouds with pickaxes. Ain’t look much different from us, so we decided then and there we’d help them, too.
But it was Green who really turned things around for us. He was summoned to his boss’ study one day. We ain’t ask why; we all been there before. His boss—fucker was a heavy drinker—told Green that he come from the White Castle, and that it’s the sole place where the powerful reside. Green kept talking all fast, almost shaking outta his skin, telling us there were two hundred million people living on that island. And just like that, we had a target. Knew what needed to be done. Take out the Castle, we save our asses. We agreed to meet the next week and disbanded.
When I got back to my city, a bunch of people who wore suits like boss stood on the lake’s bank. After beating the clothes off my back, they threw me in a truck with a blindfold over my eyes. Think I passed out, ‘cause next thing I remember is being tied to a chair in a dark room with boss staring at me. He asked what I was doing in the lake, I told him swimming. He asked where I swam to, I said nowhere, do I look like a fish? Then he asked about my justice rock.
Told him it ain’t really a rock, but when he brought my justice rock out, it ain’t move an inch. No glowing, no purring, no shuffling, nothing. Boss told me it’s impossible to swim with something so heavy, so I said again that it swam by itself ‘cause it’s alive. Didn’t realize he was recording me ‘til he went to the corner, turned the camera off, and beat me so bad the chair I was tied to broke. He said I had the devil in me, and that’s why I could carry the rock in the water. Said my people were born strong but dumb, then sent me home.
On my way out, I saw them smash my justice rock to dust.
They started watching me after that. Couldn’t get to the lake, or see Blue and the others. I still smuggled justice rocks from the mines when I could. Couple months passed and my room was full of ’em. They still glowed pink when I walked in the door, and some jumped and revealed their pretty insides when I held them against my chest.
One night I was crying. Told my justice rocks all about the one that was destroyed before my eyes. Told them how it used to be a bunch of justice rocks that melded into one, and how it was turned from one into millions of dusty flakes.
They didn’t like that. I ain’t never seen them buzz that way. Like they was angry. Right in front of me, they melted into one, taller than me, oblong and pulsing and somehow shifting like they weren’t solid. And they—it—engulfed me, wrapped around me like clothes, and suddenly I felt like they were part of me, a second skin on top of my own. We burst from my room, breaking the door down, and through the city with its hard edges and manipulated skies. We started flying then, high above everything. Almost shit my pants.
When we were above the lake, we dove in. I ain’t have time to hold my breath, but we were going so fast we were through the tunnels and in Blue’s city before I knew it. Blue was there, with the others, and they screeched when we landed on the bank. They all had dozens of rocks at their feet, and my justice rock fell from my body, thudding to the ground. Blue and Mint and Purple and Yellow and Cream ‘nem hugged me, fussin’ over my bruises and asking where I been. Said I got caught, but ain’t budge about our plan.
They was catching me up on everything they learned since I last saw ‘em—the White Castle used to be a thing called America, and there are other things called ‘countries’ and they been doing this thing called ‘war’ with the White Castle to try to free all the people the Castle was enslaving—when my justice rocks clanked against the others’ justice rocks. I knew from the squeaky franticness that my rock was telling their rocks about the one that died, crushed to dust. Its voice—high-pitched, panicky—was furious, echoing across the lake in vengeful determination. Then all the justice rocks—must’ve been hundreds between the twelve of us—started swirling together, linking and fusing into each other, and suddenly there was a creature in front of us.
The justice rock was big—I’m talkin’ thirty or forty feet. Least, it seemed that way when it towered above us, grinding and cracking and shaping into something. It stayed that way for minutes, just moving, ‘til Blue said he thought it looked like a dragon. And then it became one. Right there, it grew a maw and wings and talons and scales, and it shed again, becoming deep violet and piercing blue and spitting red. Pretty as shit, our justice rock-dragon.
Voices shouted behind us, and people who looked like boss came running toward us, so we hopped onto the justice dragon, and it flew up without flapping its wings ‘cause justice rocks ain’t never abided by aerodynamics anyway. Up and up we went, straight for the night sky, ‘til I remembered that it wasn’t no real sky, and I got scared and shouted for justice dragon to stop, but it kept going.
Its wings folded over the twelve of us right before it smashed into the fake sky. There was shaking and tumbling and wetness and we all yelled. Then there was sunlight, and when justice dragon’s wings unfolded we were above the water, frothy waves spraying around us and wind tugging us every which way. Looking down, I saw a gaping hole in the ocean with water rushing in. I got scared for a second—all our families were down there—but justice dragon shed a wing, and it dropped into the water, plugging the hole completely.
Gunshots echoed everywhere, and those fuckers on the boats started shooting at us. Justice dragon was fast, though. Flew at them all, tore the boats in half, roaring like gravel scraping concrete. Then it turned on the White Castle, which was so high it almost touched the bridges connecting the clouds. More guns were mounted on its walls, and it had machines that looked like people floating around it. But right before I could let fear race down my spine, the sun did a little growl; it flared like someone poured rum all over it, and the Castle’s guns all dropped like sad little tears and the machines all plopped into the water.
I smiled at the sun in thanks. Justice dragon-gas ball solidarity done saved the day.
We advanced on the White Castle then. Millions of people were gathered on the island’s white streets. Freaked me out, seeing people with dirtless skin, untorn clothes. They stared in horror, and for a second I almost told justice dragon to stand down. But I knew, somehow: they looked into the sky every day and saw laborers working themselves to death. They knew we was underground, mining resources. They ain’t give a shit about me or mine, so I wouldn’t give a shit about them.
So I roared with justice dragon, and Blue roared too, and all twelve of us was like something coming outta hell, dripping with retribution.
It was over in an hour. The White Castle was in pieces, its residents dealt with. Everything’s all fuzzy in my head, but I remember justice dragon still intact, still shining in iridescence. It spared the innocent ones; still ain’t sure how, but it could tell the evil from the begrudgingly complicit.
From the ocean, more dragons emerged, carrying people from the underground cities. We stood there for days while the dragons gathered us all on the island and disposed of those who lived off our labor. The dragons even saved the people from the clouds, too. And when we was all there, and mom and pops were lookin’ at me like I grew two heads, the justice dragons came together, hundreds of ‘em, all glowing pink and pretty. They bowed their heads and ruffled hard wings, then looked at us expectantly, as if to say: now what?
So we built. We swallowed sunlight and enjoyed what the world had to offer. We got drunk and danced and made schools and hospitals and we fucked and kissed and learned how to do this thing called living. Damn good time. And we talked with those entities called ‘countries.’ Told ‘em to leave us the hell alone or we’d sic our dragons on ‘em. Best thing is the justice dragons can sniff ill will like dogs with bad blood. They ain’t nice to bad people, and they been dealing with those who try to ruin this home we’ve built. You seen ‘em, flying over our heads, daring someone to test their patience.
Thing is we still ain’t got a clue where they come from. Why they protect us. Lots of folk say they were trapped underground for centuries, and we just happened to find them all those years ago. Right place at the right time. Others say we got magic in us, and we made the rocks the way they are. You heard all the theories: that they’re aliens or advanced technology or spawns of another world. Truth is, it don’t matter. Not one bit. ‘Cause you know, don’t you? That your own justice rocks got the biggest hearts you ever seen, and that’s all that counts.
Yeah, we got it good now. Every year we still gather to mourn my first justice rock. Mama ain’t raise no baby, but I still cry every time. Sometimes I meet up with Blue and Yellow and Mint and Red ‘nem and we laugh at how gray our hair is or how wrinkly we all look. Then we grab our justice dragons and fly out over the water. ‘Til this day I still don’t take the sun for granted.
And I just know that while we ride along the waves, sparkling and full of something unplaceable, the sun smiles at us, too.
