ust (Silo, #3)(58)

Juliette felt her heart race. The tone of his voice. She couldn’t remember Peter ever uttering a cuss word in all the time she’d known him, and she’d known him through the worst of it. “Peter?”

“Jules, the outer door is open. I say again, the outer airlock door is wide open. I can see straight through the airlock and to … what looks like a ramp. I think I’m looking outside. Gods, Juliette, I’m looking straight outside—”

“I need you to get out of there,” Juliette said. “Leave everything as it is and get out. Shut the cafeteria door behind you. Seal it up with something. Tape or caulk or something from the kitchen. Do you read?”

“Yes. Yes.” His voice was labored. Juliette recalled Lukas telling her something bad was about to happen. She looked to Walker, who still had the new portable in his hand. She needed the old portable. She shouldn’t have let him modify the thing. “I need you to raise Luke,” she said.

Walker shrugged helplessly. “I’m trying,” he said.

“Jules, this is Peter again. I’ve got traffic heading my way up the stairs. I can hear them. Sounds like half the silo. I don’t know why they’re heading this way.”

Juliette thought of what Hank had said about hearing traffic on the stairwell. If there was a fire, everyone was supposed to man a hose or get to a safe level and wait for assistance. Why would people be running up?

“Peter, don’t let them near the office. Keep them away from the airlock. Don’t let them through.”

Her mind whirled. What would she do if she were up there? Have to get in there with a suit on and shut those doors. But that would mean opening the new airlock door. The new airlock door! It shouldn’t be there. Forget the sign of smoke, the outside air was now attached to the silo. The outside air—

“Peter?”

“Jules— I … I can’t stay here. Everyone’s acting crazy. They’re in the office, Jules. I … I don’t want to shoot anyone— I can’t.”

“Listen to me. The vapor. It’s the argon, isn’t it?”

“It … maybe. Yeah. It looked like that. I only saw it fill the airlock the once, when you went out. But yeah—”

Juliette felt her heart sink, her head spin. Her boots no longer touched the floor as she hovered, empty inside, numb and half-deaf. The gas. The poison. The seal missing from the sample canister. That f*cker in Silo 1 and his threats. He’d done it. He was killing them all. A thousand useless plans and schemes flitted through Juliette’s mind, all of them hopeless and too late. Far too late.

“Jules?”

She squeezed the mic to answer Peter, and then realized the voice was coming from Walker’s hands. It was coming from the portable radio.

“Lukas,” she gasped. Her vision blurred as she reached for the other radio.





34



“Jules? Goddammit. My volume was down. Can you hear me?”

“I hear you, Lukas. What the hell is going on?”

“Shit. Shit.”

Juliette heard clangs and bangs.

“I’m okay. I’m okay. Shit. Is that blood? Okay, gotta get to the pantry. Are you still with me?”

Juliette realized she wasn’t breathing. “Are you talking to me? What blood?”

“Yeah, I’m talking to you. Fell down the ladder. Sims is dead. They’re doing it. They’re shutting us down. My stupid nose. I’m going in the pantry—” The feed turned into static.

“Lukas? Lukas!” She turned to Walker and Courtnee, both watching with wide and wet eyes.

“—no good. Cam’t geb recebtion in there.” Lukas’s voice was garbled as though he were pinching his nose or holding back a sneeze. “Baby, you’ve gotta seal yourselb off. Can’t stob my nose—”

Panic surged through Juliette. Shutting them down. The threats of ending them with the push of a button. Ending them. A silo like Solo’s. Maybe a second flitted by, two seconds, and in that brief flash she recalled him telling her stories of the way his silo fell, the rush up top, the spilling out into the open air, the bodies piling up that she had waded through years later. All in an instant, she was transported back and forth through time. This was Silo 17’s past; she was witnessing the fall of that silo as it played out in her home. And she had seen their grim future, had seen what was to come of her world. She knew how this ended. She knew that Lukas was already dead.

“Forget the radio,” she told him. “Lukas, I want you to forget the radio and seal yourself in that pantry. I’m going to save as many as I can.”

She grabbed the other radio, which was tuned to her silo. “Hank, do you read me?”

“Yes—?” She could hear him panting. “Hello?”

“Get everyone down to Mechanical. Everyone you can and as fast as you can. Now.”

“I feel like I should be going up,” Hank said. “Everyone is storming up.”

“No!” Juliette screamed into her radio. Walker startled and dropped the other radio’s microphone. “Listen to me, Hank. Everyone you can. Down here. Now!”

She cradled the radio in both hands, glanced around the room to see what else she should grab.

“Are we sealing off Mechanical?” Courtnee asked. “Like before?”