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

Juliette grabbed it and set the plastic case aside. She blew into the little metal end of the drive, getting any debris out, before slotting it into the front of her computer. She wasn’t great with computers, but she could get around them. You couldn’t do anything in Mechanical without submitting a claim, a report, a request, or some other piece of nonsense. And they were handy for logging into pumps and relays remotely to shut them on or off, see their diagnostics, all of that.

Once the light on the drive winked on, she navigated to it on her screen. Inside, she found a host of folders and files; the little drive must’ve been stuffed to the brim with them. She wondered if Scottie had gotten any sleep at all the night before.

At the top of a list of primary folders was a file named “Jules.” She clicked this one, and up popped a short text file obviously from Scottie, but noticeably unsigned:

J—

Don’t get caught with this, okay? This is everything from Mr. Lawman’s computers, work and home, the last five years. A ton of stuff, but wasn’t sure what you needed and this was easier to automate.

Keep the ties — I got plenty.

(And I took a cookie. Hope you don’t mind)

Juliette smiled. She felt like reaching out and brushing her fingers across the words, but it wasn’t paper and wouldn’t be the same. She closed the note and deleted it, then cleared out her trash. Even the first letter of her name up there felt like too much information.

She leaned away from her desk and peered into the cafeteria, which appeared dark and empty. It was not yet five in the morning, and she would have the upper floor to herself for a while. She first took a moment to browse through the directory structure to see what kind of data she was dealing with. Each folder was neatly labeled. It appeared she had an operating history of Holston’s two computers, every keystroke, every day, going back a little more than five years, all organized by date and time. Juliette felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information—it was far more than she could hope to weed through in a lifetime.

But at least she had it. The answers she needed were in there, somewhere, among all those files. And somehow it felt better, she felt better, just knowing the solution to this riddle, to Holston’s decision to go to cleaning, could now fit in the palm of her hand.

She was several hours into sifting through the data when the cafeteria crew staggered in to clean up last night’s mess and prepare for breakfast. One of the most difficult things to get used to about the up-top was the exacting schedule everyone kept. There was no third shift. There was barely a second shift, except for the dinner staff. In the down deep, the machines didn’t sleep, and so the workers barely did either. Work crews often stayed on into extra shifts, and so Juliette had gotten used to surviving on a handful of hours of rest a night. The trick was to pass out now and then from sheer exhaustion, to just rest against a wall with one’s eyes closed for fifteen minutes, long enough to hold the tiredness at bay.

But what had once been survival was now luxury. The ability to forego sleep gave her time in the morning and at night to herself, time to invest in frivolous pursuits on top of the cases she was supposed to be working. It also gave her the opportunity to teach herself how to do the blasted job, since Marnes had become too depressed to help get her up to speed.

Marnes —

She looked at the clock over his desk. It was ten minutes after eight, and the vats of warm oatmeal and corn grits were already filling the cafeteria with the smells of breakfast. Marnes was late. She’d been around him less than a week, but she had yet to see him late to anything, ever. This break in the routine was like a timing belt stretching out of shape, a piston developing a knock. Juliette turned her monitor off and pushed away from her desk. Outside, first shift breakfast was beginning to file in, food tokens clinking in the large bucket by the old turnstiles. She left her office and passed through the traffic spilling from the stairwell. In the line, a young girl tugged on her mother’s coveralls and pointed to Juliette as she passed. Juliette heard the mother scolding her child for being rude.

There had been quite a bit of chatter the past few days over her appointment, this woman who had disappeared into Mechanical as a child and who had suddenly re-emerged to take over for one of the more popular sheriffs in memory. Juliette cringed from the attention and hurried into the stairwell. She wound her way down the steps as fast as a lightly loaded porter, her feet bouncing off each tread, faster and faster in what felt like an unsafe pace. Four flights down, after squeezing around a slow couple and between a family heading up for breakfast, she hit the apartment landing just below her own and passed through the double doors.

The hallway beyond was busy with morning sights and sounds: a squealing teapot, the shrill voices of children, the thunder of feet overhead, shadows hurrying to meet their casters before trailing them off to work. Younger children were lumbering reluctantly off to school; husbands and wives kissed in doorways while toddlers tugged at their coveralls and dropped toys and plastic cups.

Juliette took several turns, winding through the hallways and around the central staircase to the other side of the level. The Deputy’s apartment was on the far side, way in the back. She surmised that Marnes had qualified for several upgrades over the years, but had passed on them. The one time she had asked Alice, Mayor Jahns’ old secretary about Marnes, she had shrugged and told Juliette that he had never wanted or expected anything more than second fiddle. Juliette assumed she meant that he never wanted to be sheriff, but she had begun to wonder in how many other areas of his life that philosophy applied.

As she reached his hall, two kids ran by holding hands, late for school. They giggled and squealed around the corner, leaving Juliette alone in the hallway. She wondered what she would say to Marnes to justify coming down, to explain her worry. Maybe now was a good time to ask for the folder that he couldn’t seem to be without. She could tell him to take the day off, let her handle the office while he got some rest, or maybe fib a little and say she was already in the area for a case.

She stopped outside his door and lifted her hand to knock. Hopefully he wouldn’t see this as her projecting authority, right? She was just concerned for him. That was all.

She rapped on the steel door and waited for him to call her inside—and maybe he did. His voice over the last few days had eroded into a dull and thin rasp. She knocked again, louder this time.

“Deputy?” she called. “Everything okay in there?”

A woman popped her head out of a door down the hallway. Juliette recognized her from school recess time in the cafeteria, was pretty sure her name was Gloria.

“Hey, Sheriff.”

“Hey, Gloria, you haven’t seen Deputy Marnes this morning, have you?”

She shook her head, placed a metal rod in her mouth and started wrapping her long locks into a bun. “I haben’t,” she mumbled. She shrugged her shoulders and jabbed the rod through her bun, locking her hair into place. “He was on the landing last night, looking as whipped as ever.” She frowned. “He not show up for work?”

Juliette turned back to the door and tried the handle. It clicked open with the feel of a well maintained lock. She pushed the door in. “Deputy? It’s Jules. Just checkin’ in on ya.”

The door swung open into the darkness. The only light spilling in was from the hallway, but it was enough.

Juliette turned to Gloria. “Call Doc Hicks— No, shit—” She was still thinking down deep. “Who’s the closest doctor up here? Call him!”