37

　　For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

　　Walker made it to the end of the hallway and found himself leaving the comforting confines of a tightcorridor to enter the wider entrance hall to Mechanical. The room, he saw, was full of youngshadows. They hung out in groups, whispering to themselves. Three boys crouched near one wall,throwing stones for chits. Walker could hear a dozen interwoven voices spilling out of the mess hallacross the room. The casters had sent these young ears away while they discussed adult things. Hetook a deep breath and hurried through that damned open space, focusing on each step, moving onefoot ahead of him at a time, each small patch of floor a thing to conquer.

　　After a short lifetime, he finally crashed into the wall on the other side and hugged the steel panelsin relief. Behind him, the shadows laughed, but he was too frightened to care. Sliding across theriveted steel, he grabbed the edge of the mess-hall door and pulled himself inside. The relief wasenormous. Even though the mess hall was several times the size of his workshop, it was at least fullof crowding furniture and people he knew. With his back to the wall, his shoulder against the opendoor, he could almost pretend it was smaller. He slumped to the ground and rested, the men andwomen of Mechanical arguing among themselves, voices rising, agitated, competing.

　　“She’d be out of air by now, anyway,” Rick was saying.

　　“You don’t know that,” Shirly said. She was standing on a chair so she could be at least as tall asthe others. She surveyed the room. “We don’t know what advances they’ve made.”

　　“That’s because they won’t tell us!”

　　“Maybe it’s gotten better out there.”

　　The room quieted with this last. Waiting, perhaps, to see if the voice would dare speak again andbreak its anonymity. Walker studied the eyes of those facing his way. They were wide with a mixtureof fear and excitement. A double cleaning had removed some taboos. Shadows had been sent away.

　　The adults were feeling frisky and free to speak forbidden thoughts.

　　“What if it has gotten better?” someone else asked.

　　“Since two weeks ago? I’m telling you guys, it’s the suits! They figured out the suits!” Marck, anoilman, looked around at the others, anger in his eyes. “I’m sure of it,” he said. “They’ve sorted thesuits and now we have a chance!”

　　“A chance to what?” Knox growled. The grizzled head of Mechanical sat at one of the tables,digging into a breakfast bowl. “A chance to send more of our people out to wander the hills until theyrun out of air?” He shook his head and took another bite, then jabbed at the lot of them with hisspoon. “What we need to be talking about,” he said, chewing, “is this sham of an election, this rat-assmayor, and us kept in the dark down here—!”

　　“They didn’t figure out the suits,” Walker hissed, still breathless from his ordeal.

　　“We’re the ones who keep this place humming,” Knox continued, wiping his beard. “And what dowe get? Busted fingers and ratshit pay. And now? Now they come and take our people and send themout for a view we don’t care about!” He slammed the table with his mighty fist, sending his bowlhopping.

　　Walker cleared his throat. He remained crouched on the floor, his back against the wall. No onehad seen him enter or heard him the first time. Now, while the room was scared quiet by Knox, hetried again.

　　“They did not figure out the suits,” he said, a little louder this time.

　　Shirly saw him from her perch. Her chin dropped, her mouth hanging open. She pointed, and adozen other heads turned to follow.

　　They gaped at him. Walker was still trying to catch his breath and must’ve looked near death.

　　Courtnee, one of the young plumbers who was always kind to him whenever she stopped by hisworkshop, left her seat and hurried to his side. She whispered his name in surprise and helped him tohis feet, urging him to come to the table and take her chair.

　　Knox slid his bowl away from himself and slapped the table. “Well, people are just wandering allover the damned place now, aren’t they?”

　　Walker looked up sheepishly to see the old foreman chief smiling through his beard at him. Therewere two dozen other people staring at him, all at once. Walker half waved, then stared down at thetable. It was suddenly too many people.

　　“All this shouting rouse you, old man? You setting off over the hills, too?”

　　Shirly jumped down from her chair. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I forgot to take him his breakfast.”

　　She hurried toward the kitchen to fetch him some food even as Walker tried to wave her off. Hewasn’t hungry.

　　“It isn’t …” His voice cracked. He tried again. “I came because I heard,” he whispered. “Jules.

　　Out of sight.” He made a gesture with his hand, arching it over some imaginary hill running acrossthe table. “But it wasn’t them in IT that figured nothing,” he said. He made eye contact with Marckand tapped his own chest. “I did it.”

　　A whispered conversation in the corner fell quiet. No one sipped their juice, no one moved. Theywere still half-stunned to see Walker out of his workshop, much less among the crowd of them. Notone of them had been old enough to remember the last time he’d roamed about. They knew him asthe crazy electrical man who lived in a cave and refused to cast shadows anymore.

　　“What’re you sayin’?” Knox asked.

　　Walker took a deep breath. He was about to speak when Shirly returned and placed a bowl of hotoats in front of him, the spoon standing off the rim, the concoction was so thick. Just how he liked it.

　　He pressed his hands against either side of the bowl, feeling the heat in his palms. He was suddenlyvery tired from lack of sleep.

　　“Walk?” Shirly asked. “You okay?”

　　He nodded and waved her away, lifted his head and met Knox’s gaze.

　　“Jules came to me the other day.” He bobbed his head, gaining confidence. He tried to ignore howmany people were watching him speak, and the way the overhead lights twinkled in his wateringeyes. “She had a theory about these suits, about IT.” With one hand, he stirred his oats, steeling hisresolve to say the unthinkable. But then, how old was he? Why did he care for taboos?

　　“You remember the heat tape?” He turned to Rachele, who worked first shift and knew Juliettewell. She nodded. “Jules sorted that it weren’t no accident, the way the tape broke down.” He noddedto himself. “She sorted it all, she did.”

　　He took a bite of his food, not hungry but enjoying the burn of the hot spoon on his tongue. Theroom was silent, waiting. The whispers and quiet play of the shadows outside could just barely beheard.

　　“I’ve built up favors and favors with Supply over the years,” he explained. “Favors and favors. SoI called them all in. Told them we’d be even.” He looked at this group of men and women fromMechanical, could hear more standing in the hallway who’d arrived late but could read from thefrozen demeanors in the room to stay put. “We’ve taken stuff out of IT’s supply chain before. I knowI have. All the best electronics and wire go to them that make the suits—”

　　“The ratshit bastards,” someone muttered, which got more than a few of them bobbing theirheads.

　　“So I told Supply to return the favor. Soon as I heard they took her—” Walker paused and swipedat his eyes. “Soon as I heard, I wired in those favors, said to replace anything them bastards asked forwith some of our own. Best of the best. And don’t let ’em be the wiser.”

　　“You did what?” Knox asked.

　　Walker dipped his head over and over; it felt good to let out the truth. “They’ve been makingthose suits to fail. Not ’cause it ain’t bad out there, that’s not what I figure. But they don’t want yourbody wandering out of sight, no sir.” He stirred his oats. “They want us all right here where they cansee us.”

　　“So she’s okay?” Shirly asked.

　　Walker frowned and slowly shook his head.

　　“I told you guys,” someone said. “She’d have run out of air by now.”

　　“She was dead anyway,” someone else countered, and the argument began to build again. “Thisjust proves they’re full of shit!”

　　Walker had to agree with that.

　　“Everybody, let’s stay calm,” Knox roared. But he appeared the least calm of them all. Moreworkers filed in now that the moment of silence appeared to be over. They gathered around the table,faces full of worry.

　　“This is it,” Walker said to himself, seeing what was happening, what he had started. He watchedhis friends and coworkers get all riled up, barking at the empty air for answers, their passions stirred.

　　“This is it,” he said again, and he could feel it brewing, ready to burst out. “Thisisit, thisisit—”

　　Courtnee, still hovering over him, tending to him like he was an invalid, held his wrist with thosedelicate hands of hers.

　　“What is it?” she asked. She waved down the others so she could hear. She leaned close toWalker. “Walk, tell me, what is it? What is this? What’re you trying to say?”

　　“This is how it starts,” he whispered, the room quiet once more. He looked up at all the faces,scanned them, seeing in their fury, in all the exploded taboos, that he was right to worry.

　　“This is how the uprising begins …”