Silo 49: Deep Dark

by Ann Christy

  She thought back but couldn't remember the details of the various handheld radios she had repaired or made parts for in the past to compare with, but this one struck her as different in any case. On the back, in careful letters, were the instructions for frequencies to contact forty. She had to assume that was for Silo 40 and not Level 40. The former seemed more likely than the latter, given the situation.

  There was so much it was almost overwhelming. On her way in she had carefully looked at a few of the pages displayed beneath the tenets. Many of them were just as she remembered and a quick look inside the fabric books confirmed that these books were their origin. In times past, the non-visible side of the page had been copied onto another sheet and hung in protective frames alongside the originals. Those were different, obviously, but the originals had the same writing as these books. Eventually she, or the group, would need to figure out where in each book the pages came and put it all into context.

  The big book was something else entirely. It was machine printed, just like the little volume that led her to the box. She knew what to look for now so she opened the cover and the first few pages until she came to the one that had the numbers. There she found what she was looking for, ‘Legacy, Inc. 2045, 2048, 2051'. She touched the letters. The first book, so old that it was almost indecipherable, had numbers in the 1800s and 1900s. This book had numbers in the 2000s. The records upstairs, the ones furthest back and least useful had numbers only slightly higher than these.

  And those records had recorded things in terms of drafts, initial plantings, testing and dry runs. These were terms she understood. They signified a trial of something before it became the accepted way of doing things. Marina felt very sure, in a place deep inside her, that she knew the answer to their questions.

  Outside, the world had not cycled their years in batches of fifty. They had been there at least 2051 years and then they had tried things inside the silo. They had dry runs and tests of the systems.

  And then they had come inside and everything had changed.

  She opened the book at a random page, ignoring the many little metal clips that marked specific pages, and discovered the existence of Shorelines, Shoreline Management and part of Shoreline Usage. She flipped again and revealed the hideous beauty of Skinks. Again and she was faced with the Solar System. A metal clip on the next page led her to Earth and the note there told her that this was what they lived on. It was a ball, much like the sun looked in those rare instances when the fiery orange gleam could be seen clearly when it set. They lived on a ball but this one was beautiful, and shone blue and green and brown and white.

  A tiny dot marred the surface and a hand drawn arrow pointed to the words, 'We are here'. She bent her head to try to see closer but all she saw was a swath of green partially covered with a swath of white. So tiny were they against all that space.

  Marina couldn't really take in any more. She wasn't taking it in now, merely piling un-absorbable facts over already unbelievable facts. She felt dizzy with it, like she was walking around in a dream and no one but she could see that. She lay down on the bed and pulled all the wonderful things toward her. She spooned them like a child and fell asleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Waking up to someone who shouldn't be there moving around in a room is a jarring thing. Marina woke to just that and saw Taylor gently trying to remove the book from underneath her arm. He saw her eyes open at almost the exact moment they did and he didn't delay. He moved with a purpose Marina wasn't ready for after a few hours of disturbed sleep and dreams of blue orbs. Just as she uttered a sound of confused query, he snatched the book from under her arm and made a grab for the envelopes that had scattered while she slept.

  Marina bolted upright and grabbed his outstretched arm. "Taylor! What are you doing?"

  "You can’t do this. This isn't right! I'm making it right!" he exclaimed as he tried to yank his arm back. Marina jerked with each yank but held on. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the chart with the silos unfolded on the floor. He had been in here long enough to do that. What else might he have been up to?

  Taylor dropped the book back to the bed and papers fluttered to the floor around him as he put more force into the yank. Marina had a grip on him and leverage on the bed while he was trapped by the little chair and table. When his body signaled he was about to make another big effort, she timed her response and threw herself into a solid push at the moment of his pull. Taylor flew backward and hit the table and then the chair. The table fell over with a bang and dishes clattered across the floor.

  Marina stepped off the bed and picked up the metal pitcher that normally held water. She held it over his head as he tried to untangle his long limbs from the chair and growled, "What in silo's depths are you doing, Taylor?"

  He righted himself and tugged his coveralls into place. He went to take a step toward her but she held up the pitcher and braced herself. She was confused but she was also angry. This man had been in her room. He'd been taking things while she slept and he had fought her for them when she woke. That bespoke danger and that made her mad.

  "You!" he growled right back and jabbed a finger at the level of her eyes. "You and your searching and your little secret finds! Do you know what this will do? I have to fix it!"

  "Fix it? Fix what? I just went to get it. I wasn't going to keep it!" She said this but knew that what she said was at least partially untrue. She would have shared it but the knowledge of what it said would be hers first. It was becoming an obsession with her and she knew it. If he had only been worried about her keeping it he would have brought Greta, not come in and tried to take it while she slept.

  He scraped a hand across his unshaven face and said, his tone icy and calm, "I know you would have shared it. That is the problem, Marina." He enunciated each word clearly and slowly.

  Marina didn't like the way he was looking at her. It was like she wasn't a person or even alive. It was the look of someone trying to figure out a problem that needs solving and clearing away. Like she had turned from a friend into a mess that needed cleaning up. She tightened her grip on the heavy pitcher and jerked her head in the direction of the book and the scattering of papers. "You were going to get rid of those, weren't you?"

  He nodded, his look measuring and weighing, his shoulders bunching with anticipated movement.

  "I can just scream, you know," she said hurriedly and had the satisfaction of seeing him ease back a little. She could see the exact moment he decided to try another tactic by the shifting of his eyes. A certain slyness crept in that frightened Marina more than the blank anger it replaced.

  "You have to understand, Marina. That," he pointed toward the unfolded chart, "is poison. It will spread and we will all die. You're proof that it is poison!" His tone changed then. It was more conspiratorial, more intimate. He said, "We can get rid of it. Just you and I. No one ever has to know you found anything."

  She gave a curt nod, agreeing that was a possibility. And it was possible if only in the most abstract way that anything would be possible. She would no more get rid of this find than she would toss her husband out the airlock. She asked, "How exactly did you know that I found anything?"

  "I was out on the landing. I was just," he paused and the emotions that ran across his face were everything from loss to guilt, "sitting near where it happened."

  Marina had been so exhausted by the time she made it back that she hadn't bothered to see if her movements were being noted. She wouldn't have thought that it mattered. The Memoriam always had someone around, looking or thinking or trying to figure out a problem in life. The benches on the landing were in shadow when it was dim. She wouldn't have seen him unless she had been looking.

  "Okay. But how did you know I found something?" she asked. Her arm was beginning to ache from holding up the heavy pitcher but she refused to let it dip and show fatigue. That might make him think it was a good time to make another grab at her.

  He shrugged, his shoulders slumping a little
, looking resigned. His tone was almost normal when he said, "I don't know. The way you were walking, maybe. I knew you went to IT when you left here." He sighed, his look almost resigned, before he went on, "I got the report today, you know."

  Of course. He would have gotten the IT summary that Piotr got each evening. Since IT and the Memoriam both had working terminals, it had been being sent via wire and Piotr excused himself every evening to review it. She should have known visitors requesting rooms, especially ones working on this little hush-hush project, would have been noted. How stupid of her.

  She gave another curt nod, indicating her understanding and waited.

  He made to reach downward and Marina braced herself with the pitcher. He stopped and held up both hands and said, "I'm just going to get the chair. I'm tired."

  Marina could see that much was true, at least. He looked like he hadn't slept in days and exhaustion came off him in waves. She took a step backward, making distance, and said, "Go ahead. But slowly."

  Taylor righted the chair and Marina thought he was going to sit down. The pitcher was formed of thick stainless steel and heavy. She had the passing thought that it was meant to last the ages and give a bitter internal laugh. Of course it was.

  It happened so fast that Marina had no time to react. Taylor hit the chair and it slid violently toward her. She tried to skip aside, keep her eyes on Taylor and figure out how to hit him with the pitcher all at the same time. He had no such quandaries, because he took one step and leapt at her.

  They collided, Taylor's larger bulk carrying the momentum, and Marina fell back with frightening force. Her pitcher banged once on the floor and skittered away with loud ringing clangs on the tile floor. His hands were around her throat before she could even process the situation. She saw his grimace, lips skinned back from his teeth in a parody of a smile. His hands were so tight there was no possibility of a breath, just a squeaky trickle that didn't do enough to replenish what she had lost when he fell on top of her. The knot in her kerchief was like a heel being pressed to the side of her throat.

  Marina kicked and tried to reach his face but his arms were longer and he seemed to have an instinctual knowledge that he should raise up and out of her reach. How could anyone have an instinct for murder, Marina wondered even as she struggled. She grabbed his wrists and felt the iron in his grip and stance.

  She could not stop him. She could only hope that he could stop himself. She raised her hands, fingers splayed as the black spots grew in her vision. She could see his eyes and see that he was looking at her. She had no breath, no matter how hard she pulled in nothing was coming, so she mouthed the words, "Hope. Future."

  Every fiber of her being was screaming for her to fight and she lost control of her hands. They pulled at his fingers almost of their own accord. Suddenly, the pressure was gone. The tightly clenched fingers lifted away and the breath she had been straining to take rushed into her, making her feel like she might float away. The dark blotches in her eyes grew and all she could hear was the liquid thud of her pulse in her ears and the squealing breaths sawing in and out of her.

  Her hands and body didn't feel totally connected but the desire to survive is strong and primal and doesn't think. It just acts. She felt herself lever up and her arms and legs scrabbled to move her backward and away from her attacker. The blotches diminished into spots and she could see Taylor on his knees, hunched over and head bowed, but her body kept moving back and toward the door.

  She turned to crawl and grabbed the pitcher where it lay against the door. She missed the lever twice but on her third paw at it, she caught it and jerked it downward. Everything was drifty and dizzy and out of focus. All she could do was keep sucking in air with huge, loud gasps.

  Somehow she got the door open and crawled into the hallway. The air rushed in, cool and dry and painful. She tried to make a sound, cry for help or just get out anything at all but it was a ragged whisper that felt like fire in her throat.

  She fell against the wall on the other side of the hallway. The dizziness was so profound she was having a hard time deciding which way was up. All she could do was lift the pitcher and bang it against the wall. The first couple of strikes were weak but the loud reverberation gave her heart. She hit harder, then harder again, and the clanging of metal on concrete sent increasing waves of sound down the deserted hallway. Piotr and Taylor and she had been the only guests on this hallway. She struck harder and felt a give as the thick metal began to dent.

  It was two men in maintenance red that peeked around the corner, tentative and unsure. One held a tool bag and the other a large square filter. They said nothing and stopped at the corner. Marina could no more talk than she could stand up and offer them cookies but she managed one more bang and held out her arm. She got out a single croaking word, "Help."

  Chapter Twenty

  The maintenance men half dragged and half carried her out of the hallway, not understanding what was happening but knowing that their best bet was medical help. Eventually, they picked her up and managed a stumbled run toward the Memoriam proper. She kept trying to get out words to tell them as the dizziness passed, but the sounds that came out were clicking and incoherent. Something in her throat was damaged, that much she knew.

  One of the maintainers hollered out as he opened the Memoriam door and the shadow on duty met them in the main exhibit throughway. The girl stopped short and put her hands to her mouth. She pointed them to a padded bench big enough for a dozen to sit on where they laid her down carefully. The girl bent, looked once and saw the red on her throat. Her brows drew together and she turned to the men. She asked them what happened and they reported what they saw in a few brief and confused phrases.

  The girl told one of the men to get to the medics on Level 70 and the other to stay with Marina. She patted Marina's arm and said she was going to get Greta for her. Marina could only picture Taylor and his hands and this girl walking the hallways unaware. She gripped the girl's arm before she could turn and tried to tell her but the clicking and wheezing were all that came out. She pulled the girl toward her with a clawed grasp, alarm growing on the girl’s face. When she was close enough, she breathed the words, "Taylor. Hurt me."

  The girl didn't seem to be registering what Marina meant so she reached up and put her fingers around the girl's throat in a gentle imitation of what Taylor did and croaked, "Taylor."

  Her brow cleared but horror replaced the confusion as she realized what Marina was trying to say. The maintainers, obviously not knowing Taylor, understood the parody well enough. Such violence was so rare that it immediately passed into a sort of perpetual silo-wide memory when it occurred.

  The larger of the two men put a halting hand on the shadow's back and said, "You stay here. I'll go." He pulled a big wrench and then a hammer from his bag. He turned to the other maintainer, handed him the wrench and said, "You stay here too. We'll get medical once I'm back."

  Without a word he turned and marched with purpose the way they had just come. Before he went out of sight he turned back and asked which room. The shadow answered and he gave a brief and serious nod. The nod told them he was ready and he would take care of everything. The shadow let out a relieved breath.

  The dizziness was almost completely gone. It amazed Marina that she was thinking and felt almost in control of her limbs in so short a time. It seemed impossible that one can go from near death from lack of air to this in a few short minutes. Her throat was another matter. She swallowed and felt a strange moving click and a pain so sharp it made her want to avoid swallowing again. She pushed herself up on her elbows. She could taste metal in her mouth so she turned and spit a stream of saliva and blood into her hand.

  The girl froze with a look of disgust and fright fighting for dominance on her face but the maintainer didn't bat an eyelash. He whipped a rag out of his pocket and put it on the palm of the hand she had just spit on. He braced her as she sat upright and didn't let go until he saw her eyes and the clarity there. She wiped h
er hand and then made a motion like writing on air before motioning toward her throat.

  The shadow understood and darted away, returning a moment later with a few slips of lumpy pulp paper and a writing stick. She thrust these at Marina like she was preparing to dodge another stream of blood. Marina wrote, 'Broken in Throat. Need Medic. Taylor from IT choked me. Need deputy! Don't touch things in room. Important!'

  Both people read the words, eyes darting from the words and back to her a couple of times. The maintainer shuffled his feet, unsure about what he should do but obviously knowing that a medic and a deputy were probably both just a few levels away. Marina could see him weigh that against the orders he had just gotten.

  She reached out and took the wrench from him and stood. She held the wrench in two hands, took a ready stance and motioned with her head for him to go. He did, running with the easy grace of a former porter on a delivery of utmost importance.

  The shadow watched all this in silence, clearly afraid and without any idea what she should do. She looked at the wrench and at Marina a few times, apparently decided something and darted away once more. A few seconds later, she returned with a long metal rod, metal pins dangling from each end. At Marina's inquisitive look, she said, "From the Podium."

  Marina gave her a grave and impressed nod that hurt more than she could have imagined. The girl turned to stand next to Marina, facing the door to the private quarters where Marina had been attacked. They heard the commotion and the muffled bangs of something coming before the door swung open.

  They both braced themselves. Marina felt sweat slicking her palms and hoped the wrench wouldn't fly if she tried to hit Taylor with it. Even though they were ready, both of the women still flinched when the door swung wide and slammed against the wall.

  Through the door came the maintainer, dragging a blanket wrapped shape behind him. Greta followed close behind, eyeing the blanket for anything amiss. It must have been Taylor wrapped in the blanket and Marina could see the multiple colors of many blankets. They had wrapped him over and over and she wondered how in the silo they had gotten him still enough to do that. The maintainer had a split lip that was already swelling to impressive size and Greta had two rows of scratch marks on her bare arms.