Hugh Howey - Shift

She squeezed his hand. Donald looked down, didn’t realise she’d been holding it. The folded report was in her other hand. The footsteps approached. Donald nodded his assent.

‘Thank you,’ she said. She dropped his hand, grabbed his empty cup from the cot and nested hers with it. She tucked the cups and the bottle into one of the chairs and slid it under the table. Thurman arrived at the door and rapped the jamb with his knuckles.

‘Come in,’ Anna said, brushing loose hair off her face.

Thurman studied the two of them for a moment. ‘Erskine is planning a small ceremony,’ he said. ‘Just us. Those of us who know.’

Anna nodded. ‘Of course.’

Thurman narrowed his eyes and glanced from his daughter to Donald. Anna seemed to take it as a question.

‘Donny thinks he can help,’ she said. ‘We both think it’s best for him to work down here with me. At least until we make some progress.’

Donald turned to her in shock. Thurman said nothing.

‘We’ll need another computer,’ she added. ‘If you bring one down, I can set it up.’

That, Donald liked the sound of.

‘And another cot, of course,’ Anna added with a smile.

MISSION SLUNK AWAY after the scuffle with the farmers, and the rest of the porters scattered. He stole a few hours of sleep at the upper way station on level ten, his nose numb and lips throbbing from a blow he’d taken. Tossing and turning, too restless to stay put, he rose in the dim-time and realised it was too early yet to go to the Nest; the Crow would still be asleep. And so he headed to the cafeteria for a sunrise and a decent breakfast, the coroner’s bonus burning in his pockets the way his knuckles burned from their scrapes.

He nursed his aches with a welcome hot meal, eating with those coming off a midnight shift, and watched the clouds boil and come to life across the hills. The towering husks in the distance — the Crow called them skyscrapers — were the first to catch the rising sun. It was a sign that the world would wake one more day. His birthday, Mission realised. He left his dishes on the table, a chit for whoever cleaned after him, and tried not to think of cleaning at all. Instead, he rushed down the eight flights of stairs before the silo fully woke. He headed towards the Nest, feeling not a day older at all.

Familiar words greeted him at the landing on level thirteen. There, above the door, rather than a level number it read:

The words were painted in bright and blocky letters. They followed the outlines from years and generations prior, colour piled on colour and letters crooked from more than one young hand’s involvement. The children of the silo came and went and left their marks with bristles, but the Old Crow remained.

Her nest comprised the nursery, day school and classrooms that served the up top. She had been perched there for longer than any alive could remember. Some said she was as old as the silo itself, but Mission knew that was just a legend. Nobody knew how old the silo was.

He entered the Nest to find the hallways empty and quiet, the hour early still. There was a soft screech from one classroom as desks were put back into order. Mission caught a glimpse of two teachers conferring in another classroom, their faces scrunched up with worry, probably wondering what to do with a younger version of himself. The scent of strong tea mixed with the odour of paste and chalk. There were rows of metal lockers in dire need of paint and stippled with dents from tiny fists; they transported Mission back to another age. It felt like just yesterday that he had terrorised that hall. He and all his friends whom he didn’t see any more — or at least not as often as he’d like.

The Crow’s room was at the far end and adjoined the only apartment on the entire level. The apartment had been built especially for her, converted from a classroom, or so they said. And while she taught only the youngest children any more, the entire school was hers. This was her nest.

Mission remembered coming to her at various stages of his life. Early on, for comfort, feeling so very far from the farms. Later, for wisdom, when he was finally old enough to admit he had none. And more than once he had come for both, like the day he had learned the truth of his birth and his mother’s death — that she had been sent to clean because of him. Mission remembered that day well. It was the only time he’d ever seen the Old Crow cry.

He knocked on her classroom door before entering and found her at the blackboard that had been lowered so she could write on it from her chair. Mrs Crowe stopped erasing yesterday’s lessons, turned and beamed at him.

‘My boy,’ she croaked. She waved with the eraser to beckon him closer. A chalky haze filled the air. ‘My boy, my boy.’

‘Hello, Mrs Crowe.’ Mission passed between the handful of desks to get to her. The power line for her electric chair drooped from the centre of the ceiling to a pole that rose up from the chair’s back. Mission ducked beneath it as he got closer and bent to give the Crow a hug. His hands wrapped around her, and he breathed in her smell — one of childhood and innocence. The yellow gown she wore, spotted with flowers, was her outfit for Wednesdays, as good as any calendar. It had faded since Mission’s time, as all things had.

‘I do believe you’ve grown,’ she said, smiling up at him. Her voice was barely a whisper, and he recalled how it kept even the young ones quiet so they could hear what was being said. She brought her hand up and touched her own cheek. ‘What happened to your face?’

Mission laughed and shrugged off his porter’s pack. ‘Just an accident,’ he said, lying to her like old times. He placed his pack at the foot of one of the tiny desks, could imagine squeezing into the thing and staying for the day’s lesson.

‘How’ve you been?’ he asked. He studied her face, the deep wrinkles and dark skin like a farmer’s but from age rather than grow lights. Her eyes were rheumy, but there was life still behind them.

‘Not so good,’ Mrs Crowe said. She twisted the lever on her armrest, and the chair built for her decades ago by some long-gone former student whirred around to face him better. Pulling back her sleeve, she showed Mission a gauze bandage taped to her thin and splotchy arm. ‘Those doctors came and took my blood away.’ Her hand shook as she indicated the evidence. ‘Took half of it, by my reckoning.’

Mission laughed. ‘I’m pretty sure they didn’t take half your blood, Mrs Crowe. The doctors are just looking out for you.’

She twisted up her face, an explosion of wrinkles. She didn’t seem so sure. ‘I don’t trust them,’ she said.

Mission smiled. ‘You don’t trust anyone. And hey, maybe they’re just trying to figure out why you can’t die like everyone else does. Maybe they’ll come up with a way for everyone to live as long as you someday.’

Mrs Crowe rubbed the bandage on her withering arm. ‘Or they’re figuring out how to kill me,’ she said.

‘Oh, don’t be so sinister.’ Mission reached forward and pulled her sleeve down to keep her from messing with the bandage. ‘Why would you think such a thing?’

She frowned and declined to answer. Her eyes fell to his near-empty pack. ‘Day off?’ she asked.

Mission turned and followed her gaze. ‘Hmm? Oh, no. I dropped something off last night. I’ll pick up another delivery in a little bit, take it wherever they tell me to.’

‘Oh, to be so young and free again.’ Mrs Crowe spun her chair around and steered it behind her desk. Mission ducked beneath the pivoting wire out of habit; the pole at the back of the chair was made with younger heads in mind. She picked up a container of the vile vegetable pulp she preferred over water and took a sip. ‘Allie stopped by last week.’ She set the greenish-black fluid down. ‘She was asking about you. Wanted to know if you were still single.’