The silence was unbroken for a few moments by any words but filled with the little sounds the trio made while they looked at the image. Greta straightened in her chair and laid down her tongs slowly and very precisely. She adjusted them a few times on the surface of the table, her eyes darting toward the tongs momentarily but always away and back to the image again.
She cleared her throat and said, “I’m having a hard time taking in what I’m seeing there. I can’t help but compare that with what we know of our history.”
Taylor’s hands finally returned to his sides. The white knuckles were gone from sight but Marina could see the stark white patches on his face where the color had drained away. He seemed hesitant when he said, “I’m not sure what I should even think of it. It’s… it’s… unprecedented.”
Piotr seemed the least perturbed by what he was seeing. Perhaps it was his nature or that he was not yet fully entrenched in any idea but he seemed to be enjoying the image rather than simply being shocked by it.
Piotr glanced up at Taylor, clearly excited to be sharing this with his shadow but the look on the younger man’s face made some of the happiness drop out of Piotr’s expression. Taylor’s strained face didn’t show any delight, only shock. Taylor stepped back, aware that he was crowding in on them and took his seat again without a word.
“Read the letter before you think too much about it. It adds a lot to the story. Based on the names, I’m pretty sure it was written by the person in that image,” Marina said and nodded toward the folded letter, as yet untouched.
Greta reached for the tongs again but Marina stopped her by saying, “It’s very sturdy. You’re more likely to rip it with those than if you just unfolded it.”
It took just a moment for Greta to get the letter open, the paper crinkling loudly. They read, turning the paper as they went to follow the path of the words. Taylor almost managed to keep his seat, settling for leaning forward across the table and reading upside down. When the paper stopped turning, Marina watched their faces and wondered if she had looked like that. Dazed and saddened and confused in turns.
“This seems very clear to me,” said Piotr. “I don’t think you’d be accused of speculating on history if you simply accepted the obvious.”
Greta nodded her head absently, eyes still affixed to the letter. She let go of the paper and it immediately came up at the edges as if it wanted to return to the folded bowl shape it had enjoyed for so many years.
Taylor looked from face to face and finally asked, “Well? What does it mean? Really mean?”
“I think that what Marina told me when she explained what she had found is probably very close to the truth,” she paused and gave Marina an evaluating look. To Marina she said, “You have some talent for this work.”
Before Marina could answer Greta continued, “It seems clear that whoever these people were, they once lived outside when it was a very different place. It is equally clear that this move didn’t go well for them and that a lot of people came with them for whatever reason. And,“ she paused, her voice catching a little as the emotion of what she had found caught up with her, “that these were people just like us.”
Taylor had listened, his head bobbing in silent agreement with each point as it was made. He reached and tapped the letter once with a fingertip sharply and said, “This paper is intact and in good condition. It can’t be that old. What do you make of that?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Based on what Marina said about how it was stored, I can only surmise that it may have been protected by the watch.” She held up a hand to forestall the interruption that Taylor was about to make and said, “We’ve got a whole archive full of paper, as you well know, and some of it we have no way to determine the age of. And this is high quality paper like I’ve never seen before. It may simply wear better for that reason alone.”
“So there is no way to figure out when this happened?” asked Taylor.
Greta shook her head. “I wish there was. It would tell us how long we’ve been down here.”
“Who cares about how long? I want to know why,” Marina said, leaning forward with her chest pressed against the edge of the table. She folded her hands in front of her on its surface, more to keep from clenching her hands than anything else. She looked at Piotr and Greta, trying to see behind their eyes to what they were thinking.
A gloomy quiet settled over the room. It was a lot to take in and Marina had the advantage of having been able to spend days absorbing it while the people in front of her were newly confronted with it. She wanted to be patient and let their minds finish churning, but she was limited by the few short days she had left before she returned to her old life and left this behind forever. Whatever knowledge she could glean from it, she wanted.
“Shake it off, everyone. This isn’t the end of the world. They already went through that,” she said and emphasized it by pointing at the people smiling out of the image on the table. “Does anyone know what a nuke is? That is what the letter said drove them inside but I have no clue what that is.”
A short chorus of three negative responses came in reply. Marina chuffed disappointment and asked, “No idea whatsoever?”
Piotr’s head shake wasn’t quite as firm as the one before and Marina noticed it. She directed her next question directly to him, “You know something, don’t you?”
“Not exactly and not directly, no,” he answered but it was clear he was working on what he would say next. After a moment and a pursing of his lips he continued, “The Head of IT passes most of their knowledge in a direct line to their shadow and so on. Oral history leads to some inaccuracy. I, for one, didn’t think that it could be true in exactly the way it was told. Do you know what I’m talking about?” He asked and searched Marina’s face for an answer or understanding.
“Sure,” Marina said. “It’s like the stories with a moral or scary stories for kids.”
Piotr nodded and smiled in relief. “Exactly so. Well, we have one that says that the Others launched a terrible weapon that was meant to scour the world of all human life so that they could have it. It wasn’t supposed to do what happened outside, only make it perfect for the Others. Except in our story it went terribly wrong and destroyed the world while humanity was safe inside our silo.”
Greta, who had been listening intently, replied for them all, “It’s almost the same as our known history. There is nothing there that relates to this nuke thing that is mentioned.”
“There is more, of course, but it isn’t relevant to this. What is important is that both of our histories, the silo’s and our own IT version, say something about a weapon going wrong. What if that weapon was this nuke thing? Or maybe what the letter mentions as whatever was eating the world.”
Marina broke in. “I suppose it doesn’t matter since we know what the effect was. We can see that from the screen Up-Top all we like. It does support the story though and, in a way, supports the very idea that there were Others. That means the rest of the story may be true, too. They could still be out there.”
Piotr and Greta shared a private look, full of information and that rankled Marina. “What is that all about? You two keep giving each other all these significant looks. What aren’t you saying?”
“It isn’t ours to share but suffice it to say that we have good reason when we say the Others are certainly still out there,” Greta said.
Marina was shocked. Everyone knew that the history said there were Others that may still be out there but like most people, she had relegated that to an almost mythic status. She had never seen one and had never heard of anyone else seeing one. “You’re sure?” she asked.