by Hugh Howey
‘And those of us who don’t want to watch,’ Hal continued. ‘I figure we’re trying our best to forget.’
Troy knew they shouldn’t be having this conversation, but now it had begun, and he wanted to see where it would lead.
‘It’s the bad stuff,’ Hal said, staring off towards the lifts. ‘Have you noticed that? It’s just the bad stuff that slips away. All the unimportant things, we remember well.’
Troy didn’t say anything. He jabbed his beans, even though he didn’t plan on eating them.
‘It makes you wonder, don’t it? Why we all feel so rotten inside?’
Hal finished up his food, nodded a wordless goodbye and got up to leave. Troy was left alone. He found himself staring at the screen, a dull ache inside that he couldn’t name. It was the time of evening just before the hills disappeared, before they darkened and faded into the cloud-filled sky.
7
2049
Washington, DC
DONALD WAS GLAD he had decided to walk to his meeting with the Senator. The rain from the week before had finally let up, and the traffic in Dupont Circle was at a crawl. Heading up Connecticut and leaning into a stiffening breeze, Donald wondered why the meeting had been moved to Kramerbooks of all places. There were a dozen superior coffee houses much closer to the office.
He crossed a side street and hurried up the short flight of stone steps to the bookshop. The front door to Kramer’s was one of those ancient wooden affairs older establishments hung like a boast, a testament to their endurance. Hinges squeaked and actual bells jangled overhead as he pushed open the door, and a young woman straightening books on a centre table of bestsellers glanced up and smiled hello.
The cafe, Donald saw, was packed with men and women in business suits sipping from white porcelain cups. There was no sign of the Senator. Donald started to check his phone, see if he was too early, when a Secret Service agent caught his eye.
The agent stood broad-shouldered at the end of an aisle of books in the small corner of Kramer’s that acted as the cafe’s bookshop. Donald laughed at how conspicuously hidden the man was: the earpiece, the bulge by his ribs, the sunglasses indoors. Donald headed the agent’s way, the wooden boards underfoot groaning with age.
The agent’s gaze shifted his way, but it was hard to tell if he was looking at Donald or towards the front door.
‘I’m here to see Senator Thurman,’ Donald said, his voice cracking a little. ‘I have an appointment.’
The agent turned his head to the side. Donald followed the gesture and peered down an aisle of books to see Thurman browsing through the stacks at the far end.
‘Ah. Thanks.’ He stepped between the towering shelves of old books, the light dimming and the smell of coffee replaced with the tang of mildew mixed with leather.
‘What do you think of this one?’
Senator Thurman held out a book as Donald approached. No greeting, just the question.
Donald checked the title embossed in gold on the thick leather cover. ‘Never heard of it,’ he admitted.
Senator Thurman laughed. ‘Of course not. It’s over a hundred years old — and it’s French. I mean, what do you think of the binding?’ He handed Donald the book.
Donald was surprised by how heavy the volume was. He cracked it open and flipped through a few pages. It felt like a law book, had that same dense heft, but he could see by the white space between lines of dialogue that it was a novel. As he turned a few pages, he admired how thin the individual sheets were. Where the pages met at the spine, they had been stitched together with tiny ropes of blue and gold thread. He had friends who still swore by physical books — not for decoration, but to actually read. Studying the one in his hand, Donald could understand their nostalgic affection.
‘The binding looks great,’ he said, brushing it with the pads of his fingers. ‘It’s a beautiful book.’ He handed the novel back to the Senator. ‘Is this how you shop for a good read? You mostly go by the cover?’
Thurman tucked the book under his arm and pulled another from the shelf. ‘It’s just a sample for another project I’m working on.’ He turned and narrowed his eyes at Donald. It was an uncomfortable gaze. He felt like prey.
‘How’s your sister doing?’ he asked.
The question caught Donald off guard. A lump formed in his throat at the mention of her.
‘Charlotte? She’s… she’s fine, I guess. She redeployed. I’m sure you heard.’
‘I did.’ Thurman slotted the book in his hand back into a gap and weighed the one Donald had appraised. ‘I was proud of her for re-upping. She does her country proud.’
Donald thought about what it cost a family to do a country proud.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I mean, I know my parents were really looking forward to having her home, but she was having trouble adjusting to the pace back here. It… I don’t think she’ll be able to really relax until the war’s over. You know?’
‘I do. And she may not find peace even then.’
That wasn’t what Donald wanted to hear. He watched the Senator trace his finger down an ornate spine adorned with ridges, bumps and recessed lettering. The old man’s eyes seemed to focus beyond the rows of books.
‘I can drop her a line if you want. Sometimes a soldier just needs to hear that it’s okay to see someone.’
‘If you mean a shrink, she won’t do it.’ Donald recalled the changes in his sister around the time of her sessions. ‘We already tried.’
Thurman’s lips pursed into a thin, wrinkled line, his worry revealing hidden signs of age. ‘I’ll talk to her. I’m familiar enough with the hubris of youth, believe me. I used to have the same attitude when I was younger. I thought I didn’t need any help, that I could do everything on my own.’ He turned to face Donald. ‘The profession’s come a long way. They have pills now that can help her with the battle fatigue.’
Donald shook his head. ‘No. She was on those for a while. They made her too forgetful. And they caused a…’ He hesitated, didn’t want to talk about it. ‘… a tic.’
He wanted to say tremors, but that sounded too severe. And while he appreciated the Senator’s concern — this feeling as if the man was family — he was uncomfortable discussing his sister’s problems. He remembered the last time she was home, the disagreement they’d had while going through his and Helen’s photographs from Mexico. He had asked Charlotte if she remembered Cozumel from when they were kids, and she had insisted she’d never been. The disagreement had turned into an argument, and he had lied and said his tears were ones of frustration. Parts of his sister’s life had been erased, and the only way the doctors could explain it was to say that it must’ve been something she wanted to forget. And what could be wrong with that?
Thurman rested a hand on Donald’s arm. ‘Trust me on this,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll talk to her. I know what she’s going through.’
Donald bobbed his head. ‘Yeah. Okay. I appreciate it.’ He almost added that it wouldn’t do any good, could possibly cause harm, but the gesture was a nice one. And it would come from someone his sister looked up to, rather than from family.
‘And hey, Donny, she’s piloting drones.’ Thurman studied him, seemed to be picking up on his worry. ‘It’s not like she’s in any physical danger.’
Donald rubbed the spine of a shelved book. ‘Not physical, no.’
They fell silent, and Donald let out a heavy breath. He could hear the chatter from the cafe, the clink of a spoon stirring in some sugar, the clang of bells against the old wooden door, the squeal and hiss of milk being steamed.
He had seen videos of what Charlotte did, camera feeds from the drones and then from the missiles as they were guided in to their targets. The video quality was amazing. You could see people turning to look up to the heavens in surprise, could see the last moments of their lives, could cycle through the video frame by frame and decide — after the fact — if this had been your man or not. He knew what his sister did, what she dealt with.
Donald snapped to. ‘Of course. Yeah, it’ll be good to get the lay of the land. I got a nice head start on my plans last week, gradually filling in the dimensions you set out. You do realise how deep this thing goes, right?’
‘That’s why they’re already digging the foundations. The outer walls should be getting a pour over the next few weeks.’ Senator Thurman patted Donald’s shoulder and nodded towards the end of the aisle, signalling that they were finished looking through books.
‘Wait. They’re already digging?’ Donald walked alongside Thurman. ‘I’ve only got an outline ready. I hope they’re saving mine for last.’
‘The entire complex is being worked on at the same time. All they’re pouring are the outer walls and foundations, the dimensions of which are fixed. We’ll fill each structure from the bottom up, the floors craned down completely furnished before we pour the slabs between. But look, this is why I need you boys to go check things out. It sounds like a damned nightmare down there with the staging. I’ve got a hundred crews from a dozen countries working on top of one another while materials pile up everywhere. I can’t be in ten places at once, so I need you to get a read on things and report back.’
When they reached the Secret Service agent at the end of the aisle, the Senator handed him the old book with the French embossing. The man in the dark shades nodded and headed towards the counter.
‘While you’re down there,’ Thurman said, ‘I want you to meet up with Charlie Rhodes. He’s handling delivery of most of the building materials. See if he needs anything.’
‘Charles Rhodes? As in the governor of Oklahoma?’
‘That’s right. We served together. And hey, I’m working on transitioning you and Mick into some of the higher levels of this project. Our leadership team is still short a few dozen members. So keep up the good work. You’ve impressed some important people with what you’ve put together so far, and Anna seems confident you’ll be able to stay ahead of schedule. She says the two of you make a great team.’
Donald nodded. He felt a blush of pride — and also the inevitability of extra responsibilities, more bites out of his ever-dwindling time. Helen wouldn’t like hearing that his involvement with the project might grow. In fact, Mick and Anna might be the only people he could share the news with, the only ones he could talk to. Every detail about the build seemed to require convoluted layers of clearance. He couldn’t tell if it was the fear of nuclear waste, the threat of a terrorist attack or the likelihood that the project would fall through.
The agent returned and took up a position beside the Senator, shopping bag in hand. He looked over at Donald and seemed to study him through those impenetrable sunglasses. Not for the first time, Donald felt watched.
Senator Thurman shook Donald’s hand and said to keep him posted. Another agent materialised from nowhere and formed up on Thurman’s flank. They marched the Senator through the jangling door, and Donald only relaxed once they were out of view.
8
2110
• Silo 1 •
THE BOOK OF the Order lay open on his desk, the pages curling up from a spine stitched to last. Troy studied the upcoming procedure once again, his first official act as head of Operation Fifty, and it brought to mind a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a grand display where the man with the shears took credit for the hard work of others.
The Order, he had decided, was more recipe book than operations manual. The shrinks who had written it had accounted for everything, every quirk of human nature. And like the field of psychology, or any field that involved human nature, the parts that made no sense usually served some deeper purpose.
It made Troy wonder what his purpose was. How necessary his position. He had studied for a much different job, was meant to be head of a single silo, not all of them. He had been promoted at the last minute, and that made him feel arbitrary, as if anyone could be slotted into his place.
Of course, even if his office was mostly titular, perhaps it served some symbolic purpose. Maybe he wasn’t there to lead so much as to provide an illusion to the others that they were being led.
Troy skipped back two paragraphs in the Order. His eyes had passed over every word, but none of them had registered. Everything about his new life made him prone to distraction, made him think too much. It had all been perfectly arranged — all the levels and tasks and job descriptions — but for what? For maximum apathy?
Glancing up, he could see Victor sitting at his desk in the Office for Psychological Services across the hall. It would be easy enough to walk over there and ask. They, more than any one architect, had designed this place. He could ask them how they had done it, how they had managed to make everyone feel so empty inside.
Sheltering the women and the children played some part; Troy was sure of that. The women and children of silo one had been gifted with a long sleep while the men stayed and took shifts. It removed the passion from the plans, forestalled the chance that the men might fight among themselves.
And then there was the routine, the mind-numbing routine. It was the castration of thought, the daily grind of an office worker who drooled at the clock, punched out, watched TV until sleep overtook him, slapped an alarm three times, did it again. It was made worse by the absence of weekends. There were no free days. It was six months on and decades off.
It made him envious of the rest of the facility, all the other silos, where hallways must echo with the laughter of children, the voices of women, the passion and happiness missing from this bunker at the heart of it all. Here, all he saw was stupor, dozens of communal rooms with movies playing in loops on flat-panel TVs, dozens of unblinking eyes in comfortable chairs. No one was truly awake. No one was truly alive. They must have wanted it that way.
Checking the clock on his computer, Troy saw that it was time to go. Another day behind him. Another day closer to the end of his shift. He closed his copy of the Order, locked it away in his desk and headed for the communications room down the hall.
A pair of heads looked up from the radio stations as he walked in, all frowns and lowered brows in their orange coveralls. Troy took a deep breath, pulled himself together. This was an office. It was a job. And he was the man in charge. He just had to keep his shit together. He was there to cut a ribbon.
Saul, one of the lead radio techs, took off his headset and rose to greet him. Troy vaguely knew Saul; they lived on the same executive wing and saw each other in the gym from time to time. While they shook hands, Saul’s wide and handsome face tickled some deeper memory, an itch Troy had learned to ignore. Maybe this was someone he had met at his orientation, from before his long sleep.
Saul introduced him to the other tech in comm room orange, who waved and kept his headset on. The name faded immediately. It didn’t matter. An extra headset was pulled from a rack. Troy accepted it and lowered it around his neck, keeping the muffs off his ears so he could still hear. Saul found the silvery jack at the end of the headset and ran his fingers across an array of fifty numbered receptacles. The layout and the room reminded Troy of ancient photographs of phone operators back before they were replaced with computers and automated voices.
The mental image of a bygone day mixed and fizzed with his nerves and the shivers brought on by the pills, and Troy felt a sudden bout of giggles bubble beneath the surface. The laughter nearly burst out of him, but he managed to hold it together. It wouldn’t be a good sign for the head of overall operations to lurch into hysterics when he was about to gauge the fitness of a future silo head.
‘—and you’ll just run through the set questions,’ Saul was telling him. He held out a plastic card to Troy, who was pretty sure he didn’t need it but took it anyway. He’d been memorising the routine for most of the day. Besides, he was sure it didn’t matter what he said. The task of gauging a candidate’
s fitness was better left to the machines and the computers, all the sensors embedded in a distant headset.
‘Okay. There’s the call.’ Saul pointed to a single flashing light on a panel studded with flashing lights. ‘I’m patching you through.’
Troy adjusted the muffs around his ears as the tech made the connection. He heard a few beeps before the line clicked over. Someone was breathing heavily on the other end. Troy reminded himself that this young man would be far more nervous than he was. After all, he had to answer the questions — Troy simply had to ask them.
He glanced down at the card in his hand, his mind suddenly blank, thankful that he’d been given the thing.
‘Name?’ he asked the young man.
‘Marcus Dent, sir.’
There was a quiet confidence in his young voice, the sound of a chest thrust out with pride. Troy remembered feeling that once, a long time ago. And then he thought of the world Marcus Dent had been born into, a legacy he would only ever know from books.
‘Tell me about your training,’ Troy said, reading the lines. He tried to keep his voice even, deep, full of command, although the computers were designed to do that for him. Saul made a hoop with his finger and thumb, letting him know he was getting good data from the boy’s headset. Troy wondered if his was similarly equipped. Could anyone in that room — or any other room — tell how nervous he was?
‘Well, sir, I shadowed under Deputy Willis before transferring to IT Security. That was a year ago. I’ve been studying the Order for six weeks. I feel ready, sir.’
Shadowing. Troy had forgotten it was called that. He had meant to bring the latest vocabulary card with him.
‘What is your primary duty to the… silo?’ He had nearly said facility.
‘To maintain the Order, sir.’
‘And what do you protect above all?’ He kept his voice flat. The best readings would come from not imparting too much emotion into the man being measured.
