Third Shift - Pact

•32•

Donald’s apartment had transformed into a cave, a cave where notes lay strewn like bleached bones, where the carcasses of folders decorated his walls, and where boxes of more notes were ordered up from archives like fresh kill. Weeks had passed. The stomping in the halls had dwindled. Donald lived alone with ghosts and slowly pieced together the purpose of what he’d helped to build. He was beginning to see it, the entire picture, zooming out of the schematic until the whole was laid bare.

He coughed into a pink rag and resumed examination of his latest find. It was a map he’d come across once before in the armory, a map of all the silos with a line coming out of each and converging at a single point. Here was one of many mysteries left. The document was labeled Seed, but he could find nothing else about it.

He shuffled through his piles—he had a system, the stacks had meaning—and found what he was looking for. A list similar to the one he’d uncovered on his last shift. A ranking of all the silos. Victor had spent a lot of time looking at this list before he killed himself. The ordering was different than Donald remembered. Different silos were near the top of this one. It was a version of the list that’d been updated weeks ago by Eren. Or generated by a computer and signed off by him. Donald had printed it from the Ops directory, which his Thurman account had access to. He scratched his beard. Silo 18 was near the bottom, down near the silos that no longer harbored life. Silos 12, 17, 40, and a dozen others were labeled N/A. He could tell the list was gravely important by who had access to it and who didn’t. Silo 6 was at the very top. The one hopeful egg in the basket.

Donald could hear Anna approaching while he worked; he could hear her whispers getting louder. She had been trying to tell him something. The note in Thurman’s account, she was trying to say, it had been left for him. So obvious, now. She could never be woken, not a woman. She needed him, needed his help. Donald imagined her piecing all of this together on some recent shift, alone and terrified, scared of her own father, no one left to turn to. So she had taken her father out of power, had entrusted Donald, had left him a note. And what did Donald do?

He heard her whispers and did not startle as she burst up through the film of white pages, a swimmer emerging from a frothy sea. Her arms flailed and splashed as she gasped for air, as she came back to life. Donald watched her struggle for a while. He imagined a hand on her head, pushing her back under. He willed the guilt to subside until the splashes and ripples settled and were pages once more.

Scratching his beard, he looked elsewhere. He nearly told himself that he wasn’t mad, but that would be a small consolation. Sane people never said that to themselves.

The reports. Anna had spent a year like this once, down in the armory, surrounded by notes. Living alone, meals delivered, lonely and wishing for company. He was only a few weeks into what she had suffered and already cracking. Anna had been so much stronger than he, but now she was dead. She’d been dead for over two weeks, and nobody knew. Maybe they never would.

Donald groaned and picked up a piece of paper, a distraction.

It was from his Silo 18 stack, an old mystery he no longer cared about. They had sent drones up to look for a wayward cleaner. They had sent drones up to bomb Silo 40 because of a connection he’d made. There was no cleaner out there on the hills. The hills were littered with cleaners.

Donald remembered the video feed he’d been shown of a woman disappearing over a gray dune. Because of this, the residents of 18 had been filled with a dangerous hope—the sort of hope that leads to violence. And in the halls outside of Donald’s door, scraps of conversation passed with squeaking boots, rumors and stories about this cleaner surviving, making it somewhere, joining another silo.

It was nothing but legends made up and circulated to entertain bored minds. Poison. It was stupid to hope. Crazy to dream. The less he did it—the more the nightmares guided him—the more clearly he saw the danger in others. He was becoming the man whose boots he wore. Even as he sorted out what they’d done and what they had planned, he was becoming him. Donald sometimes embraced this, sometimes raged against it.

He picked up the folder on Silo 17. As he did, he noticed the splotches on the back of his hand. Purplish and red, it looked like a rash. He held his hand up and studied the patterns, remembered tugging a glove off and watching it tumble down a windswept hill. Donald wanted to die up there with that view, anywhere but buried. Flexing his hand into a fist, squeezing the air and relaxing over and over, he waited for the blood to return to his hand, to normalize. He should see the doctor, but tell him what? When Donald coughed up blood, his greatest fear was that he would be discovered. Death was no longer a thing.

There was a knock on his door.

“Who is it?” Donald asked, his voice not sounding like his own.

The door opened a crack. “It’s Eren, sir. We’ve got a call from eighteen. The shadow is ready.”

“Just a second,” he said.

Donald coughed into his handkerchief. He rose slowly and moved to the bathroom, stepping over two trays of old dishes. He emptied his bladder, flushed, and studied himself in the mirror. Gripping the edge of the counter, he grimaced at his reflection, this man with scraggly hair and the start of a beard. He looked insane, and yet people trusted him. That made them crazier than he was. But he was in charge, and the small duties that came from being in charge disturbed his private digging. Donald smiled a yellowing smile and thought of the long history of madmen who remained in charge simply because they already were.

Hinges squealed as Eren poked his head in the door.

“I’m coming,” Donald said. He pushed away from a stranger, who pushed away from him in equal measure. Stomping across the reports, leaving a trail of footprints behind, he also left a bloody palm print on the edge of the counter, the mark of a man getting worse.

•33•

Donald joined Eren in the hall. The state of his being was acutely felt in the presence of another. He wasn’t cycling his coveralls through the wash the way he should be. He smelled himself with another man’s nose—another man’s cleanliness—in his presence.

“They’re calling the shadow now, sir.”

Donald cringed at the “sir.” The deferential treatment felt more and more vacuous as the days wore on. Donald had been awoken for answers, but he had found nothing but questions. He sat alone in a room full of notes and pages, growing mad. He felt conspicuously mad.

“You want to freshen up?” Eren asked.

“No,” Donald said. “I’m good.” He stood in the doorway, struggling to remember what this meeting was about. A Rite of Initiation. He remembered those, thought it was something Raymond would handle. “Why am I needed, again?” he asked. “Shouldn’t our Head be conducting this?” Donald remembered being the one to conduct such a Rite on his first shift.

Eren popped something into his mouth and chewed. He shook his head. “You know, with all that reading you’re doing in there, you could bone up on the Order a bit. It sounds like it’s changed since the last time you read it. The ranking officer on shift completes the Rite. That would normally be me—”

“But since I’m up, it’s me.” Donald pulled his door shut. The two of them started down the hall.

“That’s right. The Heads here do less and less every shift. There have been … problems. I’ll sit in with you though, help you get through the script. Oh, and you wanted to know when the pilots were heading off-shift. The last one is going under right now. They’re just straightening up down there.”

Donald perked up at this. Finally. What he’d been waiting for. “So the armory’s empty?” he asked, unable to hide his delight.

“Yessir. No more flight requisitions. I know you didn’t like chancing them to begin with.”

“Right, right.” Donald waved his hand as they turned the corner. “Restrict access to the armory once they’re done. Nobody should be able to get in there but me.”

Eren slowed his pace. “Just you, sir?”

“For as long as I’m on shift,” Donald said.

They passed Raymond in the hall, who had three cups of coffee nestled in a web of fingers. Raymond smiled and nodded. Donald remembered fetching coffee for people when he was Head of the silo. Now, that was about all the Head did. Donald couldn’t help but think his first shift was partly to blame.

Eren lowered his voice. “You know the story behind him, right?” He took another bite of something and chewed.

Donald glanced over his shoulder. “Who, Raymond?”

“Yeah. He was in Ops until a few shifts back. Broke down. Tried to get himself into deep freeze. The duty doc at the time talked him into a demotion. We were losing too many people, and the shifts were starting to get some overlap.” Eren paused and took another bite. There was a familiar scent. Eren caught him watching and held out something. “Bagel?” he asked. “They’re fresh baked.”

Donald could smell it. Eren tore off a piece. The feeling of having become a stray animal or a homeless man was complete as he accepted the offering. It was still warm. “I didn’t know they could make these,” he said, popping the morsel into his mouth.

“New chef just came on shift. He’s been experimenting with all kinds of stuff. He—”

Donald didn’t hear the rest. He chewed on memories. A cool day in D.C., Helen up to visit, had the dog with her, drove all the way from Savannah. They walked around the Lincoln Memorial a week too early for the cherry blossoms, but still a spot of color here and there. Stopped for fresh bagels, still warm, the smell of coffee—

“Put an end to this,” Donald said, indicating the rest of Eren’s bagel.

“Sir?”

They were nearly to the bend in the hall that led to the comm room. “I don’t want this chef experimenting anymore. Have him stick to the usual.”

Eren seemed confused. After some hesitation, he nodded. “Yes sir.”

“Nothing good can come of this,” Donald explained. And while Eren agreed more strenuously this time, Donald realized he had begun to think like the people he loathed. A veil of disappointment fell over his face, this Ops Head, who in truth outranked him, who should by all rights be in charge, and Donald felt a sudden urge to take it back, to grab the man by the shoulders and ask him what the hell they thought they were doing, all this misery and heartache. They should eat memory foods, of course, and talk about the days they’d left behind.

Instead, he said nothing, and they continued down the hall in quiet and discomfort.

“Quite a few of our silo Heads came from Ops,” Eren said after a while, steering the conversation back to Raymond. “I was a comms officer for my first two shifts, you know. The guy I took over for, the Ops Head from the last shift, was from medical.”

“So you’re not a shrink?” Donald asked.

Eren laughed, and Donald thought of Victor, blowing his brains out. This wasn’t going to last, this place. There were cracked tiles in the center of the hall. Tiles that had no replacement. The ones at the edge were in much better shape, and Donald had an epiphany. He stopped outside the comm room and surveyed the wear on this centuries-old place. There were scuff marks low on the walls, hand-high, shoulder-high, fewer anywhere else. The traffic patterns on the floors throughout the facility showed where people walked. It wasn’t evenly distributed.

“Are you okay, sir?” Eren asked.

Donald held up his hand. He could sense those in the comm room were waiting on him. But he was thinking on how an architect designs a structure to last. A certain calculus was used, an averaging of forces and wear across an entire structure, letting every beam and rivet shoulder its share of the load. All together, the resulting building could take the force of a hurricane, an earthquake, with plenty of redundancies to boot. But real stress and strain weren’t as kind as the hurricanes computers simulated. Hidden in those calculus winds were hurtling rods of steel and two by fours. And where they slammed it was like bombs going off. Just as the center of a hall bore an unfortunate share of strain, some people would be on shift for the worst of it.

“I believe they’re waiting on us, sir.”

Donald looked away from the scuff marks to Eren, this young man with bright eyes and bagel on his breath. He was like a corner of the hall lightly touched, his hair full of color, an uptick at the corners of his mouth, a wan smile like a scar of hope.

“Right,” Donald said. He waved Eren inside the comm room before following behind, stepping dead center like everyone else.

•34•

Donald familiarized himself with the script while Eren plopped into the chair beside him and pulled a headset on. The software would mask their voices, make them featureless and the same. The silo Heads need not know when one man went off shift and another replaced him. It was always the same voice, the same person, as far as they were concerned.

The shift operator lifted a mug and took a sip. Donald could see something written on the mug with a marker. It said: We’re #1. Donald wondered if whoever wrote it meant the silo. The operator set the mug down and twirled his finger for Donald to begin.

Donald covered his mic and cleared his throat. He could hear someone talking on the other line as a distant headset was pulled on. There was a script to follow for the first half. Donald remembered most of it. Eren turned to the side and polished off the bagel guiltily. When the operator gave them the thumbs up, Eren gestured to Donald to do the honors, and all Donald could think about was getting this over with and getting down to that empty armory.

“Name,” he said into his mic.

“Lukas Kyle,” came the reply.

Donald watched the graphs jump with readings taken from the headset. He felt sorry for this person, signing on to head a silo rated near the bottom. It all seemed hopeless, and here Donald was going through the motions. “You shadowed in IT,” he said.

There was a pause. “Yessir.”

The boy’s temperature was up. Donald could read it on the display. The operator and Eren were comparing notes and pointing to something. Donald checked the script. It listed easy questions everyone knew the answers to.

“What is your primary duty to the silo?” he asked, reading the line.

“To maintain the Order.”

Eren raised a hand as the readouts spiked. When they settled, he gave Donald the sign to continue.

“What do you protect above all?” Even with the software helping, Donald tried to keep his voice flat. There was a jump on one of the graphs. Donald’s thoughts drifted to the news of the pilots gone from his space, a space that he felt belonged to him. He would get through this and set his alarm clock. Tonight. Tonight.

“Life and Legacy,” the shadow recited.

Donald lost his place. It took a moment to find the next line. “What does it take to protect these things we hold so dear?”

“It takes sacrifice,” the shadow said after a brief pause.

The comm head gave Donald and Eren an OK signal. The formal readings were over. Now to the baseline, to get off-script. Donald wasn’t sure what to say. He nodded to Eren, hoping he’d take over.

Eren covered his mic for a second as if he was about to argue, but shrugged. “How much time have you had in the Suit Labs?” he asked the shadow, studying the monitor in front of him.

“Not much, sir. Bernar— Uh, my boss, he’s wanting me to schedule time in the labs after, you know …”

“Yes. I do know.” Eren nodded. “How’s that problem in your lower levels going?”

“Um, well, I’m only kept apprised of the overall progress, and it sounds good.” Donald heard the shadow clear his throat. “That is, it sounds like progress is being made, that it won’t be much longer.”

A long pause. A deep breath. Waveforms relaxed. Eren glanced at Donald. The operator waved his finger for them to keep going.

Donald had a question, one that touched on his own regrets. “Would you have done anything differently, Lukas?” he asked. “From the beginning?”

There were red spikes on the monitors, and Donald felt his own temperature go up. Maybe he was asking something too close to home. He realized suddenly that these people they watched over were aliens, a different race, hundreds of years removed from his own kind. His pity for them grew. Such was how gods began doting on mortals, with pity.

“Nossir,” the young shadow said. “It was all by the Order, sir. Everything’s under control.”

The comm head reached to his controls and muted all of their headsets. “We’re getting borderline readings,” he told them. “His nerves are spiking. Can you push him a little more?”

Eren nodded. The operator on the other side of him shrugged and took a sip from his #1 mug.

“Settle him down first, though,” the comm head said.

Eren turned to Donald. “Congratulate him and then see if you can get him emotional,” he suggested. “Level him out and tweak him.”

Donald hesitated. It was all so artificial and manipulative. He forced himself to swallow. The mics were unmuted.

“You are next in line for the control and operation of Silo eighteen,” he said stiffly, sad for what he was dooming this poor soul to.

“Thank you, sir.” The shadow sounded relieved. Waveforms collapsed as if they’d struck a pier.

Now Donald fought for some way to push the young man. The comm head waving at him didn’t help. Donald glanced up at the map of the silos on the wall. He stood, the headphone cord stretching, and studied the several silos marked out, the one there with the number ’12.’ Donald considered the seriousness of what this young man had just taken on, what his job entailed, how many had died elsewhere because their leaders had let them down.

“Do you know the worst part of my job?” Donald asked. He could feel those in the comm room watching him. Donald was back on his first shift, initiating that other young man. He was back on his first shift, shutting a silo down. There was silence, and he worried that the shadow on the other end had removed his headset.

“What’s that, sir?” the voice asked.

“Standing here, looking at a silo on this map, and drawing a red cross through it. Can you imagine what that feels like?”

“I can’t, sir.”

Donald nodded. He appreciated the honest answer. He remembered what it felt like to watch those people spill out of 12 and perish on the landscape. He blinked his vision clear. “It feels like a parent losing thousands of children all at once,” he said.

The world stood still for a heartbeat or two. The operator and the comm head were both fixated on their monitors, looking for a crack. Eren watched Donald.

“You will have to be cruel to your children so as not to lose them,” Donald said.

“Yessir.”

Waveforms began to pulse like gentle surf. The comm head gave Donald the thumbs-up. He had seen enough. The boy had passed, and now the Rite was truly over.

“Welcome to Operation Fifty of the World Order, Lukas Kyle,” Eren said, reading from the script and taking over for Donald. “Now, if you have a question or two, I have the time to answer, but briefly.”

Donald remembered this part. He had a hand in this. He settled back into his chair, suddenly exhausted.

“Just one, sir. And I’ve been told it isn’t important, and I understand why that’s true, but I believe it will make my job here easier if I know.” The young man paused. “Is there … ?” A new red spike on his graph. “How did this all begin?”

Donald held his breath. He glanced around the room, but everyone else was watching their monitors as if any question was as good as another.

Donald responded before Eren could. “How badly do you wish to know?” he asked.

The shadow took in a breath. “It isn’t crucial,” he said, “but I would appreciate a sense of what we’re accomplishing, what we survived. It feels like it gives me—gives us a purpose, you know?”

“The reason is the purpose,” Donald told him. This was what he was beginning to learn from his studies. “Before I tell you, I’d like to hear what you think.”

He thought he could hear the shadow gulp. “What I think?” Lukas asked.

“Everyone has ideas,” Donald said. “Are you suggesting you don’t?”

“I think it was something we saw coming.”

Donald was impressed. He had a feeling this young man knew the answer and simply wanted confirmation. “That’s one possibility,” he agreed. “Consider this—” He thought how best to phrase it. “What if I told you that there were only fifty silos in all the world, and that we are in this infinitely small corner of that world?”

On the monitor, Donald could practically watch the young man think, his readings oscillating up and down like the brain’s version of a heartbeat.

“I would say that we were the only ones …” A wild spike on the monitor. “I’d say we were the only ones who knew.”

“Very good. And why might that be?”

Donald wished he had the jostling lines on the screen recorded. It was serene, watching another human being clutch after his vanishing sanity, his disappearing doubts.

“It’s because … It’s not because we knew.” There was a soft gasp on the other end of the line. “It’s because we did it.”

“Yes,” Donald said. “And now you know.”

Eren turned to Donald and placed his hand over his mic. “We’ve got more than enough. The kid checks out.”

Donald nodded. “Our time is up, Lukas Kyle. Congratulations on your assignment.”

“Thank you.” There was a final flutter on the monitors.

“Oh, and Lukas?” Donald said, remembering the young man’s predilection for staring at the stars, for dreaming, for filling himself with dangerous hope.

“Yessir?”

“Going forward, I suggest you concentrate on what’s beneath your feet. No more of this business with the stars, okay, son? We know where most of them are.”