ust (Silo, #3)(88)

“Right here,” Mr. Rash said. He held her wrist and forced the chalk until it hovered over the line. “Your name.” And everyone was watching. Elise knew her letters. She could read better than Rickson. But she could hardly see. She was a fish like she used to catch, under the water, looking up at all these hungry people. But she printed her name. She hoped it would make them go away.

“Good girl.”

Mr. Rash bent forward and kissed her on the cheek. People started clapping. And then the man in the white blanket with the fascination for books chanted some words, that voice booming and pretty at the same time. His words felt deep within her chest as he pronounced someone in the name of the Pact, husband and wife.





Part IV ~ Dust





Silo 1





51



Darcy rode the elevator up to the armory. He put the small bag with the bullet away and stuffed the blood results into his pocket, stepped out of the elevator and fumbled for the wide bank of light switches. Something told him the pilot missing from the cryopod in Emergency Personnel was hiding on this level. It was the level where they’d found the man posing as the Shepherd. It was also where a handful of pilots had been stationed a month or so ago during a flurry of activity. He and Stevens and a few of the others had searched the level several times already, but Darcy had a feeling. It started with the fact that the lift required a security override before it would even bring him to that level.

Only a handful of top personnel and those in Security could manage that sort of override, and on his previous visits Darcy had seen why. Crates of munitions and ammo lined the shelves. There were tarps draped over what appeared to be military drones. Pyramids of bombs sitting on racks. Not anything you wanted the kitchen staff stumbling across when they came down for a can of powdered potatoes and jabbed the wrong button in the lift.

Previous searches hadn’t turned up anyone else, but there had to be thousands of places among the tall shelves with their large plastic bins. Darcy peered into these shelves as the lights overhead flickered on. He imagined that he was this pilot, moments after he’d killed a man, arriving there in a lift splattered with blood, on the run and looking for a place to hide.

Crouching, he examined the polished concrete outside the lift. Stepping back and tilting his head, he studied the shine. There was a bit more gleam in front of the door. Perhaps it was from the uneven traffic, the shuffle of boots, the gradual wear. He lowered himself to the floor and took a deep sniff, noted the smell of leaves and pine trees, of lemon and a time forgotten, back when things grew and the world smelled fresh.

Someone had cleaned the floor here. Recently, he thought. He remained crouched and peered through the aisles of weapons and emergency gear, aware that he wasn’t alone. What he should do is head straight for Brevard and bring in backup. There was a man in here capable of killing, someone from Emergency Personnel with military training, someone with access to every weapon in those crates. But this man was also wounded, hiding, and scared. And backup seemed like a bad idea.

It wasn’t so much that Darcy was the one who had pieced this together and deserved the credit, it was his increasing certainty that these murders pointed straight to the top. The people involved in this were of the highest rank. Files had been tampered with, Deep Freeze disturbed, neither of which should’ve been possible. The people he reported to might be involved. And Darcy had stood there propping up the real Shepherd while the old man laid boots into his impostor. Nothing about that was protocol. That shit was personal. He knew the guy that took the beating, used to see him up late shifts all the time, had spoken with him now and then. It was hard to imagine that guy killing people. Everything was upside down.

Darcy pulled his flashlight off his hip and began to search the shelves. He needed something more than a bright light, something more than they assigned to night guards. There were designations on the bins from a different life, one barely remembered. He pried open the lids on several bins – the vacuum seals softly popping – before he found what he was looking for: An H&K .45, a pistol both modern and ancient. Top of the line when it rolled off the factory floor, but those factories were little more than memories. He slotted a clip into the weapon and hoped the ammo was good. He felt more confident with the firearm and crept through the storeroom with renewed purpose, not the cursory laps from the day before when eighty levels needed searching.

He peeked under each of the tarps. Beneath one, he found loose tools and scattered parts, a drone partly disassembled or being repaired. Recent work? It was impossible to tell. There was no dust, but there wouldn’t be under the tarp. He walked the perimeter, looked for white foam pellets on the ground from any ceiling panels that may have been disturbed, checked the offices at the very back, looked for any places where the shelves might be scaled, any large bins high up. He headed toward the barracks and noticed the low metal hangar door for the first time.

Darcy made sure the safety was off. He gripped the handle on the door and threw it up, then crouched down and aimed his flashlight and pistol into the gloom.

He very nearly shot up someone’s bedroll. There was a rumpled pile of pillows and blankets that looked at first like a person sleeping. He saw more of the folders like the ones he’d helped gather from the conference room. This was probably where the man they’d snagged had been hiding. He’d have to show Brevard and get the place cleaned up. He couldn’t imagine living like that, like a rat. He shut the hangar and moved to the door down the wall, the one that led to the barracks. Opening it a crack, Darcy made sure the hall was clear. He moved quietly from room to room, sweeping each. No sign of habitation in the bunkrooms. The bathrooms were still and quiet. Eerie, almost. Leaving the women's, he thought he heard a voice. A whisper. Something beyond the doorway at the very end.