33
The dim-time approached while they arranged desks and the Crow resumed her singing. Allie told him a curfew had been announced, and so Mission lost hope that the others would show up that night. They pulled out mats from the cubbies to rest, plan, and give the others until daybreak. There was much Mission wanted to ask the Crow, but she seemed distracted, her thoughts elsewhere, a joyousness that made her giddy.
Frankie felt certain he could get them through security and deeper into IT if only he could reach his father. Mission told them how well he’d been able to move about with the whites on. Maybe he could reach Frankie’s dad in a pinch. Allie produced fresh fruits harvested from her plot and passed them around. The Crow drank one of her dark green concoctions. Mission grew restless.
He wandered out to the landing, torn between waiting for the others and his anxiety to get going. For all he knew, Rodny was being marched up to his death already. Cleanings tended to settle people down, to come after bouts of unrest, but this was unlike any of the spates of violence he had seen before. This was the burning his father spoke of, the embers of distrust and crumbling trade that jumped up all at once. He had seen this coming, but it had approached with the swiftness of a knife plummeting from the Up Top.
Out on the landing, he heard the sounds of a mob echoing from far below. Holding the landing rail, he could feel the hum of many marching boots. He returned to the others and said nothing of it. There was no reason to suspect those boots were marching for them.
Allie looked as though she’d been crying when he got back. Her eyes were moist, her cheeks flushed. The Crow was telling them an Old Time story, her hands painting a scene in the air. Mission asked Allie if everything was all right.
She shook her head like she’d rather not say.
“What is it” he asked. He held her hand, heard the Crow speaking of Atlantis, another tale of the crumbling and lost city of magic beyond the hills, a bygone day when those ruins shone like a wet dime.
“Tell me,” he said. He wondered if maybe those stories were affecting her the way they sometimes did him, making her sad and not knowing why.
“I didn’t want to say anything until after,” she cried, fresh tears welling up. She wiped them away, and the Crow fell silent, her hands falling to her lap. Frankie sat quietly. Whatever it was, the two of them knew as well.
“Father,” Mission said. It had to do with his father. Allie was close to his father in a way that Mission had never been. And suddenly, he felt a powerful regret for ever having left home. While she wiped her eyes, the words unable to form on her trembling lips, Mission imagined himself on his hands and knees, in the dirt, digging for forgiveness. He thought of growing corn rather than hauling it. Of making something rather than being paid a chit for rumors that ought to be free.
Allie bawled, and the Crow hummed a tune of aboveground days. Mission thought of his father, gone, all he longed to say, and wanted nothing more than to hurl himself at the posters on the walls, to tear them down and rip to shreds their urgings to go and be free.
“It’s Riley,” Allie finally said. “Mish, I’m so sorry.”
The Crow ceased her humming. All three of them watched him.
“No,” Mission whispered.
“You shouldn’t have told him—” Frankie began.
“He ought to know!” Allie demanded. “He’s an only son, now. His father would want him to know.”
Mission gazed at a poster of green hills and blue skies. That world blurred with tears as surely as it might with dust. “What happened” he whispered.
She told him that there’d been an attack on the farms. Riley had begged to go and help fight, had been told no, and then disappeared. He’d been found with a knife from the kitchen still clutched in his hands.
Mission stood and paced the room, tears splashing from his cheeks. He shouldn’t have gone. Ever. He should’ve been there. He wasn’t there for Cam, either. Death preceded him in all the places he couldn’t be. He had done the same to his mother. And now the end was coming for them all.
There was someone in the hallway. Mission wiped his cheeks. He had given up on any of the others coming and thought it might be Security with their guns, instead. They would ask him where his own gun was before realizing he was an impostor, before shooting them all. He thought about Jenine, had the sickening feeling that his call to arms had placed others in danger. More deathdays.
He pushed the door shut, saw that the Crow had no lock on the thing, and wedged a desk under the handle. Frankie grabbed another desk. Mission didn’t see that they would do any good. He hurried toward Allie, told her to get behind the Crow’s desk. He grabbed the back of the old teacher’s wheelchair—the overhead wire swinging dangerously—but she insisted she could manage herself, that there was nothing to be afraid of.
Mission knew better. This was Security coming for them—Security or some other mob. He’d traveled the stairwell, knew what was out there. This was something bad coming, not his friends. There was no part of him that thought it might be both.
There was a knock on the door. The handle jiggled. The boots outside quieted as they gathered around. Frankie pressed his finger to his lips, his eyes wide. The wire overhead creaked as it swung back and forth.
The door budged. Mission hoped for a moment that they would go away, that they were just making their rounds. He thought about hiding under the sheets used to cover the unneeded desks, but the thought came too late. The door was shoved open, a desk crying as it skittered across the floor, and the first person through was Rodny.
His sudden appearance was as jarring as a bomb. He wore white coveralls, the creases still in them like a great letter H across his stomach and down his chest. His hair had been cut short, his face newly shaved, a nick on his chin.
Mission felt as though he were staring into a mirror, the two of them in costume, the same costume. More men in white crowded behind Rodny in the hallway, rifles in hand. Rodny ordered them back and stepped into the room where all those tiny desks lay neatly arranged and empty.
Allie was the first to respond. She gasped with surprise and hurried forward, arms wide as if for an embrace. Rodny held up a palm and told her to stop. His other hand held a small gun like the deputies wore. His eyes were not on his friends but on the Old Crow.
“Rodny—” Mission began. His brain attempted to grasp his friend’s presence. They were there to go rescue him, but he looked in little need of it.
“The door,” Rodny said over his shoulder.
A man twice Rodny’s age hesitated before doing as he was asked and pulling the door shut. This was not the demeanor of a prisoner. It was one who held captive the attention of others. Frankie lurched forward before the door shut all the way, calling “Father,” as he caught a glimpse of his old man in the hall with the others.
“We were coming for you,” Mission said. He wanted to approach his friend, but there was something dangerous in Rodny’s eyes. “Your note—”
Rodny finally looked away from the Crow.
“We were coming to help—” Mission said.
“Yesterday, I needed it,” Rodny said. He circled around the desks, the gun at his side, his eyes flicking from face to face. Mission backed up and joined Allie in standing close to the Crow, whether to protect her or feel protected, he couldn’t say.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Mrs. Crowe said with a lecturing tone. “This is not where your fight is.”
The gun rose a little.
“What’re you doing” Allie asked of her old friend.
Rodny pointed at the Crow. “Tell them,” he said. “Tell them what you’ve done. What you do.”
“What’ve they done to you” Mission asked. His friend was different beyond the garb.
“They showed me—” Rodny swept his gun at the posters on the wall. “That these stories are true.” He laughed and turned to the Crow. “And I was angry, just like you said. Angry at what they did to the world.”
“So hurt them,” the Crow insisted, her voice creaking like a door about to slam.
“But now I know. They told me. We got a call. And now I know what you’ve been doing here—”
“What’s this about” Frankie asked, still in the middle of the room. He moved toward the door. “Why is my father—”
“Stay,” Rodny told him. He pushed one of the desks out of the way and moved down the aisle. “Don’t you move.” His gun swung from Frankie to the Crow, whose chair shivered in time with her palsied hand. “These sayings on the wall, the stories and songs, you made us what we are. You made us angry.”
“You should be,” she screeched. “You damn well should be!”
Mission moved closer to her. He kept his eye on the gun. Allie knelt and held the old woman’s hand. Rodny stood ten paces away, the gun angled at their feet.
“They kill and they kill,” the Crow said. “And this will go the way it always has. Wipe it all clean. Bury and burn the dead. And these desks—” Her arm shot up, her quivering finger aimed at the empty desks newly arranged. “These desks will be full again.”
“No,” Rodny said. He shook his head. “No more. It ends here. You won’t terrify us anymore—”
“What’re you saying” Mission asked. He stepped close to the Crow, a hand on her chair. “You’re the one with the gun, Rodny. You’re the one scaring us.”
Rodny turned toward Mission. “She makes us feel this way. Don’t you see The fear and hope go hand in hand. What she sells is no different than the priests, only she gets to us first. This talk of a better world. It just makes us hate this one.”
“No—” Mission hated his friend for uttering such a thing.
“Yes,” Rodny said. “Why do you think we hate our fathers It’s because her stories are true. But this won’t make it better.” He waved his hand. “Not that it matters. What I knew yesterday had me terrified for my life. For all of us. What I know now gives me hope.” His gun came up. Mission couldn’t believe it. His friend pointed the barrel at the Old Crow.
“Wait—” Mission raised a hand.
“Stand back,” Rodny said. “I have to do this.”
“No!”
His friend’s arm stiffened. The barrel was leveled at a defenseless woman in a mechanical chair, the mother to them all, the one who sang them to sleep in their cribs and on their mats, whose voice followed them through their shadowing days and beyond.
Frankie shoved a desk aside and lurched toward Rodny. Allie screamed. Mission’s legs coiled with the power of a thousand climbs. He threw himself sideways as the gun roared and flashed. There was a punch to his stomach, a fire in his gut. He crashed to the floor as the gun thundered a second time, the Crow’s chair lurching to the side as her hand spasmed.
Mission clutched his stomach. His hands came away sticky and wet.
Lying on his back, he saw the Crow slump over in her chair, a chair that no longer moved. Again, the gun roared. Needlessly. Her body twitched as it was struck. Frankie flew into Rodny, and the two men went tumbling. Boots stormed into the room, summoned by the noise.
Allie was there, crying. She kept her hands on Mission’s stomach, pressing so hard, and looked back at the Crow. She wailed for them both.
Mission tasted blood in his mouth. It reminded him of the time Rodny had punched him as a kid, only playing. They’d only ever been playing. Costumes and pretending to be their fathers.
There were boots everywhere. Shiny and black boots on some, scuffed with wear on others. Those who had fought before and those just learning.
Frankie screamed. Boots shuffled. And then Rodny appeared above Mission, his eyes wide with worry. He told him to hang in there. Mission wanted to say he’d try, but the pain in his belly was too great. He couldn’t speak. They told him to stay awake, but all he’d ever wanted was to sleep. To not be. To not be a burden to anyone.
“Damn you!” Allie screamed, and it was at him, at Mission, not at Rodny. She blubbered that she loved him, and Mission tried to say he knew. He wanted to tell her that she was right all along. He imagined for a moment the kids they would have, the plot of soil if they combined their holdings, the long uninterrupted rows of corn like lives that stretched out for generations. Generations of people staying close to home, there for each other, doing what they knew best, enjoying being a burden to one another.
He wanted to say all these things and more. Much more. But as Allie bent close and he struggled to form the words, all that came out, a whisper amid the din of boots and shouts, was that today was his birthday.
A word from the author
Everyone wants to know where Jules is, who will play her in the film, what’s going on with the kids in Silo 17, and I have to admit: I’m as eager as anyone to revisit her. So thank you for suffering these SHIFT books, which are dear to me in a way that few will appreciate. The post apocalyptic genre has a tendency to gloss over the cause of the end-times and to remove those responsible from the equation. Perhaps there’s good reason for this. Perhaps the why and how aren’t as exciting as the what’s next
I, however, am eager to see those who think they have good reason for causing so much suffering answer to the ones they’ve inflicted it upon. Long gone are the days when mortals were able to shake their fists at Mount Olympus and expect an answer from cruel gods. Jules, perhaps, will be given that chance.
THIRD SHIFT will wrap this trilogy with a look at Jimmy’s time during the fall of Silo 17 and his gradual transformation into the man we come to know as Solo. I’m excited to tell that story. And I look forward to wrapping the overall series up by bringing Donald’s world into contact with Juliette’s. This third and final act will be entitled DUST, and I’m leaning toward releasing it in small parts, similar to WOOL. I’m undecided. But hey, not knowing is half the fun.
A final note for how awesome you have made my life this past year. It’s been a magical ride. There’s no way you’ve gotten as much out of these stories as I’ve gotten out of our interactions, your emails, your comments, and reviews. I can’t thank you enough for making me happier and damned luckier than I have any right to be. I get up and work hard at this every day because of how rewarding you all make it.
Okay, now for those of you Marvel fans who know to stay after the credits . . .