59

　　• Silo 17 •

　　Juliette flicked¹ the lights on in the Suit Lab as she hauled in her latest load from Supply. Unlike Solo,she didn’t take the constant source of power for granted. Not knowing where it came from made hernervous that it wouldn’t last. So while he had the habit, the compulsion even, of turning every lighton to full and leaving it there, she tried to conserve² the mysterious energy as much as possible.

　　She dropped her recent scavenges on her cot, thinking of Walker as she did so. Is this how heended up living among his work? Was it the obsession³, the drive, the need to keep hammering awayat a series of never-ending problems until he couldn’t sleep more than a few paces from them?

　　The more she understood the old man, the farther away from him she felt, the lonelier. She satdown and rubbed her legs, her thighs⁴ and calves⁵ tight from the most recent hike up. She may’ve beengaining her porter legs these last weeks, but they were still sore all the time, the ache in them aconstant new sensation. Squeezing the muscles transformed that ache into pain, which she somehowpreferred. The sharp and definable sensations were better than the dull and nameless kind. She likedfeelings she could understand.

　　Juliette kicked her boots off—strange to think of these scavenged things as hers—and stood up.

　　That was enough rest. It was as much rest as she could allow herself to have. She carried her canvassacks to one of the fancy workbenches, everything in the Suit Lab nicer than what she’d had inMechanical. Even the parts engineered to fail were constructed with a level of chemical andengineering sophistication she could only begin to appreciate now that she understood their evilintent. She had amassed⁶ piles of washers and seals, the good from Supply and the leftover⁷ bad fromthe lab, to see how the system worked. They sat along the back of her main workbench, a reminder⁸ ofthe diabolical⁹ murderousness with which she’d been sent away.

　　She dumped the parts from Supply and thought about how strange it was to have access to, to livein this forbidden heart of some other silo. It was stranger still to appreciate these workbenches, theseimmaculate tools, all arranged for the purpose of sending people like her to their death.

　　Looking around at the walls, at the dozen or so cleaning suits hanging from racks in various statesof repair, it was like living and working in a room full of ghostly apparitions¹⁰. If one of those suitsjumped down and started moving about on its own, it wouldn’t have surprised her. The arms and legson each one were puffy, as if full, the mirrored visors easily concealing¹¹ curious faces. It was likehaving company, these hanging forms. They watched her impassively while she sorted her finds intotwo piles: one of items she needed for her next big project, the other of useful tidbits she had snaggedwith no specific idea of what she might use them for.

　　A valuable rechargeable battery went in this second group, some blood still on it that she hadn’tbeen able to wipe off. Images flashed through her mind of some of the scenes she’d found whilescrounging for materials, like the two men who had committed suicide in the head office of Supply,their hands interlocked, opposite wrists slit¹², a rust-colored stain all around them. This was one of theworst scenes, a memory she couldn’t shake. There was more evidence of violence scattered¹³ about thesilo. The entire place was haunted and marred¹⁴. She completely understood why Solo limited hisrounds to the gardens. She also empathized with his habit of blocking off the server room every nightwith the filing cabinet, even though he had been alone for years. Juliette didn’t blame him. She slidthe dead bolts on the Suit Lab every night before she went to sleep. She didn’t really believe inghosts, but that conviction was being sorely tested by the constant feeling of being watched by—ifnot actual people—the silo itself.

　　She began her work on the air compressor and, as always, it felt good to be doing something withher hands. Fixing something. Staying distracted. The first few nights, after surviving the horribleordeal of being sent to clean, of fighting her way inside this carcass of a silo, she had searched longand hard for someplace that she could actually sleep. It was never going to be below the server room,not with the stench of Solo’s debris¹⁵ piles pervading¹⁶ the place. She tried the apartment for IT’s head,but thoughts of Bernard made it impossible even to sit still. The couches in the various officesweren’t long enough. The pad she’d tried to put together on the warm server-room floor was nice, butthe clicking and whirring of all those tall cabinets nearly drove her insane.

　　The Suit Lab, strangely enough, with the specters and ghouls hanging about, was the only spotwhere she’d won a decent night of sleep. It was probably the tools everywhere, the welders¹⁷ andwrenches, the walls of drawers full of every socket¹⁹ and driver imaginable. If she was going to fixanything, even herself, it would be there in that room. The only other place she’d felt at home in siloseventeen was in the two jail cells she sometimes slept in on trips up and down. There, and sittingbehind that empty server, talking to Lukas.

　　She thought about him as she crossed the room to grab the right- size tap from one of theexpansive metal tool chests. She pocketed this and pulled down one of the complete cleaning suits,admiring the heft of the outfit²⁰, remembering how bulky it had felt when she’d worn one just like it.

　　She lifted it onto a workbench and pulled off the helmet’s locking collar, took this to the drill pressand carefully bored a starter hole. With the collar in a vise, she began working the tap into the hole,creating new threads for the air hose. She was wrestling with this and thinking about her lastconversation with Lukas when the smell of fresh bread entered the lab, followed by Solo.

　　“Hello!” he called from the doorway²¹. Juliette looked up and jerked her chin for him to enter.

　　Turning the tap required effort, the metal handle digging into her palms, sweat forming on her brow.

　　“I baked more bread.”

　　“Smells great,” she grunted²².

　　Ever since she’d taught Solo how to bake flatbread, she couldn’t get him to stop. The large tins offlour that had been holding up his canned-goods shelves were being removed one at a time while heexperimented with recipes. She reminded herself to teach him more things to cook, to put thisindustriousness of his to good use by having him mix it up a little.

　　“And I sliced cucumbers,” he said, proud as if it were a feast beyond compare. In so many ways,Solo was stuck with the mind of a teenager—culinary habits included.

　　“I’ll have some in a bit,” she told him. With effort, she finally got the tap all the way through thepilot hole, creating a threaded connection as neat as if it had come from Supply. The tap backed outeasily, just like a fitted bolt would.

　　Solo placed the plate of bread and vegetables on the workbench and grabbed a stool. “Whatchaworking on? Another pump?” He peered at the large wheeled air compressor with the hoses trailingoff it.

　　“No. That was going to take too long. I’m working on a way to breathe underwater.”

　　Solo laughed. He started munching²³ on a piece of bread until he realized she wasn’t joking.

　　“You’re serious.”

　　“I am. The pumps we really need are in the sump basins at the very bottom of the silo. I just needto get some of this electricity from IT down to them. We’ll have the place dry in weeks or monthsinstead of years.”

　　“Breathe underwater,” he said. He looked at her like she was the one losing her mind.

　　“It’s no different from how I got here from my silo.” She wrapped the male end of the air hosecoupler with silicone tape, then began threading it into the collar. “These suits are airtight, whichmakes them watertight. All I need is a constant supply of air to breathe, and I can work down there aslong as I like. Long enough to get the pumps going, anyway.”

　　“You think they’ll still work?”

　　“They should.” She grabbed a wrench¹⁸ and tightened²⁴ the coupler as hard as she dared. “They’redesigned to be submerged, and they’re simple. They just need power, which we’ve got plenty of uphere.”

　　“What will I do?” Solo wiped his hands, sprinkling bread crumbs²⁵ on her workbench. He reachedfor another piece of bread.

　　“You’ll be watching the compressor. I’ll show you how to crank it, how to top it up with fuel. I’mgoing to install one of the portable deputy radios in the helmet here so we can talk back and forth²⁶.

　　There’ll be a whole mess of hose and electrical wire to play out.” She smiled up at him. “Don’tworry, I’ll keep you busy.”

　　“I’m not worried,” Solo said. He puffed²⁷ out his chest and crunched²⁸ on a cucumber, his eyesdrifting to the compressor.

　　And Juliette saw—just like a teenager with little practice but great need—that Solo had not yetmastered the art of lying convincingly.

 

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