羊毛战记 Part 5 The Stranded 64

　　64

　　• Silo 17 •

　　The descent to Mechanical was oddly tranquil¹, almost mesmerizing². Juliette slid through the greenflood, pushing herself away from the curved railing each time the staircase spiraled around beneathher feet. The only sounds anywhere were the hiss³ of air entering her helmet and the excess gurglingout the other side. A never-ending stream of bubbles rolled up her visor like beads⁴ of solder⁵, driftingup in defiance⁶ of gravity.

　　Juliette watched these silver spheres chase one another and play like children through the metalstairs. They broke up where they touched the railing, leaving just minuscule⁷ dots of gas stuck to thesurface, rolling and colliding. Others marched in wavy⁸ lines inside the stairway. They gathered incrowds beneath the hollow steps, bubbles becoming pockets of air that wobbled and caught the lightradiating from the top of her helmet.

　　It was easy to forget where she was, what she was doing. The familiar had become distorted andstrange. Everything seemed magnified by the plastic dome⁹ of her visor, and it was easy to imaginethat she wasn’t sinking at all, but that the great stairway was rising, pushing up through the deep earthand heading toward the clouds. Even the sensation of the rope sliding through her gloved hands andacross her padded belly¹⁰ felt more like something tugged¹¹ inexorably from above rather than a line shewas descending¹².

　　It wasn’t until she arched her back and looked straight up that Juliette remembered how muchwater was stacking up above her. The green glow of the emergency lights faded to an eerie¹³ black inthe space of a landing or two. The light from her flashlight barely dented¹⁴ it. Juliette inhaled¹⁵ sharplyand reminded herself that she had all the air in the silo. She tried to ignore the sensation of so muchliquid piled up on her shoulders, of being buried alive. If she had to, if she panicked, she could justcut the weights free. One flick¹⁶ with the chef’s knife and she would bob right back to the surface. Shetold herself this as she continued to sink. Letting go of the rope with one hand, she patted for theknife, making sure it was still there.

　　“SLOWER!” her radio barked.

　　Juliette grabbed the rope with both hands and squeezed until she came to a stop. She remindedherself that Solo was up there, watching the air hose and electrical wires as they spooled¹⁷ off their neatcoils. She imagined him tangled¹⁸ up in the lines, hopping¹⁹ around on one foot. Bubbles raced out of heroverflow valve and jiggled through the lime-green water back toward the surface. She leaned herhead back and watched them swirl²¹ around the taut²² rope, wondering what was taking him so long. Inthe undersides of the helical steps, the air pockets danced mercury silver, wavering in the turbulenceof her passing—

　　“OKAY.” The radio speaker behind her neck crackled. “GOOD HERE.”

　　Juliette cringed from the volume of Solo’s voice and wished she’d checked that before closing upher helmet. There was no fixing it now.

　　With ears ringing and the silence and majesty²³ of the tranquil descent broken, she slid downanother level, keeping her pace steady and slow as she studied the slack in the wire and the air hosefor any sign of their pulling taut. As she passed close to the landing of one-thirty-nine, she saw thatone of the doors was missing; the other door had been wrenched²⁴ violently from its hinges. The entirelevel must have been flooded, which meant more water for the pumps to move. Just before thelanding rose out of sight, she saw dark forms down the corridor, shadows floating in the water. Theflashlight on her helmet barely illuminated²⁵ a pale and bloated face before she drifted past, leaving thelong-dead to rise out of sight.

　　It hadn’t occurred to Juliette that she might come across more bodies. Not the drowned of course—the flood would’ve risen too slowly to take anyone by surprise—but any violence that occurred inthe down deep would now be preserved in its icy depths. The chill of the water around her seemed tofinally penetrate²⁶ the layers of her suit. Or perhaps it was just her imagination.

　　Her boots thumped²⁷ to the lowermost floor of the stairwell while she was still looking up, keepingan eye on the slack in the lines. Her knees were jarred by the startling end to her descent. It had takenher far less time than a dry hike would have.

　　With a grip on the rope for balance, Juliette let go with her other hand and waved it through thethick atmosphere of green groundwater. She dipped her chin against the radio switch. “I’m down,”

　　she transmitted to Solo.

　　She took a few lumbering²⁸ and tentative steps, waving her arms and half swimming toward theentrance to Mechanical. The light from the stairwell barely penetrated²⁹ past the security gates.

　　Beyond, the oily depths of a home both foreign and familiar awaited her.

　　“I HEAR YOU,” Solo answered after some delay.

　　Juliette felt her muscles tense up as his voice rattled³⁰ around inside her helmet. Not being able toadjust the volume was going to drive her mad.

　　After a dozen halting steps, she eventually got the hang of the awkward wading³² motion andlearned to drag her weighted boots across the steel decking. With the suit inflated³³ and her arms andlegs brushing around on the inside, it was like guiding a bubble by throwing oneself against its skin.

　　She paused once to look back at her air hose, making sure it wasn’t getting caught on the stairs, andshe gave the rope she had descended³⁴ one last glance. Even from this distance it appeared as animpossibly slender thread, a thread hanging in that submerged straw of a stairwell. It wavered slightlyin the wake she was causing, almost as if saying good-bye.

　　Juliette tried not to read anything into it; she turned back to the entrance to Mechanical. You don’thave to do this, she reminded herself. She could hook up two, maybe three more small pumps plus afew additional runs of hydroponic piping. The work might take a few months, the water level wouldrecede for years, but eventually these levels would be dry and she could investigate those burieddiggers Solo had told her about. It could be done with minimal³⁵ risk—other than to her sanity³⁶.

　　And if her only reason for getting back home was vengeance³⁷, if that was her only motivation, shemight have chosen to wait, to take that safe route. She could feel the temptation even then to yank theweights off her boots and float up through the stairwell, to fly past the levels like she used to dreamshe could, arms out, buoyant and free …

　　But Lukas had kept her apprised³⁸ of the horrible mess her friends were in, the mess her leaving hadcaused. There was a radio mounted to his wall below the servers that leaked violence day and night.

　　Solo’s underground apartment was equipped with an identical radio, but it could communicate onlywith silo seventeen’s portables. Juliette had given up fiddling³⁹ with it.

　　A part of her was glad she couldn’t hear. She didn’t want to have to listen to the fighting—she justwanted to get home and make it stop. This had become a desperate compulsion: returning to her silo.

　　It was maddening to think that she was only a short walk away, but those doors were only everopened to kill people. And what good would her return do, anyway? Would her surviving a cleaningand revealing the truth be enough to expose Bernard and all of IT?

　　As it happened, she had other, less sane⁴⁰ plans. It was a fantasy, maybe, but it gave her hope. Shedreamed of fixing up one of the diggers that had built this place, a machine buried and hidden at thelong end of its vertical⁴¹ toil⁴², and driving it through the earth itself to eighteen’s down deep. Shedreamed of breaking that blockade, of leading her people back to these dry corridors and getting thisdead place working again. She dreamed of operating a silo without all the lies and deceptions⁴³.

　　Juliette waded⁴⁴ through the heavy water toward the security gate, dreaming these childish dreams,discovering that they somehow steeled her resolve. She approached the security turnstile and saw thatthe lifeless and unguarded gate would pose the first true obstacle of her descent. Getting over itwouldn’t be easy. Turning her back to the machine, she placed her hands on either side and pushed,squirming and kicking her heavy heels against the low wall, until she was just barely sitting on thecontrol box.

　　Her legs were too heavy to lift … at least high enough to swing over, anyway. The weights hadended up being more than she’d needed to counter the suit’s buoyancy. She wiggled backward untilher butt⁴⁵ was more secure and tried to turn sideways. With a thick glove under her knee, she strainedand leaned back until her boot was on the edge of the wall. She rested a moment, breathing hard andfilling her helmet with muffled⁴⁶ laughter. It felt ridiculous, all this effort to do something sooutrageously simple, so benign⁴⁷. With one boot already up, the other was easier to lift. She felt themuscles in her abdomen⁴⁸ and thighs⁴⁹, muscles sore from weeks of a porter’s hustle⁵⁰, finally help her lifther own damn foot up.

　　She shook her head in relief, sweat trickling⁵¹ down the back of her neck, already dreadingrepeating the maneuver⁵² on the return trip. Dropping to the other side was easy: the weights did all thework. She took a moment to make sure the wires knotted around her wrist and the air hose attached toher collar weren’t getting tangled and then started down the main corridor, the flashlight on top of herhelmet her only illumination.

　　“YOU OKAY?” Solo asked, his voice startling her again.

　　“I’m fine,” she said. She held her chin down against her chest, leaving the contact open. “I’llcheck in if I need you. The volume is a little high down here. Scares the hell out of me.”

　　She released the contact and turned to see how her lifeline was doing. All along the ceiling, heroverflow bubbles danced in the glow of her flashlight like tiny jewels—“OKAY. GOTCHA.”

　　With her boots hardly leaving the floor, pushing forward on them one at a time, she slowly madeher way across the main intersection⁵³ and past the mess hall. To her left, if she made her way downthe hallway and took two turns, she could reach Walker’s workshop. Had it always been a workshop?

　　She had no idea. In this place, it might be a storeroom. Or an apartment.

　　Her small apartment would be in the opposite direction. She turned to peer down that hallway, hercone of light brushing away the darkness to reveal a body pressed up against the ceiling, tangled inthe runs of pipe and conduit. She looked away. It was easy to imagine that being George or Scottie orsomeone else she had cared about and lost. It was easy to imagine it being herself.

　　She shuffled⁵⁵ toward the access stairs, her body wavering in the thick but crystal-clear water, theweight of her boots and the buoyancy of her torso keeping her upright even though she felt on theverge of toppling. She paused at the top of the square steps leading down.

　　“I’m about to descend,” she said, chin down. “Make sure you keep everything feeding. And pleasedon’t respond unless there’s a problem. My ears are still ringing from the last time.”

　　Juliette lifted her chin from the contact switch and took the first few steps, waiting for Solo toblare something in her ear, but it never came. She kept a firm grip on the wire and hose, dragging itaround the sharp corners of the square stairwell as she descended into the darkness. The black waterall around was disturbed only by her rising bubbles and the feeble cone⁵⁴ of her sweeping⁵⁶, flashlit gaze.

　　Six floors down, the hose and wire became difficult to pull, too much friction⁵⁷ from the steps. Shestopped and gathered more and more of it around herself, letting the slack coil drift in theweightlessness of the water. Several of her careful splices⁵⁸ in both the wire and tubing slid through hergloves. She paused and checked the taped and glued joints⁵⁹ of the latter to see how they were holdingup. Minuscule bubbles were trailing out of one joint⁶⁰, leaving a perforated and wavy line of tiny dotsin the dark water. It was hardly anything.

　　Once she had enough slack at the bottom of the stairs to reach the sump basin, she turned andmarched purposefully toward her work. The hardest part was over. The air was flowing in, cool andfresh and hissing⁶¹ by her ear. The excess streamed out through the other valve, the bubbles shootingup in a curtain whenever she turned her head. She had enough wire and hose to reach her goal, andall of her tools were intact. It felt like she could finally relax now that she knew she wouldn’t begoing any deeper. All she had to do was hook up the power lines, two easy connections, and makeher way out.

　　Being so close, she dared to think of getting free, of rescuing this silo’s Mechanical spaces,resuscitating one of its generators⁶² and then one of its hidden and buried diggers. They were makingprogress. She was on her way to rescuing her friends. It all seemed perfectly⁶³ attainable⁶⁴, practically inher grasp, after weeks of frustrating⁶⁵ setbacks.

　　Juliette found the sump room just where it was supposed to be. She slid her boots to the edge ofthe pit in the center. Leaning forward, her flashlight shone down on the numbers signifying how deepthe waters had risen. They seemed comical under so many hundreds of feet of water. Comical andsad. This silo had failed its people.

　　But then Juliette corrected herself: these people had failed their silo.

　　“Solo, I’m at the pump. Gonna hook up the power.”

　　She peered down at the bottom of the pit to make sure the pump’s pickup⁶⁶ was clear of debris⁶⁷. Thewater down there was amazingly clear. All the oil and grime she’d worked hip-deep in at the bottomof her own basin had been made diffuse⁶⁸, spread out into who knew how many gallons of groundwaterseepage. The result was crystal-clear stuff she could probably have drunk.

　　She shivered, suddenly aware that the chill of the deep water was making its way through herlayers and wicking away her body heat. Halfway⁶⁹ there, she told herself. She moved toward themassive pump mounted on the wall. Pipes as thick as her waist bent⁷⁰ to the ground and snaked overthe edge of the pit. The outflow ran up the wall in a similarly sized pipe and joined the jumble⁷¹ ofmechanical runs above. As she stood by the large pump and worked the knotted wires off her wrist,she remembered the last job she’d ever performed as a mechanic. She had pulled the shaft⁷² on anidentical pump and had discovered a worn and broken impeller. As she selected a Phillips driver fromher pocket and began loosening the positive power terminal, she took the time to pray that this pumphad not been in a similar condition when the power had blown. She didn’t want to have to comedown and service it again. Not until she could do it while keeping her boots dry.

　　The positive power line came free more easily than she had hoped. Juliette twisted the new oneinto place. The sound of her own breathing rattled in the confines of her helmet and provided her onlycompany. As she was tightening⁷³ the terminal around the new wire, she realized she could hear herbreathing because the air was no longer hissing by her cheek.

　　Juliette froze. She tapped the plastic dome by her ear and saw that the overflow²⁰ bubbles were stillleaking out, but slower now. The pressure was still inside her suit; there just wasn’t any more airbeing forced inside.

　　She dipped her chin against the switch, could feel the sweat form around her collar and drip downthe side of her jaw⁷⁴. Her feet were somehow freezing, while from the neck up she was beginning tosweat.

　　“Solo? This is Juliette. Can you hear me? What’s going on up there?”

　　She waited, turned to aim her flashlight down the air hose, and looked for any sign of a kink. Shestill had air, the air in her suit. Why wasn’t he responding?

　　“Hello? Solo? Please say something.”

　　The flashlight on her helmet needed to be adjusted, but she could feel the ticking of some silentclock in her head. How much air would she have starting right then? It had probably taken her anhour to get down there. Solo would fix the compressor before her air ran out. She had plenty of time.

　　Maybe he was pouring in more fuel. Plenty of time, she told herself as the driver slipped off thenegative terminal. The damn thing was stuck.

　　This, she didn’t have time for, not for anything to be corroded⁷⁵. The positive wire was alreadyspliced and locked tight. She tried to adjust the flashlight strapped⁷⁶ to her helmet; it was aimed toohigh: good for walking, horrible for working. She was able to twist it a little and aim it at the largepump.

　　The ground wire could be connected to any part of the main housing, right? She tried toremember. The entire case was the ground, wasn’t it? Or was it? Why couldn’t she remember? Whywas it suddenly difficult to think?

　　She straightened the end of the black wire and tried to give the loose copper⁷⁷ strands⁷⁸ a twist withher heavily padded fingers. She jabbed this bundle of raw copper into a cowling vent³¹ on the back, apiece of conducting metal that appeared connected to the rest of the pump. She twisted the wirearound a small bolt, knotted the slack so it would hold, and tried to convince herself that this wouldwork, that it would be enough to run the damn thing. Walker would know. Where the hell was hewhen she needed him?

　　The radio by her neck squawked—a burst and pop of static—what sounded like part of her namein a faraway distance—a dead hiss—and then nothing.

　　Juliette wavered in the dark, cold water. Her ears were ringing from the outburst. She dipped herchin to tell Solo to hold the radio away from his mouth, when she noticed through the glass windowof her helmet’s visor that there were no more bubbles spilling from the overflow valve and rising inthat gentle curtain across her vision. The pressure in her suit was gone.

　　A different sort of pressure quickly took its place.

 

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