He covered his mouth, rolled over in bed, and coughed up blood. Someone to save. The folly of man – the folly of the blasted silos he had helped to build – this assumption that things needed saving. They ought to have been left on their own, both people and the planet. Mankind had the right to go extinct. That’s what life did: it went extinct. It made room for the next in line. But individual men had often railed against the natural order. They had their illegally cloned children, their nano treatments, their spare parts, and their cryopods. Individual men like those who did this.
Approaching boots signaled a meal, an end to the interminable nightmare of being asleep with wild thoughts and lying awake with bodily pain. It had to be breakfast, because he was starving. It meant he’d been up for much of the night. He expected the same guard who’d delivered his last meal, but the door cracked open to reveal Thurman. A man in Security silver stood behind him, unsmiling. Thurman entered alone and shut the door, confident that Donald posed no threat to him. He appeared better, fitter, than he had the day before. More time awake, perhaps. Or a flood of new doctors loosed in his bloodstream.
“How long are you keeping me here?” Donald asked, sitting up. His voice was scratchy and distant, the sound of autumn leaves.
“Not long,” Thurman said. The old man dragged the trunk away from the foot of the bed and sat on it. He studied Donald intently. “You’ve only got a few days to live.”
“Is that a medical diagnosis? Or a sentencing?”
Thurman raised an eyebrow. “It’s both. If we keep you here and leave you untreated, you will die from the air you breathed. We’re putting you under, instead.”
“God forbid you put me out of my misery.”
Thurman seemed to consider this. “I’ve thought about letting you die in here. I know the pain you’re in. I could fix you or let you break all the way down, but I don’t have the heart for either.”
Donald tried to laugh, but it hurt too much. He reached for the glass of water on the tray and took a sip. A pink spiral of blood danced on the surface as he lowered the glass.
“You’ve been busy this last shift,” Thurman said. “There are drones and bombs missing. We’ve woken up a few of the people who went into freeze recently to piece together your handiwork. Do you have any idea what you’ve risked?”
There was something worse than anger in Thurman’s voice. Donald couldn’t place it at first. Not disappointment. It wasn’t any form of rage. The rage had drained from his boots. This was something subdued. It was something like fear.
“What I’ve risked?” Donald asked. “I’ve been cleaning up your mess.” He sloshed water as he saluted his old mentor. “The silos you damaged. That silo that went black all those years ago. It was still there—”
“Silo forty. I know.”
“And seventeen.” Donald cleared his throat. He grabbed the heel of bread from the tray and took a dry bite, chewed until his jaws ached, chased it with blood-smeared water. He knew so much that Thurman didn’t. This occurred to him in that moment. All the talks with the people of 18, the time spent poring over drawings and notes, the weeks of piecing things together, of being in charge. He knew in his present condition that he was no match for Thurman in a fight, but he still felt the stronger of the two. It was his knowledge that made him feel that way. “Seventeen wasn’t dead,” he said before taking another bite of bread.
“So I’ve learned.”
Donald chewed.
“I’m shutting down eighteen today,” Thurman said quietly. “What that facility has cost us …” He shook his head, and Donald wondered if he was thinking of Victor, the head of heads, who had blown his own head off over an uprising that took place there. In the next moment, it occurred to him that the people he’d placed so much hope in were now gone as well. All the time spent smuggling parts to Charlotte, dreaming of an end to the silos, hope of a future under blue skies, all for nothing. The bread felt stale as he swallowed.
“Why?” he asked.
“You know why. You’ve been talking to them, haven’t you? What did you think was going to become of that place? What were you thinking?” The first hints of anger crept into Thurman’s voice. “Did you think they were going to save you? That any of us can be saved? What the hell were you thinking?”
Donald didn’t plan on answering, but a response came as reflexively as a cough: “I thought they deserved better than this. I thought they deserved a chance—”
“A chance for what?” Thurman shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. We planned for enough.” He muttered this last to himself. “The shame is that I have to sleep at all, that I can’t be here to manage everything. It’s like sending drones up when you need to be there yourself, your hand on the yoke.” Thurman made a fist in the air. He studied Donald a while. “You’re going under first thing in the morning. It’s a far cry from what you deserve. But before I’m rid of you, I want you to tell me how you did it, how you ended up here with my name. I can’t let that happen again—”
“So now I’m a threat.” Donald took another pull of water, flooding the tickle in his throat. He tried to take a deep breath, but the pain in his chest made him double over.