I recoil, though it’s only his voice that’s threatening. I know he wouldn’t hurt me. Would he?
Rick steps between us. “Calm down, son. This has nothing to do with your mother.”
“Nothing to do with her? It has everything to do with her. With both of you. I know about your meetings. And I know you tell Mom everything, Dad.” He’s standing in front of Rick now, taller than his father, and stronger. There’s sweat glistening on his forehead. His fist curls.
“Whatever happened to the promises you made about protecting the Silo from knowledge that would only lead to violence, and despair… what kind of a leader were you? What kind of a man are you, to let this go on, when you know what has to come next?”
Rick tries to put a hand on his son’s shoulder, but Mars shrugs it off. Instead of calming down, he’s getting more angry.
“You’ve turned my sons against me! Abe and Ben are both part of this so-called resistance… resistance to reality. I know what they’re doing. They’re trying to find all the ways that Silo 1 has to control us. But even if they find them… what the hell can they do about it? Silo 1 is in charge, and we’re just lucky they haven’t blown us to smithereens yet.”
He runs his hand across his face and leaves traces of blood from his damaged fist on his chin. The bitter tang of it enters my nostrils. “Ruth… and you, Mom… and Abe, and Ben… you’ve got idiots traipsing all over the Silo looking for secrets.”
He leans down in his father’s face. “Secrets that could kill us all. And probably will.”
Mars heads to the door, holding his injured hand. “My whole family. Traitors. And I’m the one who has to cover it up so it doesn’t get to Silo 1. Before they pull the switch to take us all down.”
He grabs the door and swings it open so forcefully that the knob hits the wall and gouges out a round divot.
“Well, to hell with Ruth. She can stay in the Down Deep for all I care.”
He steps into the hallway and faces us, bitterness in every millimeter of his stance. “And to hell with you.”
21
The door slams shut and I stumble over to my husband and reach out for him. “Should we go after him, Rick?” I realize my eyes are wet. “I’m afraid for him.”
Rick puts his arms around me slowly, as though bearing a great weight.
“Me too.” He sighs, and I feel the breath come out of him.
“He’s so angry.” I know that tears are on my cheeks now. “Do you think he’s… safe?”
Rick leans against the table. “I don’t know, Karma. I hope so.”
“I think you should go and talk to him. He’s closer to you—”
“But we need to give him a chance to cool off a bit, Karma.” Rick shakes his head. “Deal with his feelings on his own. He’s got to be knocked out by this.”
“I know.” I sit down, supporting myself with my hands on the table until I can release my trembling legs and find a chair. “I know. I can’t believe it. Ruth seemed so… she seemed just like she always was. I mean, she knew Mars didn’t approve of the resistance meetings. But she sure didn’t behave like she was going to suddenly move out…”
I feel a sob come from somewhere deep inside of me. “Do you think there’s anything we can do for Mars?”
Rick shrugs. “What can we do?”
“Go radio the Sheriff and have her make Ruth come back up here?” I laugh, a little, as I say it.
Rick smiles grimly. “I don’t think that even the head of IT gets to haul his wife back home without her consent. And certainly his parents can’t do it for him.”
I nod. “I know.” I reach out my hand and he comes and sits beside me, holding it. I can feel that he is trembling too.
“It’ll be fine, Karma,” Rick says, patting me and attempting a smile. “Mars will be fine. He’s strong. Give him time. And I just bet that they’ll work it out after all.”
I look at his face and try to believe him.
“They do love each other. That’s what Ruth says, anyway,” I say. “That should give us hope, right?” I put my head in my hands. “Oh. The poor children. This will be hard on them,” I say. I look up at my husband.
“Don’t despair, honey,” he says. “For all we know, Ruth will change her mind in a day or two and come back up here ready to run into his arms.”
And then Rick wipes tears from his own eyes.
22
I am in that last whisper of sleep, holding on to a dream of the world gone by, when there is a terrible sound. The sound of a man in pain. More than a sob but not quite a wail.
I sit up. The door to the bedroom opens.
Rick stands there, and his fist is covering his mouth. Eyes that have seen something they don’t want to acknowledge.
“Mars,” he says. His voice is raw. “Mars…”
I raise myself slowly and walk to him. I don’t want to hear this. But it’s coming anyway. “What. What happened?”
“Mars is dead. He killed himself.”
23
I stand before the layer of dirt that has already been shoveled over my son’s body, the gentle covering that saves us from seeing him in his grave. I am not weeping. My grief is too large for tears.
Many minutes go by as the priest and his shadow, dressed in deep red robes, intone the ancient words.
“In sure and certain hope of the wisdom of the Silo, we commend the body of Mars Brewer to the farm. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Silo bless him and keep him. Amen.”
I feel a bolt of laughter bubbling up, a hysterical response to their parody of the old religions… I crush my fist into my mouth and the laugh comes out as a muffled cry. Rick puts his arm around my shoulders and I sense his own body shaking. He is making no sound, but his eyes are squeezed shut and his face is contorted with pain.
Ruth has not come. I am stunned to know that she would not show up for her husband, even in death.
Celeste is here, looking distraught but silent. Her eyes are puffy and show signs of recent tears.
The priest and his shadow come around with the tomatoes, handing us fruit straight from the vines above the grave to bite and return to the earth, as my son’s body is being returned. I sink my teeth into the succulent ripeness, feeling the juice dribble down my chin and tasting the tang of the pulpy mass. It is like a bad dream; a nightmare anyone who has ever been a parent recognizes. My child, dead. A group of people—I look around and suddenly everyone, even Rick, even my granddaughter—seems to be a stranger. People I don’t know watching the body being lowered into the earth. A ghoulish sense of having been here before.
I thrust the tomato away from my mouth, watching its trajectory through the air and into the open dirt hole where Mars lies. It lands with a moist thud on the fresh earth and I feel a roaring in my ears. I sag against Rick and let the tears begin to flow.
24
It has taken us two days to walk back to the apartment from the burial site. My legs ache, but not as much as my heart. I sit in the kitchen with my feet soaking in warm water and salt.
“I can do it, Grandpa.” Celeste has her hands flat on the table and her jaw is set as she faces Rick. “I’ve been shadowing Dad since I was seventeen. That’s what I trained for.”
“You’re too young,” Rick says. “They won’t accept you.”
“Won’t accept me? What are you talking about? I’m twenty-four.”
“Not old enough to head IT.”
Celeste stands up, shoving her long brown hair away from her face with both hands. “That’s ridiculous, and you know it. Dad was… Dad was, like, twenty-one when he took over from you. Right, Grandma?”
She seems to realize how uncaring this sounds, and her hand goes to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I know it’s… I don’t mean… I’m sad about Dad, of course. It’s not that I…” She trails off.
Rick stands up now, and I see the way this week has aged him. The grief shows in the way his once-tall frame bends, and his knees uncurl only slowly.
<
br /> “Celeste, sweetheart. I know how old you are. I know how smart you are. And believe me, I know you’ve trained hard for years.” He takes his granddaughter, a tall woman in her own right, by the shoulders, in a way she probably wouldn’t accept from any other man. “But this is something I need to do. We are at a tricky stage right now. I….” He seems to hesitate. “I think the Silo is in jeopardy. I’m going to be the Head. At least for a little while.”
Celeste’s eyes are on fire with frustration, but I am surprised to see that even as she crosses her arms and glares at her grandfather, there is an element of relief in her stance. “How can you be the Head? Aren’t you too old?” It is said not with venom but with grudging acceptance. “And didn’t you convince… everybody…” She is carefully dancing around any reference to Silo 1, though everyone in the room knows who’s really calling the shots. “I thought you made it clear that you were no longer capable of being Head… years ago, when you resigned.”
Rick gives what may have been a smile, but comes out as a grimace. “I didn’t exactly resign. I wasn’t capable of being Head, then. I am now. But they don’t care so much about that, really.” This is as close as he is going to come, apparently, to identifying “they.”
“Rick, are you sure?” I ask. “Do you want to do this? Can you do this?”
As I ask him, I’m not even sure that I care. I don’t seem to care about much any more. What does any of it matter?
He turns to me, and raises his bent frame up a bit straighter. “I can, and I will, Karma.”
Then he faces Celeste again.
“The difference between you and me, honey, is that I’m dispensable.”
25
The doctor listens to my heartbeat with his metal disc, cold on my chest, and is silent while he bends over me. He rises again and takes the earpieces out.
“And how old are you now, Mrs. Brewer?”
I look at him blandly, wondering why he bothers to ask, when he knows. Of course he knows. Everything is kept track of in the Silo. And everything goes into the servers. And everything that goes into the servers goes to Silo 1.
There are no secrets here.
For a moment I feel the urge to giggle. They’ve probably been waiting for me to die for years.
“I’m… eighty-two.” It sounds shockingly old, even to me. How did I ever get to live so many years? I never expected to. And once I got sentenced to this underground life, I’m not sure I wanted to.
The doctor pats my hand in that patronizing way I have become accustomed to. He seems pleased that this old biddy could manage to remember her age. Though, truthfully, age is a relative thing here. Between the lies about how we live now and the vacuum of knowledge about how we lived before, half the population doesn’t really keep an accurate age count.
Fifty years I’ve been in the Silo now. It doesn’t seem possible.
“Well, Mrs. Brewer, I’m concerned about your heart. Do you ever feel a shortness of breath?”
“Yes.”
He perks up. “When?”
“When I climb.”
He gives a dry laugh, and nods. “Yes, don’t we all? But I mean… when you perform normal tasks, such as walking around your home, getting up out of bed, and so forth. Are you noticing anything different?”
“Yes.” I don’t add that I welcome the difference. The shortness of breath, the aging, the certainty that I won’t live forever.
Thank god. I won’t live forever.
One way or the other, the end is near.
26
Over and over, I dream that I am swimming in the lake where my father’s family had a summer cottage for generations. His great-great-grandfather built it in the 1930’s, by hand, after the economic crash of the twentieth century. It was the only thing that saved them—that they owned a piece of land to go live on when the money ran out in the cities.
I swim on my back, lazily watching the clouds float by above me, my eyes like slits to keep out the bright sun. I see cotton candy, my current favorite thing, up there. We had it at the fair last night. It was pink and sticky and sweet. It got all over my cheeks and my mother fussed at me while she tried to clean me up.
The cotton candy cloud turns into a giraffe with a puffy neck. He is kissing a long funny fish that turns into a cat. I feel the water lap at my sides and use my arms to keep my body up high enough so that I don’t swallow any.
It’s a hot day, and the sun is intense. It bakes my arms and my face at the same time that I feel the coolness below me in the depths of the lake. I’m a good swimmer, so I’m allowed to swim alone.
My baby brother, Kevin, is too young to come out this far. I turn and see him on the shore with my mother. She has a picnic lunch set out for both of us. I see a dewy bottle of lemonade and chocolate chip cookies for after my sandwich. My mouth tastes hungry. My mother is waving and calling me to swim back in.
As she waves, her arm turns to liquid, and the flesh drips off her. Her voice, which was clear and strong, becomes a moan and then an ungodly scream. The water begins to boil around me and the clouds are putrid mountains of exploding toxins, fluid and expanding, billowing out as the light blazes from everywhere and the sound of panic fills my brain. Kevin tries to run toward the water but he melts along the way, dripping into liquid that reaches the sizzling edge of the lake and slides away.
Only I am cool and whole and alive.
I watch as my family burns and dies, no trace, no trace left at all of what came before.
27
I remember the world.
I am one of the few who does. Fifty years we have been in the Silo. It was 2052 when the planes flew screaming overhead and the bombs fell on Atlanta. I believe it to be 2102.
But what matters time when there is no measure? When no sun rises in the east and sets in the west, no moon waxes and wanes, no seasons change? Time ticks on without clocks or calendars and we measure the days with our body’s aging and the wear on the stairs.
We measure the days by our weariness at living. The eternal turning and turning of the Silo stairs… the endless up and down of our days… the crunch of boots and infinitesimal thinning of paint on each step.
I am an old woman now.
I have spent more of my life underground than above. The end will be welcome when it comes at last.
28
It is rare for me to walk alone these days, but I am enjoying it. Slowly making my way up the stairs, I am greeted by a host of people who know me either directly or through my decades of work with the resistance cells. There are discreet signs of the crossed finger signal we use to recognize each other—women and men who tuck their hands behind their backs and twist the index and middle digit together for just a moment where I can see it. They turn and nod and go on their way.
Most of these people know me, apparently, but I don’t know them. It’s better that way. Especially because of what I am about to do.
As I get closer to the top, I start to notice how many young people support us. The movement is growing. I suppose that is a good thing, but it also frightens me. Does it lead to unwarranted hope? I cannot imagine that anyone alive in the Silo today will ever step out onto an Earth returned to health.
I am very slow, and people are constantly walking past me. I need the railing for every step, so I hug the edge and try to be gracious. They seem to respect my age and frailty. I must be one of the oldest people in the Silo now.
All the years in here, watching the levels go by. I wish I could remember the first day clearly. We have reconstructed it, from the recollections of the others in my cell… those who were very young when we first entered the Silo, who can remember the sounds of the National Anthem as they rang across the field of people gathered for the Convention. We all raced down into this underground crypt in a panic, ushered by those who—I know now—were well aware of what was going on.
They knew no one alive that day would ever reemerge from those airlocks to breathe safe air on a healthy, livable plan
et. Of course, the rest of us had no idea.
What I remember is only vague, cloudy images of panic and confusion. All of my energy was consumed by anguish over what had happened to Donald. Why hadn’t he met up with me at the Tennessee delegation? Why wasn’t he answering my texts? And what would happen to him… because the world seemed to be ending in a great conflagration over Atlanta, and Donald certainly wasn’t beside me being ushered to safety in the Silo.
I didn’t know then that he was in the head silo. That he was one of the ones in charge.
I didn’t know that he was one of the architects of our terrible destiny.
29
“I want to go out.” I am calm as I say it, standing just outside the Sheriff’s office, looking her in the eye. It seems that I have been holding these words in my mouth, keeping them from coming out, since the day I was locked into this premature tomb.
I know that I am on camera, perhaps watched by unseen powers, but there seems no need for drama, since the very act of speaking those words renders my sentence final. As I repeat the statement, I feel a certain peace. The peace of completion.
“I want to go Outside,” I say, and I remember my old friend Andy, whose innocent attempt to explore the world we once knew earned him death, and a memorial in the form of his corpse, eternally visible on the wallscreen. If I turn around and go into the teeming cafeteria, I will still see the remains of his body lying dessicated on the lifeless ground.
Karma of the Silo: The Collection Page 22