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

“Do you have an appointment?” the man asked.

Juliette narrowed her eyes at the man.

“I’m the sheriff. Since when do I need appointments?” Again with the card, and again the gate buzzed at her. The young man did not move to help.

“Please do not do that,” he said.

“Look, Son, I’m in the middle of an investigation here. And you’re impeding my progress.”

He smiled at her. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the unique position we maintain here and that your powers are—”

Juliette put her ID away and reached over the gate to grab the straps of his coveralls with both hands. She pulled him almost clear over the gates, her arms bulging with the sinewy muscles that had freed countless bolts.

“Listen here you blasted runt, I’m coming through these gates or I’m coming over them and then through you . I’ll have you know that I report directly to Bernard Holland, acting Mayor, and your goddamned boss. Do I make myself clear?”

The kid’s eyes were wide and all-pupil. He jerked his chin up and down.

“Then move it,” she said, letting go of his coveralls with a shove.

He fumbled for his ID—swiped it through the scanner.

Juliette pushed through the spinning arms of the turnstile and past him. Then stopped.

“Uh, which way, exactly?”

The boy was still trying to get his ID back into his chest pocket, his hand trembling. “Th-thataway, ma’am.” He pointed to the right. “Second hall, take a left. Last office.”

“Good man,” she said. She turned and smiled to herself. It seemed that the same tone that got bickering mechanics to snap-to back home worked here as well. And she laughed to herself to think of the argument she had used: Your boss is also my boss, so open up. But then, with eyes that wide and that much fear in his veins, she could’ve read him Mama Jean’s bread recipe with the same tone and gotten through the gates. This was a skill to remember.

She took the second hallway, passing by a man and woman in IT silver as they walked the other way. They turned to watch her pass. At the end of the hall, she found offices on both sides and didn’t know which one was Scottie’s. She peeked first into the one with the open door, but the lights were off. She turned to the other one and knocked.

There was no answer at first, but the light at the bottom of the door dimmed, as if someone had walked across it.

“Who’s there?” a familiar voice whispered through the door.

“Open this damn thing,” Juliette said. “You know who this is.”

The lever dipped, the door clicking open. Juliette pushed her way inside, and Scottie shoved the door closed behind her, engaging the lock.

“Were you seen?” he asked.

She looked at him incredulously. “Was I seen? Of course I was seen. How do you think I got in? There’re people everywhere.”

“But did they see you come in here ?” he whispered.

“Scottie, what the hell is going on?” Juliette was beginning to suspect she had hurried all this way for nothing. “You sent me a wire, which already seemed desperate enough, but you told me to come now. So here I am.”

“Where did you get this stuff?” he asked. Scottie grabbed a spool of printout from his desk and held it in trembling hands.

Juliette stepped beside him. She placed a hand on his arm and looked at the paper. “Just calm down,” she said quietly. She tried to read a few lines and immediately recognized the gibberish she had sent to Mechanical earlier that day. “How did you get this?” she asked. “I just wired this to Knox a few hours ago.”

Scottie nodded. “And he wired it to me. But he shouldn’t have. I can get into a lot of trouble for this.”

Juliette laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

She saw that he wasn’t.

“Scottie, you’re the one who pulled all this stuff for me in the first place.” She stepped back and looked hard at him. “Wait, you know what this nonsense is, right? You can read it?”

He bobbed his head. “Jules, I didn’t know what I was grabbing for you at the time. It was gigs of crap. I didn’t look at it. I just grabbed it and passed it on—”

“Why is this so dangerous?” she asked.

“I can’t even talk about it,” Scottie said. “I’m not cleaning material, Jules. I’m not.” He held out the scroll. “Here. I shouldn’t have even printed it, but I wanted to delete the wire. You’ve got to take it. Get it out of here. I can’t be caught with it.”

Juliette took the scroll, but just to calm him down. “Scottie, sit down. Please. Look, I know you’re scared, but I need you to sit and talk to me about this. It’s very important.”

He shook his head.

“Scottie, sit the hell down right now.” She pointed at the chair, and Scottie numbly obeyed. Juliette sat on the corner of his desk and noted that the cot at the back of the room had been recently slept on, and felt pity for the young man.

“Whatever this is—” She shook the roll of paper. “—it’s what caused the last two cleanings.”

She told him this like it was more than a rapidly forming theory, like it was something she knew. Maybe it was the fear in his eyes that cemented the idea, or the need to act strong and sure to help calm him. “Scottie, I need to know what it is. Look at me.”

He did.

“Do you see this star?” She flicked it with her finger, causing a dull ring.

He nodded.

“I’m not your shift foreman anymore, lad. I’m the law, and this is very important. Now, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you can’t get into any trouble for answering my questions. In fact, you’re obligated to answer them.”

He looked up at her with a twinge of hope. He obviously didn’t know that she was making this up. Not lying—she would never turn Scottie in for all the silo—but she was pretty sure there was no such thing as immunity, not for anyone.

“What am I holding?” she asked, waving the scroll of printout.

“It’s a program,” he whispered.

“You mean like a timing circuit? Like a—?”

“No, for a computer. A programming language. It’s a—” He looked away. “I don’t want to say. Oh, Jules, I just want to go back to Mechanical. I want none of this to have happened.”

These words were like a splash of cold water. Scottie was more than frightened—he was terrified. For his life . Juliette got off the desk and crouched beside him, placed her hand on the back of his hand, which rested on his anxiously bouncing knee.

“What does the program do?” she asked.

He bit his lip and shook his head.

“It’s okay. We’re safe here. Tell me what it does.”

“It’s for a display,” he finally said. “But not for like a readout, or an LED, or a dot matrix. There are algorithms in here I recognize. Anyone would…“

He paused.

“Sixty-four bit color,” he whispered, staring at her. “Sixty-four bit. Why would anyone need that much color ?”

“Dumb it down for me,” Juliette said. Scottie seemed on the verge of going mad.

“You’ve seen it, right? The view up top?”

She dipped her head. “You know where I work.”

“Well, I’ve seen it too, back before I started eating every meal in here, working my fingers to the bone.” He rubbed his hands up through his shaggy, sandy-brown hair. “This program, Jules—what you’ve got, it could make something like that wallscreen look real .”

Juliette digested this. Then laughed. “But wait, isn’t that what it does? Scottie, there are sensors out there. They just take the images they see, and then the screen has to display the view, right? I mean, you’ve got me confused, here.” She shook the printed scroll of gibberish. “Doesn’t this just do what I think it does? Put that image on the display?”