For a moment, Graham thought he had lost the connection or something had gone wrong because nothing but the popping static replied. He was just about to try calling them back when Nella spoke.
“That is just so very horrible. I wish we could help you,” she said, her voice coming softly through the hissing line. “How can you stand it?”
“Because I think I can see our way to fixing some part of it at least. Minimize it, maybe even find a permanent fix and then we can let things take their course. It may not work but I don’t think those asses over there want to take a chance of us surviving and corrupting everyone else later on with whatever this is we now carry in our genes. I think they want to make sure we’re all gone and that we take this with us. And I think you can help us. We really want to survive over here, you know.”
Nella sighed on the other end of the line. “In only the most detestable of ways, I can almost understand what they fear, if only in the abstract. But it’s still pig crap. You’re thinking about stopping it from Level 72, aren’t you? You don’t have anything to worry about from above anymore.”
Graham nodded and then remembered she couldn’t see him so he said, “I’m considering exactly that. I know what your group said to everyone about that, but I think I don’t have a choice. The delay I’ve got before they do this thing is quickly running out. They’re going to figure out I’m stalling with what they want at some point. Then they’ll really kill us just because they won’t know what I know and won’t want me putting a good suit on and going to bang on some doors!”
“Umm…exactly so,” she said, obviously deep in thought. Graham heard tapping and could almost picture her fingernails hitting a desk as she took in all the implications.
“There’s more to tell, obviously, but the bottom line is that I’ve got two others to help me and one has electrical skill so we can do this. I don’t want to do it without guidance though. I really don’t.”
“Don’t do anything yet. I just sent someone down to get our head of IT to come speak with you. That might take some time. Things are coming to a head all around the place. We have reason to believe they know we’re up to something here too.”
“Shit! You have got to be kidding me,” Graham’s nervousness was quickly turning into something just a shade shy of a full blown dread that yet something else would go wrong.
“None of the other silos are reporting anything but there is definitely something up with Silo One and us. Too many questions. But that might work to your advantage so don’t worry,” Nella replied.
“Easier said than done.”
“Listen, just stay there with the radio on standby. As soon as he gets here I’ll get him briefed and on the line to you. Can you do that?” Nella asked, her voice kind.
“I can stay here. We all have multiple jobs now, even the head of IT, so one place will just assume I’m at another.”
“Hang tight then, Graham. We’re going to figure this out. Bye for now,” Nella replied and then the line was back to a dead hiss again.
He switched the unit to standby, stood there a moment wondering what he should do while he waited and then made himself something to eat. It was an activity that didn’t need a lot of thought and that was just what he needed. The morning’s labor was making itself known through his growling belly and not even the jangling of his nerves was enough to dampen the hunger he felt.
He realized he would need to get water soon as he put yet another empty canister next to the door and cracked open his next to last full container to make tea. Water was just another chore made more laborious by their situation. When he finished eating, he wiped his plate and cup rather than use any of his good water to wash them in. He was just to the point of wondering if he would get a call back at all when the buzz of his radio sounded.
He rushed toward the unit and turned it on. When he answered he was relieved to hear a voice he knew. It was his counterpart in Silo 40, John, and a man that had won his trust over the years.
“Hey! It’s Graham. It’s happening.” The words gushed out of him. He was so relieved to have someone who could truly grasp his situation.
“I’m here and I did get briefed by Nella. I’d like to hear it from you. But first, how much leeway do you think you have before they do this? Are we talking hours or days or more?”
Graham thought about the records and how long it would take to get all that data into computers and how many of them would be in before those in Silo One felt they had enough. “I would say at a minimum we have a few days but if we’re lucky it could be a lot longer. I can only really confidently say a few days though.”
“Hmm,” came John’s reply. It was a grim sound to Graham’s ears. “That would move up our timetable quite a bit and the others aren’t even close to being ready.”
“Ready? For what exactly?”
“Graham, we’re going off line. All of the silos who have been able to establish communications with each other are considering the same. Since you hadn’t communicated with us this way, your silo was actually the one we were most concerned with leaking information to Silo One if we did go offline. Until recently, we’d been rebuffed by your silo.”
Graham was stunned at the thought of going offline. This was not at all what he had been expecting to hear from Silo 40. He had expected to have to make his case for just cutting the lines on Level 72. He knew that tampering with the control lines on Level 72, the ones that Silo One could use to remotely destroy a silo, was forbidden within the group of silos that knew their purpose and spoke with each other.
It was forbidden for good reason because there was a chance that Silo One would figure out a way to prevent anyone after that from doing the same. That would leave everyone, forever after, at the mercy of Silo One’s whim. It had been long agreed that if it was done at all, it needed to be coordinated between the many silos that had been having their own contact in these past years.
Coordination would ensure that others wouldn’t pay whatever price Silo One would extract in blood to make absolutely positive no other silo thought of doing the same. But Graham had known nothing of any plan to go offline. How could the silos even go offline? Even now his plan for his own silo didn’t call for anything other than removing the ability to destroy his world from the hands of another silo. He hadn’t considered anything else past that point. He realized he probably should have thought of that. He was a terrible conspirator and had proved it yet again.
“Graham, are you there?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m just…well…just surprised,” he swallowed loudly. His throat was suddenly parched again and he asked, “How can we go offline?”
“Think about it, Graham. What do they actually do for us over there? They keep us going around in the same cycle over and over and watch until something fails and a silo dies. Your own silo is a prime example! How long has this sickness been going on? It’s been decades, right? This has been happening to your people since before we started talking. Tell me I’m not right.”
Graham could hear the intensity in John’s words, the utter conviction. He keenly regretted that he hadn’t had the guts to get this communications gear altered a long time ago. He might have been able to avert all of this current pain and horror. They might now be offline, whatever that might mean, and working on a way to save the silo with people who really wanted to help rather than just control. Those regrets were for later though, after this silo was safe.