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• Silo 1 •
TROY WOKE UP in a fog, groggy and disoriented, his head pulsing. He lifted his hands and groped in front of his face, expecting to find the chill of icy glass, the press of domed steel, the doom of a deep freeze. His hands found only empty air. The clock beside his bed showed it was a little after three in the morning.
He sat up and saw that he had on a pair of gym shorts. He couldn’t remember changing the night before, couldn’t remember going to bed. Planting his feet on the floor, he rested his elbows on his knees, sank his head into his palms and sat there a moment. His entire body ached.
After a few minutes slipped by, he dressed himself in the dark, buckling up his overalls. Light would be bad for his headache. It wasn’t a theory he needed to test.
The hallway outside was still dimmed for the evening, just bright enough to grope one’s way to the shared bathrooms. Troy stole down the hall and headed for the lift.
He hit the ‘up’ button, hesitated, wasn’t sure if that was right. Something tugged at him. He pressed the ‘down’ button as well.
It was too early to go into his office, not unless he wanted to fiddle on the computer. He wasn’t hungry, but he could go up and watch the sun rise. The late shift would be up there drinking coffee. Or he could hit the rec room and go for a jog. That would mean going back to his room to change.
The lift arrived with a beep while he was still deciding. Both lights went off, the up and the down. He could take this lift anywhere.
Troy stepped inside. He didn’t know where he wanted to go.
The lift closed. It waited on him patiently. Eventually, he figured, it would whisk off to heed some other call, pick up a person with purpose, someone with a destination. He could stand there and do nothing and let that other soul decide.
Running his finger across the buttons, he tried to remember what was on each level. There was a lot he’d memorised, but not everything he knew felt accessible. He had a sudden urge to head for one of the lounges and watch TV, just let the hours slide past until he finally needed to be somewhere. This was how the shift was supposed to go. Waiting and then doing. Sleeping and then waiting. Make it to dinner and then make it to bed. The end was always in sight. There was nothing to rebel against, just a routine.
The lift shook into motion. Troy jerked his hand away from the buttons and took a step back. It didn’t show where he was going but it felt as if it had started downwards.
Only a few floors passed before the lift lurched to a halt. The doors opened on a lower apartment level. A familiar face from the cafeteria, a man in reactor red, smiled as he stepped inside.
‘Morning,’ he said.
Troy nodded.
The man turned and jabbed one of the lower buttons, one of the reactor levels. He studied the otherwise blank array, turned and gave Troy a quizzical look.
‘You feeling okay, sir?’
‘Hmm? Oh, yeah.’
Troy leaned forward and pressed sixty-eight. The man’s concern for his well-being must’ve had him thinking of the doctor, even though Henson wouldn’t be on shift for several hours. But there was something else nagging him, something he felt he needed to see, a dream slipping away.
‘Must not have taken the first time,’ he explained, glancing at the button.
‘Mmm.’
The silence lasted one or two floors.
‘How much longer you got?’ the reactor mechanic asked.
‘Me? Just another couple of weeks. How about you?’
‘I just got on a week ago. But this is my second shift.’
‘Oh?’
The lights counted downward in floors but upward in number. Troy didn’t like this; he felt as if the lowest level should be level one. They should count up.
‘Is the second shift easier?’ he asked. The question came out unbidden. It was as though the part of him dying to know was more awake than the part of him praying for silence.
The mechanic considered this.
‘I wouldn’t say it’s easier. How about . . . less uncomfortable?’ He laughed quietly. Troy felt their arrival in his knees, gravity tugging on him. The doors beeped open.
‘Have a good one,’ the mechanic said. They hadn’t shared their names. ‘In case I don’t see you again.’
Troy raised his palm. ‘Next time,’ he said. The man stepped out, and the doors winked shut on the halls to the power plant. With a hum, the lift continued its descent.
The doors dinged on the medical level. Troy stepped out and heard voices down the corridor. He crept quietly across the tile, and the voices became louder. One was female. It wasn’t a conversation; it must have been an old movie. Troy peeked into the main office and saw a man lounging on a gurney, his back turned, a TV set up in the corner. Troy slunk past so as not to disturb him.
The hallway split in two directions. He imagined the layout, could picture the pie-shaped storerooms, the rows of deep-freeze coffins, the tubes and pipes that led from the walls to the bases, from the bases into the people inside.
He stopped at one of the heavy doors and tried his code. The light changed from red to green. He dropped his hand, didn’t need to enter this room, didn’t feel the urge, just wanted to see if it would work. The urge was elsewhere.
He meandered down the hall past a few more doors. Wasn’t he just here? Had he ever left? His arm throbbed. He rolled back his sleeve and saw a spot of blood, a circle of redness around a pinprick scab.
If something bad had happened, he couldn’t remember. That part of him had been choked off.
He tried his code on this other pad, this other door, and waited for the light to turn green. This time, he pushed the button that opened the door. He didn’t know what it was, but there was something inside that he needed to see.