by Ann Christy
Silo 49: Flying Season for the Mis-Recorded
A Story From Silo 49
In A WOOL Universe Series
by Ann Christy
Copyright Information
© 2014 by Ann Christy.
All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. All resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and the product of a fevered imagination.
Cover Art
Torrey Cooney - http://torriecooney.blogspot.com
Author’s Foreword
You and every other reader of the Silo 49 series took a chance on a totally untried author and made this series a Kindle Bestseller in the genre for Six Months and Counting! For that, I thank you and can’t express enough how much I appreciate you taking that chance.
If this is the first Silo 49 book you’ve picked up…STOP. This is the third in terms of silo 49 chronology and the fourth in reading order.
The emails I receive are a treasure and filled with really smart questions…and a few requests. Since Silo 49: Dark Till Dawn came out the question I’ve received most runs a bit like this: Will we ever hear the story of Greg and Lizbet? The second most common question is whether or not I’ll write about what happens after Dark Till Dawn. To the first question, this novelette is my answer. I’ve written it just for you. To the second question I can’t give you a yes or no answer. It’s a very different story and I’m not sure I can do it justice because it would have to be a very special book indeed.
With many thanks to Hugh Howey for his generous permission to publish this series set in his world of WOOL and the Silos and with affection for my fellow WOOLians, Ann Christy
Table of Contents
Chapter One – Race Year 71
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Epilogue – Race Year 89
Chapter One – Race Year 71
Lizbet shoved the last vegetable tray into the freeze drying machine and slammed the door home with a little extra force. The hinges needed to be worked on but until it actually quit shutting reliably, it would remain on the work list. There were always other broken things moving past the not-quite-broken items on the work lists. She hit the buttons that set it to work and listened for the fans and compressor to kick on.
When the buzzing whine seemed stable she turned to inspect her work area. Nothing on the floor, no forgotten trays of cut vegetables, packing tables clear and clean, the knives sharpened and in their sheaths. The vacuum sealer in the corner was cleaned and ready for the next day, its stack of buckets and bags neatly arranged and waiting. She gave a nod of satisfaction then sniffed at her hands and arms. Not too bad today. She was lucky it was carrots and not onions. No amount of scrubbing would get that smell off and she didn't have a lot of time to waste tonight.
At the door she squared her shoulders and made sure her face was without expression, the familiar flush of anticipated embarrassment making a hot spot in the center of her belly. She raised her chin just enough to seem unbothered, but not so much as to seem proud, and opened the door.
Second shift was in full swing in the vegetable processing room and a dozen pairs of eyes followed her as she strode quickly past the people at their long tables full of produce. Knives, cutters and scrapers stilled and she could feel their eyes on her back like little points of pain. Lizbet pushed through the swinging doors and kept walking toward the door that led to the safety of the compartments. Behind her, the voices and noises of work increased once more.
Like always, the pressure eased at about ten paces away and she sucked in a deep breath of relief. One more day gone. Going to and leaving from work were the two worst moments of her day and she counted each one completed without incident a victory. There was no one in the hallway leading to the single compartments so she pulled the kerchief from around her head and let her hair fall free after being confined all day. Her hair actually hurt when she let it fall, a sore tugging on her scalp. The tight binding of her kerchief bent the hairs and the roots protested when the weight came back. It happened at the end of every work day and she’d grown to like the soreness. It was the same kind of pleasant discomfort that came from stretching in the morning after a deep sleep.
Her room was the last in the hallway, with the further space of an empty room between her and the next occupied compartment. Though it was never said specifically, she knew no one wanted to risk sharing a wall with her. Especially not while they slept. She even had her own bathroom so that nothing of hers would touch anyone else’s, even obliquely. She didn't mind. She might as well have some benefit from being nearly untouchable.
Inside her room, she stripped the sweaty coveralls off and flung them over the back of her chair. In her tiny shower, she scrubbed her skin till it hurt. She let the water run over her, easing the tight muscles in her arms and using a decadent amount of hot water. Toweling off, she sniffed her arms again and detected the faint dirty sweetness of carrots but she didn't think it was too bad. It was almost nice. Tonight was a big night and she wanted everything to be perfect.
The tunic she had just finished sewing the night before hung from the front of her closet. It was daring and of her own design. It wouldn't just raise eyebrows, it would drop jaws. Dyed the darkest color she could find, it looked purple in the light but black in dim light. Small bright blue spots were sewn around the bottom of the hem in the back, yellow spots on the front. The bottom half was short enough that it barely reached past her shorts and the top half wasn't much of a half at all. Two wide strips of cloth were anchored at the front waistline of the skirt and crossed over her chest, crossed again in back and were then sewn onto the skirt at the sides.
Small orange ribbons kept the crossed bits in place and held all her parts where they should be. She smiled and ran her hands down the supple cloth. It would fly when she moved and her feet tapped in anticipation of the music to come.
She changed into her dancing shorts, ribbons run through the hems at the bottom and tied around her thighs to keep it snug no matter what she did. Today the ribbons were appropriately red. She slipped the tunic on and smiled at her reflection in the bare metal mirror. Perfect.
Pulling the coveralls over the tunic was tricky and she was left with a little bulge around her hips, where the tunic beneath bunched up. It would tell anyone who looked carefully where she was going and what she was up to. Then again, hundreds of other teen shadows would be taking to the stairs in the same state, so that didn’t matter much. She shoved her sandals into her satchel, added a quick spray of scent and a smudge of charcoal around the rims of her eyes. She was ready.
There was a shadow in the butterfly garden as she passed by on her way to the landing. It should have been empty by this time. People weren’t supposed to muck about in there at all really, but particularly not when it was after regular farm hours and no one was there to monitor them. It was her duty, along with her caster’s, to see to the butterflies so, as much as she might like to, she couldn’t just pass on by and not do anything. She paused, wondering if she should see who it was or go get Marcus to do it. Depending on who was in there, that person might react badly to her sudden appearance. She saw the shadow move and bend down. Curiosity won out—particularly since the door had been left cracked open—so she p
eeked in, ready to back away in a hurry should it be someone she couldn’t interact with.
Luckily the person was Marcus, the farmer who had sponsored her and acted as her reluctant caster. He was bent over the patch of parsley and looking intently at something within the bundles of curly leaves.
"Something wrong, Marcus?"
He started at the sound of her voice and rose too quickly, stumbling backward. She reached out to catch him but he jerked his arm back before her fingers made contact. She pulled away, expression carefully neutral. Marcus may have sponsored her and he may have been one of the only people who seemed comfortable speaking with her alone, but he was no different than anyone else when it came right down to it.
"I didn't mean to startle you. I was just passing by and saw someone in here," she explained, looking down at a butterfly on the ground near her feet. It was wafting its wings slowly and canted a little to the side. This one wouldn't fly again.
"Ah, don't worry about it, Lizbet. I'm an old man and startle easily. I just came to see them." He waved a hand at the litter of dead and dying butterflies on the plants and ground. "It's getting toward the end of flying season."
She murmured an assent and bent toward the canted butterfly. The larger blue spots among the yellow and black meant this one was a female. She laid a finger on the ground in front of it and felt the tickle of its tiny legs as it crawled up her extended digit. She knew it was silly, but when she did this, she imagined they felt relief to be away from the hard, cold floor. She carefully transferred the weakening creature to the parsley and let her crawl off at her own pace. Only when the butterfly was safely away did she speak. "But flying season will come again for them."
Over the years of her life, Lizbet had become expert at looking at people without actually looking directly at them. She saw Marcus stiffen a little, the posture one that spoke of concern.
She had said it too expressively, she thought. She rose again, gripped her satchel in front of her and lifted her eyes for the barest second to meet his. "They'll be back. Everything that is of us—everything good—is born again to the silo. Nothing is wasted. Not even souls." She gestured at the struggling butterfly and said, “Not even their souls.”
They said nothing more for a moment. Lizbet was conscious of each minute passing her by. She really wanted to go but Marcus wouldn't have been here just to see butterflies. He must want to say something to her. The farms were dark for the night, the farmers at home. If he was here it was for a reason. She wondered who had complained about her now.
"Listen, Marcus. I've been doing what I'm supposed to. Keeping to myself..."
He raised a hand to interrupt her. "Oh, Lizbet. It's nothing like that. I..." He stopped and cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Since you're off tomorrow and everything."
She flushed and tried not to smile. "Oh, thank you. Thank you for remembering."
He shuffled his feet and cleared his throat again. "Well, it's a big one, isn't it?" He pointed at her satchel and the red tag hanging from the strap. "You’re going for one last dance?"
Lizbet spun the matching tag around her wrist and said, "One more night and then I age out."
He laughed and said, "I remember that day. Turning twenty felt like the end of the world. Well, now you'll have to settle down like the rest of us." He stopped abruptly, realizing what he had said and how absurd it was. He reached out a hand and came within a hair's breadth of her shoulder, something he had never done before. His gaze fell for the briefest moment on the ridged circle of scar tissue on her cheek, her own personal and permanent ‘O’ carved in flesh, and his hand fell back to his side.
"You know what I mean,” he added quietly.
They both knew there would be no "settling down". There would be only the unending solitude she had now, except that it wouldn't be broken once a fortnight inside the walls of 25 Drums, where all were the same and all were welcome. It would just be this ceaseless shoveling of food into and out of machines and a meal she picked up to eat alone in her room after her shift. And dreams of how it should be different, of course. Always the dreams.
"It will be okay, Lizbet." He knew. He was saying goodbye.
"Yes," she said, her tone as flat as ever. "It will be okay."
She looked down again. He was uncomfortable once more. He shuffled to the door of the enclosure, his back bent with age and decades spent over a spade in the soil. "Have fun tonight. I'll see you," he said as he left the enclosure.
When he was gone, Lizbet saw that there were two more butterflies on the ground that wouldn't make it. After six years of shadowing inside the farms she had come to know their motions well. She could tell which ones were resting and who was finished with their duty to life and simply waiting to die.
It was precious time she was using, but she let each crawl to her fingers to be returned to the parsley. They had no expressions—no communication—but they seemed content there. Tomorrow their little bodies would be plucked away but for now, they could be where it was familiar and safe. They could have the company of others like themselves.
The screen door sign read, "Close me!" in emphatic letters. Farmers in the silo were so efficient at their jobs, including harvesting, that these poor creatures had been made almost extinct. Kept here, in their own enclosure with their own plants to put their eggs on, their numbers were sound. But they were caged. They fluttered their wings and rested on the screen like bright sparks of color. She could almost feel their inborn desire to get beyond it.
She pulled the door closed behind her and stopped, her hand resting on the handle. It was the end of flying season. There would be more than enough eggs laid by now to ensure another year. She looked around the darkened farm and saw no one, no profile among the plants and no sound of rustling leaves during an evening stroll. The door opened again without a squeak and she strode quickly away without looking back. The current of wind created by her swift departure made for an easy path and wings fluttered in her wake.
Two
The stairs were nothing to her and the levels passed quickly. She could have easily been a porter or any other profession that required the stairs if anyone would have been able to tolerate her touching their things or knocking at their door for a delivery. Her easy physicality was just something she had been born with, like big eyes or pale skin. She was good at anything that took dexterity or used the body in controlled ways.
When she had danced for her mother as a child, even after what happened, her mother had always been amazed by what Lizbet could do. There were never any scoldings when she leapt from the couch to twirl in the air and then land, light as a cat, all the way across the room. Instead, her mother would clap in delight and then lift her to spin her around in their family’s compartment. But that amazement had always been joined by the cautious warning to never show it to anyone else. They wouldn’t understand.
She was too much like her father and Lizbet knew it. As she flew the stairs toward the growing sound of drums in the distance she knew that it must be terrible for the families of the women her father had hurt to see her on the stairs, never knowing when it might happen and therefore, never prepared for the sight. She was the very image of him in female form, the same loose curls that had made her father seem so harmless, the same large eyes of a color so dark brown they were almost black, the same heart shaped face and pointed chin. How could nine motherless children and six widowed men overlook her when they might see her anywhere or anytime?
She understood their aversion. What she couldn’t understand was the cruelty.
The beat of the drums grew more distinct. Sounds of laughter on the landing still a few levels away spurred Lizbet on faster, her heart beating heavy in her chest as the rhythm of the drums resolved into a recognizable tune. Skipping lightly onto every third step, she had to hold the central post to keep from flying over the rail as she went faster and faster. At the landing she leapt off and shuffle skipped to a stop just shy of h
itting the wall. The crowd at the entrance was dwindling as they were let into the club but there were still more people than she was comfortable with mingling in groups on the landing.
This was a sort of danger zone for Lizbet and it was worse because it was an unpredictable danger. Some nights the landing would be just an extension of 25 Drums itself, with kids mingling and dancing, though a much more discreet sort of dancing than that which went on inside. On those nights she was just another dancer.
On other nights they were still firmly fixed into their roles within the silo. Those nights were hard. They turned from her and avoided her eyes or muttered words like 'Other' or 'Mis-recorded' under their breaths out on the landing. Inside, they dropped those faces and danced with abandon, even going so far as exchanging a word with her now and then.
Those nights were difficult not because of what they did before they went inside. They were hard because they could drop those faces so easily and let it go once inside. Lizbet never could. No matter what happened within 25 Drums, if she were to meet any of them the next day and put out a hand in greeting, they would shrink from her in horror or embarrassment. She was, and would always be, the half-Other pariah. She would always be the only child ever born in the silo to an Other, a creature that only looked human but had none of the redeeming qualities of a human. A killer of humans.
Tonight it wasn't so bad on the landing. No one even looked at her, really. This year all three racers were under twenty years old and all three had shown up for 25 Drums according to what she heard as she approached. That would include the little wallflower she had never quite taught to dance, the only person she could call friend. It had everyone a twitter since one of the racers was a girl and two were boys. Something for everyone, Lizbet thought wryly.
She breezed past the assembled crowd toward the lift station. The big fabric bucket was shipped for the night, sagging and empty on the platform over the yawning depths of the silo below. She pulled the bucket off the platform and pushed it to the side. Stepping onto the platform, she lifted the gate latch that kept the bucket from falling should anything unbalance it. She swung it wide and leaned over the gap to catch the breeze that always ran up the silo. It didn’t let her down tonight, blowing the ends of her hair and cooling the sweat that beaded her face from her quick trip on the stairs. When she felt cool again—cool enough that she shivered—she stepped back and latched the gate.
