Wool (Silo #1)

by Hugh Howey

Now was not the time for speeches. Or for drinking. Or for being merry. Now was the hour of quiet contemplation, which was one of the reasons Jahns knew she needed to get away. Things had changed. Not just by the day, but by the long years. She knew better than most. Maybe old lady McNeil down in Supply knew, could see it coming. One had to live a long time to be sure, but now she was. And as time marched on, carrying her world faster than her feet could catch up, Mayor Jahns knew that it would soon leave her completely behind. And her great fear, unspoken but daily felt, was that this world of theirs probably wouldn’t stagger very far along without her.

The descent was like the uncoiling of a steel spring, pushing her down. It reminded Jahns of nightmares she’d had of drowning. Silly nightmares, considering she’d never seen enough water to submerge herself in, much less enough that she couldn’t stand up to breathe. But they were like the occasional dreams of falling from great heights, some legacy of another time, broken fragments unearthed in each of their sleeping minds that suggested: We weren’t supposed to live like this.

The saddest part of this journey had been this understanding she’d come to with Holston’s ghost. She could admit it now: a great reason for her hike, perhaps even the reason for wanting Juliette as sheriff, was to fall all the way to the down deep, away from the sad sight of two lovers nestled together in the crook of a hill as the wind etched away all their wasted youth. She had set out to escape Holston, and had instead found him. Now she understood, if not the mystery of why all those sent out to clean actually did so, why a sad few would dare to volunteer for the duty. Better to join a ghost than to be haunted by them. Better no life than an empty one—

One of the last things Mayor Jahns had told her had proved truer than she could imagine: people were like machines. They broke down. They rattled. They could burn you or maim you if you weren’t careful. Her job was not only to figure out why this happened and who was to blame, but also to listen for the signs of it coming. Being sheriff, like being a mechanic, was as much the fine art of preventive maintenance as it was the cleaning up after a breakdown.

But then, the lowering of the body and the plucking of ripe fruit just above the graves was meant to hammer this home: the cycle of life is here; it is inescapable; it is to be embraced, cherished, appreciated. One departs and leaves behind the gift of sustenance, of life. They make room for the next generation. We are born, we are shadows, we cast shadows of our own, and then we are gone. All anyone can hope for is to be remembered two shadows deep.

And she knew she was right about the cost of sending wires, that they didn’t want people talking. Thinking was fine; they would bury you with your thoughts. But no collaboration, no groups coordinating together, no exchange of ideas.

Knox raised the barrel toward the ceiling and tried to picture what one of these could do. He’d only ever seen a gun once, a smaller one on the hip of that old deputy, a gun he’d always figured was more for show. He stuffed a fistful of deadly rounds in his pocket, thinking how each one could end an individual life and understanding why such things were forbidden. Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one’s conscience to get in the way.

“What we control,” Juliette said, “is our actions once fate puts us there.”

At the next landing, she again touched her hip where her birth control rode under her skin. Such things made more sense in light of silo seventeen. So much about her previous life made sense. Things that had once seemed twisted now had a sort of pattern, a logic about them. The expense of sending a wire, the spacing of the levels, the single and cramped stairway, the bright colors for particular jobs, dividing the silo into sections, breeding mistrust . . . it was all designed. She’d seen hints of this before but never knew why. Now this empty silo told her, the presence of these kids told her. It turned out that some crooked things looked even worse when straightened. Some tangled knots only made sense once unraveled.