Wool (14 page)

She fell asleep like that, exhausted from far more than the climb, nothing more than a few trembling kisses, hands interlocking, a whispered word of tenderness and appreciation, and then the depths of sleep pulling her down, the weariness in her joints and bones succumbing to a slumber she didn’t want but sorely needed. She slept with a man in her arms for the first time in decades, and woke to a bed familiarly empty, but a heart strangely full.

In the middle of their fourth and final day of climbing, they approached the midthirties of IT. Jahns had found herself taking more breaks for water and to rub her muscles along the way, not for the exhaustion she feigned but the dread of this stopover and seeing Bernard, the fear of their trip ever coming to an end.

The dark and deep shadows cast by the power holiday followed them up, the traffic sparse as most merchants had closed for the silo-wide brownout. Juliette, who had stayed behind to oversee the repairs, had warned Jahns of the flickering lights from the backup generator. Still, the effect of the shimmering illumination had worn on her nerves during the long climb. The steady pulsing reminded her of a bad lightbulb she’d unhappily endured for the better part of her first term. Two different techs from Electrical had come to inspect the bulb. Both had deemed it too operational to replace. It had taken an appeal to McLain, the head of Supply even back then, to score her a replacement.

Jahns remembered McLain delivering the bulb herself. She hadn’t been head of Supply for long and had fairly smuggled the thing up those many flights of stairs. Even then, Jahns had looked up to her, this woman with so much power and responsibility. She remembered McLain asking her why Jahns didn’t just do what everyone else did—simply break the bulb the rest of the way.

The fact that this had never occurred to Jahns used to bother her—until she began to take pride in this failing; until she got to know McLain well enough to understand the question was a compliment, the hand-delivery her reward.

When they reached the thirty-fourth, Jahns felt like they were, in a sense, home again: back in the realm of the familiar, at the main landing for IT. She waited by the railing, leaning on it and her walking stick, while Marnes got the door. As it was cracked open, the pale glow of diminished power was swept off the stairwell by the bright lights blooming inside. It hadn’t been widely publicized, but the reason for the severe power restrictions on other levels was largely the exemptions IT possessed. Bernard had been quick to point out various clauses in the Pact to support this. Juliette had bitched that servers shouldn’t get priority over grow lights but resigned herself to getting the main generator realigned and taking what she could. Jahns told Juliette to view this as her first lesson in political compromise. Juliette said she saw it as a display of weakness.

Inside, Jahns found Bernard waiting for them, a look on his face like he’d swallowed sour fruit juice. A conversation between several IT workers standing off to the side was quickly silenced with their entry, leaving Jahns little doubt that they’d been spotted on the way up and expected.

“Bernard,” she said, trying to keep her breathing steady. She didn’t want him to know how tired she was. Let him think she was strolling by on her way up from the down deep, like it was no big deal.

“Marie.”

It was a deliberate slight. He didn’t even look Marnes’s way or acknowledge that the deputy was in the room.

“Would you like to sign these here? Or in the conference room?” She dug into her bag for the contract with Juliette’s name on it.

“What games are you playing at, Marie?”

Jahns felt her temperature rise. The cluster of workers in silver IT jumpsuits were following the exchange. “Playing at?” she asked.

“You think this
power holiday
of yours is cute? Your way of getting back at me?”

“Getting back—?”

“I’ve got servers, Marie—”

“Your servers have their full allocation of power,” Jahns reminded him, her voice rising.

“But their cooling comes ducted from Mechanical, and if temps get any higher, we’ll be ramping down, which we’ve
never
had to do!”

Marnes stepped between the two of them, his hands raised. “Easy,” he said coolly, his gaze on Bernard.

“Call off your little shadow here,” Bernard said.

Jahns placed a hand on Marnes’s arm.

“The Pact is clear, Bernard. It’s my choice. My nomination. You and I have a nice history of signing off on each others’—”

“And I told you this girl from the pits will not do—”

“She’s got the job,” Marnes said, interrupting. Jahns noticed his hand had fallen to the butt of his gun. She wasn’t sure if Bernard had noticed or not, but he fell silent. His eyes, however, did not leave Jahns’s.

“I won’t sign it.”

“Then next time, I won’t ask.”

Bernard smiled. “You think you’ll outlive another sheriff?” He turned toward the workers in the corner and waved one of them over. “Why do I somehow doubt that?”

One of the technicians removed himself from the whispering group and approached. Jahns recognized the young man from the cafeteria, had seen him up top on nights she worked late. Lukas, if she remembered correctly. He shook her hand and smiled an awkward hello.

Bernard twirled his own hand, stirring the air with his impatience. “Sign whatever she needs. I refuse to. Make copies. Take care of the rest.” He waved dismissively, turned and looked Marnes and Jahns up and down one final time as if disgusted with their condition, their age, their positions,
something
. “Oh, and have Sims top up their canteens. See that they have food enough to stagger to their homes. Whatever it takes to power their decrepit legs out of here and back to wherever it is they belong.”

And with that, Bernard strode off toward the barred gates that led into the heart of IT, back to his brightly lit offices, where servers hummed happily, the temperature rising in the slow-moving air like the heat of angered flesh as capillaries squeezed, the blood in them rising to a boil.

The floors flew by faster as they approached home. In the darkest sections of the staircase, between quiet floors of people hunkered down and awaiting a return to normalcy, old hands wrapped around each other and swung between two climbers, brazenly and openly, grasping each other while their other hands slid up the cool steel of the rails.

Jahns let go sporadically only to check that her walking stick was secure against her back or to grab Marnes’s canteen from his pack and take a sip. They had taken to drinking each other’s water, it being easier to reach across than around one’s own back. There was a sweetness to it as well, carrying the sustenance another needed and being able to provide and reciprocate in a perfectly equitable relationship. It was a thing worth dropping hands for. Momentarily, at least.

Jahns finished a sip, screwed on the metal cap with its dangling chain, and replaced it in his outer pouch. She was dying to know if things would be different once they got back. They were only twenty floors away. An impossible distance yesterday now seemed like something that could slip away without her noticing. And as they arrived, would familiar surroundings bring familiar roles? Would last night feel more and more like a dream? Or would old ghosts return to haunt them both?

She wanted to ask these things but talked of trivialities instead. When would Jules, as she insisted they call her, be ready for duty? What case files did he and Holston have open that needed tending to first? What concession would they make to keep IT happy, to calm down Bernard? And how would they handle Peter Billings’s disappointment? What impact would this have on hearings he might one day preside over as judge?

Jahns felt butterflies in her stomach as they discussed these things. Or perhaps it was the nerves of all she wanted to say but couldn’t. These topics were as numerous as grains of dust in the outside air, and just as likely to dry her mouth and still her tongue. She found herself drinking more and more from his canteen, her own water making noises at her back, her stomach lurching with every landing, each number counting down toward the conclusion of their journey, an adventure that had been a complete success in so many ways.

To start with, they had their sheriff: a fiery girl from the down deep who seemed every bit as confident and inspiring as Marnes had intimated. Jahns saw her kind as the future of the silo. People who thought long-term, who planned, who got things done. There was a precedent of sheriffs running for mayor. She thought Juliette would eventually make a fine choice.

And speaking of running, the trip had fired up her own goals and ambitions. She was excited about the upcoming elections, however unopposed she might be, and had even dreamed up dozens of short speeches during the climb. She saw how things could run better, how she could perform her duties more diligently, and how the silo could have new life breathed into old bones.

But the biggest change was whatever had grown between herself and Marnes. She had even begun to suspect, just in the last hours, that the real reason for his never taking a promotion was because of her. As deputy, there was enough space between them to contain his hope, his impossible dream of holding her. As sheriff, it couldn’t happen: too much conflict of interest, too much his immediate superior. This theory of hers contained a powerful sadness and an awe-inspiring sweetness. She squeezed his hand as she thought about this theory, and it filled her with a deep hollowness, a cramp in her gut at all he had silently sacrificed, a massive debt to live up to no matter what happened next.

They approached the landing to the nursery and had no plans for stopping to see Juliette’s father, to urge him to receive his daughter on the way up, but Jahns changed her mind as she felt her bladder beg for release.

“I’ve got to go pretty bad,” she told Marnes, embarrassed like a child to admit she couldn’t hold it. Her mouth was dry and her stomach churning from so much fluid, and maybe from the fear of getting home. “I wouldn’t mind seeing Juliette’s father, either,” she added.

Marnes’s mustache bent up at the corners with the excuse. “Then we should stop,” he said.

The waiting room was empty, the signs reminding them to be quiet. Jahns peered through the glass partition and saw a nurse padding through the dark corridor toward her, a frown becoming a slight smile of recognition.

“Mayor,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry not to have wired ahead, but I was hoping to see Dr. Nichols. And possibly use your restroom?”

“Of course.” She buzzed the door and waved them through. “We’ve had two deliveries since you last stopped by. Things have been crazy with this generator mess—”

“Power holiday,” Marnes said, correcting her, his voice gruff and louder than theirs.

The nurse shot him a look but nodded as if this was duly noted. She took two robes from the racks and held them out, told them to leave their stuff by her desk.

In the waiting room, she waved toward the benches and said she would find the doctor. “The bathrooms are through there.” She pointed at a door, the old sign painted on its surface nearly worn clean away.

“I’ll be right back,” Jahns told Marnes. She fought the urge to reach out and squeeze his hand, as normal as that dark and hidden habit had lately become.

The bathroom was almost completely devoid of light. Jahns fumbled with an unfamiliar lock on the stall door, cursed under her breath as her stomach churned noisily, then finally threw the stall open and hurried to sit down. Her stomach felt like it was on fire as she relieved herself. The mixture of welcomed release and the burn of having held it too long left her unable to breathe. She went for what felt like forever, remained sitting as her legs shook uncontrollably, and realized she had pushed herself too hard on the climb up. The thought of another twenty levels mortified her, made her insides feel hollow with dread. She finished and moved over to the adjoining toilet to splash herself clean, then dried herself with one of the towels. She flushed both units to cycle the water. It all required fumbling in the darkness, unfamiliar as she was with the spacing and location that were second nature in her apartment and office.

She staggered out of the bathroom on weak legs, wondering if she might need to stay one more night, sleep in a delivery bed, wait until the morning to make the climb to her office. She could barely feel her legs as she pulled open the door and returned to Marnes in the waiting room.

“Better?” he asked. He sat on one of the family benches, a space left conspicuously beside him. Jahns nodded and sat heavily. She was breathing in shallow pants and wondered if he’d find her weak if she admitted she couldn’t go any further that day.

“Jahns? You okay?”

Marnes leaned forward. He wasn’t looking at her, he was looking toward the ground. “Jahns. What the hell just happened?”

“Lower your voice,” she whispered.

He screamed instead.

“Doctor!” he yelled. “Nurse!”

A form moved beyond the dusky glass of the nursery. Jahns laid her head back against the seat cushion, trying to form the words on her lips, to tell him to keep it down.

“Jahns, sweetheart, what did you do?”

He was holding her hand, patting the back of it. He shook her arm. Jahns just wanted to sleep. There was the slapping of footsteps running their way. Lights turned up forbiddingly bright. A nurse yelled something. There was the familiar voice of Juliette’s father, a doctor. He would give her a bed. He would understand this exhaustion …

There was talk of blood. Someone was examining her legs. Marnes was crying, tears falling into his white mustache, peppered with black. He was shaking her shoulders, looking her in the eye.

“I’m okay,” Jahns tried to say.

She licked her lips. So dry. Mouth so damned dry. She asked for water. Marnes fumbled for his canteen, brought it to her lips, splashing water against and into her mouth.

She tried to swallow but couldn’t. They were stretching her out on the bench, the doctor touching her ribs, shining a light in her eyes. But things were getting darker anyway.