Hugh Howey - Shift

There was also discussion in the last meeting of allowing two facilities to reach E-Day for redundancy (or the possibility of holding one facility back in reserve). That has been deemed inadvisable. Having all baskets in one egg is better than the danger of allowing two or more eggs to hatch. As it is a source of growing contention, this amendment to the original Pact shall be hereby undersigned by all founding persons and considered law. I will take it upon myself to work E-shift and pull the lever. Long-term survivability prospects are at 42 per cent in the latest models. Marvellous progress, everyone.

Donald scanned the signatures a second time. There was Thurman’s simple scrawl, recognisable from countless memos and bills on the Hill. Another signature that might be Erskine’s. One that looked like Charles Rhodes, the swaggering Oklahoma governor. Illegible others. There was no date on the memo.

He read over it again. Understanding dawned slowly, full of doubts at first, but solidifying. There was a list he remembered from his previous shift, a ranking of silos. Number eighteen had been near the top. It was why Victor had fought so hard to save the facility. This decision he mentioned in the memo, pulling the lever. Had he said something about this in his note to Thurman? In his admission before he killed himself? Victor had grown unsure of whether or not he could make some decision.

Baskets in one egg . That wasn’t how the saying went. Donald leaned back in the chair, and one of the light bulbs in Dr Wilson’s desk lamp flickered. Bulbs were not meant to last so long. They went dark, but there were redundancies.

One egg . Because what would they do to each other if more than one were allowed to hatch?

The list.

The reason it all fell together for Donald so easily was because he already knew. Had always known. How could it be otherwise? They had no plan, these bastards, of allowing the men and women of the silos to go free. No. There could be only one. For what would they do to each other if they met hundreds of years hence on the hills outside? Donald had drawn this place. He should’ve always known. He was an architect of death.

He thought about the list, the rankings of the silos. The one at the top was the only one that mattered. But what was their metric? How arbitrary would that decision be? All those eggs slaughtered except for one. With what hope? What plan? That the differences and struggles among a silo’s people can be overcome? And yet the differences between the silos themselves was too much?

Donald coughed into his trembling hand. He understood what Anna was trying to tell him. And now it was too late. Too late for answers. This was the way of life and death, and in a place that ignored both, he’d forgotten. There was no waking anyone. Just confusion and grief. His only ally, gone.

But there was another he could wake, the one he’d hoped to from the beginning. This was a grave power, this ability to bestir the dead. Donald shivered as he realised what the Pact truly meant, this pact between the madmen who had conspired to destroy the world.

‘It’s a suicide pact,’ he whispered, and the concrete walls of the silo closed in around him; they wrapped him like the shell of an egg. An egg never meant to be hatched. For they were the most dangerous of them all, this pit of vipers, and no world would ever be safe with them in it. The women and children were in lifeboats only to urge the men of silo one to keep working their shifts. But they were all meant to drown. Every last one of them.

SOLO DIDN’T SET out one day to plumb the silo’s depths — it simply happened. He headed off towards fabled Supply in search of batteries or a can opener and found instead a battleground strewn with bones and bolts. Searching the tall shelves and the darkened corridors beyond, he found a second flashlight, even better than batteries. The flashlight had been left on, was warm to the touch, and it took several moments to realise what this meant. Solo had fled from Supply with a vow never to return. He ran downward, hurrying, chased by ghosts, until his boots splashed into cold water.

Solo started and lost his grip on the rail. He slid, fought for balance and fell to one knee, water soaking him up to his crotch, his rifle slipping off his shoulder, his bag getting wet.

Cursing, he struggled to his feet. Water dripped from the barrel of his rifle, a stream of liquid bullets. His overalls were freezing cold and clung to his skin where they’d gotten soaked.

‘Stupid,’ he said. He retreated up a step and watched the agitated surface settle. The silo was full of water. Peering through the murky surface, he saw that the stairs spiralled out of sight and into the dark depths. Solo watched where the water met the railing and waited to see if the flood was rising. If so, it was far slower than he could tell.

One of the doors on level one-thirty-seven moved back and forth with the waves his splashing had caused. The water was two feet or more above the level of the landing. It was that high inside the door as well. The entire silo was filling up with water, he thought. It had taken years for it to get this high. Would it go on for ever? How long before it filled his home up on thirty-four? How long before it reached the top?

Thinking of slowly drowning elicited a strange sound from Solo’s mouth, a noise like a sad whimper. His clothes dripped water back to where it had come from, and then Solo heard the whimpering sound again. It wasn’t coming from him at all.

He crouched down and peered into the flooded level, listening. There. The sound of someone crying. It was coming from inside the flooded levels. It sounded like an infant.

Solo peered down at the water. He would have to wade through it. The dim green lights overhead lent the world a ghostly pallor. The air was cold, and the water colder.

He retreated up the steps and left his heavy pack on one of the dry treads. The cuffs of his overalls were soaked. He rolled them up over his calves, then began unknotting the laces of his boots.

He listened for the cry again. It did not come. He wondered if he would be braving the wet and cold for something he’d imagined, for another ghost who would disappear as soon as he paid it any mind. He dumped the water out of his boots before setting them aside. He pulled off his socks — his big toe poked through a hole in one of them. He squeezed and twisted these, then draped them across the railing to dry.

He left his bag four steps above the waterline and thought he heard the baby cry again. He was enough years old to have a baby, he thought. He did the maths. He rarely did this maths. Was he twenty-six? Twenty-seven? Another birthday had come and gone with no one to remind him.

He stepped into the water and waded towards the door, his feet shocked half numb from the cold. The colourful film on the surface swirled and mixed and flowed around the stanchions that held up the landing rail. Solo paused and peered beyond the landing. It seemed strange to be so high off the bottom of the silo and see this fluid stretching out to the concrete walls. If he were to fall over, would the water slow his plummet to the bottom? Or would he bob on the surface like that bit of trash over there? He thought he would sink, so he shuffled his feet cautiously. Something silver flashed beneath the grating, but he thought it was just his reflection or the dance of the metallic sheen on the surface.

‘You better be worth this,’ he told the ghost of some baby down the hall.

He listened for the ghost to call back, but it was no longer crying. The light beyond the doors fell away to blackness, so he pulled his flashlight out of his chest pocket and turned it on. The layer of rippling water caught the beam and magnified it. Waves of light danced across the ceiling.