by Hugh Howey
The door to the deputy’s office squeaked on a hinge long worn beyond the repair of grease. Jahns tried to sit up, to see in the dark, but her muscles were too sore, her eyes too old. She wanted to call out, to let her hosts know that she was okay, in need of nothing, but she listened instead.
Footsteps came to her, nearly invisible in the worn carpet. There were no words, just the creaking of old joints as they approached the bed, the lifting of expensive and fragrant sheets, and an understanding between two living ghosts.
Jahns’ breath caught in her chest. Her hand groped for a wrist as it clutched her sheets. She slid over on the small convertible bed to make room and pulled him down beside her.
Marnes wrapped his arms around her back, wiggled beneath her until she was lying on his side, a leg draped over his, her hands on his neck. She felt his mustache brush against her cheek, heard his lips purse and peck the corner of hers.
Jahns held his cheeks and burrowed her face into his shoulder. She cried, like a schoolchild, like a new shadow who felt lost and afraid in the wilderness of a strange and terrifying job. She cried with fear, but that soon drained away. It drained like the soreness in her back as his hands rubbed her there. It drained until numbness found its place, and then, after what felt like a forever of shuddering sobs, with sensation taking the place of that.
Jahns felt alive in her skin. She felt the tingle of flesh touching flesh, of just her forearm against his hard ribs, her hands on his shoulder, his hands on her hips. And then the tears were some joyous release, some mourning of the lost time, some welcomed sadness of a moment long delayed and finally there, arms wrapped around it and holding tight.
She fell asleep like that, exhausted from far more than the climb, nothing more than a few trembling kisses, hands interlocking, a whispered word of tenderness and appreciation, and then the depths of sleep pulling her down, the weariness in her joints and bones succumbing to a slumber she didn’t want but sorely needed. She slept with a man in her arms for the first time in decades, and woke to a bed familiarly empty, but a heart strangely full.
••••
In the middle of their fourth and final day of climbing, they approached the mid-thirties of IT. Jahns had found herself taking more breaks for water and to rub her muscles along the way, not for the exhaustion she feigned, but the dread of this stopover and seeing Bernard, the fear of their trip ever coming to an end.
The dark and deep shadows cast by the power holiday followed them up, the traffic sparse as most merchants had closed for the silo-wide brownout. Juliette, who had stayed behind to oversee the repairs, had warned Jahns of the flickering lights from the backup generator. Still, the effect of the shimmering illumination had worn on her during the long climb. The inconstancy was bothersome.
When they reached the thirty-fourth, Jahns felt like they were, in a sense, home again. Back in the realm of the familiar, at the main landing for IT. She waited by the railing, leaning on it and her walking stick, while Marnes got the door. As it was cracked open, the pale glow of diminished power was swept off the stairwell by the bright lights blooming inside. It hadn’t been widely publicized, but the reason for the severe power restrictions on other levels was largely due to the exemption IT maintained it possessed in spite of this holiday. Bernard had pointed to various clauses in the Pact to support this. Juliette had bitched that servers shouldn’t get priority over grow lights, but resigned herself to getting the main generator re-aligned, and taking what she could. Jahns told Juliette to view this as her first lesson in political compromise. Juliette said she saw it as a display of weakness.
Inside, Jahns found Bernard waiting on them, a look on his face like he’d swallowed sour fruit juice. A conversation between several IT workers standing off to the side quickly silenced with their entry, leaving Jahns little doubt that they’d been spotted on the way up and expected.
“Bernard,” she said, trying to keep her breathing steady. She didn’t want him to know how tired she was. Let him think she was strolling by on her way up from the down deep, like it was no big deal.
“Marie.”
It was a deliberate slight. He didn’t even look Marnes’ way or acknowledge that the deputy was in the room.
“Would you like to sign these here? Or in the conference room?” She dug into her bag for the contract with Juliette’s name on it.
“What games are you playing at, Marie?”
Jahns felt her temperature rise. The cluster of workers in silver IT jumpsuits were following the exchange. “Playing at?” she asked.
“You think this power holiday of yours is cute? Your way of getting back at me?”
“Getting back—?”
“I’ve got servers, Marie—”
“Your servers have their full allocation of power,” Jahns reminded him, her voice rising.
“But their cooling comes ducted from Mechanical, and if temps get any higher, we’ll be ramping down, which we’ve never had to do!”
Marnes stepped between the two of them, his hands raised. “Easy,” he said cooly, his gaze on Bernard.
“Call off your little shadow here,” Bernard said.
Jahns placed a hand on Marnes’ arm.
“The Pact is clear, Bernard. It’s my choice. My nomination. You and I have a nice history of signing off on each others—”
“And I told you this girl from the pits will not do—”
“She’s got the job,” Marnes said, interrupting. Jahns noticed his hand had fallen to the butt of his gun. She wasn’t sure if Bernard noticed or not, but he fell silent. His eyes, however, did not leave Jahns’.
“I won’t sign it.”
“Then next time, I won’t ask.”
Bernard smiled. “You think you’ll outlive another sheriff?” He turned toward the workers in the corner and waved one of them over. “Why do I somehow doubt that?” The worker approached. Bernard nodded to the young man, a face familiar to Jahns from level meetings. “Sign whatever she needs, I refuse to. Make copies. Take care of the rest.” He waved his hand dismissively, turned and looked Marnes and Jahns up and down one final time, as if disgusted with their condition, their age, their positions, something. “Oh, and top off their canteens and see that they have food enough to stagger back to their homes. Whatever it takes to power their decrepit legs to wherever it is they belong.”
And with that, Bernard strode off toward the barred gates that led into the heart of IT, back to his brightly lit offices where servers hummed happily, the temperature rising in the slow-moving air like the heat of angered flesh as capillaries squeezed, the blood in them rising to a boil.
8
The floors flew by faster as they approached home. In the darkest sections of the staircase, between quiet floors of people hunkered down and awaiting a return to normalcy, old hands wrapped around each other and swung between two climbers, brazenly and open, grasping each other while their other hands slid up the cool steel of the rails.
Jahns only let go sporadically to check that her walking stick was secure against her back, or to grab Marnes’ canteen from his pack and take a sip. They had taken to drinking each other’s water, it being easier to reach across than around one’s own back. There was a sweetness to it as well, this carrying the sustenance another needed, this being able to provide and reciprocate in a perfectly equitable relationship. It was a thing worth dropping hands for. Momentarily, at least.
Jahns finished a sip, screwed on the metal cap with its dangling chain, and replaced it in his outer pouch. She was dying to know if things would be different once they got back. They were only twenty floors away. An impossible distance yesterday now seemed like something that could slip away without noticing. And as they arrived, would familiar surroundings bring familiar roles? Would last night feel more and more like a dream? Or would old ghosts become more and more solid?
She wanted to ask these things, but talked of trivialities instead. When would Jules, as she insisted they call her, be ready for duty?
What case files did he and Holston have open that needed tending to first? What concession would they make to keep IT happy, to calm down Bernard? And how would they handle Peter Billings’ disappointment? What impact would this have on hearings he might one day preside over as judge?
Jahns felt butterflies in her stomach as they discussed these things. Or perhaps it was the nerves of all she wanted to say, but couldn’t. These topics were as numerous as grains of dust in the outside air, and just as likely to dry her mouth and still her tongue. She found herself drinking more and more from his thermos, her own water making noises at her back, her stomach lurching with every landing, each number counting down toward the conclusion of their journey, an adventure that had been a complete success in so many ways.
To start with, they had their sheriff. A fiery girl from the down deep who seemed every bit as confident and inspiring as Marnes had intimated. Jahns saw her kind as the future of the silo. People who thought long term. Who planned. Who got things done. There was precedence of sheriffs running for mayor. She thought Juliette would eventually make a fine choice.
And speaking of running, the trip had fired up her own goals and ambitions. She was excited for the upcoming elections, however unopposed she might be, and had even come up with dozens of short speeches during the climb. She saw how things could run better, how she could perform her duties more diligently, and how the silo could have new life breathed into old bones.
But the biggest change was whatever had grown between herself and Marnes. She had even begun to suspect, just in the last hours, that the real reason for him never taking a promotion was because of her. As deputy, there was enough space between them to contain his hope, his impossible dream of holding her. As sheriff, it couldn’t happen. Too much conflict of interest, too much his immediate superior. This theory of hers contained a powerful sadness and an awe-inspiring sweetness. She squeezed his hand as she thought on this theory, and it filled her with a deep hollowness, a cramp in her gut at all he had silently sacrificed, a massive debt to live up to no matter what happened next.
They approached the landing to the nursery, and had no plans for stopping to see Juliette’s father, to urge him to receive his daughter on the way up, but Jahns changed her mind as she felt her bladder beg for release.
“I’ve got to go pretty bad,” she told Marnes, embarrassed as a child to admit she couldn’t hold it. Her mouth was dry and her stomach churning from so much fluid, and maybe from a little fear of the journey being over and done. “I wouldn’t mind seeing Juliette’s father, either,” she added.
Marnes’ mustache bent up at the corners with the excuse. “Then we should stop,” he said.
The waiting room was empty, the signs reminding them to be quiet. Jahns peered through the glass partition and saw a nurse padding through the dark corridor toward her, a frown becoming a slight smile of recognition.
“Mayor,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry not to have wired ahead, but I was hoping to see Doctor Nichols? And possibly use your restroom?”
“Of course.” She buzzed the door and waved them through. “We’ve had two deliveries since you last stopped by. Things have been crazy with this generator mess—”
“Power holiday,” Marnes corrected, his voice gruff and louder than theirs.
The nurse shot him a look, but nodded as if duly noted. She took two robes from the racks and had them put these on and leave their stuff by her desk.
In the waiting room, she waved toward the benches and said she would find the doctor. “The bathrooms are through there.” She pointed at a door, the old sign painted on its surface nearly eroded clean away.
“I’ll be right back,” Jahns told Marnes. She fought the urge to reach out and squeeze his hand, as normal as that dark and hidden habit had lately become.
The bathroom was almost completely devoid of light. Jahns fumbled with an unfamiliar lock on the stall door, cursed under her breath as her stomach churned noisily, then finally threw the stall open and hurried to sit down. Her stomach felt like it was on fire as she relieved herself. The mixture of welcomed release and the burn of having held it too long left her unable to breathe. She went for what felt like forever, remained sitting as her legs shook uncontrollably, and realized she had pushed herself too hard on the climb up. The thought of another twenty levels mortified her, made her insides feel hollow with dread. She finished and moved over to the adjoining toilet to splash herself clean, then dried herself with one of the towels. She flushed both units to cycle the water. It all required fumbling in the darkness, unable to see and unfamiliar with the spacing and location that were second nature in her apartment and office.
She staggered out of the bathroom on weak legs, wondering if she might need to stay one more night, sleep in a delivery bed, wait until the morning to make the climb to her office. She could barely feel her legs as she pulled open the door and returned to Marnes in the waiting room.
“Better?” he asked. He sat on one of the family benches, a space left conspicuously beside him. Jahns nodded and sat heavily. She was breathing in shallow pants and wondered if he’d find her weak to admit she couldn’t go any further that day.
“Jahns? You okay?”
Marnes leaned forward. He wasn’t looking at her, he was looking toward the ground. “Jahns. What the hell happened?”
“Lower your voice,” she whispered.
He screamed, instead.
“Doctor!” he yelled. “Nurse!”
A form moved beyond the dusky glass of the nursery. Jahns laid her head back against the seat cushion, trying to form the words on her lips, to tell him to keep it down.
“Jahns, sweetheart, what did you do?”
He was holding her hand, patting the back of it. He shook her arm. Jahns just wanted to sleep. There was the slapping of footsteps running their way. Lights turned up forbiddingly bright. A nurse yelled something. There was the familiar voice of Juliette’s father, a doctor. He would give her a bed. He would understand this exhaustion—
There was talk of blood. Someone was examining her legs. Marnes was crying, tears falling into his white mustache, peppered with black. He was shaking her shoulders, looking her in the eye.
“I’m okay,” Jahns tried to say.
She licked her lips. So dry. Mouth, so damned dry. She asked for water. Marnes fumbled for his canteen, brought it to her lips, splashing water against and into her mouth.
She tried to swallow, but couldn’t. They were stretching her out on the bench, the doctor touching her ribs, shining a light in her eyes. But things were getting darker anyway.
Marnes clutched the canteen in one hand, rubbed her hair back with the other. He was blubbering. So sad for some reason. So much more energy than her. She smiled at him and reached for his hand, a miraculous effort. She held his wrist and told him that she loved him. That she had for as long as she could remember. Her mind was tired, loosing its grip on her secrets, mouthing them to him as his eyes flowed with tears.
His eyes, bright and wrinkled, peering down at her, then turning to the canteen in his hand.
The canteen that he had carried.
The water, and poison, meant for him.
9
The generator room was unusually crowded and eerily silent. Mechanics in worn coveralls stood three deep behind the railing and watched the first shift crew work. Juliette was only dimly aware of them; she was more keenly aware of the silence.
She leaned over a device of her own making, a tall platform welded to the metal floor and arrayed with mirrors and tiny slits that bounced light across the room. This light shined on mirrors attached to the generator and its large dynamo, helping her get them in perfect alignment. It was the shaft between the two of them that she cared about, that long steel rod the size of a man’s waist where the power of combusting fuel was transformed into the spark of electricity. She was hoping to have the machines on either end of this rod aligned to within a thousandth of an inch. But everything they
were doing was without precedent. The procedures had been hurriedly planned in all-night sessions while the backup generator was put online. Now, she could only concentrate, could only hope the eighteen hour shifts had been good for something, and trust in plans made back when she’d had some decent rest and could soundly think.
While she guided the final placement, the chamber around her stood deathly quiet. She gave a sign, and Marck and his team tightened several of the massive bolts on the new rubber floor mounts. They were four days into the power holiday. The generator needed to be up and running by morning and at full power that next evening. With so much done to it—the new gaskets and seals, the polishing of cylinder shafts that had required young shadows to crawl down into the heart of the beast—Juliette was worried about it even starting up. The generator had never been fully powered down during her lifetime. Old Knox could remember it shutting itself down in an emergency once, back when he was a mere shadow, but for everyone else the rumble was as constant and close as their own heartbeats. Juliette felt inordinate pressure for everything to work. She was the one who had come up with the idea to do a refit. She calmed herself with reassurances that it was the right thing to do, and that the worst that could happen now was that the holiday would get extended until they sorted out all the kinks. That was much better than a catastrophic failure years from now.