Karma of the Silo: The Collection Read online

  Don’t panic. If you panic you are both dead. He will not hesitate to kill you too.

  My hand touches cold metal. The knife! I pull it out, mouth some words from a prayer I dimly remember, asking a God I don’t know if I believe in to help me do this terrible deed, and I swing.

  I dodge under Jeff's long arms and beneath his tallness and plunge the knife straight into his soft belly, where I know the guts are.

  This is for Rick.

  I twist the knife in deeper, making sure I reach his grizzly inner parts. My vision is red and my veins are throbbing and it feels good.

  And this is for Delta, and Andy, and Ethel.

  I shove the blade in one more inch.

  And this is for me.

  He falls to the floor, the weight of his body pulling the knife from my hand. I hear the impact of the metal on the ground and imagine the blade going even deeper inside him.

  I stand looking at the gore on my hands, the endless blood sliding out from the man that was Jeff pooling under my feet, dank, metallic, slippery.

  What have I done?

  What have I done?

  RISING UP

  Karma # 4

  “There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it.”

  Aldous Huxley

  1

  I stand looking at the gore on my hands, the endless blood sliding out from the man that was Jeff pooling under my feet, dank, metallic, slippery.

  What have I done?

  “Karma.” I hear my name called as if from another country.

  “Karma.” It comes again, faint but louder. Rick is sitting up on the cot, his pillow on the floor, his body sucking in great gulps of air while the tendons in his neck stand out. He is trembling.

  Mars races into our sleeping area from the server room. He flips a switch and throws blinding whiteness across the body, the grue, the killer standing there with her arms covered with blood.

  That would be me.

  I am the killer.

  2

  Mars wants to get out of here now. He is pacing the floor, eager to leave this hellish secret level immediately.

  Rick and I say we need to talk while we can. We need to come up with a plan, agree on a story, and figure out what to say when we emerge.

  So we’re talking. But we’re talking fast.

  “I’ll just turn myself in, to Sheriff Aponte,” I say.

  “No,” Rick says. “They’ll put you out to Clean.”

  He reaches across the small table in the sleeping area we carved out for ourselves. His arm touches mine. I am still getting used to his new way of caring.

  I look at him, in part because I am amazed at his kindness and concern. But in part because I don’t want to look at the large sheet-covered mass on the floor. The sheet is stained with blood and already stinks of death.

  Mars stops his pacing. “Dad. We have to get the body—Jeff—taken care of. At least put him in a bag. That will take both of us.”

  Rick nods and stands up. He is stronger now, but his arm is still weak.

  “I’ll help,” I say.

  “We can handle it,” Mars says, heading off to the storage room where I assume there are extra body bags.

  “I killed the man. I’ll help take care of his body.” I look at the sheet. The lump that used to be Jeff.

  3

  We work in silence.

  We pull and stuff the corpse into the bag, a task horrifying enough to give me nightmares, if I weren’t already having them. I mop up the blood on the floor and do my best to rid the place of odors, knowing that Rick… or Mars… will be back down here soon.

  When we finish, we stand near where the cots were, each of us buzzing with impatience to get out of this dungeon.

  “I’m going to report to the Sheriff and tell him exactly what happened.” My arms are crossed and I’m glad to note that they have stopped trembling. “I’ll tell him—Jeff killed Hazen, threatened me and Mars, and then tried to suffocate Rick in his sleep.”

  Mars shakes his head. Rick looks worried.

  “Self defense, you’re saying?” Rick says.

  “It was self defense. Of you. He almost killed you.”

  “Karma, we don’t even know who’s in charge right now. We don’t know who’s dead, or what happened in the time we were down here.” Rick’s brows come together. “How long have we been here?”

  It takes me a moment to realize that my husband would know less than any of us. He was out of it half the time.

  “Three months, just about.” I look over at Mars. He nods in agreement. I see the marks in the wall behind him where I crossed off the days. So many.

  “And what do we know about the rest of the Silo? Is the fighting over?”

  Mars shakes his head. “I think so, but it’s hard to say for sure. Jeff kept a tight grip on the radio. He was pretty cagey about talking to the folks outside of our level, and wouldn’t talk while I was around.”

  “So let’s radio the Sheriff now,” I say, starting to move toward the server room.

  “He smashed it, Mom. In one of his drunken fits. There is no radio.”

  I pause, then nod. “Okay, well, let’s get out of here. I can’t stomach this place for another minute. We’ll find out as soon as we open that door what happened.”

  “Let’s go,” Mars says, nodding in agreement. “I want to see my wife.” His voice catches when he says the last word, and he turns his head away from me and his father. He picks up a pack with a canteen and his gun. “I don’t care if I never see the IT floor again.”

  Rick puts his good arm on our son’s shoulder and shakes his head gently. “The job’s yours now, Mars. You’re the Head.”

  I see Mars start in surprise. He raises his hands slightly, as if to ward off the idea. “Me? I was just doing your job while you couldn’t—no way I’m going to be head of IT. Maybe someday, but—”

  “Mars, I can’t take that position back. It doesn’t work that way. You shadowed me, you were accepted as the man in charge, and now you’re it.”

  My son shakes his head strongly, his brows drawn together. “But we can just tell them you’re better now.” Mars sounds almost desperate. “They don’t know what went on down here. All they have is what we tell them.”

  Rick puts both his hands on our son’s shoulders. “They know everything. They saw everything.”

  Mars looks wildly around at both of us. “What?”

  “Yes.” Rick’s voice bears no hesitation. “It’s a miracle they didn’t shut us down. They should have. Between the uprising going on outside and the fact that we had too many people down here on this level. Not to mention the fighting in here. According to the Order, we should all be dead now.”

  No one responds. Rick looks at both of us and then at the floor. He continues, his voice sounding weary.

  “The only reason I can figure is that they are worried about killing off too many silos too soon. They don’t want to pull the plug if they think we have a chance of getting through this.”

  I feel my fingernails cutting into the soft pads of my palms as my fists clench.

  “But what about you, Rick? They know you. You know people in the silo that… that’s in charge. In Silo 1. Right?” I realize I sound like I am pleading. “You know the Senator.” And then I play my ace card, and when I do, my voice breaks. “You know… Donald. Donald knows me…”

  Rick comes closer to me and puts his forehead against mine. His voice is kind and final.

  “Karma… we don’t matter to them at all.”

  4

  First Mars looks through the camera that shows the hallway on thirty-four right outside our secured door. Then he eases it open.

  No one.

  I walk through the door between Mar
s and Rick. The first thing I notice is that the outside smells different. The lights are brighter. There is a movement of air that didn’t exist in our little hellhole down below.

  There is a noise and a door opens. A woman appears that I don’t recognize. She is wearing IT coveralls, and has a gun strapped to her back. She is tall with dark hair pulled back tightly from her face. Her eyes open wider when she sees us.

  “Brewer,” she says. Her tone includes both relief and resentment. I see her looking us over, one by one, and realize how dirty we are. The men have shaggy hair and beards. We must stink.

  I expect Rick to speak, but he waits. Mars steps forward, realizing. “Jeff and Hazen are dead. How many casualties here?”

  I recognize the voice of a boy, trying to fill the shoes of a man. His nervousness is apparent to a mother; I see his shoulder twitch.

  The woman looks puzzled. She directs her words at Rick. “What happened?”

  Rick says nothing, but leans toward me. I take his injured arm.

  Mars moves toward the woman. “I’m Head, now, Cassidy. I had to take over. My dad was… hurt. He’s not the same.”

  Rick does his part by gazing placidly at the woman, looking peaceful but uninterested.

  Cassidy looks skeptical. “Okay.”

  Her move. None of us says anything for a minute.

  I see her stance relax just a bit. “Okay. Mars, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll probably want a full report.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I watch as Mars assumes the mantle. “I want to know everything that happened since we went in.”

  That takes me back for a moment, that he says in rather than down, until I remember that none of the other people working in IT have been to the unknown lower level from which we just climbed. The inner sanctum is a door leading to nowhere except another room, as far as they know.

  Cassidy nods. “Of course, um, sir. Should I call you Mars or Brewer?” She blushes just a bit, and it occurs to me that Mars has suddenly taken a giant leap in status. Not that he wanted it.

  My son smiles. “Mars is fine. Less confusion that way.” He steps aside, gesturing for me and Rick to pass. “If you’d take care of Dad,” he says, his eyes communicating to me that he knows this little charade is for Cassidy’s benefit, “I’ll meet with the Security team. Please tell Ruth I’ll be up later.”

  I move past him with Rick’s arm in mine. I can only imagine how painful it must be for Mars to know that he won’t be able to see his wife right away. Tonight, though, he should be able to get up to seventeen. I vow to see to it that they have a proper wedding night… since the real wedding night was postponed by the explosion in Mechanical.

  Mars turns back to Cassidy. “Where is everybody else?”

  Her eyes turn sorrowful. “I am everybody else.”

  5

  Rick and I make our way up from thirty-four. Though Cassidy assured us that the fighting has been over for weeks, we are still cautious. It’s hard to believe that three months have gone by while we were locked inside the bowels of IT.

  I feel very strange to be outside of those confines. After our claustrophobic quarters, the Silo seems vast. Surreal.

  There is something hypnotic about the long spiral staircase, as we rise step by step through this world that was so familiar for so long. Familiar, and yet starkly different, now.

  Yesterday, I killed a man. Certainly I had cause. Certainly, he would have killed me. And Rick.

  But that doesn’t change the fact that I took a blade and plunged it into his guts, spilling the life out of him. And what’s more, I enjoyed it. I wanted to hurt him, and I wanted to do it with my own hands. I wanted him dead.

  And, just for a moment, I reveled in that power.

  I didn’t know that I had that kind of anger inside me. I, a mother, a giver of life, took the life of another. Was that urge always there, lurking, ready to be called into action when I was cornered?

  How am I different than those in the godlike Silo 1 who would run this inhumane experiment in… in what? Preserving mankind? Preserving us, yes, but dooming us to a life in this underground tomb, drugged and numb to the hellish quality of our environment.

  We were never meant to live this way.

  I look at the concrete walls we pass as we circle around the center of the stairs. Round and round. Over and over. I gaze at the red paint on the diamond treads of each step. It’s not as fresh, now, as when we first were herded into the Silo. There are signs of wear, especially in the middle of each step where thousands of footfalls have hit repeatedly. Twenty-five years of walking, walking. Twenty-five years of stale air and no room to run and no sky above us.

  Why do we persevere? In some ways, it’s surprising that more people don’t simply end their lives. Some do. But why not all of us? Jump, en masse. Or tie ropes around our necks and dangle until we breathe no more? This is no sort of life.

  Of course there are the drugs, their level seeming to ebb and flow in response to the degree of agitation in the Silo. Those who drink the water are cheerier… or perhaps simply more foggy. But still, they know. I believe they know. Somewhere, deep inside their consciousness, the lizard brain that exists in each human being is flailing out in frustration, looking for freedom. Looking for space. Looking for the Outside.

  But the human individual wants to live. It is at our very center. And as we need oxygen to breathe, we carry on, day by day, living despite our circumstances. We eat, we sleep… we fall in love. We find ways to make small joys in our dreary concrete lives. And when we are blessed with the coming of a brand new life, our existence takes on an unquestioned goal. To keep those new ones alive.

  And so it goes.

  On and on, generation after generation, just as the puppetmasters in Silo 1 would have it. Preserving our seed for the future. Preserving us. We are the seed. We and our descendents, for generations to come.

  The power of the life force creating an ongoing march of human beings for their grand experiment. Despite ourselves.

  Lost in thought, trudging up rung by rung, I realize with a start that we are already walking past twenty-five. We have passed very few people on the stairs despite rising up nine floors. I’m not sure why, and I’m almost afraid to find out. Several spirals down, two porters had loped quickly past us going in opposite directions, and while each of them took note of us, both kept their focus on moving their feet and were out of sight in moments.

  I look over at Rick and realize that he is pale, and breathing hard.

  “Are you doing okay, honey?” I ask.

  “I need to rest,” he says.

  “Of course.” We stop at the next level; twenty-four. “Only seven more levels to go,” I say, helping Rick sag slowly down against the wall as I grab the canteen and hand it to him. “I have a can of something. Do you want food?”

  The expression on his face answers me before he does. “I never want to eat that canned slop again.”

  I smile. “It’s going to make the food out here taste delicious.”

  He gives me a wan grin. “That too shall pass. And it will taste like shit again.”

  I snort a little at his words. This is definitely a less buttoned-down Rick than I’ve known since… well, since we have been here underground. Is it just that he’s no longer in charge? Was that so much of a burden that he had to squelch his sense of humor? The Rick Brewer—actually, the Mick Webb—that I knew decades ago in Georgia and then as a Congressman in D.C. was a pretty suave guy. Most of that personality seemed to have leeched out after we got locked into the Silo.

  So is my husband coming back to his true self after our ordeal? Or has he been changed for good by the fever that raged through him after he took a bullet to his arm?

  I will probably never know.

  We say no more as we lift our packs and head toward the stairs. After two more rotations around the spiral center we finally encounter activity. Up ahead is a crew of workers repairing the stair
railing. As we reach it, I see that there must have been some sort of blast. The metal is twisted and buckled and black. Ropes have been lashed across the opening to keep walkers from an accidental fall into thin air… a fall that would land them in a bloody splatter many levels below.

  When we get close to the opening, the workers move aside to allow us to pass. All of them are silent and withdrawn, as though the safest course these days is to look away and keep your mouth shut.

  I can’t help but glance down far below to where the bodies would have fallen if people had been thrown—or had thrown themselves—off the stairs from this blasted opening.

  And then I see it.

  Blood. A large round blossom of red, encrusted on the Silo floor.

  6

  I am so tired. We are on eighteen, and almost home. It feels like the end of a long journey. In both distance and time.

  More than my home I am eager to see my daughter Athena and her family. Somewhere in my heart I am terribly afraid that something could have happened to them, but I won’t let myself think of it. The very notion makes me want to move faster. I force my weary legs onward around the last few turns, my arm linked with Rick’s to give him support—a new sensation for me.

  There is a woman walking toward the stairwell on seventeen.

  “Is that…” I say, nodding my head at the figure, trying to get Rick to look too. “Athena?” My voice at first is a whisper, but then I find energy from somewhere, and push ahead more strongly, pulling Rick along.

  “Athena?” I shout it, but I’m hardly daring to believe it’s my daughter.

  The figure turns, and I think, no. Not her after all. This woman has short hair and some kind of red mark across half her face.

  “Mom… Dad?”

  I stop. My beautiful daughter. What happened?

  She comes walking toward us, one of her legs moving crookedly. She seems stunned. There is a strange hesitation in her approach.