ust (Silo, #3)(68)

She checked the seating of the control boards. It was a lot like a computer, all the parts slotting together, but she was no electrician. She had no idea if there was anything else, anything missing. And no way in hell was she going on another run for parts. She powered up the unit and selected the channel marked “18”.

She waited.

Adjusting the squelch, she brought enough static into the speakers to make sure the unit was on. There was no traffic on the channel. Squeezing the microphone put an end to the static, which was a good sign. Weary and hurting and fearful for herself as well as her brother, Charlotte managed a smile. The click of the microphone back through the speakers was a small victory.

“Can anyone read me?” she asked. She propped one elbow on the desk, her other arm hanging useless by her side. She tried again. “Anyone out there with ears on? Please come back.”

Static. Which didn’t prove anything. Charlotte could very well imagine the radios sitting miles away in this silo somewhere, all the operators around them slouched over, dead. Her brother had told her about the time he had ended a silo with the press of a button. He had come to her with his eyes shining in the middle of the night and told her all about it. And now this other silo was gone. Or maybe her radio wasn’t broadcasting.

She wasn’t thinking straight. Needed to troubleshoot before she jumped to conclusions. Reaching for the dial, she immediately thought of the other silo she and her brother had eavesdropped in on, this neighboring silo with a handful of survivors who liked to chat back and forth and play games like Hide and Find with their radios. If she remembered right, the mayor of 18 had somehow transmitted on this other frequency before. Charlotte clicked over to “17” to test her mic, see if anyone would respond, forgetting the late hour. She used her old call sign from the Air Force out of habit.

“Hello. Hello. This is charlie two-four. Anyone read me?”

She listened to static, was about to switch over to another channel when a voice broke through, shaky and distant:

“Yes. Hello? Can you hear us?”

Charlotte squeezed the microphone again, the pain in her shoulder momentarily gone, this connection with a strange voice like a shot of adrenaline.

“I hear you. Yes. You can read me okay?”

“What the hell is going on over there? We can’t get through to you. The tunnel … there’s rubble in the tunnel. No one will respond. We’re trapped over here.”

Charlotte tried to make sense of this. She double-checked the transmit frequency. “Slow down,” she said and took a deep breath, took her own advice. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

“Is this Shirly? We’re stuck over here in this … other place. Everything’s rusted. People are panicking. You’ve gotta get us out of here.”

Charlotte didn’t know whether to answer or simply power the unit down and try again later. It felt as though she had butted into the middle of a conversation, confusing one of the parties. Another voice chimed in, supporting her theory:

“That’s not Shirly,” someone said, a woman’s voice. “Shirly’s dead.”

Charlotte adjusted the volume. She listened intently. For a moment, she forgot the man dying in the hallway below, the man she had stabbed, the wound in her arm. She forgot about those who must be coming after her, searching for her. She listened instead with great interest to this conversation on channel 17, this voice that sounded vaguely familiar.

“Who is this?” the first voice – the male voice – asked.

There was a pause. Charlotte didn’t know whom he was asking, whom he expected an answer from. She lifted the microphone to her lips, but someone else answered.

“This is Juliette.”

The voice was labored and weary.

“Jules? Where are you? What do you mean, Shirly’s dead?”

Another burst of static. Another dreadful pause.

“I mean they’re all dead,” she said. “And so are we.”

A burst of static.

“I killed us all.”

Silo 17





40



Juliette opened her eyes and saw her father. A white light bloomed and passed from one of her eyes to the other. Several faces loomed behind him, peering down at her. Light blue and white and yellow coveralls. What seemed a dream at first gradually coalesced into something real. And what was sensed as nothing more than a nightmare hardened into recollection: Her silo had been shut down. Doors had been opened. Everyone was dead. The last thing she remembered was clutching a radio, hearing voices, and declaring everyone dead. And she had killed them.

She waved the light away and tried to roll onto her side. She was on damp steel plating, someone’s undershirt tucked under her head, not on a bed. Her stomach lurched, but nothing came out. It was hollow, cramping, heaving. She made gagging noises and spat on the ground. Her father urged her to breathe. Raph was there, asking her if she’d be all right. Juliette bit down the urge to yell at them all, to yell at the world to leave her the hell alone, to hug her knees and weep for what she’d done. But Raph kept asking if she was okay.

Juliette wiped her mouth with her sleeve and tried to sit up. The room was dark. She was no longer inside the digger. A lambent glow beat from somewhere, like an open flame, the smell of burning biodiesel, a home-made torch. And in the gloom, she saw the dance and swing of flashlights at the ends of disembodied hands and on miners’ helmets as her people tended to one another. Small groups huddled here and there. A stunned silence sat like a blanket atop the scattered weeping.