Silo 49: Going Dark (7 page)

Graham tried to follow all the questions but they came rapidly and were punctuated with the jerky emphasis created by Wallis’ hands. He always had been a hand talker. Now he was an impatient, curious and possibly over-caffeinated hand talker and it was making Graham dizzy.

"Yes, there are 50 but one of those is Silo One and I don’t think they count. I’ve spoken to several silos over the years, but some of the others are able to communicate with yet others that I can't talk to and vice versa. I'm not sure why but I don't think any of them can talk to all the others. At least not in secret, they can’t. I suppose I could talk to any silo I wanted just by ringing them up, but that’s not what you’re talking about, I don’t think. It's not like I planned any of this secret stuff at all, I just happened to be there to answer when a call came one day."

Graham shrugged because he really wasn't at all sure how any of that had happened or who started it. He only knew that one day he had heard the buzz and seen the blinking light that meant Silo 40 was calling him. He had put the jack in, wondering what it might be about, and found himself talking on an altered line so filled with high squeals it had pained him to listen.

"And you never asked how many others are in on this? Are you an idiot?"

Graham bristled at the idea. "Of course, I asked! And we all agreed that we would only know the ones we already knew of or might connect with later. Safer, you know?" Graham stopped talking and pointed at the steam rising from the pot of water behind Wallis.

Wallis hopped up, more energetic than Graham had seen him in a long time, and began to prepare the tea. Seeing Wallis' thin old man legs, mussed grey hair and bony feet made Graham wonder where the years had gone to. He wondered if he appeared that old when Wallis looked back at him so he looked down at his own legs and feet. Sure enough, they were bony, old man feet too. It was rather disappointing.

Wallis came back, carefully balancing the two cups on a battered metal plate. He stopped and started a few times, causing more to slop out of the cups each time he started walking because he kept looking at the cups. Graham wondered if Wallis had ever been told that you can only carry a full cup without slopping by
not
looking at it. Finally, he lowered the tray and offered a cup to Graham.

Graham took it gratefully and tried not to burn himself on the hot metal, curling a finger around the handle where a bit of yarn had been wrapped to keep away some of the heat. He blew across the surface of the hot tea and steam rushed away from him.

He took a careful sip while he waited for Wallis to settle himself and then said, "You're taking this rather better than I thought you would."

Wallis put down his hot cup and leaned forward again. He looked excited and eager. Actually, Graham thought he looked a bit too excited.

"Am I? How should I have taken it?" Wallis asked.

"Well, let's just say that I spent 33 days locked under a floor after I was told just a small part of what I told you last night."

Wallis leaned back in this chair and let out a whoosh of air as he gaped at Graham in surprise. His hair, already sticking up in every direction in unruly grey tufts, got another work over as he ran his hands up the sides of his head. Afterward, he looked like a little goat with horns flaring up, save that his horns were made of hair. He looked Graham up and down as if seeing him for the first time.

Graham imagined he was probably visualizing cabinets and cubbies like those they hid in as children during games. In those tight places they'd folded themselves up, chests compressed, and half hoped they would be found first.

"It wasn't like a closet or anything. It was a series of rooms tucked under the floor," Graham explained and saw that his guess had been right by the look on Wallis' face. He clarified, "But I was locked in, very frightened and confused. You're not, though. Why?"

Graham watched Wallis as the man thought about what he would say. He watched just as he had with his own shadow, but without any intention of doing anything about it should his friend run screaming from the room. The time for that kind of absurdity was past now. Anything in the Order had to be treated with reservation now. Perhaps the whole thing was just so much trash and wasted paper.

Finally Wallis spoke. The excitement had diminished and a more serious tone entered his voice. "I think it is because I know there are others and when we die, it won't be the end. Until now, I thought we were the only people that existed."

Graham thought about what Wallis said for a moment, then nodded. This was a sentiment he understood. It was both reasonable and truthful.

Wallis went on, his voice low and a little sad, "You know, until today, I've been waking up every day and wondering if that would be the day cancer got started inside me. Or maybe if that day was the day I wouldn't be able to take it anymore and I would jump over the rails. I can't even remember the last time I woke up without those actual thoughts running through my head."

"And today?" Graham asked, his voice gentle.

"And today I woke up and thought about how we can fix this shit."

Graham smiled at the profanity. It was something he heard rarely from Wallis. As first a teacher and then a politician, it was something he had just given up when they all left childhood behind. After all, it wouldn't have done for a primary school teacher to send the kids home after school with that sort of special vocabulary.

"I like the way you think," he replied, the grin still on his face.

"What about you, Graham? Don't tell me you didn't feel the same. At least at some point, you must have."

He tried to remember if he had ever had that type of thought and didn't think he had, but he knew that Wallis was referring to their mutual losses over the years. The thoughts that went through his head were always tinged with the knowledge he carried of the other silos. "No. Actually, my most awful thoughts were the exact opposite of yours. Even scarier, I think."

Wallis looked skeptical, "Scarier than cancer or jumping? The only thing scarier than that is slow cancer."

"What I woke up and feared was that I wouldn't get sick. I knew I would never jump. My responsibility absolutely prevents that. What I feared was being the last one here."

There was silence between the two men, each pondering the concept.

At last, Wallis spoke, expression flat and voice deadpan. "I have to tell you, that is just so fucked up, my friend."

Graham spluttered as inappropriate laughter bubbled out of him. Wallis joined him after a tick, gales of laughter choking out of him until he bent over and held his stomach, claiming he was going to wet himself if Graham didn't stop snorting. The laughter petered out, a few false stops coming and going as they started laughing again.

Eventually, Graham wiped his eyes and saw that years of grief had fallen from the face of his oldest friend. The lines were still there, as was the grey hair and the increasingly wild eyebrows, but the lines held less pain in them. He hoped it would stay that way.

Once he recovered his composure, Wallis said, "All this hilarity aside, I have a whole lot of questions. I get the impression they aren't going to move whatever agenda you've got forward just to save our asses. Unless blowing up our home is the kind of help you were looking for, that is. I’m not thinking that is the case. So, why don't you tell me where we need to go from here and let the questions take care of themselves."

"Okay. This is what I think we've got to figure out and I really don't think we have a whole lot of time to do it in. First, Silo 40 already took care of the lines outside that Silo One could have used to start the self-destruct Up-Top," he said and held up his hands to forestall questions when Wallis' mouth opened.

"And before you ask, I have no idea how they did it. It was long before my time. That's only half the system, though and it's that other part we have to worry about."

"That's the stuff on level 72 you were talking about, right?" Wallis asked.

Graham nodded, "Yep. But here's where it gets tricky. If we start disabling things they might figure out we're up to something. The whole system, for the whole silo, has to be disabled at once. And just like 40 did when they disabled the topside lines, it probably needs to be coordinated with the other silos or whatever else they did to make it unnoticeable. We don't know, and have no real way to find out, how much Silo One knows about us down in here. I think we can be sure they won't allow themselves to lose control of us without a fight."

"And your plan is to not give them the ability to fight, huh?"

"Exactly,” replied Graham. “That means we need one more person and I need to get on the comms."

Radios and Bread Crumbs

Three days after Wallis had been brought into this secret side of silo life the duo of conspirators became a trio. Grace, one of the last really experienced electricians left in the silo became their third person and they were lucky to have her at all.

She was dying, but slowly, and it wasn't exactly what the two men had been hoping for. What she lacked in future longevity she made up for in experience and stability in the here and now, however. According to Wallis, Grace was bedrock suitable for building a silo on, steady and unflappable.

Graham stood by the switch-box one level below IT as she muttered about someone taking a sledgehammer to the innards of the switch-box she was working on. He felt bad about that because that was, in fact, exactly what he had done. There were still bits of mattress stuffing drifting about on the landing from the one he’d used as a cushion to deaden the sound of the blows.

He kicked a few of the fluffy bits away guiltily with the toe of his boot when she said that and felt like he probably had what he’d done written across his forehead. It was a crucial safety switch for lines leaving IT so he had been able to summon the best tech up to repair it and do it quickly. So, busting that unit had been a perfect choice for his needs. And though it made him feel even guiltier, there had been more than a little fun involved in wielding that sledgehammer.

He hadn't known she was sick when the two men decided she was the right fit for their needs. Wallis knew her well but Graham had only a few professional dealings with her to consider. All of them were positive but still only professional and relatively distant. He felt terrible about her tromping up so many levels to fix this thing he didn't care one whit for anymore and was having a hard time figuring out how to go about approaching the subject. It was much harder to tell this sort of thing to a stranger.

She apparently sensed something amiss because she gave a few pointedly suspicious glances at his uncharacteristic hovering about while she worked. At one point, while she was stripping insulation from a few wires with quick, sharp flicks of her wrist, she flat out commented that he looked like he had bees in his pants.

She had caught on almost immediately that he was holding some secret as Graham looked around with a decidedly guilty air at her comment. It was obvious that he was looking to see if he were being watched and he might as well have held a sign above his head that read, ‘I'm Up to Something’. She had just shaken her head in disgust and stopped talking to him after that.

With pursed lips and a grim, business-like expression on her face, she stayed mum until the unit was repaired. When she slammed the bent lid home she turned toward Graham, hands on her hips, and considered him for a moment. Her shrewd appraisal made Graham nervous and he shuffled his feet like a child being scrutinized by a displeased parent. He knew he was doing it but was powerless to stop himself and that just made it worse. The red cheeks that followed spoke even more eloquently of him being up to something. He realized he was a terrible conspirator. It was no wonder no one from Silo 40 ever told him much.

Grace was being dosed, at least Graham assumed she was, but her gaze was sharp and clear. She finally broke the silence, cleared her throat and told him she wanted to discuss some labor swaps with him as some of his folks could address electrical problems in a pinch. The steady gaze she had held him with and the little twitch of an eyebrow gave him to understand that she knew he was up to something and would play along for the moment.

Graham was grateful she opened the door for him, even if she didn't know what he really wanted, and he wasted no time. He rushed her down several hallways, a hurrying hand on her elbow, and then pushed her toward a broom closet. It was dark and smelled of sour old mops and even older cleaning supplies.

Both of them were a little out of breath by the time they reached the closet and Grace gave him a very strange look when he opened the door to the dank little room. After a moment, she shrugged and stepped inside, neatly disengaging his touch on her arm as she did so. Graham follow close behind and shut them into a darkness broken only by the thinnest strip of light cutting the bottom edge of the door.

He took a deep breath and began by asking her how far she would go to save the silo from what was happening inside it if she knew there was a way to do it.

Given that she was of an age with him, Graham figured she must understand what he was saying to mean the sickness. She was silent for so long that Graham feared he and Wallis had chosen wrongly after all. A dark feeling of failure started to descend upon him when she finally spoke.

"I can't think of a single thing I wouldn't do," she answered. Her voice was soft and sincere as it came from the thick blackness around them.

In that darkness, Graham smiled and told her everything.

*****

The trio was almost ready to act and fear of failure had turned Graham's belly to water. Old habits, the ones that spoke to obedience and the need for absolute order, had lost their validity but doing this many things completely against all those habits was still a difficult prospect for him. He hadn't been back to Level 34 since that last fateful conversation with Silo One and his stomach gurgled when he thought about talking to them.