Hugh Howey: Second Shift - Order

“Hmm? No. I don’t know a Cam. I just like the way it sounds.”

He picked up his glass of water, studied it a while. Or did he know a Cam? Where did he know that name from? There was something he was supposed to remember, something about the way water gets made, gets purified. But there were pockets of his past shrouded and hidden from him. There were things like the mark on his neck and the scar on his stomach that he couldn’t remember coming to be. Everyone had their share of these things, parts of their bygone days they couldn’t recall, but Mission more than most. Like his birthday. It drove him crazy that he couldn’t remember when his birthday was. What was so hard about that?

“Sir?”

There was a clatter of bones beneath his feet. Donald stumbled through the dark.

“Can you hear me?”

The haze parted, an eyelid cracking, just like the seal of his pod. A bean. Donald was curled inside that pod like a bean.

“Sir? Are you with me?”

Skin so cold. Donald was sitting up, steam rising from his bare legs. He didn’t remember going to sleep. He remembered a doctor, remembered being in his office. Not his office, an airlock. They were talking. People were angry. Now he was being woken up.

“Drink this, sir.”

Donald remembered this. He remembered waking over and over, but he didn’t remember going to sleep. Just the waking. He took a sip, had to concentrate to make his throat work, had to fight to swallow. A pill. There was supposed to be a pill, but it wasn’t offered.

“Sir, we had instructions to wake you.”

Instructions. Rules. Protocol. Donald was in trouble again. Troy. Maybe it was that Troy fellow. Who was he? Donald drank as much as he could.

“Very good, sir. We’re going to lift you out.”

He was in trouble. They only woke him when there was trouble. A catheter was removed, a needle extracted from his arm.

“What did I—?”

He coughed into his fist. His voice was a sheet of tissue paper, thin and fragile. Invisible.

“What is it?” he asked, shouting to form a whisper.

Two men lifted him up and set him into a wheelchair. A third man held it still. There was a soft blanket instead of a paper gown. There was no rustling this time, no itching on his skin.

“We lost one,” someone said.

A silo. A silo was gone. It would be Donald’s fault again. “Eighteen,” he whispered, remembering his last shift.

Two of the men glanced at each other, mouths open.

“Yes,” one of them said, awe in his voice. “From Silo Eighteen, sir. We lost her over the hill. We lost contact.”

Donald tried to focus on the man. He remembered losing someone over a hill. Helen . His wife. They were still looking for her. There was still hope.

“Tell me,” he whispered.

“We’re not sure how, but one of them made it out of sight.”

“A cleaner, sir—”

A cleaner. Donald sank into the chair; his bones were as cold and heavy as stone. It wasn’t Helen at all.

“Over the hill—” one said.

“We got a call from Eighteen—”

Donald raised his hand a little, his arm trembling and still half-numb from the sleep. “Wait,” he croaked. “One at a time. Why did you wake me?” It hurt to talk. He remembered a hill. A view over a hill.

One of the men cleared his throat. The blanket was tucked up under Donald’s chin to stop him from shivering. He hadn’t known he was shivering. They were being so reverent with him, so gentle. What was this? He tried to clear his head.

“You told us to wake you—”

“It’s protocol—”

Donald’s eyes fell to the pod, still steaming as the chill escaped. There was a screen at the base, empty readouts without him in there, just a rising temp. A rising temp and a name. Not his name.

And Donald remembered a conversation. He didn’t remember going to sleep, but he remembered a doctor, a man with glasses and an accent telling him how names meant nothing unless that was all we had to go by. Unless we didn’t remember each other, didn’t cross paths, and then a name was everything.

“Sir?”

“Who am I?” he asked, reading the little screen, not understanding. This wasn’t him. “Why did you wake me?”

“You told us to, Mr. Thurman.”

The blanket was wrapped snugly around his shoulders. The chair was turned. They were treating him with respect, like he had authority. The wheels on this chair did not squeak at all.

“It’s okay, sir. Your head will clear soon.”

He didn’t know these people. They didn’t know him.

“The doctor will clear you for duty.”

Nobody knew anyone.

“Right this way.”

And then anyone could be anybody.

“Through here.”

Until it didn’t matter who was in charge. One who might do what was needed, another who might do what was right.

“Very good.”

One name as good as any other.