He waited and tried not to think about the radio in his sack. People did make their way out of the interior to gather their sacks, some grabbing sacks for other people or families and showing the notes that gave them the right to do so. It was just one more way the neighbors of Level 5 tried to make life a little easier for each other. Plus the fact that many were having trouble even remembering food deliveries at all.
Some of the gatherers had clearly just woken after long shifts during the dimming, others rushed to gather theirs before they went to work. Still others looked to him as if they were in a perpetual state of having just discovered some unpleasant surprise. Eventually, he grew tired of waiting and was left with a collection of sacks lumped about on the floor. He took his to his rooms and then began the laborious process of delivering the rest. It took longer than he liked to finish this duty but he had volunteered and he was glad it was out of the way for a seven-day or four.
Back in his own rooms, he showered the exertion off but felt good about having an honest stink in the first place. So much of his work dealt with things less than honest that this was a refreshing change. Even the beginning pain of sore muscles in his arms from pulling the ropes across the squealing pulleys was strangely pleasant.
He set up the radio and sat looking at it rather than using it for a good long while. He was nervous. Up to now all the secret contact had been initiated by Silo 40 and he merely made himself available at the times they directed. His only calls were highly scheduled and arranged for the next time Silo 40 would blind Silo One to their actions. He had been told most firmly that anything outside those parameters would jeopardize them all and he believed it.
He had been given the instructions for altering one of the standard radios long ago, but had never done so. With these units, he could call anytime he wanted without facing the danger of discovery by Silo One unless it was simply because he was being monitored in some other way. Silo 40 had even thought of that eventuality though, and had given him a list of places he should avoid when using the radio. He knew they couldn’t look or listen everywhere and this compartment was both anonymous and safe.
Now, he needed to work up the courage to actually use the radio and to tell the other silo that he fully intended to disable the remaining portion of the system that could be used to destroy his silo. He needed desperately to tell the other silo what was going on with his people and what he was facing so they could understand his position. What he needed most was their help and he hoped they would offer it.
Gathering his courage, he grabbed the radio and followed the instructions for calling Silo 40. He carefully checked the numbers for the frequency. Then he checked it again. When he clicked the button a buzzing noise came through that wasn’t at all like the buzz of their normal communications. The hiss of static was very strong too, and punctuated with high wails like a distant cat having its tail stepped on.
He waited, listening to the buzz and the pops and crackles, his leg bouncing up and down on the floor anxiously as he did so. He was almost ready to twist the knob on the radio to off and stop the increasingly annoying whines when a sharp whistle sounded from the unit and a voice with a strange tenor and accent answered.
“Please tell me I’ve gotten silo 40. This is 49,” Graham said, his voice sounded a little pleading to his own ears, but he couldn’t help it.
“This is Nella, in 40. Let me clean up the signal. You’re Graham?” The voice asked, a bit more clearly as the whine and the static began to fade. She had a high voice that sounded to Graham’s ears like that of a young girl.
“That’s better. Nella? I don’t know you…”
“Nah. I’m in the group too. I’m monitoring the comms today. You would know me if you had been using the radio,” Nella said in a half-teasing voice and Graham could hear the smile in it. He had no idea who this person was yet she sounded as if talking to a stranger from another silo were the most normal thing in the world.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. But I’ve got an emergency over here and need to talk to someone…well, someone in charge,” Graham said.
“How much of an emergency?” she asked.
“What? It’s an emergency, emergency.” Graham realized his voice had shifted from pleading to a bit strident. He took a gulp of old tea from a cup left lying about and tried to calm down.
Nella’s voice changed and she sounded like she was trying to lure an angry cat back into its compartment. “I don’t mean to offend. I just need to know how urgent it is. If you need help in one minute, then you’ve got me. If you can wait for a call back, I can get you to your counterpart here.”
“Oh, ah. I don’t know. I’ll just tell you and you decide. Can we do that?” Graham asked. He felt very strange speaking on a radio in his room, but at least he felt a bit less like panic was about to overtake him. To him, it sounded like his voice was echoing so loudly that people up and down this level must be able to hear him.
“Sounds good. I’m going to take some notes so you talk, I’ll listen,” she said, her voice still carrying a soothing tone.
“Silo One is going to blow up my silo.” He hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but there it was. He let the silence on the line hang for a moment. It didn’t last long.
“Are you sure? How do you know? Do you know when?”
The questions came rapidly, one after another, from the other end of the radio. Nella’s voice was crisp and all business now. Graham could hear the faint scratching of chalk on a board followed by the snapping of fingers on the other side of the line.
“I heard them specifically say that they were going to terminate us over an open microphone. Do you know about our problem over here? With the cancer and stuff?”
Nella grunted in the affirmative and Graham heard her say to someone else, “No, just go get him. Make up any excuse you have to. Go!”
She returned her attention to the line and answered, “Yes. I have a summary of the silo on a board right here in our control room. Why would they destroy your silo? I don’t mean to be insensitive but it looks like your silo is going to be empty soon anyway. Why destroy it?”
“I don’t know, exactly. Listen, this takes a long time to explain so I’ll just give you the facts. I was given instructions to have our water tested at various levels for some specific compounds. They came back positive and I reported it. Someone over there had an open microphone so I heard their entire conversation, more or less, and they decided that once they got some additional medical information, they were going to terminate the silo. That was the exact word; terminate. We all know what happened to 12. As to why, I don’t know everything so I can’t tell you that. I did hear one of them say that we should be spared the pain.”
“Oh, how kind,” Nella replied. Her voice sounded as if she had dipped it in sarcasm and then coated it in broken glass. Graham could tell Nella didn’t carry a lot of love for Silo One and he decided he liked this stranger with her strange accent and high girlish voice.
“Yeah. That’s basically what I thought too,” Graham said. He considered for a moment and added, “I don’t think that is why they are doing it though.”
“What do you think?”
“I think it is because they look at us as damaged now. One of them said the effects of what we’re going through are teratogenic. I didn’t know what that was so I looked it up in the Legacy. It means that what’s happening to us might mess up babies we have in the future and make mistakes that can be passed on from one generation to the next. I think that is why the babies die and so many pregnant women die too.”