What were the chances? Did they already know? Bernard’s life had become unhinged in two short days. He reached inside the cloth pouch, grabbed the headset, and pulled it over his tender ears. He pushed the jack into the slot labeled “1” and was surprised to hear a beep. The line was ringing. He was making a call.
He pulled the jack out hurriedly, canceling the call, and saw that the light above “1” wasn’t blinking; the light above “17” was.
Bernard felt the room spin. A dead silo was calling him. A survivor? After all these years? With access to the servers? His hand trembled as he guided the jack into the slot. Lukas was asking something behind him, but Bernard couldn’t hear anything through the headphones.
“Hello?” he croaked. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
“Hello,” a voice said.
Bernard adjusted his headphones. He waved for Lukas to shut the fuck up. His ears were still ringing, his nose bleeding into his mouth.
“Who is this?” he asked. “Can you hear me?”
“I hear you,” the voice said. “Is this who I think it is?”
“Who the fuck is this?” Bernard sputtered. “How do you have access to—?”
“You sent me out,” the voice said. “You sent me to die.”
Bernard slumped down, his legs numb. The cord on the headphones uncoiled and nearly pulled the cups from his head. He clutched the headphones and fought to place this voice. Lukas was holding him by the armpits, keeping him from collapsing onto his back.
“Are you there?” the voice asked. “Do you know who this is?”
“No,” he said. But he knew. It was impossible, but he knew.
“You sent me to die, you fuck.”
“You knew the rules!” Bernard cried, yelling at a ghost. “You knew!”
“Shut up and listen, Bernard. Just shut the fuck up and listen to me very carefully.”
Bernard waited. He could taste the copper of his own blood in his mouth.
“I’m coming for you. I’m coming home, and I’m coming to clean.”
Part 5
The Stranded
53
Marck stumbled down the great stairway, his hand sliding against the cool railing, a rifle tucked under his arm, his boots slipping in blood. He could barely hear the screams all around him: the wails from the wounded as they were half dragged down the steps, the horrified cries from the curious crowds on every landing who witnessed their passage, or the shouts of promised violence from the men chasing him and the rest of his mechanics from level to level.
The ringing in his ears drowned out most of the noise. It was the blast, the god-awful blast. Not the one that had peeled open the doors of IT—he had been ready for that one, had hunkered down with the rest. And it wasn’t the second bomb, the one Knox had lobbed deep into the heart of their enemy’s den. It was the last one, the one he didn’t see coming, the one that spilled from the hands of that small white-haired woman from Supply.
McLain’s bomb. It had gone off right in front of him, had taken his hearing as it took her life.
And Knox, that stout and unmovable head of Mechanical—his boss, his good friend—gone.
Marck hurried down the steps, wounded and afraid. He was a long way from the safety of the down deep—and he desperately wanted to find his wife. He concentrated on this rather than the past, tried not to think of the explosion that had taken his friends, had wrecked their plans, had engulfed any chance at justice.
Muffled shots rang out from above, followed by the piercing zing of bullets striking steel—only steel, thank God. Marck stayed away from the outer railing, away from the aim of the shooters who hounded them from the landings above with their smoothly firing rifles. The good people of Mechanical and Supply had been running and fighting for over a dozen levels; Marck silently begged the men above to stop, to give them a chance to rest, but the boots and the bullets kept coming.
Half a level later, he caught up to three members of Supply, the one in the middle wounded and being carried, his arms draped over shoulders, blood dotting the backs of their yellow overalls. He yelled at them to keep moving, couldn’t hear his own voice, could just feel it in his chest. Some of the blood he was slipping in was his own.
With his injured arm tight against his chest, his rifle cradled in the crook of his elbow, Marck kept his other hand on the railing to keep from tumbling headfirst down the steep stairwell. There were no allies behind him, none still alive. After the last shootout, he had sent the others ahead, had barely gotten away himself. And yet they kept coming, tireless. Marck would pause now and then, fumble with the unreliable ammunition, chamber a shot, and fire wildly up the stairwell. Just to do something. To slow them down.
He stopped to take a breath, leaned out over the railing, and swung his rifle toward the sky. The next round was a dud. The bullets buzzing back at him weren’t.
Huddling against the stairwell’s central post, he took the time to reload. His rifle wasn’t like theirs. One shot at a time and difficult to aim. They had modern things he’d never heard of, shots coming as fast as a frightened pulse. He moved toward the railing and checked the landing below, could see curious faces through a cracked doorway, fingers curled around the edge of the steel jamb. This was it. Landing fifty-six. The last place he’d seen his wife.
“Shirly!”
Calling her name, he staggered down a quarter turn until he was level with the landing. He kept close to the interior, out of sight from his pursuers, and searched the shadowed faces.
“My wife!” he yelled across the landing, a hand cupped to his cheeks, forgetting that the incredible ringing was only in his ears, not theirs. “Where is she?”
A mouth moved in the dark crowd. The voice was a dull and distant drone.
Someone else pointed down. The faces cringed; the cracked door twitched shut as another ricochet screamed out; the stairway shook with all the frightened boots below and the chasing ones above. Marck eyed the illicit power cables draped over the railing and remembered the farmers attempting to steal electricity from the level below. He hurried down the stairs, following the thick cords, desperate to find Shirly.
One level down, positive that his wife would be inside, Marck braved the open space of the landing and rushed across. He threw himself against the doors. Shots rang out. Marck grabbed the handle and tugged, shouting her name to ears as deaf as his own. The door budged, was being held fast with the sinewy restraint of unseen arms. He slapped the glass window, leaving a pink palm print, and yelled for them to open up, to let him in. Eager bullets rattled by his feet—one of them left a scar down the face of the door. Crouching and covering his head, he scurried back to the stairwell.
Marck forced himself to move downward. If Shirly was behind those doors she might be better off. She could strip herself of incriminating gear, blend in until things settled down. If she was below—he needed to hurry after her. Either way, down was the only direction.