“—no good. Cam’t geb recebtion in there.” Lukas’s voice was garbled as though he were pinching his nose or holding back a sneeze. “Baby, you’ve gotta seal yourselb off. Can’t stob my nose—”
Panic surged through Juliette. Shutting them down. The threats of ending them with the push of a button. Ending them. A silo like Solo’s. Maybe a second flitted by, two seconds, and in that brief flash she recalled him telling her stories of the way his silo fell, the rush up top, the spilling out into the open air, the bodies piling up that she had waded through years later. All in an instant, she was transported back and forth through time. This was Silo 17’s past; she was witnessing the fall of that silo as it played out in her home. And she had seen their grim future, had seen what was to come of her world. She knew how this ended. She knew that Lukas was already dead.
“Forget the radio,” she told him. “Lukas, I want you to forget the radio and seal yourself in that pantry. I’m going to save as many as I can.”
She grabbed the other radio, which was tuned to her silo. “Hank, do you read me?”
“Yes—?” She could hear him panting. “Hello?”
“Get everyone down to Mechanical. Everyone you can and as fast as you can. Now.”
“I feel like I should be going up,” Hank said. “Everyone is storming up.”
“No!” Juliette screamed into her radio. Walker startled and dropped the other radio’s microphone. “Listen to me, Hank. Everyone you can. Down here. Now!”
She cradled the radio in both hands, glanced around the room to see what else she should grab.
“Are we sealing off Mechanical?” Courtnee asked. “Like before?”
Courtnee must’ve been thinking about the steel plating welded across security during the holdout. The scars of those joints were still visible, the plating long gone.
“No time for that,” Juliette said. She didn’t add that it might all be pointless. The air could already be spoiled. No telling how long it took. A part of her mind wanted to focus on all that lay above her, all that she couldn’t save, the people and the things as well. Everything good and needed in the world that was now out of reach.
“Grab anything crucial and let’s go.” She looked to the two of them. “We need to go right now. Courtnee, get to the kids and get them back to their silo—”
“But you said … that mob—”
“I don’t care about them. Go. And take Walk with you. See that he gets to the dig. I’ll meet you there.”
“Where are you going?” Courtnee asked.
“To get as many others as I can.”
????
The hallways of Mechanical were strangely devoid of panic. Juliette ran through scenes of normalcy, of people walking to and from their shifts, trolleys of spare parts and heavy pumps, a shower of sparks from someone welding, a flickering flashlight and a passer-by tapping it with their fist. The radio had brought word to her ahead of time. No one else knew.
“Get to the dig,” she shouted to everyone she passed. “That’s an order. Now. Now. Go.”
There was a delayed response. Questions. Excuses. People explained where they were heading, that they were busy, that they didn’t have time right then.
Juliette saw Dawson’s wife, Raina, who would’ve been just coming off shift. Juliette grabbed her by the shoulders. Raina’s eyes widened, her body stiffened, to be handled like that.
“Get to the classroom,” Juliette told her. “Get your kids, get all the kids, and get them through the tunnel. Now.”
“What the hell’s going on?” someone asked. A few people jostled by in the narrow passageway. One of Juliette’s old hands from first shift was there. A crowd was forming.
“Get to the fucking dig,” Juliette shouted. “We’ve got to clear out. Grab everyone you can, your kids, anything you think you need. This is not a drill. Go. Go!”
She clapped her hands. Raina was the first to turn and run, pushing herself through the packed corridor. Those who knew her best leapt into action soon after, rounding up others. Juliette raced toward the stairwell, shouting as she did for everyone to get to the other silo. She vaulted over the security gates, the guard on duty looking up with a startled “Hey!” Behind her, she could hear someone else yelling for everyone to follow, to get moving. Ahead of her, the stairway itself trembled. She could hear welds singing and loose struts rattling. Over this, she could hear the sound of boots stomping her way.
Juliette stood at the bottom of the stairwell and peered up through that wide gap between the stairs and the stairwell’s concrete wall. Various landings jutted out overhead, wide bands of steel that became narrow ribbons higher up. The shaft receded into darkness. And then she saw the white clouds like smoke higher up. Maybe from the Mids.
She squeezed the radio.
“Hank?”
No response.
“Hank, come back.”