ust (Silo, #3)(47)

The two men in silver held her brother down on the ground and did as they were told. Charlotte forgot to breathe as she watched the man who shuffled along as if weak – watched him march into the lit hallway. He had white hair as brilliant as the bulbs overhead. He labored to walk, leaned on the young man beside him, arm draped across his back, until he came to a stop by her brother.

Charlotte could see Donny’s eyes. He was fifty meters away, but she could see how wide they were. Her brother stared up at this old and feeble man, didn’t look away even as he coughed, a bad fit from the blow to his ribs, drowning out something being said by the man who could barely stand.

Her brother tried to speak. He said something over and over, but she couldn’t hear. And the thin man with the white hair could barely stand, could barely stand but could still swing his boots. The young man beside him propped him up, and Charlotte watched, cowed and trembling, as a leg was brought back over and over before lashing forward, a heavy boot slamming into her brother with ferocious might, Donny’s own legs scrambling to shield himself, hugging his shins as two men pinned him to the ground, giving him nowhere to hide from kick after brutal, stomping, and angry kick.





Silo 18





27



“Are you sure you should be digging around in there?” Lukas asked.

“Hold the light still,” Juliette said. “I’ve got one more to go.”

“But shouldn’t we talk about this?”

“I’m just looking, Luke. Except that right now, I can’t see a damn thing.”

Lukas adjusted the light, and Juliette crawled forward. It was the second time she’d explored beneath the floor grates at the bottom of the server room ladder. It was here that she’d traced the camera feeds over a month ago, soon after Lukas made her mayor. He had shown her how they could see anywhere within the silo, and Juliette had asked who else could see. Lukas had insisted no one until she found the feeds disappearing through a sealed port where the outer edge of the silo wall should be. She remembered seeing other lines in that bundle. Now she wanted to make sure.

She worked the last screw on the cover panel. It came off, exposing the dozens of wires she’d cut, each of them bursting with hundreds of tiny filaments like silver strands of hair. Running parallel to the bundles were thick cables that reminded her of the main feeds from the two generators in Mechanical. There were also two copper pipes buried in there.

“Have you seen enough?” Lukas asked. He crouched down behind her where the floor grating had been removed and aimed the light over her shoulder.

“In the other silo, this level still has power. All of thirty-four has full power with no generator running.” She tapped the thick cables with her screwdriver. “The servers over there are still humming as well. And some of the survivors tapped into that power to run pumps and things up and down the silo. I think all that juice comes from here.”

“Why?” Lukas asked. He played the light across the bundle and seemed more interested now.

“Because they needed the power for the pumps and grow lights,” Juliette said, amazed she had to spell it out.

“No, why are they providing this power in the first place?”

“Maybe they don’t trust us to keep things running on our own. Or maybe the servers require more juice than we can generate. I don’t know.” She leaned to the side and peered back at Lukas. “What I want to know is why they left it running after they tried to kill everyone. Why not shut it off with everything else?”

“Maybe they did. Maybe your friend hacked in here and turned it back on.”

Juliette laughed. “No. Not Solo—”

There was a voice down the hall. The crawl space grew dark as Lukas spun the flashlight around. There shouldn’t have been anyone else down there.

“It’s the radio,” he said. “Let me see who it is.”

“The flashlight,” Juliette called out – but he was already gone. His boots rang and faded down the hallway.

Juliette reached ahead of herself and felt for the copper pipes. They were the right size. Nelson had shown her where the argon tanks were kept. There was a pump and filter mechanism that was supposed to draw a fresh supply of argon from deep within the earth, similar to how the air handlers worked. But now Juliette knew to trust nothing. Pulling out the floor panels and the wall panels behind the tanks, she had discovered two lines feeding into the gas tanks separate from the supply system. A supply system she now suspected did absolutely nothing. Just like with the gaskets and heat tape, the second power feed, the visor of lies, everything had a false front. The truth lay buried beneath.

Lukas stomped back toward her. He knelt down, and the light returned to the crawlspace.

“Jules, I need you to get out of there.”

“Please hand me the flashlight,” she told him. “I can’t see shit.” This was going to be another argument like when she’d cut the camera feeds. As if she would cut these pipes without knowing what was in them—

“I need you to get out here. I … please.”

And she heard it in his voice. Something was wrong. Juliette looked back and caught an eyeful of flashlight.

“One sec,” she said. She wiggled back toward him on her palms and the toes of her boots until she reached the open access panel. She left her multi-tool behind.