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Suddenly, Holston saw hi on a worn bench, his skin gray frohtreasonable to latch onto, so that made sense It seemed a dream, the predicament his life had beco seemed true anymore

He turned back to the tan hills In the corner of his eye, he thought he saw another pixel die, turning stark white Another tinyhad opened, another clear view through an illusion he had grown to doubt

Toely, even if I die out there

"I’ve been Mayor too long," Jahns said

Holston glanced back and saw that her wrinkled hands rapped around the cold steel

"Our records don’t go back to the beginning, you know They don’t go back before the uprising a century and a half ago, but since then no Mayor has sentthan I have"

"I’m sorry to burden you," Holston said dryly

"I take no pleasure in it That’s all I’ No pleasure at all"

Holston swept his hand at the massive screen

"But you’ll be the first to watch a clear sunset toht, won’t you?" He hated the way he sounded Holston wasn’t angry for his death, or life, or whatever came after toered He continued to see inevitable events fro after they’d taken their course "You’ll all love the view tomorrow," he said to himself

"That’s not fair at all," Jahns said "The law is the law You broke it You knew you were breaking it"

Holston looked at his feet The two of them allowed a silence to form Mayor Jahns was the one who eventually broke it

"You haven’t threatened yet to not go through with it Soht not do the cleaning because you aren’t saying you won’t"

Holston laughed "They’d feel better if I said I wouldn’t clean the sensors?" He shook his head at the onna do it," Jahns told him, "but then they do It’s e’ve all come to expect--"

"Allison never threatened that she wouldn’t do it," Holston reminded her, but he knehat Jahns meant He himself had been sure Allison wouldn’t wipe the lenses And now he thought he understood what she’d been going through as she sat on that very bench There were larger things to consider than the act of cleaning Most prisoners sent outside were caught at so, were surprised to find thee was on their mind when they said they wouldn’t do it There was a reflexive obstinacy But Allison and now Holston had bigger worries Whether or not they’d clean was inconsequential; they had arrived here because they wanted, on some insane level, to be here All that remained was the curiosity of it all The wonder of the outside world beyond the veil of lies

"So, are you planning on going through with it or not?" Jahns asked directly, her desperation evident

"You said it yourself" Holston shrugged "Everyone does it There ht?"

He pretended not to care, to be disinterested in the why of the cleaning, but he had spentover the why The question drove hi to answer Jahns caused pain to those who had murdered his wife, he wouldn’t be upset

Jahns rubbed her hands up and down the bars, anxious "Can I tell them you’ll do it?" she asked

"Or tell them I won’t I don’t care It sounds like either ansill mean the same to them"

Jahns didn’t reply Holston looked up at her, and the Mayor nodded

"If you change your mind about the ht, as is tradition--"

She didn’t need to say Tears came to Holston’s eyes as he remembered that part of his foro when Donna Parkins was put to cleaning, eight years ago when it was Jack Brent’s ti on the floor, a coo when it was his wife’s turn

Mayor Jahns turned to go

"Sheriff," Holston ot out of earshot

"I’ray, bushy brows hanging over her eyes

"It’s Sheriff Marnes, now," Holston reminded her "Not Deputy"

Jahns rapped a steel bar with her knuckles "Eat so you get sootta be kidding me," Allison said "Honey, listen to this You won’t believe this Did you know there was ?"

Holston looked up from the folder spread across his lap Around him, scattered piles of paper covered the bed like a quilt--stacks and stacks of old files to sort through and new coe Allison sat at her small desk at the foot of the bed The two of them lived in one of the silo condos that had only been subdivided twice over the decades It left room for luxuries like desks and wide non-bunk beds