Hugh Howey - Dust

“Air Force,” Charlotte said. She jabbed her fork at Donald, whose mouth was full. “Congressman.”

“No shit?”

Donald nodded. “More of an architect, really.” He gestured at the room around them. “This is what I went to school for.”

“Building stuff like this?” Darcy asked.

“Building this,” Donald said. He took another bite.

“No shit.”

Donald nodded and took a swig of water.

“Who did this to us, then? The Chinese?”

Donald and Charlotte turned to one another.

“What?” Darcy asked.

“We did this,” Donald said. “This place wasn’t built for a just-in-case. This is what it was designed for.”

Darcy looked from one of them to the other, his mouth open.

“I thought you knew. It’s all in my notes.” Once you know what to look for, Donald thought. Otherwise, it was too obvious and audacious to see.

“No. I thought this was like that mountain bunker, where the government goes to survive—”

“It is,” Charlotte said. “But this way they get the timing down just right.”

Darcy stared down at his boots while Donald and his sister ate. For a last meal, it wasn’t all that bad. Donald looked down at the sleeve of the coveralls he’d borrowed from Charlotte and saw the bullet hole in them for the first time. Maybe that was why she had acted as if he was crazy for putting them on. Across from him, Darcy began to slowly nod his head. “Yeah,” he said. “God, yeah. They did this.” He looked up at Donald. “I put a guy in Deep Freeze a couple shifts ago. He was yelling all this crazy stuff. A guy from accounting.”

Donald set his tray aside. He finished his water.

“He wasn’t crazy, was he?” Darcy asked. “That was a good man.”

“Probably,” Donald said. “He was getting better, at least.”

Darcy ran his fingers over his short hair. His attention went back to the scattering of supplies. “The suits,” he said. “You’re thinking of leaving? Because you know I can’t help you do that.”

Donald ignored the question. He went to the end of the aisle and retrieved the hand truck. He and Charlotte had already loaded the bunker buster on it. There was a plastic tag dangling from the nose cone that she said he would need to pull before it was armed. She had already removed the altimeter controls and safety overrides. She had called it a “dumb bomb” when she was done. Donald pushed the cart toward the elevator.

“Hey,” Darcy said. He got up from his bin and blocked the aisle. Charlotte cleared her throat, and Darcy turned to see that she was holding a gun on him.

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said.

Darcy’s hand hovered over a bulging pocket. Donald pushed the handcart toward him, and Darcy stepped back.

“We need to discuss this,” Darcy said.

“We already have,” Donald told him. “Don’t move.” He stopped the handcart beside Darcy and reached into the young guard’s pocket. He withdrew the pistol and stuck it into his own pocket, then asked for Darcy’s ID. The young man handed it to him. Donald pocketed this, and then leaned the cart back on its wheels and continued toward the lift.

Darcy followed him at a distance. “Just slow down,” he said. “You’re thinking of setting that off? C’mon, man. Take it easy. Let’s talk. This is a big decision.”

“Not arrived at lightly, I promise. The reactor below us powers the servers. The servers control everyone’s lives. We’re going to set these people free. Let them live and die how they choose.”

Darcy laughed nervously. “Servers control their lives? What’re you talking about?”

“They pick the lottery numbers,” Donald said. “They decide who is worthy to pass themselves along. They cull and shape. They play mock wars to pick a winner. But not for long.”

“Okay, but there’s just three of us. This is too big for just us to decide. Seriously, man—”

Donald stopped the cart right outside of the lift. He turned to Darcy, saw that his sister had gotten to her feet to stay close to him.

“You want me to name all the times in history that one person led to the death of millions?” Donald asked. “Something like five or a dozen people made this happen. You might be able to trace it back to three. And who knows if one of those men was influencing the other two? Well, if one man can build this, it shouldn’t take more than that to bring it all down. Gravity is a bitch until she’s on your side.” Donald pointed down the aisle. “Now come sit down.”

When Darcy didn’t move, Donald drew not the guard’s gun, but the one from his other pocket that he knew was locked and loaded. The disappointment and hurt on the young man’s face before he turned and complied was a physical blow. Donald watched him march back down the aisle, past Charlotte. He caught his sister’s arm before she followed, gave her a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. “Go ahead and get your suit on,” he told her.

She nodded, followed Darcy, sat back down on the bin and began to work herself into her suit.

“This isn’t happening,” Darcy said. He eyed the pistol Charlotte had set aside while she squirmed into her suit.

“Don’t even think about it,” Donald said. “In fact, you should get busy getting dressed.”

The guard and his sister both turned to peer at him quizzically. Charlotte was just getting her legs into her suit. “What’re you talking about?” she asked.

Donald picked up the hammer sitting among the tools and showed it to her. “I’m not risking that it doesn’t go off,” he said.

She tried to stand up, but her feet weren’t all the way through the suit legs. “You said you had a way of setting it off remotely!”

“I do. Remotely from you.” He aimed the gun at Darcy. “Get dressed. You’ve got five minutes to get inside that lift—”

Darcy lunged for the gun sitting beside Charlotte. Charlotte was faster and snatched it off the bin. Donald took a step back, and then realized his sister was aiming the gun at him. “ You get dressed,” she told her brother. Her voice was shaky, her eyes shining. “This isn’t what we discussed. You promised.”

“I’m a liar,” Donald said. He coughed into the crook of his arm and smiled. “You’re a hypocrite and I’m a liar.” He began to back toward the lift, his gun trained on Darcy. “You’re not going to shoot me,” he told his sister.

“Give me the gun,” Darcy told Charlotte. “He’ll listen if I’m holding it.”

Donald laughed. “You aren’t going to shoot me either. That gun’s not loaded. Now get dressed. You two get out of here. I’m giving you half an hour. The drone lift takes twenty minutes to get to the top. The best thing to use for jamming the door is an empty bin. I left one over there.”

Charlotte was crying and tugging at the legs of her suit, trying to get her feet all the way through. Donald had known she’d never go without him unless he made her, that she’d do something stupid. She would run and embrace him and beg him to come, insist that she would stay there and die with him. The only chance of getting her out had been to leave Darcy with her. He was a hero. He would save himself and her both. Donald jabbed the call button on the non-express.

“Half an hour,” he repeated. He saw that Darcy was already unzipping his suit to get in. His sister was yelling at him and trying to stand up, nearly tripped and fell. She started to kick the suit off rather than put it on the rest of the way. The elevator dinged and opened. Donald leaned the cart back and pulled it inside. Tears welled up in his eyes to see the pain he was causing Charlotte. She was halfway down the aisle toward him as the doors began to close.

“I love you,” he said. He wasn’t sure if she heard him. The doors squeezed shut on the sight of her. He scanned his ID, pressed a button, and the lift began to move.