They crossed the field to Tower 14 without another word. Again, they rigged the tarp into a hanging bundle from Lark’s waist for the ladder climb. Raven snugged her gloves and scaled the tower, careful not to grab onto anything sharp and rusted. Lark came up behind her, crawling out onto the platform, shivering and stiff, evidently afraid of being high up. They both hauled the tarp up by the rope, then sat there gazing up at the windmill pod.
“Damn. You’re right. It’s a junk heap,” said Lark after a moment.
“A vital junk heap. Here… look at this.” Raven stood, opened the big side hatch, and pointed up at the hole. “Check out the size of that hole. The piece fell and tangled up in the gears.”
Lark shivered, her entire demeanor once again in ‘we’re going to die’ mode.
“What’s wrong now?”
“If you’re right about these towers, we really are in big trouble.”
“Help me convince Ben to do something then.” Raven pointed at a blob of white grease. “See. Someone’s been out here. That’s recent.”
“Whoa. You’re right.” Lark stared into her eyes. “Why would they keep that secret?”
“Good question.” Raven undid the knot bundling the tarp. “We can debate it inside. Let’s get this thing covered before the rain starts.”
11
A Hundred Little Flaws
Oh, not good. There shouldn’t be smoke coming out of that. – Ellis Wilder.
Covering Turbine 14 with a blue plastic tarp had been more challenging than she initially thought. Controlling the tarp in the stiff breeze proved to be a complete pain in the ass. Worse, they couldn’t tie it down to the gridding as it would immobilize the windmill and stop it from rotating to face into the direction of airflow—or more likely rip away as soon as a strong enough breeze pushed the massive pod around.
They ended up wrapping the pod and tying the tarp to itself to hold it in place. Anyone trying to work on the generator’s insides would need to remove the tarp first, but no rain would be getting in there.
Lark’s fear about the outside initially seemed as strong as a legitimate phobia, but by the time they returned to the hatch, she’d calmed down from terror to strong nervousness. Raven hadn’t been able to tempt her to smell the air without a filter mask in the way, but she suspected the woman could be talked into going outside again in the future for a necessary repair.
That’s how I’ll win. One by one, I’ll get people to help me work on the turbines. Eventually, no one will be scared of topside.
On the walk down the long escape corridor, she briefly worried about trace amounts of poison in the air. Maybe she’d been breathing stuff in that she wouldn’t feel right away, toxins that didn’t bother plant life. Going out there and not wearing a mask might’ve taken twenty years off her life.
If we don’t do anything, I’m not going to see forty. Dead either way… and I’d rather not die of suffocation in a tomb.
They returned to the engineering room, gave a report to Ben who still appeared stunned at Lark’s abrupt turnaround from sheer terror to volunteering to go outside. The doubt in his expression boosted her confidence and set a new goal: convince her boss to visit topside before the end of the next month. Going outside did require the extra complication of getting approval from Noah. She wouldn’t be able to simply go out the door. Every trip—at least until she got through to him—would require a valid reason.
Raven grinned to herself. If he won’t let me out there to do maintenance on the windmills, he’ll have to admit he knows someone else is already doing that. Hmm. Did they die? Or what…?
Since her work hours hadn’t ended yet, she grabbed her tool satchel and decided to go on an inspection patrol. Her experience going to the surface left her with way too much excess energy to spend the next three hours sitting at her desk doing precise repair work on small appliances. She needed to move around, even if the Arc seemed to be shrinking in on her. The air really did smell unpleasant in the tunnels, laced with a mixture of body odor, the chemical twang of the scrubbers, a pervasive poo smell from the hydroponic farm, and the metallic rustiness of dying machinery.
Worse, she missed the sky.
It had been one thing to daydream based on her imagination from reading, but to really see the sky overhead, the vast openness of it, lit a spark deep in her psyche she could neither put out nor wanted to.
I get it, Dad. I really do… why didn’t you take me with you?
She spent a while roaming the Arc, checking pipes, air movers, power boxes, and other components. Mostly to avoid Noah coming down on her and making it difficult to venture outside again, she didn’t say anything to people she ran into about what she’d seen out there. The faint worry that she might have been exposed to contamination eventually grew to the point she visited the doc.
Preston snapped awake from a nap at his desk when she walked in.
“Hi, Doc. Sorry to bug you. Do you have any way to test for… stuff?”
He chuckled. “I’m sorry, but you’ll need to be a bit more specific than that.”
“I went outside twice to work on the turbines. The first time, I sniffed the air without a mask. Second time, I didn’t bother wearing the mask.”
She expected him to gawk at her like she admitted to murdering someone, but his demeanor took on a sense of mission as though her situation afforded him an opportunity that he’d been desperate for.
“Yes, there are a few things.” He leapt to his feet and gestured at the exam table. “Sit.”
Raven climbed up to sit on the exam table, watching him run around the back end of the infirmary collecting an assortment of supplies from drawers. He carried a bundle to a nearby pushcart, dropped everything on it, and approached her, pulling the wheeled table behind him.
“How much of your skin was exposed to the air?”
“First time, just a little bit under the goggles and my forehead. Second time, my whole face.”
“Hands?”
“No. Had gloves on.”
He picked up a small square cloth patch and wiped at her poncho, dropped the patch in a plastic baggie, then repeated the process again and again, swabbing different spots on her clothing as well as her face. She sat there patiently tolerating it until he went for a syringe.
“Doc?”
“Drawing blood for testing.”
“Okay.”
He filled one phial with blood, then used a long cotton swab to take a sample from the back of her throat. The nose swab made her sneeze into a coughing fit.
“What are you doing?” She covered her mouth and coughed again. “Wow that tickled.”
“Taking samples from your mucosal lining. I can test them for harmful substances you might have inhaled. I’ll need to head down to a lab on level five. Hopefully the equipment still works.” He dropped the nasal swab into a baggie. “Do you feel anything unusual? What made you come ask about this?”
She half shrugged. “Just worrying. I feel fine. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Preston quirked an eyebrow.
“Slightly dizzy and sluggish, but only after I came back inside.”
He looked into her eyes, his expression calm. “Your body is used to the atmosphere down here. After getting a taste of fresh air, it could be upset.”
“Do you think it’s toxic out there?”
“I don’t have enough information to give an opinion.” He shot a look at the cart of samples like a child eyeing birthday presents he really wanted to open.
“You know something…”
“It is possible I am aware of certain things not considered public knowledge. Nothing I’m permitted to speak of. Patient confidentiality.”
Raven tilted her head. “Have you been outside?”
“No.”
“But you know someone who has been… the one who’s maintaining the windmills.”
Preston pursed his lips. “Assuming anyone would be so selfless as to risk the contamination of the outside world for the ben
efit of the Arc, they would do so knowing it leads to a shortened life and a likely painful death.”
“So there is someone. Are you testing them?”
He didn’t move.
“You can’t. Or at least, if you can, you can’t talk about it.”
“You’re guessing.” He half smiled.
“Guessing doesn’t prove me wrong.” She winked. “So, I was thinking. Why would Noah approve me going out there to check on the windmill if someone already maintained them? At first, I thought maybe this person died. But no one’s gone mysteriously missing.”
Preston smiled the rest of the way. “The dead cannot die again.”
“Huh? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does. If you think. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get these samples to the lab.”
“Grr.” She chuckled. “Okay. Thanks.”
He went left; she turned right.
The heck does that mean… can’t die again.
That thought rattled around in her brain as she continued inspecting anything along her path that could potentially break down and need repair. Eventually, she ended up on level four and went into the hydroponic farm. Rows and rows of powerful lights that mimicked the sun hung over massive troughs filled with viscous green liquid. As a kid, she’d have been tempted to bring books in here for easier reading except for the horrible smell, humidity, and heat.
Of the three people tending the plants at the moment, she only really knew one, a woman named Baylee who could’ve been her mother by age—if she’d gotten pregnant at fourteen. Baylee didn’t use a last name, a common habit of those whose births had been a matter of duty to society rather than love. Sometimes, like with Chase, a person made up a last name because they liked it. Raven kept her father’s surname Wilder, but didn’t often mention it. The only reason she even knew it at all is he’d written it on the storage trunk he kept his ‘exploration stuff’ in.
Unlike most of the white people in the Arc, Baylee had blonde hair and a serious tan. That tended to happen when one spent most of their wake time bathed in artificial sunlight. Hydroponic workers typically wore only sleeveless inside shirts and shorts due to the heat in here. This room usually stayed at around ninety degrees, making it the warmest spot in the entire Arc.
Being in here also required speaking in a raised voice to be heard over the thrum of ventilation fans. An important part of the atmospheric plan involved running all the Arc’s air through this chamber so the plants could process the CO2. Intakes at one end routed the air back to the HVAC room where it went through the filtration components before being passed to the distribution fans and going around for another cycle.
Having no real interest in spending time in sweltering humidity nor shedding half her clothes, she decided to talk to Baylee and ask about problems rather than inspecting every tank. The woman appeared to be checking the progress of a plant full of hanging pods, peas or beans of some kind, and looked up at her approach.
“Hey, Bayles,” said Raven. “How goes?”
“Not bad. What brings you down to the hot box?”
“Couldn’t sit still at my desk, so I decided to walk around and inspect stuff, trying to catch problems before they get too big to tackle. Stuff okay in here?”
“Same as usual. Everything is so damn old it’s a miracle any of it still works.”
Raven almost chuckled, but after seeing the state of the windmills, she couldn’t. Breakdowns could be funny when annoying, not when they could kill everyone. “We’re doing the best we can.”
“It’s all any of us can do, right?” Baylee resumed checking pods. “I’m happy with these beans. The plants are developing unusually well.”
“What’s so odd about it?” Raven leaned closer for a better look—and nearly fell on her ass when her foot shot out from under her. She caught herself half on Baylee, half on the tank, causing the fluid inside to slosh. “Gah!”
“Watch where you step.” Baylee helped her upright.
Raven looked down at a puddle of hydroponic fluid, apparently coming from a drip somewhere on the bottom of the tank. “It’s leaking?”
“Yeah. Been like that a while now. Every time I patch one, a new leak starts somewhere else. It never really ends. Though, past couple weeks, it’s starting to feel like I can’t keep up with it.”
Raven crouched to examine the underside of the tank. The seep appeared to be coming from the join between Plexiglas panels. “It’s oozing out the seam.”
“Yep. Seams, rivets, screws… these tanks are way past their expected lifespan.” Baylee gestured at the bean plants. “But hey, the veggies still like them. No idea why this batch is doing so well, but I’m not going to complain.”
“Finally, some good news.” Raven chuckled, then peered up at the vents. Is Noah already pulling in outside air?
“Seriously.” Baylee wagged her eyebrows. “Between the tanks, the pumps, seed bins cracking… it’s like this place is exploding in super slow motion. Last week, Mel got blasted in the face when a hose ruptured.”
Raven cringed. This liquid smelled bad enough. She didn’t want to even think what it might taste like. “Ack. Is she okay?”
“Yeah. She’s tough. Never saw someone fix a hose while puking before.”
“Ugh.” Raven shuddered. “I hope she went to see Doc. This stuff can’t be healthy to swallow.”
Baylee nodded. “Yeah, she saw him. Far as I know, she’s good. Didn’t swallow any of it.”
They chatted for a while more about mechanical failures, leaks, and so on before the heat grew too much and she excused herself. Conversation about continuous failure and problems did little to help her mood, but it cured the restless energy that made sitting at her workstation annoying. More worried than ever that a critical number of small problems appeared to be stacking up, she decided to do something more engrossing than walking around.
Once back at her desk, she resumed trying to repair the various devices waiting in a queue for attention. The tedious work successfully distracted her from the fear that at any second the home she’d known her entire life would come metaphorically crashing down around her. Irony in that thought got her laughing. A literal cave-in hadn’t even been on the list of possible catastrophes. Having at least one potential disaster seem unlikely felt good in a way.
The toaster she presently worked on bore little resemblance to what it once looked like. Almost nothing remained of its original parts except for the on button. Somewhere, she’d heard that the Arc had been activated around the year 2050-something, during the early stages of the Great Death. After generations of living underground with broken computers, no one had a clue what the current year was. Books told her that a ‘day’ had twenty-four hours with varying durations of light and dark based on the season. People didn’t even use the word ‘day’ anymore, referring to their activity periods as a ‘wake.’ Time had been disassociated from the sun since well before the last functioning computer in the Arc shut down for the last time.
Based on birth and death records, most people accepted that approximately 300 years had passed since the doors first sealed, with some going as far as suggesting 400 or even twice that. That anything at all continued to function had to be a feat of monumental luck—or sheer determination on humanity’s part not to go extinct.
She moved on from the toaster that no power on Earth could ever make work again to a medium-sized pump, one of the units that moved drinking water into the gravity tanks that fed faucets and toilets. Forty minutes later, she had it halfway taken apart and discovered the problem: a cracked impellor shaft. Machining a simple steel rod to replace it wouldn’t take too long.
All of this stuff is going to break beyond our ability to fix within my lifetime.
Raven got up and crossed the room to one of the three machine presses. They kept a stock of ingots recycled from parts too worn out to repair. Lately, though, they hadn’t been able to melt any new scrap down. They’d run out of propane a few years
ago, and didn’t have a ready source of coal—or even wood. Or so she’d thought. Thick forests outside offered new hope, if she could figure out a way to burn a wood fire hot enough to melt steel. Until that happened, the shelf full of ingots represented the last of their ability to manufacture new parts for various machines. Perhaps using up some of it on a water pump would be a waste. Should she save the metal for fixing something more vital like a CO2 scrubber or the turbines? People could carry water around in buckets. Pumping it to faucets was a convenience.
If the scrubbers fail, it’s not going to be due to a small metal part. It’ll be the chemicals.
She knew the basics of it. The machines used a monoethanolamine substrate that chemically bound to CO2, extracting it from air bubbled through it. The substrate would eventually saturate and become unable to take on more gas, at which point the reaction could be reversed by heat. This, naturally, released a ton of CO2. As far as she knew, whenever a scrubber got to that point, Ben would run the process and transfer the near pure CO2 into pressurized tanks. What happened to it then, she didn’t know. Possibly, some of it went to the hydroponic farm for the plants. Maybe they stored it downstairs. That didn’t seem feasible as they’d soon run out of empty canisters.
We’re all going to die in here. She sighed out her nose.
The last death occurred a few months ago when one of the Karens succumbed to an illness Doc couldn’t identify. She’d been sixty-two. They had a brief funeral for her attended by all. Remembering that got her thinking about other deaths. A younger guy, late thirties she vaguely remembered being named Zac, died suddenly for no obvious reason. They didn’t have a funeral for him that she could recall.
Oh, shit… Raven gasped, nearly dropping the metal piece she’d been grinding into a rod. People can’t die if they’re already dead. No funeral… She didn’t know what happened to the bodies of the dead, but in Karen’s case, she’d seen the woman’s remains during the funeral. One day, people simply talked about Zac having died the other day. No funeral. No body.
The Girl Who Found the Sun Page 10