What he didn’t add, what he asked himself, was if anyone at any age could ever be ready.
There was precedence, he typed, for limiting certain positions of authority by age. And while this would lead to shorter terms — which meant subjecting more unfortunate souls to the abuse of being locked up and shown their Legacy — wasn’t it better to go through a damnable process more often rather than take risks such as these?
He knew this report would matter little. There was no planning for insanity. With enough revolutions and elections, enough transfers of power, eventually a madman would take the reins. It was inevitable. These were the odds they had planned for. This was why they had built so many.
He rose from his desk and walked to the door, slapped it soundly with the flat of his palm. In the corner of his office, a printer hummed and shot four pages out of its mouth. Troy took them; they were still warm as he slid them into the folder, these reports on the newly dead and still dying. He could feel the life and warmth draining from those printed pages. Soon, they would be as cool as the air around them. He grabbed a pen from his desk and signed the bottom.
A key rattled in his lock before the door opened.
‘Done already?’ Victor asked. The grey-haired psychiatrist stood across from his desk, keys jangling as they returned to his pocket. He held a small plastic cup in his hand.
Troy handed him the folder. ‘The signs were there,’ he told the doctor, ‘but they weren’t acted upon.’
Victor took the folder with one hand and held out the plastic cup with the other.
Troy typed a few commands on his computer and wiped his copy of the videos. The cameras were of no use for predicting and preventing these kinds of problems. There were too many to watch all at once. You couldn’t get enough people to sit and monitor an entire populace. They were there to sort through the wreckage, the aftermath.
‘Looks good,’ Victor said, flipping through the folder. The plastic cup sat on Troy’s desk, two pills inside. They had increased the dosage to what he had taken at the start of his shift, a little extra to cut through the pain.
‘Would you like me to fetch you some water?’
Troy shook his head. He hesitated. Looking up from the cup, he asked Victor a question: ‘How long do you think it’ll take? Silo twelve, I mean. Before all of those people are gone.’
Victor shrugged. ‘Not long, I imagine. Days.’
Troy nodded. Victor watched him carefully. Troy tilted his head back and rattled the pills past his trembling lips. There was the bitter taste on his tongue. He made a show of swallowing.
‘I’m sorry that it was your shift,’ Victor said. ‘I know this wasn’t the job you signed up for.’
Troy nodded. ‘I’m actually glad it was mine,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’d hate for it to have been anyone else’s.’
Victor rubbed the folder with one hand. ‘You’ll be given a commendation in my report.’
‘Thank you,’ Troy said. He didn’t know what the fuck for.
With a wave of the folder, Victor finally turned to leave and go back to his desk across the hall where he could sit and glance up occasionally at Troy.
And in that brief moment it took for Victor to walk over, with his back turned, Troy spat the pills into the palm of his hand.
Shaking his mouse with one hand, waking up his monitor so he could boot a game of solitaire, Troy smiled across the hallway at Victor, who smiled back. And in his other hand, still sticky from the outer coating dissolved by his saliva, the two pills nestled in his palm. Troy was tired of forgetting. He had decided to remember.
15
2049
Savannah, Georgia
DONALD SPED DOWN highway 17, a flashing red light on his dash warning him as he exceeded the local speed limit. He didn’t care about being pulled over, didn’t care about being wired a ticket or his insurance rates creeping up. It all seemed trivial. The fact that there were circuits riding along in his car keeping track of everything he did paled in comparison to the suspicion that machines in his blood were doing the same.
The tyres squealed as he spiralled down his exit ramp too fast. He merged onto Berwick Boulevard, the overhead lights strobing through the windshield as he flew beneath them. Glancing down at his lap, he watched the gold inlay text on the book throb with the rhythm of the passing lights.
Order. Order. Order.
He had read enough to worry, to wonder what he’d gotten himself mixed up in. Helen had been right to warn him, had been wrong about the scale of the danger.
Turning into his neighbourhood, Donald remembered a conversation from long before — he remembered her begging him not to run for office, saying that it would change him, that he couldn’t fix anything up there, but that he could sure as hell come home broken.
How right had she been?
He pulled up to the house and had to leave the car by the kerb. Her Jeep was in the middle of the driveway. One more habit formed in his absence, a reminder that he didn’t live there any more, didn’t have a real home.
Leaving his bags in the boot, he took just the book and his keys. The book was heavy enough.
The motion light came on as he neared the porch. He saw a form by the window, heard frantic scratching on the other side. Helen opened the door, and Karma rushed out, tail whacking the side of the jamb, tongue lolling, so much bigger in just the few weeks that he’d been away.
Donald crouched down and rubbed her head, let the dog lick his cheek.
‘Good girl,’ he said. He tried to sound happy. The cool emptiness in his chest intensified from being home. The things that should have felt comforting only made him feel worse.
‘Hey, honey.’ He smiled up at his wife.
‘You’re early.’
Helen wrapped her arms around his neck as he stood. Karma sat down and whined at them, tail swishing on the concrete. Helen’s kiss tasted like coffee.
‘I took an earlier flight.’
He glanced over his shoulder at the dark streets of his neighbourhood. As if anyone needed to follow him.
‘Where’re your bags?’
‘I’ll get ’em in the morning. C’mon, Karma. Let’s go inside.’ He steered his dog through the door.
‘Is everything okay?’ Helen asked.
Donald went to the kitchen. He set the book down on the island and fished in the cabinet for a glass. Helen watched him with concern as he pulled a bottle of brandy out of the cabinet.
‘Baby? What’s going on?’
‘Maybe nothing,’ he said. ‘Lunatics—’ He poured three fingers of brandy, looked to Helen and raised the bottle to see if she wanted any. She shook her head. ‘Then again,’ he continued, ‘maybe there’s something to it.’ He took more than a sip. His other hand hadn’t left the neck of the bottle.
‘Baby, you’re acting strange. Come sit down. Take off your coat.’
He nodded and let her help him remove his jacket. He slid his tie off, saw the worry on her face, knew it to be a reflection of his own.
‘What would you do if you thought it all might end?’ he asked his wife. ‘What would you do?’
‘If what? You mean us? Oh, you mean life. Honey, did someone pass away? Tell me what’s going on.’
‘No, not someone. Everyone. Everything.’
He tucked the bottle under his arm, grabbed his drink and the book and went to the living room. Helen and Karma followed. Karma was already on the sofa waiting for him to sit down before he got there, oblivious to anything he was saying, just thrilled for the pack to be reunited.
‘It sounds like you’ve had a very long day,’ Helen said, trying to find excuses for him.
Donald sat on the sofa and put the bottle and book on the coffee table. He pulled his drink away from Karma’s curious nose.