68
2345
• Silo 1 •
THERE WAS A plastic bag waiting on Donald’s bunk when he got back to his room. He shut the door to block out the cacophony of traffic and office chatter, searched for a lock and saw that there wasn’t one. Here was a lone bedroom among workspaces, a place for men who were always on call, who were up for as long as they were needed.
Donald imagined this was where Thurman stayed when he was called forth in an emergency. He remembered the name on his boots and realised he didn’t have to imagine; it was happening.
The wheelchair had been removed, he saw, and a glass of water stood on the nightstand. He tossed the folders Eren had given him on the bed, sat down beside them and picked up the curious plastic bag.
Shift, it read, in large stencilled letters. The clear plastic was heavily wrinkled, a few items appearing inside as inscrutable bulges. Donald slid the plastic seal to the side and peeled open the bag. Turning it over, there was a jingle of metal as a pair of dog tags rattled out, a fine chain slithering after them like a startled snake. Donald inspected the tags and saw that they were Thurman’s. Dented and thin, and without the rubber edging he remembered from his sister’s tags, they seemed like antiques. Which he supposed they were.
A small pocketknife was next. The handle looked like ivory but was probably a substitute. Donald opened the blade and tested it. Both sides were equally dull. The tip had been snapped off at some point, used to prise something open, perhaps. It had the look of a memento, no longer good for cutting.
The only other item in the bag was a coin, a quarter. The shape and heft of something once so common made it difficult for him to breathe. Donald thought of an entire civilisation, gone. It seemed impossible for so much to be wiped out, but then he remembered Roman coins and Mayan coins sitting in museums. He turned this coin over and over and contemplated the only thing unusual about him holding a trinket from a world fallen to ashes – and that was him being around to marvel at the loss. It was supposed to be people who died and cultures that lasted. Now it was the other way around.
Something about the coin caught Donald’s attention as he turned it over and over. It was heads on both sides. He laughed and inspected it more closely, wondering if it was a joke item, but the feel of the thing seemed genuine. On one of the sides, there was a faint arc where the stamp had missed its mark. A mistake? Perhaps a gift to Thurman from a friend in the Treasury?
He placed the items on the bedside table and remembered Anna’s note to her father. He was surprised not to find a locket in the bag. The note had been marked urgent and had mentioned a locket with a date. Donald folded the bag marked Shift and slid it beneath his glass of water. People hurried up and down the hall outside. The silo was in a panic. He supposed if the real Thurman were there, the old man would be storming up and down as well, barking orders, shutting down facilities, ordering lives to be taken.
Donald coughed into the crook of his arm, his throat tickling. Someone had put him in this position. Erskine, or Victor beyond the grave, or maybe a hacker with more nefarious designs. He had nothing to go on.
Lifting the two folders, he thought of the panic roused by a person meandering out of sight. He thought about the violence brewing in the depths of another silo. These were not his mysteries, he thought. What he wanted to know was why he was awake, why he was even alive. What exactly was out there beyond those walls? What was the plan for the world once these shifts were over? Would there be a day when the people underground would be set free?
Something didn’t sit right with him, imagining how that last shift would play out. There was a nagging suspicion that things wouldn’t end so simply. Every layer he’d peeled back so far possessed its share of lies, and he didn’t think he was done uncovering them. Perhaps someone had placed him in Thurman’s boots to keep digging.
He recalled what Erskine had said about people like himself being in charge. Or was it Victor who said it to Erskine? He couldn’t remember. What he did know, patting his pocket for the badge there – a badge that would open doors previously locked to him – was that he was very much in charge now. There were questions he wanted answers to. And now he was in a position to ask them.
Donald coughed into his elbow once more, an itch in his throat that he couldn’t quite soothe. He opened one of the folders and reached for his glass. Taking a few gulps of water and beginning to read, he failed to notice the faint stain left behind, the spot of blood in the crook of his elbow.