Hugh Howey - Dust

Charlotte reached to adjust the volume, to turn it back down.

“—and the rest of us will join them. But you say you want to help. Who the hell are you?”

Juliette waited for her to answer. Charlotte faced the hissing box. She squeezed the mic. “Billions,” she said. “Billions are dead.”

There was no response.

“We killed so many more than you could ever imagine. The numbers don’t even make sense. We killed nearly everyone. I don’t think… the loss of thousands… it doesn’t even register. That’s why they’re able to do it.”

“Who? Your brother? Who did this?”

Charlotte wiped fresh tears from her cheeks and shook her head. “No. Donny would never do this. It was… you probably don’t have the words, the vocabulary. A man who used to be in charge of the world the way it once was. He attacked my brother. He found us.” Charlotte glanced at the door, half expecting Thurman to kick it down and barge in, to do the same to her. She had poked the nest, she was sure of it. “He’s the one who killed the world and your people. His name is Thurman. He was a… something like a mayor.”

“Your mayor killed my world. Not your brother, but this other man. Did he kill this world that I’m standing in right now? It’s been dead for decades. Did he kill it as well?”

Charlotte realized this woman thought of silos as the entire world. She remembered an Iraqi girl she spoke with once while attempting to get directions to a different town. That was a conversation in a different language about a different world, and it had been simpler than this.

“The man who took my brother killed the wider world, yes.” Charlotte saw the memo in the folder, the note labeled The Pact . How to explain?

“You mean the world outside the silos? The world where crops grew aboveground and silos held seeds and not people?”

Charlotte let out a held breath. Her brother must’ve explained more than he let on.

“Yes. That world.”

“That world has been dead for thousands of years.”

“Hundreds of years,” Charlotte said. “And we… we’ve been around a long time. I… I used to live in that world. I saw it before it was ruined. The people here in this silo are the ones who did it. I’m telling you.”

There was silence. It was the sucking vacuum after a bomb. An admission, clearly stated. Charlotte had done it, what she thought her brother had always wanted to do. Admit to these people what they’d done. Paint a target. Invite retribution. All that they deserved.

“If this were true, I would want all of you dead. Do you understand me? Do you know how we live? Do you know what the world is like outside? Have you seen it?”

“Yes.”

“With your own eyes? Because I have.”

Charlotte sucked in a deep breath. “No,” she admitted. “Not with my own eyes. With a camera. But I’ve seen further out than any, and I can tell you that it’s better out there. I think you’re right about us poisoning the world, but I think it’s contained. I think there’s a great cloud around us. Beyond this cloud is blue skies and a chance at a life. You have to believe me, if I could help you get free, make this right, I would in a heartbeat.”

There was a long pause. A very long pause.

“How?”

“I’m not… I don’t think I’m in a position to help. I’m only saying if I could, I would. I know you’re in trouble over there, but I’m not in great shape over here. When they find me, they’ll probably kill me. Or something like it. I’ve done…” She touched the screwdriver on the bench. “… very bad things.”

“My people will want me dead for the part I played in this,” Juliette said. “They’ll send me to clean, and I won’t come back this time. So I guess we have something in common.”

Charlotte laughed and wiped her cheeks. “I’m truly sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for the things you’re going through. I’m sorry we did this to you all.”

There was silence.

“Thank you. I want to believe you, believe that you and your brother weren’t the ones who did this. Mostly because someone close to me wanted me to believe your brother was trying to help. So I hope you aren’t in the way when I get over there. Now, these bad things you say you’ve done, have you done them to bad people?”

Charlotte sat up straight. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Good. That’s a start. And now let me tell you about the world out there. I’ve loved two men in all my life, and both of them tried to convince me of this, that the world was a good place, that we could make it better. When I found out about the diggers, when I dreamed about tunneling here, I thought this was the way. But it only made things worse. And those two men with all that hope bursting from their breasts? Both of them are dead. That’s the world I live in.”

“Diggers?” Charlotte asked. She tried to make sense of this. “You got to that other silo through the airlocks. Over the hills.”

Juliette didn’t answer at first. “I’ve said too much,” she said. “I should go.”

“No, wait. Help me understand. You tunneled from one silo to another?” Charlotte leaned forward and spread the notes out again, grabbed the map. Here was one of those puzzles that made no sense until a new rule or piece of information was made available. She traced one of the red lines out beyond the silos to a point labeled SEED .

“I think this is important,” Charlotte said. She felt a surge of excitement. She saw how the game was supposed to play out, what was to become of this in two hundred years. “You have to believe me when I say this, but I am from the old world. I promise. I’ve seen it covered with crops that… like you say, that grow aboveground. And the world outside that looks ruined, I don’t think it stretches like that forever. I’ve seen a glimpse. And these diggers, you called them. I think I know what they’re for. Listen to me. I have a map here that my brother thought was important. It shows a bunch of lines leading to this place marked S-E-E-D.”

“Seed,” Juliette said.

“Yeah. These lines look like flight lines, which never made sense. But I think they lead to a better place. I think the digger you found wasn’t meant to go between silos. I think—”

There was a noise behind her. Charlotte had a difficult time processing it, even though she had expected it for hours, for days. She was so used to being alone, despite the fear that they were coming for her, the perfect knowledge that they were coming for her.

“You think what?” Juliette asked.

Turning, Charlotte watched the door to the drone control room fly open. A man dressed like those who had held her brother down stood in the hallway. He came at her, all alone, shouting for her to hold still, shouting for her to raise her hands. He trained a gun on her.

Juliette’s voice spilled from the radio. She asked Charlotte to go on, to tell her what the diggers were for, to answer. But Charlotte was too busy complying with this man, holding one hand over her head and the other as high as the pain would allow. And she knew it was all over.

The genset grumbled to life. There was a rattle deep in the belly of the great digger, and then a string of lights flickered on in Silo 17’s pump room, in the generator room, and down the main hall. There were whoops and applause from exhausted mechanics, and Juliette realized how important these small victories were. Light shone where once there was dark flood.

For her, every breath was a small victory. Lukas’s death was a weight on her chest, as were the losses of Peter and Marsha and Nelson. Everyone in IT she had come to know and forgive was gone. The cafeteria staff. Practically anyone above Supply, all those who hadn’t made a run for it. Weights on her chest, every one. She took another deep breath and marveled that breathing was still possible.