There were a hundred other things he wanted to ask or say. He wanted to tell this man how much like a father he’d been to him, but what did that mean when fathers could be as abusive as they were loving? He wanted to scream at Thurman for the damage he’d done to the world, but some part of Donald knew the damage had been done long before and that it was irreversible. And finally, there was a part of him that wanted to beg for help, to free this man from his pod; a part that wanted to take his place, to curl up inside and go back to sleep — a part that found being the prisoner was so much easier than remaining on guard. But his sister was up above, recovering. They both had more questions that needed answering. And in a silo not far away, a transformation was taking place, the end of an uprising, and Donald wanted to see how that played out.
All this and more raced through Donald’s mind. It wouldn’t be long before Dr Wilson returned to his desk and possibly glanced at a screen just as the right camera cycled through. And even as Thurman’s mouth parted to say something, Donald realised that waking the old man to hear his excuses had been a mistake. There was little to learn here.
Thurman leaned forward. ‘Donny,’ he said. He reached out with bound wrists for the pistol in Donald’s hand. His arms moved slowly and feebly, not with the hope — Donald didn’t think — of snatching the gun away, but possibly with the desire to pull it close, to press it against his chest or his mouth the way Victor had, such was the sadness in the old man’s eyes.
Thurman reached past the lip of the pod and groped for the gun, and Donald very nearly handed it to him, just to see what he would do with it.
He pulled the trigger instead. He pulled the trigger before he could regret it.
The bang was unconscionably loud. There was a bright flash, a horrid noise echoing out across a thousand sleeping souls, and then a man slumping down into a coffin.
Donald’s hand trembled. He remembered his first days in office, all this man had done for him, that meeting very early on. He had been hired for a job for which he was barely qualified. He had been hired for a job he could not at first discern. That first morning, waking up a congressman, realising he and only a handful of others stood at the helm of a powerful nation, had filled him with as much fear as accomplishment. And all along, he had been an inmate asked to erect the walls of his own asylum.
This time would be different. This time, he would accept responsibility and lead without fear. Him and his sister in secret. They would find out what was wrong with the world and fix it. Restore order to all that had been lost. An experiment had begun in another silo, a changing of the guard, and Donald intended to see the results.
He reached up and closed the lid on the pod. There was pink spittle on its shiny surface. Donald coughed once and wiped his mouth. He stuffed the pistol in his pocket and walked away from the pod, his heart racing from what he’d done. And the pod with a dead man inside — it quietly hummed.
98
2345 – Year Thirty-four
• Silo 17 •
SOLO WORKED THE rope through the handles of the empty plastic jugs. They rattled together and made a kind of sonorous music. He collected his canvas bag and stood there a moment, scratching his beard, forgetting something. What had he forgotten? Patting his chest, he made sure he had the key. It was an old habit from years ago that he couldn’t shake. The key, of course, was no longer there. He had tucked it in a drawer when things no longer needed locking, when there was no one left to be afraid of.
He took two bags of empty soup and veggie cans with him — hardly a dent in the massive pile of garbage. With his hands full and every step causing a clang and a clatter, he carried his things down the dark passage to the shaft of light at the far end.
It took two trips up the ladder to unload everything. He passed between the black machines, many of which had gone silent over the years, succumbing to the heat, perhaps. The filing cabinet had to be moved before the door would open. The silo had no locks and no people — but no dummies, either. He pulled the heavy door, could feel his father’s presence as always, and stepped out into the wide world crowded with nothing but ghosts and things so bad he couldn’t remember them.
The hallways were bright and empty. Solo waved to where he knew the cameras were as he passed. He often thought that he’d see himself on the monitors one day, but the cameras had quit working for ever ago. And besides, there’d have to be two of him for that to happen. One to stand there and wave, another down by the monitors. He laughed at how silly he was. He was Solo.
Stepping out on the landing brought fresh air and a troubling sense of height. Solo thought of the rising water. How long before it reached him? Too long, he thought. He would be gone by then. But it was sad to think of his little home under the servers full of water one day. All the empty cans in the great pile by the shelves would float to the top. The computer and the radio would gurgle little bubbles of air. That made him laugh, thinking of them gurgling and the cans bobbing around on the surface, and he no longer cared if it happened or not. He tossed both bags of empty cans over the railing and listened for them to crunch down on the landing at thirty-five. They dutifully did. He turned to the stairs.
Up or down? Up meant tomatoes, cucumbers and squash. Down meant berries, corn and digging for potatoes. Down required more cooking. Solo marched up.
He counted the steps as he went. ‘Eight, nine, ten,’ he whispered. Each of the stairs was different. There were a lot of stairs. They had all kinds of company, all kinds of fellow stairs, like friends, to either side. More things just like them. ‘Hello, step,’ he said, forgetting to count. The step said nothing. He didn’t speak whatever they spoke, the ringing singing of lonely boots clanging up and down.
A noise. Solo heard a noise. He stopped and listened, but usually the noises knew when he was doing that and they got shy. This was another of those noises. He heard things that weren’t there all the time. There were pumps and lights wired all over the place that turned on and off at their whim and choosing. One of these pumps had sprung a leak years ago, and Solo had fixed it himself. He needed a new Project. He was doing a lot of the same ones over and over, like chopping his beard when it got to his chest, and all of these Projects were boring.
Only one break to drink and pee before he reached the farms. His legs were good. Stronger, even, than when he was younger. The hard things got easier the more you did them. It didn’t make it any more fun to do the hard things, though. Solo wished they would just be easy the first time.
He rounded the last bend before the landing on thirty, was just about to start whistling a harvest tune, when he saw that he’d left the door open. He wasn’t sure how. Solo never left the door open. Any doors.
There was something propped up in the corner against the rail. It looked like scrap material from one of his Projects. A broken piece of plastic pipe. He picked it up. There was water in it. Solo sniffed the tube. It smelled funny, and he started to dump the water over the rail when the pipe slipped from his fingers. He froze and waited for the distant clatter. It never came.
Clumsy. He cursed himself for being forgetful and clumsy. Left a door open. He was headed inside when he saw what was holding it open. A black handle. He reached for it, saw that it was a knife plunged down through the grating.
There was a noise inside, deep within the farms. Solo stood very still for a moment. This was not his knife. He was not this forgetful. He pulled the blade out and allowed the door to close as a thousand thoughts flitted through his waking mind. A rat couldn’t do something like this. Only a person could. Or a powerful ghost.