Shift (silo)

by Hugh Howey

  Maybe that’s why he was so calm. He was watching a horror that he should have been in the middle of, that he should have lived and died through.

  The deputy finally secured the keys. He ran across the room and out of sight. Troy imagined him fumbling with the lock on the cell as the door burst in, an angry mob forcing their way through the splintered gap in the wood. It was a solid door, strong, but not strong enough. It was impossible to tell if the deputy had made it to safety. Not that it mattered. It was temporary. It was all temporary. If they opened the doors, if they made it out, the deputy would suffer a fate far worse than being trampled.

  ‘The inner airlock door is open, sir. They’re trying to get out.’

  Troy nodded. The trouble had probably started in IT, had spread from there. Maybe the head — but more likely his shadow. Someone with override codes. Here was the curse: a person had to be in charge, had to guard the secrets. Some wouldn’t be able to. It was statistically predictable. He reminded himself that it was inevitable, the cards already shuffled, the game just waiting to play out.

  ‘Sir, we’ve got a breach. The outer door, sir.’

  ‘Fire the canisters now,’ Troy said.

  Saul radioed the control room down the hall and relayed the message. The view of the airlock filled with a white fog.

  ‘Secure the server room,’ Troy added. ‘Lock it down.’

  He had this portion of the Order memorised.

  ‘Make sure we have a recent backup just in case. And put them on our power.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  Those in the room who had something to do seemed less anxious than the others, who were left shifting about nervously while they watched and listened.

  ‘Where’s my outside view?’ Troy asked.

  The mist-filled scene of people pushing on one another’s backs through a white cloud was replaced by an expansive shot of the outside, of a claustrophobic crowd scampering across a dry land, of people collapsing to their knees, clawing at their faces and their throats, a billowing fog rising up from the teeming ramp.

  No one in the comm room moved or said a word. There was a soft cry from the hallway. Troy shouldn’t have allowed them to stay and watch.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Shut it down.’

  The view of the outside went black. There was no point in watching the crowd fight their way back in, no reason to witness the frightened men and women dying on the hills.

  ‘I want to know why it happened.’ Troy turned and studied those in the room. ‘I want to know, and I want to know what we do to prevent this next time.’ He handed the folder and the microphone back to the men at their stations. ‘Don’t tell the other silo heads just yet. Not until we have answers for the questions they’ll have.’

  Saul raised his hand. ‘What about the people still inside twelve?’

  ‘The only difference between the people in silo twelve and the people in silo thirteen is that there won’t be future generations growing up in silo twelve. That’s it. Everyone in all the silos will eventually die. We all die, Saul. Even us. Today was just their day.’ He nodded to the dark monitor and tried not to picture what was really going on over there. ‘We knew this would happen, and it won’t be the last. Let’s concentrate on the others. Learn from it.’

  There were nods around the room.

  ‘Individual reports by the end of this shift,’ Troy said, feeling for the first time that he was actually in charge of something. ‘And if anyone from twelve’s IT staff can be raised, debrief them as much as you can. I want to know who, why and how.’

  Several of the exhausted people in the room stiffened before trying to look busy. The gathering in the hallway shrank back as they realised the show was over and the boss was heading their way.

  The boss.

  Troy felt the fullness of his position for the first time, the heavy weight of responsibility. There were murmurs and sidelong glances as he headed back to his office. There were nods of sympathy and approval, men thankful that they occupied lower posts. Troy strode past them all.

  More will try to escape, Troy thought. For all their careful engineering, there was no way to make a thing infallible. The best they could do was plan ahead, stockpile spares, not mourn the dark and lifeless cylinder as it was discarded and others were turned to with hope.

  Back in his office, he closed the door and leaned back against it for a moment. His shoulders stuck to his overalls with the light sweat worked up from the swift walk. He took a few deep breaths before crossing to his desk and resting his hand on his copy of the Order. The fear persisted that they’d gotten it all wrong. How could a room full of doctors plan for everything? Would it really get easier as the generations went along, as people forgot and the whispers from the original survivors faded?

  Troy wasn’t so sure. He looked over at his wall of schematics, that large blueprint showing all the silos spread out amid the hills, fifty circles spaced out like stars on an old flag he had once served.

  A powerful tremor coursed through Troy’s body: his shoulders, elbows and hands twitched. He gripped the edge of his desk until it passed. Opening the top drawer, he picked up a red marker and crossed to the large schematic, the shivers still wracking his chest.

  Before he could consider the permanence of what he was about to do, before he could consider that this mark of his would be on display for every future shift, before he could consider that this may become a trend, an action taken by his replacements, he drew a bold ‘X’ through silo twelve.

  The marker squealed as it was dragged violently across the paper. It seemed to cry out. Troy blinked away the blurry vision of the red X and sagged to his knees. He bent forward until his forehead rested against the tall spread of papers, old plans rustling and crinkling as his chest shook with heavy sobs.

  With his hands in his lap, shoulders bent with the weight of another job he’d been pressured into, Troy cried. He bawled as silently as he could so those across the hall wouldn’t hear.

  13

  2049

  RYT Hospital, Dwayne Medical Center

  DONALD HAD TOURED the Pentagon once, had been to the White House twice, went in and out of the Capitol building a dozen times a week, but nothing he’d seen in DC prepared him for the security around RYT’s Dwayne Medical Center. The lengthy checks hardly made the hour-long meeting with the Senator seem worthwhile.

  By the time he passed through the full body scanners leading into the nanobiotech wing, he’d been stripped, given a pair of green medical scrubs to wear, had a blood sample taken, and had allowed every sort of scanner and bright light to probe his eyes and record — so they said — the infrared capillary pattern of his face.

  Heavy doors and sturdy men blocked every corridor as they made their way deeper and deeper into the NBT wing. When Donald spotted the Secret Service agents — who had been allowed to keep their dark suits and shades — he knew he was getting close. A nurse scanned him through a final set of stainless steel doors. The nanobiotic chamber awaited him inside.

  Donald eyed the massive machine warily. He’d only ever seen them on TV dramas, and this one loomed even larger in person. It looked like a small submarine that had been marooned on the upper floors of the RYT. Hoses and wires led away from the curved and flawless white exterior in bundles. Studded along the length were several small glass windows that brought to mind the portholes of a ship.

  ‘And you’re sure it’s safe for me to go in?’ He turned to the nurse. ‘Because I can always wait and visit him later.’

  The nurse smiled. She couldn’t be out of her twenties, had her brown hair wrapped in a knot on the back of her head, was pretty in an uncomplicated way. ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ she assured him. ‘His nanos won’t interact with your body. We often treat multiple patients in a single chamber.’

  She led him to the end of the machine and spun open the locking wheel at the end. A hatch opened with a sticky, ripping sound from the rubber seals and let out a slight gasp of air from the di
fference in pressure.

  ‘If it’s so safe, then why are the walls so thick?’

  A soft laugh. ‘You’ll be fine.’ She waved him towards the hatch. ‘There’ll be a slight delay and a little buzz after I seal this door, and then the inner hatch will unlock. Just spin the wheel and push to open.’

  ‘I’m a little claustrophobic,’ Donald admitted.

  God, listen to himself. He was an adult. Why couldn’t he just say he didn’t want to go in and have that be enough? Why was he allowing himself to be pressured into this?

  ‘Just step inside please, Mr Keene.’

  The nurse placed her hand on the small of Donald’s back. Somehow, the pressure of a young and pretty woman watching was stronger than his abject terror of the oversized capsule packed with its invisible machines. He wilted and found himself ducking through the small hatch, his throat constricting with fear.

  The door behind him thumped shut, leaving him in a curved space hardly big enough for two. The locks clanked into the jamb. There were tiny silver benches set into the arching walls on either side of him. He tried to stand up, but his head brushed the ceiling.

  An angry hum filled the chamber. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and the air felt charged with electricity. He looked for an intercom, some way to communicate with the Senator through the inner door so he didn’t have to go in any further. It felt as though he couldn’t breathe; he needed to get out. There was no wheel on the outer door. Everything had been taken out of his control—

  The inner locks clanked. Donald lunged for the door and tried the handle. Holding his breath, he opened the hatch and escaped the small airlock for the larger chamber in the centre of the capsule.

  ‘Donald!’ Senator Thurman looked up from a thick book. He was sprawled out on one of the benches running the length of the long cylinder. A notepad and pen sat on a small table; a plastic tray held the remnants of dinner.

  ‘Hello, sir,’ he said, barely parting his lips.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, get in. You’re letting the buggers out.’

  Against his every impulse, Donald stepped through and pushed the door shut, and Senator Thurman laughed. ‘You might as well breathe, son. They could crawl right through your skin if they wanted to.’

  Donald let out his held breath and shivered. It may have been his imagination, but he thought he felt little pinpricks all over his skin, bites like Savannah’s no-see-ums on summer days.

  ‘You can’t feel ’em,’ Senator Thurman said. ‘It’s all in your head. They know the difference between you and me.’

  Donald glanced down and realised he was scratching his arm.

  ‘Have a seat.’ Thurman gestured to the bench opposite his. He had the same colour scrubs on and a few days’ growth on his chin. Donald noticed the far end of the capsule opened onto a small bathroom, a showerhead with a flexible hose clipped to the wall. Thurman swung his bare feet off the bench and grabbed a half-empty bottle of water, took a sip. Donald obeyed and sat down, a nervous sweat tickling his scalp. A stack of folded blankets and a few pillows sat at the end of the bench. He saw how the frames folded open into cots but couldn’t imagine being able to sleep in this tight coffin.

  ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ He tried to keep his voice from cracking. The air tasted metallic, a hint of the machines on his tongue.

  ‘Drink?’ The Senator opened a small fridge below the bench and pulled out a bottle of water.

  ‘Thanks.’ Donald accepted the water but didn’t open it, just enjoyed the cool against his palm. ‘Mick said he filled you in.’ He wanted to add that this meeting felt unnecessary.

  Thurman nodded. ‘He did. Met with him yesterday. He’s a solid boy.’ The Senator smiled and shook his head. ‘The irony is, this class we just swore in? Probably the best bunch the Hill has seen in a very long time.’

  ‘The irony?’

  Thurman waved his hand, shooing the question away. ‘You know what I love about this treatment?’

  Practically living for ever? Donald nearly blurted.

  ‘It gives you time to think. A few days in here, nothing with batteries allowed, just a few books to read and something to write on — it really clears your head.’

  Donald kept his opinions to himself. He didn’t want to admit how uncomfortable the procedure made him, how terrifying it was to be in that room right then. Knowing that tiny machines were coursing through the Senator’s body, picking through his individual cells and making repairs, repelled him. Supposedly, your urine turned the colour of charcoal once all the machines shut down. He trembled at the thought.

  ‘Isn’t that nice?’ Thurman asked. He took a deep breath and let it out. ‘The quiet?’

  Donald didn’t answer. He realised he was holding his breath again.

  Thurman looked down at the book in his lap, then lifted his gaze to study Donald.

  ‘Did you know your grandfather taught me how to play golf?’

  Donald laughed. ‘Yeah. I’ve seen the pictures of you two together.’ He flashed back to his grandmother flipping through old albums. She had this outmoded obsession with printing the pictures from her computer and stuffing them in books. Said they became more real once they were displayed like that.

  ‘You and your sister have always felt like family to me,’ the Senator said.

  The sudden openness was uncomfortable. A small vent in the corner of the pod circulated some air, but it still felt warm in there. ‘I appreciate that, sir.’

  ‘I want you in on this project,’ Thurman said. ‘All the way in.’

  Donald swallowed. ‘Sir. I’m fully committed, I promise.’

  Thurman raised his hand and shook his head. ‘No, not like—’ He dropped his hand to his lap, glanced at the door. ‘You know, I used to think you couldn’t hide anything any more. Not in this age. It’s all out there, you know?’ He waggled his fingers in the air. ‘Hell, you ran for office and squeezed through that mess. You know what it’s like.’

  Donald nodded. ‘Yeah, I had a few things I had to own up to.’

  The Senator cupped his hands into the shape of a bowl. ‘It’s like trying to hold water and not letting a single drop through.’

  Donald nodded.

  ‘A president can’t even get a blow job any more without the world finding out.’

  Donald’s confused squint had Thurman waving at the air. ‘Before your time. But here’s the thing, here’s what I’ve found, both overseas and in Washington. It’s the unimportant drips that leak through. The peccadilloes. Embarrassments, not life-and-death stuff. You want to invade a foreign country? Look at D-Day. Hell, look at Pearl Harbor. Or 9/11. Not a problem.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I don’t see what—’

  Thurman’s hand flew out, his fingers thudding shut as he pinched the air. Donald thought for a moment that he meant for him to keep quiet, but then the Senator leaned forward and held the pinched pads of his fingers for Donald to see, as if he had snatched a mosquito.

  ‘Look,’ he said.

  Donald leaned closer, but he still couldn’t make anything out. He shook his head. ‘I don’t see, sir…’

  ‘That’s right. And you wouldn’t see it coming, either. That’s what they’ve been working on, those snakes.’

  Senator Thurman released the invisible pinch and studied the pad of his thumb for a moment. He blew a puff of air across it. ‘Anything these puppies can stitch, they can unstitch.’

  He peered across the pod at Donald. ‘You know why we went into Iran the first time? It wasn’t about nukes, I’ll tell you that. I crawled through every hole that’s ever been dug in those dunes over there, and those rats had a bigger prize they were chasing than nukes. You see, they’ve figured out how to attack us without being seen, without having to blow themselves up, and with zero repercussions.’

  Donald was sure he didn’t have the clearance to hear any of this.

  ‘Well, the Iranians didn’t figure it out for themselves so much as steal what Israel was
working on.’ He smiled at Donald. ‘So, of course, we had to start playing catch-up.’

  ‘I don’t understa—’

  ‘These critters in here are programmed for my DNA, Donny. Think about that. Have you ever had your ancestry tested?’ He looked Donald up and down as if he were surveying a mottled mutt. ‘What are you, anyway? Scottish?’

  ‘Maybe Irish, sir. I honestly couldn’t tell you.’ He didn’t want to admit that it was unimportant to him; it seemed like a topic close to Thurman’s heart.

  ‘Well, these buggers can tell. If they ever get them perfected, that is. They could tell you what clan you came from. And that’s what the Iranians are working on: a weapon you can’t see, that you can’t stop, and if it decides you’re Jewish, even a quarter Jew…’ Thurman drew his thumb across his own neck.

  ‘I thought we were wrong about that. We never found any NBs in Iran.’

  ‘That’s because they self-destructed. Remotely. Poof.’ The old man’s eyes widened.

  Donald laughed. ‘You sound like one of those conspiracy theorists—’

  Senator Thurman leaned back and rested his head against the wall. ‘Donny, the conspiracy theorists sound like us.’

  Donald waited for the Senator to laugh. Or smile. Neither came.

  ‘What does this have to do with me?’ he asked. ‘Or our project?’

  Thurman closed his eyes, his head still tilted back. ‘You know why Florida has such pretty sunrises?’

  Donald wanted to scream. He wanted to beat on the door until they hauled him out of there in a straightjacket. Instead, he took a sip of water.

  Thurman cracked an eye. Studied him again.

  ‘It’s because the sand from Africa blows clear across the Atlantic.’

  Donald nodded. He saw what the Senator was getting at. He’d heard the same fear-mongering on the twenty-four-hour news programmes, how toxins and tiny machines can circle the globe, just like seeds and pollens have done for millennia.

  ‘It’s coming, Donny. I know it is. I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, even in here. I asked you to meet me here because I want you to have a seat at the after party.’