‘No,’ he said. He couldn’t allow himself to believe it.
Allie nodded. There were tears in her eyes. By the time he got to her, they were coursing down her cheeks.
‘But our ticket is up,’ he whispered, holding her against him. She smelled like sweet peppers and sage. He could feel her trembling.
Allie sobbed. Her voice broke from being overfull of joy. ‘Doc says it happened last month. It was in our window, Mish. We’re gonna have a baby.’
A surge of relief filled Mission to the brim. Relief, not excitement. Relief that everything was legal. He kissed his wife’s cheek, salt to go with the pepper and sage. ‘I love you,’ he whispered.
‘The roast.’ She pulled away and hurried to the stove. ‘I was gonna tell you after dinner.’
Mission laughed. ‘You were gonna tell me now or have to explain the candles.’
He poured two glasses of water, hands trembling, and set them out while she fixed the plates. The smell of cooked meat made his mouth water. He could anticipate the way the roast would taste. A taste of the future, of what was to come.
‘Don’t let it get cold,’ Allie said, setting the plates.
They sat and held hands. Mission cursed himself for not putting his ring back on.
‘Bless this food and those who fed its roots,’ Allie said.
‘Amen,’ said Mission. His wife squeezed his hands before letting go and grabbing her utensils.
‘You know,’ she said, cutting into the roast, ‘if it’s a girl, we’ll have to name her Allison. Every woman in my family as far back as we can remember has been an Allison.’
Mission wondered how far back her family could remember. It’d be unusual if they could remember very far.
He chewed and thought on the name. ‘Allison it is,’ he said. And he thought that eventually they would call her Allie too. ‘But if it’s a boy, can we go with Cam?’
‘Sure.’ Allie lifted her glass. ‘That wasn’t your grandfather’s name, was it?’
‘No. I don’t know any Cams. I just like the way it sounds.’
He picked up his glass of water, studied it awhile. Or did he know a Cam? Where did he know that name from? There were bits of his past shrouded and hidden from him. There were things like the mark on his neck and the scar on his stomach that he couldn’t remember coming to be. Everyone had their share of these things, parts of their bygone days they couldn’t recall, but Mission more than most. Like his birthday. It drove him crazy that he couldn’t remember when his birthday was. What was so hard about that?
THIRD SHIFT – PACT
58
2345
• Silo 1 •
‘SIR?’
There was a clatter of bones beneath his feet. Donald stumbled through the dark.
‘Can you hear me?’
The haze parted, an eyelid cracking just like the seal of his pod. A bean. Donald was curled inside that pod like a bean.
‘Sir? Are you with me?’
Skin so cold. Donald was sitting up, steam rising from his bare legs. He didn’t remember going to sleep. He remembered the doctor, remembered being in his office. They were talking. Now he was being woken up.
‘Drink this, sir.’
Donald remembered this. He remembered waking over and over, but he didn’t remember going to sleep. Just the waking. He took a sip, had to concentrate to make his throat work, had to fight to swallow. A pill. There was supposed to be a pill, but it wasn’t offered.
‘Sir, we had instructions to wake you.’
Instructions. Rules. Protocol. Donald was in trouble again. Troy. Maybe it was that Troy fellow. Who was he? Donald drank as much as he could.
‘Very good, sir. We’re going to lift you out.’
He was in trouble. They only woke him when there was trouble. A catheter was removed, a needle from his arm.
‘What did I—’
He coughed into his fist. His voice was a sheet of tissue paper, thin and fragile. Invisible.
‘What is it?’ he asked, shouting to form a whisper.
Two men lifted him up and set him into a wheelchair. A third man held it still. There was a soft blanket instead of a paper gown. There was no rustling this time, no itching on his skin.
‘We lost one,’ someone said.
A silo. A silo was gone. It would be Donald’s fault again. ‘Eighteen,’ he whispered, remembering his last shift.
Two of the men glanced at each other, mouths open.
‘Yes,’ one of them said, awe in his voice. ‘From silo eighteen, sir. We lost her over the hill. We lost contact.’
Donald tried to focus on the man. He remembered losing someone over a hill. Helen. His wife. They were still looking for her. There was still hope.
‘Tell me,’ he whispered.
‘We’re not sure how, but one of them made it out of sight—’
‘A cleaner, sir—’
A cleaner. Donald sank into the chair; his bones were as cold and heavy as stone. It wasn’t Helen at all.
‘—over the hill—’ one said.
‘—we got a call from eighteen—’
Donald raised his hand a little, his arm trembling and still half numb from the sleep. ‘Wait,’ he croaked. ‘One at a time. Why did you wake me?’ It hurt to talk.
One of the men cleared his throat. The blanket was tucked up under Donald’s chin to stop him from shivering. He hadn’t known he was shivering. They were being so reverent with him, so gentle. What was this? He tried to clear his head.
‘You told us to wake you—’
‘It’s protocol—’
Donald’s eyes fell to the pod, still steaming as the chill escaped. There was a screen at the base, empty readouts without him in there, just a rising temp. A rising temp and a name. Not his name.
And Donald remembered how names meant nothing unless that was all one had to go by. If nobody remembered each other, if they didn’t cross paths, then a name was everything.
‘Sir?’
‘Who am I?’ he asked, reading the little screen, not understanding. This wasn’t him. ‘Why did you wake me?’
‘You told us to, Mr Thurman.’
The blanket was wrapped snugly around his shoulders. The chair was turned. They were treating him with respect, as if he had authority. The wheels on this chair did not squeak at all.
‘It’s okay, sir. Your head will clear soon.’
He didn’t know these people. They didn’t know him.
‘The doctor will clear you for duty.’
Nobody knew anyone.
‘Right this way.’
And then anyone could be anybody.
‘Through here.’
Until it didn’t matter who was in charge. One who might do what was correct, another who might do what was right.
‘Very good.’
One name as good as any other.
59
2312 – Hour One
• Silo 17 •
THE LOUD CAME before the quiet. That was a Rule of the World, for the bangs and shouts need somewhere to echo, just as bodies need space in which to fall.
Jimmy Parker was in class when the last of the great Louds began. It was the day before a cleaning. Tomorrow, they would be off from school. For the death of a man, Jimmy and his friends would be gifted a few extra hours of sleep. His father would work overtime down in IT. And tomorrow afternoon, his mother would insist that they go up with his aunt and cousins to watch the bright clouds drift over the clear view of the hills until the sky turned dark as sleep.
Cleaning days were for staying in bed and for seeing family. They were for silencing unrest and quietening the Louds. That’s what Mrs Pearson told them as she wrote the rules from the Pact up on the blackboard. Her chalk clacked and squeaked and left dusty trails of all the whys for which a man could be put to death. Civics lessons on a day before a banishment. Warnings on the eve of graver warnings. Jimmy and his friends fidgeted in their seats and learned rules. Rules of the World that very soon would no longer apply.