11
快到五十楼的时候，詹丝已经累得有点意识不清，脑海中一片空白。背包里那张彼得•贝尔
宁的同意书仿佛变得有千斤重。马奈斯跟在她后面几步，嘴里不停嘀咕，咒骂白纳德，然后努
力加快脚步，想跟上詹丝。这时候，詹丝终于明白自己已经陷入困境，无路可退了。她大腿小
腿的肌肉早已酸软无力，而且，更因为她心里明白这次决定走这一趟，根本就是一个天大的错
误，甚至是致命的错误，所以心理上的绝望导致她更虚弱。那女孩的爸爸已经警告过她，说他
的女儿会拒绝接受任命。另外，资讯区的负责人另有他属意的人选，这也对她造成压力。现
在，每往下多走一步，她内心的恐惧就会更加深。不过，尽管笼罩在恐惧的阴霾中，她内心却
越来越笃定，深信茱丽叶就是他们需要的人。他们一定要想办法说服这女孩子，叫她离开机电
区，接受任命。这样做，至少可以给白纳德一点颜色看，或者，至少不至于让这次艰巨的任务
完全白费。
詹丝已经当了很久的首长，甚至，她都已经这么老了，大家还是选她当首长，究竟为什
么？一方面是因为她很有效率，把地堡管理得很好，另一方面，也是因为她能够预防灾难发
生。不过，最主要的原因是，她很少引发纷争。然而，她忽然觉得现在时候到了，她不得不和
别人正面对决。现在，她已经够老了，已经没什么顾虑。她转头看看马奈斯，心里明白他的情
况也跟她一样。他们的日子不多了，而现在，如果说他们还能够为地堡做出一个重大的决定，
作出最大的贡献，那么，那就是让他们辛辛苦苦创造的成果能够延续下去。预防暴动发生，防
止滥权。这就是为什么后来的几次大选，她都能够以压倒性的票数当选。可是现在，她感觉到
她的时代已经到了尽头，年轻的一代已经准备要取代她了。她任命了那么多审判官，有多少个
是白纳德推荐的？现在，他还想操纵保安官的人选？白纳德大概用不了多久就会当上首长吧？
或者更可怕的，他会躲在幕后操纵他手下的傀儡，控制整个地堡。
“冷静一点好不好？”马奈斯有点不高兴。
詹丝这才意识到她走太快了，于是立刻放慢脚步。
“你是不是被那个王八蛋气昏头了，情绪太激动？”他说。
“我看你也差不多。”她立刻反唇相讥。
“你快要走过头了。水耕区快到了。”
詹丝转头看看平台上的数字，发现他说得没错。她怎么会没注意到那股香味？这时候，底
下平台那扇门忽然打开，有个运送员走出来，两肩扛着好几袋水果，一股甜美多汁的果菜香立
刻扑鼻而来。
已经过了晚餐时间，那股香味实在太诱人了。那个运送员好像扛得太重了，但尽管如此，
当他注意到他们准备要进门，立刻就伸出一条腿顶住门，两手还是扶着肩上沉重的货袋。
“首长，你好。”他打了声招呼，弯腰点点头，接着也朝马奈斯点点头。
詹丝向他道谢。绝大多数的运送员，她都认得出来，因为他们跑遍整座地堡，常常会跟她
碰面。不过，他们一向都来了就走，所以她总是来不及问他们叫什么名字，记在心里。通常，
只要见过一次面，她就有办法记住那个人的名字。这是她的专长。接着，她和马奈斯走进水耕
区，这时候，她忽然有点好奇，这些运送员是不是每天晚上都有办法回到家，陪伴自己的家
人？或者，他们到底有没有家人？他们会不会都像神父一样单身？她已经老到一个年纪，对年
轻的生命变得非常好奇，所以她很渴望能够多了解他们。也许，她应该在楼梯井的平台站个一
整天，欣赏他们搬东西的模样，仔细观察他们。在她心目中，这些运送员就像她呼吸的空气一
样，无所不在，永远在供应她需要的东西，如此不可或缺，然而，也正因为他们总是无所不
在，反而会令人觉得理所当然。而现在，一路走下楼梯，她终于体会到什么叫作筋疲力尽，也
终于真正体会到他们是多么了不起。那种感觉，就仿佛突然吸了一口纯氧，才终于体会到空气
的美好。
“你看那些橘子，闻到香味了吗？”马奈斯的声音惊醒了她，詹丝这才回过神来。果园外面
那道低矮的围栏上有一道门，他们进门的时候，他抬起鼻头在半空中猛嗅。他们看到一个穿着
绿色连身工作服的水耕区员工。他朝他们挥挥手，叫他们进来。“首长，背包可以放在这
里。”他指向一面墙。那整面墙是由无数方格组成的，零零落落塞着背包或是捆包。
詹丝遵照他的指示，把背包塞进一个方格里。马奈斯把她的背包推到最里面，然后把自己
的背包塞进同一格里。这是为了节省空间呢，还是他无意间显露出来的保护她的本能？詹丝无
法确定，不过，那种感觉就像果园里的气味一样甜美。
“我们有预约，今天晚上要在这里过夜。”詹丝对那个员工说。
他点点头：“房间在下一楼。我相信他们应该还在帮你们准备房间。你们只是要住宿吗？还
是也要吃点东西？”
“都要。”
那年轻人对她笑了一下。“嗯，那你们就先吃吧，等你们吃饱了，你们的两间房应该也准备
好了。”
两个房间。詹丝暗暗感谢那个年轻人，然后跟着马奈斯走进错综复杂的果园。
“你已经多久没来过这里了？”她问马奈斯。
“哇，好久了。大概有四年了吧。”
“没错。”詹丝笑起来，“我这辈子永远忘不了那件事。本世纪最大的窃案。”
“你以为那很好玩吗？”马奈斯说。
他们走到大厅最里面，到这里，如蜘蛛网般错综复杂的水耕区开始分成两边，中央的通道
蜿蜒曲折，一路通往下一层楼。走在这条通道上，有点像走在迷宫里，一步步走向远处的水泥
墙。上面的水管不停地洒水，水花喷洒的声音在低矮的天花板下回荡着，听起来有一种莫名的
安慰。中央通道两边是一望无际的果园菜园，茂盛的枝叶绿意盎然，白色的塑胶管构成无数的
格架，遍布着一丛丛蔬菜，一株株小树，格架上还串连着密密麻麻的细绳，交缠着无数的枝叶
和藤蔓。里面有一些工作人员正忙着照料那些果菜，他们都穿着绿色的连身工作服，脖子上挂
着一个袋子，里面装满了采收的作物。他们手上拿着大剪刀，乍看之下仿佛他们身上长着巨大
的爪子。他们剪下果菜的动作如此熟练，仿佛毫不费力，令人神迷。这种功夫，只有靠长年累
月不断的操作才有可能训练得出来。
“当年，有一个人最先认定那些东西是水耕区里的人偷的。那个人不就是你吗？”詹丝还在
自顾自笑着。一路上他们看到好几个标志指示大餐厅的方向，于是就跟着标志一直走。
“你一定要扯这件事吗？”
“这有什么好难为情的？你不觉得很好笑吗？”
“再过几年，也许吧。”他忽然停下脚步，隔着一面绳子编成的网墙，看着一棵番茄树。那
熟透的番茄香气四溢，詹丝的胃不由得咕噜作响。
“当年，我们真的太激动了，搞得天翻地覆。”马奈斯口气很平静，“为了办这个案子，霍斯
顿简直像疯了一样。他每天晚上都会发邮件给我，要我跟他报告进展。这辈子我从来没有看过
他那样，不顾一切拼命想抓到一个人。你知道吗，那种感觉，就好像他真的迫切需要。”说到这
里，他伸出手，手指扣住一面护栏，眼睛看着满地蔬菜后面那不知名的远方，仿佛看得到从前
的那一幕。“回想起来，感觉上很像他已经发现艾莉森怪怪的，好像他已经感觉得到她快要发疯
了。”马奈斯转过来看着詹丝，“她被送出去清洗镜头之前，地堡里的状况，你还记不记得？已
经持续了好久，所有的人都已经快要情绪失控了。”
詹丝已经好一会儿没笑了。她站在马奈斯旁边。马奈斯转身回来看着那棵番茄树，看着工
人剪下一颗红透的番茄，放进篮子里。
“你知道吗，我觉得霍斯顿是拼命想缓解地堡里的压力。我认为，当时他很想亲自下来抓那
个偷东西的人。他每天发邮件给我，要我报告进展，那种感觉就好像他要靠我的报告才活得下
去。”
“对不起，我实在不应该扯这件事。”詹丝伸手搭在他肩上。
马奈斯忽然转头看着她的手背。在浓密的胡须下，依稀看得到他的下唇似乎动了一下。詹
丝感觉他那种动作很像是在亲吻她的手，赶紧把手缩回来。
“没关系。”他说，“可惜那个时候大家心理压力太大，要不然，想想确实是很好笑。”说完他
转身继续沿着通道往前走。
“后来他们到底有没有查出来，它是怎么有办法跑进水耕区？”
“应该是从楼梯井上来的吧。”马奈斯说，“一定是。不过，我倒是听到有人推测，很可能是
有个小孩偷了一只，想养来当宠物，可是后来却把它放到水耕区里。”
詹丝大笑起来。她实在忍不住。“一只兔子。”她说，“水耕区的作物不见了，大家要抓贼，
搞了半天却是一只兔子。当代最伟大的执法人员竟然被一只兔子搞得人仰马翻。被它吃掉的蔬
菜水果，差不多值他一年的薪水点数。”
马奈斯摇摇头，苦笑了一下。“我不是最伟大的。”他说，“从来就不是我。”他愣愣看着通道
的尽头，清清喉咙。詹丝很清楚他心里想到的人是谁。
※ ※ ※
他们吃了一顿很丰盛的晚餐，然后心满意足地走到楼下的客房。詹丝有点怀疑，为了腾出
房间让他们住，很可能有人必须忍受很多不便。所有的房间都客满了，其中不少房间都已经有
人排队预约，要等到隔天甚至后天才能住进来。由于先前清洗镜头任务的时间确定之后，很多
人都已经排好时间要上去看风景，早就预约了房间，而他们却是临时决定要下来面试，所以，
她不难猜到，为了把房间让给她，有人的预约势必要被挤掉。另外，他们两个人就要占掉两间
房，而且首长住的那间必须有两张床，这样一来，情况就更糟糕了。更何况，倒不光是浪费空
间而已，而是那种安排本身就有问题。詹丝本来希望自己……不要受到这种特殊接待。
马奈斯显然也有同样的感觉。既然现在还不到睡觉时间，而且因为刚刚吃过大餐，多喝了
两杯葡萄酒，两个人精神还很好，所以，他邀她到他的小房间坐一下，多聊一会儿。反正现在
水耕区里闹哄哄的，等安静下来了再睡还不迟。
他的房间很舒服，虽然只有一张小小的双人床，但整理得又干净又整齐。地堡里大约有十
几种私人经营的产业，楼上的水耕区就是其中之一。这次他们住宿饮食所需的费用，将会用她
办公室的旅行预算来支付，而那笔钱，还有那些上顶楼看风景的人的花费，都有助于水耕区建
构更好的设施，比如更高级的床单，或是更坚固的弹簧床垫。
詹丝坐在床尾。马奈斯把身上的枪套解下来，放在矮柜上，然后走到距离一米外的墙边，
把固定在墙上的活动长凳拉下来，坐到上面。她脱掉长靴，揉揉酸痛的脚，而他则开始滔滔不
绝，说今天吃得有多过瘾，还有两个房间实在很浪费，边说边搓着胡子。
詹丝用两只拇指搓揉酸痛的脚跟。“我想，等我们到了底下之后，我恐怕需要在那里休息一
个礼拜，才有力气往上爬。”她说。
“其实没你想的那么可怕。”马奈斯对她说，“你明天早上起床的时候，也许会浑身酸痛，不
过，一旦你开始下楼梯，你就会发觉自己体力越来越好，绝对不会像今天这样。然后，等我们
回程要上楼的时候，也是一样。你就一步一步慢慢往上踩，然后，不知不觉就到家了。”
“但愿如此。”
“更何况，回去的时候，我们不再用两天走完全程。我们分成四天。就像去旅游探险一
样。”
“告诉你。”詹丝说，“其实我现在就已经在探险了。”
接下来，两人忽然陷入一阵沉默。詹丝往后一仰靠在枕头上，马奈斯愣愣地望着外面的水
耕区出神。此刻，孤男寡女在同一个房间里，那感觉却是如此平静，如此自在，令詹丝感到有
点意外。而且，两人甚至还不需要刻意找话讲。他们可以就这样在一起。没有警徽，没有首长
的头衔，就只是两个平平凡凡的人。
“你一定从来没有去找过神父，对吧？”马奈斯终于开口了。
“没有。”她摇摇头，“你呢？”
“我也没有，不过，现在我开始有这种念头了。”
“因为霍斯顿的缘故？”
“这是其中一个原因。”说着他忽然弯腰往前倾，两手在大腿上搓来搓去，仿佛这样搓两条
腿就不会酸。“他死了以后，灵魂到什么地方去了？我很想听听神父的说法。”
“他的灵魂永远与我们同在。”詹丝说，“他们说来说去都是这一套。”
“那你的信仰是什么？”
“我？”她翻身抬起上身，手肘撑着床垫，凝视着他的眼睛，而他也凝视着她。“老实说，我
不知道该相信什么。我太忙了，根本没时间想这个。”
“你会不会觉得唐纳的灵魂现在就在这里，就在我们旁边？”
詹丝忽然打了个寒战。已经很久没有人当她的面提到她丈夫的名字了。
“他已经走了很久，已经不知道多少年了，说不定已经比他陪在我身边的时间还长了。”她
说，“感觉上，我嫁的好像不是他的人，而是他的灵魂。”
“这样说好像有点那个。”
詹丝低头看看床铺，感觉周遭世界忽然变得有点虚无缥缈。“我不觉得他会在意我怎么说。
还有，没错，我感觉他的灵魂还在我身边，随时都在督促我要当一个好人。我觉得他好像随时
都在看着我。”
“我也是同样的感觉。”马奈斯说。
詹丝抬头看看他，发现他也正凝视着她。
“你觉得他会不会希望我们两个过得幸福快乐？呃，我的意思是，有一个美满的人生，事事
顺心。”说到这里，他的手已经停止搓揉大腿，而是撑在膝盖上。过了一会儿，他撇开视线，不
敢再看她的眼睛。
“你是他最要好的朋友。”詹丝说，“他当然希望你过得幸福快乐。”
他抬起手搓搓脸。这时候，有个孩子在走廊上大吼大叫，他立刻转头去看看那扇关着的
门。“我想，他这辈子唯一的愿望，就是看到你过得幸福快乐。这也就是为什么，他会成为你生
命中的男人。”
詹丝趁他没注意的时候抬起手揉揉眼睛，然后低头看着自己的手指。不知道为什么，手指
头湿湿的。
“时间不早了。”说着她坐到床边，弯腰去拿鞋子。她的背包和拐杖摆在门边，“还有，我认
为你说得没错，明天早上我可能会觉得全身有点酸痛，不过，用不了多久，我一定会觉得自己
又充满了活力。”
Part 2 Proper Gauge 12
Part 2 Proper Gauge
12
On the second and final day of their descent into the down deep, the novel gradually became the
habitual. The clank and thrum of the great spiral staircase found a rhythm. Jahns was able to lose
herself in her thoughts, daydreaming so serenely that she would glance up at the floor number,
seventy-two, eighty-four, and wonder where a dozen landings went. The kink in her left knee was
even soothed away, whether by the numbness of fatigue or an actual return to health, she didn’t
know. She took to using the walking stick less, finding it only held up her pace as it often slipped
between the treads and got caught there. With it tucked under her arm, it felt more useful. Like
another bone in her skeleton, holding her together.
When they passed the ninetieth floor, with the stench of fertilizer and the pigs and other animals
that produced this useful waste, Jahns pressed on, skipping the tour and lunch she’d planned, thinking
only briefly of the small rabbit that somehow had escaped from another farm, made it twenty floors
up without being spotted, and ate its fill for three weeks while it confounded half a silo.
Technically, they were already in the down deep when they reached ninety-seven. The bottom
third. But even though the silo was mathematically divided into three sections of forty-eight floors
each, her brain didn’t work that way. Floor one hundred was a better demarcation. It was a milestone.
She counted the floors down until they reached the first landing with three digits and stopped for a
break.
Marnes was breathing deeply, she noticed. But she felt great. Alive and renewed in the way she
had hoped the trip would make her feel. The futility, dread, and exhaustion from the day before were
gone. All that remained was a small twinge of fear that these dour feelings could return, that this
exuberant elation was a temporary high, that if she stopped, if she thought on it too long, it would
spiral away and leave her dark and moody once more.
They split a small loaf of bread between them, sitting on the metal grating of the wide landing
with their elbows propped up on the railings, their feet swinging over empty space, like two kids
cutting class. Level one hundred teemed with people coming and going. The entire floor was a
bazaar, a place for exchanging goods, for cashing in work chits for whatever was needed or merely
coveted. Workers with their trailing shadows came and went, families yelled for one another among
the dizzying crowds, merchants barked their best deals. The doors remained propped open for the
traffic, letting the smells and sounds drift out onto the double-wide landing, the grating shivering with
excitement.
Jahns reveled in the anonymity of the passing crowd. She bit into her half of the loaf, savoring the
fresh yeastiness of bread baked that morning, and felt like just another person. A younger person.
Marnes cut her a piece of cheese and a slice of apple and sandwiched them together. His hand
touched hers as he passed it to her. Even the bread crumbs in his mustache were part of the moment’s
perfection.
“We’re way ahead of schedule,” Marnes said before taking a bite of fruit. It was just a pleasant
observation. A pat on their elderly backs. “I figure we’ll hit one-forty by dinner.”
“Right now, I’m not even dreading the climb out,” Jahns said. She finished the cheese and apple
and chewed contentedly. Everything tasted better while climbing, she decided. Or in pleasant
company, or amid the music leaking out of the bazaar, some beggar strumming his uke over the noise
of the crowd.
“Why don’t we come down here more often?” she asked.
Marnes grunted. “Because it’s a hundred flights down? Besides, we’ve got the view, the lounge,
the bar at Kipper’s. How many of these people come up to any of that more than once every few
years?”
Jahns chewed on that and on her last bite of bread.
“Do you think it’s natural? Not wandering too far from where we live?”
“Don’t follow,” Marnes said around a bite of food.
“Pretend, just as a hypothetical, mind you, that people lived in those ancient aboveground silos
poking up over the hillside. You don’t think they would move around so little, do you? Like stay in
the same silo? Never wander over here or up and down a hundred flights of stairs?”
“I don’t think on those things,” Marnes said. Jahns took it as a hint that she shouldn’t, either. It
was impossible sometimes to know what could and couldn’t be said about the outside. Those were
discussions for spouses, and maybe the walk and the day together yesterday had gotten to her. Or
maybe she was as susceptible to the post-cleaning high as anyone else: the sense that some rules
could be relaxed, a few temptations courted, the release of pressure in the silo giving excuse for a
month of jubilant wiggling in one’s own skin.
“Should we get going?” Jahns asked as Marnes finished his bread.
He nodded, and they stood and collected their things. A woman walking by turned and stared, a
flash of recognition on her face, gone as she hurried to catch up with her children.
It was like another world down here, Jahns thought to herself. She had gone too long without a
visit. And even as she promised herself not to let that happen again, some part of her knew, like a
rusting machine that could feel its age, that this journey would be her last.
••••
Floors drifted in and out of sight. The lower gardens, the larger farm in the one-thirties, the
pungent water treatment plant below that. Jahns found herself lost in thought, remembering her
conversation with Marnes the night before, the idea of Donald living with her more in memory than
reality, when she came to the gate at one-forty.
She hadn’t even noticed the change in the traffic, the preponderance of blue denim overalls, the
porters with more satchels of parts and tools than clothes, food, or personal deliveries. But the crowd
at the gate showed her that she’d arrived at the upper levels of Mechanical. Gathered at the entrance
were workers in loose blue overalls spotted with age- old stains. Jahns could nearly peg their
professions by the tools they carried. It was late in the day, and she assumed most were returning
home from repairs made throughout the silo. The thought of climbing so many flights of stairs and
then having to work boggled her mind. And then she remembered she was about to do that very
thing.
Rather than abuse her station or Marnes’s power, they waited in line while the workers checked
through the gate. As these tired men and women signed back in and logged their travel and hours,
Jahns thought of the time she had wasted ruminating about her own life during the long descent, time
she should’ve spent polishing her appeal to this Juliette. Rare nerves twisted her gut as the line
shuffled forward. The worker ahead of them showed his ID, the card colored blue for Mechanical. He
scratched his information on a dusty slate. When it was their turn, they pushed through the outer gate
and showed their golden IDs. The station guard raised his eyebrows, then seemed to recognize the
mayor.
“Your Honor,” he said, and Jahns didn’t correct him. “Weren’t expecting you this shift.” He
waved their IDs away and reached for a nub of chalk. “Let me.”
Jahns watched as he spun the board around and wrote their names in neat print, the side of his
palm collecting dust from the old film of chalk below. For Marnes, he simply wrote “Sheriff,” and
again, Jahns didn’t correct him.
“I know she wasn’t expecting us until later,” Jahns said, “but I wonder if we could meet with
Juliette Nichols now.”
The station guard turned and looked behind him at the digital clock that recorded the proper time.
“She won’t be off the generator for another hour. Maybe two, knowing her. You could hit the mess
hall and wait.”
Jahns looked at Marnes, who shrugged. “Not entirely hungry yet,” he said.
“What about seeing her at work? It would be nice to see what she does. We’d try our best to stay
out of the way.”
The guard lifted his shoulders. “You’re the mayor. I can’t say no.” He jabbed the nub of chalk
down the hall, the people lined up outside the gate shifting impatiently as they waited. “See Knox.
He’ll get someone to run you down.”
The head of Mechanical was a man hard to miss. Knox amply filled the largest set of overalls
Jahns had ever seen. She wondered if the extra denim cost him more chits and how a man managed
to keep such a belly full. A thick beard added to his scope. If he smiled or frowned at their approach,
it was impossible to know. He was as unmoved as a wall of concrete.
Jahns explained what they were after. Marnes said hello, and she realized they must’ve met the
last time he was down. Knox listened, nodded, and then bellowed in a voice so gruff, the words were
indistinguishable from one another. But they meant something to someone, as a young boy
materialized from behind him, a waif of a kid with unusually bright orange hair.
“Gitemoffandowntojules,” Knox growled, the space between the words as slender as the gap in his
beard where a mouth should have been.
The young boy, young even for a shadow, waved his hand and darted away. Marnes thanked
Knox, who didn’t budge, and they followed after the boy.
The corridors in Mechanical, Jahns saw, were even tighter than elsewhere in the silo. They
squeezed through the end-of-shift traffic, the concrete blocks on either side primed but not painted,
and rough where they brushed against her shoulder. Overhead, parallel and twisting runs of pipe and
wire conduit hung exposed. Jahns felt the urge to duck, despite the half foot of clearance; she noticed
many of the taller workers walking with a stoop. The lights overhead were dim and spaced well apart,
making the sensation of tunneling deeper and deeper into the earth overwhelming.
The young shadow with the orange hair led them around several turns, his confidence in the route
seemingly habitual. They came to a flight of stairs, the square kind that made right turns, and went
down two more levels. Jahns heard a rumbling grow louder as they descended. When they left the
stairwell on one-forty-two, they passed an odd contraption in a wide open room just off the hallway.
A steel arm the size of several people end to end was moving up and down, driving a piston through
the concrete floor. Jahns slowed to watch its rhythmic gyrations. The air smelled of something
chemical, something rotten. She couldn’t place it.
“Is this the generator?”
Marnes laughed in a patronizing, uniquely manly way.
“That’s a pump,” he said. “Oil well. It’s how you read at night.”
He squeezed her shoulder as he walked past, and Jahns forgave him instantly for laughing at her.
She hurried after him and Knox’s young shadow.
“The generator is that thrumming you hear,” Marnes said. “The pump brings up oil, they do
something to it in a plant a few floors down, and then it’s ready to burn.”
Jahns vaguely knew some of this, possibly from a committee meeting. She was amazed, once
again, at how much of the silo was alien to even her, she who was supposed to be—nominally at least
—running things.
The persistent grumbling in the walls grew louder as they neared the end of the hall. When the
boy with the orange hair pulled open the doors, the sound was deafening. Jahns felt wary about
approaching further, and even Marnes seemed to stall. The kid waved them forward with frantic
gestures, and Jahns found herself willing her feet to carry her toward the noise. She wondered,
suddenly, if they were being led outside. It was an illogical, senseless idea, born of imagining the
most dangerous threat she could possibly summon.
As she broke the plane of the door, cowering behind Marnes, the boy let the door slam shut,
trapping them inside with the onslaught. He pulled headphones—no wires dangling from them—
from a rack by the wall. Jahns followed his lead and put a pair over her own ears. The noise was
deadened, remaining only in her chest and nerve endings. She wondered why, for what cause, this
rack of ear protection would be located inside the room rather than outside.
The boy waved and said something, but it was just moving lips. They followed him along a
narrow passageway of steel grating, a floor much like the landings on each silo floor. When the
hallway turned, one wall fell away and was replaced with a railing of three horizontal bars. A
machine beyond reckoning loomed on the other side. It was the size of her entire apartment and office
put together. Nothing seemed to be moving at first, nothing to justify the pounding she could feel in
her chest and across her skin. It wasn’t until they fully rounded the machine that she saw the steel rod
sticking out of the back of the unit, spinning ferociously and disappearing into another massive metal
machine that had cables as thick as a man’s waist rising up toward the ceiling.
The power and energy in the room were palpable. As they reached the end of the second machine,
Jahns finally saw a solitary figure working beside it. A young-looking woman in overalls, a hard hat
on, brown braided hair hanging out the back, was leaning into a wrench nearly as long as she was
tall. Her presence gave the machines a terrifying sense of scale, but she didn’t seem to fear them. She
threw herself into her wrench, her body frightfully close to the roaring unit, reminding Jahns of an
old children’s tale where a mouse pulled a barb out of an imaginary beast called an elephant. The
idea of a woman this size fixing a machine of such ferocity seemed absurd. But she watched the
woman work while the young shadow slipped through a gate and ran up to tug on her overalls.
The woman turned, not startled, and squinted at Jahns and Marnes. She wiped her forehead with
the back of one hand, her other hand swinging the wrench around to rest on her shoulder. She patted
the young shadow on the head and walked out to meet them. Jahns saw that the woman’s arms were
lean and well defined with muscle. She wore no undershirt, just blue overalls cut high up over her
chest, exposing a bit of olive skin that gleamed with sweat. She had the same dark complexion as the
farmers who worked under grow lights, but it could have been as much from the grease and grime if
her denims were any indication.
She stopped short of Jahns and Marnes, and nodded at them. She smiled at Marnes with a hint of
recognition. She didn’t offer a hand, for which Jahns was grateful. Instead, she pointed toward a door
by a glass partition and then headed that way herself.
Marnes followed on her heels like a puppy, Jahns close behind. She turned to make sure the
shadow wasn’t underfoot, only to see him scurrying off the way he had come, his hair glowing in the
wan overhead lights of the generator room. His duty, as far as he was concerned, was done.
Inside the small control room, the noise lessened. It dropped almost to nothing as the thick door
was shut tight. Juliette pulled off her hard hat and earmuffs and dropped them on a shelf. Jahns took
hers away from her head tentatively, heard the noise reduced to a distant hum, and removed them all
the way. The room was tight and crowded with metal surfaces and winking lights unlike anything she
had ever seen. It was strange to her that she was mayor of this room as well, a thing she hardly knew
existed and certainly couldn’t operate.
While the ringing in Jahns’s ears subsided, Juliette adjusted some spinning knobs, watching little
arms waver under glass shields. “I thought we were doing this tomorrow morning,” she said,
concentrating intently on her work.
“We made better time than I’d hoped.”
Jahns looked to Marnes, who was holding his ear protection in both hands, shifting
uncomfortably.
“Good to see you again, Jules,” he said.
She nodded and leaned down to peer through the thick glass window at the gargantuan machines
outside, her hands darting over the large control board without needing to look, adjusting large black
dials with faded white markings.
“Sorry about your partner,” she said, glancing down at a bank of readouts. She turned and studied
Marnes, and Jahns saw that this woman, beneath the sweat and grime, was beautiful. Her face was
hard and lean, her eyes bright. She had a fierce intelligence you could measure from a distance. And
she peered at Marnes with utmost sympathy, visible in the furrow of her brows. “Really,” she said.
“I’m terribly sorry. He seemed like a good man.”
“The best,” Marnes sputtered, his voice cracking.
Juliette nodded as if that was all that needed saying. She turned to Jahns.
“That vibration you feel in the floor, Mayor? That’s a coupling when it’s barely two millimeters
off. If you think it feels bad in here, you should go put your hands on the casing. It’ll jiggle your
fingers numb immediately. Hold it long enough, and your bones will rattle like you’re coming apart.”
She turned and reached between Jahns and Marnes to throw a massive switch, then turned back to
the control board. “Now imagine what that generator is going through, shaking itself to pieces like
that. Teeth start grinding together in the transmission, small bits of metal shavings cycle through the
oil like sandpaper grit. Next thing you know, there’s an explosion of steel and we’ve got no power
but whatever the backup can spit out.”
Jahns held her breath.
“You need us to get someone?” Marnes asked.
Juliette laughed. “None of this is news or different from any other shift. If the backup unit wasn’t
being torn down for new gaskets, and we could go to half power for a week, I could pull that coupler,
adjust the mounts, and have her spinning like a top.” She shot a look at Jahns. “But since we have a
mandate for full power, no interruptions, that’s not happening. So I’m going to keep tightening bolts
while they keep trying to shake loose, and try to find the right revolutions in here to keep her fairly
singing.”
“I had no idea, when I signed that mandate—”
“And here I thought I’d dumbed down my report enough to make it clear,” Juliette said.
“How long before this failure happens?”
Jahns suddenly realized she wasn’t here interviewing this woman. The demands were heading in
the opposite direction.
“How long?” Juliette laughed and shook her head. She finished a final adjustment and turned to
face them with her arms crossed. “It could happen right now. It could happen a hundred years from
now. The point is: it’s going to happen, and it’s entirely preventable. The goal shouldn’t be to keep
this place humming along for our lifetimes”—she looked pointedly at Jahns—“or our current term. If
the goal ain’t forever, we should pack our bags right now.”
Jahns saw Marnes stiffen at this. She felt her own body react, a chill coursing across her skin. This
last line was dangerously close to treason. The metaphor only half saved it.
“I could declare a power holiday,” Jahns suggested. “We could stage it in memory of those who
clean.” She thought more about this. “It could be an excuse to service more than your machine here.
We could—”
“Good luck getting IT to power down shit,” Juliette said. She wiped her chin with the back of her
wrist, then wiped this on her overalls. She looked down at the grease transferred to the denim.
“Pardon my language, Mayor.”
Jahns wanted to tell her it was quite all right, but the woman’s attitude, her power, reminded her
too much of a former self that she could just barely recall. A younger woman who dispensed with
niceties and got what she wanted. She found herself glancing over at Marnes. “Why do you single out
their department? For the power, I mean.”
Juliette laughed and uncrossed her arms. She tossed her hands toward the ceiling. “Why? Because
IT has, what, three floors out of one-forty-four? And yet they use up over a quarter of all the power
we produce. I can do the math for you—”
“That’s quite all right.”
“And I don’t remember a server ever feeding someone or saving someone’s life or stitching up a
hole in their britches.”
Jahns smiled. She suddenly saw what Marnes liked about this woman. She also saw what he had
once seen in her younger self, before she married his best friend.
“What if we had IT ratchet down for some maintenance of their own for a week? Would that
work?”
“I thought we came down here to recruit her away from all this,” Marnes grumbled.
Juliette shot him a look. “And I thought I told you— or your secretary—not to bother. Not that
I’ve got anything against what you do, but I’m needed down here.” She raised her arm and checked
something dangling from her wrist. It was a timepiece. But she was studying it as if it still worked.
“Look, I’d love to chat more.” She looked up at Jahns. “Especially if you can guarantee a holiday
from the juice, but I’ve got a few more adjustments to make and I’m already into my overtime. Knox
gets pissed if I push into too many extra shifts.”
“We’ll get out of your hair,” Jahns said. “We haven’t had dinner yet, so maybe we can see you
after? Once you punch out and get cleaned up?”
Juliette looked down at herself, as if to confirm she even needed cleaning. “Yeah, sure,” she said.
“They’ve got you in the bunkhouse?”
Marnes nodded.
“All right. I’ll find you later. And don’t forget your muffs.” She pointed to her ears, looked
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