Dust by Hugh Howey Read Free Book Online

up right now. We aren’t getting dispatches from Security like we used to. And your office …”
    “Has been quiet,” Juliette offered.
    Hank scratched the back of his head. “That’s right. Not that you’ve been exactly quiet yourself. We can sometimes hear the racket you’re making out on the landing.”
    “That’s why I’m visiting,” she told him. “I want you to know that your concerns are my concerns. I’m heading up to my office for a week or two. I’ll stop by the other deputy stations as well. Things are going to improve around here in a lot of ways.”
    Hank frowned. “You know I trust you and all, but when you tell people around here that things are going to improve, all they hear is that things are going to change. And for those who are breathing and count that as a blessing, they take that to mean one thing and one thing only.”
    Juliette thought of all she had planned, in the Up Top as well as the Down Deep. “As long as good men like you trust me, we’ll be fine,” she said. “Now, I’ve got a favor to ask.”
    “You need a place to stay the night,” Hank guessed. He waved at the jail cell. “I saved your room for you. I can turn down the cot—”
    Juliette laughed. She was happy that they could already joke about what had moments ago been a discomfort. “No,” she said. “Thanks, though. I’m supposed to be up at the mids farms by lights out. I have to plant the first crop in a new patch of soil being turned over.” She waved her hand in the air. “It’s one of those things.”
    Hank smiled and nodded.
    “What I wanted to ask is that you keep an eye on the stairwell for me. Lukas mentioned there were grumbles up above. I’m going up to soothe them, but I want you to be on the alert if things go sour. We’re short-staffed below, and people are on edge.”
    “You expecting trouble?” Hank asked.
    Juliette considered the question. “I am,” she said. “If you need to take a shadow or two, I’ll budget it.”
    He frowned. “I normally like having chits thrown my way,” he said. “So why does this make me feel uncomfortable?”
    “Same reason I’m happy to pay,” Juliette said. “We both know you’re getting the busted end of the deal.”

9
    Leaving the deputy’s office, Juliette climbed through levels that had seen much of the fighting, and she noticed once more the silo’s wounds of war. She rose through ever-worsening reminders of the battles that had been waged in her absence, saw the marks left behind from the fighting, the jagged streaks of bright silver through old paint, the black burns and pockmarks in concrete, the rebar poking through like fractured bone through skin.
    She had devoted most of her life to holding that silo together, to keeping it running. This was a kindness repaid by the silo as it filled her lungs with air, gave rise to the crops, and claimed the dead. They were responsible for one another. Without people, this silo would become as Solo’s had: rusted and fairly drowned. Without the silo, she would be a skull on a hill, looking blankly to the cloud-filled skies. They needed each other.
    Her hand slid up the rail, rough with new welds, her own hand a mess of scars. For much of her life, they had kept each other going, she and the silo. Right up until they’d damn near killed each other. And now the minor hurts in Mechanical she had hoped to repair one day – squealing pumps, spitting pipes, leaks from the exhaust – all paled before the far worse wreckage her leaving had caused. In much the same way that the occasional scars – reminders of youthful missteps – were now lost beneath disfigured flesh, it seemed that one large mistake could bury all the minor ones.
    She took the steps one at a time and reached that place where a bomb had ripped a gap in the stairs. A patchwork of metal stretched across the ruin, a web of bar and rail scavenged from landings that now stood narrower than before. Names of those lost in the blast were