Karma of the Silo: The Collection Read online

  A blast that begins but never ends rings in my ears. Smoke fills my nostrils as I fall the last few steps, grabbing wildly for the railing without success.

  I can’t hear, but I can see, as the throng in the blue coveralls of Mechanical surges through the gaping hole in what was once solid metal.

  I close my eyes.

  9

  Gunfire wakes me. It is muffled. There’s something wrong with my ears.

  I pull myself up by the railing, standing now on the landing beside the bottom stair. My arm hurts. A throbbing fills my head.

  Through the opening blasted by the explosion, I can see that there is a gun battle going on inside IT. As I watch, someone is shot. Someone short, a woman, with a long blonde braid that becomes soaked with red as blood blossoms through the blue fabric across her back. She falls like a ragdoll.

  I stagger forward. Some part of me knows that it is absurd to be heading toward guns. But I make my way, listing to one side because of my peculiar lack of balance, toward the former double doors.

  My son. My husband.

  Perhaps it is a blessing to be unable to hear. The gun shots get through my stuffy ears. The screams, only barely.

  As I reach the opening and cling to what was once a handle, I see Rick at the end of the hall. He is attempting to disappear behind a reinforced door with a look of sheer determination on his face. One arm lies at a strange angle against his body. There is blood on his face and blood on the floor and blood on his arm.

  I can tell that he is shouting something as he tries to close the door, and then I recognize that Mars is the one he is shouting at. My son is standing with one arm around Ruth, his body shielding her from the IT Security forces holding guns.

  Of course. Ruth is from Mechanical. She is in blue.

  Mars pulls her back, moving toward where I am at what used to be the door, and I can see that she is having trouble walking. Her pants are shredded on the left side and a dark stain spreads down the fabric.

  The people from Mechanical part as Mars supports Ruth, holding his gun in one hand and turning wildly from right to left, his eyes wide with fear. He gestures with his shoulder to indicate that he is leaving the scene through the blasted out opening.

  For the moment, the gunfire has stopped. Mars keeps moving in my direction, brandishing his gun at the fighters from both sides.

  At the end of the hall, Rick slips down onto the floor, still partially hidden by the door he is trying to close. Someone reaches an arm toward him. I am relieved that he has plenty of people on his side.

  Mars is nearly at the door now. I wonder whether Ruth has been taken as his hostage to keep the insurgents from the Down Deep at bay… or if she is using Mars to get away from the IT Security forces. However they are doing it, the guns are silent as my son and his new wife stumble out of the tense standoff, clinging together. Safe.

  For the moment.

  10

  Mars and I join forces to get Ruth up one level after another, stopping only to put a makeshift tourniquet on her left leg. We pass thirty-three and think about stopping at the infirmary, but don’t dare out of concern about where the staff’s sympathies might lie. Whether they’re pro or con the revolution, we have someone to resent from both sides.

  I’m totally flummoxed about what is going on politically. All I know is that I love my son and I don’t want to see his wife suffering. So on I climb, making my way up the stairs and looking for safety for both of them. Adrenaline is keeping me going. I have long since stopped feeling the soreness in my knees, though the ringing in my head still muddies the sounds of the Silo.

  Mars takes most of the weight, on Ruth’s weak left side, and I take the other. I have my new daughter-in-law’s arm wrapped over my shoulder. With every step up I give thanks that she is bird light, and even so it is a long slow slog as we pull her along. The blood on her coveralls has stiffened and made the tattered fabric scrape with a crusty sound as we crest each new rise. At one point her wounded shin gets hit on a stair and she moans with pain and nearly buckles to the floor.

  Mars stops, grabs the bit of water he still has left in his canteen, and pours it into Ruth’s slack mouth. He has carefully tucked his IT-issued gun out of sight, but it is at the ready if necessary.

  We haven’t spoken, except in harsh monosyllables, as required. I can tell that Mars is spent, and Ruth is nearly unconscious.

  “Mars. What happened?”

  He is breathing hard, as I am. “Not sure,” he says. “The explosion—first one, down below—was fake. Just to get most of our guys…” he pauses and looks to see if Ruth is listening. She seems oblivious. “To get most of IT security out of the way.”

  He stops as someone passes, a man going down, his eyes skittering toward us and then away. He knows better than to mess with someone in the colors of IT. Particularly one who is dragging along an injured woman. A rule that works in every society: when there’s trouble, best to keep your nose out of it, lest it become your own trouble.

  The stranger hurries on, his eyes averted.

  Mars speaks quietly after the man passes. “I’m worried about Dad. His arm.”

  I swallow, and nod. “Where’s Jeff? He heads security now, right?”

  “He was gone by the time we got there. Below figuring out what happened in the Down Deep, probably.”

  I can see the worry in Mars’ face, the tight jaw line and throbbing vein in his forehead giving him away. He looks at his brand new wife and there is pain in his eyes.

  We touch the landing at seventeen, after an eon of placing one foot after another onto the next step, pulling Ruth upward, and I realize that I am close to passing out myself.

  “Need to… stop,” I say to Mars, feeling Ruth’s dead weight come off my shoulder as I prop her against a wall. I put my hands on my knees and try to breathe.

  “Almost there,” he says, his eyes dull with fatigue. He gestures with his head toward our apartment down a corridor on the right. He is holding Ruth by himself now, because if he lets go she will sink to the floor.

  We are so close. We have seen nearly no one else—the stairway was emptied by the furor of the explosion bookended by two gun battles. No one knew exactly what was happening, but all were eager to remain alive to find out later.

  I force myself to stand, and nod. Taking Ruth’s limp arm across my shoulder once more, I join Mars in moving down the landing toward the place where we will finally be safe to relax.

  11

  I push the door open to our apartment and stop.

  Jeff, the head of IT security, is standing in my living room.

  He is pointing a gun at me.

  12

  I turn to go back out, or close the door before Mars enters, or… I’m not sure what I intend to do, but it’s too late. Mars is already in, dragging Ruth, and looking past me toward his father’s top man. I see his pupils widen in alarm. He shoves Ruth as carefully as possible onto me and I do my best to catch her, managing only to break her fall as the two of us go down.

  I have no idea what’s happening. Only that Jeff, Rick’s trusted friend, is in my home holding a gun. My mind reels and finds no purchase. Is he in league with those from Mechanical? Or was it an impulse born of opportunity—when they stormed thirty-four, he decided to be in charge?

  Mars fumbles for his own gun, draws it, and the two men face each other. Jeff, older and bigger, Mars, younger and fitter. I hear my son cock his gun.

  Jeff laughs, an unexpected sound. From behind him, from my kitchen and from the two bedrooms, emerge eight others, all in the coveralls of IT Security, and all holding guns.

  “Put it down, son,” Jeff says. His voice has anger, power, and glee in it. “Unless you want me to give them the order to kill your father.”

  He gestures with an air of nonchalance to one of his people, who is holding a radio that begins to fill the room with static as soon as the volume knob is turned. Through the clicks and hiss I can hear a man speaking, and it’s the familiar vo
ice of my husband. But he has never sounded like this.

  “No,” he is saying. “No, please. Not my son.”

  Another voice replaces his. “It’s him or you, Rick. Give us the code.”

  There is a howl, and a cry of anguish as someone—I imagine this only, in my mind’s eye, as I wince at the sound of his pain—twists his wounded arm, the one I saw bloodied and dangling at his side when we left thirty-four.

  I see a sudden movement. It is Mars, rushing at Jeff in anger and frustration, his hands out to throttle the older man. It is a foolhardy mission.

  My throat clenches in fear at my son’s crazy charge. My eyes close involuntarily for a moment, expecting at any minute to hear the awful sound of a gun exploding in Mars’ direction. But it doesn’t.

  Three of the Security people surround him and overpower him, forcing him to the ground. Mars swears and struggles under their painful holds.

  Clearly, Jeff and company could simply shoot him, but they don’t seem to want to. They don’t shoot… so they must need him.

  Mars lets out a groan of despair. “Let my dad go. I know the code too, Jeff.” His face is white and his eyes are hollow.

  “I’ll give you the code myself.”

  13

  Letting Ruth slide gently to the ground, I stand, with an effort. My years in court have taught me to recognize when a negotiation is in flux; when the outcome hangs in the balance. Sometimes a surprise move can change the result.

  I step over to where Mars was, picking the gun up from where it was forced out of his hand, and point the muzzle at Jeff. A crazy move—there are nine of them and one of me. Still, it gives me a rush of satisfaction to threaten Jeff.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” I say, using my best judge voice, deep and intimidating. “You’ll get medical help for Ruth. Someone we trust. And then you’ll take us down to see Rick to make sure he’s all right. Otherwise, Mars won’t give you that code.”

  Jeff looks uncertain. He wasn’t expecting this.

  The radio crackles and we hear a voice. “He’s passed out. Rick is down.” More static. “I’m not sure he’s going to make it.”

  My heart leaps to my throat. If I ever wondered if I had feelings for Rick, I know now that I do. The intensity of my pain surprises me.

  Jeff, who was staring at the radio, looks back up at the man holding it, who shrugs. “If Rick dies…” he says, and trails off.

  Mars speaks up, his voice stronger. “If he dies, there’s only me. And you know you can only try the code box three times before you are locked out for twenty-four hours. It will take you a long time to get in there.”

  Jeff doesn’t reply, but his eyes say he agrees.

  “So take us down there,” I say, lifting my gun and gesturing at Jeff. “And then we’ll figure out what the hell you’re doing.”

  14

  Rick is lying on the floor as we enter IT through the now blown-apart double doors. Shattered glass, blood, and the smell of death are around us. No one from Mechanical is in evidence—they have retreated—or are dead. Unless they were never from Mechanical in the first place. Anyone can put on a blue coverall.

  Mars groans as he sees his father, but cannot go to him because he is held by Jeff’s men with his arms handcuffed at his back. I move as quickly as I can, my legs spent beyond any exhaustion I have ever known, and collapse beside my husband.

  I feel for a pulse, and when I find it, fluttering weakly under my fingers, let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Taking a canteen off my hip, I spill some of the water onto Rick’s lips. There is no reaction.

  “Okay, now you’ve seen him. He’s still alive. Open the door.” It’s Jeff’s voice, and when I look up I see that he is force marching Mars toward the code box beside a thick door leading to what must be the inner sanctum. I have seen this door, but I don’t know what’s behind it.

  Mars is struggling, trying to hold his ground, but it’s impossible. “Stop!” There is fury and frustration in his tone. “Nothing you can do here will get you what you want, Jeff. Dad is head of IT. I’m his shadow. If anyone else tries to take his place, they’ll just shut us down.”

  I see the other security people look at each other in confusion. Doing a quick estimate, I figure that most of them are too young to have been alive before we were in the Silo, and the few who are old enough might have wiped out any memories. For myself, although I know full well there is an outside world, and perhaps others alive in it, I can’t comprehend what could he mean by saying someone else would “shut us down.” Who… and how…?

  My mind has been in a whirl during the endless walk back down from seventeen to thirty-four. I don’t know who is on which side or what is happening… and Mars and I have had no chance to talk. I know only that Ruth is being safely cared for on our level by people we trust, and my daughter Athena, with Dylan and Erica, is away from the danger. The only people I need to worry about now are right in front of me.

  Whatever the hell game Jeff is playing does not concern me. I simply want my family to be safe.

  I see that Jeff is glaring at Mars in reaction to his claim that the Silo could be shut down. He orders most of his people out of the area. They melt into another room, while one of Jeff’s men holds a gun on Mars and Jeff approaches my son.

  Taking the younger man by the throat, Jeff pushes him against the wall. I can hear choking sounds coming from Mars as he struggles to breathe.

  “What do you mean, shut us down?” Jeff asks.

  “They’ll kill us all. They have ways.” His voice is a rasp. I see Mars looking wildly around, judging the odds. No chance, I try to telegraph to him with a quick shake of my head. One gun trained on him, two strong men, him in handcuffs, an unconscious Rick, and me. We are outnumbered.

  “You’re lying,” Jeff says, a growl in his voice, but doubt there, too. I hear it, and so does Mars.

  “So go ahead,” Mars says. “I’ll give you the code, you kill me, finish off Dad, and see how many hours this whole sorry Silo survives.”

  Jeff says nothing.

  “The minute you contact Silo 1 without authorization is the minute they push the button.” His nostrils flare and his eyes are steady. “Boom!”

  I stare at Mars. I cannot judge if he is telling the truth. I’m not even sure such a thing is possible. But he is a damn good actor if it’s not.

  For a moment Jeff hesitates. Then he gestures with his chin toward the code box beside the door. “So… you go in with me. You tell them who I am.” His words don’t sound as though he’s convinced.

  “Forget it,” says Mars, his voice making clear that he knows he has the advantage now. “Here’s what we’ll do.”

  Jeff releases his hold, slightly, and Mars stands up straighter. “Take the damn handcuffs off me. And call off your goon. I’ll let you in there… but you have to bring in my dad and mom so they’re safe from any other fighting.”

  Jeff gives a gruff snort. “And why would I do that?”

  “You’ll do that,” Mars steps forward, to my amazement, getting in Jeff’s face despite the handcuffs still binding his arms behind him. “Because the only people they’ll listen to are my dad and me, since I’m his shadow.”

  “Bullshit,” Jeff says. He seems offended on principle.

  “As it is,” Mars says, his voice gaining confidence, “I’ll have to convince them I’m authorized. There’s a formal protocol to follow when it’s time to switch IT heads.” He looks toward his father. “Usually it only happens… on death.”

  Jeff snickers. “That can be arranged. Hazen?” He nods his head to his sidekick, who swings the gun in the direction of Rick, still unconscious beside me. Instinctively I move to cover his body with my own.

  I see Mars stiffen. “Kill him and it’s all over, Jeff. I won’t lift a finger to save you. You may as well shoot me too.”

  Hazen looks at his boss, the gun hovering uncertainly in midair between the two possible targets of father and son.

&n
bsp; Mars speaks again, his voice intense. “As soon as you get through that door—if you ever do—and you don’t answer Silo 1, they’ll simply hit the destroy button.”

  For just an instant, I see my son’s shoulder twitch. It’s his old “tell,” a sign that he is nervous.

  Jeff glances toward Hazen, who shrugs. Hard to know what they’re thinking. How much does Jeff know? And what is Silo 1?

  I’ve wondered if there are others living in the many silos that dotted the landscape on the day of the Convention… so many years ago. But it never seemed very important, since we were prisoners of the toxic clouds outside in any case.

  No doubt there was some sort of original plan concocted by maniacs… which I figured went awry. But until now, I hadn’t imagined that there were puppetmasters still pulling the strings from another silo. The notion is horrifying, fascinating and repugnant all at once.

  Jeff nods to Hazen.

  “Let him loose,” he says.

  Mars chances a quick glance at me and turns his back to have the cuffs removed. As he does so, I see his shoulder twitch one more time.

  It seems that we are going in. I wonder if this is yet a deeper circle of hell.

  15

  My days are spent caring for Rick. He speaks now, but it’s mostly nonsense. Perhaps the fever is making him delirious.

  We have set up a sick bed of sorts for him in the corner of this peculiar room on a lower level—a secret level we reach via ladder—that I never knew existed. Mars told me, in a moment when we came closest to privacy, that this is where shadows stay while they are being trained. Over on the other side of this bunker are the servers I once envied as the mistresses of my husband, a man who spent so much time here he might as well have been in love with them.