Silo 49: Deep Dark (11 page)

Greta an
d Piotr gave each other a look so she added, "The resolution did mandate the turn in. They made a correct decision based on their information."

Taylor pointed toward the envelope still tucked behind the encircling protection of her arms and asked, "And that?"

Marina withdrew the pocket watch carefully and unfolded the cloth tucked around it. She laid it carefully on the little nest and slid it slowly toward the historian. "This was turned in by a resident. Aside from its beauty, it is also a timepiece and I think I might be able to repair it. I thought it might be significant enough to be of interest to the Historians. Only the case is silver..."

Greta picked up the piece with careful fingers, immediately found the tiny button and popped open the cover. She turned it over to look at the face of it and ran her finger over the unmarred glass. "It is exquisite."

Piotr held out a hand and asked, "May I?"

The historian seemed reluctant to hand over the treasure but did so, her free hand beneath his during the transition in case the
watch fell. He, too, looked over the details of the case and frowned when he looked at the scene as it was revealed when both sides faced him. "I'm not sure this is something we need to keep. It's violent."

Greta tilted her head to the side, as if considering her next words carefully, "You are correct in that it is in essence, if not in exactitude, against the tenets. However, we do kill animals to provide food and materials we need and that is what is being done there."

Piotr laid the object down and pushed the envelope to the next person as if to get it away from his person as quickly as possible, an expression of distaste on his face. He replied, "Not humanely."

"No," Greta agreed, "not in the way we might choose to do it now, but I think that is a very old piece. From long before our history begins. Perhaps that is what they considered humane then."

"I think it is from..." he stopped there, going no further with his thoughts. Marina thought she knew what he was going to say because she had thought it herself when she first examined the watch. Even before she found the hidden image and letter inside, it hinted of outside to her.

"You think it is from the First People or before them," Greta said. It wasn't a question.

He nodded stiffly and stopped himself from looking again at the watch as it made its way from hand to hand around the table. "I do."

Marina wondered what
Greta would say to that and watched her closely. She also watched the others. Would their faces give away their thoughts about the object? Her secret knowledge of the image and the letter gave her curiosity an edge.

"I think that you may be correct in that, however I have nothing that can prove that as a certainty." Greta's response w
as suitably noncommittal for a Historian and frustrating for Marina. Apparently, it was the same for Piotr.

"And exactly how could one ever possibly prove it? What do you want to do with it?"

"As to your first question, I can't think of a scenario in which I would be able to prove this. The presence of an animal in such surroundings does hint of...and please excuse my choice of words...well, it hints of outside in a time before the First People. That could mean that this object was made by one of them after reaching the silo as a reminder of what once was."

She paused a moment, either gathering her thoughts or trying to choose her words carefully. "If that is the case, then this item is of a value that can't be ignored. That
being said, it could just as easily have been made generations later based solely on fantastical ideas passed down from the First People."

Greta turned back to Marina and asked, "What do you know of the object? What did you call it?"

"A pocket watch. It came from a resident on Level 50. The turn in slip didn't have much more on it."

"And did you go speak with the resident?" Greta asked and Marina was suddenly very glad she didn't stop and try to speak with Genevieve
Hardi before.

"No. I came here with it."

The watch had made its way around the table again and back once more to Greta. She wrapped it in the cloth and tucked it back into the envelope, this time protecting it under her folded arms. Marina felt a pang as it disappeared from view and she wondered if she would see it again.

"I'll see to the investigation on this piece," she informed the group.
“And the Historians will also visit the hotel and find out about this storage."

It was said with finality
and everyone else seemed to take it the same way Marina did. She immediately began turning over in her mind how she would go about speaking to Genevieve Hardi. She was probably going to have to make it look like an accidental meeting. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that if she didn't find out what she could for herself, she would never know the answers.

It would be found
out by the Historians and then ‘studied’ by them for decades, never being shared until every possible avenue was thought about over a lifetime or two. That wouldn't do. She had the picture and the letter and knew more than the historian who had just taken the watch and the responsibility away from her.

A few of the pieces were selected for tentative inclusion into the holdings of the Memoriam and a good many others were selected for imaging and then reclamation. The other items sat, looking rather forlorn on their envelopes. They were
neither important nor interesting enough and would be immediately reclaimed, their designs destroyed forever.

The ring that changed color when worn by the wearer was selected to be saved and Marina was very happy about that. They had each tried it on and gotten a slightly different color, with Piotr getting a yellowish green that was very pretty and Greta getting a blue that almost looked purple. She wondered if they would let others try it on or if it would simply go on display. 

The group tried to be social for a few minutes, following the tradition of ending all discussions on friendly terms, but it faltered as each of them thought their own thoughts. With assurances that the objects to be drawn would be ported back to her very soon, Piotr left.

Everyone aside from Marina, Greta and Taylor made their way out shortly afterward. Taylor w
as waiting for Marina to finish re-packing her satchel so he could escort her out when Greta told him that she would do it. She told him she wanted to have a few words with her. Marina tried not to react.

Marina cinched up the cord on her little sack, now much lighter, and stood
. The pain in her foot and thighs was still at bay, but slowly coming back. She hoped she wouldn't embarrass herself in front of the older woman.

Greta appeared to be examining her for something and Marina looked right back at her. Her colorful coveralls were at odds with her serious and quiet expression. She was taller than Marina and possessed an angular frame of such spare flesh that the planes of her face were sharp and bold.  Though she knew
Greta was at least a decade older than herself, to Marina the woman looked ageless, both old and young at once. It was perhaps that she kept her expression so carefully neutral that this was so. The lines she saw on her own face and that of her husband, the ones that showed a lifetime of laughter and smiles, were entirely absent from Greta's.

When the historian
didn't speak, Marina cocked her head and asked, "What is it?"

Still Greta didn't speak. Instead, she reached out and closed the door again. The little noises of IT disappeared behind the thick door once
more and Greta drove her point home by leaning back against the door. Marina knew that she wouldn't be leaving until whatever Greta wanted was obtained. Her stomach tightened nervously and she had to purposely loosen her grip on her satchel to avoid white knuckles that would give her away.

Greta crossed her arms in front of her chest and said, "You have something more to tell me about the watch, don't you?"

It seemed to Marina as if the room grew very cool and she suddenly had a strong need to pee. The historian was gazing at her with that level look and she knew she would never be able to convincingly lie about anything. She could only hope to avoid it and she thought her odds at success in that were very close to zero. She had been taken off guard. No doubt that was Greta's intent and that made it hard to hold back.

To gain a few moments of time, she turned away from Greta and shuffled back toward the chair she just rose from. She said, "If you don't mind, I really can't stand for long."

That seemed to take Greta aback, perhaps because it showed rudeness on her part by allowing someone injured to stand only to be waylaid. Either way, Marina was gratified to see a tick of expression on the Historian's still face and her arms uncross.

Greta
paused and then strode around the table to regain her own seat directly across from Marina at the table. Marina thought the choice interesting. Either she did it because she sees this as an adversarial situation or because she naturally avoids change. After all, she could have easily chosen either seat to the side of Marina and not had to go as far in the doing.

Marina knew she would need to answer the question quickly so that Greta wouldn't get the impression that this was a delaying tactic, though it certainly was, so she answered, "It's about the objects, of course."

Greta nodded and motioned for her to continue.

"Well," she paused and considered her next words carefully, "these objects depict things differently than here in the silo, at least some of them do, yet they are recognizable. Would you mind bringing out the objects you kept back for a moment?"

The older woman seemed a little hesitant now but she reached for the envelope she had tucked into the largest pocket of her coveralls and withdrew it. She had used her kerchief as a cushion for the objects and now she carefully unrolled it, laying the objects onto the envelope. The watch came last.

Marina reached over and took up the watch, clicked it open and turned it around so that Greta could see the whole scene. "What do you see here other than the killing of an animal?"

Greta apparently knew precisely where Marina was going with this and gave one short and sharp nod of her head. "I realize the animals are different and the scene is, well, less
ordered
than we might expect."

She was referring to the precise lines of crops and the grids of trees where such existed within the silo. In the watch there was a scene of wild abundance, as if an entire farming level had been let go and seeds flung everywhere.

Marina picked up the funny clip that had star shapes and stripes with the fierce animal above. She pointed to the animal and said, "And this?"

"We don't know what that is exactly. We've been able to find no actual description of it anywhere, but we see the same animal in different postures on many such items as you've brought here." She shrugged. "It is a type of bird, such as that depicted in some of the children's books and on the puzzle boards. The appearance is certainly different in character but it has many similarities. It must have existed at some point in the past here and then died out."

The thudding in Marina's heart increased in pace and she knew the time was now or never. If she admitted what she found and explained that she wanted to talk to a historian about it she might be able to live a life after remediation.

Until the words came out of her mouth she wasn't sure what she would say. It was her mouth more than her brain that decided for her and she would never know if it was cowardice or bravery that made her say
what she did, "I think these objects are trying to tell us a story. I think that we might melt down the story before anyone realizes we should be listening."

Greta's eyebrows
rose a little and the action put a few wrinkles in her brow. It was the most movement Marina had seen in her face thus far. "You sound a bit like a Historian." She leaned forward now, elbows on the table, "What makes you think that?"

"There is more here than meets the eye," she replied and waved her hand over the collection of items on the envelope. "Take the watches for example. I brought you a selection of them, but one entire box of items I received from that hotel storage was watches and those bands with blank screens that look like watchbands. I looked in the back of two and they are both filled with electronics. I think they are watches too."

"And...?"

"And, ask yourself this question. Why would so many people in the silo need watches? I've received
all this from just one level. There are probably a lot more of them out there and I'm very curious to see how many. But why? There are clocks everywhere. Why would so many people need watches? Can you tell me?" Marina's voice remained quiet as she asked each question.

"I think that you might have already decided on a reasonable answer. Let me tell you if I agree with your assessment," Greta replied, her voice as even and enigmatic as ever.

Greta's response meant that she was correct, or close to it. "I think these come from outside, from the First People," at this Greta blinked once, and gave a nod so tiny it might not have been a nod at all, or might be denied to be one.

She said nothing so Marina forged on, "But you said that was possible of all these artifacts so that is no shocking revelation. It is the
implication
of that no one else seemed to recognize that I think is most important."