“And now the cafeteria on Level 1,” the director instructed.
He quickly pounded out the command on the keyboard, tapped the touchpad and the view shifted once again. The room was completely empty. Most of the tables were stacked neatly to the side of the room. In any other silo they would be lined up in rows throughout the room, ready to be filled at every meal time. Instead, only a few tables were scattered about, each with a good view of the screen that showed only darkness at this late hour. He turned toward the director and waited.
Gary saw a line form between the man’s eyebrows and then deepen. Whether it was confusion or concern, he couldn’t determine. He was just glad the man in charge was here and the responsibility wasn’t Gary’s anymore. He could just push buttons and let the other man do the thinking.
“Go back to the smoke,” he ordered curtly. His lips, already thin and a shade of pink so dark they were almost purple, disappeared as he pursed them further. Gary looked away from that disturbing mouth and clicked his keys and his touchpad.
As the original view returned, the director got up and stepped close to the screen, looking into the smoke as if he could somehow see through it to the cause of the anomaly. He eventually shook his head and turned to the assorted men that had come in and stood waiting silently around the consoles.
“Gentlemen,” he said and his tone suggested something between a question and a command.
“We should terminate,” one of the men said and others nodded. Gary kept his eyes on his screen and his keyboard, but he could see the bobbing heads behind him reflected in his screen. He didn’t want anything to do with this sort of thinking. He would do as he was told but these decisions were far above his pay grade, thank goodness.
The ‘Old Man’, his voice quavering and his authority unquestioned, spoke quietly from outside the ring of bobbing heads, “I think they are going to do that to themselves. Let’s see what happens.” He waved a veined hand at the monitor and added, “We can watch to see if anyone comes to the airlock and terminate then, if needed. This is an interesting development.”
The director returned that finger to his lips again, as if to order silence, and kept his gaze on the screen for a long moment. He abruptly dropped his finger and a look of surprise crossed his face. Gary looked back at the screen, the now black screen.
“Get that view back,” the director said and stood, as if leaning over the keyboard could make Gary work faster or better.
Gary punched keys, changed screens to be sure it wasn’t the monitor going out and basically did all that he could to bring up a view, any view, in Silo 49. Nothing happened except more black on the screen.
“Sir, this is a no input situation. I’m not getting a ping back at all. The silo is gone,” Gary reported.
“Terminate. Terminate right now,” the director said, his tone one of urgency.
Gary got up and went to the panel that hid the rows of red buttons and key slots that could be used to shut down a silo for good. He slipped in his key next to the button marked 49 and waited. The director slotted in his key a moment later and nodded.
They both turned their keys and then the director ordered, “Confirm for 49.”
Gary carefully looked at the button and then ensured the two keys were slotted into the holes for that silo and no other before answering, “I confirm 49, sir.”
The director said nothing more. He just reached up and firmly pressed the oversized button until a loud click sounded in the silent room that indicated it was fully depressed and the deadly contact made. The director looked at Gary and he could see a thin and glistening film of sweat on the director’s brow and over his upper lip. Gary was really glad he was going off shift if what was going on was making this ice-veined man sweat.
After nodding once more toward Gary, they both turned and un-slotted their keys. Gary tucked his back inside his coverall with extra care just so he could avoid the director’s strange, cold eyes. When he looked back up the director was staring at him with a queer, almost amused, expression on his face. Gary thought the director was looking at him the same way he had been looking at that screen and Gary fought down the shivers that wanted to take him over.
“Any further follow on instructions, sir?” Gary asked and hoped he sounded as unaffected as he was trying to.
The director cocked his head to the side the slightest bit, an evaluating look on his face, but it passed and he smiled. It was a terrible smile, blood red gums peeking out from between those thin dark lips as they stretched wide. Gary gritted his own teeth a little and tried not to look away.
The director’s smile broadened a little further, as if he could see the revulsion in Gary’s mind, but all he said was, “Good work, Gary. Just monitor the situation and let me know if anything else happens with 40. As for the other, well, 49 is history now. Just forget about it.”
Gary nodded and hoped that he would be able to do just that. He really couldn’t wait to go off shift.
Epilogue – Silo 49
The old man released the newborn babe into the Medic Shadow’s arms and felt the palsy in his hands return with the lifting of the weight. The new mother’s eyes showed no concern with this as she placed the second of her twins into his shaking arms, only delight at her good fortune. Her face still glowed from the pregnancy just ended and her shape was plump after her delivery just days before.
“They are in good health?” the old man, whose name had once been Wallis, asked in a voice so aged and slight that it sometimes surprised him to hear it.
“They are perfect,” the new mother gushed, her voice liquid with joy.
William, once Wallis, gazed down into the sleeping baby’s small face and smiled. She was beautiful, her pink bud of a mouth even now suckling in her sleep. The dark dashes of her eyebrows drew together within some baby dream and then her brow smoothed again. One little fist was raised up, the tiny nails edged with perfect crescents of white. She would be a beauty, of this he was sure. Would she be healthy was his question. He hoped so with all his heart, as he did for her equally small and beautiful brother.
He looked back to the mother, her face intent on the one of her daughter and asked, “And the name? Shall I guess?”
Her laugh came out like the tinkling of bells, so musical and filled with happiness it was. She said, “I would like to call her Grace-Ann. If he is Graham-Michael then she should be a Grace, don’t you think?”
William, once Wallis, shook his head, bemused at how many Graces and Grahams, and even Wallises, he had held in his arms in the past decades. But when he answered her, he said, “I think those are fine names.”
She smiled in relief then and William reminded himself that it was very important for him to be genuine when he gave his blessings. The people had come to believe that placing a newborn into the arms of the oldest of them passed on some of the elder’s good fortune and increased their child’s chance at long life. As the oldest person in the silo, he should take it seriously.
This little drama was vitally important to the new parents and he would do nothing to disturb their tranquility so he added, “They are twins and that makes it an even more perfect choice.”
“It would have been perfect had they been triplets,” the woman said, but added quickly, “but I wouldn’t have liked that at all.” She patted her stomach, still bulged from the effects of her pregnancy. “I’m already going to have to work very hard to get back into shape.”
William nodded at the sleeping babe and told her, “And it will be worth every moment.”