Second Shift - Order(38)

He made the last turn, and where the next landing should’ve been was empty space. The stalwart rails of the great spiral staircase had been ripped outward before parting. A few of the steps sagged away from the central post, and gravity tugged at Mission’s feet. He could feel a pull toward the edge, the void clawing at him. There was nothing there to stop him from going over. The steel felt slick beneath his boots.

Across a gap of torn and twisted steel, the doorway to one-sixteen was missing. In its place stood a pocket of crumbling cement and dark iron bars bent outward like hands reaching for the departed landing. White powder drifted down from the ceiling beyond the rubble. Unbelievably, there were sounds beyond the veil. Coughs and shouts. Screams for help.

People were yelling from the landing above as well. A fire hose slithered down, the nozzle clinking and banging against the wall of the stairwell. There was no one there to accept it, just an orange glow of fire deep inside that seemed to throb. It was as if the earth’s chest had been torn open, exposing its bright red heartbeat, the bent rods of steel now like a shattered ribcage.

“Porter!” someone yelled from above.

Mission carefully slid to the edge of the sloping and bent steps. He held the railing where it had been torn free. It was warm to the touch. Leaning out, he studied the crowd fifty feet above him at the next landing. They were swinging the fire hose, trying to get it inside the busted door. But there was no landing rail to snag the nozzle on anymore, no one to grab it. Again, someone yelled something about a porter. Mission didn’t know what was expected of him. He hadn’t shadowed for this. The nozzle swung wildly a dozen feet away. Did they expect him to reach it? To swing over and douse that mad pulse in the heart of the burning earth?

Someone pointed when they spotted him leaning out, spotted the ‘chief around his neck.

“There he is!” a woman shrieked, one of the mad-eyed women who had staggered past him as he hurried down, one of those who had survived. “The porter did it!” she yelled.





•19•




Mission froze, uncomprehending, even as the stairway thundered and clanged with a descending mob. The loosened treads beneath his feet shook. He reached for the inner post and clung to it for a moment. Across the smoke-hazed void, a figure appeared at the hole in the earth. Someone was alive inside level one-sixteen. A man with his undershirt pulled up over his mouth stared across at Mission with wide, horror-filled eyes.

Mission turned and ran. He stumbled downward, a hand on the inner post, watching for the return of the railing. So much had been pulled away. The stairs were unstable from the damage. He didn’t know why he was running beyond that he was being chased. It took a full turn of the staircase for the railing to reappear and for him to feel safe at such speeds. It took just as long to realize that Cam was dead. His friend had delivered a package, and now he was dead. He and others. One glance at his blue ‘chief, and someone above thought it’d been Mission who’d made the delivery. It very nearly had been.

Another crowd at landing one-seventeen. Tear-streaked faces, a woman trembling, her arms wrapped around herself, a man covering his face, all looking up or down beyond the rails. They had seen the wreckage tumble past. Mission hurried on. Lower Dispatch was all that lay between him and Mechanical that he might call haven. He hurried there, his mind still grasping for a handhold that’d been wrenched away. A violent scream approached from above and came much too fast.

Mission startled and nearly fell as the wailing person flew toward him. He waited for someone to tackle him from behind, but the sound whizzed past beyond the rail. Another person. Falling, alive and screaming, plummeting toward the depths. The loose steps and empty space had claimed one of those chasing him.

He quickened his pace, leaving the inner post for the outer rail where the curve of the steps was broader and smoother, where the force of his descent tugged him against the steel bar. Here, he could move faster. He tried not to think of what would happen if he came across a gap in the steel. He ran, smoke stinging his eyes, the clang and clamor of his own feet and that of distant others, not realizing at first that the haze in the air wasn’t from the ruin he had left behind. The smoke all around him was rising.





Silo 1





If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

-Lao Tzu





•20•




Donald’s breakfast of powdered eggs and shredded potatoes had long grown cold. He rarely touched the food brought down by Thurman and Erskine, preferring instead the bland stuff in the unlabeled silver cans he had discovered among the storeroom’s vacuum-sealed crates. It wasn’t just the matter of trust—it was the rebelliousness of it all, the empowerment that came from foraging, from taking command of his own survival. He stabbed a yellowish-orange gelatinous blob that he assumed had once been part of a peach and put it in his mouth. He chewed, tasting nothing. He pretended it tasted like a peach.