by Ann Christy
"But, what?" Mr. Gloom interrupted.
"Nothing is perfect. It is possible that if this is a crack, or series of cracks, that the stress of bringing down a silo could expand it or change the direction. It's a risk," George answered, his words slow and his voice hesitant.
Graham then heard the voice he was sure he had been speaking with again. There was something about the way he put his words together and the speed of his speech that made it seem familiar to Graham. And now he knew it was a man. Just a man. The man said, "Thank you, gentlemen. Good work. Go ahead and take me off mute, will you?"
There was a slight sound on the line, this time clearly from a mouth close to a microphone. Graham knew he had best react appropriately so he opened his eyes when the voice said, "Are you still there, Graham?"
"Yes, I'm here," Graham said and thought he did a fine job of pretending. There was a pause on the line and then he heard the word "nervous" from a distant voice.
"Listen, Graham, I understand you're worried and perhaps frightened, but I think we might be very close to a solution for you."
He wanted to grind his teeth and call the voice out as a liar, but instead Graham worked up some reserve of calm and started lying too, pushing back the earphones a tad under the guise of settling them on his head. "I knew you would have a solution, sir. What should I do?"
Graham wanted to hear how they were going to do this great act of murder and get him to simply move along smartly, none the wiser.
"We have some good medical people over here and they say they'll be able to provide you with a formula very soon that you can take to your own chemists. It should stop all the problems with your water, help with births and decrease future cancers. In the meantime, we'd like you to put all your medical records from the last 30 years on the computer so we can take a look at them." A note of chiding entered the voice again as he continued, "We did request that you switch to electronic ones some time ago, didn't we?"
This question confused Graham on top of his being horrified at how calmly the man on the line lied to him. "Uh, no, sir. It was discussed a few years ago but I wasn't able to convince silo administration that it was desirable. What with so few people to do extra work. If you recall, our silo had a problem with some privacy issues in the past. It was a law enacted totally outside my sphere of control to keep physical records..."
Graham heard a rapid whispered conversation from that same open microphone somewhere in that other room but could make out no specific words. Eventually, the voice returned and said, "Ah, yes. My apologies. But there is no reason now not to get someone scanning in those documents when there is so much benefit for you all. Do it. Then contact us again so we can ensure we have access."
"I will, sir. If it will help." Graham resisted the urge to start calling the man vile names and slamming his headset down repeatedly. It was a close call but restraint won.
"It will. By the time you complete that, we should have a formula for you. Out."
The implication was as clear as the disconnection of that circuit. They were going to hold out a chance for relief until they had what they wanted and then, boom goes the silo. He felt judging eyes on him so he hung up his headphones carefully, gathered his papers and tidied the room before leaving. His glance inadvertently fell on the little white numbers over the row of jacks and stopped at the number 40, but he pushed the temptation aside for the moment. This was not the time. He wanted to scream but what he needed to do was think. And he needed to do it someplace not likely to be watched. And he needed someone he could trust to tell everything to.
Any Normal Day
Graham did his best to behave completely normally but it was only through sheer force of will that he was able to even approach such a state. That and spending time hidden in his compartment playing solitaire whenever possible were what helped him make any believable pretense at all. It was a surprise to him how hard it was to simply act like he would on any other day. That the situation was unprecedented was true, but his job was, at its core, simply one long act and he’d done fine through any number of serious situations.
There were few actual skills required for the job he held, which was arguably the most important one in the silo. Of those skills, acting like everything was normal ranked at the top of the list, pretending like everything was in control followed closely behind and occasionally doing things one might otherwise find absolutely reprehensible rounded out the top three.
According to his uncle, the careful cultivation of an exterior personality that combined being an asshole with a desire to do nothing except work was a bonus, but not absolutely required as a fourth skill for the job. Uncle Newt had been a jolly fellow with a genuinely caring core and quick sense of humor at home. The first time Graham had seen his uncle at work, trailing behind him as he was evaluated, all unknowing, for the job he held now, he had been amazed at how different the man behaved. He wasn’t mean exactly, just not at all nice. And people had seemed to fear him.
Graham had embarrassed himself mightily on that first day when he started crying in his uncle’s office as he listened to him yelling at someone outside the door. Back in the office, Uncle Newt had knelt down in front of the chair Graham was ensconced in with his feet barely touching the floor, and turned back into the lovable man Graham had always known. He had been right when he told Graham that he had to be that way for reasons a little boy wouldn’t understand. He’d been equally right when he told him that someday he would understand if all went well.
Alas, Graham wasn’t cut out for asshole-dom of any sort. He was firm when needed, nice when permitted, but always a good person. Even his wife had been nice, bringing platters of baked goods or treats of some sort and passing them out, office to office, as she asked after families.
In his decades as Head they had experienced only four cleanings, the last one actually done under duress from Silo One because it had been too long since the previous cleaning. Even then, he had picked someone who was close to death and had no close family, carefully parsing each record for the right person. She was as alone as anyone could be in the silo where everyone was tied by blood and proximity to one extent or another.
He had sat by the woman’s bedside, telling her of the unease in the silo and the dirty sensors and his fears. He told her the secret to peace in the silo; the cleanings. She had volunteered then and Graham felt dirtier than the sensors she would soon clear of their debris. It was the kind of filth that lived inside the soul and could never be washed away.
She said the words and went to the cell. When Graham had made sure there was a pouch filled with an overdose of poppy extract installed in her helmet so she would feel no pain, she had actually winked at him. Before they put on her helmet and her face disappeared from view forever, she had placed a hand withered by illness and age on the arm of the IT worker to stay him a moment. She turned to the little round window through which Graham watched and mouthed the words, ‘Thank You’. Graham hadn’t been able to stop the tears from flowing then and said the same back to her, earning him a confused and vaguely suspicious look from the Sheriff standing nearby.
What she saw outside was the best his people had ever done. It had been a true work of art. She had been a teacher, his teacher once upon a time when he was very small. He’d asked her what her favorite thing was from the children’s books after she agreed to say the words and earn herself a death sentence.
She had thought about it, her eyes soft with memories, and told him it was the birds. She thought it might be wonderful to be able to fly and not have to use the stairs all the time. He’d asked her if she could keep a secret and she had nodded, eyes widening at the secret smile on his face. He had leaned low and whispered so softly in her ear that it might have been wind, but she had heard him and her own smile was heartbreaking in its belief and hope. He had whispered that she would have birds.
So he had the programmers add birds, lots and lots of happy birds. He had put in birds that flew high, flew low and even ad
ded a colorful variety of them circling the sensors, luring her there with their colors and chirps. They ensured she would follow the cleaning procedure and stay close to the sensors. She had.
But she had been the last one to clean and Graham wouldn’t hear anything more on the subject when Silo One brought it up. They weren’t insistent, even though the sensors that showed the population their view of the blasted lands outside were caked with dust. Nothing in this silo even hinted at an uprising so why bother. With his population dropping like it was, such a thing would be as stupid as it was unnecessary. Almost no one even went up to Level 1 that didn’t actually have to go there. Even the sheriff and his deputy had moved their main offices to Level 5.
As he shuffled cards for yet another game of solitaire, the cards soft and worn with use, he thought he really should get out and try to get some work done. It was just hard to bring himself to open the door and walk out of his compartment again. Inside, he felt like all his insides were having a party and dancing about inside his chest without a care for the one that held them safely inside.
More than once he felt a lurch in his chest so strong that his breath caught and he feared the stress of holding his secrets would kill him. Still, he did his best to reserve his shakes and hand-wringing for when he was sure he was alone and in a place unlikely to be observed, like the shower or here, playing cards all alone.
Graham slapped the deck of cards down on the table. Enough of this moping around, he decided. With a fresh kerchief pulled from the clean laundry pile—or what he thought was the clean pile—he stepped out into the hallway. A little socializing, a little face time with workers and a little movement would be good for him and make the time till Silo One forgot about him go faster. As he walked down the hallway toward the landing, he felt good, almost to the point of smiling.
Before he reached the landing door, he met up with a neighbor from a couple of doors down. Maribelle gave him one of her charming smiles and stopped to discuss housekeeping on their level. Drugged or not, Maribelle was a whirlwind of organization and seemed to be the constant driving force behind maintaining their level in some semblance of order. She marshalled her kids around the level, picking up debris on a regular basis and made the rest of them feel guilty in the doing. It always made people help. She was good.
“Oh, Graham, you’re just the man I wanted to see. Got a minute?” she asked, plucking an invisible bit of lint from her immaculate pink coveralls as she pulled up next to him.
“Sure,” he responded, trying to smile.
She saw the pained look and asked, “You okay?”
“Always, Maribelle. Always,” he answered. “I’ve just been busy. You know how it is.”
She nodded, a look of commiseration on her face. Graham knew that she understood all too well. They were all busy.
“Well,” she said, her tone returning to a business-like one. “We need to get a more regular schedule for cleaning up this level than we have. It’s getting disgusting and staying that way longer between clean-up days. Don’t you think?”
Graham looked around and saw she was right. The truth was that he had become used to it and only really saw it when it started to become really rank. Burlap bags of vegetable material ready to be taken to composting littered the hallway. Crowded in amongst those were bags of other recycling or just plain trash, some of them weeping dark stains onto the floor. The big brown bags meant for dirty laundry stood sentry beside each compartment door, some with their contents spilling out into the walkway between. Burned out or flickering lights gave the entire hallway the disused look of someplace soon to be abandoned.
“It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?” It was a lame response and he knew it.
“I’ve tried to talk to Wallis about it but he’s always busy, too. Besides, I don’t think we should need the mayor just to get people to clean up their own level. We should be able to do it ourselves.” It was a reasonable thing to say but Graham could see the frustration on her face and hear it in her voice.
“Would you be willing to set up a roster? Could you check the work schedules and talk to people? You can certainly put me on the roster.” He thought for a moment and added, “There really aren’t enough maintainers to push the issue.”
She tapped a finger on her chin, evaluating the hallway with her lips pursed. Finally, she gave one firm nod and straightened. “You’re right. We have to take care of anything we can take care of.”
Maribelle paused and looked up at Graham, her expression earnest. Her voice was soft when she spoke again. “We have to take care of each other, don’t we?”
That did it for Graham though Maribelle had no way of knowing that. She was so right. Her words went to the heart of the matter even if she didn’t realize it. If they didn’t do for each other, who would do for them? It was his turn to do for these people and instead of thinking—getting to work—he had been sitting in his compartment playing cards and feeling sorry for himself. He wanted to say something profound but when he tried to respond, the urge to blurt out what he was trying to hide was so strong he choked. He pulled the kerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his mouth with so much force it looked like he was trying to stuff it into his mouth, past his gritted teeth.
The moment passed, the urge with it. Maribelle looked at him first with concern and then with the beginnings of alarm. He tried to explain it away. “Sorry,” he choked out, his voice as tight as a drum. “I thought I was going to sneeze all over you for a minute there.” It was stupid but it was all he could think of.
Maribelle’s gaze was an evaluating one and he tried to smooth any strain from his face. From her expression, he wasn’t doing well. Finally, she gave a little shake of her head and said, “Graham, don’t worry about it. It’s not so bad. I’ll take care of it. You go on.”
He did his best to ignore the lingering cautious look she gave him and shuffled off in a hurry after one last wave. That had been embarrassing as well as dangerous, and he kept his head down as he made his way toward administration to check in and get the list of jobs he needed to parse out for his crew in IT. Taking up a little slack wherever he could was all he had to offer, though it was going to require a little selling on his part to add yet more to the work list in IT.
As he entered IT, his lists in his hands, Tony appeared. It was almost as if he had some sort of sensor that was specifically tuned to Graham. He got exactly one step past the turnstiles when the Toad made his irritating throat clearing noise and said, “Hiya, Boss.”
Graham felt his jaw go tight. It was an effort, but he plastered a distant smile—the smile of a boss—on his face and kept walking toward his office. He inclined his head for Tony to follow and the younger man hurried after him, his clipboard at high ready.
He knew it wasn’t fair of him to dislike Tony the way he did. He was very good at what he did and probably did deserve to take the shadow spot Silo One had been after him to fill from almost the very moment of his former shadow’s death.
That was a moot point now, since he had other plans but even before then, there was something about Tony that made him cringe. To have someone like him be the next in line almost seemed like a defeat, like the absolute power of Silo One had found a perfect receptacle for the wielding of their will.
“Have a seat, Tony,” Graham said as he took his seat behind the desk and picked up a stack of messages from the surface. “We’ve got a lot to do, I’m sure, but I’m going to add to that list so we’d best get started.”
Less than ten minutes later, a flustered Tony left with a much expanded work list and a whole lot of arranging to do. It made Graham feel something close to normal to know that nothing else was going wrong and necessary things were getting done even without him.
After that, things went well so it wasn’t an entirely lost day. As long as he was able to do what needed doing remotely, using the impersonal communications of the wires, then he was able to keep that façade in place. He could do things without a person to look at an
d backspace when his fumbling caused mistakes. Also, writing the words ‘inarticulate scream’ didn’t carry the same impact as actually doing it so he felt no temptation to do that in a wire.
It was with relief that he wired down to each of the water plants to lower the additive levels. They had no idea what it was, of course. It was labeled as a water additive just like every other additive, but the regular water workers could adjust the concentrations on the conditioning machines. It was good that they could because he had enough worries just trying to figure out how the last remaining IT agent that worked in chemistry would be able to manufacture and deliver the next load of additives, let alone how that same fellow would get to every plant just to twiddle a knob or push a button.
He knew from a lifetime of experience how fast the dosing took effect when it was turned on and how quickly it faded when turned off. He could expect some slight improvement right away, but the improvement was often a dubious form of goodness. There was always someone who would break from remembered grief or whose confusion might manifest in an act against the Order.
His experience of dosing was both personal and professional. As a child he had been no different from any other member of the silo up until the moment his uncle had decided he would make a good successor. Until that moment he had been subject to whatever might be added to the water just like everyone else.
The minor uprising that happened when he was small hadn’t affected him personally nor done anything more than bring about some confusion to his young mind. It was a mostly verbal confrontation, punctuated by distant skirmishes, over power between almost identical factions within administration and law. But it had resulted in a lot of cleanings.
The water had been dosed with calmatives during the event, which did end it more quickly than it might otherwise have. Afterwards, a minor dose of the forgetting drugs had been administered and, as a child not much impacted by the uprising, it did little but smooth out the memories Graham carried. That was not true of others, including his parents, whose foggy memories of that time had been a puzzle to his childhood self.