Dust

by Hugh Howey

Page 5

 

  She picked the unit up gingerly, no clue what he was talking about. Walker pointed to a dial with thirty-two numbered positions around it. This she understood.

  “Just got to get the old rechargeables to play nice in there. Working on the voltage regulation next. ”

  “You are amazing,” Juliette whispered.

  Walker beamed. “Amazing are the people who made this the first time. I can’t get over what they were able to do hundreds of years ago. People weren’t as dumb back then as you’d like to believe. ”

  Juliette wanted to tell him about the books she’d seen, how the people back then seemed as if they were from the future, not the past.

  Walker wiped his hands on an old rag. “I warned Bobby and the others, and I think you should know too. The radios won’t work so well the deeper they dig, not until they get to the other side. ”

  Juliette nodded. “So I heard. Courtnee said they’ll use runners just like in the mines. I put her in charge of the dig. She’s thought of just about everything. ”

  Walker frowned. “I heard she wanted to rig this side to blow as well, in case they hit a pocket of bad air. ”

  “That was Shirly’s idea. She’s just trying to come up with reasons not to dig. But you know Courtnee, once she sets her mind to something, it gets done. ”

  Walker scratched his beard. “As long as she don’t forget to feed me, we’ll be fine. ”

  Juliette laughed. “I’m sure she won’t. ”

  “Well, I wish you luck on your rounds. ”

  “Thanks,” she said. She pointed to the large radio set on his workbench. “Can you patch me through to Solo?”

  “Sure, sure. Seventeen. Forgot you didn’t come down here to chat with me. Let’s call your friend. ” He shook his head. “Have to tell you, from talking to him, he’s one odd fellow. ”

  Juliette smiled and studied her old friend. She waited to see if he was joking – decided he was being perfectly serious – and laughed.

  “What?” Walker asked. He powered the radio on and handed her the receiver. “What did I say?”

  ••••

  Solo’s update was a mixed bag. Mechanical was dry, which was good, but it hadn’t taken as long as she’d thought for the flood to pump out. It might be weeks or months to get over there and see what they could salvage, and the rust would set in immediately. Juliette pushed these distant problems out of her mind and concentrated on the things she could lay a wrench on.

  Everything she needed for her trip up fit in a small shoulder bag: her good silver coveralls, which she’d barely worn; socks and underwear, both still wet from washing them in the sink; her work canteen, dented and grease-stained; and a ratchet and driver set. In her pockets she carried her multi-tool and twenty chits, even though hardly anyone took payment from her since she turned mayor. The only thing she felt she was missing was a decent radio, but Walker had scrapped two of the functioning units to try and build a new one, and it wasn’t ready yet.

  With her meager belongings and a feeling like she was abandoning her friends, she left Mechanical behind. The distant clatter from the digging followed her through the hallways and out into the stairwell. Passing through security was like crossing some mental threshold. It reminded her of leaving that airlock all those weeks ago. Like a stopper valve, some things seemed to allow passage in only one direction. She feared how long it might be before she returned. The thought made it difficult to breathe.

  She slowly gained height and began passing others on the stairwell, and Juliette could feel them watching her. The glares of people she had once known reminded her of the wind that had buffeted her on the hillside. Their distrustful glances came in gusts – just as quickly, they looked away.

  Before long, she saw what Lukas had spoken of. Whatever goodwill her return had wrought – whatever wonder people held for her as someone who had refused to clean and managed to survive the great outside – was crumbling as sure as the concrete being hammered below. Where her return from the outside had brought hope, her plans to tunnel beyond the silo had engendered something else. She could see it in the averted gaze of a shopkeep, in the protective arm a mother wrapped around her child, in the whispers that came and just as suddenly went. Juliette was causing the opposite of hope. She was spreading fear.

  A handful of people did acknowledge her with a nod and a “Mayor” as she passed them on the stairwell. A young porter she knew stopped and shook her hand, seemed genuinely thrilled to see her. But when she paused at the lower farms on one-twenty-six for food, and when she sought a bathroom three levels further up, she felt as welcomed as a greaser in the Up Top. And yet she was still among her own. She was their mayor, however unloved.

  These interactions gave her second thoughts about seeing Hank, the deputy of the Down Deep. Hank had fought in the uprising and had seen good men and women on both sides give up their lives. As Juliette entered the deputy station on one-twenty, she wondered if stopping was a mistake, if she should just press on. But that was her young self afraid of seeing her father, her young self who buried her head in projects in order to avoid the world. She could no longer be that person. She had a responsibility to the silo and its people. Seeing Hank was the right thing to do. She scratched a scar on the back of her hand and bravely strode into his deputy station. She reminded herself that she was the mayor, not a prisoner being sent to clean.

  Hank glanced up from his desk as she entered. The deputy’s eyes widened as he recognized her – they had not spoken nor seen each other since she got back. He rose from his chair and took two steps toward her, then stopped, and Juliette saw the same mix of nerves and excitement that she felt and realized she shouldn’t have been afraid of coming, that she shouldn’t have avoided him until now. Hank reached out his hand timidly, as if worried she might refuse to shake it. He seemed ready to pull it back if it offended. Whatever heartache she had brought him, he still seemed pained at having followed orders and sent her to clean.

  Juliette took the deputy’s hand and pulled him into an embrace.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice giving out on him.

  “Stop that,” Juliette said. She let go of the lawman and took a step back, studied his shoulder. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. How’s your arm?”

  He shrugged his shoulder in a circle. “Still attached,” he said. “And if you ever dare apologize to me, I’ll have you arrested. ”

  “Truce, then,” she offered.

  Hank smiled. “Truce,” he said. “But I do want to say—”

  “You were doing your job. And I was doing the best I could. Now leave it. ”

  He nodded and studied his boots.

  “How are things around here? Lukas said there’s been grumbling about my work below. ”

  “There’s been some acting up. Nothing too serious. I think most people are busy enough patching things up. But yeah, I’ve heard some talk. You know how many requests we get for transfer out of here and up to the Mids or the Top. Well, I’ve been getting ten times the normal. Folks don’t want to be near what you’ve got going on, I’m afraid. ”

  Juliette chewed her lip.

  “Part of the problem is lack of direction,” Hank said. “Don’t want to shoulder you with this, but me and the boys down here don’t have a clear idea which way is up right now. We aren’t getting dispatches from Security like we used to. And your office …”

  “Has been quiet,” Juliette offered.

  Hank scratched the back of his head. “That’s right. Not that you’ve been exactly quiet yourself. We can sometimes hear the racket you’re making out on the landing. ”

  “That’s why I’m visiting,” she told him. “I want you to know that your concerns are my concerns. I’m heading up to my office for a week or two. I’ll stop by the other deputy stations as well. Things are going to improve around here in a lot of ways. ”

  Hank frowned. “
You know I trust you and all, but when you tell people around here that things are going to improve, all they hear is that things are going to change. And for those who are breathing and count that as a blessing, they take that to mean one thing and one thing only. ”

  Juliette thought of all she had planned, in the Up Top as well as the Down Deep. “As long as good men like you trust me, we’ll be fine,” she said. “Now, I’ve got a favor to ask. ”

  “You need a place to stay the night,” Hank guessed. He waved at the jail cell. “I saved your room for you. I can turn down the cot—”

  Juliette laughed. She was happy that they could already joke about what had moments ago been a discomfort. “No,” she said. “Thanks, though. I’m supposed to be up at the mids farms by lights out. I have to plant the first crop in a new patch of soil being turned over. ” She waved her hand in the air. “It’s one of those things. ”

  Hank smiled and nodded.

  “What I wanted to ask is that you keep an eye on the stairwell for me. Lukas mentioned there were grumbles up above. I’m going up to soothe them, but I want you to be on the alert if things go sour. We’re short-staffed below, and people are on edge. ”

  “You expecting trouble?” Hank asked.

  Juliette considered the question. “I am,” she said. “If you need to take a shadow or two, I’ll budget it. ”

  He frowned. “I normally like having chits thrown my way,” he said. “So why does this make me feel uncomfortable?”

  “Same reason I’m happy to pay,” Juliette said. “We both know you’re getting the busted end of the deal. ”

  9

  Leaving the deputy’s office, Juliette climbed through levels that had seen much of the fighting, and she noticed once more the silo’s wounds of war. She rose through ever-worsening reminders of the battles that had been waged in her absence, saw the marks left behind from the fighting, the jagged streaks of bright silver through old paint, the black burns and pockmarks in concrete, the rebar poking through like fractured bone through skin.

  She had devoted most of her life to holding that silo together, to keeping it running. This was a kindness repaid by the silo as it filled her lungs with air, gave rise to the crops, and claimed the dead. They were responsible for one another. Without people, this silo would become as Solo’s had: rusted and fairly drowned. Without the silo, she would be a skull on a hill, looking blankly to the cloud-filled skies. They needed each other.

  Her hand slid up the rail, rough with new welds, her own hand a mess of scars. For much of her life, they had kept each other going, she and the silo. Right up until they’d damn near killed each other. And now the minor hurts in Mechanical she had hoped to repair one day – squealing pumps, spitting pipes, leaks from the exhaust – all paled before the far worse wreckage her leaving had caused. In much the same way that the occasional scars – reminders of youthful missteps – were now lost beneath disfigured flesh, it seemed that one large mistake could bury all the minor ones.

  She took the steps one at a time and reached that place where a bomb had ripped a gap in the stairs. A patchwork of metal stretched across the ruin, a web of bar and rail scavenged from landings that now stood narrower than before. Names of those lost in the blast were written here and there in charcoal. Juliette treaded carefully across the mangled metal. Higher up, she saw that the doors to Supply had been replaced. Here, the fighting had been especially bad. The cost these people in yellow had paid for siding with hers in blue.

  A Sunday was letting out as Juliette approached the church on ninety-nine. Floods of people spiraled down toward the quiet bazaar she had just passed. Their mouths were pressed tight from hours of serious talk, their joints as stiff as their pressed coveralls. Juliette filed past them and took note of the hostile glances.

  The crowds thinned by the time she reached the landing. The small temple was wedged in among the old hydroponic farms and worker flats that used to serve the Deep. It was before her time, but Knox once explained how the temple had sprouted on ninety-nine. It was when his own dad was a boy and protests had arisen over music and plays performed during Sundays. Security had sat back while the protestors swelled into an encampment outside the bazaar. People slept on the treads and choked the stairway until no one could pass. The farm one level up was ravaged in supplying food to these masses. Eventually, they took over much of the hydroponics level. The temple on twenty-eight set up a satellite office, and now that satellite on ninety-nine was bigger than the temple that had sprouted it.

  Father Wendel was on the landing as Juliette rounded the last turn. He stood by the door, shaking hands and speaking briefly with each member of his congregation as they left the Sunday service. His white robes fairly emitted a light of their own. They shone much like his bald head, which glistened from the effort of preaching to the crowds. Between head and robes, Wendel seemed to sparkle. Especially to Juliette, who had just left a land of smudge and grease. She felt dirty just seeing such unblemished cloth.

  “Thank you, Father,” a woman said, bowing slightly, shaking his hand, a child balanced on her hip. The little one’s head lolled against her shoulder in perfect slumber. Wendel rested a hand on the child’s head and said a few words. The woman thanked him again, moved on, and Wendel shook the next man’s hand.

  Juliette made herself invisible against the rail while the last handful of churchgoers filed past. She watched a man pause and press a few clinking chits into Father Wendel’s open palm. “Thank you, Father,” he said, this farewell a chant of sorts. Juliette could smell what she thought was goats on the old man as he filed past and wound his way up, probably back to the pens. He was the last one to leave. Father Wendel turned and smiled at Juliette to let her know he’d been aware of her presence.