Lukas shrugged, a wince of guilt on his face. She imagined he couldn’t stand the thought of someone else risking themselves. Or probably just wanted to be there by the airlock door in case something went wrong. Juliette couldn’t blame him; she would’ve done the same thing.
They scrubbed the second airlock while Peter Billings and a few others looked on from the sheriff’s office. Bubbles from the cleaning fluid floated up in the air, then trembled toward the vents where the air inside the new airlock was being pumped into the first. Nelson worked on the ceiling, which they’d kept low on purpose. Less air inside. Less volume. Easier to reach. Juliette searched Nelson’s face for any sign of trouble from his time in the inner airlock and blamed the flush and sweat on his energetic scrubbing.
“You’ve got perfect vacuum,” Peter said, using the radio in his office. Juliette motioned to the others, drew her hand across her neck, then closed her fist. They both nodded and went back to scrubbing. While new air was cycled in from the cafeteria, they went over each other one more time, and Juliette finally had a moment to revel in the fact that she was back. Back inside. They had done it. No burns, no hospitals, no contamination. And now they would hopefully learn something.
Peter’s voice filled her helmet again: “We didn’t want to tell you while you were suiting up, but the dig punched through to the other side about half an hour ago.”
Juliette felt a surge of both elation and guilt. She should’ve been down there. The timing was abysmal, but she had felt her window of opportunity closing there in the Up Top. She resigned herself to being happy for Solo and the kids, relieved by the end of their long ordeal.
The second airlock – with the sealed glass door she’d fashioned from a shower stall – began to open. Behind her, a bright light bloomed inside the old airlock, and the small porthole glowed red. A second round of flames surged and raged in the small room, bathing the spoiled walls, charring the very air, boiling off the water Juliette had spilled on the floor, and throwing the vat into a cauldron of raging steam.
Juliette waved the others out of the new airlock while she eyed the old one warily, remembering. Remembering being in there. Lukas came back and tugged her along, through the door and into the former jail cell where they stripped down to their undersuits for yet another round of showering. As she peeled off the soaking layers, all Juliette could think about was the sealed and fireproof box on the ready bench. She hoped it was worth the risk, that the answers to a host of cruel questions were tucked away, safely inside.
Silo 17
21
The great digging machine stood quiet and still. Dust fell from where it had chewed through the ceiling, and the large steel teeth and spinning discs gleamed from their journey through solid rock. Between the discs, the digger’s face was caked with dirt, debris, torn lengths of rebar, and large rocks. By the edge of the machine, where it jutted out into the heart of Silo 17, there was a black crack that connected two very different worlds.
Jimmy watched as strangers spilled from one of those worlds into his. Burly men with dark beards and yellow smiles, hands black with grease, stepped through and squinted up at the rusted pipes overhead, the puddles on the ground, the calm and quiet organs of a silo that had long ago rumbled and now sat deathly still.
They clasped Jimmy’s hand, called him Solo, and squeezed the terrified children. They told him Jules said hello. And then they adjusted the lights on their helmets, which threw golden cones before them, and went splashing off into Jimmy’s home.
Elise clutched Jimmy’s leg as another group of miners and mechanics squeezed past. Two dogs bounded with them, stopped to sniff at the puddles, then at a trembling Elise, before following their owners. Courtnee – Juliette’s friend – finished instructing a group before returning to Jimmy and the kids. Jimmy watched her move. Her hair was lighter than Juliette’s, her features sharper, she wasn’t quite as tall, but she had that same fierceness. He wondered if all the people from this other world would be the same: the men bearded and covered in soot, the women wild and resourceful.
Rickson rounded up the twins while Hannah cradled her crying baby and tried to soothe it back to sleep. Courtnee handed Jimmy a flashlight.
“I don’t have enough lights for all of you,” she said, “so you’ll want to stick close together.” She held her hand over her head. “The tunnel is high enough, just mind the support columns. And the ground is rough, so go slow and stick to the center.”
“Why can’t we stay here and have the doctor come to us?” Rickson asked.
Hannah shot him a look as she bounced the baby on her hip.