Dust s-9

by Hugh Howey

  Charlotte nodded. She took a deep breath. “Your silo.”

  There was a long silence. Charlotte wiped her face with her sleeve.

  “Why do you think I would trust you? Do you know what you all have done? How many lives you’ve taken? Thousands are dead—”

  Charlotte reached to adjust the volume, to turn it back down.

  “—and the rest of us will join them. But you say you want to help. Who the hell are you?”

  Juliette waited for her to answer. Charlotte faced the hissing box. She squeezed the mic. “Billions,” she said. “Billions are dead.”

  There was no response.

  “We killed so many more than you could ever imagine. The numbers don’t even make sense. We killed nearly everyone. I don’t think… the loss of thousands… it doesn’t even register. That’s why they’re able to do it.”

  “Who? Your brother? Who did this?”

  Charlotte wiped fresh tears from her cheeks and shook her head. “No. Donny would never do this. It was… you probably don’t have the words, the vocabulary. A man who used to be in charge of the world the way it once was. He attacked my brother. He found us.” Charlotte glanced at the door, half expecting Thurman to kick it down and barge in, to do the same to her. She had poked the nest, she was sure of it. “He’s the one who killed the world and your people. His name is Thurman. He was a… something like a mayor.”

  “Your mayor killed my world. Not your brother, but this other man. Did he kill this world that I’m standing in right now? It’s been dead for decades. Did he kill it as well?”

  Charlotte realized this woman thought of silos as the entire world. She remembered an Iraqi girl she spoke with once while attempting to get directions to a different town. That was a conversation in a different language about a different world, and it had been simpler than this.

  “The man who took my brother killed the wider world, yes.” Charlotte saw the memo in the folder, the note labeled The Pact. How to explain?

  “You mean the world outside the silos? The world where crops grew aboveground and silos held seeds and not people?”

  Charlotte let out a held breath. Her brother must’ve explained more than he let on.

  “Yes. That world.”

  “That world has been dead for thousands of years.”

  “Hundreds of years,” Charlotte said. “And we… we’ve been around a long time. I… I used to live in that world. I saw it before it was ruined. The people here in this silo are the ones who did it. I’m telling you.”

  There was silence. It was the sucking vacuum after a bomb. An admission, clearly stated. Charlotte had done it, what she thought her brother had always wanted to do. Admit to these people what they’d done. Paint a target. Invite retribution. All that they deserved.

  “If this were true, I would want all of you dead. Do you understand me? Do you know how we live? Do you know what the world is like outside? Have you seen it?”

  “Yes.”

  “With your own eyes? Because I have.”

  Charlotte sucked in a deep breath. “No,” she admitted. “Not with my own eyes. With a camera. But I’ve seen further out than any, and I can tell you that it’s better out there. I think you’re right about us poisoning the world, but I think it’s contained. I think there’s a great cloud around us. Beyond this cloud is blue skies and a chance at a life. You have to believe me, if I could help you get free, make this right, I would in a heartbeat.”

  There was a long pause. A very long pause.

  “How?”

  “I’m not… I don’t think I’m in a position to help. I’m only saying if I could, I would. I know you’re in trouble over there, but I’m not in great shape over here. When they find me, they’ll probably kill me. Or something like it. I’ve done…” She touched the screwdriver on the bench. “… very bad things.”

  “My people will want me dead for the part I played in this,” Juliette said. “They’ll send me to clean, and I won’t come back this time. So I guess we have something in common.”

  Charlotte laughed and wiped her cheeks. “I’m truly sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for the things you’re going through. I’m sorry we did this to you all.”

  There was silence.

  “Thank you. I want to believe you, believe that you and your brother weren’t the ones who did this. Mostly because someone close to me wanted me to believe your brother was trying to help. So I hope you aren’t in the way when I get over there. Now, these bad things you say you’ve done, have you done them to bad people?”

  Charlotte sat up straight. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Good. That’s a start. And now let me tell you about the world out there. I’ve loved two men in all my life, and both of them tried to convince me of this, that the world was a good place, that we could make it better. When I found out about the diggers, when I dreamed about tunneling here, I thought this was the way. But it only made things worse. And those two men with all that hope bursting from their breasts? Both of them are dead. That’s the world I live in.”

  “Diggers?” Charlotte asked. She tried to make sense of this. “You got to that other silo through the airlocks. Over the hills.”

  Juliette didn’t answer at first. “I’ve said too much,” she said. “I should go.”

  “No, wait. Help me understand. You tunneled from one silo to another?” Charlotte leaned forward and spread the notes out again, grabbed the map. Here was one of those puzzles that made no sense until a new rule or piece of information was made available. She traced one of the red lines out beyond the silos to a point labeled SEED.

  “I think this is important,” Charlotte said. She felt a surge of excitement. She saw how the game was supposed to play out, what was to become of this in two hundred years. “You have to believe me when I say this, but I am from the old world. I promise. I’ve seen it covered with crops that… like you say, that grow aboveground. And the world outside that looks ruined, I don’t think it stretches like that forever. I’ve seen a glimpse. And these diggers, you called them. I think I know what they’re for. Listen to me. I have a map here that my brother thought was important. It shows a bunch of lines leading to this place marked S-E-E-D.”

  “Seed,” Juliette said.

  “Yeah. These lines look like flight lines, which never made sense. But I think they lead to a better place. I think the digger you found wasn’t meant to go between silos. I think—”

  There was a noise behind her. Charlotte had a difficult time processing it, even though she had expected it for hours, for days. She was so used to being alone, despite the fear that they were coming for her, the perfect knowledge that they were coming for her.

  “You think what?” Juliette asked.

  Turning, Charlotte watched the door to the drone control room fly open. A man dressed like those who had held her brother down stood in the hallway. He came at her, all alone, shouting for her to hold still, shouting for her to raise her hands. He trained a gun on her.

  Juliette’s voice spilled from the radio. She asked Charlotte to go on, to tell her what the diggers were for, to answer. But Charlotte was too busy complying with this man, holding one hand over her head and the other as high as the pain would allow. And she knew it was all over.

  Silo 17

  47

  The genset grumbled to life. There was a rattle deep in the belly of the great digger, and then a string of lights flickered on in Silo 17’s pump room, in the generator room, and down the main hall. There were whoops and applause from exhausted mechanics, and Juliette realized how important these small victories were. Light shone where once there was dark flood.

  For her, every breath was a small victory. Lukas’s death was a weight on her chest, as were the losses of Peter and Marsha and Nelson. Everyone in IT she had come to know and forgive was gone. The cafeteria staff. Practically anyone above Supply, all those who hadn’t made a run for it. Weights on her chest, every one. She took another deep breath and marveled th
at breathing was still possible.

  Courtnee had taken charge of the mechanics, stepping into the vacuum Shirly had left. She and her team were the ones stringing lights and wires and getting the pumps rigged and automated. Juliette moved about like a ghost. Only a handful seemed to see her. Just her father and a few of her closest friends, loyal to a fault.

  She found Walker in the back of the digger, where the tight confines and reliable power made him feel closer to home. He looked over her radio and pronounced it both operational and out of juice. “I could rig up a charger in a few hours,” he told her apologetically.

  Juliette surveyed the conveyor belt, which had been swept free of dirt and rubble and now served as a workbench for both Walker and the dig team. Walker had several projects underway for Courtnee: pumps to respool and what looked like disassembled mining detonators. Juliette thanked him but told him she was heading up soon; there were chargers in the deputy stations as well as in IT on thirty-four.

  Further down the conveyor belt, she noticed members of the dig team poring over a schematic. Juliette gathered the radio and her flashlight from Walker’s station, patted him on the back, and joined them.

  Erik, the old mine foreman, had a pair of dividers and was marking out distances on the schematic. Juliette squeezed in to get a closer look. It was the silo layout she’d brought down from IT all those weeks ago. It showed a grid of circles, a few of them crossed out. There were markings between two silos to show the route the digger had taken. The schematic had been used by the mining team to chart their way, buttressed by Juliette’s best guess on which direction she had walked and how far.

  “We could make it to number sixteen in two weeks,” Erik calculated.

  Bobby grunted. “C’mon. It took longer than that to get here.”

  “I’m relying on your extra incentive to get out of this place,” Erik said.

  Someone laughed.

  “What if it ain’t safe over there?” Fitz asked.

  “It probably isn’t,” Juliette said.

  Grime-covered faces turned to acknowledge her.

  “You got friends in all of these?” Fitz asked. He practically sneered at her. Juliette could feel the tension among the group. Most of them had gotten their families through, their loved ones and kids and brothers and sisters. But not all.

  Juliette squeezed between Bobby and Hyla and tapped one of the circles on the map. “I’ve got friends right here,” she said.

  Shadows swayed drunkenly across the map as the bulb overhead swung on its cord. Erik read the label on the circle Juliette had indicated. “Silo 1,” he said. He traced the three rows of silos between this location and where they currently stood. “That would take a lot longer.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m going alone.”

  Eyes went from the map to her. The only sound was the rumbling of the genset at the other end of the digger.

  “I’ll be going overland. And I know you need all the blast charges you can lay hands on, but I saw you had a few cases left over from the dig. I’d love to take enough to pop a hole in the top of this silo.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bobby asked.

  Juliette leaned over the map and traced a path with her finger. “I’m going overland in a modified suit. I’m going to strap as many sticks of blast charge as I can to the door of this silo, and then I’m going to open that motherfucker like a soup can.”

  Fitz smiled a toothless smile. “What kind of friends you say you got over there?”

  “The dead kind,” Juliette said. “The people who did this to us live right there. They’re the ones who make the world outside unlivable. I think it’s time they live in it.”

  No one spoke for a beat. Until Bobby asked, “How thick are the airlock doors? I mean, you’ve seen ’em.”

  “Three, four inches.”

  Erik scratched his beard. Juliette realized half the men around that table were doing some kind of figuring. Not a one of them was going to talk her out of this.

  “It would take twenty to thirty sticks,” someone said.

  Juliette searched out the voice and saw a man she didn’t recognize. Someone from the Mids who had made it down, maybe. But he was wearing a mechanic’s coveralls.

  “You all had one-inch plate welded up at the base of the stairwell. We used eight sticks to punch through it. I’d say plan on three to four times that.”

  “You’re a transfer?” Juliette asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. And looking past the grime to his cropped hair and bright smile, Juliette thought she could see the Up-Topper in there. One of the men sent from IT to bolster the shifts in Mechanical. Someone who had blown open the barrier her friends had erected during the uprising. He knew what he was talking about.

  Juliette looked to the others. “Before I go, I’ll reach out to a few of these silos, see if any will harbor you. But I’ve got to warn you, the heads of these joints all work for these people. They’d as likely kill you when you come crashing through their walls as feed you. I don’t know what’s salvageable here, but you might be better off staying put. Imagine what we would’ve thought if a few hundred strangers cut their way inside our home and asked to be put up.”

  “We would’ve let them,” Bobby said.

  Fitz sneered. “Easy for you to say, you’ve got your two kids. What about those of us in the lottery?”

  This got several people talking all at once. Erik slapped the conveyor belt with his hand to silence them. “That’s enough,” he said. He glared at those gathered. “She’s right. We need to know where we’re headed first. In the meantime, we can start staging. We’re gonna want all the supports in the mines of this place, which means a lot of water to pump out and exploring to do.”

  “How exactly are we going to aim this thing?” Bobby asked. “She was a bitch to steer here. These things aren’t fond of turning.”

  Erik nodded. “Already thought of that. We’ll dig around it and give her room enough to spin in place. Court says it’s possible to run a set of tracks at a time, a little forward on one side, a little back on the other. She’ll creep around as long as there’s no earth in the way.”

  Raph appeared at Juliette’s side. He had been hanging back during the discussion. “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  Juliette realized it wasn’t a question. She nodded.

  When Erik was done explaining what they needed to do next, workers began to scatter. Juliette caught Erik’s attention and showed him her radio. “I’m going to go see Courtnee and my dad before I leave, and I’ve got some friends that headed off to the farms. I’ll have someone bring you down a radio as soon as I find another. And a charger. If I make contact with a silo that’ll have you, I’ll let you know.”

  Erik nodded. He started to say something, scanned the faces of those still milling about, then waved her to the side. Juliette handed her radio to Raph and followed.

  A few paces away, Erik glanced around and waved her further along. And then further. Until they were at the far end of the tailings facility where the very last bulb swayed and flickered.

  “I’ve heard what some of them are sayin’,” Erik said. “I just want you to know it’s ratshit, okay?”

  Juliette scrunched up her face in confusion. Erik took a deep breath, eyed his workers in the distance. “My wife was working in the one-twenties when this went down. Everyone around her was running up, and as much as she felt the urge to join them, she headed straight down here to our kids. Was the only one on her level to make it. She fought a helluva crowd to get here. People were acting crazy.”

  Juliette squeezed his arm. “I’m glad she made it.” She watched the dangling lights shine in Erik’s eyes.

  “Goddammit, Jules, listen to what I’m telling you. This morning, I woke up on a rusted sheet of plate steel, a crick in my neck I may live with for the rest of my life, two damn kids sleeping on me like a mattress, and my ass dead numb from the cold—”

  Juliette laughed.
>
  “—but Lesley is laying there watching me. Like she’s been watching me a long while. And my wife looks around us at this rusted hellhole, and she says thank God we had this place to come to.”

  Juliette turned away and wiped at her eyes. Erik grabbed her arm and made her face him. He wasn’t going to let her retreat like that.

  “She hated this dig. Hated it. Hated me taking on a second shift, hated it because of my bitchin’ and moanin’ over the struts you made me pull, what we did to number six. Hated it because I hated it. You understand?”

  Juliette nodded.

  “Now, I know the fix we’re in as well as most. I don’t reckon we’ll get anywhere with this next dig, but it’ll give us something to do until our time comes. Until then, I’m going to wake up sore next to the woman I love, and if I’m lucky I’ll do the same thing the next morning, and every one of those is a gift. This ain’t hell. This is what comes before. And you gave us that.”

  Juliette wiped the tears from her cheeks. Some part of her hated herself for crying in front of him. Another part wanted to throw her arms around his neck and sob. She missed Lukas more powerfully in that moment than she thought herself capable.

  “I don’t know about this fool’s errand you’re setting off on, but you take whatever of mine you need. If that means more digging with my bare hands, so be it. You get those fuckers. I want to see them in hell by the time I get there.”

  48

  Juliette found her father in the makeshift clinic he had set up in a cleared-out and rusted storeroom. Raylee, a second-shift electrician nine months pregnant, rested on a bedroll, her husband at her side, both of them with their hands on her belly. Juliette acknowledged the couple and realized their child would be the first — maybe ever — to be born in a different silo from its parents. That child would never know the gleaming Mechanical in which they worked and lived, would never travel up to the bazaar and hear music or see a play, may never gaze at a functioning wallscreen to know the outside world. And if it was a girl, she would face the danger of having children of her own like Hannah had, with no one to tell her otherwise.