Shadows (23 page)

“
I'm
sorry,
”
Lisa said.
“
I haven't been
entirely honest with you. I need your help.
”

“
You need my
help?
”
Susan replied in genuine surprise.

“
I've seen
this before. It's the same way the riots began, with brooding
dissent.
”

“
An
uprising?
”

“
I hope not,
but yes. There's already talk in the Mids of dragging you into
this.
”

“
Me?
”
Susan replied, again feeling caught
off guard.
“
Why
me?
”

“
Because you
and Charlie stood up to Hammond.
”

“
But I ... we
didn't,
”
Susan spluttered.

“
Facts don't
matter much at a time like this,
”
Lisa replied,
walking out on the landing.

The Great Fall opened out
above and below them. The spiral staircase wrapped around the
inside of the gigantic concrete cylinder, but it looked fragile in
her mind. Once, Susan had thought of the silo as immovable, to her
those concrete walls had seemed eternal. Now, twisted, bent
railings marked where falling debris had struck the edge of the
stairs.

The smell of smoke hung in
the air. Burning rags floated down through the open air, some on
fire, others smoldering.

“
I don't
understand,
”
Susan said, gesturing to the
rags.

“
They're
sending a message Down Deep. They're an act of defiance, signaling
intent.
”

“
But we need
to rebuild,
”
Susan said with alarm.

“
I
know,
”
Lisa replied, turning and starting down the
stairs.
“
At the moment, the silo is on the verge of
tearing itself apart.
”

Susan noted a distinct lack
of traffic on the stairs in either direction. Neither of them said
much for the first few levels, but on each landing, suspicious eyes
watched through the cracks of closed, darkened doors, doors Susan
had never seen shut before.

Those few that were on the
stairs were runners, taking messages just a couple of floors at a
time, jogging up and down the stairs at a pace that couldn't be
sustained for more than a few hours at best. They might be able to
race back and forth for five or six floors, but they'd be spent by
nightfall, and Susan knew that runners meant upper floors were
desperate to share information, no matter how spurious.

“
It's the
calm before the storm,
”
Lisa said as they approached level
fifteen.
“
You feeling nervous?
”

“
Just a
little,
”
Susan confessed.
“
What can we
do?
”

“
We need to
put a stop to this madness,
”
Lisa
replied.
“
People will listen to you. You've got to
convince them to lay down their arms. Hammond's got far more than
pitchforks and axes, if he comes out fighting, hundreds will
die.
”

“
I don't know
if I
—”

“
You must.
I've seen this before. If the silo goes bad, everyone's going to
lose someone.
”

The stairs leading down to
level sixteen had been mangled by falling debris during the quake.
Guide ropes had been established, making the wreckage passable, but
a group of men were working to build a barricade on the upper side
of the damaged stairs. The flash of an arc-welder reflected off the
concrete walls of the silo, pasting them in a ghostly
blue.

“
What is
going on?
”
Lisa said, coming up to the men.

“
We're
fortifying our position,
”
one of the men
said.
“
If they storm the stairs, we can hold them
here.
”

“
Listen to
yourselves,
”
Lisa said, appealing to the older
men as the younger shadows kept working, erecting scraps of sheet
metal as a shield.
“
You lived through
the riots. You know what happened. You know the futility, the
stupidity of rising up against IT.
”

“
It has to be
done,
”
the older man said, rubbing his bald
head.
“
We have to protect our
families.
”

Lisa tapped the metal
barricade. The sheet metal was thin.

“
You won't
stop them,
”
she said.
“
Their bullets
will pass through this like a hot knife through butter, killing
anyone hiding behind your barrier.
”

“
We'll cut
the guide ropes,
”
another man replied.

“
They'll use
grappling hooks,
”
Lisa countered,
“
and span
the gap with ladders.
”

“
We hold the
high ground, we'll throw boulders at them.
”

“
They'll
slaughter you,
”
Lisa said coldly.
“
Listen to me. A silo cannot be divided. They know that.
They'll bridge the gap. They'll find out who the ringleaders are,
and you'll all be sent to clean.
”

“
Don't do
this,
”
Susan implored the men.
“
My caster's
right. Violence isn't going to solve this.
”

“
You,
”
the bald man said.
“
You're the girl that stood up to
Hammond.
”

Susan nodded. She couldn't
say, yes. In her mind, she'd done little more than cower before the
ferocious man. With fire in his eyes and spittle on his beard, he'd
vanquished Charlie's invention. He'd framed Charlie for murder and
rigged the outcome of his trial. Truth was, Susan was intimidated
by Hammond. She felt her heart race merely at the thought of a
confrontation with him. She wasn't brave. She was scared, only now
she was scared for her friends, her parents. Susan had no doubt
about Lisa's conviction, she knew that if Hammond was pushed, he
would unleash hell on them.

“
This isn't
what Charlie would want,
”
she said, being
truthful.
“
He'd want to see the silo rebuilt, not
destroyed.
”

Her mouth ran dry, and she
struggled to say what she was thinking, but she had to get it out.
They had to understand.

“
He died to
protect me. He died so no one else would have to
die.
”

Her lips quivered. A tear
formed in her eye. As much as she tried to will it back, she
couldn't help but feel that single drop run down her
cheek.

“
I don't like
this,
”
the older, bald man said.

“
I don't
either,
”
Lisa replied.
“
But if there's to be
change, it has to come from within. If we fight, hundreds will die,
perhaps thousands. Please, tell your people to stand
down.
”

The older man didn't say
anything. He had his hands in his coveralls, looking at his
feet.

“
I know it's
hard,
”
Lisa added.
“
Please, think of
your families. Think of what will happen to them without
you.
”

The stranger pursed his
lips, nodding his head. The other men stopped their work, taking
their cue from him.

“
Please,
”
Susan said.
“
You've got to
tell the others. If they go through with this, they'll lose. There
has to be a better way. We should not have to pay for our future in
blood.
”

“
Pull it
down,
”
the older man said reluctantly.

“
Thank
you,
”
Lisa said, turning to Susan and indicating that she
should follow. Carefully, the two of them negotiated the rope
spanning the crushed remains of the stairs. The rope wasn't
essential, acting mere as a guide to steady someone if they lost
their balance. Several sections of the mangled stairs were wide
enough to walk down without the need for the rope at
all.

They continued
on.

“
Where are we
going?
”
Susan asked.

“
The
Mids,
”
Lisa replied as they passed
hydroponics.

The wreckage Susan had
scampered across to save James from the Great Fall had been
reattached to the wall, forming a landing of sorts for that level.
Numerous ropes stretched up to the landing above, supporting the
twisted steel platform. The landing swayed as they crossed it
nervously.

“
Why the
Mids?
”

“
Down Deep
won't trust the Uppers, but they trust the Mids. Although Supply is
in the Deep, it's manned by those from the Mids, so the mechanics
trust them. If there's a revolution, that's where it will start,
that's where it always starts.
”

“
We have to
cross IT,
”
Susan said, stating the obvious, feeling she
needed to point that out to her caster.

“
Yes,
”
Lisa replied with certainty.
“
Yes, we do.
”

Neither of them said much
for the next fifteen levels, but they slowed as they approached IT
on the 34th level. Coming around the spiral staircase, it was
immediately apparent that Hammond was ready for a fight. The
security station had been sealed with plate steel, not the thin
sheet metal the farmers had been using. These plates were easily a
quarter of an inch thick. Tiny slots had been cut into the plate
steel at eye level. Susan had no doubt their approach was being
watched. What threat could two unarmed women pose? She hoped they
were thinking rationally, although given what she'd seen so far,
she doubted they were.

One of the turnstiles had
been covered with several sheets of metal welded together, reaching
from the floor to the ceiling, reducing the access to the floor to
a single lane.

“
What's the
plan?
”
Susan asked.

“
To play it
cool and ignore their paranoia.
”

As the two
women stepped onto the landing, a voice called out, saying,
“
State your purpose!
”

Since when did someone need
a purpose to be on the stairs? Susan wondered what Hammond had told
his team to whip them into such a frenzy.

“
We have no
purpose here,
”
Lisa replied.
“
Just
passing through.
”

There was no
response.

They walked across the
landing and were about to continue down to the Mids when Susan
snapped. She couldn't believe she was doing this, but she turned
away from Lisa and walked back to the entrance to IT. To her,
hiding in fear was cowardly. She couldn't ignore what was
happening, how her home was being torn apart by something more
vicious than the quake.

“
What are you
doing?
”
Lisa cried, but Susan ignored her, marching back
the hastily erected barricades, knowing there would be someone to
hear her plea beyond the cold steel.

“
Please,
”
she began, stumbling through that
first word, not sure what she would say but feeling she
couldn
’
t ignore the insanity unfolding within the
silo.
“
Listen to me. This unrest need not end in
violence. We're talking to the Mids, urging patience, asking for
understanding, seeking peace.

“
If there's
anyone that should be seeking revenge, it's me, but I'm not. And do
you know why? Because hundreds of innocent people on both sides
will die needlessly. That's not what I want. That's not what
Charlie would want.

“
Look at our
home. Look at what's left of our silo. It's been ravaged by the
quake. Now, more than ever, we need cool heads to prevail. We need
to rebuild, not destroy. We need to reach out to each other, not
cower in fear. We need to trust each other or this silo will become
a graveyard. We all need each other, you have to see
that.
”