ust (Silo, #3)(80)

“We … Donny and I were only ever trying to figure out how to help you, all of you, I swear. My brother … he had an affinity for your people.” Charlotte let go of the mic so this person couldn’t hear her cry.

“My people,” Juliette said, subdued.

Charlotte nodded. She took a deep breath. “Your silo.”

There was a long silence. Charlotte wiped her face with her sleeve.

“Why do you think I would trust you? Do you know what you all have done? How many lives you’ve taken? Thousands are dead—”

Charlotte reached to adjust the volume, to turn it back down.

“—and the rest of us will join them. But you say you want to help. Who the hell are you?”

Juliette waited for her to answer. Charlotte faced the hissing box. She squeezed the mic. “Billions,” she said. “Billions are dead.”

There was no response.

“We killed so many more than you could ever imagine. The numbers don’t even make sense. We killed nearly everyone. I don’t think … the loss of thousands … it doesn’t even register. That’s why they’re able to do it.”

“Who? Your brother? Who did this?”

Charlotte wiped fresh tears from her cheeks and shook her head. “No. Donny would never do this. It was … you probably don’t have the words, the vocabulary. A man who used to be in charge of the world the way it once was. He attacked my brother. He found us.” Charlotte glanced at the door, half expecting Thurman to kick it down and barge in, to do the same to her. She had poked the nest, she was sure of it. “He’s the one who killed the world and your people. His name is Thurman. He was a … something like a mayor.”

“Your mayor killed my world. Not your brother, but this other man. Did he kill this world that I’m standing in right now? It’s been dead for decades. Did he kill it as well?”

Charlotte realized this woman thought of silos as the entire world. She remembered an Iraqi girl she spoke with once while attempting to get directions to a different town. That was a conversation in a different language about a different world, and it had been simpler than this.

“The man who took my brother killed the wider world, yes.” Charlotte saw the memo in the folder, the note labeled The Pact. How to explain?

“You mean the world outside the silos? The world where crops grew aboveground and silos held seeds and not people?”

Charlotte let out a held breath. Her brother must’ve explained more than he let on.

“Yes. That world.”

“That world has been dead for thousands of years.”

“Hundreds of years,” Charlotte said. “And we … we’ve been around a long time. I … I used to live in that world. I saw it before it was ruined. The people here in this silo are the ones who did it. I’m telling you.”

There was silence. It was the sucking vacuum after a bomb. An admission, clearly stated. Charlotte had done it, what she thought her brother had always wanted to do. Admit to these people what they’d done. Paint a target. Invite retribution. All that they deserved.

“If this were true, I would want all of you dead. Do you understand me? Do you know how we live? Do you know what the world is like outside? Have you seen it?”

“Yes.”

“With your own eyes? Because I have.”

Charlotte sucked in a deep breath. “No,” she admitted. “Not with my own eyes. With a camera. But I’ve seen further out than any, and I can tell you that it’s better out there. I think you’re right about us poisoning the world, but I think it’s contained. I think there’s a great cloud around us. Beyond this cloud is blue skies and a chance at a life. You have to believe me, if I could help you get free, make this right, I would in a heartbeat.”

There was a long pause. A very long pause.

“How?”

“I’m not … I don’t think I’m in a position to help. I’m only saying if I could, I would. I know you’re in trouble over there, but I’m not in great shape over here. When they find me, they’ll probably kill me. Or something like it. I’ve done …” She touched the screwdriver on the bench. “… very bad things.”

“My people will want me dead for the part I played in this,” Juliette said. “They’ll send me to clean, and I won’t come back this time. So I guess we have something in common.”

Charlotte laughed and wiped her cheeks. “I’m truly sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for the things you’re going through. I’m sorry we did this to you all.”

There was silence.

“Thank you. I want to believe you, believe that you and your brother weren’t the ones who did this. Mostly because someone close to me wanted me to believe your brother was trying to help. So I hope you aren’t in the way when I get over there. Now, these bad things you say you’ve done, have you done them to bad people?”

Charlotte sat up straight. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Good. That’s a start. And now let me tell you about the world out there. I’ve loved two men in all my life, and both of them tried to convince me of this, that the world was a good place, that we could make it better. When I found out about the diggers, when I dreamed about tunneling here, I thought this was the way. But it only made things worse. And those two men with all that hope bursting from their breasts? Both of them are dead. That’s the world I live in.”