Hugh Howey - Dust

“Did you let poison in here?” someone yelled from the back.

“Excuse me?” Juliette asked. She cleared her throat.

A lady stood up, a baby in her arms. “My child’s had a fever ever since you returned!”

“Are the other silos real?” someone shouted.

“What was it like out there?”

A man bolted up from the Mids benches, his face ruddy with rage. “What’re you doin’ down there that’s causing so much noise—?”

A dozen others stood and began shouting as well. Their questions and complaints forged a single noise, an engine of anger. The packed center section spilled outward into the aisles as people needed room to point and wave for attention. Juliette saw her father, standing in the very back, noticeable for his placid demeanor, his worried frown.

“One at a time—” Juliette said. She held her palms out. The crowd lurched forward, and then a shot rang out.

Juliette flinched.

There was another loud bang right beside her, and the gavel was no longer limp in Judge Picken’s hand. The wooden disc on the podium leapt and spun as he pounded it back into place, over and over. Deputy Hoyle lurched out of a trance by the door and swam through the crowds in the aisle, urging everyone back into their seats and to hold their tongues. Peter Billings was up from the bench yelling for everyone to be calm as well. Eventually, a tense silence fell over the crowd. But something was whirring in these people. It was like a motor not yet running but one that wanted to, an electrical buzz just beneath the surface, humming and holding back. Juliette chose her words carefully.

“I can’t tell you what it’s like out there—”

“Can’t or won’t?” someone asked. This person was silenced by a glare from Deputy Hoyle, who ranged the aisle. Juliette took a deep breath.

“I can’t tell you because we don’t know.” She raised her hands to hold the crowd still a moment. “Everything we’ve been told about the world beyond our walls has been a lie, a fabrication—”

“How do we know you’re not the one lying?”

She sought the voice among the crowd. “Because I’m the one admitting that we don’t know a damned thing. I’m the one who came here today to tell you that we should go out and see for ourselves. With fresh eyes. With real curiosity. I’m proposing that we do what has never been done, and that’s to go and take a sample, to bring back a taste of the air out there and see what’s wrong with the world—”

Outbursts from the back drowned out the rest of her sentence. People were up out of their seats again, even as others reached to restrain them. Some were curious now. Some were even more outraged. The gavel barked, and Hoyle loosed his baton and waved it at the front row. But the crowd was beyond calming. Peter stepped forward, a hand on the butt of his gun.

Juliette backed away from the podium. There was a squeal from the speakers as Judge Picken knocked the microphone with his arm. The wooden puck was lost, leaving him to bang on the podium itself, which Juliette saw was marked with half-moon frowns and smiles from past attempts at restoring calm.

Deputy Hoyle had to back up against the stage as the crowd lurched forward, many of them with questions still, most with unbridled fury. Spittle foamed on quivering lips. Juliette heard more accusations, saw the lady with her baby who blamed Juliette for some sickness. Marsha ran to the back of the stage and threw open a metal door painted to look like real wood — and Peter waved Juliette inside, back to the Judge’s chambers. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to calm these people down, to tell them she meant well, that she could fix this if they would just let her try. But she was being dragged back, past a cloakroom of dark robes that hung like shadows, steered down a hall where pictures of past judges hung askew, to an old metal desk painted to resemble the door.

The shouts were sealed off behind them. The door banging with fists for a moment, Peter cursing. Juliette collapsed into an old leather chair repaired with tape and held her face in her hands. Their anger was her anger. She could feel herself directing it toward Peter and Lukas, who had made her mayor. She could feel herself directing it toward Lukas for begging her to leave the digging and come up top, for making her come to this meeting. As if this rabble could be appeased.

A burst of noise filtered down the hall as the door opened for a moment. Juliette expected Judge Picken to join them. She was surprised to see her father instead.

“Dad.”

She rose from the old chair and crossed the room to greet him. Her father wrapped his arms around her, and Juliette found that place in the center of his chest where she could remember finding comfort as a child.

“I heard you might be here,” her father whispered.

Juliette didn’t say anything. As old as she felt, the years melted away to have him there, to have his arms around her.

“I also heard what you’re planning, and I don’t want you to go.”

Juliette stepped back to study her father. Peter excused himself. The noise from outside wasn’t as loud this time when the door cracked, and Juliette realized Judge Picken had allowed her father passage, was out there calming the crowd. Her dad had seen those people react to her, had heard what people had said. She fought back a sudden welling of tears.

“They didn’t give me a chance to explain—” she started, swiping at her eyes. “Dad, there are other worlds out there like our own. It’s crazy to sit here, fighting amongst ourselves, when there are other worlds—”

“I’m not talking about the digging,” her father said. “I heard what you’re planning up top.”

“You heard…” She wiped her eyes again. “Lukas—” she muttered.

“It wasn’t Lukas. That technician, Nelson, came by for a check-up, asked me if I was going to be on standby in case anything went wrong. I had to pretend to know what he was talking about. I assume you were going to announce your plans out there just now?” He glanced toward the cloakroom.

“We need to know what’s out there,” Juliette said. “Dad, they haven’t been trying to make it better. We don’t know the first thing—”

“Then let the next cleaner see. Let them sample when they’re sent out. Not you.”

She shook her head. “There won’t be anymore cleaning, Dad. Not while I’m mayor. I won’t send anyone out there.”

He placed a hand on her arm. “And I won’t let my daughter go.”

She pulled away from him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to. I’m taking every precaution. I promise.”

Her father’s face hardened. He turned his hand over and gazed at his palm.

“We could use your help,” she said, hoping to bridge any new rift she feared she was creating. “Nelson’s right. It would be nice to have a doctor on the team.”

“I don’t want any part in this,” he said. “Look what happened to you the last time.” He glanced at her neck, where the suit’s metal collar had left a hook of a scar.

“That was the fire,” Juliette told him, adjusting her coveralls.

“And the next time it’ll be something else.”

They studied one another in that chamber where people were quietly judged, and Juliette felt a familiar temptation to run away from conflict. It was countered by a new desire to bury her face in her father’s chest and sob in a way that women her age weren’t allowed, that mechanics never could.

“I don’t want to lose you again,” she told her dad. “You’re the only family I’ve got left. Please support me in this.”

It was difficult to say. Vulnerable and honest. A part of Lukas now lived inside of her — this was something he had imparted.