Achilles found his rhythm in the deep mine, and he kept it.
He worked a section far enough in that no eyes reached it, and he mined the way the others mined, slow and careful, so that anyone glancing his way saw only a diligent worker earning his keep. But when the passages emptied and the churn of the Infinity rivers covered him, he stopped pretending. He laid his hands on the ore and took it whole, and THE Akashic Seed drank down another record, and his existence grew a little grander in the dark where nothing watched. Step by step. It was a good arrangement. He intended to keep it!
He was halfway through a vein when the commotion reached him.
