Hugh Howey - Shift

Troy backed out of the door and glanced down the hall in the direction of the deep freeze. The women and children were kept there, along with the men who couldn’t make it through their shifts. ‘Do you mind if I… ?’ He felt a very real tug pulling him in that direction. Merriman and the doctor both frowned.

‘It’s not a good idea—’ the doctor began.

‘I wouldn’t,’ Merriman said. ‘I made a few visits the first weeks. It’s a mistake. Let it go.’

Troy stared down the hallway. He wasn’t exactly sure what he would find there, anyway.

‘Get through the next six months,’ Merriman said. ‘It goes by fast. It all goes by fast.’

Troy nodded. The doctor shooed him away with his eyes while Merriman began tugging off his boots. Troy turned, gave the heavy door down the hall one last glance, then headed in the other direction for the lift.

He hoped Merriman was right. Jabbing the button to call the express, he tried to imagine his entire shift flashing by. And the one after that. And the next one. Until this insanity had run its course, little thought to what came after.

TIME FLEW BY for Donald Keene. Another day came to an end, a week, and still he needed more time. It seemed the sun had just gone down when he looked up and it was past eleven.

Helen . There was a rush of panic as he fumbled for his phone. He had promised his wife he would always call before ten. A guilty heat wedged around his collar. He imagined her sitting around, staring at her phone, waiting and waiting.

It didn’t even ring on his end before she picked up.

‘There you are,’ she said, her voice soft and drowsy, her tone hinting more at relief than anger.

‘Sweetheart. God, I’m really sorry. I totally lost track of time.’

‘That’s okay, baby.’ She yawned, and Donald had to fight the infectious urge to do the same. ‘You write any good laws today?’

He laughed and rubbed his face. ‘They don’t really let me do that. Not yet. I’m mostly staying busy with this little project for the Senator—’

He stopped himself. Donald had dithered all week on the best way to tell her, what parts to keep secret. He glanced at the extra monitor on his desk. Anna’s perfume was somehow frozen in the air, still lingering a week later.

Helen’s voice perked up: ‘Oh?’

He could picture her clearly: Helen in her nightgown, his side of the bed still immaculately made, a glass of water within her reach. He missed her terribly. The guilt he felt, despite his innocence, made him miss her all the more.

‘What does he have you doing? It’s legal, I hope.’

‘What? Of course it’s legal. It’s… some architectural stuff, actually.’ Donald leaned forward to grab the finger of gold Scotch left in his tumbler. ‘To be honest, I’d forgotten how much I love the work. I would’ve been a decent architect if I’d stuck with it.’ He took a burning sip and eyed his monitors, which had gone dark to save the screens. He was dying to get back to it. Everything fell away, disappeared, when he lost himself in the drawing.

‘Sweetheart, I don’t think designing a new bathroom for the Senator’s office is why the taxpayers sent you to Washington.’

Donald smiled and finished the drink. He could practically hear his wife grinning on the other end of the line. He set the glass back on his desk and propped up his feet. ‘It’s nothing like that,’ he insisted. ‘It’s plans for that facility they’re putting in outside of Atlanta. Just a minor portion of it, really. But if I don’t get it just right, the whole thing could fall apart.’

He eyed the open folder on his desk. His wife laughed sleepily.

‘Why in the world would they have you doing something like that?’ she asked. ‘If it’s so important, wouldn’t they pay someone who knows what they’re doing?’

Donald laughed dismissively, however much he agreed. He couldn’t help but feel victim to Washington’s habit for assigning jobs to people who weren’t qualified for them. ‘I’m actually quite good at this,’ he told his wife. ‘I’m starting to think I’m a better architect than a congressman.’

‘I’m sure you’re wonderful at it.’ His wife yawned again. ‘But you could’ve stayed home and been an architect. You could work late here .’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Donald remembered their discussions on whether or not he should run for office, if it would be worth them being apart. Now he was spending his time away doing the very thing they’d agreed he should give up. ‘I think this is just something they put us through our first year,’ he said. ‘Think of it like your internship. It’ll get better. And besides, I think it’s a good sign he wants me in on this. He sees the Atlanta thing as a family project, something to keep in-house. He actually took notice of some of my work at—’

‘ Family project.’

‘Well, not literally family, more like—’ This wasn’t how he wanted to tell her. It was a bad start. It was what he got for putting it off, for waiting until he was exhausted and tipsy.

‘Is this why you’re working late? Why you’re calling me after ten?’

‘Baby, I lost track of the time. I was on my computer.’ He looked to his tumbler, saw that it held the barest of sips, just the golden residue that had slid down the glass after his last pull. ‘This is good news for us. I’ll be coming home more often because of this. I’m sure they’ll need me to check out the job site, work with the foremen—’

‘That would be good news. Your dog misses you.’

Donald smiled. ‘I hope you both do.’

‘You know I do.’

‘Good.’ He swilled the last drop in the glass and gulped it down. ‘And listen, I know how you’re gonna feel about this, and I swear it’s out of my control, but the Senator’s daughter is working on this project with me. Mick Webb, too. You remember him?’

Cold silence.

Then, ‘I remember the Senator’s daughter.’

Donald cleared his throat. ‘Yeah, well, Mick is doing some of the organisational work, securing land, dealing with contractors. It’s practically his district, after all. And you know neither of us would be where we are today without the Senator stumping for us—’

‘What I remember is that you two used to date. And that she used to flirt with you even when I was around.’

Donald laughed. ‘Are you serious? Anna Thurman? C’mon, honey, that was a lifetime ago—’

‘I thought you were going to come home more often, anyway. On the weekends.’ He heard his wife let out a breath. ‘Look, it’s late. Why don’t we both get some sleep? We can talk about this tomorrow.’

‘Okay. Yeah, sure. And sweetheart?’

She waited.

‘Nothing’s gonna come between us, okay? This is a huge opportunity for me. And it’s something I’m really good at. I’d forgotten how good at it I am.’

A pause.

‘There’s a lot you’re good at,’ his wife said. ‘You’re a good husband, and I know you’ll be a good congressman. I just don’t trust the people you’re surrounding yourself with.’

‘But you know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.’

‘I know.’

‘Look, I’ll be careful. I promise.’

‘Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Sleep tight. I love you.’

She hung up, and Donald looked down at his phone, saw that he had a dozen emails waiting for him. He decided to ignore them until morning. Rubbing his eyes, he willed himself awake, to think clearly. He shook the mouse to stir his monitors. They could afford to nap, to go dark awhile, but he couldn’t.

A wireframe apartment sat in the middle of his new screen. Donald zoomed out and watched the apartment sink away and a hallway appear, then dozens of identical wedge-shaped living quarters squeeze in from the edges. The building specs called for a bunker that could house ten thousand people for at least a year — utter overkill. Donald approached the task as he would any design project. He imagined himself in their place, a toxic spill, a leak or some horrible fallout, a terrorist attack, something that might send all of the facility workers underground where they would have to stay for weeks or months until the area was cleared.