“Three, four inches.”
Erik scratched his beard. Juliette realized half the men around that table were doing some kind of figuring. Not a one of them was going to talk her out of this.
“It would take twenty to thirty sticks,” someone said.
Juliette searched out the voice and saw a man she didn’t recognize. Someone from the Mids who had made it down, maybe. But he was wearing a mechanic’s coveralls.
“You all had one-inch plate welded up at the base of the stairwell. We used eight sticks to punch through it. I’d say plan on three to four times that.”
“You’re a transfer?” Juliette asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. And looking past the grime to his cropped hair and bright smile, Juliette thought she could see the Up-Topper in there. One of the men sent from IT to bolster the shifts in Mechanical. Someone who had blown open the barrier her friends had erected during the uprising. He knew what he was talking about.
Juliette looked to the others. “Before I go, I’ll reach out to a few of these silos, see if any will harbor you. But I’ve got to warn you, the heads of these joints all work for these people. They’d as likely kill you when you come crashing through their walls as feed you. I don’t know what’s salvageable here, but you might be better off staying put. Imagine what we would’ve thought if a few hundred strangers cut their way inside our home and asked to be put up.”
“We would’ve let them,” Bobby said.
Fitz sneered. “Easy for you to say, you’ve got your two kids. What about those of us in the lottery?”
This got several people talking all at once. Erik slapped the conveyor belt with his hand to silence them. “That’s enough,” he said. He glared at those gathered. “She’s right. We need to know where we’re headed first. In the meantime, we can start staging. We’re gonna want all the supports in the mines of this place, which means a lot of water to pump out and exploring to do.”
“How exactly are we going to aim this thing?” Bobby asked. “She was a bitch to steer here. These things aren’t fond of turning.”
Erik nodded. “Already thought of that. We’ll dig around it and give her room enough to spin in place. Court says it’s possible to run a set of tracks at a time, a little forward on one side, a little back on the other. She’ll creep around as long as there’s no earth in the way.”
Raph appeared at Juliette’s side. He had been hanging back during the discussion. “I’m coming with you,” he said.
Juliette realized it wasn’t a question. She nodded.
When Erik was done explaining what they needed to do next, workers began to scatter. Juliette caught Erik’s attention and showed him her radio. “I’m going to go see Courtnee and my dad before I leave, and I’ve got some friends that headed off to the farms. I’ll have someone bring you down a radio as soon as I find another. And a charger. If I make contact with a silo that’ll have you, I’ll let you know.”
Erik nodded. He started to say something, scanned the faces of those still milling about, then waved her to the side. Juliette handed her radio to Raph and followed.
A few paces away, Erik glanced around and waved her further along. And then further. Until they were at the far end of the tailings facility where the very last bulb swayed and flickered.
“I’ve heard what some of them are sayin’,” Erik said. “I just want you to know it’s ratshit, okay?”
Juliette scrunched up her face in confusion. Erik took a deep breath, eyed his workers in the distance. “My wife was working in the one-twenties when this went down. Everyone around her was running up, and as much as she felt the urge to join them, she headed straight down here to our kids. Was the only one on her level to make it. She fought a helluva crowd to get here. People were acting crazy.”
Juliette squeezed his arm. “I’m glad she made it.” She watched the dangling lights shine in Erik’s eyes.
“Goddammit, Jules, listen to what I’m telling you. This morning, I woke up on a rusted sheet of plate steel, a crick in my neck I may live with for the rest of my life, two damn kids sleeping on me like a mattress, and my ass dead numb from the cold—”
Juliette laughed.
“—but Lesley is laying there watching me. Like she’s been watching me a long while. And my wife looks around us at this rusted hellhole, and she says thank God we had this place to come to.”
Juliette turned away and wiped at her eyes. Erik grabbed her arm and made her face him. He wasn’t going to let her retreat like that.
“She hated this dig. Hated it. Hated me taking on a second shift, hated it because of my bitchin’ and moanin’ over the struts you made me pull, what we did to number six. Hated it because I hated it. You understand?”