12
“But old folks — many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.”
“Do you understand what you’re proposing we do?”
Knox looked up at McLain, met her wrinkled and wizened eyes with as much confidence as he could muster. The tiny woman who controlled all the silo’s spares and fabrication cast an oddly imposing figure. She didn’t have Knox’s barrel chest or thick beard, had wrists barely bigger than two of his fingers, but she possessed a wizened gray gaze and the weight of hard years that made him feel but a shadow in her presence.
“It’s not an uprising,” he said, the forbidden words moving easily with the grease of habit and time. “We’re setting things to right.”
McLain sniffed. “I’m sure that’s what my great grandparents said.” She pushed back loose strands of silver hair and peered down at the blueprint spread out between them. It was as if she knew this was wrong, but had resigned herself to helping rather than hinder it. Maybe it was her age, Knox thought, peering at her pink scalp through hair so thin and white as to be like filaments of glass. Perhaps, with enough time in these walls, one could become resigned to things never getting better, or even changing all that much. Or maybe a person eventually lost hope that there was anything worth preserving at all.
He looked down at the blueprint and smoothed the sharp creases in the fine paper. He was suddenly aware of his hands, how thick and grease-limned his fingers appeared. He wondered if McLain saw him as a brute, storming up here with delusions of justice. She was old enough to see him as young, he realized. Young and hot tempered, while he thought of himself as being old and wise.
One of the dozens of dogs that lived among Supply’s stacks grunted discontentedly under the table as if all this war planning were spoiling its nap.
“I think it’s safe to assume IT knows something is coming,” McLain said, running her small hands across the many floors between them and thirty four.
“Why? You don’t think we were discrete coming up?”
She smiled up at him. “I’m sure you were, but it’s safe to assume this because it would be dangerous to assume otherwise.”
He nodded and chewed on the part of his beard below his lower lip.
“How long will the rest of your mechanics take to get here?” McLain asked.
“They’ll leave around ten, when the stairwell is dimmed, and be here by two, three at the latest. They’ll be loaded down.”
“And you think a dozen of your men is sufficient to keep things running down below?”
“As long as nothing major breaks, yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Where d’ya think the porters will fall? Or the people from the mids?”
She shrugged. “The mids see themselves as toppers mostly. I know, I spent my childhood up there. They go for the view and eat at the cafe as much as they can, justifying the climb. The toppers are another question. I think we have more hope among them.”
Knox wasn’t sure he heard her correctly. “Say again?”
She looked up at him, and Knox felt the dog nuzzling against his boots, looking for company or warmth.
“Think about it,” McLain said. “Why are you so riled up? Because you lost a good friend? That happens all the time. No, it’s because you were lied to. And the toppers will feel this ever more keenly, trust me. They live in sight of those who’ve been lied to. It’s the mids, the people who aspire upward without knowing and who look down on us without compassion that will be the most reluctant.”
“So you think we have allies up top?”
“That we can’t get to, yeah. And they would take some convincing. A fine speech like you poisoned my people with.”
She gifted him with a rare grin, and Knox felt himself beaming in return. And right then he knew, instantly, why her people were devoted to her. It was similar to the pull he had on others, but for different reasons. People feared him and wanted to feel safe. But they respected McLain and wanted to feel loved.
“The problem we’re gonna have is that the mids are what separate us from IT.” She drew her hand across the blueprint. “So we need to get through there quick but without starting a fight.”
“I thought we’d just storm up before dawn,” Knox grumbled. He leaned back and peered under the table at the dog, who was half sitting on one of his boots and looking up at him with its foolish tongue hanging out, tail wagging. All Knox saw in the animal was a machine that ate food and left shit behind. A furry ball of meat he wasn’t allowed to eat. He nudged the filthy thing off his boot. “Scram,” he said.
“Jackson, get over here.” McLain snapped her fingers.
“I don’t know why you keep those things around, much less breed more of ‘em.”
“You wouldn’t,” McLain snapped back. “They’re good for the soul, for those of us who have them.”
He checked to see if she was serious and found her smiling a little more easily now.
“Well, after we set this place right, I’m gonna push for a lottery for them, too. Get their numbers under control.” He returned her sarcastic smile. Jackson whined until McLain reached down to pet him.
“If we were all as loyal as this to each other, there’d never need be an uprising,” she said, peering up at him.
He dipped his head, unable to agree. There had been a few dogs in Mechanical over the years, enough for him to know that some people felt this way, even if he didn’t. He always shook his head at those who spent hard-earned chits on food that would fatten a thing that would never fatten him in return. When Jackson crossed under the table and rubbed against his knee, whining to be petted, he left his hands spread out on the blueprint, defiant.
“What we need for the trip up is a diversion,” McLain said. “Something to thin the numbers in the mids. It’d be nice if we could get more of them to go up-top, because we’re going to make a racket moving this many people up the stairs—”
“We? Wait, you don’t think you’re coming—”
“If my people are, then of course I am.” She inclined her head. “I’ve been climbing ladders in the stockroom for over fifty years. You think a few flights of stairs will give me grief?”
Knox wasn’t sure anything could give her grief. Jackson’s tail thumped the leg of the table as the mutt stood there, looking up at him with that dumb grin his breed habitually wore.
“What about welding doors shut on the way up?” Knox asked. “Keep them in until all this is all over.”
“And do what afterwards? Just apologize? What if this takes weeks?”
“Weeks?”
“You don’t think it’ll be that easy, do you? Just march up and take the reins?”
“I’m under no delusions about what comes next.” He pointed at her office door, which led out to the workshops full of clacking machinery. “Our people are building the implements of war, and I aim to use them if it comes to that. I will gladly take a peaceful transfer, would be satisfied pushing Bernard and a few others out to clean, but I have never shied from getting dirty, either.”
McLain nodded. “Just so we’re both clear—”
“Clear as glass,” he said.
He clapped his hands, an idea forming. Jackson ducked away from the sudden noise.
“I’ve got it,” he told her. “A diversion.” He pointed to the lower floors of Mechanical on the blueprint. “What if we have Jenkins cascade a power outage? We could start a few levels above this, or even better, with the farms and the mess halls. Blame it on the recent generator work—”
“And you think the mids’ll clear out?” She narrowed her eyes.
“If they want a warm meal. Or they’ll hunker down in the dark.”
“I think they’ll be in the stairwell gossiping, wondering what all the fuss is about. Even more in our way.”
“Then we’ll tell them we’re going up to fix the problem!” Knox felt himself getting frustrated. The damn dog was sitting on his boot again.
“Up to fix a problem?” McLain laughed. “When’s the last time that made any sense?”
Knox pulled on his beard. He wasn’t sure what was so complicated. There were a lot of them. They worked with tools all day. They were going to go beat in tech heads, little men like Bernard who sat on their butts and clacked on keyboards like secretaries. They just needed to go up there and do it.
“You got any better ideas?” he asked.
“We need to keep in mind the after,” McLain said. “After you’ve bludgeoned some people to death and the blood is dripping through the grates, what then? Do you want people living in fear of that happening again? Or of whatever you put them through to get there?”
“I only want to hurt those that lied,” he said. “That’s all any of us want. We’ve all lived in fear. Fear of the outside. Fear of cleaning. Afraid to even talk about a better world. And none of it was true. The system was rigged, and in a way to make us hang our heads and take it—”
Jackson barked up at him and began to whine, his tail swishing the floor like a dropped air hose with a stuck nozzle that had gone out of control.
“I think when we’re done,” he said, “and we start talking about using our know-how to explore a world we’ve only ever looked out at, I think that’s gonna inspire some people. Hell, it gives me hope. Don’t you feel anything?”
He reached down and rubbed Jackson’s head, which stopped the animal from making so much noise. McLain looked at him for a while. She finally bobbed her head in agreement.
“We’ll go with the power outage,” she said with finality. “Tonight, before any who went to see the cleaning return disappointed. I’ll lead up a squad with candles and flashlights, make it look like a goodwill mission headed by Supply. You’ll follow a few hours later with the rest. We’ll see how far the repair story gets us before we run into trouble. Hopefully, a good number will be staying in the up-top, or back in their beds in the mids, too exhausted from climbing for a meal to care about the commotion.”
“There’ll be less traffic those early hours,” Knox agreed, “so maybe we won’t run into too much trouble.”
“The goal will be to hit IT and contain it. Bernard is still playing Mayor, so he probably won’t be there. But he’ll either come to us or we’ll push up after him once the thirties are secure. I don’t think he’ll put up much of a fight, not once his floors are ours.”
“Agreed,” Knox said, and it felt good to have a plan. To have an ally. “And hey, thanks for this.”
McLain smiled. “You give a good speech for a greaser,” she said. “And besides—” She nodded toward the dog. “Jackson likes you, and he’s hardly ever wrong. Not about men.”
Knox looked down and realized he was still scratching the mutt. He pulled his hand away and watched the animal pant, staring up at him. In the next room, someone laughed at a joke, the voices of his mechanics mixing with the members of Supply, all gently muffled by the wall and door. This laughter was joined by the sounds of steel rods bending into shape, flat pieces hammered sharp, machines for making rivets turned instead into making bullets. And Knox knew what McLain meant about loyalty. He saw it in that dumb dog’s eyes, that it would do anything for him if only he would ask. And this weight bearing down on his chest, of the many who felt that way for him and for McLain—Knox decided that this was the heaviest burden of them all.
13
“Death's pale flag is not advanced there.”
The dirt farm below filled the stairwell with the rich smell of fresh rot. Juliette was still waking up as she descended another level and began noticing the scent. She had no idea how long she’d slept—it had felt like days but could’ve been hours. She had woken with her face pressed to the grating, a pattern of red lines marking her cheek, and had gotten underway immediately. Her stomach was gnawing at her, the odor from the farm hurrying her along. By twenty-eight, the pungency hung in the air so thick it felt like she was swimming through the scents. It was the smell of death, she decided. Of funerals. Of loamy soil turned over, releasing all those tangy molecules into the air.
She stopped on thirty—the hydroponic farms—and tried the doors. It was dark inside. There was a sound down the hallway, the whir of a fan or a motor. It was a strange encounter, this small noise. For over a day, she had heard nothing but the sounds she made herself. The green glow of the emergency lights were no company; they were like the heat of a dying body, of batteries draining with the leak of photons. But this was something moving, some sound beyond her own breathing and footfalls, and it lurked deep in the dark corridors of the hydroponic farms.
Once again, she left her only tool and defense behind as a doorstop to allow in a trickle of light. She stole inside, the smell of vegetation not as strong as in the stairwell, and padded down the hallway with one hand on the wall. The offices and reception area were dark and lifeless, the air dry. There was no blinking light on the turnstile, and she had no card or chit to feed it. She placed her hands on the supports and vaulted over, this small act of defiance somehow powerful, as though she had come to accept the lawlessness of this dead place, the complete lack of civilization, of rules.
The light spilling from the stairwell barely reached the first of the growing rooms. She waited while her eyes adjusted, thankful of this ability honed by the down deeps of Mechanical and the dark interiors of broken machines. What she saw, barely, when she was finally able, did not inspire her. The hydroponic gardens had rotted away. Thick stalks, like ropes, hung here and there from a network of suspended pipes. It gave her an idea of how long ago these farms had succumbed, if not the silo. It hadn’t been hundreds of years, and it hadn’t been days. Even a window that wide felt like a treasure of information, the first crumb toward an answer to this mysterious place.
She rapped one of the pipes with her knuckles and heard the solid thud of fullness.
No plants, but water! Her mouth seemed to dry out with just the prospect. Juliette leaned over the railing and into the growing room. She pressed her mouth to one of the holes in the top of a pipe where the stalk of a plant should be growing. She created a tight seal and sucked. The fluid that met her tongue was brackish and foul—but wet. And the taste was not of anything chemical or toxic, but stale organics. Dirt. It was only slightly more distasteful than the grease and oil she had practically been drenched in for two decades.
So she drank until she was full. And she realized, now that she had water, that if there were more crumbs to find, more clues, she might just live long enough to gather them.
Before she left, Juliette snapped a section of pipe off the end of a run, keeping the cap intact on one side. It was only a little over an inch in diameter and no more than two feet long, but it would work as a thermos. She gently bent the broken pipe that remained down, allowing water to flow from the remaining loop. While she topped up her pipe, she splashed some water on her hands and arms, still fearful of contamination from the outside.
Once her pipe was full, Juliette stole back toward the lit doorway at the end of the hall. There were three hydroponic farms, all with closed loops that wound through long and twisting corridors. She tried to do a rough calculation in her head, but all she could come up with was enough to drink for a very long time. The aftertaste was awful, and she wouldn’t be surprised if her stomach cramped from the contents, but if she could get a fire going, find enough fabric or leftover paper to burn, even that could be helped with a good boil.
Back in the stairwell, she returned to the rich odors she had left behind. She retrieved her knife and hurried down another thick slice of the silo, almost two times around the stairwell to the next landing, and checked the door.
The smell was definitely coming from the dirt farms. And Juliette could hear that whirring again, louder now. She stopped the door and propped her thermos against the railing and checked inside.
The smell of vegetation was overpowering. Ahead, in the dim green glow, she could see bushy arms reaching over the railings and into the pathway. She vaulted the security gate and explored the edge, one hand on the wall while her eyes adjusted again. There was definitely a pump running somewhere. She could also hear water dripping, either from a leak or a functioning tap. Juliette felt chills from the leaves brushing her arms. The smell of rot was distinguishable now: it was the odor of fruit and vegetables decaying in the soil and withering on the vine. She heard the buzz of flies, the sounds of life.
She reached into a thick stand of green and felt around until her hand hit something smooth. Juliette gave it a tug and held a plump tomato up to the light. Her timeline estimate suddenly shrank. How long could the dirt farms sustain themselves? Did tomatoes require seeding, or did they come back every year like the weeds? She couldn’t remember. She took a bite, the tomato not yet fully ripe, and heard a noise behind her. Another pump clicking on?
She turned just in time to see the door to the stairwell slamming closed, plunging the dirt farm into absolute darkness.
Juliette froze. She waited for the sound of her knife rattling down through the staircase. She tried to imagine that it could’ve slipped and fallen on its own. With the light extinguished, her ears seemed to hijack the unused portion of her brain. Her breathing, even her pulse, seemed audible, the whirring of the pump louder now. Tomato in hand, she crouched down and moved toward the other wall, arms stretched out to feel her way. She slid toward the exit, staying low to avoid the plants, trying to calm herself. There were no ghosts here, nothing to be spooked about. She repeated this to herself as she slowly crept forward.
And then an arm was on her, reaching over her shoulder. Juliette cried out and dropped the tomato. The arm grabbed her shoulder, pinning her down in a crouch as she tried to stand. She slapped at this intruder, tried to pull away from it, the tablecloth bonnet yanked from her head—until finally she felt the hard steel of the turnstile, one of the waist bars jutting out in the hallway, and felt the fool.
“You ‘bout gave me a heart attack,” she told the machine. She reached for its sides and lifted herself over. She would come back for more food once she had light. Leaving the turnstile and heading for the exit, one hand on the wall and another groping ahead of herself, Juliette wondered if she would start talking to objects, now. Start going crazy. As the darkness absorbed her, she realized her mindset was changing by the minute. Resigned to her death the day before, now she was frightened of mere insanity.
It was an improvement.
Her hand finally bumped into the door, and Juliette pushed it open. She cursed the loss of the knife; it was certainly missing from the grating. She wondered how far it might have fallen, if she’d ever find it again or maybe a replacement. She turned to grab her thermos—
And saw that it was missing as well.
Juliette felt her vision narrow, her heart quicken. She wondered if the closing of the door could have toppled her thermos. She wondered how the knife had slipped through a gap in the grating narrower than its handle. And as the pounding in her temples receded, she heard something else:
Footsteps.
Ringing out on the stairwell below her.
Running.