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　　She was allowed a visitor, but who would Juliette want to see her like this? No one. So she sat withher back against the bars, the bleak¹ view outside brightening with the rising of an unseen sun, thefloor around her bare of folders² and ghosts. She was alone, stripped of a job she wasn’t sure she hadever wanted, a pile of bodies in her wake, her simple and easily understood life having comeunraveled.

　　“I’m sure this will pass,” a voice behind her said. Juliette leaned away from the steel rods andlooked around to find Bernard standing³ behind her, his hands wrapped around the bars.

　　Juliette moved away from him and sat on the cot, turning her back to the gray view.

　　“You know I didn’t do this,” she said. “He was my friend.”

　　Bernard frowned. “What do you think you’re being held for? The boy committed suicide. Heseems to have been distraught from recent tragedies. This is not unheard of when people move to anew section of the silo, away from friends and family, to take a job they’re not entirely⁴ suited for—”

　　“Then why am I being held here?” Juliette asked. She realized suddenly that there might be nodouble cleaning after all. Off to the side, down the hallway, she could see Peter shuffling⁵ back andforth as if a physical barrier prevented him from coming any closer.

　　“Unauthorized entry on the thirty- fourth,” Bernard said. “Threatening a member of the silo,tampering with IT affairs, removing IT property from secured quarters—”

　　“That’s ratshit,” Juliette said. “I was summoned by one of your workers. I had every right to bethere!”

　　“We will look into that,” Bernard said. “Well, Peter here will. I’m afraid he’s had to remove yourcomputer for evidence. My people down below are best qualified⁶ to see if—”

　　“Your people? Are you trying to be mayor or IT head? Because I looked into it, and the Pactclearly states you can’t be both—”

　　“That will be put to a vote soon enough. The Pact⁷ has changed before. It’s designed to changewhen events call for it.”

　　“And so you want me out of the way.” Juliette stepped closer to the bars so she could see PeterBillings, and have him see her. “I suppose you were to have this job all along? Is that right?”

　　Peter slunk out of sight.

　　“Juliette. Jules.” Bernard shook his head and clicked his tongue at her. “I don’t want you out ofthe way. I wouldn’t want that for any member of the silo. I want people to be in their place. Wherethey fit in. Scottie wasn’t cut out for IT. I see that now. And I don’t think you were meant for the uptop.”

　　“So, what, I’m banished⁸ back to Mechanical? Is that what’s going on? Over some ratshitcharges?”

　　“Banished is such a horrible word. I’m sure you didn’t mean that. And don’t you want your oldjob back? Weren’t you happier then? There’s so much to learn up here that you’ve never shadowedfor. And the people who thought you best fit for this job, who I’m sure hoped to ease you into it …”

　　He stopped right there, and it was somehow worse that he left the sentence hanging like that,forcing Jules to complete the image rather than just hear it. She pictured two mounds⁹ of freshlyturned soil in the gardens, a few mourning rinds tossed on top of them.

　　“I’m going to let you gather your things, what isn’t needed for evidence, and then allow you to seeyourself back down. As long as you check in with my deputies on the way and report your progress,we’ll drop these charges. Consider it an extension of my little … forgiveness holiday.”

　　Bernard smiled and straightened his glasses.

　　Juliette gritted¹⁰ her teeth. It occurred to her that she had never, in her entire life, punched someonein the face.

　　And it was only her fear of missing, of not doing it correctly and cracking her knuckles¹¹ on one ofthe steel bars, that stopped her from putting an end to that streak¹².

　　????

　　It was just about a week since she had arrived at the up top, and Juliette was leaving with fewerbelongings than she’d brought. A blue Mechanical overall had been provided, one much too big forher. Peter didn’t even say good-bye—Juliette thought more from shame than anger or blame. Hewalked her through the cafeteria to the top of the stairs, and as she turned to shake his hand, shefound him staring down at his toes, his thumbs caught in his overalls¹³, her sheriff’s badge pinned at anangle over his left breast.

　　Juliette began her long walk down through the length of the silo. It would be less physicallytaxing than her walk up had been, but more draining in other ways. What exactly had happened to thesilo, and why? She couldn’t help but feel in the middle of it all, that she should shoulder some of theblame. None of this would have happened had they left her in Mechanical, had they never come tosee her in the first place. She would still be bitching about the alignment¹⁴ of the generator¹⁶, notsleeping at night as she waited for the inevitable¹⁷ failure and a descent into chaos¹⁸ as they learned tosurvive on backup power for the decades it would take to rebuild the thing. Instead, she had beenwitness to a different type of failure: a throwing not of switches but of bodies. She felt the worst forpoor Scottie, a boy with so much promise, so many talents, gone before his prime.

　　She had been sheriff for a short time, a star appearing on her breast for but a wink¹⁹, and yet she feltan incredible urge to investigate Scottie’s death. There was something not right about the boy havingkilled himself. The signs were there, sure. He had been afraid to leave his office—but then, he’d alsoshadowed under Walker and had maybe picked up the habit of reclusiveness from the old man.

　　Scottie had also been harboring secrets too big for his young mind, had been fearful enough to wireher to come quickly—but she knew him like her own shadow and knew he didn’t have it in him. Shesuddenly wondered if Marnes had ever had it in him as well. If Jahns were here beside her, would theold mayor be screaming for Jules to investigate both their deaths? Telling her that none of this fit?

　　“I can’t,” Juliette whispered to the ghost, causing an up-bound porter to turn his head as hepassed.

　　She kept further thoughts to herself. As she descended²⁰ toward her father’s nursery, she paused atthe landing, contemplating²¹ longer and harder the idea of going in to see him than she had on her wayup. Pride had prevented her the first time. And now shame set her feet into motion once again as shespiraled down away from him, chastising²² herself for thinking on the ghosts from her past that hadlong ago been banished from memory.

　　At the thirty-fourth, the main entrance to IT, she again considered stopping. There would be cluesin Scottie’s office, maybe even some they hadn’t managed to scrub away. She shook her head. Theconspiracies were already forming in her mind. And as hard as it was to leave the scene of the crimebehind, she knew she wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near his office.

　　She continued down the staircase and thought, as she considered IT’s location in the silo, that thiscouldn’t be an accident either. She had another thirty-two floors to go before she checked in with thefirst deputy, who was located near the center of the mids. The sheriff’s office was thirty-three floorsabove her head. IT, then, was as far as it could get from any deputy station in the silo.

　　She shook her head at this paranoid thinking. It wasn’t how diagnoses were made. Her fatherwould have told her so.

　　After meeting with the first deputy around noon, and accepting a piece of bread and fruit, alongwith a reminder²³ to eat, she made good time down through the mids, wondering as she passed theupper apartments which level Lukas lived on, or if he even knew of her arrest.

　　The weight of the past week seemed to pull her down the stairwell, gravity sucking at her boots,the pressures of being sheriff dissipating as she left that office far behind. Those pressures wereslowly replaced with an eagerness to return to her friends, even in shame, as she got closer and closerto Mechanical.

　　She stopped to see Hank, the down-deep deputy, on level one-twenty. She had known him for along time, was becoming surrounded with familiar faces, people who waved hello, their moodssomber, as if they knew every detail of her time away. Hank tried to get her to stay and rest awhile,but she only paused long enough to be polite, to refill her canteen, and then to shuffle²⁴ the remainingtwenty floors to the place she truly belonged.

　　Knox seemed thrilled to have her back. He wrapped her up in a crippling hug, lifting her feet offthe ground and roughing up her face with his beard. He smelled of grease and sweat, a mix Juliettehad never fully²⁵ noticed in the down deep because she had never been free from it.

　　The walk to her old room was punctuated²⁶ by slaps on her back, well-wishes, questions about theup top, people calling her sheriff in jest, and the sort of rude frivolities she had grown up in andgrown used to. Juliette felt more saddened by it all than anything. She had set out to do somethingand had failed. And yet her friends were just happy to have her back.

　　Shirly from second shift spotted²⁷ her coming down the hallway and accompanied Juliette on therest of the walk to her room. She updated Juliette on the status of the generator and the output fromthe new oil well, as if Juliette had simply been on vacation for a short while. Juliette thanked her atthe door to her room, stepped inside, and kicked her way through all the folded notes slipped underthe door. She lifted the strap²⁸ of her day pack over her head and dropped it, then collapsed²⁹ onto herbed, too exhausted³⁰ and upset at herself to even cry.

　　She awoke in the middle of the night. Her small display terminal showed the time in green blockynumbers: 2:14 a.m.

　　Juliette sat at the edge of her old bed in overalls that weren’t truly hers and took stock of hersituation. Her life was not yet over, she decided³¹. It just felt that way. Tomorrow, even if they didn’texpect her to, she would be back at work in the pits, keeping the silo humming, doing what she didbest. She needed to wake up to this reality, to set other ideas and responsibilities aside. Already, theyfelt so far away. She doubted she would even go to Scottie’s funeral, not unless they sent his bodydown to be buried where it belonged.

　　She reached for the keyboard slotted into the wall rack. Everything was covered in a layer ofgrime, she saw. She had never noticed it before. The keys were filthy³² from the dirt she had broughtback from each shift. The monitor’s glass was limned³³ with grease. She fought the urge to wipe thescreen and smear³⁴ the shiny coat of oil around, but she would have to clean her place a little deeper,she decided. She was viewing things with untainted and more critical eyes.

　　Rather than chase pointless sleep, she keyed the monitor awake to check the work logs for thenext day, anything to get her mind off the past week. But before she could open her task manager, shesaw that she had over a dozen wires in her inbox. She’d never seen so many. Usually people just slidrecycled notes under each other’s doors—but then, she had been a long way away when the news ofher arrest had hit, and she hadn’t been able to get to a computer since.

　　She logged on to her e-mail account and pulled up the most recent wire. It was from Knox. Just asemicolon and a parenthesis—a half-chit smile.

　　Juliette couldn’t help it; she smiled back. She could still smell Knox on her skin and realized, asfar as the big brute³⁵ was concerned, that all the troubles and problems percolating³⁶ in whispers downthe stairwell about her paled in comparison to her return. To him, the worst thing that had happenedin the last week was probably the challenge of replacing her on first shift.

　　Jules went to the next message, one from the third-shift foreman welcoming her home—probablybecause of the extra time his crew was putting in to help cover her old shift.

　　There was more. A day’s pay of a note from Shirly, wishing her well on her journey. These wereall notes they had hoped she would receive up top, to make the trip down easier, hoping she wouldn’tloathe herself or feel humiliated³⁷, or even a failure. Juliette felt tears well up at how considerate it allwas. She had an image of her desk, Holston’s desk, with nothing but unplugged wires snaking acrossits surface, her computer removed. There was no way she could’ve gotten these messages when theywere meant to be read. She wiped her eyes and tried not to think of the wired notes as money wasted,but rather as extravagant³⁸ tokens of her friendships in the down deep.

　　Reading each one, trying to hold it together, made the last message she came to doubly jarring. Itwas paragraphs long. Juliette assumed it was an official document, maybe a list of her offenses³⁹, aformal ruling against her. She had seen such messages only from the mayor’s office, usually onholidays, notes that went out to every silo member. But then she saw that it was from Scottie.

　　Juliette sat up straight and tried to clear her head. She started from the beginning, damning herblurred vision.

　　J—

　　I lied. Couldn’t delete this stuff. Found more. That tape I got you? Your joke was truth. And theprogram—NOT for big screen. Pxl density⁴⁰ not right. 32,768 x 8,192! Not sure what’s that size. 8’ x2’? So many pxls if so.

　　Putting more together. Don’t trust porters, so wiring this. Screw cost, wire me back. Need transfrto Mech. Not safe here.

　　—S

　　Juliette read it a second time, crying now. Here was the real voice of a ghost warning her ofsomething, all of it too late. And it wasn’t the voice of someone who was planning his own death—she was sure of that. She checked the time stamp of the wire; it was sent before she had even arrivedback at her office the day before, before Scottie had died.

　　Before he had been killed, she corrected herself. They must have found him snooping, or maybeher visit had alerted them. She wondered what IT could see, if they could break into her wire account,even. They must not have yet, or the message wouldn’t have been there, waiting for her.

　　She leapt suddenly from her bed and grabbed one of the folded notes by the door. Digging acharcoal from her daypack, she sat back down on the bed. She copied the entire wire, every oddspelling, double-checking each number, and then deleted the message. She had chills up and downher arms by the time she finished, as if some unseen person was racing⁴¹ toward her, hoping to breakinto her computer before she dispensed⁴² with the evidence. She wondered if Scottie had been cautiousenough to have deleted the note from his sent wires, and assumed, if he’d been thinking clearly, thathe would.

　　She sat back on her bed, holding the copied note, thoughts about the work log for the next daygone. Instead, she studied the sinister⁴³ mess revolving⁴⁴ around her, spiraling through the heart of thesilo. Things were bad, from top to bottom. A great set of gears had been thrown out of alignment. Shecould hear the noise from the past week, this thumping⁴⁵ and clanging, this machine lumbering⁴⁶ off itsmounts and leaving bodies in its wake.

　　And Juliette was the only one who could hear it. She was the only one who knew. And she didn’tknow who she could trust to help set things right. But she did know this: it would require adiminishing of power to align¹⁵ things once again. And there would be no way to call what happenednext a “holiday.”

 

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