Silo 49: Going Dark (15 page)

He lost himself in all that he read, flipping one section to read on the purpose of cleaning, something this silo hadn't done often in the two decades since the population started seriously dropping. On another random page he found notes on the methods by which communications might be improved. On another he found a debate Graham apparently had with himself on the merits of all the cameras.

In another section—a random flip of pages bringing him to it—Graham had written about all the others buried in their own worlds and the problems he heard about over the communications at some place he called the Lair. He wrote about the cold and impersonal nature of those in Silo One when faced with those problems and their inherent lack of mercy. He spoke of them as the ‘Others’ and he capitalized it as if they were another species, one to be feared and avoided.

Wallis nodded as he read, understanding the sentiment based on the terror he had experienced himself in these last days. He did want to avoid them. There was no question about that.

Grace bumped Wallis with her elbow, breaking his reverie. When he turned to her he saw tears standing in her eyes but a smile widening her lips. She told him to look and showed him the first page of the book marked ‘One’ on the front. He read.

We can be different. We can be the good.

How can I help those words become reality?

How can I help us not feel like we are each alone

inside this hole we call our home?

Can we make this our unity? Our way?

How can we do better than the rules set out for us,

so that those words become:

We are different. We are the good.

Wallis and Grace held the books between them as they held each other and smiled through their tears.

Epilogue – Silo One

The operator in the control room sent the runner out to get the director in a hurry. He tapped the right buttons to record what he was seeing while he waited, gnawing on a fingernail already gnawed bloody. It seemed to take forever before he heard the door open behind him and the sound of many feet stepping quickly across the room.

He glanced quickly behind him and saw the director and a few others of note gathering to look over his shoulders. He snapped his fingers at one of the other control room operators and motioned for him to hand over some headsets. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and he looked up into the director’s stern face.

“What’s going on, son?” the director asked.

“Sir, uh, I think we have a situation in 49 now, too. But something isn’t right,” He pointed at the screen where smoke now almost completely obscured the view of the room beneath IT.

“What happened before that fire? Just go ahead and tell us what you can. Relax, Gary.”

The director’s heavy hand stayed where it was but he shifted his gaze from the screen and back toward him. That just made him more nervous. Gary swallowed loudly and licked suddenly dry lips.

“Uh, okay. Basically, nothing happened. That
is
what’s wrong.” He could see that this was not enough so he took off his headphones and turned a little in his chair. The director finally removed his hand and eased into the seat next to him.

“We’ve been really busy with the problems of 40, so we’ve just been doing the standard minimal checks with the other silos. There’s a scheduled check in with 49 today, though, so I’ve had half an eye on them,” he explained, jabbing a thumb at the secondary view screen that still showed smoke and little else.

“And,” the director prompted, no hint of impatience in his smooth voice but clear to see in his cold, blue eyes.

“And, I saw something and looked over at the screen right when smoke started like crazy. It took about a minute more for the smoke alarm to sound over here so it had to be quick. I flipped through the other cameras but everything looks completely normal. Or, at least as normal as that silo can be,” Gary answered and waited.

The director leaned back into his chair and put a finger to his lips, his own sign for thought and one that most operators had quickly come to be wary of. There was no way to guess what might come from this director’s thinking. Gary was glad he was going off shift soon and someone else could deal with this new director. This one creeped him out in a big way.

The director pointed that same finger toward the screen and said, “Show me the rest of IT.” His voice wasn’t raised or even particularly harsh, but there was no mistaking the sound of a command.

Gary fumbled the keyboard and started flipping through the available views of IT. The lobby camera had failed at some point long ago but he could and did show the other cameras in a slow procession. Everything was fairly quiet but also completely average for a silo with such a low workforce. He finished and kept a finger hovering above the key, waiting for further instructions.

“And now the cafeteria on Level 1,” the director instructed.

He quickly pounded out the command on the keyboard, tapped the touchpad and the view shifted once again. The room was completely empty. Most of the tables were stacked neatly to the side of the room. In any other silo they would be lined up in rows throughout the room, ready to be filled at every meal time. Instead, only a few tables were scattered about, each with a good view of the screen that showed only darkness at this late hour. He turned toward the director and waited.

Gary saw a line form between the man’s eyebrows and then deepen. Whether it was confusion or concern, he couldn’t determine. He was just glad the man in charge was here and the responsibility wasn’t Gary’s anymore. He could just push buttons and let the other man do the thinking.

“Go back to the smoke,” he ordered curtly. His lips, already thin and a shade of pink so dark they were almost purple, disappeared as he pursed them further. Gary looked away from that disturbing mouth and clicked his keys and his touchpad.

As the original view returned, the director got up and stepped close to the screen, looking into the smoke as if he could somehow see through it to the cause of the anomaly. He eventually shook his head and turned to the assorted men that had come in and stood waiting silently around the consoles.

“Gentlemen,” he said and his tone suggested something between a question and a command.

“We should terminate,” one of the men said and others nodded. Gary kept his eyes on his screen and his keyboard, but he could see the bobbing heads behind him reflected in his screen. He didn’t want anything to do with this sort of thinking. He would do as he was told but these decisions were far above his pay grade, thank goodness.

The ‘Old Man’, his voice quavering and his authority unquestioned, spoke quietly from outside the ring of bobbing heads, “I think they are going to do that to themselves. Let’s see what happens.” He waved a veined hand at the monitor and added, “We can watch to see if anyone comes to the airlock and terminate then, if needed. This is an interesting development.”

The director returned that finger to his lips again, as if to order silence, and kept his gaze on the screen for a long moment. He abruptly dropped his finger and a look of surprise crossed his face. Gary looked back at the screen, the now black screen.

“Get that view back,” the director said and stood, as if leaning over the keyboard could make Gary work faster or better.

Gary punched keys, changed screens to be sure it wasn’t the monitor going out and basically did all that he could to bring up a view, any view, in Silo 49. Nothing happened except more black on the screen.

“Sir, this is a no input situation. I’m not getting a ping back at all. The silo is gone,” Gary reported.

“Terminate. Terminate right now,” the director said, his tone one of urgency.

Gary got up and went to the panel that hid the rows of red buttons and key slots that could be used to shut down a silo for good. He slipped in his key next to the button marked 49 and waited. The director slotted in his key a moment later and nodded.

They both turned their keys and then the director ordered, “Confirm for 49.”

Gary carefully looked at the button and then ensured the two keys were slotted into the holes for that silo and no other before answering, “I confirm 49, sir.”

The director said nothing more. He just reached up and firmly pressed the oversized button until a loud click sounded in the silent room that indicated it was fully depressed and the deadly contact made. The director looked at Gary and he could see a thin and glistening film of sweat on the director’s brow and over his upper lip. Gary was really glad he was going off shift if what was going on was making this ice-veined man sweat.

After nodding once more toward Gary, they both turned and un-slotted their keys. Gary tucked his back inside his coverall with extra care just so he could avoid the director’s strange, cold eyes. When he looked back up the director was staring at him with a queer, almost amused, expression on his face. Gary thought the director was looking at him the same way he had been looking at that screen and Gary fought down the shivers that wanted to take him over.

“Any further follow on instructions, sir?” Gary asked and hoped he sounded as unaffected as he was trying to.

The director cocked his head to the side the slightest bit, an evaluating look on his face, but it passed and he smiled. It was a terrible smile, blood red gums peeking out from between those thin dark lips as they stretched wide. Gary gritted his own teeth a little and tried not to look away.

The director’s smile broadened a little further, as if he could see the revulsion in Gary’s mind, but all he said was, “Good work, Gary. Just monitor the situation and let me know if anything else happens with 40. As for the other, well, 49 is history now. Just forget about it.”

Gary nodded and hoped that he would be able to do just that. He really couldn’t wait to go off shift.

Epilogue- Silo 49

The old man released the newborn babe into the Medic Shadow’s arms and felt the palsy in his hands return with the lifting of the weight. The new mother’s eyes showed no concern with this as she placed the second of her twins into his shaking arms, only delight at her good fortune. Her face still glowed from the pregnancy just ended and her shape was plump after her delivery just days before.

“They are in good health?” the old man, whose name had once been Wallis, asked in a voice so aged and slight that it sometimes surprised him to hear it.

“They are perfect,” the new mother gushed, her voice liquid with joy.

William, once Wallis, gazed down into the sleeping baby’s small face and smiled. She was beautiful, her pink bud of a mouth even now suckling in her sleep. The dark dashes of her eyebrows drew together within some baby dream and then her brow smoothed again. One little fist was raised up, the tiny nails edged with perfect crescents of white. She would be a beauty, of this he was sure. Would she be healthy was his question. He hoped so with all his heart, as he did for her equally small and beautiful brother.

He looked back to the mother, her face intent on the one of her daughter and asked, “And the name? Shall I guess?”

Her laugh came out like the tinkling of bells, so musical and filled with happiness it was. She said, “I would like to call her Grace-Ann. If he is Graham-Michael then she should be a Grace, don’t you think?”

William, once Wallis, shook his head, bemused at how many Graces and Grahams, and even Wallises, he had held in his arms in the past decades. But when he answered her, he said, “I think those are fine names.”

She smiled in relief then and William reminded himself that it was very important for him to be genuine when he gave his blessings. The people had come to believe that placing a newborn into the arms of the oldest of them passed on some of the elder’s good fortune and increased their child’s chance at long life. As the oldest person in the silo, he should take it seriously.

This little drama was vitally important to the new parents and he would do nothing to disturb their tranquility so he added, “They are twins and that makes it an even more perfect choice.”

“It would have been perfect had they been triplets,” the woman said, but added quickly, “but I wouldn’t have liked that at all.” She patted her stomach, still bulged from the effects of her pregnancy. “I’m already going to have to work very hard to get back into shape.”

William nodded at the sleeping babe and told her, “And it will be worth every moment.”

She sighed as only a new mother, successfully delivered of a healthy child, can sigh. “Oh, yes. Every moment and more besides.”

William looked up at the Medic Shadow that stood behind his chair and she immediately reached down to take the baby from his arms. She lowered her into the cradle that always stayed in William’s room in readiness for these visits. The child snuffled a little at being disturbed but only for half a moment and then went silent, returning to whatever dreams the newly born dreamed and comforted by the presence of her twin next to her.

His hands and arms were shaking even more now that they were unburdened and he gripped his arms, hand to wrist, in his lap. It helped some, but he could feel their tremors even now. He took another look at the new mother and then at her mate, a good looking young man wearing the yellow coveralls of Supply. His wavy dark hair would look good on the children.

He knew their names and, even more, knew the names they carried before he and Grace had created one final forgetting for the silo, re-writing history just once more before they smashed the machines that brought controlling drugs to the population in their water. These two had been small, so small that they had been important. Her name had been Jewel and he remembered the day she was born. He had given her the name Livy because it meant life.

That was then and this was now, though, and Wallis gave them their good words of wisdom, one parent to another, and his hopes for their long and happy lives. They each kissed him on his cheek, another tradition that had sprung up without him or Grace having anything to do with it, as they took their leave. Each carried a child and William thought it interesting that they each carried the child of opposite sex to their own. He smiled as the door closed behind him.