Page 25
“So why send them this way?” Shirly had to yell over the clamor of voices. She pulled Juliette to the other side of the generator, away from all the shouting.
“The air is coming down the stairwell,” Juliette said. “There’s no stopping it. I’m going to seal off the dig. ”
Shirly chewed on this. “Take down the supports?”
“Not quite. The charges you wanted rigged up—”
Shirly’s face hardened. “Those charges are rigged from the other side. I rigged them to seal off this side, to seal off this silo, to protect us from the air over here. ”
“Well, now all we have is the air over here. ” Juliette passed Shirly the radio, which was all she’d taken from her home. Shirly cradled it in her arms. She balanced it atop her torch, which bloomed against Juliette’s chest. In the light that spilled back, Juliette could see a mask of confusion on her poor friend’s face. “Watch over everyone,” Juliette told her. “Solo and the kids—” She eyed the generator. “The farms here are salvageable. And the air—”
“You’re not going to—” Shirly started.
“I’ll make sure the last of them get through. There were a few dozen behind me. Maybe another hundred. ” Juliette grasped her old friend’s arms. She wondered if they were still friends. She wondered if there was still that bond between them. She turned to go.
“No. ”
Shirly grabbed Juliette’s arm, the radio falling and clattering to the floor. Juliette tried to yank free.
“I’ll be damned,” Shirly shouted. She spun Juliette around. “I’ll be goddamned if you’re leaving me to this, in charge of this. I’ll be goddamned—”
There were cries somewhere, from a child or an adult, it was impossible to tell. Just a cacophony of confused and terrified voices echoing in the packed confines of that great steel machine. And in the darkness, Juliette couldn’t see the blow coming, couldn’t see Shirly’s fist. She just felt it on her jaw, marveled at the bright flash of light in the pitch black, and then remembered nothing for a while.
••••
She came to moments or minutes later – it was impossible to tell. Curled up on the steel deck of the digger, the voices around her subdued and far away, she lay still while her face throbbed.
Fewer people. Just the ones who’d made it, and they were moving on through the bowels of the digger. She had been out for a minute or two, it seemed. Maybe longer. Much longer. Someone called her name, was looking for her in the black, but she was invisible curled up on the far side of the generator in the shadow of shadows. Someone called her name.
And then a great boom in the distance. It was like a sheet of three-inch steel falling and banging next to her head. A great rumble in the earth, a tremor felt right through the digger, and Juliette knew. Shirly had gone to the control room and had taken her place. She had set off the charges meant to protect her old home from this new one. She had doomed herself with the others.
Juliette wept. Someone called her name, and Juliette realized it was coming from the radio near her head. She reached for it numbly, her senses scrambled. It was Lukas.
“Luke,” she whispered, squeezing the transmit button. His voice meant he was outside the steel locker, the airtight pantry full of food. She thought of Solo surviving for decades on those cans. Lukas could too, if anyone could. “Get back inside,” she said, sobbing. “Seal yourself off. ” She cradled the radio in both hands and remained curled up on the deck.
“I can’t,” Lukas said. There was coughing, an agonizing wheeze. “I had to … had to hear your voice. One last time. ” The next bout of coughing could be felt in Juliette’s own chest, which was full to bursting. “I’m done, Jules. I’m done …”
“No. ” She cried this to herself, and then squeezed the radio. “Lukas, you get inside that pantry right now. Lock it and hold on. Just hold on—”
She listened to him cough and struggle to find his voice. When it came, it was a rattle. “Can’t. This is it. This is it. I love you, Jules. I love you …”
The last was a whisper, barely more than static. Juliette wept and slapped the floor and screamed at him. She cursed him. She cursed herself. And through the open door of the digger, a cloud of dust billowed in on a cool breeze, and Juliette could taste it on her tongue, on her lips. It was the dry chalk of crushed rock, the remnants of Shirly’s blast far down the tunnel, the taste of everything she had ever known … dead.
Part III ~ Home
Silo 1
36
Charlotte leaned away from the radio, stunned. She stared at the crackling speaker, listened to the hiss of static, and played the scene over and over in her head. An open door, toxic air leaking in, people dying, a stampede, a silo gone. A silo her brother had labored to save was gone.
Her hand trembled as she reached for the dial. Flipping through channels, she heard other voices from other silos, little snippets of conversation and silence with no context, proof that elsewhere, life continued apace:
“—second time this month this has happened. You let Carol know—”
“—if you’ll hold it for me until I get there, I’d sure appre—”
“…”
“—roger that. We have her in custody now—”
Bouts of static between these conversations held the place of silos full of dead air. Silos full of the dead.
Charlotte dialed back to 18. The repeaters were still working up and down that silo; she could tell from the hiss. She listened for that voice to return, the woman calling for everyone to head to the bottom levels. Charlotte had heard someone say her name. It was strange to think she’d heard the voice of this woman her brother was obsessed with, this rogue mayor as he called her, this cleaner-come-home.
It could’ve been someone else, but Charlotte didn’t think so. Those were commands from someone in charge. She imagined a woman huddling down in the depths of a distant silo, someplace dark and lonely, and felt a sudden kinship. What she wouldn’t give to be able to transmit rather than just listen, some way to reach out.
Leaning forward, she rubbed the side of the radio where the mic would wire up. It was suspicious that her brother saved this part for last. Almost as if he didn’t trust her not to speak with someone. Almost as if he wanted her simply to listen. Or maybe it was himself he was worried about. Perhaps he didn’t trust what he would do if he could broadcast his thoughts over the air. This wasn’t the heads of the silos listening in, this was anyone with a radio.
Charlotte patted her chest and felt for the ID he had given her, and images flashed before her of a boot rising and falling, of a wall and a floor spotted with blood. In the end, he hadn’t been given a chance. But she had to do something. She couldn’t sit there listening to static forever, listening to people die. Donny said her ID would work the elevators. The urge to take action was overpowering.
She powered the radio down and covered it with the sheet of plastic. She arranged the chair so it appeared undisturbed and studied the drone control room for signs of habitation. Back at her bunk, she opened her trunk and studied the outfits. She chose reactor red. It fitted her more loosely than the others. Pulling it out, she inspected the name patch. Stan. She could be a Stan.
She got dressed and went to the storeroom. There was plenty of grease to be had from the disassembled drone. She collected some on her palm, searched one of the supply bins for a cap, and went to the bathroom. The men’s room. Charlotte used to enjoy putting on make-up. That seemed like a different lifetime, a different person. She remembered moving from playing video games to trying to be pretty, shading her cheeks so they didn’t look so chubby. This was before basic training made her lean and hard for a brief time. It was before two tours of duty helped her to regain her natural body, get used to that body, accept it, even love it.
She used the grease to deaccentuate her cheekbones. A little on her eyebrows made them appear fuller. A foul-tasting