by Ann Christy
"Your water situation first. Did you try the vapor compression distiller? Pumping it upward? Anything like that?"
Graham sighed. He had already gone over this with Nella and he hoped this wasn't an indicator of a loss of organization. "No. I told Nella earlier. There is no way I can get that kind of obvious project started over here and do it inconspicuously. It will have to wait until after. And if the distiller doesn't work, then I'll figure out a way to get water, whatever that may take, from the down deep to the upper levels until we figure out something else. But I will figure it out."
"Sure, sure," said John, his speech a bit rapid, his voice weary. "Sorry about that. I've been running on adrenaline and strong tea for the past few days. Nella did tell me that. Anyway, my guy in water says that vapor compression distillation should work and since you've got two down in mechanical, you'll either need to figure out a way to build another near the upper plant or string a whole lot of pumps together to get that much lift. Whatever you choose, you’ve got the specs, right? You still have the techs to do it?"
"Yes, to both questions. I looked it up in the Legacy too. VCD is supposed to make even water that has raw sewage in it or any chemical contamination clean and pure," Graham replied. When he read the entry in the Legacy he felt pure hope for a glorious but brief moment. Then he remembered how far it was from the down deep to Level 1 and the nightmare of logistics he would be facing soon.
He shook that train of thought away for the moment. "We can do it. I know it. Even if I have to port the water up on our lifts for a while, we will."
"Good. I just wanted to make sure, in case something goes wrong. So, this is what we're looking at. No one else but us is ready to go yet," John said it casually but Graham could feel his heart plummet at the words.
"We can't wait for them! We don't have that kind of time over here!"
"Hey, hey. Calm down. Don't panic, Graham! They aren't ready to go offline, but we are," John said, his voice conveying his satisfaction. “And, they may not be going offline but everyone is cutting the destruct lines on 72 along with your silos and ours.”
Graham wondered at this. Hadn't all of this preparation been because the others were concerned that if one went offline Silo One might figure out a way to ensure the others didn't? He said as much.
"Graham, you're right. But then we thought we would do it like we did the disconnection outside. You probably don't know this but we sent someone out to do that. A volunteer. A good suit, extra air and walking below the line of the hills on the outside of our grid in the dim time...well, he cut them all where they go to the trunk line. And that is how you are talking to us now. Extra transmitters he installed below ground while he was doing the cutting," John laughed as he told him. It was a naughty laugh.
All Graham could think of was that a volunteer had gone out to die just to cut lines for people he didn't know.
"You still there, buddy?" John asked.
"Sorry. Yeah, just thinking. I didn't know that, about the volunteer."
"It was a long time ago. Before you or I were making these decisions, for sure. And they didn’t have any way of knowing who they were cutting lines for. They just had to cut the whole group to be sure they got their own. Anyway, here's what we're going to do. We're going to be your diversion. We're going to get them all riled up and focused on us and then all of us are going to cut their control lines on Level 72. That way, no matter what they do they can't actually destroy us unless they come over and kick the door down."
"Won't Silo One notice?"
"Nope, they only know what they monitor and they'll be looking at us," John replied, voice confident. "They can go back and look for stuff, we're pretty sure, but there won't be anything to see. When we go offline they are going to go off the rails and try to blow us up but it won't work and we won't answer. They'll be focused on us for a bit. We are reasonably certain there aren’t as many of them over there doing the work as they would have us believe. We've got a main conduit for the cameras and communications, which includes their little remote destruction lines, and all we have to do is cut it at Level 72. But we won't cut the cameras until after we cut the remote destruction. That way, they just won't know what happened."
To Graham it seemed like the plan was overly complicated and missing some pretty key elements. Again he wondered if he wouldn't be better off doing this on his own. So he asked, "Uh, exactly how are you going to know when they hit the kill button? I mean, why not just cut it at once and get it over with? Why all this complicated stuff?"
"Hah! Good questions! And I have equally good answers. Graham, we've been working on this for years and have a pretty good group of smart people who do nothing but think about this stuff. We don't dose all the water over here and haven't for a very long time. Anyway, the last question is easiest to answer," he said and Graham could hear him moving around on the other end of the radio, probably getting comfortable.
Graham decided he might as well get comfortable too. While John spoke, he started water to boil for a cup of tea.
"So, why all the complicated stuff, you ask. The simple answer is we don't know what more they can do. Whoever is the first to go is really the test case for everyone else. We're taking the biggest risk so we need to gain as much information as we can when we do it. For instance, we don't know if these two kill switches are the only ones they have. We think so, but we don’t know so. We've gone over every single place where a pipe or conduit or anything else breeches our silo walls. We’ve checked schematics and so on. But the cold deep truth of it is that we just don't know. They may have some other way to do us in. We'll be the ones to test that theory."
"You're taking all the risk, then," Graham replied and let the sentence hang.
They both knew what it might mean. He wondered if they shouldn't switch around this order. His silo was the one in trouble and contained only a weak population of potentially dying people. He knew they were the most expendable if anyone in this horrible situation could be said to be so.
As for the lines that led back to Silo One, he had certainly checked his schematics too. Especially after making contact with these others and learning of what they had done. He agreed that it looked like just two big trunk lines led to Silo One, one just under the surface and another at Level 72. If there were others, they weren't on their schematics.
"Eh, yeah, and I know what you're thinking. Don't bother even talking about it. You don't have the population to do this. An uprising from you guys wouldn't raise the same stink it would over here. They already know they are going to lose you, but us not so much. That will be yanking the treads from underneath them," John replied so matter-of-factly that it was almost like he wasn't talking about the lives of everyone he knew. To Graham it seemed like John almost relished the possibility of tweaking the noses of those others.
"Okay, sorry, go on and tell me the rest," Graham said and finished making his tea, balancing the steaming hot metal cup on a wad of rags as he took it to his chair and sat.
"Basically, this is a test of their system and their backups. If they think that our problems are too big to control then they'll try to wipe us too. We've got signal traps on all the lines, including the one up top that is already cut. Once we cut the lines below, there's no turning back. We'll cut the ones for the remote detonate, but not the communications. We already have a watch set in that area and that will be doubled and go round the clock once we actually do the cutting. When the traps indicate a signal is coming through for destruction, they'll cut the communications lines and that will take out most of the cameras. The only ones that won't go are the ones that show our view of the outside. We might have to take care of those some other way, but I don't actually think those are critical.
"But no matter what, that should make it so they think the cameras went out because the silo was destroyed. If nothing else gets sent our way, then we'll know that is the best way to go about it for everyone else. The safest way. If they send something else—and who knows
what that might be—then you all know what will happen and can alter your plans accordingly. But no matter what happens everyone will have their destruction lines cut and that will increase your safety margin a little."
"John, we will owe you a great debt. We'll all owe everyone in that silo," Graham said. He wondered if John's perpetual energy and happy way of speaking was genuine or simply his way of dealing with what must be an incredible strain. Was he really that confident? He wasn't betting a few chits on a game. He was betting the lives of his entire people.
"Nah. We'll talk about that some other time. It's not like I can come over and borrow some tools or a few baskets of seed, is it?" John dismissed the notion, sounding embarrassed. Then he laughed and said, "Though I would like to take you up on that offer to taste the corn hooch you were talking about. We don't get a whole lot of that around this part of the neighborhood."
"What about the other silos?" Graham asked, worried about the answer.
John sighed, "They just aren't ready for different reasons. Some only have a few people that even know what’s going on and they are, naturally, having a hard time making the decision for everyone else. You can bet though, that they'll become a lot more willing if trouble starts brewing. No one wants to be another Silo 12."
"Yeah, or another Silo 49."
"Don't worry, Graham. We're going to do this before this day is done. Get your people in position and ready within," he paused and Graham heard tapping on a distant keyboard, "by my clock you have eleven hours and seventeen minutes. Got that? Can you get there in time?"
Graham wiggled the mouse on his computer and made a note of the time. "Got it. We'll be ready."
Old Men and Baskets
What he wanted to do after he finished that call was run like a mad person and grab Wallis and then fly the rails all the way down to Grace right after. Once he had them in sight he wanted to sit tight, tools clutched and ready, by the access plates on Level 72. But he couldn't do that. Regardless of what his intentions were, he knew he could easily tip off those in Silo One with strange behavior.
So he went to his computer and read the wires that, even now with the population dwindling, filled his inbox. He was looking for a likely candidate to forward to Grace with the code that let her know it was time to act. Most of his inbox was just copied to him automatically by the system based on keywords programmed in. He hated that invasion of the privacy of others and he supposed that made him a bad fit for this job, though he had always been good at it.
This is one of the first things that would go. Penance for all the past invasions of privacy and all the past manipulations of people would have to be made. But that was for later, if they succeeded. No, he corrected himself, after they succeeded.
Most of those automated ones he could delete quickly and he cleaned out a good portion of his inbox that way in just a few keystrokes. One piece of good news had filtered through. A baby girl had been born healthy and on time in the down deep to a pipe fitter, who had also come through in good health. The new baby's name was Jewel. Before he had even added her number to the population tally, Graham saw another email that balanced out that birth. One of the technicians in the mids had called for the bottle last night and passed peacefully at the age of thirty-three. No family left to notify. Graham sighed heavily and deleted the email. The one for the birth he retained. That was the way of life, he thought, to want to keep the good and purge the bad. Maybe what Silo One wanted to do to them was no different except in the scale of the purging.
He couldn't entertain thoughts that like right now. He needed to stay angry with them. He needed to keep that target full of blame pointed right where it belonged. They were the ones who were the arms and hands of the monster that put them down in these silos and took away the outside.
He clenched and unclenched a hand rhythmically on a little pillow filled with flax seed. The medic had given it to him to help with his stress. He clicked the mouse on his screen awkwardly with his left hand to retrieve the rest of his messages. He gave some instructions in response to requests from IT and forwarded others to the right person. So many people were gone that many things just got sent directly to him or to Wallis, their interim mayor, because no one knew who else to send requests to.
Once he felt calm he forwarded one specific request, this time for possible technical assist from IT for a busted control panel, to Grace. It was the perfect cover email and in his forward he used the coded phrase they had worked up. He included the time they were to meet as a time he would be available if she had questions. All his wires were considered important and she said that the dimming team would wake her if one came from him during that period. He hoped that was happening and she would be at their agreed upon place well before the time of their need. She had just twenty or so levels to climb, though that was plenty when you were in a hurry and moving on legs that were growing a little older.
He and Wallis, on the other hand, needed to get down almost seventy levels and they had to do it within the day. And to pile on more, they had to be fit enough to do what needed doing when they got there. Graham had an idea about that but getting Wallis to agree to it would be another matter.
He finished off his tea in one big swallow, got dressed in some relatively clean coveralls and stuffed his backpack with his radio, food and three canteens of water before heading out of his compartment. Into his pocket he slipped the three diagrams they would need for parsing out the correct wires.
He looked back before he closed the door behind him and his gaze fell on the charcoal portrait of his wife on the wall. Drawn when they were young and had the whole future of their lives ahead of them, she was smiling. In a few bold and spare strokes, the essence of her was captured in black and grey lines on that rough pulpy paper. He blew her a kiss and left, wondering if it would be the last time he would see it and hoping that it wasn't.
Wallis didn't need to be told anything once he opened his door and saw Graham standing there, backpack strapped on and hair combed. It wasn’t Graham’s habit to come knocking on his door before the lights came on to signal the start of a new day. Just woken and in his undershorts, Wallis merely grinned and waved him inside. With the door safely closed he asked, "Now? Tell me it's now."
Graham grinned back at him, his own nervousness fading in the presence of Wallis' excitement. He said, "Yep. We have about ten hours to get down to 72."
"Yikes! Crap."
Wallis proceeded to tear about his compartment, first looking for a decent pair of coveralls and finally settling for some that were very wrinkled and faded, but didn't stink too badly. Then he searched for his pack, which Graham eventually found stuffed under a cushion in Wallis' chair. The only thing he didn't have trouble finding were the radios he had liberated from the sheriff's office.
Though it only took a few minutes, it was an extremely disorganized search and Graham was a little concerned with how hard Wallis was breathing by the time he had packed up his supplies and started to shrug into his pack. That huffing breath decided the matter for Graham.
"Wallis, umm, what do you think about...umm...using the lifts for some of the trip down?"
His friend stopped short, arms akimbo and backpack straps askew, "You mean, as in actually get inside the lifts?"
Graham nodded.
"No way. No! That is fine for fruit but that isn't natural for humans. Are you kidding?"
"Wallis, think about it. We have to get down there and we need to be in good shape to do it. What's the difference in me lowering you five levels or a few bags of apples? You weigh less than the food. Then you can use the same pulley to lower me. It can work!" Graham said earnestly, trying to convince his friend and himself too.
Wallis surprised him them. He finished adjusting his pack and said simply, "Fuck it. Let's do it."
Ghosts in the Wall
They drew attention the whole way down and Graham reconsidered his idea as soon as he saw the first whispering and pointing groups on a landing. The silo may
be losing population at a rapid rate, but people still needed to get around as they lived their lives. It was early, the dimming time just ending. The sharp clacks of lights switching from red to white sounded throughout the central column of the silo stairs and people were moving about as shifts changed.
Plenty of small groups saw them as they lowered each other past the landings. Worse, there were cameras everywhere on the landings. If anyone was watching from Silo One, this would be a certain cause for alarm and could get them all blasted to ruin before he could make it right. Graham took his hat out of his pack and squashed the misshapen thing onto his head, pulling it low to shield his face from the view of any cameras above him.
Most of the silo was still recovering from the dosed water and even though Graham could see that particular dullness in their eyes and that certain something in their posture, they perked up, smiled and waved as they caught sight of the pair. It made the people look more alive than they had since he had turned on the dosing system. He couldn't wait to see them again when it had cleared from their systems. Without the hat and without having to hide a single thing from any of them, he relished the idea of speaking to people truthfully, face to face.
People were more than curious as to why the two men were using the lifts on themselves. It was forbidden and declared unsafe by the very men who were now being seen using them. Wallis found an effortless solution to their obvious dilemma when he announced, enthusiastically, to the first crowd and to every one thereafter, that he was bringing happy news of a new mother in the down deep. Scattered applause met his announcement but also a few sad cries. The diversion worked though, and they passed each level with ease, often gaining assistance on the rope from people who happened to be nearby.
Not every level included a lift ride, which Graham found surprisingly fun to do. Lifts that only went a floor or two weren't worth the effort two entire trips in the cloth bucket would require. For those they walked the stairs. Those lifts that went three or more floors provided a surprising amount of rest for the two journeyers. Even though they worked with their arms on the ropes and pulleys, one person could lift hundreds of pounds with relative ease so the comparatively meager weight of one old man in a bucket was almost too easy.