Ann Christy - Silo 49 - Deep Dark

Aside from the evidence of her drowned parents, he told them little else before he died. Some contamination had leaked through and the sheriff and deputies had also begun to claim that their skin was burning. A quick thinking deputy had turned a fire hose on all of them and the whole cafeteria. That had finally halted the spread but didn’t save the cafeteria worker.

The day shift had dragged the blood soaked corpse of the “Other” in front of the screen and tried to pantomime coming back. They and their dead Other were lost from view and that was all that Greta knew of them. The next cleaner had written the message that they were on “the ramp” but that was all.

Greta had tried to be kind but there was no escaping the truth. Her parents had gone outside and then drowned trying to come back. When she asked about her memory of a dark room, Greta confirmed that the day shift had two children and that they, as well as she, had been crammed into a storage room within the cafeteria. The fourth child was the child of the cafeteria worker, whose mate had pre-deceased him.

Finally, she had her answers. The council had covered up the incident as a way to spare the silo worry, since no one really knew what happened. The sheriff had seen the limp body of someone in a different style of suit but that was all they knew. The Watch was re-structured so that no children came with a parent and no couples served together. It was a more serious watch from that day forward and had remained such. They still worked on a system for recovery and would continue to do so. That was some comfort to Marina.

That her parents died trying to defend the silo was some comfort as well, but Greta was right about that, too. Given that they now knew there were other silos and not all of them necessarily harbored Others, might that have been someone coming to try to meet them? What a terrible idea , Marina thought and shuddered for the poor person if that was what they were and not an Other at all.

Greta stayed with her and did her best to comfort her and answer her questions, but in the end all Marina wanted was to be alone to think. She lay on her little bed in the medical quarters and tried to decide what she would do. When she decided, she sought out Greta.

She found Greta in the hastily converted hospital room. It was now empty of people or artifacts and held just the debris of their meeting and Greta. Seated in one of the chairs in the half-light that spilled from the hallway, she was still and deep in thought. When Marina tapped the door jamb to announce her presence, she lifted her head and gave a wan smile.

“How are you doing?” Greta asked.

It was such a loaded question. There was so much that could be wrong that it would take a dozen answers combining a whole range of un-fineness to answer. Marina shrugged instead and stepped into the room. She pulled one of the scattered chairs close to Greta’s and sat facing her.

“I can’t live knowing all of this,” Marina said without preamble. It was best to just get it out in the open and deal with it.

Greta bowed her head again and Marina saw a tear fall. “I was afraid of that,” she said sadly.

“Remediation isn’t such a big price to pay for peace, is it?” Marina asked.

There was a long pause before Greta answered. She said, “I have an idea of how you might be able to live with it and be okay.”

Marina listened.

Marina banged on the wall that separated their quarters from Sela’s room with her boot. If the girl didn’t hurry she would be late for her shift. Their new quarters were small and inconvenient compared to their old ones but it was more than inconvenient not to have a door directly to their daughter’s room.

Alas, there were only a few compartments with more than one bedroom on the Memoriam level and they were all taken. They’d had to settle for a one bedroom compartment next to a studio for Sela. It was a trial. She banged again and thought she heard a faint noise that might have been acknowledgement from the other side.

Even after a year, Marina was having trouble getting Sela to keep her room clean and show up for meals on time. She had taken up with a nice young man from Supply and Marina thought there might be a match soon. Sela would leave and then Marina would miss this so she tried to keep it all in perspective.

Joseph liked the distance, which surprised Marina until she realized that his ardor for her was at a higher point than it had been since Sela was old enough to wander into their room if she woke. It was a very nice change, indeed.

Her daughter came in while she was banging again and laughed when she saw what her mother was doing.

“Mom. I’m right here! You can stop cracking the walls now,” Sela said and snatched up a flat of bread for her breakfast.

Marina dropped her boot and scowled while she tried to pull it on without sitting down. “You’re going to be late.”

Sela gave an unconcerned shrug and said, “No, I won’t. I only have to go two levels. I can make it in a flash.” She finished with a snap of her fingers and shoved the rest of the bread into her mouth. She followed it with a swig of tea from the cup at her place and waggled her fingers in farewell. She was gone just that quick.

Her boot finally on her foot, Marina looked for her kerchief and made ready to go for the day. It was nice to live this close to her job but she was still too new at it for her to feel comfortable popping in at home throughout the day. There was always so much to do but it was exciting in a way that being a Fabber hadn’t been.

She stepped out of their compartment and made her way toward the public parts of the Memoriam to check in. Before she opened the door, she smoothed down the multicolored patchwork of her coveralls and gave her kerchief a tug.

As the door opened, the shadow Florine saw her and said brightly, “Good Morning, Archivist Patrick!”

Marina smiled.

You have my sincerest thanks for reading my work and I sure hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please take the time to write a review on Amazon. Without such reviews, those who publish direct to the reader would never have even the slimmest hope of reaching interested readers. Plus, you can believe me when I tell you that without those nice words, there is no way I’d be able to force myself to muddle through and keep writing.

I love to hear from readers, even the ones who didn’t like something I did. Readers do change the way I write and what you say might even impact a future character. You never know. You can reach me via email at Ann.ChristyAuthor@gmail.comor on Google+ under Ann Christy.

You can also follow the progress of the rest of the series, and give me a shout out, on the series webpage at http://Silo49.blogspot.com. Go on, click it!

As for the progress on the next work in the series? Well, the last one is the most exciting of them all. Silo 49 changes and evolves in fascinating ways. The characters in this final story are my favorite. I wish I could invite them over for dinner, to be honest.

And yes, you get to see the end. The end as I imagined it even before Dust was released. Don’t worry.

And finally….

Just like last time, I wouldn’t dare to give you a sneak peak of the third and final volume of the Silo 49 series. I would never do that. The next page is surely blank. Right?

The shadow assigned to assist her came right on time. Cane in one hand and a sturdy arm bracing the other, Marina Patrick made her slow way toward the area set aside for today’s events. After more than thirty years as the Archival Historian of the silo, she has aged into the oldest of them, yet this is her first cleaning. It is also certainly her last. Even being ported up to Level 1 had been almost more than she could bear. Her joints ached and ground like badly cut metal with each step she took.