Shadows Read online

  “He’s trying to figure out where the camera is,” Charlie whispered.

  Xavier broke into a strident run. His boots looked heavy, as though they were weights around his ankles. His shoulders and arms fought to move more quickly than his suit would allow. He seemed excited, which surprised Susan. Xavier crossed at an angle from their perspective from within the cafeteria, kicking up dust with his boots.

  “Go for the ridge,” Charlie said. Susan squeezed his arm, wanting him to be quiet. He had no idea how loud even a soft voice was in the silent cafeteria.

  Xavier worked his way around and up a ladder. He stepped out of sight and then back in front of the camera. His helmet filled the screen. The thin black strip that marked his visor looked impossibly dark. There was no indication of a face within.

  A gloved hand waved briefly before pulling out each of the items from the labelled pockets: a small patch of steel wool, some cleaning fluid in a squeeze bottle, a rag and a second squeeze bottle full of polish.

  “Everyone cleans,” Mayor Johns said. Her voice was surprisingly loud in the quiet hall. The speakers gave her voice a commanding boom, chilling Susan to her core.

  Xavier finished cleaning and stood there for a moment. He turned around, with his back to the screen, blocking their view.

  “I guess he’s seen that all his life,” Charlie whispered. “All his life he’s only ever seen through a digital lens, and now he sees the world for what it is. The ridge, man, go for the ridge.”

  Xavier seemed to be in no rush. He turned and stepped out of sight. A few minutes later Susan saw him walking aimlessly across in front of the camera, meandering up the slope.

  “He could have made it,” Charlie added. Susan wished he would shut up. The people around them were staring at them whenever he spoke, making her nervous.

  Xavier looked up at the clouds, he looked around at the hillside and back at the camera. After a few seconds, he began to stagger as though he were drunk.

  “Here it comes,” Charlie said.

  Xavier turned his back on the camera. He fell to his knees and raised his hands to the sky. For a moment, he was motionless. Then he collapsed. It was as though someone had deflated a rubber bladder. His body lay in a crumpled heap, shaking for a few minutes before finally falling still. Slowly, the crowd dispersed, leaving Charlie and Susan alone in the vast hall, looking at the screen. They were both in tears.

  Chapter 03: Gold

  “I forbid you!” Helena cried. “Do you hear me? You are not going out to see that boy.”

  “That boy,” Susan yelled in defiance, “Is my choice, my love!”

  “There are plenty of boys in the silo,” Helena pleaded, trying to appeal to her daughter’s reason. “What about the Jones boys? Or one of your porters? Why not show some interest in them. That way you need never be apart. You could take assignments together, travel the silo like the McIntyres, with a small apartment in the Up Top and the Down Deep.”

  “Mom, you cannot dictate love. The heart reaches out like the plants reach for the grow-lights.”

  “I won’t allow it,” Helena said, settling her hands on her hips. Susan’s father was quiet. He sat in an armchair in the corner of the room, repairing the lid on an old tin box. Susan looked to him for support, but he kept his eyes on his fingers, working to slip a metal pin into a worn hinge.

  She turned back to her mother, saying, “You can no more stand between us than you can climb the hill.”

  “You were up there, weren’t you?” Helena asked, her voice dropping. “You watched the cleaning.”

  Susan didn’t respond. She sulked, with her arms wrapped around her waist.

  “I told you not to go,” Helena said. Her voice was soft, carrying her concern in a stark contrast to their argument a few seconds before. “Sue, the Pritchard family are bad seeds. The grandfather, the father, they both cleaned. What does that tell you?”

  “Charlie's different.”

  “Is he?” Helena asked. “How do you know? Madness runs in these families. We’ve seen this before. He wants too much, he asks too much. He’s not content. To live in the silo, you need to be satisfied. Don’t push, don’t fight. Keep your head down and do your job.”

  Susan understood what her mother was saying, but she only vaguely grasped why. Susan was an only child, something her parents never spoke about, but she knew what that meant socially. She’d had the taunts at school, the petty teasing of kids asserting their place in that microcosm of the silo. The lottery was supposed to be open to all, but if you crossed the line, your ticket privileges could be revoked. Susan wasn’t sure what her parents had done, but they had paid for it for decades, with their one child as a solemn reminder of the cost of defiance. Each time the lottery came around, her mother would be tearful. Susan had seen this, but had not understood why.

  “What happened, Mom?”

  Helena turned away, looking at the wall. In that moment, she looked fragile, just the shell of the woman that had raised Susan to be so resourceful.

  “We’re not that different from you and Charlie,” her father began, putting the tin box to one side. “I know it’s hard to believe, as we look so much older, and we’re so different and conservative in our outlook, but don’t be deceived, our days in the shadows weren’t that different from yours.

  “Once, your mother stood roughly where you are right now, having pretty much the same conversation with grandma. Oh, the specifics differ, but each generation is the same. We looked for hope. We wanted to change the future. The young see only light, but bright lights cast the darkest shadows.”

  Her father bit his lip. Susan didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to interrupt his train of thought. Even her mother was silent. Helena turned and walked over to her husband and rested her hands gently on his shoulders.

  Susan was shaken, she’d never spoken up to her mother like this before, and to see where the conversation had gone left her with a feeling of uncertainty. Life in the silo was regimented around routines and predictability. Schedules governed everything, ensuring certainty. To see her mother wracked with doubts undermined her own confidence.

  Her mother was on the verge of tears. She held them back, but Susan could see past the facade. Her father, though, looked as strong as ever.

  “I started my shadowing Down Deep, working as a miner.”

  Susan was stunned. Her father was a porter, he was the reason she went into porting. Susan had earned her love of the stairs from following her father as a child. He’d be carrying some heavy load from the local porting waypoint and she’d sneak after him, only for a couple of levels, but long enough to develop an itch for a lifestyle that took her away from the confines of a single level. As she got older, she’d trail him ten to twenty levels at a time, always staying just out of sight on the curve of the stairs, only to hear him call her name after a few minutes. He always knew. He’d give her a few chits and a dummy run, things like porting a handkerchief back to her Mom or a scrap of paper to a neighbor.

  Susan couldn’t imagine her father as a miner. That would have meant a life lived largely below Supply, down in the greasy smells of the Deep. Her life, her education and friends would have been vastly different, and that struck her as profound, surprising her that something so simple as her father’s career could have had such an impact on the outcome of her life.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “We found a vein, down below the refinery. We’d been digging for coal, but we found gold.”

  “Gold,” she said, her eyes lighting up.

  “Gold,” he repeated. “Just a thin strand running horizontally, but the vein could have yielded much more, only to cut back into the vein would have taken us under the refinery. We were so deep we could feel heat coming off the rocks.”

  “Heat?” she asked.

  “Yeah, the silo vents only go so deep circulating cool air. Down in the deepest of the deep, you sweat without ever lifting a pickax.”

  “What happened?
”

  “The Order is clear. There’s only one direction in which exploration can go.”

  “But you didn’t listen,” Susan said, filling in the blanks.

  “No. We dug for about twenty meters and broke through into an antechamber.”

  Susan couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She leaned back on the kitchen table behind her. Her legs felt weak. She shifted her weight, sitting up on the metal table, trying to hide her shaking hands by gripping the edge of the table.

  “At first we thought it was a natural cavern, something carved out by ground water, but this was man-made. There was a machine in there, a digger. It was massive. With something like this we could carve out another silo. Best I understand it, this was the original digger, this is how they built the silo way back when. Funny thing is, though, she’s set at an angle. At first, I thought she was pointing up, but on closer inspection we realized we didn’t understand the machinery, with all its grinding teeth. She was set on an angle downward, pointing into the forbidden area, where no one is allowed to dig.”

  For Susan, this was the stuff of legend. She couldn’t get enough detail.

  “What happened next?”

  Helena spoke, her voice hushed as though she thought the walls had ears. “We were courting. We’d been seeing each other for months.”

  Helena choked on her words, forcing herself on, “Your father was held in the deputies office on one-twenty for almost a month after the dig, but the mechs in the Down Deep lobbied for him. Some spoke of a fight, of starting a revolution, but cooler heads prevailed. For a while, there was talk of cleaning, but the mayor back then settled on privileges as punishment. We were told our allotment would be one. We were told to be thankful.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “We should have been allowed two, at least. Some people get three, but for us, there would only ever be one.”

  Her father added, “And that one was you.”

  “Charlie’s a nice boy,” Helena added. “But he’s rushing headlong to change the silo. You can’t change the silo. The silo changes you.”

  Susan was quiet.

  “We’re worried about you,” her father said. “Don’t mistake our care for anger. We only want what’s best for you. You’re young. Time seems as though it will go on forever, but it doesn’t. You cannot relive a single day. You can retrace the steps in the grand staircase, but you cannot retrace the steps you take in life. You get one shot at this, and only one.”

  Susan breathed deeply. Her eyes glanced around the tiny one-room apartment. Curtains sectioned off the sleeping areas to one side. The stove was old. Rust ate away at the kitchen bench. A door led to the shower and toilet, but the bathroom was more of a closet than an actual room, and for the first time Susan understood why her parents could never get ahead. They were still being punished. They were being kept in their place by the system. They might live in the Up Top, but they were forced to live like they were Down Deep.

  “I need to go,” she said softly, getting up off the table and grabbing her jacket.

  Her mother went to run to her, but her father held out his hand, signaling to Helena that she should let her go.

  As Susan stood at the door, she looked back at her parents, seeing them as she had never seen them before. They were no longer guardians, they were peers, friends, trusted confidants. They were older, but their love was one born out of care and concern.

  A single word slipped from her lips.

  “Thanks.”

  Chapter 04: Sheriff

  Susan was late. She struck up a light jog as she climbed the helical stairs winding their way around the Great Fall. There were only six levels between her parent’s apartment and the top floor with the cafeteria, the sheriff’s office and the wall-screen. Charlie wouldn’t mind the wait. He’d probably be staring at the screen, trying to spot some subtle feature previously overlooked.

  Most teens dated in the garment district on the fourteenth floor. There was so much machinery there it was easy to get lost, and lost is what most teen couples wanted. They’d curl up in the warm cutting stations and make out. The garment bins were softer than any mattress. Security would sweep the floor a couple of times in the early evening, but that only added to the sense of adventure. Making out in the racks, trying not to giggle, getting loose threads caught in your hair, these were memories she loved. Charlie, though, preferred the quiet of the kitchen. The stainless steel bench-tops were cold and hard, hardly romantic, but their romance was more than the thrill of forbidden love. Besides, afterwards, Charlie would raid the fridge looking for rice pudding. Charlie was different, rebellious, and Susan found him intoxicating. As she jogged up the stairs she couldn’t help drawing the parallel with her mother, noticing for the first time how alike they were.

  Susan ran up the stairs harder and quicker than she thought. By the time she rounded the final bend she was out of breath. The night lights cast long shadows. The cafeteria was silent. She stepped out onto the floor and bent forward to catch her breath. Charlie was sitting on one of the tables looking at her with his back to the screen. For him, that was a big deal. He’d been waiting. She felt special.

  “Hey, Susan,” he said, getting up from the table and walking over to her. He had a bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Hi,” Susan said, forcing out that one word. In some ways, she was glad to be out of breath. She couldn’t tell him about her parents, not yet, she needed time to come to grips with that for herself. Deep down, she felt as though their confession was giving both her and Charlie a chance to change course, to avoid a similar mistake. She wanted to tell him, but she didn't want to blurt about some secret chamber and mysterious machine without making sense. There was a reason her dad had told her about his misadventure, and it wasn't out of idle gossip. She didn't want to say anything to Charlie until she was sure she could convey the right heart and intent, or he'd simply want to see the machine and miss the point.

  “I thought porters were fit,” Charlie said, baiting her. He rested his hand on her back as she straightened up.

  “Any time you wanna race, you just let me know.”

  That called his bluff. Races were a big deal with the teens. The adults frowned on races, particularly because the teens tend to bet and gambling was a taboo. Susan suspect gambling was a token taboo, something that didn’t really matter but had been set off limits precisely to give ornery young teens something benign to rebel against.

  “How about twenty stories,” Susan continued. “And I’ll give you a five level head-start.”

  “Oh, now you’re talking,” Charlie replied. “Those are good odds.”

  “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Charlie laughed.

  “No,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t. I’d give it a go though. But I have to admit, if I was putting chits on the finish line, they’d all be on you.”

  Susan stole a kiss. It was her way of showing her affection for his honest admission. She liked his lack of pretension. Ego soured boys, in her opinion. Her kiss brought a smile to his face.

  Other than the glow from the wall-screen, the only light on the floor came out of the sheriff’s office, struggling through the gaps in the shutters. In the dim light, Susan could make out the time on the clock above the serving line: 11:15 PM.

  “Come on,” Charlie said. “I’ve got something for Sheriff Cann.”

  Susan wasn’t surprised. Charlie was like that, spontaneously looking for things he could do for people. They walked over to the office and knocked on the door. Light spilled into the cafeteria as the sheriff opened the sturdy steel door.

  “What can I do for you kids this late at night?” the sheriff asked.

  Kids, thought Susan with a hint of indignation. She didn’t think of herself that way any more, not since leaving school and shadowing. Being a kid was a hard stigma to shake, even for those that had hit their twenties. Susan was eighteen going on twenty-five in her mind, but the sheriff’s smile melted her h
eart. Sheriff Cann was in his early sixties, he probably looked at anyone under the age of fifty as a kid, she figured. He walked with a limp, but not from any injury, he was just getting old and the stairs weren’t kind on knees.

  “I’ve got something for you, sheriff,” Charlie said. “A present.”

  “Is this another one of your inventions?” the sheriff asked. “I really liked your mouse trap. Damn rodents are forever chewing holes in things. Paper’s too damn precious to waste on a rat. We need more of those damn contraptions over there in the kitchen. That’s where they come from, ya know.”

  There were a lot of damns, Susan noted, but that was Sheriff Cann.

  Charlie opened his backpack and pulled out two sections of shiny, curved, aluminum struts, each with a hinge in the middle and a bunch of black straps.

  “What in the blazes is that?” the sheriff asked. He seemed as perplexed as Susan.

  “It’s a knee brace,” Charlie replied. “I’ve been working on the design with Doc Winters.”

  Charlie dropped his bag by the door and gestured to the chair, adding, “Take a seat. Try it on.”

  Sheriff Cann looked like he would have tried anything Charlie suggested without too much questioning. He sat down, saying, “You’re not going to get me to take off my coveralls in front of a lady, now are you?”

  Lady was a step up from being a kid, Susan noted. She could live with lady.

  “For now, just pull up the leg as far as you can.”

  The sheriff obliged, scrunching the coveralls on his right leg up to his thigh. Charlie knelt down in front of him. He forced the coveralls a bit higher and put the brace in place, lining the hinge up with the sheriff’s knee and strapping the bars on either side of his upper and lower leg.

  “Doc Winters approved this, you say?”

  “Yep. I figure the knee is just a hinge joint like any other, it just happens to be enclosed in flesh, but the principle is the same as any other load-bearing joint. If I replicate that joint with these aluminum pivot hinges they should spread the load, taking the stress off your knee, and if the theory works, taking away any pain.”