Hugh Howey - Dust

“Not long,” Thurman said. The old man dragged the trunk away from the foot of the bed and sat on it. He studied Donald intently. “You’ve only got a few days to live.”

“Is that a medical diagnosis? Or a sentencing?”

Thurman raised an eyebrow. “It’s both. If we keep you here and leave you untreated, you will die from the air you breathed. We’re putting you under, instead.”

“God forbid you put me out of my misery.”

Thurman seemed to consider this. “I’ve thought about letting you die in here. I know the pain you’re in. I could fix you or let you break all the way down, but I don’t have the heart for either.”

Donald tried to laugh, but it hurt too much. He reached for the glass of water on the tray and took a sip. A pink spiral of blood danced on the surface as he lowered the glass.

“You’ve been busy this last shift,” Thurman said. “There are drones and bombs missing. We’ve woken up a few of the people who went into freeze recently to piece together your handiwork. Do you have any idea what you’ve risked?”

There was something worse than anger in Thurman’s voice. Donald couldn’t place it at first. Not disappointment. It wasn’t any form of rage. The rage had drained from his boots. This was something subdued. It was something like fear.

“What I’ve risked?” Donald asked. “I’ve been cleaning up your mess.” He sloshed water as he saluted his old mentor. “The silos you damaged. That silo that went black all those years ago. It was still there—”

“Silo forty. I know.”

“And seventeen.” Donald cleared his throat. He grabbed the heel of bread from the tray and took a dry bite, chewed until his jaws ached, chased it with blood-smeared water. He knew so much that Thurman didn’t. This occurred to him in that moment. All the talks with the people of 18, the time spent poring over drawings and notes, the weeks of piecing things together, of being in charge. He knew in his present condition that he was no match for Thurman in a fight, but he still felt the stronger of the two. It was his knowledge that made him feel that way. “Seventeen wasn’t dead,” he said before taking another bite of bread.

“So I’ve learned.”

Donald chewed.

“I’m shutting down eighteen today,” Thurman said quietly. “What that facility has cost us…” He shook his head, and Donald wondered if he was thinking of Victor, the head of heads, who had blown his own head off over an uprising that took place there. In the next moment, it occurred to him that the people he’d placed so much hope in were now gone as well. All the time spent smuggling parts to Charlotte, dreaming of an end to the silos, hope of a future under blue skies, all for nothing. The bread felt stale as he swallowed.

“Why?” he asked.

“You know why. You’ve been talking to them, haven’t you? What did you think was going to become of that place? What were you thinking?” The first hints of anger crept into Thurman’s voice. “Did you think they were going to save you? That any of us can be saved? What the hell were you thinking?”

Donald didn’t plan on answering, but a response came as reflexively as a cough: “I thought they deserved better than this. I thought they deserved a chance—”

“A chance for what?” Thurman shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. We planned for enough.” He muttered this last to himself. “The shame is that I have to sleep at all, that I can’t be here to manage everything. It’s like sending drones up when you need to be there yourself, your hand on the yoke.” Thurman made a fist in the air. He studied Donald a while. “You’re going under first thing in the morning. It’s a far cry from what you deserve. But before I’m rid of you, I want you to tell me how you did it, how you ended up here with my name. I can’t let that happen again—”

“So now I’m a threat.” Donald took another pull of water, flooding the tickle in his throat. He tried to take a deep breath, but the pain in his chest made him double over.

“You aren’t, but the next person who does this might be. We tried to think of everything, but we always knew the biggest weakness, the biggest weakness of any system, was a revolt from the top.”

“Like silo twelve,” Donald said. He remembered that silo falling as a dark shadow emerged from its server room. He had witnessed this, had ended that silo, had written a report. “How could you not expect what happened there?” he asked.

“We did. We planned for everything. It’s why we have spares. It’s why we have the Rite, a chance to try a man’s soul, a box to put our ticking time bombs in. You’re too young to understand this, but the most difficult task mankind ever tried to master — and that we never quite managed — was how to pass supreme power from one hand to the next.” Thurman spread his arms. His old eyes sparkled, the politician in him reawakened. “Until now. We solved it here with the cryopods and the shifts. Power is temporary, and it never leaves the same few hands. There is no transfer of power.”

“Congratulations,” Donald spat. And he remembered suggesting to Thurman once that he could be President, and Thurman had suggested it would be a demotion. Donald saw that now.

“Yes. It was a good system. Until you managed to subvert it.”

“I’ll tell you how I did it if you answer something for me.” Donald covered his mouth and coughed.

Thurman frowned and waited for him to stop. “You’re dying,” he said. “We’ll put you in a box so you can dream until the end. What could you possibly want to know?”

“The truth. I have so much of it, but still a few holes. They hurt more than the holes in my lungs.”

“I doubt that,” Thurman said. But he seemed to consider the offer. “What is it you want to know?”

“The servers. I know what’s on them. All the details of everyone’s lives in the silos, where they work, what they do, how long they live, how many kids they have, what they eat, where they go, everything. I want to know what it’s for.”

Thurman studied him. He didn’t say anything.

“I found the percentages. The list that shuffles. It’s the chances that these people survive when they’re set free, isn’t it? But how does it know?”

“It knows,” Thurman said. “And that’s what you think the silos do?”

“I think there’s a war playing out, yes. A war between all these silos, and only one will win.”

“Then what do you need from me?”

“I think there’s something else. Tell me, and I’ll tell you how I took your place.” Donald sat up and hugged his shins while a coughing fit ravaged his throat and ribs. Thurman waited until he was done.

“The servers do what you say. They keep track of all those lives, and they weigh them. They also decide the lotteries, which means we get to shape these people in a very real way. We increase our odds, allow the best to thrive. It’s why the chances keep improving the longer we’re at this.”

“Of course.” Donald felt stupid. He should have known. He had heard Thurman say over and over that they left nothing to chance. And wasn’t a lottery just that?

He caught the look Thurman was giving him. “Your turn,” he said. “How’d you do it?”

Donald leaned back against the wall. He coughed into his fist while Thurman looked on, wide-eyed and silent. “It was Anna,” Donald said. “She found out what you had planned. You were going to put her under after she was done helping you, and she feared she would never wake up again. You gave her access to the systems so she could fix your problem with forty. She set it up so that I would take your place. And she left a note asking for my help, left it in your inbox. I think she wanted to ruin you. To end this.”