Ann Christy - Silo 49 - Going Dark

Grace’s eyes skipped over the diagram expertly in the scant light and she gave a brief nod of approval at his work. Wallis had studied the drawing with Graham more than once in the last few days but he still looked less sure of his ability. Graham patted him on the shoulder and reminded him it was just wires.

There was only so much time they could kill on this process and eventually the time came for them to go to their respective locations and make ready. Grace surprised Graham by kissing both men on the cheek. She wished them luck as she slipped out the door, her slender frame disappearing from their view around a corner almost immediately.

The look on Wallis’ face said he was as surprised as Graham was. But then he winked at Graham and told him he was sure Grace kissed him closer to the lips than she had Graham. He only responded by rolling his eyes at Wallis’ boyishness, but he thought that conveyed his meaning well enough.

They went their separate ways then and Graham watched his best friend’s back as he went around a corner and out of sight. He steps were jaunty and his hair was sticking up everywhere, which just added to the general impression of a boy engaged in some manner of delinquent behavior. He never looked back.

Once alone, Graham felt time pressing in on him like a weight. He rushed through the hallways and passages of this level until he reached the locked door that led, eventually, to the nondescript metal panel concealing wires leaving the silo.

He pulled out his master key and slipped it into the lock of the last door between him and the panel, holding his breath until he felt the lock give way. Inside, the large and hulking forms of machinery had to be navigated around. Finally, the metal plate, no more than three feet by three feet and unmarked by anything save for two handles, was in front of him. He checked the time, nodded to himself, and set to work.

There were a lot of deeply set screws of an odd sort holding the plate securely to the wall. They didn’t come out all the way but he could feel them letting go their hold on whatever was behind the plate. The scraping noise of metal on concrete was loud as the plate came loose and began to swing free. He froze for a moment, convinced some well-meaning technician or repair person would come strolling by and ask what he thought he was doing. That didn’t happen so he carefully laid the plate down on the floor.

Two fat drops of sweat fell and splattered onto the thin metal with tiny plinks of sound. He rose and wiped his face with a sleeve, leaving a smear of moisture to darken the cloth. He wasn’t working that hard, he didn’t think, so he attributed the sweating to stress and took a few deep breaths to steady his nerves.

He had just 14 minutes, more or less, until he expected to get the call from Silo 40 that he should cut the wires. He pulled out the small flashlight from the bag, glad that Grace had thought of that since he hadn’t, and looked at the thick and twisty bundle of wires that snaked back into a conduit bigger than his waist.

It came from the dark recesses beyond the wall and once inside, went to more conduits that ran along the walls of the silo. From there it went on to an infinity of locations beyond. He peered into the conduit and tried to see how far back it went but the flashlight illuminated only so much, leaving a gray that turned to an ominous black far down the conduit. He shivered at the thought that he was looking outside the silo. Not from a camera, which showed only an image, but with his own eyes.

He leaned inside the dark hole and turned his head to listen to anything that might be beyond. Could he hear the wind or the rasping sounds of blowing dust and dirt? Could he hear voices from another silo? If he leaned in far enough and cried out, would someone else in another silo hear him and answer?

Graham realized he was wasting time and entertaining ridiculous fantasies. He alone really understood how big these silos were and how well spaced they were. No amount of lung power would reach any other person in any other silo but might, if he were stupid enough to actually try it, get him noticed by someone in his own silo and wreck everything.

He shook his head to clear the thoughts away and examined the wires again. This wasn’t just a bundle of wires to Graham. To him they looked almost malevolent and represented all that was not to be done. Perhaps it was simply because he knew what the purposes of some of the wires were, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was badness coming from the source of these wires.

He thought about how they taught children to do things always above the rails. To be above the rails meant one was dealing honestly and with respect for those present and those absent. It was more than an allegory to how dishonest people might sneak a hand between the rails to snatch an apple from someone’s sack or filch the chits from the pocket of a passerby—though certainly that is where the saying must have come from—but also about how one approached life. This mass of wires in every color that went all the way back to who knew where represented the ultimate of below the rails behavior because it was built into this silo from the beginning. It represented a planned betrayal.

Graham slipped the diagram out of his pocket but found it more difficult than he had thought to locate any specific wire in that massive bundle. Most were large and black and carried yet more wires within. The black was just some sort of sleeve or coating to contain a like grouping. His people used them in IT too and his main target was one such. A slew of others were red, yellow or blue and that made the whole mass look angry or like it carried fire inside it.

All together, the bundle was thicker than his thigh and tightly bound by plastic ties. This was going to be harder than he thought but he took out the cutter and prepared to sever those binding ties when his radio crackled with Wallis’ voice. He jumped and nearly dropped the cutters.

“Grace! This thing is huge! I’m not going to be able to find anything in this. What should I do?” Wallis’ voice was shrill with the onset of an anxiety even the crackly radios couldn’t disguise. Graham could almost picture him raking his hair up in frustrated tufts.

“Wallis, calm down. Take out the big pair of cutters and snip those big grey ties that are holding the bundle together. Just like we talked about, okay,” Grace’s calm reply came through a bit louder and clearer than Wallis’. The mysteries of radio propagation within the concrete and metal of the silo gave her voice a better path to his radio somehow.

Graham was grateful for the instructions so he followed her voice and exchanged his tool for the larger cutters and snipped the tie. He half expected that it would spring apart, with wires going every which way, but they had been so long confined into one shape together that there was no movement at all other that a slight expansion, like an indrawn breath.

“Okay, got it. What now?” Wallis asked, his voice a bit calmer now that he had some confident direction.

“Wallis, Grace, this is Graham. I’m following along too. Just remember, don’t actually cut the wires until I give you the word. They haven’t called yet.”

Two voices came through the line and Graham took that moment to check, once again, that his other radio was receiving a signal. The little bars were standing proud and the numbers for the frequency were still what they should be so he tucked it carefully into the recess of the conduit even as both of the others confirmed they wouldn’t cut wires until signaled to.

“Next,” Grace continued, “you’ve got to separate the bunches a bit so you can see what you’re looking for. The one you’ll want is going to be one of the bigger black ones with more wires inside it. Look for the spiral stripe we discussed. Let me know when you find it.”