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　　• Silo 17 •

　　Juliette grabbed the limp air hose with both hands and squeezed. Her reward was a few weak bubblesrolling up her visor—the pressure inside the tube was gone.

　　She whispered a curse, tilted¹ her chin against the radio, and called Solo’s name. Something hadhappened to the compressor. He must have been working on it, maybe topping up the fuel. She hadtold him not to turn it off for that. He wouldn’t know what to do, wouldn’t be able to restart it. Shehadn’t thought this through clearly at all; she was an impossible distance from breathable air, fromany hope of survival.

　　She took a tentative breath. She had what was trapped in the suit and the air that remained in thehose. How much of the air in the hose could she suck with just the power of her lungs? She didn’tthink it would be much.

　　She took one last look at the large sump pump, her hasty wiring job, the loose trail of wiresstreaming through the water that she’d hoped to have time to secure against vibration² and accidentaltugs. None of it likely mattered anymore, not for her. She kicked away from the pump and waved herarms through the water, wading³ through the viscous⁴ fluid that seemed to impede⁵ her while giving hernothing to push or pull against.

　　The weights were holding her back. Juliette bent⁶ to release them and found she couldn’t. Thebuoyancy of her arms, the stiffness of the suit … she groped for the Velcro straps⁷ but watched herfingers through the magnified view of helmet and water as they waved inches from the blasted things.

　　She took a deep breath, sweat dripping from her nose and splattering the inside of her dome⁹. Shetried again and came close, her fingertips nearly brushing the black straps, both hands outstretched,grunting and throwing her shoulders into the simple act of reaching her damned shins …But she couldn’t. She gave up and shuffled¹⁰ a few more steps down the hallway, following the wireand hose, both visible in the faint cone¹¹ of white light emanating¹² from above her head. She tried not tobump against the wire, thinking of what one accidental pull might do, how tenuous¹³ the connectionwas that she’d made to the pump’s ground. Even as she struggled for a deep breath, her mind wasever playing the mechanic. She cursed herself for not taking longer to prepare.

　　Her knife! She remembered her knife and stopped dragging her feet. It slid out of its homemadesheath sewn across her belly¹⁴ and gleamed in the glow from her flashlight.

　　Juliette bent down and used the extra reach of the blade; she slid the point of the knife betweenher suit and one of the straps. The water was dark and thick all around her. With the limited amountof light from her helmet, and being at the bottom of Mechanical under all that heap of flood, she feltmore remote and alone, more afraid, than she had in all her life.

　　She gripped the knife, terrified of what dropping it could mean, and bobbed up and down, usingher stomach muscles. It was like doing sit-ups while standing¹⁵. She attacked the strap⁸ with a laboredsawing motion, cursed in her helmet from the effort, the strain, the pain in her abdomen¹⁶ from lurchingforward, from throwing her head down … when finally the exercise weight popped free. Her calf¹⁷ feltsuddenly naked and light as the round hunk of iron clanged mutely to the plate-steel flooring.

　　Juliette tilted to the side, held down by one leg, the other trying to rise up. She worked the knifecarefully beneath the second strap, fearful of cutting her suit and seeing a stream of precious bubblesleak out. With desperate force, she shoved and pulled the blade against the black webbing just likebefore. Nylon threads popped in her magnified vision; sweat spattered her helmet; the knife burstthrough the fabric¹⁸; the weight was free.

　　Juliette screamed as her boots flew up behind her, rising above her head. She twisted her torso andwaved her arms as much as she could, but her helmet slammed into the runs of pipes at the top of thehallway.

　　There was a bang—and the water all around her went black. She fumbled¹⁹ for her flashlight, to turnit back on, but it wasn’t there. Something bumped her arm in the darkness. She fumbled for the objectwith one hand, knife in the other, felt it spill through her gloved fingers, and then it was gone. Whileshe struggled to put the knife away, her only source of light tumbled invisible to the ground below.

　　Juliette heard nothing but her rapid breathing. She was going to die like this, pinned to the ceiling,another bloated body in these corridors. It was as if she were destined²⁰ to perish in one of those suits,one way or another. She kicked against the pipes and tried to wiggle free. Which way had she beengoing? Where was she facing? The pitch black was absolute. She couldn’t even see her own arms infront of her. It was worse than being blind, to know her eyes were working but somehow takingnothing in. It heightened her panic, even as the air in her suit seemed to grow more and more stale.

　　The air.

　　She reached for her collar and found the hose, could just barely feel it through her gloves. Juliettebegan to gather it in, hand over hand, like pulling a mining bucket up a deep shaft²¹.

　　It felt like miles of it went through her hands. The slack gathered around her like knotted noodles,bumping and sliding against her. Juliette’s breathing began to sound more and more desperate. Shewas panicking. How much of her shallow breaths were coming from the adrenaline, the fear? Howmuch because she was using up all her precious air? She had a sudden terror that the hose she waspulling had been cut, that it had been sawn through on the stairwell, that the free end would at anymoment slip through her fingers, that her next frantic²² reach for more of the lifeline would result in afistful of inky water and nothing else …But then she grabbed a length of hose with tension, with life. A stiff line that held no air but ledthe way out.

　　Juliette cried out in her helmet and reached forward to grab another handhold. She pulled herself,her helmet bumping against a pipe and bouncing her away from the ceiling. She kept reaching,lunging one hand forward in the black to where the line should be, finding it, grasping, yanking,hauling herself through the midnight soup of the drowned and the dead, wondering how far she’d getbefore she joined them and breathed her very last.

 

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