Shift (silo)

by Hugh Howey

  He shook his head, which made the world spin. As if he had any answers. All he had were questions. He remembered the orderlies who woke him saying something about a silo falling. He couldn’t remember which one. Why would they wake him for that?

  He moved unsteadily to the door, tried the knob, confirmed what he already knew. He went to the dresser where the piece of paper stood on its remembered folds.

  ‘Get some rest,’ he said, laughing at the suggestion. As if he could sleep. He felt as though he’d been asleep for ever. He picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it.

  A report. Donald remembered this. It was a copy of a report. A report about a young man doing horrible things. The room twisted around him as if he stood on some great pivot, the memory of men and women trampled and dying, of giving some awful order, faces peering in at him from a hallway somewhere far in the past.

  Donald blinked away a curtain of tears and studied the trembling report. Hadn’t he written this? He had signed it, he remembered. But that wasn’t his name at the bottom. It was his handwriting, but it wasn’t his name.

  Troy.

  Donald’s legs went numb. He sought the bed — but collapsed to the floor instead as the memories washed over him. Troy and Helen. Helen and Troy. He remembered his wife. He imagined her disappearing over a hill, her arm raised to the sky where bombs were falling, his sister and some dark and nameless shadow pulling him back as people spilled like marbles down a slope, funnelling into some deep hole filled with white mist.

  Donald remembered. He remembered all that he had helped do to the world. There was a troubled boy in a silo full of the dead, a shadow among the servers. That boy had brought an end to silo number twelve, and Donald had written a report. But Donald — what had he done? He had killed more than a silo full of people; he had drawn the plans that helped end the world. The report in his hand trembled as he remembered. And the tears that fell and struck the paper were tinged a pale blue.

  30

  • Silo 1 •

  A DOCTOR BROUGHT soup and bread a few hours later, and a tall glass of water. Donald ate hungrily while the man checked his arm. The warm soup felt good. It slid to his centre and seemed to radiate its heat outward. Donald tore at the bread with his teeth and chased it with the water. He ate with the desperation of so many years of fasting.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said between bites. ‘For the food.’

  The doctor glanced up from checking his blood pressure. He was an older man, heavyset, with great bushy eyebrows and a fine wisp of hair that clung to his scalp like a cloud to a hilltop.

  ‘I’m Donald,’ he said, introducing himself.

  There was a wrinkle of confusion on the old man’s brow. His grey eyes strayed to his clipboard as if either it or his patient couldn’t be trusted. The needle on the gauge jumped with Donald’s pulse.

  ‘Who’re you?’ Donald asked.

  ‘I’m Dr Sneed,’ he finally said, though without confidence.

  Donald took a long swig on his water, thankful they’d left it at room temperature. He didn’t want anything cold inside him ever again. ‘Where’re you from?’

  The doctor removed the cuff from Donald’s arm with a loud rip. ‘Level ten. But I work out of the shift office on sixty-eight.’ He put his equipment back in his bag and made a note on the clipboard.

  ‘No, I mean where are you from? You know… before.’

  Dr Sneed patted Donald’s knee and stood. The clipboard went on a hook on the outside of the door. ‘You might have some dizziness the next few days. Let us know if you experience any trembling, okay?’

  Donald nodded. He remembered being given the same advice earlier. Or was that his last shift? Maybe the repetition was for those who had trouble remembering. He wasn’t going to be one of those people. Not this time.

  A shadow fell into the room. Donald looked up to see the Thaw Man in the doorway. He gripped the meal tray to keep it from sliding off his knees.

  The Thaw Man nodded to Dr Sneed, but these were not their names. Thurman, Donald told himself. Senator Thurman. He knew this.

  ‘Do you have a moment?’ Thurman asked the doctor.

  ‘Of course.’ Sneed grabbed his bag and stepped outside. The door clicked shut, leaving Donald alone with his soup.

  He took quiet spoonfuls, trying to make anything of the murmurs on the other side of the door. Thurman, he reminded himself again. And not a senator. Senator of what? Those days were gone. Donald had drawn the plans.

  The report stood tented on the dresser, returned to its spot. Donald took a bite of bread and remembered the floors he’d laid out. Those floors were now real. They existed. People lived inside them, raising their children, laughing, having fights, singing in the shower, burying their dead.

  A few minutes passed before the knob tilted and the door swung inward. The Thaw Man entered the room alone. He pressed the door shut and frowned at Donald. ‘How’re you feeling?’

  The spoon clacked against the rim of the bowl. Donald set the utensil down and gripped the tray with both hands to keep them from shaking, to keep them from forming fists.

  ‘You know,’ Donald hissed, teeth clenched together. ‘You know what we did.’

  Thurman showed his palms. ‘We did what had to be done.’

  ‘No. Don’t give me that.’ Donald shook his head. The water in his glass trembled as if something dangerous approached. ‘The world…’

  ‘We saved it.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Donald’s voice cracked. He tried to remember. ‘There is no world any more.’ He recalled the view from the top, from the cafeteria. He remembered the hills a dull brown, the sky full of menacing clouds. ‘We ended it. We killed everyone.’

  ‘They were already dead,’ Thurman said. ‘We all were. Everyone dies, son. The only thing that matters is—’

  ‘Stop.’ Donald waved the words away as if they were buzzing things that could bite him. ‘There’s no justifying this—’ He felt spittle form on his lips, wiped it away with his sleeve. The tray on his lap slid dangerously and Thurman moved quickly — quicker than one would expect of a man his age — to catch it. He placed what was left of the meal on the bedside table, and up close, Donald could see that he had gotten older. The wrinkles were deeper, the skin hanging from the bones. He wondered how much time Thurman had spent awake while Donald had slept.

  ‘I killed a lot of men in the war,’ Thurman said, looking down at the tray of half-eaten food.

  Donald found himself focused on the old man’s neck. He closed his hands together to keep them still. This sudden admission about killing made it seem as if Thurman could read Donald’s mind, as though this was some kind of a warning for him to stay his murderous plans.

  Thurman turned to the dresser and picked up the folded report. He opened it and Donald caught sight of the pale blue smudges, his ice-tinged tears from earlier.

  ‘Some say killing gets easier the longer you’re at it,’ he said. And he sounded sad, not threatening. Donald looked down at his own knees and saw that they were bouncing. He forced his heels against the carpet and tried to pin them there.

  ‘For me, it only got worse. There was a man in Iran—’

  ‘The entire goddamn planet,’ Donald whispered, stressing each word. This was what he said, but all he could think about was his wife Helen pulled down the wrong hill, everything that had ever existed crumbling to ruin. ‘We killed everyone.’

  The Senator took in a deep breath and held it a moment. ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘They were already dead.’

  ‘You’ll never convince me. You can drug me or kill me, but I promise you, you will never convince me.’

  Thurman studied the report. He seemed unsure of something. The paper faintly shook, but maybe it was the vent overhead. Finally, he nodded as if he agreed. ‘Drugging you doesn’t work. I’ve read up on your first shift. There’s a small percentage of people with some kind of resistance. We’d love to know why.’

  Donald could only laugh. He settl
ed against the wall behind the cot and nestled into the darkness the top bunk provided. ‘Maybe I’ve seen too much to forget,’ he said.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Thurman lowered his head so he could still make eye contact. Donald took a sip of water, both hands wrapped around the glass. ‘The more you see — the worse the trauma is — the better the medication works. It makes it easier to forget. Except for some people. Which is why we took a sample.’

  Donald glanced down at his arm. A small square of gauze had been taped over the spot of blood left by the doctor’s needle. He felt a caustic mix of helplessness and fear well up inside him. ‘You woke me to take my blood?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Thurman hesitated. ‘Your resistance to the meds is something I’m curious about but the reason you’re awake is because I was asked to wake you. We are losing silos—’

  ‘I thought that was the plan,’ Donald spat. ‘Losing silos. I thought that was what you wanted.’ He remembered crossing silo twelve out with red ink, all those many lives lost. They had accounted for this. Silos were expendable. That’s what he’d been told.

  Thurman shook his head. ‘Whatever’s happening out there, we need to understand it. And there’s someone here who… who thinks you may have stumbled onto the answer. We have a few questions for you, and then we can put you back under.’

  Back under. So he wasn’t going to be out for long. They had only woken him to take his blood and to peer into his mind, and would then put him back to sleep. Donald rubbed his arms, which felt thin and atrophied. He was dying in that pod. Only more slowly than he would like.

  ‘We need to know what you remember about this report.’ Thurman held it out. Donald waved the thing away.

  ‘I already looked it over,’ he said. He didn’t want to see it again. He could close his eyes and see the desperate people spilling out onto the dusty land, the people that he had ordered dead.

  ‘We have other medications that might ease the—’

  ‘No. No more drugs.’ Donald crossed his wrists and spread his arms out, slicing the air with both hands. ‘Look, I don’t have a resistance to your drugs.’ The truth. He was sick of the lies. ‘There’s no mystery. I just stopped taking the pills.’

  It felt good to admit it. What were they going to do, anyway? Put him back to sleep? He took another sip of water while he let the confession sink in. He swallowed.

  ‘I kept them in my gums and spat them out later. It’s as simple as that. Probably the case with anyone else remembering. Like Hal, or Carlton, or whatever his name was.’

  Thurman regarded him coolly. He tapped the report against his open palm, seeming to digest this. ‘We know you stopped taking the pills,’ he finally said. ‘And when.’

  Donald shrugged. ‘Mystery solved, then.’ He finished his water and put the empty glass back on the tray.

  ‘The drugs you have a resistance to are not in the pills, Donny. The reason people stop taking the pills is because they begin to remember, not the other way around.’

  Donald studied Thurman, disbelieving.

  ‘Your urine changes colour when you stop taking them. You develop sores on your gums where you hide them. These are the signs we look for.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There are no drugs in the pills, Donny.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘We medicate everyone. There are those of us who are immune. But you shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Bullshit. I remember. The pills made me woozy. As soon as I stopped taking them, I got better.’

  Thurman tilted his head to the side. ‘The reason you stopped taking them was because you were… I won’t say getting better. It was because the fear had begun leaking through. Donny, the medication is in the water.’ He waved at the empty glass on the tray. Donald followed the gesture and immediately felt sick.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Thurman said. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘I don’t want to help you. I don’t want to talk about this report. I don’t want to see whoever it is you need me to see.’

  He wanted Helen. All he wanted was his wife.

  ‘There’s a chance that thousands will die if you don’t help us. There’s a chance that you stumbled onto something with this report of yours, even if I don’t believe it.’

  Donald glanced at the door to the bathroom, thought about locking himself inside and forcing himself to throw up, to expunge the food and the water. Maybe Thurman was lying to him. Maybe he was telling the truth. A lie would mean the water was just water. The truth would mean that he did have some sort of resistance.

  ‘I barely remember writing the damn thing,’ he admitted. And who would want to see him? He assumed it would be another doctor, maybe a silo head, maybe whoever was running this shift.

  He rubbed his temples, could feel the pressure building between them. Perhaps he should just do as they wanted and be put back to sleep, back to his dreams. Now and then, he had dreamed of Helen. It was the only place he could be with her.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll go. But I still don’t understand what I could possibly know.’ He rubbed his arm where they’d taken the blood. There was an itch there. An itch so deep it felt like a bruise.

  Senator Thurman nodded. ‘I tend to agree with you. But that’s not what she thinks.’

  Donald stiffened. ‘She?’ He searched Thurman’s eyes, wondering if he’d heard correctly. ‘She who?’

  The old man frowned. ‘The one who had me wake you.’ He waved his hand at the bunk. ‘Get some rest. I’ll take you to her in the morning.’

  31

  • Silo 1 •

  HE COULDN’T REST. The hours were cruel, slow and unknowable. There was no clock to mark their passing, no answer to his frustrated slaps on the door. Donald was left to lie in his bunk and stare at the diamond patterns of interlocking wires holding the mattress above him, to listen to the gurgle of water in hidden pipes as it rushed to another room. He couldn’t sleep. He had no idea if it was the middle of the night or the middle of the day. The weight of the silo pressed down upon him.

  When the boredom grew intolerable, Donald eventually gave in and looked over the report a second time. He studied it more closely. It wasn’t the original; the signature was flat, and he remembered using a blue pen.

  He skimmed the account of the silo’s collapse and his theory that IT heads shadowed too young. His recommendation was to raise the age. He wondered if they had. Maybe so, but the problems were persisting. There was also mention of a young man he had inducted, a young man with a question. This young man’s great-grandmother was one of those who remembered, much like Donald. His report suggested allowing one question from each inductee. They were given the Legacy, after all. Why not show them, in that final stage of indoctrination, that there were more truths to be had?

  The tiny clicks of a key entering a lock. Thurman opened the door as Donald folded the report away.

  ‘Feeling better?’ Thurman asked.

  Donald didn’t say.

  ‘Can you walk?’

  He nodded. A walk. When what he really wanted was to run screaming down the hallway and punch holes in walls. But a walk would do. A walk before his next long sleep.

  They rode the lift in silence. Donald noticed Thurman had scanned his badge before pressing the button for level fifty-four. Its number stood bright and new while so many others had been worn away. There was nothing but supplies on that level if Donald remembered correctly, supplies they weren’t ever supposed to need. The lift slowed as it approached a level it normally skipped. The doors opened on a cavernous expanse of shelves stocked with instruments of death.

  Thurman led him down the middle of it all. There were wooden crates with ‘AMMO’ stencilled on the side, longer crates beside them with military designations like ‘M22’ and ‘M19’. There were rows of shelves with armour and helmets, with boxes marked ‘MEDICAL’ and ‘RATIONS’, many more boxes unlabelled. And beyond the shelves, tarps covered bulbous and winged forms t
hat he knew to be drones. UAVs. His sister had flown them in a war that now seemed pointless and distant, part of ancient history. But here these relics stood, oiled and covered, reeking of grease and fear.

  Beyond the drones, Thurman led the way through a murky dimness that made the storehouse seem to go on for ever. At the far end of the wide room, a glow of light leaked from an open-doored office. There were sounds of paper stirring, a chair squeaking as someone turned. Donald reached the doorway and saw, inexplicably, her sitting there.

  ‘Anna?’

  She sat behind a wide conference table ringed with identical chairs, looked up from a spread of paperwork and a computer monitor. There was no shock on her part, just a smile of acknowledgement and a weariness that her smile could not conceal.

  Her father crossed the room while Donald gaped. Thurman squeezed her arm and kissed her on the cheek, but Anna’s eyes did not leave Donald’s. The old man whispered something to his daughter, then announced that he had work of his own to see to. Donald did not budge until the Senator had left the room.

  ‘Anna—’

  She was already at the massive table, wrapping her arms around him. She began whispering things, comforting words as Donald sagged into her embrace, suddenly exhausted. He felt her hand caress the back of his head and come to a rest on his neck. His own arms interlocked around her back.

  ‘What’re you doing here?’ he whispered.

  ‘I’m here for the same reason you are.’ She pulled back from the embrace. ‘I’m looking for answers.’ She stepped away and surveyed the mess on the table. ‘To different questions, perhaps.’

  A familiar schematic — a grid of fifty silos — covered the table. Each silo was like a small plate, all of them trapped under glass. A dozen chairs were gathered around. Donald realised that this was a war room, where generals stood and pushed plastic models and grumbled over lives lost by the thousands. He glanced up at the maps and schematics plastered on the walls. There was an adjoining bathroom, a towel hanging from a hook on the door. A cot had been set up in the far corner and was neatly made. There was a lamp beside it sitting on one of the wooden crates from the storeroom. Extension cords snaked here and there, signs of a room long converted into an apartment of sorts.