Ann Christy - Silo 49 - Deep Dark

“We were on the stairs and he just kept talking about how people would be if we could tell them why we came to the silo. About how that might mean it would all end with us back outside. He wasn’t thinking! When I tried to explain what would really happen he just brushed me off. It was like he was just too excited to listen to sense!” He paused and swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut as he remembered. “Then the lights switched but didn’t come back. We were standing there on the stairs, being still just like you’re supposed to, and he told me that I didn’t have enough faith in humanity. Enough faith?”

Taylor shook his head, his expression bitter. He looked at Marina and then Greta when he said, “Faith? Look at what happened with us. Imagine it on a larger scale. Imagine if everyone acted the way we did.”

Marina knew what he was saying. She could see from the way Greta’s eyes flicked away from hers that she understood it too. Marina had kept secrets and searched without caring about consequences from the moment she encountered the pocket watch. She hadn’t just lied to her family, she had kept her clues even from those few who were supposed to share the secret. And Greta, she had forgotten that objective truth is to be found rather than leaping to conclusions. She became more a searcher than a historian. And Piotr, well, if Taylor was to be believed, then he had been filled with dreams of sharing their new possibilities with the silo. Taylor had become a killer. It was a very grim sort of math.

“I didn’t really decide to do it or anything. I just did it. I pushed him. Hard. He went over,” he finished, his voice fading away.

No one spoke for a moment, but each of the council members looked at the table and over what lay on it. Marina didn’t know precisely what they were thinking but the fact that they were all thinking hard was clear. She wondered which way their opinion would go. She looked at the fading red lines of scratches on his hands and face and remembered the vandalism of the switch and knew that it was no sudden impulse. It would do nothing more except bring Greta pain to delve further.

Taylor was watching them too. He broke the silence and said, “I’m not a medic or a historian or anything like that. But I do know what people are like. If they find out that there are more silos and that those silos aren’t necessarily Others and that we once talked to them, something will happen. The urge to know will eventually be too much. They will have to find out.” He motioned once more to the little black books and continued, “I didn’t get to read those so I don’t know what they say. But I will bet you that if those are really from before, you’ll find out that I’m right. I would stake my life that this was kept a secret before. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. It will destroy us to know any of that.”

Greta’s face flushed and her eyes darted toward the Legacy and the chart and the pile of letters from Grace to Wallis with their faded ribbon holding them together. The mayor watched her and waited. So did Taylor, his agitation and hope and fear written on his face. Marina watched too and she saw all the emotions warring within Greta like they were written on her face. Finally she looked at the Mayor and said, “He’s right.”

The mayor gripped the Legacy book unconsciously but Greta held up a hand and continued, “He’s right about some of it but not all of it. Historians have always vowed to bring truth to the silo, but it is very clear that we were never given the truth to begin with. And we have kept some things secret for the well-being of all on more than one occasion. I think there is a reason for that and it is likely those reasons mirror Taylor’s own.”

The mayor couldn’t hold back any longer and he interrupted her with, “If you think we’re going to destroy this…”

Again, she held up the hand. “No. That is where he is wrong. Some of this is already a part of our deeply held beliefs. Like the Tenets. Some of the other things,” she pointed toward the chart, “may inspire just what Taylor fears. But we shouldn’t even consider destroying them.”

Marina held up her hand just as she did in her classes as a child when she hoped to be the one chosen to give an answer. When she was finally acknowledged, she said, “Unlike Taylor, Greta and I have read the Graham books. Though they are really Graham and Wallis books if we’re precise. Aside from Taylor’s assertion that everyone will go stark raving mad, Greta and I gave you the report on the place of the Others, Silo One.”

The mayor nodded, shuffling in his seat uncomfortably. It had been a frightening report and they had completely overtaken the wire terminal in the Memoriam as they sent messages back and forth. Taylor’s attention was riveted on her in a way that made her uncomfortable.

She had seen his eyes wide with rage and murder. It was hard to look at him now. But he hadn’t had any access to the find other than what he had while she slept. That couldn’t have been much. He must have been itching to know ever since.

“Well,” she continued, “from the way the books are written, it seems as if the other silos are divided into sides. Some are with the Others and the rest are a part of some sort of resistance to them. We were on that side, obviously.” There were nods all around. This much had been clear in their report. “But what we don’t know is how that might have changed. If we decide that this silo 40 is safe because they helped Graham and Wallis and they have since switched sides or been taken over or whatever it is the Others do, then we might simply expose ourselves.”

More nods came. This was territory they understood. Politics was a game that these people all played it to one extent or another.

“As it stands right now, the Others must think we’re dead and gone, correct?” Marina asked the room but didn’t wait for an answer. “If people do get the idea to go out and meet the silos, then the Others will know we’re very much alive. What Graham and his people went through might all start again.”

Taylor’s mouth hardened as she spoke and he shot a look at the council table. In his eyes was something like a dare, or a demand. “They don’t necessarily think we’re dead,” he said. He said it with conviction and surety and he glared at Greta when he spoke.

Marina looked at Greta and saw the other woman flush. She wouldn’t meet Marina’s eyes.

Taylor went on. “Why don’t you tell her what Piotr told me? Why don’t you tell her how we know the Others are still out there? I know you all know it.”

The mayor spoke up when Greta didn’t. “That isn’t for here, or right now. Greta, you and Marina know each other. It might be better coming from you.”

Greta still wouldn’t meet Marina’s eyes, but she gave a stiff nod of acquiescence.

Marina asked no one in particular, “What? Something to do with me?”

“Not now. Really,” the mayor said, his voice not entirely unsympathetic. “I agree that you should know. Honestly, I think we should have told you when you were adult enough to understand. But after enough years pass, well, it seems like it is best to just let things go.”

She was confused by his statement. Marina wondered what it could be. Her life had been utterly ordinary aside from losing her parents. Her train of thought stopped right there. Was that it? Was it something to do with how she and the other children lost their parents?

She looked at Greta, hoping to read an answer there but the other woman was looking anywhere but at Marina. She clenched her hands on her coveralls and tried to push it aside for the moment, reminding herself that she had gone her whole life without knowing whatever it was. She could get past this meeting without it.