Shadows Read online

  Susan turned away from the waiter and sat next to Charlie on the table. She felt outrageously defiant, as though she’d defied the most sacred sections of the Order. There was nothing in the Order about sitting on tables, but you wouldn’t know it the way most of the old timers acted. For Charlie, though, defiance was natural.

  “Every time I come here, I learn more,” Charlie said, clearly still thinking about the screen behind him. He may not have been staring at it, but it was still there in the forefront of his mind. “There’s always something to observe, something to think about, something to learn.”

  “You don’t worry about the rules, do you?” she asked rhetorically.

  “Rules are made to be broken.”

  Susan felt almost giddy with his casual defiance.

  “You’ve got to be careful,” she said, feeling as though she were discussing some secret conspiracy. All she was doing was sitting on a table, but even this small act felt strangely liberating.

  “Rules are a feeble attempt at enforcing unity.”

  “Rules give us life,” she said, reciting a line she’d heard from the Order. “Without them, anarchy would destroy us.”

  “Would it?” he asked. “Selfishness might destroy us, but not lawlessness. And selfishness is always there. Selfishness reigns whether there are rules or not. The only reason for rules is to suppress our selfish nature. Freedom allows us to surpass that nature, allowing us to be better than ourselves, to stop being selfish. We don’t need rules. We need choice.”

  “Don’t,” she said, batting playfully at his hand. “Such talk will see you in a suit. You need to be more wise with your words.”

  “Ah,” he replied, putting his hands around her waist and kissing her on the cheek. “What I need is you to keep me grounded.”

  Chapter 02: Cleaning

  There was a commotion over by the sheriff’s office.

  A woman cried out, screaming, “No, please. He didn’t mean any harm. Please.”

  A couple of the deputies held her away from the office door, pulling her back.

  “Mercy,” she cried, her voice echoing in the vast chamber surrounding the cafeteria. Although there were now almost a hundred people gathered there, silence fell over the crowd. “Please, he’s my only son.”

  Mayor Johns was there, as was Sheriff Cann. Hammond was the head of IT. Both the mayor and the sheriff looked approachable, Hammond looked perpetually angry.

  Sheriff Cann had short cropped silver hair, betraying his age, while Mayor Johns could have been his wife. She wasn't, but they had worked together for so long they looked like a couple and would even complete each other's sentences from time to time.

  Hammond stroked his long, straggly beard as he spoke with Johns and Cann. Hammond always struck Susan as peculiar. His long, grey hair looked in need of a cut, while his beard was matted and coarse. His eyebrows were dark and bushy, whereas the rest of his hair had softened and gracefully turned gray with age, his eyebrows remained as defiantly black as his eyes.

  The deputies were trying to calm the woman pleading with the mayor, they succeeded in softening her cries. Susan could see her whimpering, burying her head in the shoulder of one of the deputies. Sheriff Cann limped over to the woman, putting his hand on her shoulder and whispering something to her. Susan couldn’t begin to think what he could say that would comfort her: Hammond and Johns were the judges, Cann was the executioner. What could possibly soothe her soul? From what Susan could see, the woman seemed resigned to her son’s fate.

  “Who is she? Where is she from?” Susan asked Charlie.

  Under his breath, Charlie replied saying, “She’s from the Mids. Her son was in IT. They say he was caught tampering with the lottery. Funny thing is, though, he’s not married, so why would he want a child? Who would he give his lottery ticket too? Barney knew him. He said he was a nice guy.”

  Susan caught sight of Barney across the crowded room. The three of them had been friends in school, but ever since they’d begun shadowing, they’d grown distant, far beyond the physical levels that separated them. Susan had dated Barney before he moved into IT. They'd never really broken up, they just drifted apart from each other. Barney always had a flare for electronics.

  Charlie waved, but didn’t call out. Somehow, Barney saw them through the crowd. He made his way over to where they were sitting on the edge of the table.

  With his hair in a mop, swept stylishly over one eye, Barney didn’t look like a candidate to shadow the head of IT, but his father, James, had connections. James and Hammond played poker together. Although gambling was illegal, the odd wager between old friends was seen as passing chits back and forth. Recycling was the term Susan had heard. Anyone else that joined them for a few hands tended to come away poorer for the experience, much to the delight of the two old timers.

  Barney brushed his hair back with one hand, flicking his head characteristically to one side. He should just cut his hair, Susan thought, but sometimes men could be strange about things like fashion, especially boys that wanted to be men. For some reason, he thought his hair defined him, perhaps it was that he thought it made him look cool. Susan thought it made him look effeminate, but she’d never say that to him, even when they were dating. Outwardly, he blustered through the classic macho image within the silo.

  “Come up for the cleaning?” Charlie asked.

  “Wasn’t planning to,” Barney replied, smiling at Susan. “Hammond called me up. He needed me to bring Xavier’s reading glasses.”

  Barney's eyes lingered on Susan, only for a fraction of a second, but long enough to suggest he still felt something for her, which made her feel awkward.

  “His glasses?” Charlie replied, grabbing Barney's attention.

  Susan was glad for the distraction. She sat her hand on Charlie's thigh, subconsciously sending a non-verbal message back to Barney. She was happy with Charlie. Funny thing was, in that moment she became aware of how her fleeting decisions, choices made on a whim, helped shape her future. How could anyone make decisions of a future that was sight-unseen? How could you decide a future with someone that would never reveal itself until it was too late? Her mother had talked to her about this, trying to steer her away from Charlie. Her mother would have been quite happy with Barney as a son-in-law, and Susan wondered if that prejudiced her feelings toward him, giving her a subtle means of rebelling against her Mom. All that emotion was wrapped up in the soft, tender touch of her fingers on Charlie's coveralls. Charlie didn't notice. Neither did Barney apparently, as he continued speaking without skipping a beat.

  “Yeah, I guess they’re going to send him out to clean with his glasses on.”

  “But why?” Charlie asked. “That doesn’t make sense. What would he need to read out there?”

  “I dunno,” Barney replied. “Perhaps he’s gonna need them to clean the camera lens?”

  “It’s a waste of good glass,” Charlie said. “The entire process is stupid. We throw our best tech out there just to clean a lens. There has to be a better way, some other way of maintaining the camera.”

  “I hear you, buddy,” Barney replied. “I did a stint on suit building a couple of months back. There's some serious work in putting those things together. It's a shame to see it all gone in barely five minutes.”

  “Barney,” Hammond called out, waving with his hand to his charge.

  “Gotta go.”

  Susan looked at Charlie, saying, “Can you imagine having Hammond as your caster? I don’t know if you’d ever step out of the shadows.”

  Charlie nodded in agreement, saying, “Yeah, tough gig.”

  They watched as Barney handed the glasses to Hammond who presented them to Sheriff Cann as though he were giving him a key or some other item of value, like a watch or a necklace. The sheriff hobbled to one side on his bad leg, returning to his office. Mayor Johns stepped up onto a small dais and walked up to a microphone. The crowd had swelled to several hundred people. There were no kids. The adults present all
looked stone-faced, as though it were one of their kin being sent to clean. In some ways it was, given the close-knit community within the silo.

  Susan hadn’t really thought about it before, but there had to be several thousand people in the silo. This small gathering represented just a fraction of their overall population, but all types were present. White coveralls marked the IT workers, green spoke of farmers, dark blue was the badge of pride worn by the mechanics from Down Deep. For them, the ascent up the staircase would have taken several days. It could be done in less time, but not without painful cramps and aching legs. Yellow coveralls marked the folk from Supply, while the doctors and nurses wore white with a red cross over the breast. It seemed everyone had come to witness the cleaning.

  Susan was wearing the light blue of a porter, but she only just noticed Charlie wasn’t in the green of the dirt farms. He was wearing dark blue, the color of the deep. That alone told her something profound about how he felt about dirt farming. Charlie might not admit it, but he had to be ashamed of the farms. There was no other reason she could think of for him wearing the colors of a mechanic.

  “Xavier Hollander,” Mayor Johns began, standing on the dais in front of her office next to the sheriff's station. Her face was set as hard as those in the crowd. “You have broken our hearts. We trusted you. We trusted you would administer the lottery with fairness, but by rigging the selection in your favor, you have betrayed us all.”

  Beside the dais, a young woman stood next to Xavier’s mother. She held her hands beneath her belly. There was no visible bump, but there must have been one forming. She clearly felt self-conscious and out of place.

  “We must fight for life,” Johns bellowed. Her voice would have carried without the microphone. “For us to live, there must be balance. If we lose that balance, we lose our lives. Our silo is fragile. The walls are cracked, the stairs shake, the deep floods. Our food is precious, our water is precious. For life to continue, there must be equilibrium. To bring a life into this world is to see one depart.”

  Susan swallowed the lump in her throat. Whoever the girl was, Xavier loved her. For some reason, her implant had failed and she’d fallen pregnant. They were unwed, which made the stigma worse in the closeted community of the silo. Xavier must have told her he could fix this, that he could rig the lottery. What had seemed like a way out had turned into a disaster. The girl’s head hung low. She couldn’t have been much older than Susan, and Susan understood in other circumstances it could have been her.

  Xavier must have taken the responsibility for both the pregnancy and the lottery, deciding to take the walk so she and the unborn child could live. But what life would they have? A single mother cast out from society would have a tough time raising a child alone in the silo. Susan hoped the girl had strong, well-connected parents. Perhaps that's what the sheriff had said to Xavier's mother, perhaps the hope of new life had provided some consolation for her loss.

  “Life for life,” Mayor Johns cried. “It is the way of the Order. The Order is all that keeps us alive from one generation to the next.”

  Sheriff Cann emerged with his prisoner already his suit. A deputy followed the condemned man, carrying the helmet.

  Xavier had his hands bound in front of him in handcuffs. The numbers one, two, three and four were printed on the front of his suit, but they were upside down. Charlie must have seen the quizzical look on Susan's face at this unusual detail, as he whispered to her, saying, “I guess this is your first cleaning ... The pouches are numbered to make the cleaning easier when you look down at your chest. All Xavier needs to do is to follow the numbers.”

  For his part, Xavier was looking around as he was marched to the airlock. His silver suit and silver oxygen tank were jarring to behold, high-tech and out of place within the plain confines of the silo. One of the deputies carried his helmet.

  “Ordinarily, they’d take him by an internal door,” Charlie said, providing a commentary. “But they want this to be public. They must think there were others involved, so they’re sending a message.”

  Although Xavier was been marched sternly toward the airlock, he craned his neck, looking over his shoulder, wanted to see his loved ones for one last time. He must have seen his girlfriend as he cried out, saying, “They’re liars, all of them! Don't believe them. When lies are believed, there is no truth.”

  Xavier was wrestling with his bound arms. Sheriff Cann struggled with his bad leg. One of the deputies ran in, grabbing Xavier by the upper arm and forcing him into the airlock. All the while, Xavier screamed, “I won’t clean. I swear, I will not clean.”

  Mayor Johns spoke over the top of Xavier, looking to wrest control of the murmuring crowd.

  “He poisons minds. His words are like the outside air, caustic and bitter. Mark my words, this is what happens when an individual dares to think they’re more important than the whole of society. No one is more important than the silo. The silo is all that matters. The silo is our mother, our father, our past and our future.”

  Charlie nudged Susan, directing her gaze back to the great stairwell. A squad of IT security guards had come up from below.

  “They must have been waiting in the wings,” he whispered. “Forget the mayor, forget the sheriff, that’s where the real power lies. Control information and you control everything.”

  Susan was shocked. The security guards had their nightsticks out, holding them by their sides as they spread around the edges of the room. For the most part, they were ignored. All eyes were on the mayor and the sheriff, who by this time had pushed Xavier into the open airlock.

  “If things go bad,” Charlie whispered, “stay close. We’ll take refuge in the storage rooms behind the kitchen.”

  Susan felt her heart racing.

  Mayor Johns continued, saying, “No one wants this. I don’t want this, but we must have order. Without order, the silo would tear itself apart.”

  “See,” Charlie whispered. “He’s smiling.”

  Susan didn’t ask who he meant. She instinctively knew who Charlie was talking about. Hammond was trying to suppress a grin as he leaned against the wall beside the mayor's office. He whispered something to Barney, unable to hold back his glee. He was enjoying this. Normally, Susan wasn’t one to subscribed to scuttlebutt and conspiracy theories, but the unrest before her was choreographed, she was sure of it. Hammond was pulling the strings, giving the crowd Mayor Johns as an object to hate, while having Sheriff Cann carry out his dirty work. Hammond was directing traffic. He sent Barney off as a runner, carrying a message to others within the IT team spread around the edges of the crowd. Murmurs rose, anger swelled as the crowd focused its dissent on the wrong people.

  “Everyone cleans,” the Mayor continued, talking over the crowd. “No one wants to, but every one does, and why? Why clean when you’re sent to your death? Because cleaning is all there is when your life is coming to an end. Once you're outside, cleaning is the only purpose you have. To clean is to give. To clean is to seek repentance. To clean is to ask for forgiveness, to admit to one’s mistakes and offer recompense to those that gave you life. Cleaning is making peace with the silo.”

  Charlie whispered to Susan, saying, “I don’t know if Xavier will clean, but I wouldn’t.”

  As if in reply to his seditious comments, the Mayor boldly repeated, “Everyone cleans.”

  The sheriff walked out of the airlock with his deputy. Behind him, a suit technician stepped out and pushed on the thick steel door. The airlock hatch shut with a thud; steel clanging against steel. The crowd fell silent as the sheriff spun the locking wheel.

  “This is what I came up here to see,” Charlie said, but he wasn’t looking at the airlock. He was looking back at the grand staircase, watching as the IT security team slipped quietly back down the stairs.

  Susan could barely breathe.

  “And there goes Hammond,” Charlie added, his voice barely a whisper. Hammond and Barney were making their way around the outside of the crowd, heading for th
e stairs. “Their role in all this has come to an end.”

  “I ... I,” Susan began.

  “I know, right?” Charlie said. “You think you know how this place works, then you see something like this! Scary stuff, huh?”

  A yellow flashing light pulsated above the airlock. Pipes clattered as gas purged the lock. All eyes were on the wall screen.

  “It’ll take a few minutes,” Charlie explained, pulling Susan close. “The airlock will open and a rush of gas will keep contaminants out. Xavier’s then got about thirty seconds to get the hell out of there before they turn on the burners. If he stays, he’ll be fried to a crisp.”

  Charlie paused, as though he were mentally keeping time with events.

  “Once he’s outside, there’s a concrete ramp leading up to the surface. The slope is pretty steep, and there’s no steps. He’ll be able to see beyond the fog by now. Once he’s on the surface, the choice is his. He can make Mayor Johns look like a fool if he wants. He can just keep on walking and try to make the top of the ridge, or he can submit to the will of the Order and clean. I hope he sticks it to her and makes a break for the hill and gets to see what lies beyond.”

  A helmet came into view at the bottom of the screen. No one spoke. Almost two hundred people stood there watching the wall-screen, transfixed by the sight before them. There was no crying, no sobbing. The crowd stood there like mannequins, like statues made from rock.

  Xavier walked forward into view. From the rear, his helmet reflected the sun. Brooding clouds rolled across the yellow sky. He knelt down, his gloved hand grabbing at the ground. He picked up a clump of dust, watching as it ran between his fingers.

  Suddenly, he seemed to remember his purpose. He turned and faced toward camera. The black visor on his helmet swayed with the motion of his shoulders. He was looking for something.