by Hugh Howey
“Elise.”
The man with the dark whiskers knelt down beside her. Elise startled and clutched her bag to her chest. “Yes?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“Have you heard of the Pact?” the man asked. The other man with no hair on the center of his head and the white blanket around his shoulders stood behind, that same frown on his face. Elise imagined that he never smiled.
She nodded. “A pack is a bunch of animals, like deer and dogs and puppies.”
The man smiled. “Pact, not pack.” But it all sounded the same to Elise. “And dogs and puppies are the same animal.”
She didn’t feel like correcting him. She’d seen what dogs looked like in her book and in the bizarre, and they were scary. Puppies weren’t scary.
“Where did you hear about deer?” the man in the white blanket asked. “Do you have children’s books over here?”
Elise shook her head. “We have real books. I’ve seen deer. They’re tall and funny with skinny legs, and they live in the woods.”
The man with the whiskers in the orange coveralls didn’t seem to care about deer. Not as much as the other man. Elise looked to the door, wondered where everyone she knew was. Where was Solo? He should’ve been helping her find Puppy.
“The Pact is a very important document,” said the man in orange. She suddenly remembered his name was Mr. Rash. He had introduced himself, but she was bad with names. Only ever needed to know a few. Mr. Rash was very nice to her. “The Pact is like a book but only smaller,” he was saying. “Similar to how you’re like a woman but only smaller.”
“I’m seven,” Elise said. She wasn’t small anymore.
“And you’ll be seventeen before you know it.” The man with the whiskers reached out and touched Elise’s cheek. Elise pulled back, startled, which made the man frown. He turned and looked up at the man in the white blanket, who was studying Elise.
“What books were these?” the man in white asked. “The ones with these animals, they were here in this silo?”
Elise felt her hands drop to her bag and rest protectively there, rest on her Memory Book. She was pretty sure the page with the deer had gone into her book. She liked the things about the green world, the things about fishing and animals and the sun and stars. She bit her lip to keep from saying anything.
The man with the whiskers — Mr. Rash — knelt beside her. He had a sheet of paper and a purple stick of chalk in his hands. He set these on the bench by her leg and rested his hand on Elise’s knee. The other man stepped closer.
“If you know of books in this place, it is your duty to God to tell us where they lie,” the man in the blanket said. “Do you believe in God?”
Elise nodded. Hannah and Rickson had taught her about God and the night prayers. The world blurred around her, and Elise realized she had tears in her eyes. She swiped them away. Rickson hated it when she cried.
“Where are these books, Elise? How many of them are there?”
“A lot,” she said, thinking of all the books she’d stolen pages out of. Solo had been so angry with her when he’d found out she was taking pictures and the How-To’s from them. But the How-To’s showed her a better way to fish, and then Solo had shown her how to stitch the pages in and out of books proper and they had fished together.
The man in the white blanket knelt down in front of her. “Are these books all over the place?”
“This is Father Remmy,” Mr. Rash said, making room for the man with the bald patch and introducing him to Elise. “Father Remmy is going to guide us through these troubling times. We are a flock. We used to follow Father Wendel, but some leave the flock and some join. Like you.”
“These books,” Mr. Remmy said, who seemed young to be a father, didn’t seem all that much older than Rickson. “Are they near us? Where might we find them?” He swept his hand from the wall to the ceiling, had a strange way of talking, a loud voice that could be felt in Elise’s chest, a voice that made her want to answer. And his eyes — green like the flooded depths she and Solo used to fish in — made her want to tell the truth.
“All in one place,” Elise said, sniffling.
“Where?” the man whispered. He was holding her hands, and the other man was watching this with a funny expression. “Where are the books? It is so important, my daughter. There is only one book, you know. All these others are lies. Now tell me where they are.”
Elise thought of the one book in her bag. It was not a lie. But she didn’t want this man touching her book. Didn’t want him touching her at all. She tried to pull away, but his large hands gripped her more firmly. Something swam behind his eyes.
“Thirty-four,” she whispered.
“Level thirty-four?”
Elise nodded, and his hands loosened on hers. As he pulled away, Mr. Rash moved closer and rested a hand on Elise’s hand, covering the place the other man had hurt.
“Father, can we… ?” Mr. Rash asked.
The man with the bald circle nodded, and Mr. Rash picked up the piece of paper from the bench. One side was printed on. The other side had been written on by hand. There was a purple chalk, and Mr. Rash asked Elise if she could spell, if she knew her letters.
Elise bobbed her head. Her hand once again fell to her bag, guarding her book. She could read better than Miles. Hannah had made sure of that.
“Can you spell your name for me?” the man asked. He showed her the piece of paper. There were lines drawn at the bottom. Two names had already been signed. Another line was blank. “Right here,” he said, indicating that line. He pressed the chalk into Elise’s hand. She was reading some of the other words, but the writing was messy. It had been written quickly and on a rough surface. Plus, her vision was blurry. “Just your name,” he said once more. “Show me.”
Elise wanted to get away. She wanted Puppy and Solo and Jewel and even Rickson. She wiped her tears and swallowed a sob that was trying to choke her. If she did what they wanted, she would be free to go. There were more and more people in that room. Some of them were watching her and whispering. She heard a man say that someone else was lucky, that there were more men than women, that people would get left out if they weren’t careful. They were watching her and waiting, and the furniture was now straight, the floors swept, some green leaves from plucked plants scattered around the stage.
“Right here,” Mr. Rash said. He held her wrist and forced the chalk until it hovered over the line. “Your name.” And everyone was watching. Elise knew her letters. She could read better than Rickson. But she could hardly see. She was a fish like she used to catch, under the water, looking up at all these hungry people. But she printed her name. She hoped it would make them go away.
“Good girl.”
Mr. Rash bent forward and kissed her on the cheek. People started clapping. And then the man in the white blanket with the fascination for books chanted some words, that voice booming and pretty at the same time. His words felt deep within her chest as he pronounced someone in the name of the Pact, husband and wife.
Part IV ~ Dust
Silo 1
51
Darcy rode the elevator up to the armory. He put the small bag with the bullet away and stuffed the blood results into his pocket, stepped out of the elevator and fumbled for the wide bank of light switches. Something told him the pilot missing from the cryopod in Emergency Personnel was hiding on this level. It was the level where they’d found the man posing as the Shepherd. It was also where a handful of pilots had been stationed a month or so ago during a flurry of activity. He and Stevens and a few of the others had searched the level several times already, but Darcy had a feeling. It started with the fact that the lift required a security override before it would even bring him to that level.
Only a handful of top personnel and those in Security could manage that sort of override, and on his previous visits Darcy had seen why. Crates of munitions and ammo lined the shelves. There were tarps draped over what appeared to be military drones. Pyramids of bombs sit
ting on racks. Not anything you wanted the kitchen staff stumbling across when they came down for a can of powdered potatoes and jabbed the wrong button in the lift.
Previous searches hadn’t turned up anyone else, but there had to be thousands of places among the tall shelves with their large plastic bins. Darcy peered into these shelves as the lights overhead flickered on. He imagined that he was this pilot, moments after he’d killed a man, arriving there in a lift splattered with blood, on the run and looking for a place to hide.
Crouching, he examined the polished concrete outside the lift. Stepping back and tilting his head, he studied the shine. There was a bit more gleam in front of the door. Perhaps it was from the uneven traffic, the shuffle of boots, the gradual wear. He lowered himself to the floor and took a deep sniff, noted the smell of leaves and pine trees, of lemon and a time forgotten, back when things grew and the world smelled fresh.
Someone had cleaned the floor here. Recently, he thought. He remained crouched and peered through the aisles of weapons and emergency gear, aware that he wasn’t alone. What he should do is head straight for Brevard and bring in backup. There was a man in here capable of killing, someone from Emergency Personnel with military training, someone with access to every weapon in those crates. But this man was also wounded, hiding, and scared. And backup seemed like a bad idea.
It wasn’t so much that Darcy was the one who had pieced this together and deserved the credit, it was his increasing certainty that these murders pointed straight to the top. The people involved in this were of the highest rank. Files had been tampered with, Deep Freeze disturbed, neither of which should’ve been possible. The people he reported to might be involved. And Darcy had stood there propping up the real Shepherd while the old man laid boots into his impostor. Nothing about that was protocol. That shit was personal. He knew the guy that took the beating, used to see him up late shifts all the time, had spoken with him now and then. It was hard to imagine that guy killing people. Everything was upside down.
Darcy pulled his flashlight off his hip and began to search the shelves. He needed something more than a bright light, something more than they assigned to night guards. There were designations on the bins from a different life, one barely remembered. He pried open the lids on several bins — the vacuum seals softly popping — before he found what he was looking for: An H&K .45, a pistol both modern and ancient. Top of the line when it rolled off the factory floor, but those factories were little more than memories. He slotted a clip into the weapon and hoped the ammo was good. He felt more confident with the firearm and crept through the storeroom with renewed purpose, not the cursory laps from the day before when eighty levels needed searching.
He peeked under each of the tarps. Beneath one, he found loose tools and scattered parts, a drone partly disassembled or being repaired. Recent work? It was impossible to tell. There was no dust, but there wouldn’t be under the tarp. He walked the perimeter, looked for white foam pellets on the ground from any ceiling panels that may have been disturbed, checked the offices at the very back, looked for any places where the shelves might be scaled, any large bins high up. He headed toward the barracks and noticed the low metal hangar door for the first time.
Darcy made sure the safety was off. He gripped the handle on the door and threw it up, then crouched down and aimed his flashlight and pistol into the gloom.
He very nearly shot up someone’s bedroll. There was a rumpled pile of pillows and blankets that looked at first like a person sleeping. He saw more of the folders like the ones he’d helped gather from the conference room. This was probably where the man they’d snagged had been hiding. He’d have to show Brevard and get the place cleaned up. He couldn’t imagine living like that, like a rat. He shut the hangar and moved to the door down the wall, the one that led to the barracks. Opening it a crack, Darcy made sure the hall was clear. He moved quietly from room to room, sweeping each. No sign of habitation in the bunkrooms. The bathrooms were still and quiet. Eerie, almost. Leaving the women’s, he thought he heard a voice. A whisper. Something beyond the doorway at the very end.
Darcy readied his pistol and stood at the end of the hall. He pressed his ear to the door and listened.
Someone talking. He tried the knob and found it unlocked, took a deep breath. Any sign of a man reaching for a weapon, and he would shoot. He could already hear himself explaining to Brevard what had happened, that he’d had a hunch, had followed a clue, didn’t think to ask for backup, had come down and found this man wounded and bleeding. He drew first. Darcy had been protecting himself. One more dead body and another case closed. That was his line if this went badly. All this and more flashed through his mind as he threw the door open and raised his weapon.
A man turned from the end of the room. Darcy yelled for him to freeze as he shuffled closer, his training ingrained and coming as naturally as a heartbeat. “Don’t move,” he shouted, and the man raised his hands. It was a young man in gray coveralls, one arm over his head and the other held limply at his side.
And then Darcy saw that something was wrong. Everything was wrong. It wasn’t a man at all.
••••
“Don’t shoot,” Charlotte pleaded. She raised one hand and watched this man approach her, a gun aimed at her chest.
“Stand up and step away from the desk,” the man said. His voice was unwavering. He gestured with his gun to indicate the wall.
Charlotte glanced at the radio. Juliette asked if she could hear her, asked her to finish what she was saying, but Charlotte didn’t test this man by reaching for the transmit button. She eyed the scattering of tools, the screwdrivers, the wire cutters, and remembered the gruesome fight from the day before. Her arm throbbed beneath the gauze wrapping. It hurt to raise her hand even to her shoulder. The man closed the distance between them.
“Both hands up.”
His stance — the way he held his gun — reminded her of basic training. She did not doubt that he would shoot her.
“I can’t raise it any more than this,” she said. Again, Juliette pleaded for her to say something. The man eyed the radio.
“Who’re you talking to?”
“One of the silos,” she said. She slowly reached for the volume.
“Don’t touch it. Against the wall. Now.”
She did as he said. Her one consolation was the hope that he would take her to her brother. At least she would know what they’d done with him. Her days of isolation and worry had come to an end. She felt a twinge of relief to have been discovered.
“Turn around and face the wall. Place your hands behind your back. Cross your wrists.”
She did this. She also turned to the side and glanced over her shoulder at him, caught a glimpse of a white plastic tie pulled from his belt. “Forehead on the wall,” he told her. And then she felt him approach, could smell him, could hear him breathing, and thoughts of spinning around and putting up a fight evaporated as the tie cinched painfully around her wrists.
“Are there any others?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Just me.”
“You’re a pilot?”
Charlotte nodded. He gripped her elbow and spun her around. “What’re you doing here?” Seeing the bandage on her arm, his eyes narrowed. “Eren shot you.”
She didn’t respond.
“You killed a good man,” he said.
Charlotte felt tears well up. She wished he would just take her wherever they were going, put her back to sleep, let her see Donny, whatever came next. “I didn’t want to,” was her feeble defense.
“How did you get here? You were with the other pilots? It’s just… women don’t…”
“My brother woke me,” Charlotte said. She nodded at the man’s chest, where a Security emblem blazed. “You took him.” And she remembered the day they came for Donny, a young man propping up Thurman. She recognized this man in front of her, and more tears came. “Is he… still alive?”
The man looked away for a moment. “Yes. B
arely.”
Charlotte felt tears track down her cheeks.
The man faced her again. “He’s your brother?”
She nodded. With her arms strapped behind her, she couldn’t wipe her nose, couldn’t even reach her shoulder to wipe it on her coveralls. She was surprised this man had come alone, that he wasn’t calling for backup. “Can I see him?” she asked.
“I doubt that. They’re putting him back under today.” He aimed his gun at the radio as Juliette again called for some response. “This isn’t good, you know. You’ve put these people in danger, whoever you’re talking to. What were you thinking?”
She studied this man. He looked to be her age, early thirties, looked more like a soldier than a cop. “Where are the others?” she asked. She glanced toward the door. “Why aren’t you taking me in?”
“I will. But I want to understand something before I do. How did you and your brother… how did you get out?”
“I told you, he woke me.” Charlotte glanced at the table where Donny’s notes lay. She had left the folders open. The map was on top, the Pact memo visible. The security guard turned to see what she was looking at. He stepped away from her and rested a hand on one of the folders.
“So who woke your brother?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Charlotte was beginning to worry. Him not taking her in felt like a bad thing, like he was operating outside the rules. She had seen men in Iraq operate outside the rules. It was never to do anything good. “Please just take me to see my brother,” she said. “I surrender. Just take me in.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, then turned his attention back to the folders. “What is all this?” He picked up the map and studied it, set it down and picked up another piece of paper. “We pulled crates of this stuff out of the other room. What the hell are you two working on?”