Silo 49: Deep Dark (22 page)

Waking up to someone who shouldn't be
there moving around in a room is a jarring thing. Marina woke to just that and saw Taylor gently trying to remove the book from underneath her arm. He saw her eyes open at almost the exact moment they did and he didn't delay. He moved with a purpose Marina wasn't ready for after a few hours of disturbed sleep and dreams of blue orbs. Just as she uttered a sound of confused query, he snatched the book from under her arm and made a grab for the envelopes that had scattered while she slept.

Marina bolted upright and grabbed his outstretched arm. "Taylor! What are you doing?"

"You can’t do this. This isn't right! I'm making it right!" he exclaimed as he tried to yank his arm back. Marina jerked with each yank but held on. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the chart with the silos unfolded on the floor. He had been in here long enough to do that. What else might he have been up to?

Taylor dropped the book
back to the bed and papers fluttered to the floor around him as he put more force into the yank. Marina had a grip on him and leverage on the bed while he was trapped by the little chair and table. When his body signaled he was about to make another big effort, she timed her response and threw herself into a solid push at the moment of his pull. Taylor flew backward and hit the table and then the chair. The table fell over with a bang and dishes clattered across the floor.

Marina stepped off the bed and picked up the metal pitcher that normally held water. She held it over his head as he tried to untangle his long limbs from the chair and growled, "What in silo's depths are you doing, Taylor?"

He righted himself and tugged his coveralls into place. He went to take a step toward her but she held up the pitcher and braced herself. She was confused but she was also angry. This man had been in her room. He'd been taking things while she slept and he had fought her for them when she woke. That bespoke danger and that made her mad.

"You!" he growled right back and jabbed a finger at the level of her eyes. "You and
your searching and your little secret finds! Do you know what this will do? I have to fix it!"

"Fix it? Fix what? I just went to get it. I wasn't going to keep it!" She said this but knew that what she said was at least partially untrue. She would have shared it but the knowledge of what it said would be hers first. It was becoming an obsession with her and she knew it.
If he had only been worried about her keeping it he would have brought Greta, not come in and tried to take it while she slept.

He scraped a hand across his unshaven face and
said, his tone icy and calm, "I know you would have shared it.
That
is the problem, Marina." He enunciated each word clearly and slowly.

Marina didn't like the way he was looking at her. It was like she wasn't a person or even alive. It was the look of someone trying to figure out a problem that needs solving and clearing away.
Like she had turned from a friend into a mess that needed cleaning up. She tightened her grip on the heavy pitcher and jerked her head in the direction of the book and the scattering of papers. "You were going to get rid of those, weren't you?"

He nodded, his look measuring and weighing, his shoulders bunching with anticipated movement.

"I can just scream, you know," she said hurriedly and had the satisfaction of seeing him ease back a little.  She could see the exact moment he decided to try another tactic by the shifting of his eyes. A certain slyness crept in that frightened Marina more than the blank anger it replaced.

"You have to understand, Marina. That," he pointed toward the unfolded chart, "is poison. It will spread and we will all die. You're proof that it is poison!" His tone changed then. It was more conspiratorial, more intimate. He said, "We can get rid of it.
Just you and I. No one ever has to know you found anything."

She gave a curt nod, agreeing that was a possibility. And it
was
possible if only in the most abstract way that anything would be possible. She would no more get rid of this find than she would toss her husband out the airlock. She asked, "How exactly did you know that I found anything?"

"I was out on the landing. I was just," he paused and the emotions that ran across his face were everything from loss to guilt, "
sitting near where it happened."

Marina had been so exhausted by the time she made it
back that she hadn't bothered to see if her movements were being noted. She wouldn't have thought that it mattered. The Memoriam always had someone around, looking or thinking or trying to figure out a problem in life. The benches on the landing were in shadow when it was dim. She wouldn't have seen him unless she had been looking.

"Okay. But how did you know I found something?" she asked. Her arm was beginning to ache from holding up the
heavy pitcher but she refused to let it dip and show fatigue. That might make him think it was a good time to make another grab at her.

He shrugged, his
shoulders slumping a little, looking resigned. His tone was almost normal when he said, "I don't know. The way you were walking, maybe. I knew you went to IT when you left here." He sighed, his look almost resigned, before he went on, "I got the report today, you know."

Of course.
He would have gotten the IT summary that Piotr got each evening. Since IT and the Memoriam both had working terminals, it had been being sent via wire and Piotr excused himself every evening to review it. She should have known visitors requesting rooms, especially ones working on this little hush-hush project, would have been noted. How stupid of her.

She gave another curt nod, indicating her understanding and waited.

He made to reach downward and Marina braced herself with the pitcher. He stopped and held up both hands and said, "I'm just going to get the chair. I'm tired."

Marina could see that
much was true, at least. He looked like he hadn't slept in days and exhaustion came off him in waves. She took a step backward, making distance, and said, "Go ahead. But slowly."

Taylor righted the chair and Marina thought he was going to sit down. The pitcher was
formed of thick stainless steel and heavy. She had the passing thought that it was meant to last the ages and give a bitter internal laugh. Of course it was.

It happened so fast that Marina had no time to react. Taylor hit the chair and it slid violently toward her. She tried to skip aside, keep her eyes on Taylor and figure out how to hit
him with the pitcher all at the same time. He had no such quandaries, because he took one step and leapt at her.

They collided,
Taylor's larger bulk carrying the momentum, and Marina fell back with frightening force. Her pitcher banged once on the floor and skittered away with loud ringing clangs on the tile floor. His hands were around her throat before she could even process the situation. She saw his grimace, lips skinned back from his teeth in a parody of a smile. His hands were so tight there was no possibility of a breath, just a squeaky trickle that didn't do enough to replenish what she had lost when he fell on top of her. The knot in her kerchief was like a heel being pressed to the side of her throat.

Marina kicked and tried to reach his face but his arms were longer and he seemed to have an instinctual knowledge that he should raise up and out of her reach.
How could anyone have an instinct for murder
, Marina wondered even as she struggled. She grabbed his wrists and felt the iron in his grip and stance.

She could not stop him. She could only hope that he could stop
himself. She raised her hands, fingers splayed as the black spots grew in her vision. She could see his eyes and see that he was looking at her. She had no breath, no matter how hard she pulled in nothing was coming, so she mouthed the words, "Hope. Future."

Every fiber of her being was screaming for her to fight and she lost control of her hands. They pulled at his fingers almost of their own accord. Suddenly, the pressure was gone. The tightly clenched fingers lifted away and the breath she had been straining to take rushed into her, making her feel like she might float away. The dark blotches in her eyes
grew and all she could hear was the liquid thud of her pulse in her ears and the squealing breaths sawing in and out of her.

Her hands and body didn't feel totally connected but the desire to survive is strong and primal and doesn't think. It just acts. She felt herself lever up and her arms and legs scrabbl
ed to move her backward and away from her attacker. The blotches diminished into spots and she could see Taylor on his knees, hunched over and head bowed, but her body kept moving back and toward the door.

She turned to crawl and grabbed the pitcher where it lay against the door. She missed the lever twice but on
her third paw at it, she caught it and jerked it downward. Everything was drifty and dizzy and out of focus. All she could do was keep sucking in air with huge, loud gasps.

Somehow she got the door open and crawled into the hallway. The air rushed in, cool and dry and painful. She tried to make a sound, cry for help or just get out anything at all but it was a ragged whisper that felt like fire in her throat.

She fell against the wall on the other side of the hallway. The dizziness was so profound she was having a hard time deciding which way was up. All she could do was lift the pitcher and bang it against the wall. The first couple of strikes were weak but the loud reverberation gave her heart. She hit harder, then harder again, and the clanging of metal on concrete sent increasing waves of sound down the deserted hallway. Piotr and Taylor and she had been the only guests on this hallway. She struck harder and felt a give as the thick metal began to dent.

It was two men in maintenance red that peeked around the corner, tentative and unsure. One held a tool bag and the other a large square filter. They said nothing and stopped at the corner. Marina could no more talk than she could stand up and offer them cookies but she managed one more bang and held out her arm. She got out a single croaking word, "Help."

The maintenance men half dragged and half carried her out of the hallway, not understanding what was happening but knowing that the
ir best bet was medical help. Eventually, they picked her up and managed a stumbled run toward the Memoriam proper. She kept trying to get out words to tell them as the dizziness passed, but the sounds that came out were clicking and incoherent. Something in her throat was damaged, that much she knew.

One of the maintainers hollered out as
he opened the Memoriam door and the shadow on duty met them in the main exhibit throughway. The girl stopped short and put her hands to her mouth. She pointed them to a padded bench big enough for a dozen to sit on where they laid her down carefully. The girl bent, looked once and saw the red on her throat. Her brows drew together and she turned to the men. She asked them what happened and they reported what they saw in a few brief and confused phrases.

The girl told one of the men to get to the medics on Level 70 and the other to stay with Marina. She patted Marina's arm and said she was going to get Greta for her. Marina could only picture Taylor and his hands and this girl walking the hallways unaware. She gripped the girl's arm before she could turn and tried to tell her but the clicking and wheezing were all that came out. She pulled the girl toward her
with a clawed grasp, alarm growing on the girl’s face. When she was close enough, she breathed the words, "Taylor. Hurt me."

The girl didn't seem to be registering what Marina meant so she reached up and put her fingers around the girl's throat in a gentle imitation of what Taylor did and croaked, "Taylor."

Her brow cleared but horror replaced the confusion as she realized what Marina was trying to say. The maintainers, obviously not knowing Taylor, understood the parody well enough. Such violence was so rare that it immediately passed into a sort of perpetual silo-wide memory when it occurred.

The larger of the two men put a halting hand on the shadow's back and said, "You stay here. I'll go." He pulled a big wrench and then a hammer from his bag. He turned to the other maintainer, handed him the wrench and said, "You stay here too. We'll get medical once I'm back."

Without a word he turned and marched with purpose the way they had just come. Before he went out of sight he turned back and asked which room. The shadow answered and he gave a brief and serious nod. The nod told them he was ready and he would take care of everything. The shadow let out a relieved breath.

The dizziness was
almost completely gone. It amazed Marina that she was thinking and felt almost in control of her limbs in so short a time. It seemed impossible that one can go from near death from lack of air to this in a few short minutes. Her throat was another matter. She swallowed and felt a strange moving click and a pain so sharp it made her want to avoid swallowing again. She pushed herself up on her elbows. She could taste metal in her mouth so she turned and spit a stream of saliva and blood into her hand.

The girl froze with a look of disgust and fright fighting for dominance on her face but the maintainer didn't bat an eyelash. He whipped a rag out of his pocket and put it on the palm of the hand she had just spit on. He braced her
as she sat upright and didn't let go until he saw her eyes and the clarity there. She wiped her hand and then made a motion like writing on air before motioning toward her throat.

The shadow understood and darted away, returning a moment late
r with a few slips of lumpy pulp paper and a writing stick. She thrust these at Marina like she was preparing to dodge another stream of blood. Marina wrote, 'Broken in Throat. Need Medic. Taylor from IT choked me. Need deputy! Don't touch things in room. Important!'

Both people read the words, eyes darting from the words and back to her a couple of times. The maintainer shuffled his feet, unsure about what he should do but obviously knowing that a medic and a deputy were probably both just
a few levels away. Marina could see him weigh that against the orders he had just gotten.

She reached out and took the wrench from him and stood. She held the wrench in two
hands, took a ready stance and motioned with her head for him to go. He did, running with the easy grace of a former porter on a delivery of utmost importance.

The shadow watched all this in silence, clearly afraid and without any idea what she should do. She looked at the wrench and at Marina a few times, apparently decided something and darted away once more. A few seconds later, she returned with a long metal rod, metal pins dangling from each end. At Marina's inquisitive look, she said, "From the Podium."

Marina gave her a grave and impressed nod that hurt more than she could have imagined. The girl turned to stand next to Marina, facing the door to the private quarters where Marina had been attacked. They heard the commotion and the muffled bangs of something coming before the door swung open.

They both braced themselves
. Marina felt sweat slicking her palms and hoped the wrench wouldn't fly if she tried to hit Taylor with it. Even though they were ready, both of the women still flinched when the door swung wide and slammed against the wall.

Through the door came the maintainer, dragging a blanket wrapped shape behind him. Greta followed close behind, eyeing the blanket for anything amiss. It must have been Taylor wrapped in the blanket and Marina could see the multiple colors of many blankets. They had wrapped him over and over and she wondered how in the silo they had gotten him still enough to do that. The maintainer had a split lip that was already swelling to impressive size and Greta had two rows of scratch marks on her bare arm
s.

Inside his blankets, Taylor was thrashing and she could hear the mumbled sounds that were probably screams from his point of view. For a brief second she wondered how he could breathe in there and then she thought of how it felt not
to be able to breathe and pursed her lips. Greta must have been thinking the same thing because she told the maintainer, "Harvey. We've got to pull that back enough for him to breathe."

Without delay, Greta threw a leg over the wriggling figure and dropped hard
, sitting right on top of him. Both ends of the blanket lifted when she did and a small sound escaped. Harvey took that moment to yank the edges of the blankets down and Marina saw first Taylor's hair and then his face appear from the mass of pink and green and yellow blankets. His breathing was a parody of her own mere moments before and Marina fought the urge to come down on that head with her wrench.

Harvey must have seen that in her eyes because he said, "He can't hurt anyone now." He looked around for the other maintainer, the one he had told to stay put.

Marina waved a hand in front of his face to regain his attention and then pointed to the metal bar in the shadow's hand and held up the wrench. She handed him the note she had written for the others. He pursed his lips but gave her a curt nod of acceptance.

Greta watched it all from her seat on top of Taylor with utter calm. She looked so different from any other time Marina had seen her that she really wished she could say something instead of stand there and wheeze. Her hair had always been tightly braided and coiled at the back of her head but now it seemed to flow without end. Tight waves from the braids cascaded down her back and puddled on the blanket wrapped form below her. Her coveralls were pulled on halfway and the arms were tied around her waist. In her undershirt, Marina saw that she looked just like everyone else without the patchwork of color to hid
e behind. And she was pretty.

Taylor began to get agitated again now that he had sufficient air. He was combining yelling, whining, pleads and demands in a most unpleasant way. At the moment, he was claiming that it was all a misunderstanding. He jerked his head in Marina's direction, the rest of him tightly bound in blankets. He said, "Look. See, she's fine! It was an accident."

Greta looked away from him to the angry red marks on Marina's neck, the finger marks clear against the white skin. Marina couldn't see it, but she could feel it. The historian could see what Marina couldn't apparently because when she looked away from Marina, she landed a sharp and loud slap across Taylor's exposed cheek. He froze and went silent.

The other historians and shadows began to file out, wakened by the commotion or through some other means. As they came out they all looked at the blanket wrapped man and then at the tableau of people and edged around, giving
them all a wide berth.

The shadow girl finally handed her metal rod to the big maintainer, him having returned without his hammer, and joined the little cluster of her fellows. Marina saw her gesticulating and speaking and saw the eyes of the listeners widen and narrow and look from person to person as the story unfolded. Marina hated that this would now travel all over.

Greta must have thought the same because she called to the group, "This is not for discussion. To anyone. For any reason. We don't talk about people when they get sick like this."

With those few words she had changed the situation from a sudden attempt at murder that would inspire gossip to a man who had suffered a break that needed remediation or some other treatment. In the silo, there were few topics off limits but th
is was one of them. Her authoritative glare drove the point home and Marina would have sighed in relief if it didn't hurt so bad just to breathe at all.

Greta turned to Marina and leveled that same glare in her direction. Marina stiffened but didn't flinch from it. Greta said, "I've secured the space. That's no problem."

Marina closed her eyes tightly and felt a combination of shame and relief wash over her. When she opened her eyes, Greta was still looking at her. She nodded her acceptance of the information and all that would come after and Greta finally released her from her gaze.

Taylor started in again, clearly not at all happy at
this turn of events and Greta raised her hand again. She lifted her eyebrows and the message was clear. Do you want this again? Taylor apparently didn't and shut his mouth.

The deputy showed up first, panting and sweating from running
down from the station. He saw Marina and stopped short, looked at her neck and then turned a mottled red himself. It was someone she knew, of course. He charged over toward Greta, Taylor and Harvey and took in the scene. "Anyone want to tell me what the silo is going on here?" he demanded.

Greta's eyes flicked once toward Marina and then back to the deputy. She licked her lips and said, "Deputy, we have the situation under a measure of control right now but we need your assistance."

The deputy snorted and said, "I can see that."

Greta clea
red her throat and said with a dignity Marina didn't think could be accomplished while sitting on a man wrapped in blankets, "This is a special situation." She emphasized the special and the deputy straightened. She went on, "We're going to need the medic representative to the council for this. We need you to make sure everything stays controlled until we get him here. Okay?"

The way she said it, the emphasis on certain words,
let everyone know that this was going to be one of
those
things. Those stories dealt with a person badly in need of remediation whose words and actions weren't to be thought of, let alone repeated. The deputy cleared his throat and nodded. He stepped away and tuned his radio, speaking quietly and rapidly to whoever was on the other side of the line. He kept his eyes on Taylor and his free hand near his stick.

The medic from Level 70 came while he spoke and both Greta and the deputy pointed directly at her when he arrived. Finally, Marina could put down the wrench.