Silo 49: Deep Dark

by Ann Christy

  Once the resolution had passed and the details hammered out, Marina had argued to the council that it would be better not to treat the treasures silo residents sacrificed to the reclamation poorly. She had argued that showing respect for what these things were and keeping them orderly so that the gift could be recorded was a key element to a successful reclamation.

  She selected one of the small boxes and opened it to find a simple silver ring inside. It had the smooth, worn look of a wedding band worn for a long time, perhaps generations. The slip of paper that provided information about the item so that it could be recorded was folded neatly beneath it. She pulled out the ring, weighed and then tested it for purity so that it could be sorted to the correct bin.

  Marina recorded the facts in the log book, with specifics on the weight and purity as well as the previous owner. She dropped it with a musical plink into one of the small bins arranged neatly along the back of the bench. It was an excellent quality ring and would bring a good yield of pure silver by weight.

  That was good and made for an auspicious start. That ring alone could provide a few dozen contact points for simple switches or enough silver to trace a couple of average sized boards. Given that there were 144 levels in the silo and each level had hundreds, or even thousands, of such boards and switches, one ring seemed a small thing. Still, it was silver and that was good.

  It didn't take much silver, but it did take some silver for almost anything that dealt with electricity. IT used the bulk of it for their parts and contacts and mysterious IT things. She supposed her people, the Fabricators, used the next largest amount.

  Her work group filled the gap between exclusive IT things and bulky mechanical things. Though Marina made many things for IT, mostly generic things that could go into any computer, she also made the smallest of switches, contacts and control boards for Mechanical and every other floor of the silo. These were used in everything from air handling to pumps to the timers for the lights in the dirt farms. Fabbers, as those in Marina's profession were called, were essential to everyone. So when Marina had brought the problem she discovered Up-Silo, they had listened.

  The problem was the disappearance of silver. The tiny amounts of silver that were used in each connection added up when taken altogether. Unlike most other things, silver was often lost rather than recycled. No one had seemed to understand the problem at first and no amount of explaining seemed make the problem sink in for them. Instead, she had received rather extensive lectures on the importance of properly recycling the metal.

  Eventually, frustrated at their lack of understanding, she had found a way to demonstrate it for them using the paint on the walls of the little conference room they sat in. It was dim and drab and hadn’t been refreshed in a long time. Where countless rubs of chair backs had worn away the paint, faint traces of older paint could be seen. She had pointed to a spot nearby and asked them, “Where did the paint go? Can you reclaim it?”

  She'd gone on, telling them that each flick of a switch, each turn of a knob or rotation on a timer took off the barest bit of silver. It was invisible and insignificant when taken alone, but eventually the silver was worn away and gone forever. And there was no silver coming up from the mines. It just wasn't there for anyone to mine out. And to top it off, the ingots preserved in the vaults beneath Supply were running dangerously low.

  Her thoughts returned to the present as she slipped a delicate chain out of a box. She grimaced at the destruction of such beauty for such a slight gain of silver. Sighing, she looked over the table, now littered with reclaimed goods, and murmured, "Well, I guess this is the silo mine now."

  She went on opening box after box until the first of the transport boxes was empty and then rose up on her toes to look into the bins. She was sorely disappointed to see the bins reserved for the highest silver content contained the least number of items. Items with just a silver coating seemed to make up the bulk of the goods and many of those were worn down to bare metal in places. The last pile, made up of items replaced into the original boxes and set aside, was disappointingly large. These items should have never been turned in at all, obviously made of steel or base metal or even copper.

  The unsuitable items would be returned to the original owners, just as she had done during the first delivery from Level 25. Marina wondered what the yield would be from Level 75, which was next on the reclamation list, or Level 100 and 125.

  She hoped these slim pickings weren't a sign of things to come. She needed to build up a large stock of silver so they could plan for the future and pack the silver vault with a few more layers of the metal.

  She finished up the items that would be returned. In each box, the slip of paper now bore her signature and a line explaining the reason for her rejection of the item. Perhaps she should ensure that word was put out at the next reclamation for people to try to only send silver and to have no fear if they have nothing to offer. It was a waste of resources to port these boxes down and then back up, sorting them again and again before finally returning them to their starting point.

  She broke for lunch, heading toward the workroom where she'd left her satchel, her stomach rumbling loudly in the quiet hallway. A shadow might have run on young and strong legs and brought her back a nice hot lunch, but she had none to do that at the moment. There had been a few eager youngsters who wanted to shadow for her in recent years but so far none had seemed like the right fit.

  In the years since her last shadow had been deemed qualified and taken his place in a fabrication room just doors away from her own, there hadn't been one that struck Marina in the same way he had. And shadows were needed so badly everywhere that she passed each up and recommended them to someone she thought a good match.

  She continued to wait for the right girl or boy as each month went by and more children grew up and chose their professions. But on days like today, when each of her forty years of life made themselves known in her joints, she wished she wasn't quite so picky. A shadow just right for her was no doubt even now playing in a schoolroom somewhere.

  For today, it was a shadowless Marina and a room temperature meal packed for her at breakfast that would have to do. Even her tea was almost gone and all she had other than the last dregs in her flask was an old water bottle. She couldn’t even remember when it had last been filled. After an experimental sniff and hesitant taste, she drank. It was stale and flat but drinkable.

  She chewed thoughtfully on a sandwich, wide wedges of flat amaranth bread smeared with peanut butter, and thought about the boxes and their varied contents. She considered how many more of these deliveries she would have. At least one for every level and probably more than one load for levels thick with residences could be counted on.

  Levels dedicated primarily to an activity and having few living spaces would bring scant hauls, she supposed. She hoped it was less scant that what she had unpacked so far from Level 50. Even so, every scrap counted.

  While she munched on a small cucumber she’d managed to wrangle from the cafeteria worker, Marina wondered why the mines didn't provide silver and where the silver they used now originally came from. Did the mines once provide it?

  When she first realized there might be a problem she had taken a full week of time for a special project and gone to the main administration offices of the Down Deep to research. She then trekked back up to confirm her findings with Supply and finally, to the mids for a last confirmation at the Comptroller's office.

  No one at any of the places she’d visited knew where the silver originated. It was a silo mystery but the answer she'd received at all three places was the same one used to explain all such questions. What those within the silo need, the silo has provided. It also happened to be the third tenet and an easy answer rather than, perhaps, the correct one.

  It could mean the item was brought in by the First People when the silo called them inside from the wilderness and away from the dangers of the Others outside. It could mean that the silo provided it once in some oth
er fashion and expected it to last. It could mean anything depending on who you asked.

  Lunch finished, Marina reigned in her wandering thoughts and directed them back toward the unfinished project on her bench. She purposefully focused on the detailed work that needed to be done and the hours passed swiftly. The comforting hum of her work lamp kept her company. The even tone was punctuated only by the tiny sounds of a snipped wire or the brief hiss of a soldering iron. She loved this part of her work.

  When she had finally completed the repairs she snapped the lid closed, rubbed out the initials of the last person to repair the piece and marked her own in their stead. As she rubbed the ink from her fingers she realized she didn't know the person those initials belonged to. She mused that one day someone who wouldn't know her name would do the same until she too had disappeared from the silo, one set of initials at a time.

  She gathered her things and left, locking the door behind her. The work room was hers alone and would be untouched till she returned. It was not shared between a day and a night shift as it might have been long ago. Some of the rooms were empty all the time or were used as an extra room for special projects by senior Fabbers. If one simply counted the name slots next to each workroom door it could probably have provided jobs for three times their current number. But having that many people was in the long past, if it had even been so. Marina had her doubts about that.

  One of the oldest of the fabbers actually lived in the room across from his workroom, but he was the only one who did such a thing. It had been more than once that she encountered him returning from his pre-shift ablutions in the bathroom meant to serve this entire section of workers. He was no longer capable of making much progress on the stairs and the shadows on this level took turns bringing his meals and taking his laundry.

  He seemed very happy with his living situation and had the break room all to himself most of the time. He wrote poetry when it was quiet during the dim time, though he had yet to show it to anyone that Marina was aware of. He didn't look like a poet to Marina. Weren't all poets young, earnest and in love or freshly heartbroken from having been in love?

  Would she do that at some point in her future? Would she one day just decide she could not take the stairs up to her compartment and send for a bed instead? She still had a husband and a teenager at home for now, but who knew what the future might hold. She very much doubted there would be poetry though. That bored her. It was strange to feel so old that this could be contemplated yet still be young enough to have a sixteen year old girl who needed her parents.

  Marina pocketed her keys and checked the time on the clock in the hallway. She was surprised to find it was not as late as it felt. It was, in fact, more than an hour until her regular shift should end. Her sense of time was normally quite good and she usually stepped out of her workspace each day within a small fifteen minute window of time. She considered turning around and starting the next project on her work list but that would mean leaving it barely started.

  She tapped her foot in annoyance, the sound echoing through the hallway and bouncing back from the metal buffer doors at either end. She decided instead to catalog a bit more of the delivery before going home. Her husband and daughter were working their own shift for another two hours and then they would have to make the descent from the deputy station to their compartment twenty-five levels below unless they happened to be on a call somewhere closer. She could easily travel up four levels and still have a meal prepared for them by the time they got to the compartment, even if she worked late.

  The Reclamation Room was cool and comfortable. The air smelled clean and vaguely like cardboard. It was far more noticeable after the hours breathing solder fumes in her workroom. After what the porter had said earlier, she appreciated it anew.

  She dumped her things on the chair, opened the second of the large boxes and began to work. It was a better haul than the previous box even after completing only the first layer of smaller boxes. Nothing needed to be returned and a few pieces would provide excellent yields of pure silver. One was a heavy bracelet worked with exquisite flowers and another was a heavy silver chain that had completely filled the smaller box to the rim.

  When she pulled up the first box of the second layer she thought she had found another chain because of the weight. When she opened it, she looked down and had no idea what the object was. It was so beautiful that she sucked in a short loud breath that broke the quiet of the room. Hesitant about touching the object, she instead pulled out the slip of paper tucked in beside it and read the neat and very precise writing.

  Genevieve Hardi

  Floor 50 - Section 3 - Compartment 4

  Pocket Watch (It belonged to my husband, now deceased. It belonged to one of his parents before him and a parent before and so on, I think. It doesn't work but I know it is silver.)

  "Pocket watch," Marina said softly into the empty room.

  She had no idea what that might mean. Watches were timepieces that could be worn, though she knew of none other than those displayed in the Memoriam. And she certainly didn't know of any that might be owned by an individual.

  She assumed a pocket watch must be a time piece made just for pockets. She eased the heavy piece out of the box and examined it carefully under the task light. It didn't appear to be a clock at first glance but then she saw a tiny button protruding from the side and pressed it with a fingertip. One side of the round object flew open in her hand and inside she saw the face of a clock, beautifully rendered with Xs, Vs and Is instead of numbers.

  In fancy script on the face she read the word ‘Waltham’. Perhaps that is who the object belonged to or perhaps it was like the names she found in obscure places on many of the parts she worked on. Names like General Dynamic, Westinghouse and Intel she found on parts for no apparent reason.

  Whatever the purpose of the fancy script on this clock, the effect was beautiful. She clicked the silver lid closed again and examined the watch case. On the side facing her was an animal in raised silver of such detail that Marina could not imagine how it was done. Being a worker in fine metals she knew that it had to have been poured into a mold but the detail was staggering. How could one create a mold like this? How much time would it take to carefully sculpt it from wax and then lose nothing in the series of transfers required before ending up with something like this?

  She ran her fingers over the animal. It was familiar. It looked a bit like the animals from the children's books she remembered from her own childhood as well as that of her daughter. It had a similar shape but instead of a round head like a puppy it had stern eyes. Great protrusions came up from the head, forked and then curved into the air above. With the chest thrust forward and a leg raised it looked as if it were about to charge at some foe.

  She turned over the watch and found another scene, or perhaps it was a continuation of the scene on the other side. In the foreground was a man and over his arm he had a club of some sort, though it was clearly not a club. The thick end was closest to the man, the opposite of how one might hold a tool. There were tiny nubbins and details on the stick that had purposes invisible to Marina but she could see, even without knowing those details, that it was a weapon. She opened the watch again and turned it around, so that she could see both scenes on the watch together. The man was pointing the stick at the animal and now, with this added detail to consider, she saw how the two scenes came together.

  The man was indeed pointing his stick at the animal but Marina saw a small bloom of cloud just above the end of the stick. She frowned at it. To her it looked like smoke from a small fire or that which rose from the end of a soldering iron. She could almost smell the sharp and acrid tang of metal and flux as it met the heat at the end of her iron. Following the line of the club toward the animal, she also saw that something disturbed the even lines of the outthrust chest of the animal. Like the ripples made when dropping a dollop of honey into a cup of tea, there was a tiny depression and small dots of raised silver arrayed around it.
>
  Marina may have been a fabricator and not a medic but she knew a wound when she saw one. She looked at the man again, then back to the animal and saw the whole scene with fresh eyes. That animal wasn't thrust forward to engage the man but rather it was being killed by him.

  She peered at the man's face. His expression seemed strangely empty. It made the scene darker, more ominous. Whereas before it had seemed strange and beautiful, now it was a cruel representation of one thing taking the life of another. It was no less beautiful, it was just beautiful in a way that made Marina feel bereft.

  She put the watch down and rubbed her hands along the thighs of her coveralls, unconsciously wiping away her contact with the violence even as she considered the object. It was also at that moment she noted the small and perfectly round dark spot on the side of the watch opposite the clasp.

  Instantly forgetting the dark scene, she took up the watch, peered at it closely under the strong light and found the dark spot to be a tiny hole. Such holes were usually ways to open things for repair. Reaching up, she found that she wasn't wearing her magnifiers and uttered a mild curse.

  She rummaged around in a drawer, loose tools and other debris rattling around on the metal bottom, until she found a handheld magnifier and the small container she sought. Getting a better look at the hole, she tried to see if there was a catch inside but no amount of twisting and turning brought the interior into view.

  Abandoning the magnifier, she opened the case and selected one of the smallest of the probes within. Delicate yet quite strong, the probes were able to apply more pressure than their slender tips suggested when applied with exacting precision. They were handy tools but ones that required a deft hand.

  Easing the tiny probe tip into the hole, Marina let her eyes lose focus so she could feel anything that might be a catch through the questing tip. At first there was nothing but as she withdrew and then reinserted it she felt something. A bit more adjustment and a tentative test convinced Marina it was the catch she wanted and she held her breath as she applied a steadily increasing pressure.