by Hugh Howey
“Victor talked about me?” Donald remembered the man across the hall from him, the shrink. Anna reached up and wiped at the bottom of her eyes.
“Yes. He was a brilliant man, could tell what you were thinking, what anyone was thinking. He planned most of this. Wrote the Order, the original Pact. It was all his design.”
“What do you mean was?”
Her lip trembled. She tipped her cup, but there was little solace left in it.
“Victor’s dead,” she said. “He shot himself at his desk two days ago.”
•9•
“Victor? Shot himself?” Donald tried to imagine the composed man who had worked across the hall from him doing such a thing. “Why?”
Anna sniffed and slid closer to Donald. She twisted the empty cup in her hands. “We don’t know. He was obsessed with that first silo we lost. Obsessed. It broke my heart to see how he blamed himself. He used to say that he could see certain things coming, that there were . . . probabilistic certainties.” She said these two words in a mimic of his voice, which brought the old man’s face even more vividly to Donald’s mind.
“But it killed him not to know the precise when and where.” She dabbed her eyes. “He would’ve been better off if it’d happened on someone else’s shift. Not his. Not where he’d feel guilty.”
“He blamed me,” Donald said, staring at the floor. “It was on my shift. I was such a mess. I couldn’t think straight.”
“What? No. Donny, no.” She rested a hand on his knee. “There’s no one to blame.”
“But my report—” He still had it in his hand, folded up and dotted here and there with pale blue.
Anna’s eyes fell to the piece of paper. “Is that a copy?” She sniffed and reached for it, brushed the loose strands of hair off her face. “Dad had the courage to tell you about this but not about what Vic did.” She shook her head. “Victor was strong in some ways, so weak in others.” She turned to Donald. “He was found at his desk, surrounded by notes, everything he had on this silo, and your report was on top.”
She unfolded the page and studied the words. “Just a copy,” she whispered.
“Maybe it was—” Donald began.
“He wrote notes all over his copy.” She slid her finger across the page. “Right about here, he wrote ‘This is why.’”
“This is why? As in why he did it?” Donald waved his hand at the room. “Shouldn’t this be why? Maybe he realized he’d made a mistake.” He held Anna’s arm. “Think about what we’ve done. What if we followed a crazy man down here? Maybe Victor had a sudden bout of sanity. What if he woke up for a second and saw what we’d done?”
“No.” Anna shook her head. “We had to do this.”
He slapped the wall behind the cot. “That’s what everyone keeps saying.”
“Listen to me.” She placed a hand on his knee, tried to soothe him. “You need to keep it together, okay?” She glanced toward the door, a fearful look in her eyes. “I asked him to wake you because I need your help. I can’t do all of this alone. Vic was working on Silo 18. If it’s up to Dad, he’ll just terminate the place not to have to deal with it. Victor didn’t want that. I don’t want that.”
Donald thought of Silo 12, which he’d terminated. But it was already falling, wasn’t it? It was already too late. They had opened the airlock. He looked toward the schematic on the wall and wondered if it was too late for this silo as well. Maybe when they put him down again, maybe he would dream better dreams if this place could be saved. Maybe the pile of bones would have a summit this time.
“What did he see in my report?” he asked.
“I don’t know. But he wanted to see you weeks ago. He thought you touched on something.”
“Or maybe it was just because I was around at the time.”
Donald looked at the room of clues. Anna had been digging, tearing into a different problem. So many questions and answers. His mind was clear, not like last time. He had questions of his own. He wanted to find his sister, find out what happened to Helen, dispel this crazy thought that she was still out there somewhere. He wanted to know more about this damnable place he’d helped build.
“You’ll help us?” Anna asked. She rested her hand on his back. Her touch was comforting for a moment, and then he thought of Helen. He startled as if bit, some wild part of him thinking for a moment that he was still married, that she was alive out there, maybe frozen and waiting for him to wake her.
“I need—” He stood and glanced around the room. His eyes fell to the computer on the desk. “I need to look some things up.”
Anna rose beside him. She fumbled for his hand. “Of course. I can fill you in with what we know so far. Victor left a series of notes. He wrote all over your report. I can show you. And maybe you can convince Dad that he was onto something, that this silo is worth saving—”
“Yes,” Donald said. He would do it. But only so he could stay awake. That was his motivation. And he wondered for a moment if it was Anna’s as well. To keep him around.
An hour ago, all he had wanted was to go back to sleep, to escape the world he had helped create. But now he wanted answers. He would look into this silo with its problems, but he would find Helen as well. Find out what’d happened to her, where she was. He thought of Mick, and Tennessee flashed in his mind. He turned toward the wall schematic with all the silos, tried to remember which state went with which number.
“What can we access from here?” he asked. His skin flushed with heat as he thought of the answers at his disposal. Maybe this computer wouldn’t be locked down like his last one. No games of solitaire to subdue curious minds.
Anna turned toward the door. There were footsteps out there in the darkness.
“Dad. He’s the only one with access to this level anymore.”
“Anymore?” He turned back to Anna.
“Yeah. Where do you think Victor got the gun?” She lowered her voice. “I was in here when he came down and cracked open one of the crates. I never heard him. Look, my father blames himself for what happened, and he still doesn’t believe this has anything to do with you or your report. But I know Vic. He wasn’t crazy. If there’s anything you can do, please. For me.”
She squeezed his hand. Donald looked down, didn’t realize she’d been holding it. The folded report was in her other hand. The footsteps approached. Donald nodded his assent.
“Thank you,” she said. She dropped his hand, grabbed his empty cup from the cot, and nested hers with it. The cups and the bottle were tucked into one of the chairs, which slid against the table as Thurman arrived at the door and rapped the jamb with his knuckles.
“Come in,” Anna said, brushing loose hair off her face.
Thurman studied the two of them a moment. “Erskine is planning a small ceremony,” he said. “Just us. Those of us who know.”
Anna nodded. “Of course.”
Thurman narrowed his eyes and glanced from his daughter to Donald. Anna seemed to take it as a question.
“He thinks he can help,” she said. “We both think it’s best for him to work down here with me. At least until we make some progress.”
Donald turned to her in shock. Thurman said nothing.
“We’ll need another computer,” she added. “If you bring one down, I can set it up.”
That, Donald liked the sound of.
“And another cot, of course,” Anna added with a smile.
Silo 18
Hush-a-bye baby
in the Up Top
When the wind blows,
the cradle will rock.
When the dust comes,
the cradle will fall.
And down will come baby,
Silo and All.
-Jennifer Plume, age 17
•10•
Mission slunk away after the fight with the farmers as the rest of the porters scattered. He stole a few hours of sleep at the upper waystation, his nose numb and lips throbbing from a blow he’d suffered. Tossing and turning, too restless to stay p
ut, he rose in the dim-time and realized it was early yet to go to the Nest. The Crow would still be asleep. And so he headed to the cafeteria for a sunrise and a decent breakfast, the coroner’s bonus burning in his pockets the way his knuckles burned from their scrapes.
He nursed his aches with a welcomed hot meal, eating with those coming off a midnight shift, and watched the clouds boil and come to life across the hills. The towering husks in the distance—the Crow called them buildings—were the first to catch the rising sun. It was a sign that the world would wake one more day. His birthday, Mission realized. And he regretted coming up there. He left his dishes on the table, a chit for whoever cleaned after him, and tried not to think of cleaning at all. Instead, he rushed down the eight flights of stairs before the silo fully woke. He headed toward the Nest, feeling not a day older at all.
Familiar words greeted him at the landing of the eighth. There, above the door, rather than a level number it read:
The Crow’s Nest
The words were painted in bright and blocky letters. They followed the outlines from years and generations prior, color piled on color, letters crooked and bent from more than one young hand’s involvement. Where the paint had gone outside the lines, silo gray had been slapped on top to try and cover it up.
Mission remembered helping with the latest coat. Another would be needed soon. Already, a prior color from another age could be seen through the blues and purples that he and his friends had chosen. And where the blue paint was thin and the color beneath had chipped away, a third layer could be seen beyond. It was like peering into the past. For all he knew, there could be five or six layers hidden beneath. The children of the silo came and went and left their marks with bristles, but the Old Crow remained.
Her nest comprised the nursery, day school, and classrooms that served the Up Top. She had been perched there for longer than any alive could remember. Some said she was as old as the silo itself, but Mission knew that was just a legend. He’d heard it said that the limits to the silo were the limits to life, that no one could ever reach a hundred and fifty in age. This, he believed. His uncle had been one third that when he died. Most people never reached half the levels in age. But the Crow wasn’t most people.
He passed beneath the door and reached up to slap the paint as he went. A small hop where terrible leaps were once needed. He remembered employing a ladder before that, spilling a bucket of blue paint, hearing the complaints from Fourteen as it dribbled down. Maybe that’s where the idea for the plasticwrap paintbombs had come from. It must’ve been. Kids playing at the wars their fathers had fought. Screams fading to laughter over time—warlike grunts into giggles—chasing each other with imaginary weapons and kitchen utensils, fighting over who got to be Security and who had to play the bad guys.
Mission remembered how exciting those adventures had felt. Such joyous times now seemed sad as they became truer and truer.
He entered the Nest to find the hallways empty and quiet, the hour early still. There was a soft screech from one classroom as desks were put back into order. Mission caught a glimpse of two teachers conferring in another classroom, their faces scrunched up with worry, probably wondering what to do with a younger version of himself. The scent of strong tea mixed with the odor of paste and chalk. There were rows of metal lockers in dire need of paint and stippled with dents from tiny fists; they transported Mission back to another age. Just yesterday, he was terrorizing that hall. He and all his friends whom he didn’t see anymore—not as often as he’d like.
The Crow’s room was at the far end adjoining the only apartment on the entire level. The apartment had been built especially for her, converted from a classroom, or so they said. And while she only taught the youngest children anymore, the entire school was hers. This was her nest, her aerie.
Mission remembered coming to her at various stages of his life. Early on, for comfort, feeling so very far from the farms. Later, for wisdom, when he was finally old enough to admit he had none. And more than once he had come for both, like the day he had learned the truth of his birth and his mother’s death—that she had been sent to clean because of him. Mission remembered that day well. It was the only time he’d seen the Old Crow cry.
He knocked on her classroom door before entering and found her at the blackboard that’d been lowered so she could write on it from her chair. Mrs. Crowe stopped erasing yesterday’s lessons, turned, and beamed at him.
“My boy,” she croaked. She smiled and waved with the eraser to beckon him closer, a chalky haze filling the air. “My boy, my boy.”
“Hello, Mrs. Crowe.” Mission passed through the handful of desks to get to her. The power line for her electric chair drooped from the center of the ceiling to the pole that rose up from the chair’s back. Mission ducked beneath it as he got closer and bent to give the Crow a hug. His hands wrapped around her and the chair both, and her smell was one of childhood and innocence. The yellow gown she wore, spotted with flowers, was her Wednesday fare, as good as any calendar. It had faded since Mission’s time, as all things had.
“I do believe you’ve grown,” she said, smiling up at him. Her voice was a bare whisper, and he recalled how it kept even the young ones quiet as death so they could hear what was being said. She brought her hand up and touched her own cheek. “What happened to your face?”
Mission laughed and shrugged off his porter’s pack. “Just an accident,” he said, lying to her like old times. He placed his pack at the foot of one of the tiny desks, could imagine squeezing into the thing and staying for the day’s lesson. He noticed only a handful of the chairs were arranged for use. The rest were shoved against the back wall, waiting for the next boom, the next surge in population.
“How’ve you been?” he asked. He studied her face, the deep wrinkles and dark skin like a farmer’s but from age rather than grow lights. Her eyes were rheumy, but there was a life behind them. They reminded Mission of the wallscreens on a bright day but in dire need of a cleaning.
“Not so good,” Mrs. Crowe said. She twisted the lever on her armrest, and the chair built for her decades ago by some long-gone former student whirred around to better face him. Pulling back her sleeve, she showed Mission a gauze bandage taped to her thin and splotchy arm. “Those doctors came and took my blood away!” Her hand shook as she indicated the evidence. “Took half of it, by my reckoning.”
Mission laughed. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t take half your blood, Mrs. Crowe. The doctors are just looking out for you.”
She twisted up her face, an explosion of wrinkles like a palm as it closed into a fist. She didn’t seem so sure. “I don’t trust them,” she said.
Mission smiled. “You don’t trust anyone. And hey, maybe they’re just trying to figure out why you can’t die like everyone else does. Maybe they’ll come up with a way for everyone to live as long as you some day.”
Mrs. Crowe rubbed the bandage on her withering arm. “Or they’re sorting out how to kill me,” she said.
“Oh, don’t be so sinister.” Mission reached forward and pulled her sleeve down to keep her from messing with the bandage. “Why would you think such a thing?”
She frowned and declined to answer. Her eyes fell to his sagging and mostly empty pack. “Day off?” she asked.
Mission turned and followed her gaze. “Hmm? Oh, no. I dropped off last night. I’ll pick up another delivery in a little bit, take it wherever they tell me to.”
“Oh, to be so young and free again.” Mrs. Crowe spun her chair around and steered it behind her desk. Mission ducked beneath the pivoting wire out of habit; the pole at the back of the chair was made with younger heads in mind. She picked up a container of the vile vegetable pulp she preferred over water and took a sip. “Allie stopped by last week.” She set the greenish-black fluid down. “She was asking about you. Wanted to know if you were still single.”
“Oh?” Mission could feel his temperature shoot up. Mrs. Crowe had caught them kissing once, back before he knew
what kissing was for. She had left them with a warning and a knowing smile. “I saw Jenine yesterday,” Mission said, changing the subject, hoping she might take the hint. “Everyone’s so spread out.”
“As it should be.” The Crow opened a drawer on her desk and rummaged around, came out with an envelope. Mission could see a half-dozen names scratched out across the thing. It’d been used a handful of times. “You’re heading down from here? Maybe you could drop off something for Rodny?”
She held out the letter. Mission took it, saw his best friend’s name written on the outside, all the other names crossed out.
“I can leave it for him, sure. The last two times I stopped by there, they said he was unavailable.”
Mrs. Crowe nodded as if this was to be expected. “Ask for Jeffery, he’s the head of security down there, one of my boys. You tell him that this is from me and that I said you should hand it to Rodny yourself. In person.” She waved her hands in the air, little trembling blurs. “I’ll write Jeffery a note.”
Mission glanced up at the clock on the wall while she dug into her desk for a pen and ink. Soon, the hallways would begin filling with youthful chatter and the opening and slamming of lockers. He waited patiently while she scratched her note. In the while, he scanned the walls at the old motivators, as Mrs. Crowe like to call the posters and banners she made.
You can be anything, one of them said. It featured a crude drawing of a boy and a girl standing on a huge mound. The mound was green and the sky blue, just like in the picture books. Another one said: Dream to your heart’s delight. It had bands of color in a graceful sweep. The Crow had a name for the shape, but he’d forgotten what it was called. Another familiar one: Go new places. It featured a drawing of a crow perched in an impossibly large tree, it’s wings spread as if it were about to take flight.
“Jeffery is the bald one,” Mrs. Crowe said. She waved a hand over her own white and thinning hair to demonstrate.