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

She took one last look at the large sump pump, her hasty wiring job, the loose trail of wires streaming through the water that she’d hoped to have time to secure against vibration and accidental tugs. None of it likely mattered anymore, not for her. She kicked away from the pump and waved her arms through the water, wading through the viscous fluid that seemed to both impede her while giving her nothing to push or pull against.

The weights were holding her back. Juliette bent to release them, and found she couldn’t. The buoyancy of her arms, the stiffness of the suit… she groped for the velcro straps, but watched her fingers through the magnified view of helmet and water as they waved inches from the blasted things.

She took a deep breath, sweat dripping from her nose and splattering the inside of her dome. She tried again and came close, her fingertips nearly brushing the black straps, both hands outstretched, grunting and throwing her shoulders into the simple act of reaching her damned shins—

But she couldn’t. She gave up and shuffled a few more steps down the hallway, following the wire and hose, both visible in the faint cone of white light emanating from above her head. She tried not to bump the wire, thinking of what one accidental pull might do, how tenuous the connection was that she’d made to the pump’s ground. Even as she struggled for a deep breath, her mind was ever playing the mechanic. She cursed herself for not taking longer to prepare.

Her knife! She remembered her knife and stopped dragging her feet. It slid out of its homemade sheath sewn across her belly and gleamed in the glow from her flashlight.

Juliette bent down and used the extra reach of the blade; she slid the point of the knife between her suit and one of the straps. The water was dark and thick all around her. With the limited amount of light from her helmet, and being at the bottom of Mechanical under all that heap of flood, she felt more remote and alone, more afraid, than she had in all her life.

She gripped the knife, terrified of what dropping it could mean, and bobbed up and down, using her stomach muscles. It was like doing sit-ups while standing. She attacked the strap with a labored sawing motion, cursed in her helmet from the effort, the strain, the pain in her abdomen from lurching forward, from throwing her head down—when finally the exercise weight popped free. Her calf felt suddenly naked and light as the round hunk of iron clanged mutely to the plate steel flooring.

Juliette tilted to the side, held down by one leg, the other trying to rise up. She worked the knife carefully beneath the second strap, fearful of cutting her suit and seeing a stream of precious bubbles leak out. With desperate force, she shoved and pulled the blade against the black webbing just like before. Nylon threads popped in her magnified vision; sweat spattered her helmet; the knife burst through the fabric; the weight was free.

Juliette screamed as her boots flew up behind her, rising above her head. She twisted her torso and waved her arms as much as she could, but her helmet slammed into the runs of pipes at the top of the hallway.

There was a bang—and the water all around her went black. She fumbled for her flashlight, to turn it back on, but it wasn’t there. Something bumped her arm in the darkness. She fumbled for the object with one hand, knife in the other, felt it spill through her gloved fingers, and then it was gone. While she struggled to put the knife away, her only source of light tumbled invisible to the ground below.

Juliette heard nothing but her rapid breathing. She was going to die like this, pinned to the ceiling, another bloated body in these corridors. It was as if she were destined to perish in one of those suits, one way or another. She kicked against the pipes and tried to wiggle free. Which way had she been going? Where was she facing? The pitch black was absolute. She couldn’t even see her own arms in front of her. It was worse than being blind, it was some new ability to see the nothingness, to know her eyes were working but somehow taking nothing in. It heightened her panic, even as the air in her suit seemed to grow more and more stale.

The air.

She reached for her collar and found the hose, could just barely feel it through her gloves. Juliette began to gather it in, hand over hand, like pulling a mining bucket up a deep shaft.

It felt like miles of it went through her hands. The slack gathered around her like knotted noodles, bumping and sliding against her. Juliette’s breathing began to sound more and more desperate. She was panicking. How much of her shallow breaths were coming from the adrenaline, the fear? How much because she was using up all her precious air? She had a sudden terror that the hose she was pulling had been cut, that it had been sawn through on the stairwell, that the free end would at any moment slip through her fingers, that her next frantic reach for more of the lifeline would result in a fistful of inky water and nothing else—

But then she grabbed a length of hose with tension, with life . A stiff line that held no air, but led the way out.

Juliette cried out in her helmet and reached forward to grab another handhold. She pulled herself, her helmet bumping against a pipe and bouncing her away from the ceiling. She kept reaching, lunging one hand forward in the black to where the line should be, finding it, grasping, yanking, hauling herself through the midnight soup of the drowned and the dead, wondering how far she’d get before she joined them and breathed her very last.

Lukas sat with his mother on the thick jamb of the open server room door. He looked down at her hands, both of them wrapped around one of his. She let go with one of them and picked a piece of lint off his shoulder, then cast the offending knot of string away from her precious son.

“And you say there’ll be a promotion in this?” she asked, smoothing the shoulder of his undershirt.

Lukas nodded. “A pretty big one, yeah.” He looked past her to where Bernard and Sheriff Billings were standing in the hallway, talking in low voices. Bernard had his hands tucked inside the stretched belly of his coveralls. Billings looked down and inspected his gun.

“Well, that’s great, sweetheart. It makes it easier to bear you being away.”

“It won’t be for much longer, I don’t think.”

“Will you be able to vote? I can’t believe my boy is doing such important things!”

Lukas turned to her. “Vote? I thought the election was put off.”

She shook her head. Her face seemed more wrinkled than it had a month ago, her hair whiter. Lukas wondered if that were possible in so brief a time.

“It’s back on,” she said. “This nasty business with those rebels is supposed to be just about over.”

Lukas glanced toward Bernard and the Sheriff. “I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to let me vote,” he told his mother.

“Well, that’s nice. I like to think I raised you proper.” She cleared her throat into her fist, then returned it to the back of his hand. “And they’re feeding you? With the rationing, I mean.”

“More than I can eat.”

Her eyes widened. “So I suppose there’ll be some sort of a raise—?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’d think so. And look, you’ll be taken care of—”

“Me?” She pressed her hand to her chest, her voice high. “Don’t you worry about me.”

“You know I do. Hey, look, Ma—I think our time’s up.” He nodded down the hallway. Bernard and Peter were heading toward them. “Looks like I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Oh. Well, of course.” She smoothed the front of her red coveralls and allowed Lukas to help her to her feet. She puckered her lips, and he presented his cheek.