羊毛战记 Part 2 Proper Gauge 15

　　15

　　It felt appropriate that their climb back to the up top would occur during a power holiday. Jahns couldfeel her own energy complying with the new decree, draining away with each laborious¹ step. Theagony of the descent had been a tease, the discomfort² of constant movement disguising itself as thefatigue of exercise. But now her frail³ muscles were really put to work. Each step was something to beconquered. She would lift a boot to the next tread, place a hand on her knee, and push herself anotherten inches up what felt like a million feet of spiral staircase.

　　The landing to her right displayed the number fifty-eight. Each landing seemed to be in viewforever. Not like the trip down, where she could daydream⁴ and skip right past several floors. Nowthey loomed⁵ in sight gradually beyond the outer railing and held there, taunting⁶ in the dim greenglow of the emergency lights, as she struggled upward, one plodding⁷ and wavering step at a time.

　　Marnes walked beside her, his hand on the inner rail, hers on the outer, the walking stick clangingon the lonely treads between them. Occasionally, their arms brushed against one another. It felt asthough they’d been away for months, away from their offices, their duties, their cold familiarity. Theadventure down to wrangle⁸ a new sheriff had played out differently than Jahns had imagined itwould. She had dreamed of a return to her youth and had instead found herself haunted by old ghosts.

　　She had hoped to find a renewed vigor⁹ and instead felt the years of wear in her knees and back. Whatwas to be a grand tour of her silo was instead trudged¹⁰ in relative anonymity¹¹, and now she wondered ifits operation and upkeep even needed her.

　　The world around her was stratified. She saw that ever more clearly. The up top concerned itselfwith a blurring¹² view, taking for granted the squeezed juice enjoyed with breakfast. The people wholived below and worked the gardens or cleaned animal cages orbited their own world of soil,greenery, and fertilizer. To them, the outside view was peripheral¹³, ignored until there was a cleaning.

　　And then there was the down deep, the machine shops and chemistry labs, the pumping oil andgrinding gears, the hands-on world of grease-limned fingernails and the musk¹⁴ of toil¹⁵. To these people,the outside world and the food that trickled¹⁶ down were mere¹⁷ rumors¹⁸ and bodily sustenance¹⁹. The pointof the silo was for the people to keep the machines running, when Jahns had always, her entire longlife, seen it the other way around.

　　Landing fifty-seven appeared through the fog of darkness. A young girl sat on the steel grate, herfeet tucked up against herself, arms wrapped around her knees, a children’s book in its protectiveplastic cover held out into the feeble light spilling from an overhead bulb. Jahns watched the girl,who was unmoved save her eyes as they darted²⁰ over the colorful pages. The girl never looked up tosee who was passing the apartment floor’s landing. They left her behind, and she gradually faded inthe darkness as Jahns and Marnes struggled ever upward, exhausted²¹ from their third day of climbing,no vibrations²² or ringing footsteps above or below them, the silo quiet and eerily²³ devoid²⁴ of life, roomenough for two old friends, two comrades, to walk side by side on the steps of chipping paint, theirarms swinging and every now and then, very occasionally, brushing together.

　　????

　　They stayed that night at the midlevel deputy station, the officer of the mids insisting they take hishospitality and Jahns eager to buttress²⁶ support for yet another sheriff nominated from outside theprofession. After a cold dinner in near darkness and enough idle banter²⁷ to satisfy their host and hiswife, Jahns retired²⁸ to the main office, where a convertible²⁹ couch had been made as comfortable aspossible, the linens³⁰ borrowed from a nicer elsewhere and smelling of two-chit soap. Marnes had beenset up on a cot in the holding cell, which still smelled of tub gin and a drunk who had gotten toocarried away after the cleaning.

　　It was impossible to notice when the lights went out, they were so dim already. Jahns rested on thecot in the darkness, her muscles throbbing³¹ and luxuriating in her body’s stillness, her feet crampedand feeling like solid bone, her back tender and in need of stretching. Her mind, however, continuedto move. It drifted back to the weary conversations that had passed the time on their most recent dayof climbing.

　　She and Marnes seemed to be spiraling around one another, testing the memory of old attractions,probing the tenderness of ancient scars, looking for some soft spot that remained among brittle³² andbroken bodies, across wrinkled and dried-paper skin, and within hearts callused by law and politics.

　　Donald’s name came up often and tentatively, like a child sneaking³³ into an adult bed, forcingwary lovers to make room in the middle. Jahns grieved anew for her long-lost husband. For the firsttime in her life, she grieved for the subsequent decades of solitude³⁴. What she had always seen as hercalling—this living apart and serving the greater good—now felt more like a curse. Her life had beentaken from her. Squeezed into pulp³⁵. The juice of her efforts and sacrificed years had dripped downthrough a silo that, just forty levels below her, hardly knew and barely cared.

　　The saddest part of this journey had been this understanding she’d come to with Holston’s ghost.

　　She could admit it now: a great reason for her hike, perhaps even the reason for wanting Juliette assheriff, was to fall all the way to the down deep, away from the sad sight of two lovers nestledtogether in the crook³⁷ of a hill as the wind etched away all their wasted youth. She had set out toescape Holston, and had instead found him. Now she understood, if not the mystery of why all thosesent out to clean actually did so, why a sad few would dare to volunteer for the duty. Better to join aghost than to be haunted by them. Better no life than an empty one—The door to the deputy’s office squeaked³⁸ on a hinge long worn beyond the repair of grease. Jahnstried to sit up, to see in the dark, but her muscles were too sore, her eyes too old. She wanted to callout, to let her hosts know that she was okay, in need of nothing, but she listened instead.

　　Footsteps came to her, nearly invisible in the worn carpet. There were no words, just the creakingof old joints³⁹ as they approached the bed, the lifting of expensive and fragrant⁴⁰ sheets, and anunderstanding between two living ghosts.

　　Jahns’s breath caught in her chest. Her hand groped for a wrist as it clutched her sheets. She slidover on the small convertible bed to make room and pulled him down beside her.

　　Marnes wrapped his arms around her back, wiggled beneath her until she was lying on his side, aleg draped over his, her hands on his neck. She felt his mustache brush against her cheek, heard hislips purse and peck the corner of hers.

　　Jahns held his cheeks and burrowed⁴¹ her face into his shoulder. She cried, like a schoolchild, like anew shadow who felt lost and afraid in the wilderness⁴² of a strange and terrifying job. She cried withfear, but that soon drained away. It drained like the soreness in her back as his hands rubbed herthere. It drained until numbness⁴³ found its place, and then, after what felt like a forever of shudderingsobs, sensation took over.

　　Jahns felt alive in her skin. She felt the tingle⁴⁴ of flesh touching⁴⁵ flesh, of just her forearm againsthis hard ribs⁴⁶, her hands on his shoulder, his hands on her hips⁴⁷. And then the tears were some joyousrelease, some mourning of the lost time, some welcomed sadness of a moment long delayed andfinally there, arms wrapped around it and holding tight.

　　She fell asleep like that, exhausted from far more than the climb, nothing more than a fewtrembling kisses, hands interlocking, a whispered word of tenderness and appreciation⁴⁸, and then thedepths of sleep pulling her down, the weariness in her joints and bones succumbing⁴⁹ to a slumber⁵⁰ shedidn’t want but sorely needed. She slept with a man in her arms for the first time in decades, andwoke to a bed familiarly empty, but a heart strangely full.

　　????

　　In the middle of their fourth and final day of climbing, they approached the midthirties of IT.

　　Jahns had found herself taking more breaks for water and to rub her muscles along the way, not forthe exhaustion⁵¹ she feigned⁵² but the dread⁵³ of this stopover and seeing Bernard, the fear of their tripever coming to an end.

　　The dark and deep shadows cast by the power holiday followed them up, the traffic sparse⁵⁴ as mostmerchants had closed for the silo-wide brownout. Juliette, who had stayed behind to oversee⁵⁵ therepairs, had warned Jahns of the flickering⁵⁶ lights from the backup generator⁵⁷. Still, the effect of theshimmering illumination had worn on her nerves during the long climb. The steady pulsing remindedher of a bad lightbulb she’d unhappily endured for the better part of her first term. Two different techsfrom Electrical had come to inspect the bulb. Both had deemed it too operational to replace. It hadtaken an appeal to McLain, the head of Supply even back then, to score her a replacement⁵⁸.

　　Jahns remembered McLain delivering the bulb herself. She hadn’t been head of Supply for longand had fairly smuggled⁵⁹ the thing up those many flights of stairs. Even then, Jahns had looked up toher, this woman with so much power and responsibility. She remembered McLain asking her whyJahns didn’t just do what everyone else did—simply break the bulb the rest of the way.

　　The fact that this had never occurred to Jahns used to bother her—until she began to take pride inthis failing; until she got to know McLain well enough to understand the question was a compliment,the hand-delivery her reward.

　　When they reached the thirty-fourth, Jahns felt like they were, in a sense, home again: back in therealm of the familiar, at the main landing for IT. She waited by the railing, leaning on it and herwalking stick, while Marnes got the door. As it was cracked open, the pale glow of diminished powerwas swept off the stairwell by the bright lights blooming inside. It hadn’t been widely publicized, butthe reason for the severe power restrictions⁶⁰ on other levels was largely the exemptions⁶¹ IT possessed⁶².

　　Bernard had been quick to point out various clauses in the Pact⁶³ to support this. Juliette had bitchedthat servers shouldn’t get priority over grow lights but resigned herself to getting the main generatorrealigned and taking what she could. Jahns told Juliette to view this as her first lesson in politicalcompromise. Juliette said she saw it as a display of weakness.

　　Inside, Jahns found Bernard waiting for them, a look on his face like he’d swallowed sour fruitjuice. A conversation between several IT workers standing³⁶ off to the side was quickly silenced withtheir entry, leaving Jahns little doubt that they’d been spotted⁶⁴ on the way up and expected.

　　“Bernard,” she said, trying to keep her breathing steady. She didn’t want him to know how tiredshe was. Let him think she was strolling by on her way up from the down deep, like it was no bigdeal.

　　“Marie.”

　　It was a deliberate slight. He didn’t even look Marnes’s way or acknowledge that the deputy wasin the room.

　　“Would you like to sign these here? Or in the conference room?” She dug into her bag for thecontract with Juliette’s name on it.

　　“What games are you playing at, Marie?”

　　Jahns felt her temperature rise. The cluster of workers in silver IT jumpsuits were following theexchange. “Playing at?” she asked.

　　“You think this power holiday of yours is cute? Your way of getting back at me?”

　　“Getting back—?”

　　“I’ve got servers, Marie—”

　　“Your servers have their full allocation of power,” Jahns reminded him, her voice rising.

　　“But their cooling comes ducted from Mechanical, and if temps get any higher, we’ll be rampingdown, which we’ve never had to do!”

　　Marnes stepped between the two of them, his hands raised. “Easy,” he said coolly, his gaze onBernard.

　　“Call off your little shadow here,” Bernard said.

　　Jahns placed a hand on Marnes’s arm.

　　“The Pact is clear, Bernard. It’s my choice. My nomination⁶⁵. You and I have a nice history ofsigning off on each others’—”

　　“And I told you this girl from the pits will not do—”

　　“She’s got the job,” Marnes said, interrupting. Jahns noticed his hand had fallen to the butt²⁵ of hisgun. She wasn’t sure if Bernard had noticed or not, but he fell silent. His eyes, however, did not leaveJahns’s.

　　“I won’t sign it.”

　　“Then next time, I won’t ask.”

　　Bernard smiled. “You think you’ll outlive another sheriff?” He turned toward the workers in thecorner and waved one of them over. “Why do I somehow doubt that?”

　　One of the technicians removed himself from the whispering group and approached. Jahnsrecognized the young man from the cafeteria, had seen him up top on nights she worked late. Lukas,if she remembered correctly. He shook her hand and smiled an awkward hello.

　　Bernard twirled his own hand, stirring the air with his impatience⁶⁶. “Sign whatever she needs. Irefuse to. Make copies. Take care of the rest.” He waved dismissively, turned and looked Marnes andJahns up and down one final time as if disgusted with their condition, their age, their positions,something. “Oh, and have Sims top up their canteens. See that they have food enough to stagger totheir homes. Whatever it takes to power their decrepit⁶⁷ legs out of here and back to wherever it is theybelong.”

　　And with that, Bernard strode off toward the barred gates that led into the heart of IT, back to hisbrightly lit offices, where servers hummed happily, the temperature rising in the slow-moving air likethe heat of angered flesh as capillaries⁶⁸ squeezed, the blood in them rising to a boil.

 

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