Dust s-9 Read online

  “We’ll get it running,” she assured Dawson. “We just gotta figure out how it’s supposed to work.”

  “Careful,” Raph warned as a rock kicked loose by her boots tumbled toward him. She was already higher up than their heads. The room, she saw, didn’t have a corner or a far wall. It just curled up and all the way around.

  “It’s a big circle,” she called out, her voice echoing between rock and metal. “I don’t think this is the business end.”

  “There’s a door over here,” Dawson announced.

  Juliette slid down the slope to join him and Raph. Another flashlight clicked on from the gawkers in the generator room. Its beam joined hers in illuminating a door with pins for hinges. Dawson wrestled with a handle on the back of the machine. He grunted with effort, and then metal cried out as it reluctantly gave way to muscle.

  ••••

  The machine yawned wide once they were through the door. Nothing prepared Juliette for this. Thinking back to the schematics she’d seen in Solo’s underground hovel, she now realized that the diggers had been drawn to scale. The little worms jutting off the low floors of Mechanical were a level high and twice that in length. Massive cylinders of steel, this one sat snug in a circular cave, almost as if it had buried itself. Juliette told her people to be careful as they made their way through the interior. A dozen workers joined her, their voices mingling and echoing in the maze-like guts of the machine, taboo dispelled by curiosity and wonder, the digging forgotten for now.

  “This here’s for moving the tailings,” someone said. Beams of light played on metal chutes of interlocking plates. There were wheels and gears beneath the plates and more plates on the other side that overlapped like the scales on a snake. Juliette saw immediately how the entire chute moved, the plates hinging at the end and wrapping around to the beginning again. The rock and debris could ride on the top as it was pushed along. Low walls of inch-thick plate were meant to keep the rock from tumbling off. The rock chewed up by the digger would pass through here and out the back, where men would have to wrestle it with barrows.

  “It’s rusted all to hell,” someone muttered.

  “Not as bad as it should be,” Juliette said. The machine had been there for hundreds of years, at least. She expected it to be a ball of rust and nothing more, but the steel was shiny in places. “I think the room was airtight,” she wondered aloud, remembering a breeze on her neck and the sucking of dust as she pierced through the wall for the first time.

  “This is all hydraulic,” Bobby said. There was disappointment in his voice, as though he were learning that the gods cleaned their asses with water too. Juliette was more hopeful. She saw something that could be fixed, so long as the power source was intact. They could get this running. It was made to be simple, as if the gods knew that whoever discovered it would be less sophisticated, less capable. There were treads just like on the excavator but running the length of the mighty machine, axles caked in grease. More treads on the sides and ceiling that must push against the earth as well. What she didn’t understand was how the digging commenced. Past the moving chutes and all the implements for pushing crushed rock and tailings out the back of the machine, they came to a wall of steel that slid up past the girders and walkways into the darkness above.

  “That don’t make a lick of sense,” Raph said, reaching the far wall. “Look at these wheels. Which way does this thing run?”

  “Those aren’t wheels,” Juliette said. She pointed with her light. “This whole front piece spins. Here’s the pivot.” She pointed to a central axle as big around as two men. “And those round discs there must protrude through to the other side and do the cutting.”

  Bobby blew out a disbelieving breath. “Through solid stone?”

  Juliette tried to turn one of the discs. It barely moved. A barrel of grease would be needed.

  “I think she’s right,” Raph said. He had the lid raised on a box the size of a double bunk and aimed his flashlight inside. “This here’s a gearbox. Looks like a transmission.”

  Juliette joined him. Helical gears the size of a man’s waist lay embedded in dried grease. The gears matched up with teeth that would spin the wall. The transmission box was as large and stout as that of the main generator. Larger.

  “Bad news,” Bobby said. “Check where that shaft leads.”

  Three beams of light converged and followed the driveshaft back to where it ended in empty space. The interior cavern of that hulking machine, all that emptiness in which they stood, was a void where the heart of the beast should lie.

  “She ain’t going nowhere,” Raph muttered.

  Juliette marched back to the rear of the machine. Beefy struts built for holding a power plant sat bare. She and the other mechanics had been milling about where an engine should sit. And now that she knew what to look for, she spotted the mounts. There were six of them: threaded posts eight inches across and caked in ancient, hardened grease. The matching nut for each post hung from hooks beneath the struts. The gods were communicating with her. Talking to her. The ancients had left a message, written in the language of people who knew machines. They were speaking to her across vast stretches of time, saying: This goes here. Follow these steps.

  Fitz, the oilman, knelt beside Juliette and rested a hand on her arm. “I am sorry for your friends,” he said, meaning Solo and the kids, but Juliette thought he sounded happy for everyone else. Glancing at the rear of the metal cave, she saw more miners and mechanics peering inside, hesitant to join them. Everyone would be happy for this endeavor to end right there, for her to dig no further. But Juliette was feeling more than an urge; she was beginning to feel a purpose. This machine hadn’t been hidden from them. It had been safely stowed. Protected. Packed away. Slathered in grease and shielded from the air for a reason beyond her knowing.

  “Do we seal it back up?” Dawson asked. Even the grizzled old mechanic seemed eager to dig no further.

  “It’s waiting for something,” Juliette said. She pulled one of the large nuts off its hook and rested it on top of the grease-encased post. The size of the mount was familiar. She thought of the work she’d performed a lifetime ago of aligning the main generator. “She’s meant to be opened,” she said. “This belly of hers is meant to be opened. Check the back of the machine where we came through. It should come apart so the tailings can get out, but also to let something in. The motor isn’t missing at all.”

  Raph stayed by her side, the beam of his flashlight on her chest so he could study her face.

  “I know why they put this here,” she told him, while the others left to survey the back of the machine. “I know why they put this next to the generator room.”

  4

  Shirly and Kali were still cleaning the main generator when Juliette emerged from the belly of the digger. Bobby showed the others how the back of the digger opened up, which bolts to remove and how the plates came away. Juliette had them measure the space between the posts and then the mounts of the backup generator to verify what she already knew. The machine they’d uncovered was a living schematic. It really was a message from older times. One discovery was leading to a cascade of others.

  Juliette watched Kali wring mud from a cloth before dipping it into a second bucket of slightly less filthy water, and a truth occurred to her: An engine would rot if left for a thousand years. It would only hum if used, if a team of people devoted their lives to the care of it. Steam rose from a hot and soapy manifold as Shirly wiped down the humming main generator, and Juliette saw how they’d been working toward this moment for years. As much as her old friend — and now the Chief of Mechanical — hated this project of hers, Shirly had been assisting all this time. The smaller generator on the other side of the main power plant had another, greater, purpose.

  “The mounts look right,” Raph told her, a measuring line in his hand. “You think they used that machine to bring the generator here?”

  Shirly tossed down a muddy rag, and a cleaner one was tossed up. Wor
ker and shadow had a rhythm like the humming of pistons.

  “I think the spare generator is meant to help that digger leave,” she told Raph. What she didn’t understand was why anyone would send off their backup power source, even for a short time. It would put the entire silo at the whim of a breakdown. They may as well have found a motor crumbling into a solid ball of rust on the other side of the wall. It was difficult to imagine anyone agreeing with the plans coalescing in her mind.

  A rag arced through the air and splashed into a bucket of brown water. Kali didn’t throw another up. She was staring toward the entrance of the generator room. Juliette followed the shadow’s gaze and felt a flush of heat. There, among the black and soiled men and women of Mechanical, an unblemished young man in brilliant silver stood, asking someone for directions. A man pointed, and Lukas Kyle, head of IT, her lover, started off in Juliette’s direction.

  “Get the backup generator serviced,” Juliette told Raph, who visibly stiffened. He seemed to know where this was going. “We need to put her in just long enough to see what that digger does. We’ve been meaning to unhook and clean out the exhaust manifolds anyway.”

  Raph nodded, his jaws clenching and unclenching. Juliette slapped his back and didn’t dare glance up at Shirly as she strode off to meet Lukas.

  “What’re you doing down here?” she asked him. She had spoken to Lukas the day before, and he had neglected to mention the visit. His aim was to corner her.

  Lukas pulled up short and frowned — and Juliette felt awful for the tone. There was no embrace, no welcoming handshake. She was too wound up from the day’s discoveries, too tense.

  “I should ask the same thing,” he said. His gaze strayed to the crater carved out of the far wall. “While you’re digging holes down here, the head of IT is doing the mayor’s work.”

  “Then nothing’s changed,” Juliette said, laughing, trying to lighten the mood. But Lukas didn’t smile. She rested her hand on his arm and guided him away from the generator and out into the hall. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I was just surprised to see you. You should’ve told me you were coming. And listen… I’m glad to see you. If you need me to come up and sign some things, I’m happy to. If you need me to give a speech or kiss a baby, I’ll do that. But I told you last week that I was going to find some way to get my friends out. And since you vetoed my walking back over the hills—”

  Lukas’s eyes widened at the flippant heresy. He glanced around the hall to see if others were around. “Jules, you’re worrying about a handful of people while the rest of the silo grows uneasy. There are murmurs of dissent all through the Up Top. There are echoes of the last uprising you stirred, only now they’re aimed at us.”

  Juliette felt her skin warm. Her hand fell from Lukas’s arm. “I wanted no part of that fight. I wasn’t even here for it.”

  “But you’re here for this one.” His eyes were sad, not angry, and Juliette realized the days were as long for him in the Up Top as they were for her down in Mechanical. They’d spent less time talking in the past week than they had while she’d been in Silo 17. They were nearer to one another and in danger of growing apart.

  “What would you have me do?” she asked.

  “To start with, don’t dig. Please. Billings has fielded a dozen complaints from neighbors speculating about what will happen. Some of them are saying that the outside will come to us. A priest from the Mids is holding two Sundays a week now to warn of the dangers, of this vision of his where the dust fills the silo to the brim and thousands die—”

  “Priests—” Juliette spat.

  “Yes, priests, with people marching from the Top and the Deep both to attend his Sundays. When he finds it necessary to hold three of them a week, we’ll have a mob.”

  Juliette ran her fingers through her hair, rock and rubble tumbling out. She looked at the cloud of fine dust guiltily. “What do people think happened to me outside the silo? My cleaning? What are they saying?”

  “Some can scarcely believe it,” Lukas said. “It has the makings of legend. Oh, in IT we know what happened, but some wonder if you were sent to clean at all. I heard one rumor that it was an election stunt.”

  Juliette cursed under her breath. “And news of the other silos?”

  “I’ve been telling others for years that the stars are suns like our own. Some things are too big to comprehend. And I don’t think rescuing your friends will change that. You could march your radio friend up to the bazaar and say he came from another silo, and people would just as likely believe you.”

  “Walker?” Juliette shook her head, but she knew he was right. “I’m not after my friends to prove what happened to me, Luke. This isn’t about me. They’re living with the dead over there. With ghosts.”

  “Don’t we as well? Don’t we dine on our dead? I’m begging you, Jules. Hundreds will die for you to save a few. Maybe they’re better off over there.”

  She took a deep breath and held it a pause, tried her best not to feel angry. “They’re not, Lukas. The man I aim to save is half mad from living on his own all these years. The kids over there are having kids of their own. They need our doctors and they need our help. Besides… I promised them.”

  He rewarded her pleas with sad eyes. It was no use. How do you make a man care for those he’s never met? Juliette expected the impossible of him, and she was just as much to blame. Did she truly care for the people being poisoned twice on Sundays? Or any of the strangers she had been elected to lead but had never met?

  “I didn’t want this job,” she told Lukas. It was hard to keep the blame out of her voice. Others had wanted her to be mayor, not her. Though not as many as before, it seemed.

  “I didn’t know what I was shadowing for either,” Lukas countered. He started to say something else, but held his tongue as a group of miners exited the generator room, a cloud of dust kicked up from their boots.

  “Were you going to say something?” she asked.

  “I was going to ask that you dig in secret if you have to dig at all. Or leave these men to it and come—”

  He bit off the thought.

  “If you were about to say home, this is my home. And are we really no better than the last of them who were in charge? Lying to our people? Conspiring?”

  “I fear we are worse,” he said. “All they did was keep us alive.”

  Juliette laughed at that. “Us? They elected to send you and me to die.”

  Lukas let out his breath. “I meant everyone else. They worked to keep everyone else alive.” But he couldn’t help it: he cracked a smile while Juliette continued to laugh. She smeared the tears on her cheeks into mud.

  “Give me a few days down here,” she said. It wasn’t a question; it was a concession. “Let me see if we even have the means to dig. Then I’ll come kiss your babies and bury your dead — though not in that order, of course.”

  Lukas frowned at her morbidness. “And you’ll tamp down the heresies?”

  She nodded. “If we dig, we’ll do it quietly.” To herself, she wondered if such a machine as she’d uncovered could dig any way but with a growl. “I was thinking of going on a slight power holiday, anyway. I don’t want the main generator on a full load for a while. Just in case.”

  Lukas nodded, and Juliette realized how easy and necessary the lies felt. She considered telling him right then of another idea of hers, one she’d been considering for weeks, all the way back when she was in the doctor’s office recovering from her burns. There was something she needed to do up top, but she could see that he was in no mood to be angered further. And so she told him the only part of her plan that she thought he’d enjoy.

  “Once things are underway down here, I plan to come up and stay for a while,” she said, taking his hand. “Come home for a while.”

  Lukas smiled.

  “But listen here,” she told him, feeling the urge to warn. “I’ve seen the world out there, Luke. I stay up at night listening to Walk’s radio. There are a lot of people just li
ke us out there, living in fear, living apart, kept ignorant. I mean to do more than save my friends. I hope you know this. I mean to get to the bottom of what’s out there beyond these walls.”

  The knot in Lukas’s throat bobbed up and down. His smile vanished. “You aim too far,” he said meekly.

  Juliette smiled and squeezed her lover’s hand. “Says the man who watches the stars.”

  Silo 17

  5

  “Solo! Mr. Solo!”

  The faint voice of a young child worked its way into the deepest of the grow pits. It reached all the way to the cool plots of soil where lights no longer burned and things no longer grew. There, Jimmy Parker sat alone atop the lifeless soil and near to the memory of an old friend.

  His hands idly picked clumps of clay and crushed them into powder. If he imagined really hard, he could feel the pinprick of claws through his coveralls. He could hear Shadow’s little belly rattling like a water pump. It got harder and harder to imagine as the young voice calling his name grew nearer. The glow of a flashlight cut through the last tangle of plants that the young ones called the Wilds.

  “There you are!”

  Little Elise made a heap of noise that belied her small size. She stomped over to him in her too-big boots. Jimmy watched her approach and remembered wishing long ago that Shadow could talk. He’d had countless dreams wherein Shadow was a boy with black fur and a rumbly voice. But Jimmy no longer had such dreams. Nowadays, he was thankful for the speechless years with his old friend.

  Elise squirmed through the rails of the fence and hugged Jimmy’s arm. The flashlight nearly blinded him as she clutched it against his chest, pointing it up.

  “It’s time to go,” Elise said, tugging at him. “It’s time, Mr. Solo.”