Karma of the Silo: The Collection Read online

  Books by Patrice Fitzgerald

  The Karma series, a Silo story told in parts

  The Sky Used to be Blue, Karma #1

  Cleaning Up, Karma #2

  Deep Justice, Karma #3

  Rising Up, Karma #4

  Last Walk, Karma #5

  Karma of the Silo: The Collection

  Kindle Worlds ebooks

  SILO SECRETS: Daniel

  SILO SECRETS: Maggiesun (forthcoming, with Jerilyn Dufresne)

  SILO SECRETS: Eva (2014)

  Other Novels

  Running, a political thriller

  Short Stories

  Till Death Do Us Part

  Looking for Lance

  Jungle Moon

  Praise for Patrice Fitzgerald and the Karma series

  “Hey Patrice ~ I love this story idea! You have my complete blessing.”

  Hugh Howey

  “Fitzgerald has created another masterpiece here with Cleaning Up. It’s as good, if not better than, The Sky Used to be Blue. She has such an immediate style of writing which grips you from the start and takes you on a wild journey through the desperate lives of those living in the Silo.”

  W.J. Davies, author of The Runner and The Diver

  “A definite PLUS to the Wooliverse, and a must read if you want to be well-versed in all things WOOL!”

  Michael Bunker, author of The Silo Archipelago, The Letter, and WICK

  “I think I’m in love with Karma. I was curious about her life when Hugh Howey mentioned her in SHIFT. I highly recommend, not just this book, but this whole series! Read them all. You won’t regret it… I can’t wait for the next/last book!”

  Hanna Elizabeth, author of Visions of Wool

  “Fitzgerald’s characters come alive and threaten to leap off the page, they are so engaging.”

  Jerilyn Dufresne, author of Who Killed My Boss? and the Sam Darling Mysteries

  “The Sky Used to be Blue manages the difficult feat of placing itself within the existing narrative, just like a missing piece of the great puzzle, and not just a parallel story or spinoff. It is well-written, gripping and filled with suspense. All the ingredients necessary are here: good writing, action and unexpected twists, characters you care about, and a deeper meaning.”

  Max Zaoui

  About Karma of the Silo: The Collection

  Karma lives in the Silo, deep underground. She lives with a man whom she barely knows and with a name she doesn’t remember choosing. When visions come to her about another husband, another way of life, and another world, Karma struggles to discover what came before.

  Outside, there is only the swirl of toxic clouds and an endless darkness broken by the rare glimpse of a faded sun or a dim star.

  Slowly, Karma learns where the real power is, and how to survive in this hellish concrete cylinder. Birth, death, love, murder, uprisings and Cleanings come and go over the years, but still she carries on.

  Beaten but unbowed, Karma vows to preserve her memories of life above for those who will never breathe the open air.

  A Note About This Collection

  Karma of the Silo contains all five books in the Karma series, which are

  The Sky Used to be Blue, Karma #1

  Cleaning Up, Karma #2

  Deep Justice, Karma #3

  Rising Up, Karma #4

  Last Walk, Karma #5

  This story explores the fate of a character who was dreamed up by Hugh Howey in his world of WOOL, and was written and published with his explicit permission.

  Karma of the Silo

  The Collection

  Patrice Fitzgerald

  To Richard

  The Sky Used to be Blue

  Karma #1

  We are acquainted with the mere pellicle of the globe on which we live… We know not where we are. Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time. Yet we esteem ourselves wise, and have an established order on the surface.

  Henry David Thoreau, Walden

  1

  I go to the top to remember what is forgotten. My husband tells me not to go, that I always come back upset, but I want to see.

  My fingers clutch the railing as spiral stairs fall away beneath me. Step by step I rise. Others rush past in the opposite direction, leaving the cafeteria and going downward. My breath tightens in my chest as I round the last post and see, far across the open room, the huge screen showing the world outside.

  Once again, my mind balks. That haze of gray and brown landscape, the swarm of angry dust in the air, stills me. Dead earth and bleak hills. A city destroyed. It does not change.

  I force myself to walk forward, against the tide of those leaving the room. If they are affected by the view, it is not apparent. They go about their business, carrying trays of dirty dishes, speaking in groups about the day’s work, hitching up their coveralls.

  I hear the whoops and hollers of the teens who have just finished breakfast and are heading off for their classrooms. Though they are in identical coveralls, they seem to have no problem telling each other apart. Flirting is apparently still very much a part of high school.

  Despite the size, the room is stuffy and full of the smell of cooked food. My hand touches the back of one of the hundreds of chairs as I walk through the middle of the cafeteria, and comes away sticky. I wipe my fingers on my coveralls.

  I stand for a moment in the middle of the room and look at the Outside. Here I am again. What am I looking for?

  Before I can turn back to leave there is a sudden rush of voices from the stairs behind me.

  “Oh my God,” someone yells.

  “No, don’t!” comes another voice.

  “Help… stop her!” The screams erupt in a cacophony of shock and dismay. I don’t have to ask. I can feel the pull of the deep down, the silo levels calling the jumpers to their deaths. I can hear, but I resist.

  For now.

  2

  “Karma? Have you taken the wash out of Vat 5 yet?”

  I turn toward the worker on my right. Julie. She’s a big woman, her hair dark and threaded through with gray. She makes me think of my mother. I try to imagine my mother’s face, but I can’t.

  “Yes. Vat 5. Yes, I did.”

  Julie smiles. I can tell that she’s pleased I’m getting better at the laundry. It’s hard physical work, and Rick says I don’t have to do such hard work—because of his position in the silo—but I want to do something that keeps my hands busy, if not my mind.

  We are responsible for washing all the coveralls for the up top. Julie has told me that it’s important for us to get everything clean. There are signs on the wall.

  A Clean Silo Is a Healthy Silo.

  About eight of us work each shift, but it’s hard to see who is here today. Along with the rumbling machines, the wetness and the warmth, there is a collected mist that runs down the center, a product of all the steam. The laundry is open twenty-four hours a day. I work first shift.

  I lean over to pull out wet clothes from the next machine. Suddenly my stomach starts churning. The strong bleach we use hits my nostrils like acid.

  “I have to…” I rush past Julie to the toilet and lose my breakfast. Rinsing my mouth out, I look at my face in the mirror. It’s the same face I’ve always seen. Dark eyes, pale skin. But something is different.

  Julie has a hand on her hip and raises one eyebrow when I return to my station. “Anything you want to tell me, Karma?”

  “What do you mean?” I can’t tell if she’s angry or not.

  “Come on—’fess up. Have you and your husband been trying to get pregnant?'

  Pregnant. Yes. That’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. My head feels full of cotton.
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  “I… yes. We have been.”

  Her face breaks into a smile. “Well, congratulations!” She gives me a hug that folds me into her substantial bosom. Mother. This is what a mother feels like. Am I going to be a mother? Somehow I know I have longed for this. The sudden happiness hits me, like the memory of yearning.

  “You should go to the doc and get checked.” Julie says, her voice worried. “A lot of women have lost their babies.”

  From behind her comes another voice. “They need all the babies they can get, now, what with the suicides.”

  It’s Ethel, who has short white hair and is usually ignored.

  “What suicides?” says Julie, rounding on the smaller woman. She rolls her eyes at me and leans in to whisper, her words reaching me despite the drone of the huge washing equipment. “Don’t listen to Ethel. Everyone knows she’s a fruitcake.”

  3

  Dr. Whittaker comes in smiling and pats the exam board for me to lie back on.

  “So this is exciting—your first baby, am I right?” The doctor’s smile is bright but the rest of her is pure steel. Gray hair, silver glasses, eyes a shade of hazel that looks like the clouds outside the silo. “Spread please,” she says, squatting on a low chair in front of me and brusquely lifting the wide cotton smock they handed me when I walked in. I swallow as I feel the doctor’s cold hands part my legs. “Just going to check on how you’re coming along. Try to relax.”

  I can’t see her head, which is hidden under my big gown. I gasp a bit when the metal hits my skin.

  “Sorry—just take a minute. Some pressure now. Good. Looking good.” The doctor raises her head above the smock and looks directly at me. “And do you know when you and your husband conceived?”

  For a moment I don’t understand the question. How stupid I’ve gotten.

  I have a sense of shame at my foggy thought process. Conceived? Of course. She’s asking when we got pregnant. It feels like my brain gets slower all the time. Somehow there are things I used to know that I can’t bring back to mind. But maybe it’s just the baby. Maybe being pregnant muddles you up.

  I realize I’m holding my breath, and the doctor is waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t really know when.”

  “Have you and your husband been married long?”

  “I’m not… I can’t remember. I think… for a while now.”

  The doctor smiles and pulls my smock down. “Don’t worry. Confusion is normal in early pregnancy.” She puts her instrument into a bucket and reaches out a hand to help me back up into a sitting position.

  Grabbing a small white board, she takes out a felt pen. “I’m giving you a prescription for the duration of the pregnancy.” Her eyes meet mine. “This is what you’ll drink. And stay away from tap water. Just this for liquids. Other than that, you should be fine—you’re a healthy young woman. Get plenty of rest, and come see me in a month.”

  She stands, smoothing her coveralls, which are a soft shade of blue-green, and hands me the white board.

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  Dr. Whittaker opens the door to the hall and then turns back. “Remember, no water. Just the prescription drink I’ve ordered. Give the board to the folks in the front and they’ll get you enough for the next month. And don’t worry if you experience any… strange thoughts. You may have bizarre dreams, or even hallucinations. Just a side effect of the medication.”

  4

  Rick greets me at the door of our apartment with a big hug. “I was worried, Karma. Did you have to put in extra time in the laundry today?” He pushes some hair out of my face and kisses me on the mouth, lingering with that special nibble on my lower lip that feels somehow unfamiliar.

  I take him by the hand and walk him over to our chairs in the kitchen, thinking about how we will soon be issued a tiny new chair, and maybe enough sleeping space to squeeze in a crib.

  My grin is probably giving me away. “I was at the doctor.” I’m biting my lip to keep from smiling too much.

  Rick stands up and moves toward me, edging past the stove in the tight quarters. “Are you okay?”

  “We’re pregnant,” I say, and even as I say it, it feels… strange.

  Rick’s eyes grow wide. He wraps his arms around me, gently this time, and cups my chin with his hand. “A baby. We’re going to have a baby.” He places his hand on my belly, grinning. “And I thought you were just gaining weight.”

  I’m so glad that this husband of mine, who always seems preoccupied and often worried, is happy for once.

  And then his voice changes, and his eyes grow darker.

  “When is the baby due?”

  “I… I didn’t ask.” Stupid, to forget to ask such a basic question. My foggy brain again.

  Something in his expression puzzles me and I take his hand, smiling. “Does it matter?”

  5

  Ethel moves closer to me as we stand beside the big washing vats. I can smell a sour vegetable odor coming from her. That’s the reason the rest of the laundry workers say they avoid her.

  “Are you happy about the baby?” Ethel asks, her voice loud so that I can hear her over the immense noise of the machines.

  “Of course,” I answer, and then realize that I have been waking up happier recently, despite the weird dreams. Dreams of colors that don’t exist in the real world. Pink and purple skies and a glowing red sun. Fantastic visions that are impossible to reconcile with the hazy clouds and brown hills we see from the wallscreen up top. “And I guess I was a little down before.”

  I stop myself before saying more. I don’t know why I’m talking to Ethel so much lately. Probably it isn’t a good idea, in the gossipy world of the laundry, to get too close to her.

  “I don’t blame you,” Ethel says. “Being down is the only way to be. In the silo.” She laughs at her own joke and I find myself laughing too.

  “Truth is, Karma,” she says, “I used to be depressed myself—I was on meds for years. Until now, of course.” She leans in, still closer, the noise and the billowing steam making our conversation inaudible to the other workers across the room. “I’m sure it’s some kind of mistake that I’m here at all. I’m just the crazy aunt of a family that happened to bring me along on the fateful day.”

  I wonder what day she’s talking about. Maybe she really is crazy. Before I can pick up the wet laundry in front of me and put it into the rolling bin, Ethel looks into my eyes and wraps a strong hand around my lower arm.

  “So are they giving you anything for the pregnancy?”

  I pull slightly away from her to get out of her grip and shake my head, lifting the dripping coveralls into my bin. “No. Just some special drink. And no tap water, the doctor says.”

  Ethel nods as I push the bin away and head through the steam toward the other side of the room.

  “What a weirdo she is, huh?” It’s one of the other laundry workers, suddenly appearing beside me. “And she stinks, too.”

  6

  Helen felt her lover’s arms around her. His hands roamed down her back and one of them meandered around the side of her right hip. Slowly his fingers wandered up to her breast and caressed the roundness, the swell. She was smiling, and his lips were smiling on top of hers as they kissed.

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I want to kiss your beautiful eyes.” And he did, gently pressing his lips against each eyelid. “So dark and deep that I could get lost in them. Did anyone ever tell you your eyes could launch a thousand ships?”

  She laughed. “I have heard something like that before.”

  “Someday,” he said, “we will make babies who have your beautiful eyes.”

  Helen pulled away so that she could look at him. “Don’t make an offer like that unless you mean it, buster.”

  He smiled. “Well, no babies just yet. But I think we should start practicing right away.”

  She gave him a playful punch in the shoulder as he rolled on top of her. She could feel t
he roughness of the blanket under them. Helen had insisted on a blanket. He wanted to feel the grass on their naked butts, as he put it, but she disliked ants and spiders and other crawly things that lived in the dirt. So they brought a blanket.

  The sun was warm, with a breeze just light enough to raise goose bumps on her arms. But his body covered hers and her shivers were not because she was cold.

  He pressed closer to her and she moaned as his hand slid between her thighs.

  “Helen,” he said.

  7

  I wake to the gentle buzzing of the morning alarm. Someone is squeezing my hand.

  “Time to get up, hon, you’re going to be late for the laundry.”

  Opening my eyes, looking for the face of my beloved, I scream.

  8

  The steam billows through the center of the room as I make my way across the laundry. I stop in front of the big drying vat and start to pull the coveralls out. Green. Blue. Gray.

  For the first time, I think about the colors. Gray, I understand. Gray is like the concrete and the metal, the walls, the railings. Gray is familiar.

  Green? Plants, of course. But blue? Where does the color blue come from? Only in kid’s drawings do you ever see blue. Like the imaginary color of the sky in children’s books.

  I smile and put my hand on my swollen belly. My own child is coming. My own baby. A little boy or girl who will go to school and learn to read and then make pictures.

  A memory returns, like a whisper from the past. My mother, reading to me from a children’s book about a boy who lived in the woods with his friend the bear. A bear of very little brain. It makes me laugh, and I glance around to see if any of the other women in the laundry are watching me.

  I see no one. There is only fog.