by Ann Christy
He was tying the last of the marker fabric, shorter strips for these future cuts, to the wires and bundles when Graham heard the timer beep on his radio. His stomach fairly leapt up into his chest and he felt a painful constriction in his throat accompanied by a soggy thudding sound in his ears as his heart kicked into high gear. He pulled the knot tight and reached for the radio, silencing the alarm.
He wasn't really worried about the time since the timer had been set based on an estimate and who knew if Silo 40 would be able to pull off their own complicated scheme with exact timing. He was concerned about enough things to more than take up the slack on the worry line. He would do more than worry if he didn't get a call soon, he would probably completely lose it and start screaming or else faint.
He was about to radio the other two and let them know the order would come at any time when the radio blared with noise and Nella's excited voice came through to him, "All Silos, this is 40. Do it! Do it! Confirm!"
Graham grabbed the other radio and mashed the talk button so hard his fingernails turned white. He yelled, "Do it! Cut the lines! Now!"
He shoved the radio into the recess of the conduit to hold it secure and plucked up the large wire cutters from the floor, almost flinging himself back toward the dark opening in the concrete filled with that monster made of wire. He yanked the fabric tails to the side, bending the bundle of wires a little and baring it to the blades of the cutters like an animal's neck being bared for the cleaver.
He squeezed the cutters with as much power as he could but was forced to almost saw the wires apart, opening and closing the blades on the thick bundle as more and more of the wires within began to part. By the time the cutter blades finally slammed together with a loud clack, he was spewing equal parts curses and spittle from between clenched teeth and he could feel the painful release of the cords in his neck as he stopped squeezing the tool.
He dropped the cutters to the floor and was reaching for both radios when both Grace and Wallis tried to come through, one stomping on the other. Grace bowed out apparently because Wallis came through clearly with the single word, "Done!", and Grace followed directly after with the same. Graham smiled.
His sweat soaked hair and coveralls felt heavy on him and he was terribly tired all of the sudden. He pressed the talk button on the radio to his two conspirators and also pressed the one on the radio to Silo 40 so that his message would be heard by all parties.
"This is Silo 49. We have cut the lines. I repeat, the lines are cut," Graham said, enunciating as clearly as he could because he wanted no mistakes. But it was strangely difficult to do so. He wasn't sure why but he was having so much trouble thinking of the right thing to say. His finger slipped from the button on the radio to Silo 40. He tried to set it down gently but it started falling from his hand without him wanting it to. For some reason he couldn't fathom, his left hand wasn't working properly and the bright pain in his neck was moving down his arm.
He heard the voices of other silos coming through the radio on the floor, a chorus of “Done!” or “Complete!” coming through in foggy blobs of sound. He still had a grip on the radio in his right hand and he concentrated with all his might as he pressed the button once more and said, "Wallis, Grace, thank you. We’re safe. I...I..."
*****
Grace was the first to reach him, her path easier through to him than the circuitous one Wallis had to take. She dropped to her knees and lifted Graham's head so that she might cradle it on her folded legs. She smoothed the sweat soaked hair from his brow and tried to make him answer but his half lidded eyes were gazing off toward some other place she wasn't able to see. She didn't cry for him then, that came later, but she talked to him and told him how much he would be loved and missed in case there was some part of him that could still hear her.
When Wallis came sliding around that last corner and saw them there, he uttered a cry like a kicked dog and then began screaming profanities so profoundly original that Grace thought perhaps he was also suffering some sort of attack. It wasn't until she lay Graham's head gently back on the floor, his pack for a pillow, and approached Wallis cautiously that he stopped spewing his stream of filth.
He looked at her with such pain in his expression that she said nothing, merely opened her arms so he could take comfort from her hug if he chose to. He went into her embrace like a child. He cried and sobbed and repeated the same words over and over, "We were going to fix this shit."
Goodbye, Friend
The next day Graham's body was gently placed under the soil of the upper farms. Grace was there and she cried then but there were few others who attended. A few of the employees in IT and some of the neighbors on his level had come but there were so many jobs to be done that for every person that did attend, there were a dozen others who had wanted to but couldn't. In the end, even the priest was late and he appeared worn and tired from a long shift doing his other job.
It seemed to Wallis that this was not a worthy turnout for such a person as Graham. The 144 of this situation was that Graham had saved the life of every person who lived in this silo and every future person who might ever be born into this silo. Others should know that. He should be remembered. Somehow, Wallis resolved to himself as the priest said the words, he would see this done.
Grace reached for his hand at the graveside and they ate their tomatoes in honor of their fallen third, tossing the dripping remains after him and licking the juice from their fingers so that nothing was wasted. Her grip on his hand never wavered. The little bulge on the side of her throat must have pained her because she grimaced when she swallowed and it looked to Wallis as if she had to swallow many times to get the bits of tomato down.
That small lump, so insignificant at the surface, would take her soon and then he would be alone. She must be remembered too. She had been drinking un-dosed farm water since Graham first approached her and it was obvious the drugs were clearing from her system. He knew she was remembering and he could see that the pain of remembering was taking a heavy toll on her.
As the priest spoke, Wallis’ mind turned over the question of what to do next. Would he even know what he should do next? When Graham had told him all those incredible things about other silos and the hidden rooms under the floor in IT, about the Order and the Legacy and all those other amazing and terrible things, he had only half believed him.
But then he had seen one of the books that made up the Legacy. Graham snuck it out of IT and up to Level 5 just so that he could prove what he said was true. He had chosen ‘Sh – St’ and in that thick volume there had been wonders. The sky and stars and skunks and ships and spotted salamanders. All of it was in there and Graham had told him, eyes shining with wonder, that there was infinitely more to learn.
Grace only knew a fraction of what he had been told but she knew they weren't alone and that at least some of those others had meant to kill them while yet a different group wanted to save them. He would tell her all of it and they would figure out what to do next together. Graham would have wanted that.
Graham had been sick of the secrecy and the dishonesty that came with the burden of secrecy. He had poured out all that he had concluded about this system and how it was so inherently flawed. At the heart of that flaw were lies. He would approve of Wallis and Grace continuing his work and making a fresh start, free from the dangers of Silo One.
Graham had started using a little saying in those last days and Wallis thought of it now. "We can be different. We can be the good." Wallis thought that was the foundation, the 144, of everything they had done and he thought that it could be the way to their future.
As the priest finished, gave the obligatory condolences and the farmer who was standing by began fidgeting because he wanted to get back to work, Wallis patted the key under his coveralls. Graham had given it to him, taking it from around his own neck almost solemnly and telling him that he had worn it since the moment his shadow died. Graham had kept its twin.
When Grace and he had moved Gra
ham's body to the landing so that no one would know where he had been on Level 72, Wallis remembered the key and slipped it from his friend's neck and gave it to Grace. He had only told her to hide it then and that he would explain later but the truth was that even he wasn't sure what to do with it.
Wallis had switched his radio to the normal police channel and called in Graham's death only after he and Grace had erased as much evidence of their activity as they could. One of the radios he'd given to Grace so that they could continue to contact each other. Everything else that had been in Graham's pack that might arouse suspicion was transferred to Wallis' own pack.
The panels were closed up and one of the tool bags was carefully hidden in a musty little room so long unused that the shelving was covered in a thick coat of rust like a fuzzy red blanket. His voice was calm when he called it in, though he knew the sound of it was broken and hoarse from his earlier outburst. Grace had watched him carefully as if afraid he might do something very stupid in his grief. But he hadn't and she hadn't and together they had waited for the medics.
Eventually, a medic came and brought with him one of the black bags that only ever carried the dead. Grace had taken her leave then and she had looked so dreadfully tired and pale that Wallis worried for her, walking all those levels back down. She merely waved the concern away and told him she would talk to him soon. She laid her palm just once more on Graham's forehead and whispered words that Wallis couldn't hear into his ear. Then she was gone, down the first spiral much quicker than he would have thought.
Rather than try to port him up with so few porters left, Wallis had pulled the ropes and Graham rode gently up in the swaying fabric buckets. Wallis had strained at the ropes as he stood awkwardly beside his friend at first, unsure how he would get Graham all the way to the upper farms. Somehow even without many porters the word was spreading and by the time he got to the first landing he would have to switch buckets at, wondering how he would even shift the bucket to the landing, there was a small crowd waiting.
This somber group, perhaps made up of some of the same people who had waved them down so jovially just hours before, said nothing. They simply hooked the basket and aided him out before transferring his friend, ever so gently, to the next bucket. When Wallis was safely in next to his friend again he had reached for the ropes but they just as gently pushed away his fingers and heaved the line for him, each finding room for their hands until almost no rope could be seen between the many fingers.
It was this way all the way to the upper farms, where Graham needed to be laid to rest. It was where his wife had been planted years before and also where that tiny infant that would have been his daughter had gone before her. Wallis' tears ran freely down his face at the generosity and goodness of the people of this silo.
Many were clearly ill, faces with that strange pallor that cancer seems to always bring with it, or showing signs of fresh grief from losses they had suffered. Graham had told him about lowering the dose and even told him how they switched it on or off based on what Silo One thought of their situations. The lowered dose was showing now in the greater sadness of those around him.
But this was different from just kindness or remembered loss, he thought. They didn't know the details, perhaps, but they all knew Graham. They knew all of the things he had done to make things better. Wallis was mayor for now, sure, but Graham had seen to the building of the lifts, had erased the fees for wires as porters got fewer in number and he never shirked at any duty, whether his or not. And it had been just hours ago that the two men passed by, laughing and joking and happy about a healthy birth. They had been the first to actually ride in the lifts while alive and now Graham had joined the many that rode it after death, the saddest of cargos.
At the upper farms, he was relieved of the burden of his friend and told that he would be cared for and ready for the next day. This medic and coroner were kind, but professionally so, their jobs making them smooth in the presence of grief after dealing with it so often.
That night, when Wallis was back in his room and considering whether or not he should just drink the water from the tap and make all this pain go away, his radio crackled. It was Grace. She wanted to come up for the funeral and asked whether she might get a ride. Wallis pushed all thoughts of forgetting and dosed water from his head and promised that if she showed up on her landing, there would be help for her.
He had called all the remaining deputies on the radio and sent emergent wires up to the only administration desk that was still manned at all hours. He used all his contacts and when that next day arrived, Grace found a deputy waiting at the landing and looked up to see yellow banners waving from landings as far up as she could see.
At her confused look the deputy looked proud and said that the banners showed the landing was manned and ready and waiting for her. She had blushed then, her face almost healthy looking again, and accepted his hand in aid as she climbed into the basket. Her trip took just an hour. Ninety levels and nearly 4000 feet and she did it in an hour. Only jumpers could travel faster and then only one way.
It was a heady feeling to make that trip and Wallis enjoyed the high color in her cheeks as she told him about it and all the ways in which it could help this silo as they spoke before the funeral in Wallis' room. Then her face had crumpled in grief and she sobbed so suddenly and loudly that Wallis froze for a moment.
Her shoulders began to shake and Wallis moved to the couch next to her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, unsure what else to do. She folded herself into his shoulder and Wallis hated himself for noticing the scent of rosemary wafting up from her skin and hair even as he soothed her and murmured that it would be okay.
The funeral came and went and, at last, Wallis and Grace were alone at the graveside while the farmer finished patting the dirt over Graham's form. His expert fingers poked divots in the soil, seeds were dropped in and the soil smoothed once more. Bees buzzed the whole area, their flights looking somehow lazy and indolent to Wallis. The farmer took a sprinkling hose and went over the area.
Once he spooled the hose away there was nothing more than a small raised lump to note that a body lay there. Wallis knew that the farmers kept track of these things, who was planted where and when it happened, but he didn't know their method of doing so and as he gently tugged Grace away from the grave, he was extra careful where he placed his feet.
Back in his room, Grace took the same place on the couch she had taken when she broke down before the funeral and Wallis tensed, wondering if it was going to happen again. Though he had been married a long time, he had also been widowed a long time and he felt as rusty as an old bolt when dealing with emotional outpourings.
His wife had not been so demonstrative, not even when she lost pregnancy after pregnancy. He often considered the possibility that her ability to hold in her feelings might be the very reason she had jumped. Wallis knew it was no accidental fall. People don't accidentally take off their boots and line them up at the rail, tie their wedding ring to the laces and then accidentally fall over the side.
But had it been her inability to show, and thereby share, her grief that had been what took her to that point? He would never know for sure so he didn't mind Grace's grief coming out. He was just unsure if he was responding to it correctly.
But he needn't have worried, it seemed. She sniffled a little and wiped her eyes, but no more than that. He made them tea and sweetened it well with honey. She accepted the battered cup gratefully and with a wan smile that didn't diminish her fine features at all.
Wallis copied her actions when she breathed in the steam wafting up from the cup, her deep breaths flaring the nostrils of her thin nose. It seemed to soothe her and he was a little surprised to find that it did ease at least some of the tension in his body when he did the same. As he eased back into his chair, she leaned back into the couch and they were silent awhile, each deep in their own thoughts and wrapped in a grief almost too difficult to talk about.
Grace broke the
silence first and said, “The tea is good. Thank you. I almost never get to just enjoy a cup anymore.”
“Why’s that?” Wallis asked and wondered if there was some shortage he didn’t know about.
She responded by fluttering a hand near her neck and gave him a pained smile.
“Oh,” he responded. “Do you need something else?” He didn’t know what else to say.
“No. I’m good.” She sipped again and sighed. “Since it started…well…getting bigger, it’s been hard to eat. I mostly drink this concoction made of vegetable juices strained really fine so it will go down. I have to drink so much that I practically slosh when I walk. No room for extra fluids.”
Wallis barked out a laugh that held very little real humor and only after it came out realized how inappropriate it was considering the conversation.
“What?” she asked. She gave him a look like she also thought his laughter inappropriate.
“Graham told me that he avoided getting dosed when he traveled by either bringing water or by drinking vegetable juice.” She looked a bit confused so he explained that farm water wasn’t dosed since it interfered with plant growth.
She nodded then and said, “That must be why he said he was surprised at how sharp I was. Until he told me about the dosing, I thought he was insulting me as a wrench turner or something.”
Wallis shook his head at that. It was typical of Graham to just assume people would understand his good intentions. He never quite understood that not everyone thought like he did.
Grace changed the subject and asked, "What do we do now? We don't have a lot of time before those others notice he's gone, do we? I mean the ones that were going to destroy our silo."
Wallis sighed wearily and replied, "No, I don't think we do. But I spoke to the people in Silo 40 when I got back last night and they are going to help us figure it out. They're still there and they are monitoring the situation. So far they haven't recorded a signal for the remote destruct in their silo coming through the lines they cut, so they are stepping up their game to higher levels to try to get it done. I can't believe they are willing to risk all this for us."
