13

　　Marnes and Jahns were guided to the mess hall by Marck, a mechanic just getting off second shift.

　　Marnes seemed to take umbrage¹ at needing a tour guide. The deputy possessed² that distinctly malequality of pretending to know where he was, even when he didn’t. Walking slightly ahead in anattempt to prove this, he would pause at some intersection³, point questioningly in one direction, onlyto have Marck laugh and correct him.

　　“But it all looks the same,” he grumbled⁴ as he continued to forge ahead.

　　Jahns laughed at the manly⁵ display and hung back to bend the young mechanic’s ear, recognizingthat he worked on Juliette’s shift. He smelled of the down deep, that odor that wafted⁶ in whenever amechanic came up to repair something in her offices. It was the blend born of their work, a mix ofperspiration, grease, and vague chemicals. But Jahns was learning to ignore that. She saw that Marckwas a kind and gentle man, a man who took her by the arm when a trolley⁷ of rattling⁸ parts washurried past, a man who acknowledged every single person they passed in those dim corridors ofjutting pipes and drooping⁹ wires. He lived and breathed well above his lot in life, Jahns thought. Heradiated confidence. Even in the darkness, his smile threw shadows.

　　“How well do you know Juliette?” she asked him, once the noisy cart rattled¹⁰ out of earshot.

　　“Jules? I know her like a sister. We’re all family down here.”

　　He said this as though he assumed the rest of the silo operated differently. Ahead of them, Marnesscratched his head at the next intersection before guessing correctly. A pair of mechanics crowdedaround the corner from the other direction, laughing. They and Marck exchanged a snippet ofconversation that sounded to Jahns like a foreign language. She suspected Marck was right, thatperhaps things did work differently in the deepest depths of the silo. People down there seemed towear their thoughts and feelings on the outside, seemed to say exactly what they meant, much as thepipes and wires of the place lay exposed and bare.

　　“Through here,” Marck said, pointing across a wide hall toward the sound of overlappingconversations and the tinking of knives and forks on metal plates.

　　“So, is there anything you can tell us about Jules?” Jahns asked. She smiled at Marck as he heldthe door for her. “Anything you think we should know?” The two of them followed Marnes to ahandful of empty seats. The kitchen staff bustled¹¹ among the tables, actually serving the food ratherthan having the mechanics line up for it. Before they’d even situated¹² themselves on the dentedaluminum benches, bowls of soup and glasses of water with lime slices bobbing on top were beingset out, and hunks of bread torn from loaves and placed directly on the beaten-up surface of the table.

　　“Are you asking me to vouch¹³ for her?” Marck sat down and thanked the large man who portionedout their food and spoons. Jahns looked around for a napkin and saw most of the men and womenusing the greasy¹⁴ rags that dangled¹⁵ from their back or breast pockets.

　　“Just anything we should know,” she said.

　　Marnes studied his bread, sniffed¹⁶ it, then dunked one corner into his soup. A neighboring tableerupted with laughter at the conclusion of some story or joke being told.

　　“I know she can do any job thrown at her. Always could. But I figure you don’t need me to talkyou into something you’ve already walked this far to get. I’d imagine your minds are already madeup.”

　　He sipped¹⁷ on a spoonful of soup. Jahns picked up her utensil¹⁹ and saw that it was chipped andtwisted, the butt²⁰ of the spoon scratched like it’d been used to gouge²¹ at something.

　　“How long have you known her?” Marnes asked. The deputy chewed on his soggy bread and wasdoing a heroic job of blending in with his surroundings, of looking like he belonged.

　　“I was born down here,” Marck told them, raising his voice over the din-filled room. “I wasshadowing in Electrical when Jules showed up. She was a year younger than me. I gave her twoweeks before I figured she’d be kicking and screaming to get out of here. We’ve had our share ofrunaways and transfers, kids from the mids thinking their problems wouldn’t dare follow them—”

　　He left the sentence short, his eyes lighting²² up as a demure²³ woman squeezed in next to Marnes onthe other side of the table. This new arrival wiped her hands with her rag, stuffed it into her breastpocket, and leaned over the table to kiss Marck on the cheek.

　　“Honey, you remember Deputy Marnes.” Marck gestured to Marnes, who was wiping hismustache with the palm of his hand. “This is my wife, Shirly.” They shook hands. The dark stains onShirly’s knuckles²⁴ seemed permanent, a tattoo²⁵ from her work.

　　“And your mayor. This is Jahns.” The two women shook hands as well. Jahns was proud ofherself for accepting the firm grip without caring about the grease.

　　“Pleased,” Shirly said. She sat. Her food had somehow materialized during the introductions, thesurface of her soup undulating and throwing off steam.

　　“Has there been a crime, officer?” Shirly smiled at Marnes as she tore off a piece of her bread,letting him know it was a joke.

　　“They came to harangue²⁶ Jules into moving up top with them,” Marck said, and Jahns caught himlifting an eyebrow²⁷ at his wife.

　　“Good luck,” she said. “If that girl moves a level, it’ll be down from here and into the mines.”

　　Jahns wanted to ask what she meant, but Marck turned and continued where he’d left off.

　　“So I was working in Electrical when she showed up—”

　　“You boring them with your shadow days?” Shirly asked.

　　“I’m tellin’ them about when Jules arrived.”

　　His wife smiled.

　　“I was studying under old Walk at the time. This was back when he was still moving around,getting out and about now and then—”

　　“Oh yeah, Walker.” Marnes jabbed a spoon at Jahns. “Crafty fellow. Never leaves his workshop.”

　　Jahns nodded, trying to follow. Several of the revelers at the neighboring table got up to leave.

　　Shirly and Marck waved good-bye and exchanged words with several of them, before turning theirattention back to the table.

　　“Where was I?” Marck asked. “Oh, so the first time I met Jules was when she arrived at Walk’sshop with this pump.” Marck took a sip¹⁸ of his water. “One of the first things they have her doing—now, keep in mind this is just a waif of a girl, right? Thirteen years old. Skinny as a pipe. Fresh fromthe mids or somewhere up there.” He waved his hand like it was all the same. “They’ve got herhauling these massive pumps up to Walk’s to have him respool the motors, basically unwrap a mileof wire and lay it back in place.” Marck paused and laughed. “Well, to have Walk make me do all thework. Anyway, it’s like this initiation²⁸, you know? You all do that sort of thing to your shadows,right? Just to break ’em down a little?”

　　Neither Jahns nor Marnes moved. Marck shrugged²⁹ and continued. “Anyway, these pumps areheavy, okay? They had to weigh more than she did. Maybe double. And she’s supposed to wrestlethese things onto carts by herself and get them up four flights of stairs—”

　　“Wait. How?” Jahns asked, trying to imagine a girl that age moving a hunk of metal twice herweight.

　　“Doesn’t matter. Pulleys, ropes, bribery³⁰, whatever she likes. That’s the point, right? And they’vegot ten of these things set aside for her to deliver—”

　　“Ten of them,” Jahns repeated.

　　“Yeah, and probably two of them actually needed respooling,” Shirly added.

　　“Oh, if that.” Mark laughed. “So Walk and I are taking bets on how long before she cuts and runsback to her old man.”

　　“I gave her a week,” Shirly said.

　　Marck stirred his soup and shook his head. “The thing was, after she pulled it off, none of us hadany idea how she’d done it. It was years later that she finally told us.”

　　“We were sitting over at that table.” Shirly pointed³¹. “I’d never laughed so hard in my life.”

　　“Told you what?” Jahns asked. She had forgotten her soup. The steam had long stopped swirlingfrom its surface.

　　“Well, sure enough, I wound the coils on ten pumps that week. The whole time, I’m waiting forher to break. Hoping for it. My fingers were sore. No way she could move all of them.” Marck shookhis head. “No way. But I kept winding³² them, she kept hauling them off, and a while later she’d bringanother. Got all ten of them done in six days. The little snot went to Knox, who was just a shiftmanager back then, and asked if she could take a day off.”

　　Shirly laughed and peered into her soup.

　　“So she got someone to help her,” Marnes said. “Somebody probably just felt sorry for her.”

　　Marck wiped his eyes and shook his head. “Aw, hell no. Somebody would’ve seen, would’ve saidsomething. Especially when Knox demanded to know. Old man nearly blew a fuse asking her whatshe’d done. Jules just stands there, calm as a dead battery, shrugging.”

　　“How did she do it?” Jahns asked. Now she was dying to know.

　　Marck smiled. “She only moved the one pump. Nearly broke her back getting it up here, but onlymoved the one.”

　　“Yeah, and you rewound that thing ten times,” Shirly said.

　　“Hey, you don’t have to tell me.”

　　“Wait.” Jahns held up her hand. “But what about the others?”

　　“Done them herself. I blame Walk, talking his head off while she swept the shop that first night.

　　She was asking questions, badgering me, watching me work on that first pump. When I got done, shepushed the pump down the hall, didn’t bother with the stairs, and stowed it in the paint shop right onthe trolley. Then she went downstairs, got the next pump, and hauled it around the corner into thetool lock-up. Spent the entire night in there teaching herself how to rewire a motor.”

　　“Ah,” Jahns said, seeing where this was going. “And the next morning she brought you the samepump from the day before, from just around the corner.”

　　“Right. Then she went and wound copper³³ four levels below while I was doing the same thing uphere.”

　　Marnes erupted with laughter and slapped the table, bowls and bread hopping³⁴.

　　“I averaged two motors a day that week, a brutal³⁵ pace.”

　　“Technically, it was only one motor,” Shirly pointed out, laughing.

　　“Yeah. And she kept up with me. Had them all back to her caster with a day to spare, a day sheasked to take off.”

　　“A day she got off, if I remember right,” Shirly added. She shook her head. “A shadow with a dayoff. The damnedest thing.”

　　“The point is, she wasn’t ever supposed to get the task done in the first place.”

　　“Smart girl,” Jahns said, smiling.

　　“Too smart,” Marck said.

　　“So what did she do with her day off?” Marnes asked.

　　Marck pushed his lime down beneath the surface of his water with his finger and held it there amoment.

　　“She spent the day with me and Walk, sweeping³⁶ the shop, asking how things worked, where thesewires went to, how to loosen a bolt and dig inside something, that kind of stuff.” He took a sip ofwater. “I guess what I’m sayin’ is that if you want to give Jules a job, be very careful.”

　　“Why be careful?” Marnes asked.

　　Marck gazed up at the confusion of pipes and wires overhead.

　　“’Cause she’ll damn well do it. Even if you don’t really expect her to.”

 

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