The box was sealed with a loop of wire and a plastic tab like all the others. It was covered in the same thick layer of dust and bore the same engraved plate. The difference was that it was marked, ‘Spare’, in bold letters on a second plate and there was no tube of metal containing wires coming in or going out of it. It was on its own. She wondered that no one had ever noticed before. Perhaps such spares were common. Based on the dust, she thought it was just that nothing had broken up here in a very long time.
She positioned her pack on the ladder’s hook, close to hand but not obviously so, and propped up her tool bag on the ladder’s shelf. When she clipped the wire she felt like she was entering a new territory. It was like she has found some unseen and untrodden new level that suddenly appeared in front of her. It was equal parts thrill and anticipation and fear. She hoped it wasn’t empty and feared it might be full.
The lid opened with the loud creak of unused hinges. Particles of rust broke free and rained down, creating little divots in the blanket of dust. Marina closed her eyes and opened the lid wide. One small breath later she opened her eyes.
It was full. Oh, so very full.
Chapter Eighteen
Her trip back to the maintenance closet seemed to take forever and the pack on her back seemed to weigh as much as a person, maybe as much as the silo itself. It almost burned through her clothes and crisped her skin as it silently called for her to look. It whispered for her to just peek once. She shut herself into the closet and realized there was no lock. She cursed and wondered if she should risk it, but her anticipation was only trumped by her desire not to get caught. She settled for a peek inside her pack and a quick reassuring touch that it was all real.
She almost flew down the stairs. She needed privacy and she discarded each level she passed with increasing frustration. She stopped at the infirmary but was thwarted by the presence of a man resting up from the same holiday malady she had suffered. It was an excruciating twenty-nine levels to 34 that she finally went and asked again for a room to rest in. There was a window there, just like before, but a flap in front of the window on the outside let people know it was occupied. Only the rudest of people would lift that flap and look in so she felt relatively secure.
She nestled into the corner nearest the door, pulling all but her extended legs out of view, and opened the pack. She started to withdraw the contents, stacking them after examination right next to her.
The book was huge and it reminded her of the burned remains she had seen not too far from here. The title was ‘Legacy’ and the spine had the letters, ‘Sh-St’, on it. That was tempting but she put it aside. There were three other books, small ones with faded black fabric covers and curled edges. Many pages were missing from them and she knew, even from the second that she opened one to glance inside, that the pages were the exact ones that were hung in the Memoriam to explain the Tenets. It was only with the greatest reluctance that she put them aside.
The rest was all paper. A sheaf of papers held together with a metal clip. A bundle of letters tied with a faded purple ribbon. Many other individual items, a few in envelopes made of other sheets of paper, had also been stuffed inside. She selected one of these at random, a thick one with no hint of the contents, and opened it. It seemed to just keep unfolding until it was the largest piece of paper she had ever seen. It was like the whole version of the partial one Greta showed her in the archives. But what was depicted was not the same.
In a beautifully precise arrangement there were circles and inside each was a number. The title of the piece was machine printed in bold letters across the top. It read, ‘Silo Field Diagram’. The edges were torn in a precise match to the remains she had seen down below in the burned room. It wasn’t immediately clear what the diagram meant until she spotted the circle labeled ‘49’ with the single word, ‘Us’, next to it. Then her eyes took in all the other circles, all the other numbers. All the other silos.
Marina felt her face grow hot and her vision pinpoint down until all she could see was that 49 and that word — us. Us. We. The jacks down below, the communications destroyed that went to unknown places. The fifty slots with one of them just a space and not a jack. The next to the last one. The 49th one.
How long she was frozen like that, those numbers running through her mind and her breathing making a ragged racket in the silent room, she had no idea. It seemed impossible that she could simply return to normal but that is what happened. Her vision stopped dancing and her breathing slowed down and the jitters that made her boots clack together in front of her slowed and then stopped. There are other silos but I am okay. There are forty-nine other silos but I am awake and alive and will not die from knowing it. It was a strange feeling.
She laid the paper on the floor and looked at the details. Faded red X’s marked a few of the circles. No, a few silos, she mentally corrected. Numbers that didn’t mean anything to Marina ran along those X’s. A large grayish-blue blob with uneven edges encroached on the paper from the end closest to the one marked 49 and the one marked 50. There was a notation inside that was difficult to decipher but it appeared to read, ‘Catchment Lake’. She didn’t know what that was. Lake?
There was so much more to see but she became keenly aware of how much time had passed when the lights beyond the privacy flap blinked to half-dim. That meant she had two hours until the dimming and she was far from the Memoriam. It was with sharp reluctance that she packed her finds back up and secured her pack. She took another dose of pills after she stood and her legs screamed with the effort of the day. Her pale and sweaty face, her shaky voice and her hurried gait earned her a few looks as she thanked the IT reception worker and made her way out.
On the stairs she misjudged the steps or caught a toe more than once. She had to stop and pull herself together on Level 36 before continuing on. They had just lost Piotr and she could easily wind up the same way if she kept being so clumsy. It hit her as she passed Level 40 that Piotr would not see this. He wouldn’t get to know. He missed it by just a single day. Less than that, really.
It was heartbreaking and the tears she hadn’t shed earlier threatened to come when she most needed them to stay away. Her grip tightened on the central post and she hugged the center until she felt more in control. A curious look or two was cast her way from others climbing the stairs but no one said anything and she was able to pick up her pace once more.
On Level 70 she stopped at the deputy station. Joseph and Sela were long off duty by then so she made her greetings, secretly amazed that she was able to do so, and left him a note. She wrote that she had made it back late and would probably sleep in. He had made a habit of stopping by, having a chat and stealing a kiss on his way to work each morning. Tomorrow she knew she wouldn’t be capable of such. She might not ever sleep again until all of this had been gone through and the secrets revealed. The cadence of her steps had been consistent the whole way down. There — step — are — step — other – step — silos.
She made her way to her room inside the Memoriam and stuffed her pack under her bed. She was almost faint with fatigue and she knew a big part of that was lack of food. She had eaten nothing since that morning and expended a great deal of energy since. She checked the hallway clock and thought that she might be able to go and grab something without meeting anyone given the late hour.