Waking up is never easy it seems . The panic , the fear and recriminations . Uncertainty at it ’ s all time high , you have to relearn everything you know in an instant . You learn to worry immediately about what you did to get here . Wherever here may be . It ’ s always a risk waking up . You might not like the answers you get back from yourself .
Tommy Allison did not like any of the answers he was receiving . He had attended a meeting with some union reps , arguing over benefits . He ’ d been taking pulls on his private flask that his assistant set up for him every morning . And now , he was here .
And here , was very , very dark . Either that or he ’ d gone blind from bad moonshine . It was shine that was in that flask . After all , he knew a guy .
Alright , don ’ t panic , Tommy said to himself . The best way to make a bad situation worse is to panic about it . First , assess your situation . Are you hurt ? He went through a mental checklist and found that , except for being sore , he wasn ’ t hurt . Where are you ? Well that was why he was sore . He had been laid out on a hard floor . Hard ? His hand reached out and fumbled across loose rock , dirt ... Those pricks ! They ’ d dumped him in one of the mines .
He was sure of it !
He sat up abruptly in the inky black . Those absolute bastards ! That was a low move even for those union thugs ! It was an idle mine too . No noise , no light . Well , they ’ d know just as well as he did which mines were idle at the moment . The union probably had just as much access as he did to the mining properties .
He was angrier than shit right now . They were playing hardball . Well , if those dipshits thought it was going to work on Tommy Allison , they had another thing coming . Tommy Allison wrote the book on hardball . You don ’ t go from red hat miner to being CEO of one of the largest mining firms in the country without the willingness to bury a few bodies .
Slowly , he got to his feet and began fumbling for some sense of directional familiarity , fuming the entire time . They probably thought they had a “ good reason for all of this .” It wasn ’ t his fault the negotiations on their damned pensions came so soon after the explosion after all , but he could bet they didn ’ t see it that way . The only reason he was negotiating was because of the explosion , and negotiating didn ’ t mean giving them everything they wanted . Why weren ’ t they willing to see his side ? He was going to have to close a whole damned mine out of “ respect for the families ’ loss .” It was a good seam too , he was suffering here !
He had found the cart rails with his foot , which meant he was close enough to the entrance . He might even be able to find a catwalk . It would be easy sailing after that if he could . Yeah , they forgot alright , forgot he used to work these mines himself 30 years ago , when he was a young dumbass , like the dumbasses that made up the penny ante union . Except he was never that much of a dumbass . He had known how to play ball . He had pushed hard for a mine wide vote , to make it a union free mine when he was working down in the hole . He told the other miners what he believed . It was stupid to part with hard cash to the union just to work . You made your money by the sweat of your own brow and it was stupid to be coerced into giving part of that money right up to the union . It sure made him popular with the mine owners , and he quickly climbed the ranks after that .
It would be a fuckton easier if he had a light , so he began to rummage around in his pockets . He had a mini-mag on his key chain and who knew what else . It was worth a look . A quick rummage yielded no wallet , no keys , two mints and a book of matches . The book revealed all four remaining matches and a scrap of paper tucked inside the pack , neither