Shift (Silo, #2)

by Hugh Howey

‘That word means something else, you know,’ his father had told him once, when Mission had spoken of revolution. ‘It also means to go around and around. To revolve. One revolution, and you get right back to where you started.’

A man may take his own life, he supposed, as long as he didn’t take another’s job.

The absurdity of Donald’s existence, of the state of the world, swooped down on him in that gathering. He did not belong. He was only there because of a girl he had dated in college, a girl whose father was a senator, whose affections had likely gotten him elected, who had dragged him into a murderous scheme, and had now pulled him from a frozen death. All the great coincidences and marvellous achievements of his life disappeared in a flash. In their place were puppet strings.

‘When there’s only God to blame, we forgive him. When it’s our fellow man, we destroy him.’

Amazing that he could live under the rules of a document he’d never read. He just assumed others had, all the people in charge, and that they were operating by its codes in good faith.

Often, it was the man with the most promises who got the chits, not the one who made people better.

Donald was verging on the sad realisation that humanity had been thrown to the brink of extinction by insane men in positions of power following one another, each thinking the others knew where they were going.

Liars and dead men – two parties unskilled at dispensing the truth.

It was supposed to be people who died and cultures that lasted. Now it was the other way around.

Some things you found just when you needed them, and Solo thought of the years that had passed so swiftly with his friend. He already missed the way Shadow rubbed on his shin while he worked, always in the way but clever enough not to be stepped on, coming in a flash whenever Solo broke out in a whistle, there at just the right time. A thing found, before he even knew he needed it.

Victor had written of old experiments where guards and prisoners switched places, and the abused soon became the abuser. Donald found the idea detestable, that people could change so swiftly. He found the results unbelievable. But he had seen good men and women arrive on the Hill with noble intentions, had seen them change. He had been given a dose of power on this shift and could feel its allure. His discovery was that evil men arose from evil systems, and that any man had the potential to be perverted. Which was why some systems needed to come to an end.

The hard things got easier the more you did them. It didn’t make it any more fun to do the hard things, though. Solo wished they would just be easy the first time.