Wool (58 page)

“Jules!” Walker fumbled with the radio. He shouted her name, was still trying to talk to her.

“Let me talk to them!” Juliette yelled, her voice impossibly far away. “Walk, why can I hear you and not them? I need to talk to the deputies, to Peter and Hank. Walk, how did you call me? I need to talk to them!”

Walker blubbered about soldering irons, about his magnifiers. The old man was crying, cradling his boards and wires and electrics as if they were a broken child, whispering to them and rocking back and forth, salt water dripping dangerously onto this thing he’d built.

He babbled to Juliette while more men in blue fell, arms draped over railings, inadequate rifles dropping noiselessly to the ground. The men they had lived in terror of for a month were inside. It was over. Shirly groped for Courtnee, their arms entangling, while they watched, helpless. Behind them, the sobs and mad ravings of old Walk mixed with the jitter of deadened gunfire, a popping noise like the grumble of a machine losing its balance, sliding out of control …

Lukas teetered on the upturned trash can, the toes of his boots denting the soft plastic, feeling as if it could go flying out from under him or collapse under his weight at any moment. He steadied himself by holding the top of server twelve, the thick layer of dust up there telling him it had been years since anyone had been in to clean with a ladder and a rag. He pressed his nose up to the air-conditioning vent and took another whiff.

The nearby door beeped, the locks clanking as they withdrew into the jamb. With a soft squeal, the massive hinges budged and the heavy door swung inward.

Lukas nearly lost his grip on the dusty server top as Bernard pushed his way inside. The head of IT looked up at him quizzically.

“You’ll never fit,” Bernard said. He laughed as he turned to push the door shut. The locking pins clunked, the panel beeped, and a red light resumed its watch over the room.

Lukas pushed away from the dusty server and leapt from the trash can, the plastic bucket flipping over and scooting across the floor. He wiped his hands together, brushed them on the seat of his pants, and forced a laugh.

“I thought I smelled something,” he explained. “Does it look smoky in here to you?”

Bernard squinted at the air. “It always seems hazy in here to me. And I don’t smell anything. Just hot servers.” He reached into his breast pocket and brought out a few folded pieces of paper. “Here. Letters from your mother. I told her to porter them to me and I’d pass them along.”

Lukas smiled, embarrassed, and accepted them. “I still think you should ask about …” He glanced up at the air-conditioning vent and realized there was no one in Mechanical to ask. The last that he’d heard from the radio below was that Sims and the others were mopping up. Dozens were dead. Three to four times that many were in custody. Apartment wings were being prepped in the mids to hold them all. It sounded like there would be enough people to clean for years.

“I’ll have one of the replacement mechanics look into it,” Bernard promised. “Which reminds me, I’d like to go over some of that with you. There’s going to be a massive shift from green to blue as we push farmers into Mechanical. I was wondering what you’d think of Sammi heading up the entire division down there.”

Lukas nodded as he skimmed one of the letters from his mother. “Sammi as head of Mechanical? I think he’s overqualified but perfect. I’ve learned a lot from him.” He glanced up as Bernard opened the filing cabinet by the door and flipped through work orders. “He’s a great teacher, but would it be permanent?”

“Nothing’s permanent.” Bernard found what he was looking for and tucked it into his breast pocket. “You need anything else?” He pressed his glasses up his nose. Lukas thought he looked older from the past month. Older and worn down. “Dinner’ll be sent over in a few hours …”

Lukas did have something he wanted. He wanted to say that he was ready, that he had sufficiently absorbed the horror of his future job, had learned what he needed without going insane. And now could he please go home?

But that wasn’t the way out of there. Lukas had sorted this out for himself.

“Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind some more reading material …”

The things he had discovered in server eighteen burned in his brain. He feared Bernard would be able to read them there. Lukas thought he knew, but he needed to ask for that folder in order to be sure.

Bernard smiled. “Don’t you have enough to read?”

Lukas fanned the letters from his mother. “These? They’ll keep me busy for the walk to the
ladder
—”

“I meant what you have below. The Order. Your studies.” Bernard tilted his head.

Lukas let out a sigh. “Yeah, I do, but I can’t be expected to read that twelve hours a day. I’m talking about something less dense.” He shook his head. “Hey, forget it. If you can’t—”

“What do you need?” Bernard said. “I’m just giving you a hard time.” He leaned against the filing cabinet and interlocked his fingers across his belly. He peered at Lukas through the bottom of his glasses.

“Well, this might sound weird, but it’s this case. An
old
case. The server says it’s filed away in your office with all the closed investigations—”

“An
investigation
?” Bernard’s voice rose quizzically.

Lukas nodded. “Yeah. A friend-of-a-friend thing. I’m just curious how it was resolved. There aren’t any digital copies on the serv—”

“This isn’t about Holston, is it?”

“
Who?
Oh, the old sheriff? No, no. Why?”

Bernard waved his hand to dismiss the thought.

“The file is under Wilkins,” Lukas said, watching Bernard closely. “George Wilkins.”

Bernard’s face hardened. His mustache dropped down over his lips like a lowered curtain.

Lukas cleared his throat. What he’d seen on Bernard’s face was nearly enough. He started to say, “George died a few years ago down in Mech—”

“I know how he died.” Bernard dipped his chin. “Why would you want to see that file?”

“Just curious. I have a friend who—”

“What’s this friend’s name?” Bernard’s small hands slid off his belly and he tucked them into his overalls. He moved away from the filing cabinet and took a step closer.

“What?”

“This friend, was he involved with George in any way? How close a friend was he?”

“No. Not that I know of.” Lukas wanted simply to ask, to ask why he’d done it. “Look, if it’s a big deal, don’t worry about—”

“It’s a very big deal,” Bernard said. “George Wilkins was a dangerous man. A man of
ideas
. The kind we catch in whispers, the kind who poisons the people around him—”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Section thirteen of the Order. Study it. All insurrections would start
right there
if we let them, start with men like him.”

Bernard’s chin had lowered to his chest, his eyes peering over the rims of his glasses, the truth coming freely without all the deceit Lukas had planned.

Lukas never needed that folder; he had found the travel logs that coincided with George’s death, the dozens of wires asking Holston to wrap things up. There was no shame in Bernard. George Wilkins hadn’t died; he’d been murdered. And Bernard was willing to tell him why.

“What did he do?” Lukas asked quietly.

“I’ll tell you what he did. He was a mechanic, a greaser. We started hearing chatter from the porters about these plans circulating, ideas for expanding the mine, doing a lateral dig. As you know, lateral digs are forbidden—”

“Yeah, obviously.” Lukas had a mental image of miners from silo eighteen pushing through and meeting miners from silo nineteen. It would be awkward, to say the least.

“A long chat with the old head of Mechanical put an end to that nonsense, and then George Wilkins came up with the idea of expanding
downward
. He and some others drew up schematics for a level one-fifty. And then a level one—sixty.”

“
Sixteen
more levels?”

“To begin with. That was the talk, anyway. Just whispers and sketches. But some of these whispers landed in a porter’s ear, and then
ours
perked up.”

“So you killed him?”

“Someone did, yes. It doesn’t matter who.” Bernard adjusted his glasses with one hand. The other stayed in the belly of his overalls. “You’ll have to do these things one day, son. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“No buts.” Bernard shook his head slowly. “Some men are like a virus. Unless you want to see a plague break out, you inoculate the silo against them. You remove them.”

Lukas remained silent.

“We’ve removed fourteen threats this year, Lukas. Do you have any idea what the average life expectancy would be if we weren’t proactive about these things?”

“But the cleanings—”

“Useful for dealing with the people who want
out
. Who dream of a better world. This uprising we’re having right now is full of people like that, but it’s just one sort of sickness we deal with. The cleaning is one sort of cure. I’m not sure if someone with a different illness would even clean if we sent them out there. They have to want to
see
what we show them for it to work.”

This reminded Lukas of what he’d learned of the helmets, the visors. He had assumed this was the only kind of sickness there was. He was beginning to wish he’d read more of the Order and less of the Legacy.

“You’ve heard this latest outbreak on the radio. All of this could have been prevented if we’d caught the sickness earlier. Tell me that wouldn’t have been better.”

Lukas looked down at his boots. The trash can lay nearby, on its side. It looked sad like that. No longer useful for holding things.

“Ideas are contagious, Lukas. This is basic Order material. You know this stuff.”

He nodded. He thought of Juliette, wondered why she hadn’t called in what felt like forever. She was one of these viruses Bernard was talking about, her words creeping in his mind and infecting him with outlandish dreams. He felt his entire body flush with heat as he realized he’d caught some of it too. He wanted to touch his breast pocket, feel the lumps of her personal effects there, the watch, the ring, the ID. He had taken them to remember her in death, but they had become even more precious knowing that she was still alive.

“This uprising hasn’t been nearly as bad as the last one,” Bernard told him. “And even after
that
one, things were eventually smoothed over, the damage welded back together, the people made to forget. The same thing will happen here. Are we clear?”

“Yessir.”

“Excellent. Now, was that all you wished to know from this folder?”

Lukas nodded.

“Good. It sounds like you need to be reading something else, anyway.” His mustache twitched with half a smile. Bernard turned to go.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

Bernard stopped but didn’t turn to face him.

“Who killed George Wilkins. It was you, right?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah. It matters to— To me— It means—”

“Or to your
friend
?” Bernard turned to face him. Lukas felt the temperature in the room go up yet another notch. “Are you having second thoughts, son? About this job? Was I wrong about you? Because I’ve been wrong before.”

Lukas swallowed. “I just want to know if it’s something I’d ever have to … I mean, since I’m shadowing for …”

Bernard took a few steps toward him. Lukas felt himself back up half a step in response.

“I didn’t think I was wrong about you. But I was, wasn’t I?” Bernard shook his head. He looked disgusted. “Goddamn it,” he spat.

“Nosir. You weren’t. I think I’ve just been in here too long.” Lukas brushed his hair off his forehead. His scalp was itchy. He needed to use the bathroom. “Maybe I just need some air, you know? Go home for a while? Sleep in my bed. What’s it been, a month? How long do I need—?”

“You want out of here?”

Lukas nodded.

Bernard peered down at his boots and seemed to consider this awhile. When he looked up, there was sadness in his eyes, in the droop of his mustache, across the wet film of his eyes.

“Is that what you want? To get out of here?”

He adjusted his hands inside his overalls.

“Yessir.” Lukas nodded.

“Say it.”

“I want out of here.” Lukas glanced at the heavy steel door behind Bernard. “Please. I want you to let me out.”

“Out.”

Lukas bobbed his head, exasperated, sweat tickling his cheek as it followed the line of his jaw. He was suddenly very afraid of this man, this man who all of a sudden reminded him even more of his father.

“Please,” Lukas said. “It’s just … I’m starting to feel cooped up. Please let me out.”

Bernard nodded. His cheeks twitched. He looked as if he were about to cry. Lukas had never seen this expression on the man’s face.

“Sheriff Billings, are you there?”

His small hand emerged from his overalls and raised the radio to his sad, quivering mustache.

Peter’s voice crackled back. “I’m here, sir.”

Bernard clicked the transmitter. “You heard the man,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes. “Lukas Kyle, IT engineer first class, says he wants
out
…”

“Hello? Walk? Shirly?”

Juliette shouted into the radio, the orphans and Solo watching her from several steps below. She had hurried the kids through the farms, made hasty introductions, checking the radio all the while. Several levels had gone by, the others trudging up behind her, and still no word from them, nothing since she’d been cut off, the sound of gunfire sprinkled among Walker’s words. She kept thinking if she just got higher, if she tried one more time … She checked the light by the power knob and made sure the battery wasn’t dead, turned the volume up until she could hear the static, knew that the thing was working.

She clicked the button. The static fell silent, the radio waiting for her to speak. “Please say something, guys. This is Juliette. Can you hear me? Say anything.”

She looked to Solo, who was being supported by the very man who had dazed him. “We need to go higher, I think. C’mon. Double-time.”