Hugh Howey: Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1-5)

“You know,” she told Marnes, “we could do this different this time. You could let me promote you to sheriff, hire yourself a deputy, and do this proper.”

Marnes laughed. “I’ve been deputy almost as long as you’ve been mayor, Ma’am. Don’t figure on being nothing else but dead one day.”

Jahns nodded. One of the things she loved about having Marnes around was that his thoughts could be so black as to make hers shine gray. “I fear that day is rapidly approaching for us both,” she said.

“Truer than true, I reckon. Never figured to outlive so many. Sure as sin don’t see me outliving you.” Marnes rubbed his mustache and studied the view of the outside. Jahns smiled at him, opened the folder on top, and studied the first bio.

“That’s three decent candidates,” Marnes said. “Just like you asked for. Be happy to work with any of them. Juliette, I think she’s in the middle there, would be my first pick. Works down in Mechanical. Don’t come up much, but me and Holston—”

Marnes paused and cleared his throat. Jahns glanced over and saw that her Deputy’s gaze had crept toward that dark crook in the hill. He covered his mouth with a fist of sharp knuckles and faked a cough.

“Excuse me,” he said. “As I was sayin’, the sheriff and me worked a death down there a few years back. This Juliette—I think she prefers Jules, come to think of it—was a right shiner. Sharp as a tack. Big help on this case, good at spotting details, handling people, being diplomatic but firm, all that. I don’t think she comes up past the eighties much. A down-deeper for sure, which we ain’t had in a while.”

Jahns sorted through Juliette’s folder, checking her family tree, her voucher history, her current pay in chits. She was listed as a shift foreman with good marks. No history in the lottery.

“Never married?” Jahns asked.

“Nope. Something of a johnboy. A wrencher, you know? We were down there a week, saw how the guys took to her. Now, she could have her pick of them boys but chooses not to. Kind of person who leaves an impression but prefers to go it alone.”

“Sure seems like she left an impression on you,” Jahns said, regretting it immediately. She hated the jealous tone in her own voice.

Marnes shifted his weight to his other foot. “Well, you know me, Mayor. I’m always sizing up candidates. Anything to keep from bein’ promoted.”

Jahns smiled. “What about the other two?” She checked the names, wondering if a down-deeper was a good idea. Or possibly worried about Marnes having a crush. She recognized the name on the top folder. Peter Billings. He worked a few floors down in judicial, as a clerk or a judge’s shadow.

“Honestly, ma’am? They’re filler to make it seem fair. Like I said, I’d work with them, but I think Jules is your girl. Been a long time since we had a lass for a Sheriff. Be a popular choice with an election comin’ up.”

“That won’t be why we choose,” Jahns said. “Whoever we decide on will probably be here long after we’re gone—” She stopped herself as she recalled having said the same thing about Holston, back when he’d been chosen.

Jahns closed the folder and returned her attention to the wallscreen. A small tornado had formed at the base of the hill, the gathering dust whipped into an organized frenzy. It built some steam, this small wisp, as it swelled into a larger cone, spinning and spinning on a wavering tip like a child’s top as it raced toward sensors that fairly sparkled in the wan rays of a clear sunrise.

“I think we should go see her,” Jahns finally said. She kept the folders in her lap, fingers like rolled parchment toying with the rough edges of handmade paper.

“Ma’am? I’d rather us fetch her up here. Do the interview in your office like we’ve always done. It’s a long way down to her and an even longer way back up.”

“I appreciate the concern, Deputy, I do. But it’s been a long while since I’ve been much past the fortieth. My knees are no excuse to not see my people—”

The Mayor stopped. The tornado of dust wavered, turned, and headed straight for them. It grew and grew—the wide angle of the lens distorting it into a monster much larger and more fierce than she knew it to actually be—and then it blew over the sensor array, the entire cafeteria descending into a brief darkness until the zephyr caromed past, retreating across the screen in the lounge and leaving behind it a view of the world now tainted with a slight, dingy film.

“Damn those things,” Deputy Marnes said through gritted teeth. The aged leather of his holster squeaked as he rested his hand on the butt of his gun, and Jahns imagined the old Deputy out on that landscape, chasing the wind on thin legs while pumping bullets into a cloud of fading dust.

The two of them sat silent a moment, surveying the damage. Finally, Jahns spoke.

“This trip won’t be about the election, Marnes. It won’t be for votes, either. For all I know, I’ll run again unopposed. So we won’t make a deal of it, and we’ll travel light and quiet. I want to see my people, not be seen by them.” She looked over at him, found that he was watching her. “It’ll be for me, Marnes. A getaway.”

She turned back to the view.

“Sometimes… sometimes I just think I’ve been up here too long. The both of us. I think we’ve been anywhere too long—”

The ringing of morning footsteps on the spiral staircase gave her pause, and they both turned toward the sound of life, the sound of a waking day. And she knew it was time to start getting the images of dead things out of her mind. Or at least, to bury them a while.

“We’ll go down and get us a proper gauge of this Juliette, you and me. Because sometimes, sitting here, looking out on what the world makes us do—it needles me deep, Marnes. It needles me straight through.”

They met after breakfast in Holston’s old office. Jahns still thought of it as his, a day later. It was too early for her to think of the room as anything else. She stood beyond the twin desks and old filing cabinets and peered into the empty holding cell while Deputy Marnes gave last minute instructions to Terry, a security worker from IT who often held down the fort while Marnes and Holston were away on a case. Standing dutifully behind Terry was a teenager named Marcha, a young girl with dark hair and bright eyes who was apprenticing for work in IT. She was Terry’s shadow—just about half the silo had one. They ranged in age from twelve to twenty, these ever-present sponges absorbing the lessons and techniques for keeping the silo operational one generation more.

Deputy Marnes reminded Terry how rowdy people got after a cleaning. Once the tension was released, people tended to live it up a little. Most of them were too young to remember the last double cleaning, so they thought it couldn’t happen. They thought, for a few months at least, that anything went.

The warning hardly needed saying—the revelry in the next room could be heard through the shut door. Most residents from the top forty were already packed into the cafeteria and lounge. Hundreds more from the mids and the down deep would trickle up throughout the day, asking off work and turning in holiday chits just to see the mostly clear view. It was a pilgrimage for many. Some only came up once every few years, stood around for an hour muttering that it looked the same as they remembered, then shooing their children down the stairs ahead of them, fighting the upward surging crowds.

Terry was left with the keys and a temporary badge. Marnes checked the batteries in his wireless, made sure the volume on the office unit was up, and inspected his gun. He shook Terry’s hand and wished him luck. Jahns sensed it was almost time for them to go and turned away from the empty cell. She said goodbye to Terry, gave Marcha a nod, and followed Marnes out the door.