Donald pulled out his phone and checked the time. ‘You know I’m supposed to be at the Tennessee tent in an hour, right?’
‘There’s been a change of plans. I want you to stay close to home. Mick is going to cover for you over there, which means I need you with me.’
‘Are you sure? I was supposed to meet with—’
‘I know. This is a good thing, trust me. I want you and Helen near the Georgia stage with me. And look—’
The Senator turned to face him. Donald peeled his eyes away from the last of the unloading buses. The rain had picked up a little.
‘You’ve contributed more to this day than you know,’ Thurman said.
‘Sir?’
‘The world is going to change today, Donny.’
Donald wondered if the Senator had been skipping his nanobath treatments. His eyes seemed dilated and focused on something in the distance. He appeared older somehow.
‘I’m not sure I understand—’
‘You will. Oh, and a surprise visitor is coming. She should be here any moment.’ He smiled. ‘The national anthem starts at noon. There’ll be a flyover from the 141st after that. I want you nearby when that happens.’
Donald nodded. He had learned when to stop asking questions and just do what the Senator expected of him.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, shivering against the cold.
Senator Thurman left. Turning his back to the stage, Donald scanned the last of the buses and wondered where in the world Helen was.
22
2110
• Silo 1 •
TROY WALKED DOWN the line of cryopods as if he knew where he was going. It was just like the way his hand had drifted to the button that had brought him to that floor. There were made-up names on each of the panels. He knew this somehow. He remembered coming up with his name. It had something to do with his wife, some way to honour her, or some kind of secret and forbidden link so that he might one day remember.
That all lay in the past, deep in the mist, a dream forgotten. Before his shift there had been an orientation. There were familiar books to read and reread. That’s when he had chosen his name.
A bitter explosion on his tongue brought him to a halt. It was the taste of a pill dissolving. Troy stuck out his tongue and scraped it with his fingers, but there was nothing there. He could feel the ulcers on his gums against his teeth but couldn’t recall how they’d formed.
He walked on. Something wasn’t right. These memories weren’t supposed to return. He pictured himself on a gurney, screaming, someone strapping him down, stabbing him with needles. That wasn’t him. He was holding that man’s boots.
Troy stopped at one of the pods and checked the name. Helen. His gut lurched and groped for its medicine. He didn’t want to remember. That was a secret ingredient: the not wanting to remember. Those were the parts that slipped away, the parts the drugs wrapped their tentacles around and pulled beneath the surface. But now, there was some small part of him that was dying to know. It was a nagging doubt, a feeling of having left some important piece of himself behind. It was willing to drown the rest of him for the answers.
The frost on the glass wiped away with a squeak. He didn’t recognise the person inside and moved on to the next pod, a scene from before orientation coming back to him.
Troy recalled halls packed with people crying, grown men sobbing, pills that dried their eyes. Fearsome clouds rose on a video screen. Women were put away for safety. Like a lifeboat, women and children first.
Troy remembered. It wasn’t an accident. He remembered a talk in another pod, a bigger pod with another man there, a talk about the coming end of the world, about making room, about ending it all before it ended on its own.
A controlled explosion. Bombs were sometimes used to put out fires.
He wiped another frost-covered sheet of glass. The sleeping form in the next chamber had eyelashes that glittered with ice. She was a stranger. He moved on, but it was coming back to him. His arm throbbed. The shakes were gone.
Troy remembered a calamity, but it was all for show. The real threat was in the air, invisible. The bombs were to get people to move, to make them afraid, to get them crying and forgetting. People had spilled like marbles down a bowl. Not a bowl — a funnel. Someone explained why they were spared. He remembered a white fog, walking through a white fog. The death was already in them. Troy remembered a taste on his tongue, metallic.
The ice on the next pane was already disturbed, had been wiped away by someone recently. Beads of condensation stood like tiny lenses warping the light. He rubbed the glass and knew what had happened. He saw the woman inside with the auburn hair that she sometimes kept in a bun. This was not his wife. This was someone who wanted that, wanted him like that.
‘Hello?’
Troy turned towards the voice. The night-shift doctor was heading his way, weaving between the pods, coming for him. Troy clasped his hand over the soreness on his arm. He didn’t want to be taken again. They couldn’t make him forget.
‘Sir, you shouldn’t be in here.’
Troy didn’t answer. The doctor stopped at the foot of the pod. Inside, a woman who wasn’t his wife lay in slumber. Wasn’t his wife, but had wanted to be.
‘Why don’t you come with me?’ the doctor asked.
‘I’d like to stay,’ Troy said. He felt a bizarre calmness. All the pain had been ripped away. This was more forceful than forgetting. He remembered everything. His soul had been cut free.
‘I can’t have you in here, sir. Come with me. You’ll freeze in here.’
Troy glanced down. He had forgotten to put on shoes. He curled his toes away from the floor… then allowed them to settle.
‘Sir? Please.’ The young doctor gestured down the aisle. Troy let go of his arm and saw that things were handled as needed. No kicking meant no straps. No shivering meant no needles.
He heard the squeak of hurrying boots out in the hallway. A large man from Security appeared by the open vault door, visibly winded. Troy caught a glimpse of the doctor waving the man down. They were trying not to scare him. They didn’t know that he couldn’t be scared any more.
‘You’ll put me away for good,’ Troy said. It was something between a statement and a question. It was a realisation. He wondered if he was like Hal — like Carlton — if the pills would never take again. He glanced towards the far end of the room, knew the empties were kept there. This was where he would be buried.
‘Nice and easy,’ the doctor said.
He led Troy to the exit; he would embalm him with that bright blue sky. The pods slid by as the two of them walked in silence.
The man from Security took deep breaths as he filled the doorway, his great chest heaving against his overalls. There was a squeak from more boots as he was joined by another. Troy saw that his shift was over. Two weeks to go. He’d nearly made it.
The doctor waved the large men out of the way, seemed to hope they wouldn’t be needed. They took up positions to either side, seemed to think otherwise. Troy was led down the hallway, hope guiding him and fear flanking him.
‘You know, don’t you?’ Troy asked the doctor, turning to study him. ‘You remember everything.’
The doctor didn’t turn to face him. He simply nodded.
This felt like a betrayal. It wasn’t fair.
‘Why are you allowed to remember?’ Troy asked. He wanted to know why those dispensing the medicine didn’t have to take some of their own.
The doctor waved him into his office. His assistant was there, wearing a sleepshirt and hanging an IV bag bulging with blue liquid.