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

“It’s the Pact,” he said, looking up at Bernard. “I already know quite a bit of—”

“This is the pact,” Bernard told him, pinching the first half inch of the thick book. “The rest is the Order.”

He stepped back.

Lukas hesitated, digesting this, then reached forward and flopped the tome open near its middle.

• In the event of an earthquake:

• For casement cracking and outside seepage, turn to AIRLOCK BREACH (p.2180)

• For collapse of one or more levels, see SUPORT COLUMNS under SABOTAGE (p.751)

• For fire outbreak, see—

“Sabotage?” Lukas flipped a few pages and read something about air handling and asphyxiation. “Who came up with all this stuff?”

“People who have experienced many bad things.”

“Like… ?” He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to say this, but it felt like taboos weren’t allowed down there. “Like the people before the uprising?”

“The people before those people,” Bernard said. “The one people.”

Lukas closed the book. He shook his head, wondering if this was all a gag, some kind of initiation. The priests usually made more sense than this. The children’s books, too.

“I’m not really supposed to learn all this, am I?”

Bernard laughed. His countenance had fully transformed from earlier. “You just need to know what’s in there so you can access it when you need to.”

“What does it say about this morning?” He turned to Bernard, and it dawned on him suddenly that no one knew of his fascination, his enchantment, with Juliette. The tears had evaporated from his cheeks, the guilt of possessing her forbidden things had overpowered his shame for falling so hard for someone he hardly knew. And now this secret had wandered out of sight. It could only be betrayed by the flush he felt on his cheeks as Bernard studied him and pondered his question.

“Page seventy-two,” Bernard said, the humor draining from his face and replaced with the frustration from earlier.

Lukas turned back to the book. This was a test. A shadowing rite. It had been a long time since he’d performed under a caster’s glare. He began flipping through the pages and saw at once that the section he was looking for came right after the Pact, was at the very beginning of this new Order.

He found the page. At the very top, in bold print, it said:

• In Case of a Failed Cleaning:

And below this rested terrible words strung into awful meaning. Lukas read the instructions several times, just to make sure. He glanced over at Bernard, who nodded sadly, before Lukas turned back to the print.

• In Case of a Failed Cleaning:

• Prepare for War.

Juliette followed Solo through the hole in the server room floor. There was a long ladder there and a passageway that led to thirty-five, a part of thirty-five she suspected was not accessible from the stairwell. Solo confirmed this as they ducked through the narrow passageway and followed a twisting and brightly lit corridor. A blockage seemed to have come unstuck from the man’s throat, releasing a lone-stricken torrent. He talked about the servers above them, saying things that made little sense to Juliette, until the passageway opened into a cluttered room.

“My home,” Solo said, spreading his hands. There was a mattress in one corner resting directly on the floor, a tangled mess of sheets and pillows trailing off. A makeshift kitchen had been arranged across two shelving units: jugs of water, canned food, empty jars and boxes. The place was a wreck and smelled foul, but Juliette figured Solo couldn’t see or smell any of that. There was a wall of shelves on the other side of the room stocked with metal canisters the size of large ratchet sets, some of them partially open.

“You live here alone?” Juliette asked. “Is there no one else?” She couldn’t help but hear the thin hope in her voice.

Solo shook his head.

“What about further down?” Juliette inspected her wound. The bleeding had almost stopped.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Sometimes I do. I’ll find a tomato missing, but I figure it’s the rats.” He stared at the corner of the room. “Can’t catch them all,” he said. “More and more of them—”

“Sometimes you think there’s more of you, though? More survivors?” She wished he would focus.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his beard, looked around the room like there was something he should be doing for her, something you offered guests. “I find things moved sometimes. Find things left out. The grow lights left on. Then I remember I did them.”

He laughed to himself. It was the first natural thing she’d seen him do, and Jules figured he’d been doing a lot of it over the years. You either laughed to keep yourself sane or you laughed because you’d given up on staying that way. Either way, you laughed.

“Thought the knife in the door was something I did. Then I found the pipe. Wondered if it was left behind by a really, really big rat.”

Juliette smiled. “I’m no rat,” she said. She adjusted her tablecloth, patted her head and wondered what had happened to her other scrap of cloth.

Solo seemed to consider this.

“So how many years has it been?” she asked.

“Thirty four,” he said, no pause.

“Thirty four years ? Since you’ve been alone ?”

He nodded, and the floor seemed to fall away from her. Her head spun with the concept of that much time with no other person around.

“How old are you?” she asked. He didn’t seem all that much older than her.

“Fifty,” he said. “Next month, I’m pretty sure.” He smiled. “This is fun, talking.” He pointed around the room. “I talk to things sometimes, and whistle.” He looked straight at her. “I’m a good whistler.”

Juliette realized she probably wasn’t even born when whatever happened here took place. “How exactly have you survived all these years?” she asked.

“I dunno. Didn’t set out to survive for years. Tried to last hours. They stack up. I eat. I sleep. And I—” He looked away, went to one of the shelves and sorted through some cans, many of them empty. He found one with the lid hinged open, no label, and held it out toward her. “Bean?” he asked.

Her impulse was to decline, but the eager look on his poor face made it impossible. “Sure,” she said, and she realized how hungry she was. She could still taste the brackish water from earlier, the tang of stomach acid, the unripe tomato. He stepped closer, and she dug into the wet juice in the can and came out with a raw green bean. She popped it into her mouth and chewed.

“And I poop,” he said bashfully while she was swallowing. “Not pretty.” He shook his head and fished for a bean. “I’m by myself, so I just go in apartment bathrooms until I can’t stand the smell.”

“In apartments ?” Juliette asked.

Solo looked for a place to set down the beans. He finally did, on the floor, among a small pile of other garbage and bachelor debris.

“Nothing flushes. No water. I’m by myself.” He looked embarrassed.

“Since you were sixteen,” Juliette said, having done the math. “What happened here thirty four years ago?”

He lifted his arms. “What always happens. People go crazy. It only takes once.” He smiled. “We get no credit for being sane, do we? I get no credit. Even from me. From myself. I hold it together and hold it together and I make it another day, another year, and there’s no reward. Nothing great about me being normal. About not being crazy.” He frowned. “Then you have one bad day, and you worry for yourself, you know? It only takes one.”