Hugh Howey: Third Shift - Pact

“Shouldn’t we cover the—?” Jimmy pointed up.

“I’ll get it on my way out. Let’s go, son.”

Jimmy turned and worked his way through the passage. There were wires and pipes running in parallel across the ceiling. A light ahead beat crimson. After twenty paces or so, the passage opened on a space that reminded him of the school stockroom. There were shelves along two walls. Two desks as well—one with a computer, the other with an open book. His dad went straight for the computer. “You were with your mother?” he asked.

Jimmy nodded. “She pulled me out of class. We got separated on the stairs.” He rubbed his sore shoulder while his father collapsed heavily into the chair in front of the desk. The computer screen was divided into four squares.

“Where did you lose her? How far up?”

“Two turns above thirty-four,” he said, remembering the fall.

Rather than reach for the mouse or keyboard, his father grabbed a black box studded with knobs and switches. There was a wire attached to the box that trailed off toward the back of the monitor. In one corner of the screen, Jimmy saw a moving picture of three men standing over someone lying still on the floor. It was real. It was an image, a window, like the cafeteria wallscreen. He was seeing a view of the hallway they’d just left.

“Fucking Yani,” his father muttered.

Jimmy’s eyes fell from the screen to stare at the back of his dad’s head. He’d heard his old man curse before, but never that word. His father’s shoulders were rising and falling as he took deep breaths. Jimmy returned his attention to the screen.

The four windows had become twelve. No, sixteen. His father leaned forward, his nose just inches from the monitor, and peered from one square to the next. His old hands worked the black box, which clicked as the knobs and dials were adjusted. Jimmy saw in every square the turmoil he’d witnessed on the stairway. From rail to post, the treads were packed with people. They surged upward. His father traced the squares with a finger, searching.

“Dad—”

“Shhh.”

“—what’s going on?”

“We’ve had a breach,” he said. “They’re trying to shut us down. You said it was two turns above the landing?”

“Yeah. But she was being carried up. It was hard to move. I went over the rail—”

The chair squeaked as his father turned and sized him up. His eyes fell to Jimmy’s arm, pinned against his chest. “You fell?”

“I’m okay. Dad, what’s going on? Trying to shut what down?”

His father returned his focus to the screen. A few clicks from the black box, and the squares flickered and changed. They now seemed to be peering through slightly different windows.

“They’re trying to shut down our silo,” his father said. “The bastards opened our airlock, said our gas supply was tainted— Wait. There she is.”

The many little windows became one. The view shifted slightly. Jimmy could see his mother pinned between a crush of people and the rail. Her mouth and chin were covered in blood. Gripping the rail and fighting for room, she lurched down one laborious step as the crowd coursed the other direction. It seemed as though everyone in the silo was trying to get topside. Jimmy’s father slapped the table and stood abruptly. “Wait here,” he said. He stepped toward the narrow passage, stopped, looked back at Jimmy, seemed to consider something. There was a strange shine in his eyes.

“Quick, now. Just in case.” He hurried the other direction, past Jimmy, and through a door leading out of the room. Jimmy hurried after him, frightened, confused, and limping.

“This is a lot like our stove,” his father said, patting an ancient thing in the corner of the next room. “Older model, but it works the same.” There was a wild look in his father’s eyes. He spun and indicated another door. “Storehouse, bunkroom, showers, all through there. Food enough to last four people for ten years. Be smart, son.”

“Dad— I don’t understand—”

“Tuck that key in,” his father said, pointing at Jimmy’s chest. Jimmy had left the lanyard outside of his coveralls. “Do not lose that key, okay? What’s the number you said you’d never forget?”

“Twelve-eighteen,” Jimmy said.

“Okay. Come in here. Let me show you how the radio works.”

Jimmy took a last look around this second room. He didn’t want to be left alone down there. That’s what his father was doing, leaving him down between the levels, hidden in the concrete. The world felt heavy all around him.

“I’ll come with you to get her,” he said, thinking of those men slapping their hands against the great steel door. His father couldn’t go alone, even with the big pistol.

“Don’t open the door for anyone but me or your mother,” his father said, ignoring his son’s pleas. “Now watch closely. We don’t have much time.” He indicated a box on the wall. The box was locked behind a metal cage, but there were some switches and dials on the outside. “Power’s here.” His father tapped one of the knobs. “Keep turning this way for volume.” His father did this, and the room was filled with an awful hiss. He pulled a device off the wall and handed it to Jimmy. It was attached to the noisy box by a wavy bit of stretchy cord. His dad grabbed another device from a rack on the wall. There were several of them there.

“Hear this? Hear this?” His father spoke into the portable device, and his voice replaced the loud hiss from the box on the wall. “Squeeze that button and talk into the mic.” He pointed to the unit in Jimmy’s hands. Jimmy did as he was told.

“I hear you,” Jimmy said hesitantly, and it was strange to hear his voice emanate from the small unit in his father’s hands.

“What’s the number?” his dad asked.

“Twelve-eighteen,” Jimmy said.

“Okay. Stay here, son.” His father appraised him for a moment, then stepped forward and grabbed the back of Jimmy’s neck. He kissed his son on the forehead, and Jimmy remembered the last time his father had kissed him like that. It was right before he had disappeared for three months, before his father had become a shadow, back when Jimmy was a little boy.

“When I put the grate back in place, it’ll lock itself. There’s a handle below to re-open it. Are you okay?”

Jimmy nodded. His father glanced up at the red, pulsing lights and frowned.

“Whatever you do,” he said. “Do not open that door for anyone but me or your mother. Understand?”

“I understand.” Jimmy clutched his arm and tried to be brave. There was another of the long pistols leaning up against the desk with the open book. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t come as well. He reached for the black gun. “Dad—”

“Stay here,” his father said.

Jimmy nodded.

“Good man.” He rubbed Jimmy’s head and smiled, then turned and disappeared down that dark and narrow corridor. The lights overhead winked on and off, a red throbbing like a pulse. There was the distant clang of boots on metal rungs, swallowed by the darkness and soon silent. And then Jimmy Parker was alone.

Donald couldn’t feel his toes. His feet were bare and had yet to thaw. They were bare, but all around him were boots. Boots everywhere. Boots on the men pushing him through aisles of gleaming pods. Boots standing still while they took his blood and told him to pee. Stiff boots that squeaked in the lift as grown men shifted nervously in place. And up above, a frantic hall greeted them where men stomped by in boots, a hall laden with shouts and nervous, lowered brows. They pushed him to a small apartment and left him alone to clean up and thaw out. Outside his door, more boots clomped up and down, up and down. Hurrying, hurrying. A world of worry, confusion, and noise in which to wake.