‘Here’s why your resets don’t work,’ he said. Anna grabbed the bottom report and read about the shadow Donald had inducted, the one whose great-grandmother remembered the old days, the one who had asked him a question about whether those stories were true.
‘Someone in silo eighteen remembers,’ Donald said with confidence. ‘Maybe a bunch of people, passing the knowledge in secret from generation to generation. Or they’re immune like me. They remember.’
Thurman took a sip of his water. He set down the glass and glanced from his daughter to Donald. ‘More reason to pull the plug,’ he said.
‘No,’ Donald told him. ‘No. That’s not what Victor thought.’ He tapped the dead man’s notes. ‘He wanted to find the one who remembers, but he didn’t mean me.’ He turned to Anna. ‘I don’t think he wanted me up at all.’
Anna looked up at her father, a puzzled expression on her face. She turned to Donald. ‘What are you suggesting?’
Donald stood and paced behind the chairs, stepping over the wires that snaked across the tiles. ‘We need to call eighteen and ask the head there if anyone fits this profile, someone or some group sowing discord, maybe talking about the world we—’ He stopped himself from saying destroyed.
‘Okay,’ Anna said, nodding her head. ‘Okay. Let’s say they do know. Let’s say we find these people over there like you. What then?’
He stopped his pacing. This was the part he hadn’t considered. He found Thurman studying him, the old man’s lips pursed.
‘We find these people—’ Donald said.
And he knew. He knew what it would take to save these people in this distant silo, these welders and shopkeeps and farmers and their young shadows. He remembered being the one on a previous shift to kill in order to save.
And he knew he would do it again.
47
• Silo 18 •
MISSION’S THROAT ITCHED and his eyes stung, the smoke growing heavier and the stench stronger as he approached one-twenty and Lower Dispatch. The pursuit from above seemed to have faltered, perhaps from the gap in the rails that had claimed a life.
Cam was dead, of that he felt certain. And how many others had suffered the same fate? A twinge of guilt accompanied the sick thought that the fallen would have to be carried up to the farms in plastic bags. A porter would have to do that job, and it wouldn’t be a pretty one.
He shook this thought away as he got within a level of Dispatch. Tears streamed down his face and mixed with the sweat and grime of the long day’s descent. He bore bad news. A shower and clean clothes would do little to alleviate the weariness he felt, but there would be protection there, help in clearing up the confusion about the blast. He hurried down the last half-flight and remembered, perhaps due to the rising ash that reminded him of a note torn to confetti, the reason he’d been chasing after Cam in the first place.
Rodny. His friend was locked away in IT, and his plea for help had been lost in the din and confusion of the explosion.
The explosion. Cam. The package. The delivery.
Mission wobbled and clutched the railing for balance. He thought of the ridiculous fee for the delivery, a fee that perhaps was never meant to be paid. He gathered himself and hurried on, wondering what was going on in that locked room in IT, what kind of trouble Rodny might be in and how to help him. How, even, to get to him.
The air grew thick and it burned to breathe as he arrived at Dispatch. A small crowd huddled on the stairway. They peered across the landing and into the open doors of one-twenty. Mission coughed into his fist as he pushed his way through the onlookers. Had the wreckage from above landed here? Everything seemed intact. Two buckets lay on their sides near the door, and a grey fire hose snaked over the railing and trailed inside. A blanket of smoke clung to the ceiling; it trailed out and up the wall of the stairwell shaft, defying gravity.
Mission pulled his ’chief up over his nose, confused. The smoke was coming from inside Dispatch. He breathed in through his mouth, the fabric pressing against his lips and lessening the sting in his throat. Dark shapes moved inside the hallway. He unsnapped the strap that held his knife in place and crossed the threshold, keeping low to stay away from the smoke. The floors were wet and squished with the traffic from deeper inside. It was dark, but beams of light from flashlights danced around further down the hallway.
Mission hurried towards the lights. The smoke was thicker, the water on the floor deeper. Bits of pulp floated on the surface. He passed one of the dormitories, the sorting hall, the front offices.
Lily, an elder porter, ran by in slaps and spray, recognisable only at the last moment as the beam from her flashlight briefly lit her face. There was someone lying in the water, pressed up against the wall. As Mission approached and a passing light played over the form, he saw that they weren’t lying there at all. It was Hackett, one of the few dispatchers who treated the young shadows with respect and never seemed to take delight in their burdens. Half of his face remained unscathed, the other half was a seething red blister. Deathdays. Lottery numbers flashed in Mission’s vision.
‘Porter! Get over here.’
It was Morgan’s voice, Mission’s former caster. The old man’s cough joined a chorus of others. The hallway was full of ripples and waves, splashes and hacks, smoke and commands. Mission hurried towards the familiar silhouette, his eyes burning.
‘Sir? It’s Mission. The explosion—’ He pointed at the ceiling.
‘I know my own shadows, boy.’ A light was trained on Mission’s eyes. ‘Get in here and give these lads a hand.’
The smell of cooked beans and burned and wet paper was overpowering. There was a hint of fuel behind it all, a smell Mission knew from the down deep and its generators. And there was something else: the smell of the bazaar during a pig roast, the foul and unpleasant odour of burned flesh.
The water in the main hall was deep. It lapped up over Mission’s halfboots and filled them with muck. Drawers of files were being emptied into buckets. An empty crate was shoved into his hands, beams of light swirling in the mist, his nose burning and running, tears on his cheeks unbidden.
‘Here, here,’ someone said, urging him forward. They warned him not to touch the filing cabinet. Piles of paper went into the crate, heavier than they should be. Mission didn’t understand the rush. The fire was out. The walls were black where the flames must have licked at them, and the grow plots along the far wall where rows of beans had run up tall trestles had turned to ash. The trestles stood like black fingers, those that stood at all.
Amanda from Dispatch was there at the filing cabinets, her ’chief wrapped around her hand, managing the drawers as they were emptied. The crate filled up fast. Mission spotted someone emptying the wall safe of its old books as he turned back towards the hallway. There was a body in the corner covered by a sheet. Nobody was in much of a hurry to remove it.
He followed the others to the landing, but they did not go all the way out. The emergency lights in the dorm room were on, mattresses stacked up in the corner. Carter, Lyn and Joel were spreading the files out on the springs. Mission unloaded his crate and went back for another load.
‘What happened?’ he asked Amanda as he reached the filing cabinets. ‘Is this some sort of retribution?’
‘The farmers came for the beans,’ she said. She used her ’chief to wrestle with another drawer. ‘They came for the beans and they burned it all.’
Mission took in the wide swathe of damage. He recalled how the stairwell had trembled during the blast, could still see in his mind the people falling and screaming to their deaths. The months of growing violence had sparked alive as if a switch had been flipped.