Leaving the deputy’s office, Juliette climbed through levels that had seen much of the fighting, and she noticed once more the silo’s wounds of war. She rose through ever-worsening reminders of the battles that had been waged in her absence, saw the marks left behind from the fighting, the jagged streaks of bright silver through old paint, the black burns and pockmarks in concrete, the rebar poking through like fractured bone through skin.
She had devoted most of her life to holding that silo together, to keeping it running. This was a kindness repaid by the silo as it filled her lungs with air, gave rise to the crops, and claimed the dead. They were responsible for one another. Without people, this silo would become as Solo’s had: rusted and fairly drowned. Without the silo, she would be a skull on a hill, looking blankly to the cloud-filled skies. They needed each other.
Her hand slid up the rail, rough with new welds, her own hand a mess of scars. For much of her life, they had kept each other going, she and the silo. Right up until they’d damn near killed each other. And now the minor hurts in Mechanical she had hoped to repair one day – squealing pumps, spitting pipes, leaks from the exhaust – all paled before the far worse wreckage her leaving had caused. In much the same way that the occasional scars – reminders of youthful missteps – were now lost beneath disfigured flesh, it seemed that one large mistake could bury all the minor ones.
She took the steps one at a time and reached that place where a bomb had ripped a gap in the stairs. A patchwork of metal stretched across the ruin, a web of bar and rail scavenged from landings that now stood narrower than before. Names of those lost in the blast were written here and there in charcoal. Juliette treaded carefully across the mangled metal. Higher up, she saw that the doors to Supply had been replaced. Here, the fighting had been especially bad. The cost these people in yellow had paid for siding with hers in blue.
A Sunday was letting out as Juliette approached the church on ninety-nine. Floods of people spiraled down toward the quiet bazaar she had just passed. Their mouths were pressed tight from hours of serious talk, their joints as stiff as their pressed coveralls. Juliette filed past them and took note of the hostile glances.
The crowds thinned by the time she reached the landing. The small temple was wedged in among the old hydroponic farms and worker flats that used to serve the Deep. It was before her time, but Knox once explained how the temple had sprouted on ninety-nine. It was when his own dad was a boy and protests had arisen over music and plays performed during Sundays. Security had sat back while the protestors swelled into an encampment outside the bazaar. People slept on the treads and choked the stairway until no one could pass. The farm one level up was ravaged in supplying food to these masses. Eventually, they took over much of the hydroponics level. The temple on twenty-eight set up a satellite office, and now that satellite on ninety-nine was bigger than the temple that had sprouted it.
Father Wendel was on the landing as Juliette rounded the last turn. He stood by the door, shaking hands and speaking briefly with each member of his congregation as they left the Sunday service. His white robes fairly emitted a light of their own. They shone much like his bald head, which glistened from the effort of preaching to the crowds. Between head and robes, Wendel seemed to sparkle. Especially to Juliette, who had just left a land of smudge and grease. She felt dirty just seeing such unblemished cloth.
“Thank you, Father,” a woman said, bowing slightly, shaking his hand, a child balanced on her hip. The little one’s head lolled against her shoulder in perfect slumber. Wendel rested a hand on the child’s head and said a few words. The woman thanked him again, moved on, and Wendel shook the next man’s hand.
Juliette made herself invisible against the rail while the last handful of churchgoers filed past. She watched a man pause and press a few clinking chits into Father Wendel’s open palm. “Thank you, Father,” he said, this farewell a chant of sorts. Juliette could smell what she thought was goats on the old man as he filed past and wound his way up, probably back to the pens. He was the last one to leave. Father Wendel turned and smiled at Juliette to let her know he’d been aware of her presence.
“Mayor,” he said, spreading his hands. “You honor us. Did you come for the elevens?”
Juliette checked the small watch she wore around her wrist. “This wasn’t the elevens?” she asked. She was making good time up the levels.
“It was the tens. We added another Sunday. The toppers come down for late service.”