Shift (silo)

by Hugh Howey

‘I guess we’re all wearing these horrid outfits to the funeral, right?’ Anna passed the desk as she snapped up the front of her white overalls. Donald only noticed in the corner of his tear-filled vision. He covered his mouth and felt his body tremble with suppressed sobs. On the monitor, in a tiny square of black and white pixels in the middle of a work badge, was his wife.

  ‘You’ll be ready to go in a few minutes, won’t you?’

  Anna disappeared back into the bathroom, brushing her hair. Donald wiped his cheeks, salt on his lips while he read.

  Karma Brewer. There were several occupations listed, with a badge photo for each. Teacher, School Master, Judge — more wrinkles in each picture but always the same half-smile. He opened the full file, thinking suddenly what it would’ve been like to have been on the very first shift in silo one, to watch her life unfold next door, maybe even reach out and contact her somehow. A judge. It’d been a dream of hers to be a judge one day. Donald wept while Anna hummed, and through a lens of tears, he read about his wife’s life without him.

  Married, it said, which didn’t throw up any flags at first. Married, of course. To him. Until he read about her death. Eighty-two years old. Survived by Rick Brewer and two children, Athena and Mars.

  Rick Brewer.

  The walls and ceiling bulged inward. Donald felt a chill. There were more pictures. He followed the links to other files. To her husband’s files.

  ‘Mick,’ Anna whispered behind him.

  Donald started and turned to find her reading over his shoulder. Drying tears streaked his face, but he didn’t care. His best friend and his wife. Two kids. He turned back to the screen and pulled up the daughter’s file. Athena’s. There were several pictures from different careers and phases of her life. She had Helen’s mouth.

  ‘Donny. Please don’t.’

  A hand on his shoulder. Donald flinched from it and watched an animation wrought by furious clicks, this child growing into an approximation of his wife, until the girl’s own children appeared in her file.

  ‘Donny,’ Anna whispered. ‘We’re going to be late for the funeral.’

  Donald wept. Sobs tore through him as if he were made of tissue. ‘Late,’ he cried. ‘A hundred years too late.’ He sputtered this last, overcome with misery. There was a granddaughter on the screen that was not his, a great-granddaughter one more click away. They stared out at him, all of them, none with eyes like his own.

  37

  • Silo 1 •

  DONALD WENT TO Victor’s funeral numb. He rode the lift in silence, watched his boots kick ahead of himself as he teetered forward, but what he found on the medical level wasn’t a funeral at all — it was body disposal. They were storing the remains back in a pod because they had no dirt in which to bury their dead. The food in silo one came from cans. Their bodies returned to the same.

  Donald was introduced to Erskine, who explained unprompted that the body would not rot. The same invisible machines that allowed them to survive the freezing process and turned their waking piss the colour of charcoal would keep the dead as soft and fresh as the living. The thought wasn’t a pleasant one. He watched as the man he had known as Victor was prepped for deep freeze.

  They wheeled the body down a hall and through a sea of pods. The deep freeze was a cemetery, Donald saw. A grid of bodies laid flat, only a name to feebly encapsulate all that lay within. He wondered how many of the pods contained the dead. Some men must die on their shifts from natural causes. Some must break down and take their own lives as Victor had.

  Donald helped the others move the body into the pod. There were only five of them present, only five who could know how Victor had died. The illusion that someone was in charge must be maintained. Donald thought of his last job, sitting at a desk, hands on a rudderless wheel, pretending. He watched Thurman as the old man kissed his palm and pressed his fingers to Victor’s cheek. The lid was closed. The cold of the room fogged their breath.

  The others took turns eulogising, but Donald paid no heed. His mind was elsewhere, thinking of a woman he had loved long ago, of children he had never had. He did not cry. He had sobbed in the lift, with Anna gently holding him. Helen had died over a century ago. It had been longer than that since he’d lost her over that hill, since missing her messages, since not being able to get through to her. He remembered the national anthem and the bombs filling the air. He remembered his sister, Charlotte being there.

  His sister. Family.

  Donald knew Charlotte had been saved. He was overcome with a fierce urge to find her and wake her, to bring someone he loved back to life.

  Erskine paid his final respects. Only five of them present to mourn this man who had killed billions. Donald felt Anna’s presence beside him and realised the lack of a crowd was in fact due to her. The five present were the only ones who knew that a woman had been woken. Her father, Dr Sneed, who had performed the procedure, Anna, Erskine, whom she spoke of as a friend, and himself.

  The absurdity of Donald’s existence, of the state of the world, swooped down on him in that gathering. He did not belong. He was only there because of a girl he had dated in college, a girl whose father was a senator, whose affections had likely gotten him elected, who had dragged him into a murderous scheme, and had now pulled him from a frozen death. All the great coincidences and marvellous achievements of his life disappeared in a flash. In their place were puppet strings.

  ‘A tragic loss, this.’

  Donald emerged from his thoughts to discover that the ceremony was over. Anna and her father stood two rows of pods away discussing something. Dr Sneed was down by the base of the pod, the panel beeping as he made adjustments. That left Donald with Erskine, a thin man with glasses and a British accent. He surveyed Donald from the opposite side of the pod.

  ‘He was on my shift,’ Donald said inanely, trying to explain why he was present for the service. There was little else he could think to say of the dead man. He stepped closer and peered through the little window at the calm face within.

  ‘I know,’ Erskine said. This wiry man, probably in his early to mid-sixties, adjusted the glasses on his narrow nose and joined Donald in peering through the small window. ‘He was quite fond of you, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t. I mean… he never said as much to me.’

  ‘He was peculiar that way.’ Erskine studied the deceased with a smile. ‘Brilliant perhaps for knowing the minds of others, just not so keen on communicating with them.’

  ‘Did you know him from before?’ Donald asked. He wasn’t sure how else to broach the subject. The before seemed taboo with some, freely spoken of by others.

  Erskine nodded. ‘We worked together. Well, in the same hospital. We orbited each other for quite a few years until my discovery.’ He reached out and touched the glass, a final farewell to an old friend, it seemed.

  ‘What discovery?’ He vaguely remembered Anna mentioning something.

  Erskine glanced up. Looking closer, Donald thought he may have been in his seventies. It was hard to tell. He had some of the agelessness of Thurman, like an antique that patinas and will grow no older.

  ‘I’m the one who discovered the great threat,’ he said. It sounded more an admission of guilt than a proud claim. His voice was tinged with sadness. At the base of the pod, Dr Sneed finished his adjustments, stood and excused himself. He steered the empty gurney towards the exit.

  ‘The nanos.’ Donald remembered; Anna had said as much. He watched Thurman debate something with his daughter, his fist coming down over and over into his palm, and a question came to mind. He wanted to hear it from someone else. He wanted to see if the lies matched, if that meant they might contain some truth.

  ‘You were a medical doctor?’ he asked.

  Erskine considered the question. It seemed a simple enough one to answer.

  ‘Not precisely,’ he said, his accent thick. ‘I built medical doctors. Very small ones.’ He pinched the air and squinted through his glasses at his own fingers. ‘We were working
on ways to keep soldiers safe, to keep them patched up. And then I found someone else’s handiwork in a sample of blood. Little machines trying to do the opposite. Machines made to fight our machines. An invisible battle raging where no one could see. It wasn’t long before I was finding the little bastards everywhere.’

  Anna and Thurman headed their way. Anna donned a cap, her hair in a bun that bulged noticeably through the top. It was little disguise for what she was, useful perhaps at a distance.

  ‘I’d like to ask you about that sometime,’ Donald said hurriedly. ‘It might help my… help me with this problem in silo eighteen.’

  ‘Of course,’ Erskine said.

  ‘I need to get back,’ Anna told Donald. She set her lips in a thin grimace from the argument with her father, and Donald finally appreciated how trapped she truly was. He imagined a year spent in that warehouse of war, clues scattered across that planning table, sleeping on that small cot, not able even to ride up to the cafeteria to see the hills and the dark clouds or have a meal at the time of her own choosing, relying on others to bring her everything.

  ‘I’ll escort the young man up in a bit,’ Donald heard Erskine say, his hand resting on Donald’s shoulder. ‘I’d like to have a chat with our boy.’

  Thurman narrowed his eyes but relented. Anna squeezed Donald’s hand a final time, glanced at the pod and headed towards the exit. Her father followed a few paces behind.

  ‘Come with me.’ Erskine’s breath fogged the air. ‘I want to show you someone.’

  38

  • Silo 1 •

  ERSKINE PICKED HIS way through the grid of pods with purpose as though he’d walked the route dozens of times. Donald followed after, rubbing his arms for warmth. He had been too long in that crypt-like place. The cold was leaching back into his bones.

  ‘Thurman keeps saying we were already dead,’ he told Erskine, attacking the question head-on. ‘Is that true?’

  Erskine looked back over his shoulder. He waited for Donald to catch up, seemed to consider this question.

  ‘Well?’ Donald asked. ‘Were we?’

  ‘I never saw a design with a hundred per cent efficiency,’ Erskine said. ‘We weren’t there yet with our own work, and everything from Iran and Syria was much cruder. Now, North Korea had some elegant designs. I had my money on them. What they had already built could’ve taken out most of us. That part’s true enough.’ He resumed his walk through the field of sleeping corpses. ‘Even the most severe epidemics burn themselves out,’ he said, ‘so it’s difficult to say. I argued for countermeasures. Victor argued for this.’ He spread his arms over the quiet assembly.

  ‘And Victor won.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Do you think he… had second thoughts? Is that why… ?’

  Erskine stopped at one of the pods and placed both hands on its icy surface. ‘I’m sure we all have second thoughts,’ he said sadly. ‘But I don’t think Vic ever doubted the rightness of this mission. I don’t know why he did what he did in the end. It wasn’t like him.’

  Donald peered inside the pod Erskine had led him to. There was a middle-aged woman inside, her eyelids covered in frost.

  ‘My daughter,’ Erskine said. ‘My only child.’

  There was a moment of silence. It allowed the faint hum of a thousand pods to be heard.

  ‘When Thurman made the decision to wake Anna, all I could dream about was doing the same. But why? There was no reason, no need for her expertise. Caroline was an accountant. And besides, it wouldn’t be fair to drag her from her dreams.’

  Donald wanted to ask if it would ever be fair. What world did Erskine expect his daughter to ever see again? When would she wake to a normal life? A happy life?

  ‘When I found nanos in her blood, I knew this was the right thing to do.’ He turned to Donald. ‘I know you’re looking for answers, son. We all are. This is a cruel world. It’s always been a cruel world. I spent my whole life looking for ways to make it better, to patch things up, dreaming of an ideal. But for every sot like me, there’s ten more out there trying to tear things down. And it only takes one of them to get lucky.’

  Donald flashed back to the day Thurman had given him the Order. That thick book was the start of his plummet into madness. He remembered their talk in that huge chamber, the feeling of being infected, the paranoia that something harmful and invisible was invading him. But if Erskine and Thurman were telling the truth, he’d been infected long before that.

  ‘You weren’t poisoning me that day.’ He looked from the pod to Erskine, piecing something together. ‘The interview with Thurman, the weeks and weeks he spent in that chamber having all of those meetings. You weren’t infecting us.’

  Erskine nodded ever so slightly. ‘We were healing you.’

  Donald felt a sudden flash of anger. ‘Then why not heal everyone?’ he demanded.

  ‘We discussed that. I had the same thought. To me, it was an engineering problem. I wanted to build countermeasures, machines to kill machines before they got to us. Thurman had similar ideas. He saw it as an invisible war, one we desperately needed to take to the enemy. We all saw the battles we were accustomed to fighting, you see. I saw it in the bloodstream, Thurman in the war overseas. It was Victor who set the two of us straight.’

  Erskine pulled a cloth from his breast pocket and removed his glasses. He rubbed them while he talked, his voice echoing in whispers from the walls. ‘Victor said there would be no end to it. He pointed to computer viruses to make his case, how one might run rampant through a network and cripple hundreds of millions of machines. Sooner or later, some nano attack would get through, get out of control, and there would be an epidemic built on bits of code rather than strands of DNA.’

  ‘So what? We’ve dealt with plagues before. Why would this be different?’ Donald swept his arms at the pods. ‘Tell me how the solution isn’t worse than the problem?’

  As worked up as he felt, he also sensed how much angrier he would be if he heard this from Thurman. He wondered if he’d been set up to have a kindlier man, a stranger, take him aside and tell him what Thurman thought he needed to hear. It was hard not to be paranoid about being manipulated, not to feel the strings knotted to his joints.

  ‘Psychology,’ Erskine replied. He put his glasses back on. ‘This is where Victor set us straight, why our ideas would never work. I’ll never forget the conversation. We were sitting in the cafeteria at Walter Reed Hospital. Thurman was there to hand out ribbons, but really to meet with the two of us.’ He shook his head. ‘It was crowded in there. If anyone knew the things we were discussing—’

  ‘Psychology,’ Donald reminded him. ‘Tell me how this is better. More people die this way.’

  Erskine snapped back to the present. ‘That’s where we were wrong, just like you. Imagine the first discovery that one of these epidemics was man-made — the panic, the violence that would ensue. That’s where the end would come. A typhoon kills a few hundred people, does a few billion in damage, and what do we do?’ Erskine interlocked his fingers. ‘We come together. We put the pieces back. But a terrorist’s bomb.’ He frowned. ‘A terrorist’s bomb does the same damage, and it throws the world into turmoil.’

  He spread his hands open. ‘When there’s only God to blame, we forgive him. When it’s our fellow man, we destroy him.’

  Donald shook his head. He didn’t know what to believe. But then he thought about the fear and rage he’d felt when he thought he’d been infected by something in that chamber. Meanwhile, he never worried about the billions of creatures swimming in his gut and doing so since the day he was born.

  ‘We can’t tweak the genes of the food we eat without suspicion,’ Erskine said. ‘We can pick and choose until a blade of grass is a great ear of corn, but we can’t do it with purpose. Vic had dozens of examples like these. Vaccines versus natural immunities, cloning versus twins, modified foods. Of course he was perfectly right. It was the man-made part that would’ve caused the chaos. It would be knowing th
at people were out to get us, that there was danger in the air we breathed.’

  Erskine paused for a moment. Donald’s mind was racing.

  ‘You know, Vic once said that if these terrorists had an ounce of sense, they would’ve simply announced what they were working on and then sat back to watch things burn on their own. He said that’s all it would take, us knowing that it was happening, that the end of any of us could come silent, invisible and at any time.’

  ‘And so the solution was to burn it all to the ground ourselves?’ Donald ran his hands through his hair, trying to make sense of it all. He thought of a firefighting technique that always seemed just as confusing to him, the burning of wide swathes of forest to prevent a fire from spreading. And he knew in Iran, when oil wells were set ablaze during the first war, that sometimes the only cure was to set off a bomb, to fight the inferno with something greater.

  ‘Believe me,’ Erskine said, ‘I came up with my own complaints. Endless complaints. But I knew the truth from the beginning, it just took me a while to accept it. Thurman was won over more easily. He saw at once that we needed to get off this ball of rock, to start over. But the cost of travel was too great—’

  ‘Why travel through space,’ Donald interrupted, ‘when you can travel through time?’ He remembered a conversation in Thurman’s office. The old man had told him what he was planning that very first day, but Donald hadn’t heard.

  Erskine’s eyes widened. ‘Yes. That was his argument. He’d seen enough war, I suppose. Me, I didn’t have Thurman’s experiences or the professional… distance Vic enjoyed. It was the analogy of the computer virus that wore me down, seeing these nanos like a new cyber war. I knew what they could do, how fast they could restructure themselves, evolve, if you will. Once it started, it would only stop when we were no longer around. And maybe not even then. Every defence would become a blueprint for the next attack. The air would choke with our invisible armies. There would be great clouds of them, mutating and fighting without need of a host. And once the public saw this and knew…’ He left the sentence unfinished.