69

　　• Silo 17 •

　　Juliette pulled herself through the cold, dark waters, bumping blindly against the ceiling, a wall, noway to tell which. She gathered the limp air hose with blind and desperate lunges, no idea how fastshe was going—until she crashed into the stairs. Her nose crunched¹ against the inside of her helmet,and the darkness was momentarily shouldered aside by a flash of light. She floated, dazed, the airhose drifting from her hands.

　　Juliette groped for the precious line as her senses gradually returned. She hit something with herglove, grabbed it, and was about to pull herself along when she realized it was the smaller power line.

　　She let go and swept her arms in the blind murk, her boots bumping against something. It wasimpossible to know top from bottom. She began to feel turned around, dizzy, disoriented.

　　A rigid² surface pressed against her; she decided³ she must be floating up, away from the hose.

　　She kicked off what she assumed was the ceiling and swam in the direction that she hoped wasdown. Her arms tangled⁵ in something—she felt it across her padded chest—she found it with herhands, expecting the power cord, but was rewarded with the spongy nothingness of the empty airtube. It no longer offered her air, but it did lead the way out.

　　Pulling in one direction gathered slack, so she tried the other way. The hose went taut⁶. She pulledherself into the stairs again, bounced away with a grunt⁷, and kept gathering⁸ line. The hose led up andaround the corner—and she found herself pulling, reaching out an arm to fend⁹ off the blind assaultsfrom walls, ceiling, steps—bumping and floating up six flights, a battle for every inch, a struggle thatseemed to take forever.

　　By the time she reached the top, she was out of breath and panting. And then she realized shewasn’t out of breath, she was out of air. She had burned through whatever remained in the suit.

　　Hundreds of feet of exhausted¹⁰ hose lay invisible behind her, sucked dry.

　　She tried the radio again as she pulled herself through the corridor, her suit rising slowly towardthe ceiling, not nearly as buoyant as before.

　　“Solo! Can you hear me?”

　　The thought of how much water still lay above her, all those levels of it pressing down, hundredsof feet of solid flood—it was suffocating¹¹. What did she have left in the suit? Minutes? How longwould it take to swim or float to the top of the stairwell? Much, much longer. There were probablyoxygen bottles down one of those pitch-black hallways, but how would she find them? This wasn’ther home. She didn’t have time to look. All she had was a mad drive to reach the stairwell, to race tothe surface.

　　She pulled and kicked her way around the last corner and into the main hallway, her musclesscreaming from being used in new ways, from fighting the stiff and bulky suit, the viscousatmosphere, when she realized the inky water had lightened to something nearer charcoal¹² instead ofpitch black. There was a green tint¹³ to her blindness.

　　Juliette scissored her legs and gathered in the tubing, bumping along the ceiling, sensing thesecurity station and stairwell ahead. She had traveled corridors like these thousands of times, twice inutter darkness when main breakers had failed. She remembered staggering through hallways just likethis, telling coworkers it would be okay, just to stay still, she’d handle it.

　　Now she tried to do the same for herself, to lie and say it would all be okay, to just keep moving,don’t panic.

　　The dizziness began to set in as she reached the security gate. The water ahead glowed lime greenand looked so inviting¹⁴, an end to the blind scrambling¹⁵, no more of her helmet bumping into what shecouldn’t see.

　　Her arm briefly¹⁶ tangled with the power cord; she shook it free and hauled herself toward that tallcolumn of water ahead, that flooded straw, that sunken stairway.

　　Before she got there, she had her first spasm¹⁷, like a hiccup¹⁸, a violent and automatic gasp¹⁹ for air.

　　She lost her grip on the line and felt her chest nearly burst from the effort of breathing. Thetemptation to shed her helmet and take a deep inhalation of water overpowered her. Something in hermind insisted she could breathe the stuff. Just give her a chance, it said. One lungful of the water.

　　Anything other than the toxins²⁰ she had exhaled²¹ into her suit, a suit designed to keep such things out.

　　Her throat spasmed again, and she started coughing in her helmet as she pulled her way into thestairwell. The rope was there, held down by the wrench²³. She swam for it, knowing it was too late. Asshe yanked down, she felt the slack coming—the loose end of the rope spiraled in sinking knotstoward her.

　　She drifted slowly toward the surface, very little of the built-up pressure inside her suit, no quickride to the top. Another throat spasm, and the helmet had to come off. She was getting dizzy, wouldsoon pass out.

　　Juliette fumbled²⁴ for the clasps on her metal collar. The sense of déjà vu was overpowering. Onlythis time, she wasn’t thinking clearly. She remembered the soup, the fetid smell, crawling out of thedark walk-in. She remembered the knife.

　　Patting her chest, she felt the handle sticking out from its sheath. Some of the other tools hadwiggled out of their pockets; they dangled²⁵ from lines meant to keep them from getting lost, lines thatnow just made them a nuisance, turned them into more weights holding her down.

　　She rose gently up the stairwell, her body shivering from the cold and convulsing from theabsence of breathable air. Forgetting all reason, all sense of where she was, she became singularlyaware of the noxious²⁶ fog hanging all around her head, trapped by that dome²⁷, killing²⁸ her. She aimedthe blade into the first latch²⁹ in her collar and pressed hard.

　　There was a click and a fine spray of cold water against her neck. A feeble bubble lurched out ofher suit and tumbled up her visor. Groping for the other latch, she shoved the knife into it, and thehelmet popped off, water flooding over her face, filling her suit, shocking her with the numbing³¹ coldand dragging her, sinking, back down to where she’d come from.

　　????

　　The freezing cold jolted³² Juliette to her senses. She blinked against the sting of the green water andsaw the knife in her hands, the dome of her helmet spinning through the murk like a bubble headingin the wrong direction. She was slowly sinking after it, no air in her lungs, hundreds of feet of waterpressing down on her.

　　She jabbed the knife into the wrong pocket on her chest, saw the drivers and spanners hanging bytheir cords from her struggle through the blackness, and kicked toward the hose that still led throughfour levels of water to the surface.

　　Bubbles of air leaked out of her collar and across her neck, up through her hair. Juliette seized thehose and stopped her plummet³³, pulled upward, her throat screaming for an intake³⁴ of air, of water, ofanything. The urge to swallow was overpowering. She started to pull herself up, when she saw, onthe undersides of the steps, a shimmering³⁵ flash of hope.

　　Trapped bubbles. Maybe from her descent. They moved like liquid solder³⁷ in the hollowundersides of the spiral staircase.

　　Juliette made a noise in her throat, a raw cry of desperation, of effort. She pawed through thewater, fighting the sinking of the suit, and grasped the railing of the submerged stairway. Pullingherself up and kicking off of the railing, she made it to the nearest shimmer³⁶ of bubbles, grabbed theedge of the stairs, and pushed her mouth right up to the metal underside of the step.

　　She inhaled³⁸ a desperate gasp of air and sucked in a lot of water in the process. She ducked herhead below the step and coughed into the water, which brought the burn of fluids invading her nose.

　　She nearly sucked in a lungful of water, felt her heart racing³⁹ and ready to burst out of her chest, stuckher face back up against the wet rusty⁴⁰ underside of the step and, her lips pursed and trembling,managed to take in a gentle sip⁴² of air.

　　The tiny flashes of light in her vision subsided⁴³. She lowered her head and blew out, away from thestep, watching the bubbles of her exhalation rise, and then pressed her face close for another taste.

　　Air.

　　She blinked away underwater tears of effort, of frustration⁴⁴, of relief. Peering up the twisted mazeof metal steps, many of them moving like flexible mirrors where the trapped air was stirred by hermad gyrations, she saw a pathway like no other. She kicked off and took a few steps at a time, pullingherself hand over hand in the gaps between, drinking tiny bubbles of air out of the inches-deephollow beneath each tread, praising the tight welds where the diamond-plate steps had been joinedmany hundreds of years ago. The steps had been boxed in for strength, to handle the traffic of amillion impacts of boots, and now they held the gaseous⁴⁵ overflow⁴⁶ from her descent. Her lips brushedeach one, tasting metal and rust⁴¹, kissing her salvation⁴⁷.

　　????

　　The green emergency lights all around her remained steady, so Juliette never noticed the landingsdrifting past. She just concentrated on taking five steps with each breath, six steps, a long stretch withhardly any air, another mouthful of water where the bubble was too thin to breathe, a lifetime ofrising against the tug⁴⁸ of her flooded suit and dangling⁴⁹ tools, no thought for stopping and cuttingthings free, just kick and pull, hand over hand, up the undersides of the steps, a deep and steady pullof air, suck this shallow step dry, don’t exhale²² into the steps above, easy now. Five more steps. It wasa game, like Hop⁴, five squares in a leap, don’t cheat, mind the chalk, she was good at this, gettingbetter.

　　And then a foul⁵⁰ burn on her lips, the taste of water growing toxic⁵¹, her head coming up into theunderside of a step and breaking through a film of gas stench and slimy oil.

　　Juliette blew out her last breath and coughed, wiping at her face, her head still trapped below thenext step. She wheezed⁵² and laughed and pushed herself away, banging her head on the sharp steeledge of the stairs. She was free. She briefly bobbed below the surface as she swam around the railing,her eyes burning from the oil and gas floating on top. Splashing loudly, crying for Solo, she made itover the railing. With her padded and shivering knees, she finally found the steps.

　　She’d survived. Clinging to the dry treads above her, neck bent⁵³, gasping⁵⁴ and wheezing⁵⁵, her legsnumb, she tried to cry out that she’d made it, but it escaped as a whimper. She was cold. She wasfreezing. Her arms shivered as she pulled herself up the quiet steps, no rattle⁵⁶ from the compressor, noarms reaching to assist her.

　　“Solo … ?”

　　She crawled the half-dozen treads to the landing and rolled onto her back. Some of her tools werecaught on steps below, tugging⁵⁷ at her where they were tied to her pockets. Water drained out of hersuit and splashed down her neck, pooled by her head, ran into her ears. She turned her head—sheneeded to get the freezing suit off—and found Solo.

　　He was lying on his side, eyes shut, blood running down his face, some of it already caked dry.

　　“Solo?”

　　Her hand was a shivering blur⁵⁸ as she reached out and shook him. What had he done to himself?

　　“Hey. Wakethefuckup.”

　　Her teeth were chattering⁵⁹. She grabbed his shoulder and gave him a violent shake. “Solo! I needhelp!”

　　One of his eyes parted a little. He blinked a few times, then bent double and coughed, bloodflecking the landing by his face.

　　“Help,” she said. She fumbled for the zipper⁶⁰ at her back, not realizing it was Solo who neededher.

　　Solo coughed into his hand, then rolled over and settled once again on his back. The blood on hishead was still flowing from somewhere, fresh tracks trickling⁶¹ across what had dried some timebefore.

　　“Solo?”

　　He groaned⁶². Juliette pulled herself closer, could barely feel her body. He whispered something,his voice a rasp on the edge of silence.

　　“Hey—” She brought her face close to his, could feel her lips swollen⁶³ and numb³⁰, could still tastethe gasoline.

　　“Not my name …”

　　He coughed a mist of red. One arm lifted from the landing a few inches as if to cover his mouth,but it never had a chance of getting there.

　　“Not my name,” he said again. His head lolled side to side, and Juliette finally realized that he wasbadly injured. Her mind began to clear enough to see what state he was in.

　　“Hold still,” she groaned. “Solo, I need you to be still.”

　　She tried to push herself up, to will herself the strength to move. Solo blinked and looked at her,his eyes glassy, blood tinting⁶⁴ the gray in his beard crimson⁶⁵.

　　“Not Solo,” he said, his voice straining. “My name’s Jimmy—”

　　More coughing, his eyes rolling up into the back of his head.

　　“—and I don’t think—”

　　His eyelids⁶⁶ sagged⁶⁷ shut and then squinted⁶⁸ in pain.

　　“—don’t think I was—”

　　“Stay with me,” Juliette said, hot tears cutting down her frozen face.

　　“—don’t think I ever was alone,” he whispered, the lines on his face relaxing, his head sagging⁶⁹ tothe cold steel landing.

 

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