Dust s-9

by Hugh Howey

  “We’re doing the best we can,” Lukas said. “Everything’s in order over here. I am Bernard’s shadow. I passed the Rite—”

  “I know. But I think you’ve been poisoned. I’m very sorry, son, but this is something I should have done a long time ago. It’s for the good of everyone. I truly am sorry.” And then, cryptically and softly, almost as if to someone else, the voice uttered the words: “Shut them down.”

  “Wait—” Lukas said. He turned to Sims, and now they looked helplessly at one another. “Let me—”

  Before he could finish, there was a hissing sound above him. Lukas glanced up to find a white cloud billowing down from the vents. An expanding mist. He remembered exhaust fumes like this from long ago, back when he was locked inside the server room and the people in Mechanical tried to divert gas to choke him out. He remembered the feeling that he was going to suffocate inside that room. But this fog was different. It was thick and sinister.

  Lukas pulled his undershirt over his mouth and yelled for Sims to come with him. They both dashed through the server room, dodging between the tall black machines, avoiding the cloud where they could. They got to the door that led out to IT, which Lukas figured was airtight. The red light on the panel blinked happily. Lukas didn’t remember locking the door. Holding his breath, he punched in his code and waited for the light to turn green. It didn’t. He punched it in again, concentrating, feeling lightheaded from not enough air, and the keypad buzzed and blinked at him with its red and solitary eye.

  Lukas turned to Sims to complain and saw the large man peering down at his palms. His hands were covered in blood. Blood was pouring from Sims’s nose.

  33

  Juliette cursed the radio and finally let Walker have a try. Courtnee watched them both with concern. Lukas had come through a couple of times, but all they’d heard was the patter of boots and the hissing of his breathing or some kind of static.

  Walker examined the portable. The radio had grown needlessly complex with the knobs and dials he’d added. He fiddled with something and shrugged. “Looks okay to me,” he said, tugging on his beard. “Must be on the other end.”

  One of the other radios on the bench barked. It was the large unit he’d built, the one with the wire dangling from the ceiling. There was a familiar voice followed by a burst of static: “Hello? Anyone? We’ve got a problem down here.”

  Juliette raced around the workbench and grabbed the mic before Walker or Courtnee could. She recognized that voice. “Hank, this is Juliette. What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got… ah, reports from the Mids of some kind of vapor leak. Are you still in that area?”

  “No, I’m down in Mechanical. What kind of vapor leak? And from where?”

  “In the stairwell, I think. I’m out on the landing right now and don’t see anything, but I hear a racket above me. Sounds like a ton of traffic. Can’t tell if it’s heading up or down. No fire alarm, though.”

  “Break. Break.”

  It was another voice cutting in. Juliette recognized it as Peter. He was calling for a pause in the chatter so he could say something.

  “Go ahead, Peter.”

  “Jules, I’ve got some kind of leak up here as well. It’s in the airlock.”

  Juliette looked to Courtnee, who shrugged. “Confirm that you have smoke in the airlock,” she said.

  “I don’t think it’s smoke. And it’s in the airlock you added, the new one. Wait. No… that’s strange.”

  Juliette found herself pacing between Walker’s workbenches. “What’s strange? Describe what you’re seeing.” She imagined an exhaust leak, something from the main generator. They would have to shut it down, and the backup was gone. Fuck. Her worst nightmare. Courtnee frowned at her, was probably thinking the same thing. Fuck, fuck.

  “Jules, the yellow door is open. I repeat, the inner airlock door is wide open. And I didn’t do it. It was locked just a bit ago.”

  “What about the smoke?” Juliette asked. “Is it getting worse? Stay low and cover your face. You’ll want a wet rag or something—”

  “It’s not smoke. And it’s inside the new door you welded up. That door is still shut. I’m looking through the glass right now. The smoke is all inside there. And I… I can see through the yellow door. It’s wide open. It’s… holy shit—”

  Juliette felt her heart race. The tone of his voice. She couldn’t remember Peter ever uttering a cuss word in all the time she’d known him, and she’d known him through the worst of it. “Peter?”

  “Jules, the outer door is open. I say again, the outer airlock door is wide open. I can see straight through the airlock and to… what looks like a ramp. I think I’m looking outside. Gods, Juliette, I’m looking straight outside—”

  “I need you to get out of there,” Juliette said. “Leave everything as it is and get out. Shut the cafeteria door behind you. Seal it up with something. Tape or caulk or something from the kitchen. Do you read?”

  “Yes. Yes.” His voice was labored. Juliette recalled Lukas telling her something bad was about to happen. She looked to Walker, who still had the new portable in his hand. She needed the old portable. She shouldn’t have let him modify the thing. “I need you to raise Luke,” she said.

  Walker shrugged helplessly. “I’m trying,” he said.

  “Jules, this is Peter again. I’ve got traffic heading my way up the stairs. I can hear them. Sounds like half the silo. I don’t know why they’re heading this way.”

  Juliette thought of what Hank had said about hearing traffic on the stairwell. If there was a fire, everyone was supposed to man a hose or get to a safe level and wait for assistance. Why would people be running up?

  “Peter, don’t let them near the office. Keep them away from the airlock. Don’t let them through.”

  Her mind whirled. What would she do if she were up there? Have to get in there with a suit on and shut those doors. But that would mean opening the new airlock door. The new airlock door! It shouldn’t be there. Forget the sign of smoke, the outside air was now attached to the silo. The outside air—

  “Peter?”

  “Jules— I… I can’t stay here. Everyone’s acting crazy. They’re in the office, Jules. I… I don’t want to shoot anyone— I can’t.”

  “Listen to me. The vapor. It’s the argon, isn’t it?”

  “It… maybe. Yeah. It looked like that. I only saw it fill the airlock the once, when you went out. But yeah—”

  Juliette felt her heart sink, her head spin. Her boots no longer touched the floor as she hovered, empty inside, numb and half-deaf. The gas. The poison. The seal missing from the sample canister. That fucker in Silo 1 and his threats. He’d done it. He was killing them all. A thousand useless plans and schemes flitted through Juliette’s mind, all of them hopeless and too late. Far too late.

  “Jules?”

  She squeezed the mic to answer Peter, and then realized the voice was coming from Walker’s hands. It was coming from the portable radio.

  “Lukas,” she gasped. Her vision blurred as she reached for the other radio.

  34

  “Jules? Goddammit. My volume was down. Can you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Lukas. What the hell is going on?”

  “Shit. Shit.”

  Juliette heard clangs and bangs.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay. Shit. Is that blood? Okay, gotta get to the pantry. Are you still with me?”

  Juliette realized she wasn’t breathing. “Are you talking to me? What blood?”

  “Yeah, I’m talking to you. Fell down the ladder. Sims is dead. They’re doing it. They’re shutting us down. My stupid nose. I’m going in the pantry—” The feed turned into static.

  “Lukas? Lukas!” She turned to Walker and Courtnee, both watching with wide and wet eyes.

  “—no good. Cam’t geb recebtion in there.” Lukas’s voice was garbled as though he were pinching his nose or holding back a sneeze. “Baby, you’ve gotta seal yourselb off. Can’t stob my nose—
”

  Panic surged through Juliette. Shutting them down. The threats of ending them with the push of a button. Ending them. A silo like Solo’s. Maybe a second flitted by, two seconds, and in that brief flash she recalled him telling her stories of the way his silo fell, the rush up top, the spilling out into the open air, the bodies piling up that she had waded through years later. All in an instant, she was transported back and forth through time. This was Silo 17’s past; she was witnessing the fall of that silo as it played out in her home. And she had seen their grim future, had seen what was to come of her world. She knew how this ended. She knew that Lukas was already dead.

  “Forget the radio,” she told him. “Lukas, I want you to forget the radio and seal yourself in that pantry. I’m going to save as many as I can.”

  She grabbed the other radio, which was tuned to her silo. “Hank, do you read me?”

  “Yes—?” She could hear him panting. “Hello?”

  “Get everyone down to Mechanical. Everyone you can and as fast as you can. Now.”

  “I feel like I should be going up,” Hank said. “Everyone is storming up.”

  “No!” Juliette screamed into her radio. Walker startled and dropped the other radio’s microphone. “Listen to me, Hank. Everyone you can. Down here. Now!”

  She cradled the radio in both hands, glanced around the room to see what else she should grab.

  “Are we sealing off Mechanical?” Courtnee asked. “Like before?”

  Courtnee must’ve been thinking about the steel plating welded across security during the holdout. The scars of those joints were still visible, the plating long gone.

  “No time for that,” Juliette said. She didn’t add that it might all be pointless. The air could already be spoiled. No telling how long it took. A part of her mind wanted to focus on all that lay above her, all that she couldn’t save, the people and the things as well. Everything good and needed in the world that was now out of reach.

  “Grab anything crucial and let’s go.” She looked to the two of them. “We need to go right now. Courtnee, get to the kids and get them back to their silo—”

  “But you said… that mob—”

  “I don’t care about them. Go. And take Walk with you. See that he gets to the dig. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Where are you going?” Courtnee asked.

  “To get as many others as I can.”

  ••••

  The hallways of Mechanical were strangely devoid of panic. Juliette ran through scenes of normalcy, of people walking to and from their shifts, trolleys of spare parts and heavy pumps, a shower of sparks from someone welding, a flickering flashlight and a passer-by tapping it with their fist. The radio had brought word to her ahead of time. No one else knew.

  “Get to the dig,” she shouted to everyone she passed. “That’s an order. Now. Now. Go.”

  There was a delayed response. Questions. Excuses. People explained where they were heading, that they were busy, that they didn’t have time right then.

  Juliette saw Dawson’s wife, Raina, who would’ve been just coming off shift. Juliette grabbed her by the shoulders. Raina’s eyes widened, her body stiffened, to be handled like that.

  “Get to the classroom,” Juliette told her. “Get your kids, get all the kids, and get them through the tunnel. Now.”

  “What the hell’s going on?” someone asked. A few people jostled by in the narrow passageway. One of Juliette’s old hands from first shift was there. A crowd was forming.

  “Get to the fucking dig,” Juliette shouted. “We’ve got to clear out. Grab everyone you can, your kids, anything you think you need. This is not a drill. Go. Go!”

  She clapped her hands. Raina was the first to turn and run, pushing herself through the packed corridor. Those who knew her best leapt into action soon after, rounding up others. Juliette raced toward the stairwell, shouting as she did for everyone to get to the other silo. She vaulted over the security gates, the guard on duty looking up with a startled “Hey!” Behind her, she could hear someone else yelling for everyone to follow, to get moving. Ahead of her, the stairway itself trembled. She could hear welds singing and loose struts rattling. Over this, she could hear the sound of boots stomping her way.

  Juliette stood at the bottom of the stairwell and peered up through that wide gap between the stairs and the stairwell’s concrete wall. Various landings jutted out overhead, wide bands of steel that became narrow ribbons higher up. The shaft receded into darkness. And then she saw the white clouds like smoke higher up. Maybe from the Mids.

  She squeezed the radio.

  “Hank?”

  No response.

  “Hank, come back.”

  The stairway hummed with the harmonics of heavy but distant traffic. Juliette stepped closer and rested a hand on the rail. It vibrated, numbing her hand. The clanging of boots grew louder. Looking up, she could see hands sliding down the rail above her, could hear voices shouting encouragement and confusion.

  A handful of people from the one-thirties spilled down the last turn and seemed confused about where to go next. They had the bewildered look of people who had never known that the stairway ended, that there was this floor of concrete below their homes. Juliette yelled at them to head inside. She turned and shouted into Mechanical for someone to show them the way, to let them through security. They stumbled past, most of them empty-handed, one or two with children clutched to their chests or towed behind, or with bundles cradled in their arms. They spoke of fire and smoke. A man shuffled down, holding a bloody nose. He insisted that they should be heading up, that they should all be heading up.

  “You,” Juliette said, grabbing the man by the arm. She studied his face, the crimson dripping from his knuckles. “Where are you coming from? What happened?” She indicated his nose.

  “I fell,” he said, uncovering his face to talk. “I was at work—”

  “Okay. That’s fine. Follow the others.” She pointed. Her radio barked with a disembodied voice. Shouting. An unholy din. Juliette moved away from the stairs and covered one ear, pressed the radio to the other. It sounded vaguely like Peter. She waited until he was done.

  “Can barely hear you!” she yelled. “What’s going on?”

  She covered her ear again and strained for his words. “—getting through. To the outside. They’re getting out—”

  Her back found the concrete of the stairwell. She slid down into a crouch. A few dozen people scampered down the stairs. Some stragglers in the yellow of Supply joined them, clutching a few things. Hank arrived, finally, directing traffic, shouting at those who seemed eager to turn back, to head in the other direction. A handful of people from Mechanical came out to help. Juliette concentrated on Peter’s voice.

  “—can’t breathe,” he said. “Cloud coming in. I’m in the galley. People pouring up. Everyone. Acting crazy. Falling over. Everyone dead. The outside—”

  He gasped and wheezed between every other word. The radio clicked off. Juliette screamed into the handset a few times, but she couldn’t raise him. Gazing up the stairwell, she saw the fog overhead. The smoke pouring out into the stairway seemed to thicken. It grew more and more dense as Juliette watched, horrified.

  And then something dark punched through — a shadow amid the white. It grew. There was a scream, a terrible peal as it flew down and down, past the landings, on the other side of the stairwell, and then a thudding boom as a person slammed into the deck. The violence of the impact was felt in Juliette’s boots.

  More screams. This time from those nearby, those dozens spilling down the stairwell, the few who had made it. They crawled over one another in a dash for Mechanical. And the white smoke, it descended down the stairwell like a hammer.

  35

  Juliette followed the others into Mechanical — she was the last one through. The arms on one of the security gates had been busted backward. A crowd surged over the gates while some hopped sideways through the gap. The guard who was meant to prevent this
helped people down on the other side and directed them where to go.

  Juliette threw herself over and hurried through the crowd toward the bunkroom where the kids had been put up. Someone was clattering around in the break room as she passed, hopefully looting needed things. Hopefully looting. The world had gone suddenly mad.

  The bunkroom was empty. She assumed Courtnee had already gotten there. No one was getting out of Mechanical, anyway. And it was probably already too late. Juliette doubled back down the hall and headed for the winding stairs that penetrated the levels of Mechanical. She surged with a packed crowd down to the generator room and the site of the dig.

  There were piles of tailings and chunks of concrete studded with rebar around the oil rig, which continued to bob its head up and down as if it knew the sad ways of the world, as if depressedly resigned to what was happening, as if saying: “Of course. Of course.”

  More tailings and rubble from the dig formed piles inside the generator room, everything that hadn’t yet been shoveled down the shaft to mine six. There was a scattering of people, but not the crowds Juliette had hoped. The great crowds were likely dead. And then a fleeting thought, an urge to laugh and feel ridiculous, the idea that the smoke was nothing, that the airlock up top had held, that everything was okay and that her friends would soon rib her about this panic she had caused.

  But this hope vanished as quickly as it came. Nothing could cut through the metallic fear on her tongue, the sound of Peter’s voice telling her that the airlock was wide open, that people were collapsing, Lukas telling her that Sims was dead.

  She pushed through the crowd pouring into the tunnel and called out for the children. Then she spotted Courtnee and Walker. Walker was wide-eyed, his jaw sagging. Juliette saw the crowds through his eyes and realized the burden she had left Courtnee with, the challenge of dragging this recluse once again from his lair.