by Hugh Howey
“Is there anything else?” she whispered. She was looking for permission to leave and make her phone calls, to talk to someone rational.
Donald felt numb. Helpless and alone. He felt like crying but knew that would seal the deal.
“The National Convention is going to be held in Atlanta.” He wiped at the bottoms of his eyes, tried to make it look like weariness, like the strain of travel. “The DNC hasn’t announced it yet, but I heard from Mick before I got on the flight. The Senator wants us there, is already planning something big.”
He turned to Helen, saw that she was blurry, knew his eyes must be shining from holding back the madness. “The Senator wants us both there, okay?”
“Of course, baby.” She rested her hand on his thigh and looked at him like he was her patient, or some kind of invalid.
“And I’m going to ask that I spend more time down here, maybe do some of my work from home on weekends, keep a closer eye on the project.”
“That’d be great.” She rested her other hand on his arm. The concern on her face was of icy calmness, that pier riding out the tide. What he thought he knew seemed to crumble; the secrets burning in his blood began to temper. Donald felt himself on the verge of sobbing.
“I want us to be good to each other,” he said. “For whatever time we have left—”
“Shh, baby, it’s okay.” She wrapped her arm around his back and shushed him again, trying to soothe him.
“I love you,” she said.
He wiped at his eyes.
“We’ll get through this,” she told him.
Donald bobbed his head. “I know,” he said. “I know we will.”
The dog grunted and nuzzled her head into Helen’s lap, could sense something was wrong. Donald scratched the pup’s neck. He looked up at his wife, tears in his eyes. “I know we will,” he said again, trying to calm himself. “But what about everyone else?”
16
2110 • Silo 1
Troy needed to see a doctor. Ulcers had formed in both sides of his mouth, down between his gums and the insides of his cheeks. He could feel them like little wads of tender cotton embedded in his flesh, little puckers of numbness. Between breakfast and dinner, he alternated. In the morning, he kept the pill tucked down on the left side. For supper, he squirreled it away on the right. On either side, it would burn and dry out his mouth with the bitter bite of the medicine, but he would endure it.
He rarely employed napkins during meals, a bad habit he had formed long ago. They went into his lap to be polite and then went on his plate when he was done. Now he had a different routine. One quick small bite of something, wipe his mouth, spit out the burning blue capsule, take a huge gulp of water, swish it around.
It was a dereliction of duty, he knew. He was the captain of a creaking ship long at sea, and here he was tonguing a loose tooth and refusing to swallow his daily allotment of lime. The scurvy was taking him and he was letting it, even though this placed the others at risk. He knew this and felt bad about it, but he couldn’t will himself to do anything else.
The hard part was not checking to see if anyone was watching while he spit it out. He sat with his back to the wallscreen and went through this process while he imagined eyes in white coveralls drilling through the side of his head.
But he didn’t look. He chewed his food. He remembered to use his napkin occasionally, to wipe with both hands, always with both hands, pinching across his mouth, staying consistent. He smiled at the man across from him and made sure the pill didn’t fall out. The man’s gaze drifted over Troy’s shoulder as he stared at the view.
Troy didn’t turn to look. There was still the same draw, the same compulsion to be as high as possible, to escape the suffocating depths, but he no longer felt any desire to see outside. Something had changed.
He spotted Hal at the next table over—recognized his bald and splotchy scalp. The old man was sitting with his back to Troy. Troy waited to catch his eye, but Hal never turned to look.
He finished his corn and worked on his beets. It had been long enough since spitting out his pill to risk a glance toward the serving line. Tubes spat food; plates rattled on trays; one of the doctors from Victor’s office stood beyond the glass serving line, arms crossed, a wan smile on his face. He was scanning the men in line and looking out over the tables. Why? What was there to keep an eye on? Troy wanted to know. He had dozens of burning questions like this; answers sometimes rose toward the surface, but they skittered away if he trained his thoughts on them.
The beets were awful.
He ate the last of them while the gentleman across the table stood with his tray. It wasn’t long before someone took his place. Troy looked up and down the row of adjoining tables. The vast majority of the workers sat on the other side so they could see out. Only a handful sat like Hal and himself. It was strange that he’d never noticed this before.
In the past weeks, it seemed patterns were becoming easier to spot, even as other faculties slipped and stumbled. He cut into a rubbery hunk of canned ham, his knife screeching against his plate, and wondered when he’d get some real sleep. He couldn’t ask the doctors for anything to help, couldn’t show them his gums. They might find out he was off his other meds. The insomnia was awful. It was as though his body had grown scared of the dreams that awaited. He might doze off for a minute or two, but deep sleep eluded him. And instead of remembering anything concrete, all he had were these dull aches, these bouts of sadness, the feeling that something was wrong, that he’d known what was going on a week ago, maybe even a month ago, but no further back than that.
He chewed on this thought and his ham both. He caught one of the doctors watching him. Troy looked down the table and saw men shoulder to shoulder on the other side, empty seats lined up across from them. It wasn’t long ago that he wanted to sit and stare, mesmerized by the gray hills. And now he felt sick when he caught even a glimpse; the view brought him close to tears. He eyed the corner of the room where he knew a camera was hidden. Troy had an idea of what they were looking for. They were looking for signs of remembrance.
He stood immediately with his tray, then worried he was being transparent. Obvious. The napkin fell from his lap and landed on the floor, and something skittered away from his foot.
Troy’s heart skipped a beat. He bent and snatched the napkin, hurried down the line, looking for the pill. He bumped into a chair that had been pulled back from the table, felt all eyes on him, the sailors watching their captain dance drunkenly across the deck, losing his mind, teeth falling out and clattering away.
The pill. He found it and scooped it up with his napkin, the tray teetering dangerously in his palm. He stood and composed himself; a trickle of sweat itched his scalp and ran down the back of his neck. It seemed like half the room had stopped eating to watch him. Everyone knew. Knew he was losing his mind.
He turned and walked toward the water fountain. It took an iron force of will to not glance up at the cameras or over at the doctors. He was losing it, he knew. Growing paranoid. Just a little over a month left on this shift. He could do it.
Trying to walk naturally with so many eyes on him was impossible. He rested the edge of his tray on the water fountain, stepped on the lever with his foot, and topped up his glass. This was why he had gotten up: he was thirsty. He felt like announcing the fact out loud. He wasn’t crazy. He was like them. He couldn’t remember anything.
Returning to the tables, Troy squeezed between two other workers and sat down facing the screen. He balled up his napkin, felt the blue kernel hidden within its folds, and tucked it between his thighs. A bite of ham remained. He picked up his fork and jabbed it. He sat there, facing the screen, but he didn’t dare look.
17
2051 • Washington D.C.
The fat raindrops on the canopy outside De’Angelos sounded like rhythmless fingers tapping on a drum. The traffic on L Street hissed through puddles gathering against the curb, and the asphalt that flashed between the cars gleam
ed shiny and black from the streetlights. Donald shook two pills out of a plastic vial and into his palm. Two years on the meds. Two years completely free of anxiety, gloriously numb.
He glanced at the label and thought of his sister, then popped them in his mouth and swallowed. He was sick of the rain, preferred the quiet cleanliness of the snow. But another winter had been too warm for any chance of that.
Keeping out of the foot traffic flowing through the front doors—umbrellas jostling against umbrellas—he cradled his cell phone against his ear and listened patiently while his wife urged Karma to pee.
“Maybe she doesn’t need to go,” he suggested. He dropped the vial into his coat pocket and cupped his hand over the phone as the lady beside him wrestled with her umbrella, water flicking everywhere.
Helen continued to cajole Karma with a raft of words the poor dog didn’t understand. These were their conversations of late. Nothing real to say, disjointed daily routines, babbling about the trivial amid long silences. “But she hasn’t been since lunch,” Helen insisted.
“She didn’t go somewhere in the house, did she?”
“She’s four years old.”
Donald forgot. Lately, time felt locked in a bubble. He wondered if his medication was causing that or if it was the workload. Whenever anything seemed… off anymore, he always assumed it was the medication. Before, it could have been the vagaries of life; it could have been anything. Somehow, it felt worse to have something concrete and new to pin it on.
On the other end of the line, Helen pleaded with the dog. There was shouting across the street. Donald looked up to see two homeless men yelling at each other in the rain, squabbling over a piece of cardboard or a bag of tin cans or some personal offense from the day before. He watched morosely as more umbrellas were shaken and more fancy dresses flowed into the restaurant. Here was a city charged with governing all the others, and it couldn’t even take care of itself. These things used to worry him more. He patted the capsule in his jacket pocket, a comforting twitch he’d developed.
“She won’t go,” his wife said exhaustedly.
“Baby, I’m sorry I’m up here and you have all that to take care of. But look, I really need to get inside. We’re trying to wrap up final revisions on these plans tonight—”
“How is everything going with that? Are you almost done?”
A file of taxis drove by, hunting for fares, fat tires rolling across sheets of water like hissing snakes. Donald watched as one of them slowed to a stop, brakes squealing from the wet. He didn’t recognize the man stepping out, coat held up over his head. It wasn’t Mick.
“Huh? Oh, it’s going great. Yeah, we’re basically done, maybe a few tweaks here and there. The outer shells are poured, and the lower floors are in—”
“I meant, are you almost done working with her?”
He turned away from the traffic to hear better. “Who, Anna? Yeah. Look, I’ve told you. We’ve only consulted here and there. Most of it’s done electronically.”
“And Mick is there?”
“Yup.”
Another cab slowed as it passed by. Donald turned at the sound of squealing brakes, but the car didn’t stop.
“Okay. Well, don’t work too late. Call me tomorrow.”
“I will. I love you.”
“Love you—Oh! Good girl! That’s a good girl, Karma—!”
“I’ll talk to you tomorr—”
But the line was already dead. Donald glanced at his phone before putting it away, shivered once from the cool fall evening and from the moisture in the air. He pressed through the crowd outside the door, fought through patrons studying the rain and calling car services. Inside, he waved off the maître d’ and made his way to the table.
“Everything okay?” Anna asked. She sat alone at a table with three settings. A wide-necked sweater had been pulled down to expose one shoulder. She pinched her second glass of wine by its delicate stem, a pink half-moon of lipstick on its rim. Her auburn hair was tied up in a bun, the freckles across her nose almost invisible behind a thin and expert veil of makeup. She looked, impossibly, more alluring than she had in college.
“Yeah, everything’s fine.” Donald twisted his wedding ring with his thumb—a habit. “Have you heard from Mick?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell, checked his texts. He thought of firing off another one, but there were already four unanswered messages sitting there.
“Nope. Wasn’t he flying in from Texas this morning? Maybe his flight was delayed.”
She took another sip of wine and studied him over the rim. He saw that his glass, which he’d been nursing, had been topped up while he was gone. Donald knew Helen would disapprove of him sitting there alone with Anna, even though nothing was going to happen. Nothing ever could. It was just the potential, the act of placing himself in danger.
“We could always do this another time,” he suggested. “I’d hate for Mick to be left out.”
She set down her glass and studied the menu. “Might as well eat while we’re here. Be a little late to find something else. Besides, Mick’s logistics are independent of our design. We can send him our materials report later.”
Donald reluctantly unfolded his napkin and placed it in his lap. Anna leaned to the side and reached for something in her purse, her sweater falling dangerously open. Donald looked away quickly, a flush of heat on the back of his neck. She pulled out her tablet and placed it on top of his manila folder, the screen flashing to life.
“I think the bottom third of the design is solid.” She spun the tablet for him to see. “I’d like to sign off on it so they can start layering the next few floors in.”
“Well, a lot of these are yours,” he said, thinking of all the mechanical spaces at the bottom. “I trust your judgment.”
He picked the tablet up, relieved that this was still going to be about work. He felt like a fool for thinking Anna had anything else in mind. They had been exchanging emails and updating each other’s plans for over two years. There was never a hint of impropriety. Even as he watched a couple at another table slide their basket of bread out of the way so they could hold hands, he cautioned himself not to let the setting, the music, the white tablecloths, fool him.
“There is one last-minute change you’re not going to like,” she said. “The central shaft needs to be modified a little. But I think we can still work with the same general plan. It won’t affect the floors at all.”
He scrolled through the familiar files until he spotted the difference. The emergency stairwell had been moved from the side of the central shaft to the very middle. The shaft itself seemed smaller, or maybe it was because all the other gear they’d filled it with was gone. Now there was empty space, the discs turned to doughnuts. He looked up from the tablet and saw their waiter approaching.
“What, no lift?” He wanted to make sure he was seeing this right. To the waiter, he asked for a water and said he’d need more time with the menu.
The waiter bowed and left. Anna placed her napkin on the table and slid over to the adjacent chair. “The board said they had their reasons.”
“The medical board?” Donald exhaled. He had grown sick of their meddling and their suggestions, but he had given up fighting with them. He never won. “Shouldn’t they be more worried about people falling over these railings and breaking their necks?”
Anna laughed. “You know they’re not into that kind of medicine. All they can think about is what these workers might go through, emotionally, if they’re ever trapped in there for a few weeks. They wanted the plan to be simpler. More… open.”
“Open.” Donald chuckled and reached for his glass of wine. “And what do they mean, trapped a few weeks? I feel like we’re designing something here you could hole up in for a few years.”
Anna shrugged. “You’re the elected official. I figure you should know more about this government silliness than I do. I’m a consultant. I’m just getting paid to lay out the pipes.”
She finis
hed her wine, and the waiter returned with Donald’s water and to take their orders. Anna raised her eyebrow, a familiar twitch that begged a question: Are you ready? It used to mean much more, Donald thought, as he glanced at the menu.
“How about you pick for me?” he finally said, giving up. The descriptions of the entrées were little help. He supposed a trained chef might understand what the sauces were and what the preparations meant.
Anna ordered, and the waiter feigned appreciation for her selections.
“So now they want a single stairwell, huh?” Donald imagined the concrete needed for this, then thought of a spiral design made of metal. Stronger and cheaper. “We can keep the service lift, right? Why couldn’t we slide this over and put it in right here?”
He showed her the tablet. More wine was poured.
“No. No lifts. Keep everything simple and open. That’s what they said.”
He didn’t like this. Even if the thing would never be used, it should be built as if it might. Why else bother? He’d seen a partial list of supplies they were going to stockpile inside. Doing that by stair seemed insane, unless they planned to stock the floors before the prebuilt sections were craned inside. That was more Mick’s department. It was one of many reasons he wished his friend were there.
“You know, this is why I didn’t go into architecture.” He scrolled through their design and saw all the places where it wasn’t their design. “I remember the first class we had where we had to go out and meet with mock clients, and they always wanted either the impossible or the downright dumb—or both. And that’s when I knew it wasn’t for me.”
“So you went into politics.” Anna laughed.
“Yeah. Good point.” Donald smiled, saw the irony. “But hey, it worked for your father.”
“My dad went into politics because he didn’t know what else to do. He got out of the army, sank too much money into busted venture after busted venture, then figured he’d serve his country some other way.”