Michael Bunker: Refuse

“So,” the Sheriff started, “before you start beating me up with questions, or demand for me to explain the reasons you’ve been brought to a cell down here instead of in the up-top, let me tell you what you need to know. You are here because we have word that your father is currently in the down-deep, way down on 141 and , as a courtesy only , we’ve decided to hold you here while we complete our investigation.”

“So my father can visit me?” she asked. “Really? Because William was arrested with me, he has family in the down-deep. Why isn’t he being held here?”

“The details of the investigation are not really your business, Leah. You are already guilty of aiding in the manufacture of black-market paper. You admitted as much when we caught you red-handed. You had black-market paper in your hands, and there were molds and pulp and all of the other materials and tools for making paper right there in that room.” Tatum leaned back against the bars and cocked his right leg back up and back, resting his foot against the cold steel. “Your father is… a person of interest … in the case, and we’re digging into a number of other irregularities . So just relax and get a good handle on your position.”

Leah nodded and crossed her arms. “So let’s drop the charade about this being some kind of courtesy. Why don’t you just tell me? Exactly what is my position, Sheriff?”

Tatum rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Okay. If you want to do it that way. You’ve been arrested and charged with the same crimes that got your mentor—the man with whom you shadowed—sent out to clean. Perhaps you ought to be thinking about that, and not obsessing with where you are geographically in the silo?”

“My father had nothing to do with this,” Leah said sharply. “He didn’t know we were making paper.”

“Maybe he didn’t… but maybe he did. Frankly, I’ve got a silo that’s on a slow boil, and the making of paper is the least of my concerns.” Tatum looked sideways at the deputy and took a deep breath before continuing.

“Listen, Leah…,” Tatum fidgeted with the file, and then ran his fingers through his hair. His confidence and bravado seemed to melt away and to her, right now, he seemed to be nervous. In fact, if she was reading the situation right, he looked to be more nervous than she was. He continued talking and his voice had dropped a notch, and in it she detected the first ripples of fear; not on the surface, but below the surface, there was fear in his voice. “…there’s word of some stirrings in the down-deep. Maybe some trouble brewing. We don’t know if your father is taking part, but there are people up top who think that he is.”

There it was. The room shuddered, or it seemed to. Leah felt her legs weaken, and her head grew light. Was he talking about an uprising?

“Frankly, I’m not concerned about the paper thing right now,” Tatum said, “and neither is the Mayor. We’ve bigger fish to fry. We want to know what is going on in the down-deep and who is involved. We don’t know if your little paper making operation has something to do with what’s stirring down there, but it would be easy enough for us to assume that the two issues are somehow linked.”

She was starting to feel faint. She blinked and felt the room twist ever-so-slightly around her.

“Your friends are guilty, Leah, and so are you. We haven’t had a cleaning since Alexander went out two years ago, and there hasn’t been a multiple cleaning in over a decade. I need to tell you that your friends’ futures very well may rest solidly in your hands. We need information, and we’re going to need it fast.”

“Wha—,” she was having trouble forming words. The room was moving faster now and she felt her stomach shift with it. “What can… what can I possibly do?”

“We’re going to let you go, Leah. We’re going to let you go, and you’re going to work for us.” Tatum stared into her eyes and he did not blink. “You’re going to work for us, and if you don’t, your friends are going to be sent out, and they are going to die, and you’ll never see them again.”

The spinning magnified, and darkness rose up in her eyes and obscured her view, and then she was falling.

Blackness .

The hard concrete bunk in the cell was cold and she still had her eyes closed, but now she could hear the voices as they came in and out of her consciousness like waves.

“… SAMIZDAT …”

“…Underground publishing… books… Alexander…”

“…some kind of distribution system… porters, sweepers, supply, maintenance…”

“…copy each book by hand. It’s crazy…”

“…what if she won’t cooperate?”

“…clean. And if she doesn’t, they’ll all likely die anyway…”

“…uprising…”

When she was finally fully conscious, Sheriff Tatum told the deputy to prepare the paperwork for her release. The irony was not lost on her. Paper was to be the medium of her freedom, however temporary.

Another hour passed and she was up and pacing around the cell when Tatum and the deputy came in to release her. The Sheriff seemed slightly more confident, though there were still traces of fear in his eyes if she looked closely enough.

“Leah,” Tatum said, matter-of-factly, “this is all pretty simple. We need information from you, and we’re on a schedule. If you fail to help us, you’ll be condemning your friends to the death penalty. If you help us, you will save your friends, you might save your father too, and you’ll certainly save us all a lot of trouble. Lives are at stake, Leah. If you come through with some information we can use, then the Mayor has promised that all pressure will be brought to bear to try to bring about lesser sentences for your friends. It’s all up to you.”

“You can let me out or lock me up, Sheriff,” Leah said. “I’ll never help you.”

“I think you will.”

“Then you don’t know me.”

“I don’t have to know you, Leah. I know people, and I know how we humans usually want to keep our loved ones from dying. You’re not special in that respect, unless you are so callous that you’d send them to clean just to capture or maintain some feeling of rebellion or revolution. Do you think you’re special? Are you a hero? Are you going to get your friends killed so you can be some kind of martyr? Yeah, I think I know people, Leah. You’ll want to see your friends live, that’s what I think. And maybe you’ll even help them get released back into the silo to live their lives out in peace.”

Peace. She laughed. What is it good for?

She was in her apartment alone. There’d been a single note from her mother saying that she’d gone up-top to visit friends. That was it. Leah didn’t believe it for a minute. It was her mother’s handwriting, but she didn’t believe her mother would have gone without some further explanation. Especially with her daughter locked up in jail. Something fishy going on .

Leah wasn’t particularly close to her mother. They saw the world differently. Her mother was one of them. Her father and her mother barely even got along, and the two weeks her father had been in the down-deep had been the first time she hadn’t heard constant arguing in weeks. So… where’s Mom?

The first couple of days after her release passed like silo syrup. She didn’t go to work, because she wanted the rumors and the gossip about her arrest to die down a bit. She’d called in sick for those days, but she knew that the excuse wouldn’t hold up for long. Everyone knew that she wasn’t sick. She’d been arrested . That meant that she was a criminal. She was an enemy to them , an outcast in the silo. Maybe that was why her mother had taken off.