Shadows (17 page)

As she
finished up the man said,
“
Thanks,
Sunshine.
”

Susan was stunned. She
looked up and for the first time realized she'd been treating her
father. Her mother, standing opposite her, had tears in her
eyes.

“
Dad.
”

Her father
squeezed her shoulder, adding,
“
You're doing a
wonderful job, Honey.
”

Jamie helped Susan's father
down from the bench and the assembly line they'd constructed kept
rolling as an elderly lady shifted down the stainless steel bench
for treatment. She had her arm in a hastily constructed, bloodied
sling.

Susan looked at her father
for a moment. He smiled and waved as he hobbled away.

She turned
back to the old lady and said,
“
Hi, we're here to
help. Can you tell me what happened to you?
”

Time blurred.

One patient blended into
another.

Occasionally, the nurse
came over and checked on them, asking if they had any questions and
telling them they were doing a great job. Susan wasn't sure how
many patients she'd tended to, only that her back hurt from leaning
over the kitchen bench for so long. She was surprised when the
wall-screen lightened with the coming of dawn. Finally, the tide of
injuries turned and she stood there watching the wall-screen and
sipping a glass of water. There were no more stars in the brooding
sky. Smoke continued to billow from the crater beyond the crumbling
mound. The doctor walked up behind her with one of the
nurses.

“
Thanks for
all your help,
”
the doctor said to the four of them,
shaking each hand profusely. They'd been up for almost twenty four
hours. It had been roughly eighteen long hours since the quake, and
they were exhausted.

“
Glad we
could help,
”
Olivia said on behalf of them. Susan
smiled in agreement. They'd worked well together as a
team.

“
Sheriff Cann
has set up cots in the mayor's office,
”
the nurse
said.
“
They've blacked out the windows so we can get
some sleep.
”

“
Sounds good
to me,
”
Susan said, watching as the sun peaked over the
horizon.

They wandered through the
mass of people lying on the floor, wrapped in blankets. Sheriff
Cann was arranging more portable cots in front of the wall screen.
He had several men helping him pull them out of a crate, setting
them up around the floor. The smell of grits wafted from the
kitchen but Susan was too tired to think about eating. She wandered
into the mayor's office in a daze and barely registered her head
hitting the pillow on her cot. Someone pulled a blanket over
her.

Chapter 09: Quorum

Susan sat on one of the a
chairs outside the mayor's office. It was four in the afternoon and
most of those that had initially fled to the Uppers for safety had
left for their homes. The cafeteria was still functioning as a
hospital ward, but it was only the serious cases that remained.
Most of those Susan had treated were already gone.

The faint smell of smoke
sat in the air, a burnt tinge that threatened to lash at her
nostrils if it got stronger.

Nothing had changed on the
wall-screen. Smoke still billowed from a crater hidden from sight
behind the crumbled remains of the embankment. To the right, the
view looked surprisingly normal, with the bodies of cleaners still
lying crumpled on the hillside, but the left half of the massive
wall-screen appeared hellish in its fury. The ferocity with which
the smoke rose, rushing up and enfolding on itself, made Susan
wonder if there might be more tremors to come. Whatever happened,
it wasn't finished. She struggled to think what could make so much
smoke. What fire or furnace could burn with such violence without
burning itself out?

Mayor Johns saw her and
wandered over. She was in no hurry, talking with various workers,
but she'd made eye contact with Susan and waved casually, although
she seemed determined to make it over to the young porter. Like
Sheriff Cann, the mayor was in her sixties, but she was trim and
fit. Gray hair and wrinkles on her forehead and cheeks betrayed her
age, but her body was toned from years of climbing the
stairs.

Mayor Johns was the only
mayor Susan had ever known. She'd been mayor the silo for over
thirty years and was respected by all, even the odd rebellious
youth. She was forever on the stairs. Whereas Sheriff Cann stayed
in the Up Top, leaving his deputies to police the Mids and the Down
Deep, Mayor Johns traversed the entire depth of the silo. Although
her official coveralls were golden and looked splendid under the
artificial lights, Susan had seen the mayor in the oil refinery,
wearing the deep blue coveralls of a mechanic, inspecting pump
repairs, and then later that same day, she'd seen her in the
nursery on level twenty wearing the orange coveralls of a raiser
working with young kids. She would have made a great porter,
thought Susan.

Mayor Johns
sat down beside Susan, saying,
“
How you
doing?
”

“
I'm good,
Ma'am.
”

Truth was, she was sore.
Susan didn't realize just how many muscles she had until they all
ached at once.

“
I heard what
you and your friends did last night,
”
the mayor
said.
“
Mighty fine spirit, Sue. That's what this silo
needs; people that will forget about themselves and help
others.
”

Susan wasn't sure what to
say in response. She blushed at the mayor's compliment.

“
After all
this is over,
”
the mayor said,
“
I'd like
you to consider a change of career. I've spoken with Doc Chalmers
and she'd happily take you as a shadow.
”

“
Wow,
”
Susan replied.
“
I ...
ah.
”

“
You don't
have to decide anything now. Just promise me you'll think about it.
Take some time and talk to your parents about your options,
OK?
”

“
OK,
”
Susan replied. In reality, she knew
she'd be crazy not to take up the offer.

Doctors were in the upper
strata of society within the silo. Normally, you had to be born
into a family within those castes before you would be considered
for shadowing. The implications were far reaching as working in
medical spoke to a family as a whole, it would mean moving levels,
lifting her Mom and Dad out of the lower apartments. Susan tried
not to appear too excited. With all her parents had quietly
endured, this would be a chance at a new life, a new beginning.
Even as a shadow, Susan would earn more chits in a month than she
would in a year of porting.

Mayor Johns smiled. Susan
felt as though the old woman could read her mind. She must have
known about her Mom and Dad being excluded from the lottery. In
offering this to her, the mayor was effectively giving her parents
her blessing as well. Whether that would extend to the lottery
remained to be seen, but her Mom was still of child-bearing age so
it could, and that excited Susan.

She must have
been grinning from ear to ear as the mayor patted her leg,
saying,
“
It's going to take time to rebuild. There's been
so much damage, far beyond anything we've ever seen before, but
with people like you and your folks, we'll make it
through.
”

“
Thank
you,
”
Susan said, noting the deliberate reference to her
parents. She wanted to jump off her seat and shout for joy, but
that might not be appropriate, she figured, trying not to laugh at
the thought.

For a few seconds, there
was a peaceful silence before Susan asked.

“
What
happened?
”

“
We still
don't know,
”
the mayor confessed, and the
sincerity in her voice gave Susan no cause to question her.
“
We've lost four floors. The exact death toll is unknown,
but the Sheriff's office is talking over four hundred people,
primarily in the Down Deep. They got hit far worse than
us.
”

Susan swallowed.

“
The Deep
took the brunt of the quake.
”

How could she call it a
quake? Susan wondered how the mayor could ignore the violent plume
of smoke rising into sky from no more than a couple of hundred
yards away. Susan knew she was looking at the death of another
silo, but it can't have been apparent to others.

“
Mr Hammond
says it's geothermal,
”
she continued.
“
He said
they had been monitoring a build up of pressure but had no idea how
bad it could get.
”

Hammond was lying, of that
Susan was sure. She doubted IT were monitoring anything Down Deep.
That would be a task for miners or engineers, not button-pushing
computer operators.

“
There's
still a fire raging in the refinery, but it's under control. Our
extractors are dealing with the smoke.
”

Susan nodded
thoughtfully.

“
The stairway
is intact as far as the animal farm on ninety, although some
sections have temporary bridging. Beyond ninety, though, there's
severe damage to the silo itself.
”

Susan was silent. As bad as
she thought the damage had been, this was worse.

“
We're
cut-off below ninety. An entire section of the stairs collapsed,
thirty-six feet in height, but the folks down there are holding up
well. We're in radio contact with one of the deputies. He's set up
a temporary hospital on one-ten, just outside Supply. Repairing
that section of stairs is going to take some time. They said
they'll have a rope-ladder in place by nightfall, but they're not
going to be able to port any weight so the silo is effectively cut
in two for at least a month.
”

Susan appreciated the mayor
confiding in her. She figured there would be some kind of formal
notification made through the floor wardens, but the mayor's candor
with a shadow showed how highly she thought of her.

An aide walked up to them,
excusing himself as he whispered in the mayor's ear.

“
You'll have
to excuse me,
”
the mayor said, patting Susan on the
thigh.

“
No
problem,
”
Susan replied.

On the far side of the
floor, a deputy mounted the top of the stairs with a prisoner in
handcuffs. Susan froze, recognizing the face: Charlie. Mayor Johns
was already walking over toward the deputy, as was Sheriff Cann
along with several other deputies. They must have been notified at
roughly the same time.

Susan
couldn't help herself. She called out passionately, yelling,
“
Charlie!
”

The mayor turned back
toward her, clearly surprised by her cry.

Charlie looked at her with
a somber face, almost as though he barely recognized her. Blood
marred his coveralls. His hair was matted. There were bruises on
his face and arms.

Susan ran over, running
past the stunned mayor.

“
Charlie,
what's going on?
”

Hammond was beside Charlie,
escorting both him and the deputy.

“
Get her out
of here!
”
the sheriff cried, signaling for his deputy to
intercept her.

“
I didn't do
it,
”
Charlie cried.
“
You know me, Susan!
You know I wouldn't do it.
”

“
What's going
on?
”
the mayor asked, catching up with the sheriff as his
deputy barred Susan from getting any closer.

“
There's been
a murder,
”
Hammond replied.

“
We don't
know that yet,
”
Sheriff Cann added sternly.
“
We're still investigating.
”

Hammond was
furious, he yelled at the sheriff, crying,
“
He murdered my
shadow!
”

“
Barney?
”
Susan cried out as the deputy tried
to pull her away. She was not going to accept this. She fought to
pull herself free, flexing her muscles and twisting to break out of
the deputy's grip. For his part, the deputy could hold his own, but
he couldn't drag her away. Any effort he made gave her the
opportunity to skew to one side or the other, effectively
counteracting his motion. Susan was manic, pulling and pushing,
trying to shove him away or throw him to one side.