羊毛战记 Part 5 The Stranded 55

　　55

　　Three weeks later

　　• Silo 18 •

　　Walker remained in his cot and listened to the sounds of distant violence. Shouts echoed down hishallway, emanating¹ from the entrance to Mechanical. The familiar patter of gunfire came next, thepop pop pop of the good guys followed by the ratatatat of the bad.

　　There was an incredible bang, the roar of blasting powder against steel, and the back-and-forthcrackle ended for a moment. More shouting. Boots clomping down his hallway, past his door. Theboots were the constant beat to the music of this new world. He could hear this music from his cot,even with the blankets drawn² over his head, even with his pillow on top, even as he begged, out loud,over and over, for it to please stop.

　　The boots in the hallway carried with them more shouting. Walker curled up into a tight ball,knees against his chest, wondering what time it was, dreading⁴ that it was morning, time to get up.

　　A brief respite⁵ of silence formed, that quiet of tending to the wounded, their groans⁶ too faint topenetrate his sealed door.

　　Walker tried to fall asleep before the music was turned back up. But, as always, the quiet wasworse. During the quiet, he grew anxious as he waited for the next patter of gunfire to erupt. Hisimpatience for sleep often frightened that very sleep away. And he would grow terrified that theresistance was finally over, that the bad guys had won and were coming for him—Someone banged on his door—a small and angry fist unmistakable to his expert ears. Four harshknocks, and then she was gone.

　　Shirly. She would have left his breakfast rations⁷ in the usual place and taken away last night’spicked-over and mostly uneaten dinner. Walker grunted⁸ and rolled his old bones over to the otherside. Boots clomped. Always rushing, always anxious, forever warring. And his once-quiet hallway,so far from the machines and pumps that really needed tending to, was now a busy thoroughfare. Itwas the entrance hall that mattered now, the funnel⁹ into which all the hate was poured. Screw thesilo, the people above and the machines below, just fight over this worthless patch of ground, pile thebodies on either side until one gives, do it because it was yesterday’s cause, and because nobodywants to remember back any further than yesterday.

　　But Walker did. He remembered—

　　The door to his workshop burst open. Through a gap in his filthy¹⁰ cocoon¹¹, Walker could seeJenkins, a boy in his twenties but with a beard that made him appear older, a boy who had inheritedthis mess the moment Knox died. The lad stormed through the maze¹² of workbenches and scatteredparts, aiming straight for Walker’s cot.

　　“I’m up,” Walker groaned¹³, hoping Jenkins would go away.

　　“No you’re not.” Jenkins reached the cot and prodded¹⁴ Walker in the ribs¹⁵ with the barrel of hisgun. “C’mon, old man, up!”

　　Walker tensed away from him. He wiggled an arm loose to wave the boy away.

　　Jenkins peered down gravely, a frown buried in his beard, his young eyes wrinkled with worry.

　　“We need that radio fixed¹⁶, Walk. We’re getting battered¹⁷ out there. And if I can’t listen in, I don’tthink I can defend this place.”

　　Walker tried to push himself upright. Jenkins grabbed the strap¹⁸ of his overalls¹⁹ and gave him somerough assistance.

　　“I was up all night on it,” Walker told him. He rubbed his face. His breath was awful.

　　“Is it fixed? We need that radio, Walk. You do know Hank risked his life to get that thing to us,right?”

　　“Well, he should’ve risked a bit more and sent a manual,” Walker complained. He pressed hishands to his knees, and with much complaint from his joints²⁰, he stood and staggered toward theworkbench, his blankets spilling to the floor in a heap. His legs were still half-asleep, his handstingling with the weak sensation of not being able to form a proper fist.

　　“I got the battery sorted,” he told Jenkins. “Turns out that wasn’t the problem.” Walker glancedtoward his open door and saw Harper, a refinery²¹ worker turned soldier, standing²² in the hallway.

　　Harper had become Jenks’s number two when Pieter was killed. Now he was peering down atWalker’s breakfast, practically salivating into it.

　　“Help yourself,” Walker called out. He waved dismissively at the steaming bowl.

　　Harper glanced up, eyes wide, but that was as long as he hesitated. He leaned his rifle against thewall and sat down in the workshop doorway²³, shoveling food into his mouth.

　　Jenkins grunted disapprovingly²⁴ but didn’t say anything.

　　“So, see here?” Walker showed him the arrangement on the workbench where various pieces ofthe small radio unit had been separated and were now wired together so everything was accessible.

　　“I’ve got constant power.” He patted the transformer he had built to bypass the battery. “And thespeakers work.” He keyed the transmit button, and there was a pop and hiss²⁵ of static from his benchspeakers. “But nothing comes through. They aren’t saying anything.” He turned to Jenkins. “I’ve hadit on all night, and I’m not a deep sleeper²⁶.”

　　Jenkins studied him.

　　“I would’ve heard,” he insisted. “They aren’t talking.”

　　Jenkins rubbed his face, made a fist. He kept his eyes closed, his forehead resting in one palm, aweariness in his voice. “You think maybe something broke when you tore it apart?”

　　“Disassembled,” Walker said with a sigh. “I didn’t tear it apart.”

　　Jenkins gazed up at the ceiling and relaxed his fist. “So you think they aren’t using them anymore,is that it? Do you reckon they know we have one? I swear, I think this damn priest they sent is a spy.

　　Shit’s been fallin’ apart since we let him in here to give last rites²⁷.”

　　“I don’t know what they’re doing,” Walker admitted. “I think they’re still using the radios, they’vejust excluded this one somehow. Look, I made another antenna²⁸, a stronger one.”

　　He showed him the wires snaking up from the workbench and spiraling around the steel-beamrafters overhead.

　　Jenkins followed his finger, then snapped his head toward the door. There was more shoutingdown the hallway. Harper stopped eating for a moment and listened. But only for a moment. He dughis spoon back into the cornmush.

　　“I just need to know when I’ll be able to listen in again.” Jenkins tapped the workbench with hisfinger, then picked his rifle up. “We’ve been shooting blind for almost a week now. I need results, notlessons on all this”—he waved a hand at Walker’s work—“all this wizardry.”

　　Walker plopped down on his favorite stool and peered at the myriad²⁹ circuits that had once beenjammed into the radio’s cramped³⁰ innards. “It’s not wizardry,” he said. “It’s electrics.” He pointed³¹ attwo of the boards, connected by wires he had lengthened³² and resoldered so he could analyze³³ all thebits more closely. “I know what most of these do, but you’ve gotta remember that nothing aboutthese devices is known, not outside of IT, anyway. I’m havin’ to theorize while I tinker.”

　　Jenkins rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Just let me know when you’ve got something. All yourother work orders can wait. This is the only thing that matters. Got that?”

　　Walker nodded. Jenkins turned and barked at Harper to get the hell off the floor.

　　They left Walker on his stool, their boots picking up the beat of the music again.

　　Alone, he stared down at the machine strung out across his workbench, its little green lights on itsmysterious boards lit up and taunting³⁴ him. His hand drifted to his magnifiers as if by its own accord,as if by decades of habit, when all Walker really wanted was to crawl back into his cot, to wrap hiscocoon around himself, to disappear.

　　He needed help, he thought. He looked around at all that required doing and, as ever, his thoughtsturned to Scottie, his little shadow, gone to work in IT where they hadn’t been able to protect him.

　　There had been a slice of time, sliding away from him now and fading into the slippery past, whenWalker had been a happy man. When his life should’ve ended to keep him from enduring any of thesuffering beyond. But he had made it through that brief bliss³⁵ and now could hardly recall it. Hecouldn’t imagine what it felt like to rise with anticipation³⁶ in the morning, to fall asleep withcontentment at the end of the day.

　　It was only fear and dread³ anymore. And also regret.

　　He had started all this, all the noise and violence. Walker was convinced of that. Every life lostwas on his wrinkled hands. Every tear shed was due to his actions. Nobody said it, but he could feelthem thinking it. One little message to Supply, one favor for Juliette, just a chance at dignity, anopportunity to test her wild and horrible theory, to bury herself out of sight—and now look at thecascade of events, the eruption³⁷ of anger, the senseless violence.

　　It wasn’t worth it, he decided³⁸. This was how the math always added up: not worth it. Nothingseemed worth it anymore.

　　He bent³⁹ over his workbench and set his old hands to tinkering. This was what he did, what he hadalways done. There was no escaping it now, no stopping those fingers with their papery skin, thosepalms with their deep lines that seemed to never end, not when they should. He followed those linesdown to his bony wrists, where weak little veins⁴⁰ ran like buried wire with blue insulation⁴¹.

　　One snip⁴², and off he would go to see Scottie, to see Juliette.

　　It was tempting⁴³.

　　Especially since, Walker figured, wherever they were, whether the priests were onto something orsimply ratshit mad, both of his old friends were in far better places than him …

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