First Shift: Legacy (Shift, #1)(23)

“Sounds good,” Mick said, grasping and pumping that huge Midwestern paw.

Donald shook the Governor’s hand as well, and then they left him and trudged through the freshly turned soil of the construction site on the way toward their rental. Overhead, against the bright blue Southern sky, contrails like stretched ropes of white yarn revealed the flight lines of the numerous jets departing the busy hub of Atlanta International. And as the clank and grumble of the construction site faded, the chants from the anti-nuke protestors could be heard outside the tall mesh of security fences beyond.

“Hey, you mind if I drop you off at the airport a little early?” Donald asked, looking up at the streaks of white. They passed through the security gate and into the parking lot, the guard waving them along. “It’d be nice to get a jump on traffic and get down to Savannah with some daylight.”

“That’s right,” Mick said with a grin. “You’ve got a hot date tonight.”

Donald laughed.

“Sure, man. Abandon me and go have a good time with your wife.”

“Thanks.”

Mick fished out the keys to the rental. “But you know, I was really hoping you’d invite me to come along. I could join you two for dinner, crash at your place, go hit some bars like old times.”

“Not a chance,” Donald said.

Mick slapped the back of his neck and squeezed. “Yeah, well, happy anniversary anyway.”

Donald winced as his friend pinched his neck. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be sure to give Helen your regards.”

10


2110 ? Silo 1

Troy enjoyed a hand of solitaire while Silo 12 collapsed. There was something about the game that he found blissfully numbing. It held off the waves of depression even better than the pills did, the repetition and the complete lack of skill pushing it beyond distraction and into the realm of complete mindlessness.

If a card played, one simply played it. If it didn’t: draw another. The truth was, the player won or lost the very moment the computer shuffled the deck. The rest was simply a lengthy process of finding out.

For a computer game, it was absurdly low-tech. It had likely been coded by a bored predecessor with rudimentary programming skills. Instead of cards, there was just a grid of letters and numbers with an asterisk, ampersand, percent, or plus sign to designate the suit. It bothered Troy not to know which symbol stood for hearts or clubs or diamonds. Even though it was arbitrary, even though it didn’t really matter, it bugged him to not know.

He had stumbled upon the game by accident while digging through some folders. It took a bit of experimenting to learn how to flip the draw deck with the spacebar and place the cards with the arrow keys, but he had plenty of time to work things like this out. Besides meeting with department heads, going over Merriman’s notes, and refreshing himself on the Order, all he had was time. Time to collapse in his office bathroom and cry until snot ran down his chin, time to sit under a scalding shower and shiver, time to hide pills in his cheek and squirrel them away for when the hurt was the worst, time to wonder why the drugs weren’t working like they used to, even when he doubled the dosage on his own.

Perhaps the game’s numbing powers were why it existed at all, why someone had spent the effort to create it, and why subsequent heads had kept it hidden away. He had seen it on Merriman’s face during that elevator ride at the end of his shift. The chemicals only cut through the worst of the pain, that undefinable ache, some grave injury none of them could remember. But lesser wounds resurfaced. The bouts of sudden sadness had to be coming from somewhere.

The last few cards fell into place while his mind wandered. The computer had shuffled for a win, and Troy got all the credit for verifying it. The screen flashed Good Job! in large block letters, the color morphing in a mesmerizing and psychedelic pattern. It was strangely satisfying to be told this by a homemade game—told that he had done a good job. There was a sense of completion, of having done something with his day.

He left the message flashing and glanced around his office for something else to do. There were amendments to be made in the Order, announcements to write up for the Heads of the other silos, and he needed to make sure the vocabulary in these memos abided the ever-changing standards.

He messed up himself, often calling them bunkers instead of silos. It was difficult for those who had lived in the time of the Legacy. An old vocabulary, a way of seeing the world, persisted despite the medication. He felt envious of the others, those who were born and who would die in their own little worlds, who would fall in and out of love, who would keep their hurts in memory, feel them, learn from them, be changed by them. He was jealous of these people even more than he envied the women of his silo who remained in their long-sleep lifeboats—

He stopped himself from going there. The drugs helped. Instead of rushing to the bathroom to cry, he started a new game, a new shuffle, and began flipping through the deck. At times, his hand shook and he had to switch to the other. He remembered something the doctor had said, but that doctor was already gone. Troy didn’t feel like meeting the new doctor. Not yet.

There was a dull patch on the spacebar under his thumb, a place where the luster of the plastic had been worn away. Troy wondered how many shifts ago the game had been made. How many thumbs had ticked away the time, click, click, click? Then he had a sinister thought: maybe none of his predecessors had come up with the game at all, but it had always been there, planted by the shrinks who knew the numbing effect it would have.