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The uprisings! Maybe it was just to prevent theain Holston applied an ablative filly lie of an unpleasant outside world was so out Could someone have decided that the truth orse than a loss of power, of control? Or was it so deeper and more sinister? A fear of unabashed, free, many-as-you-like children? So many horrible possibilities
And what of Allison? Where was she? Holston shuffled around the corner of the concrete tower toward the third lens, and the fae skyscrapers in the distant city cas than usual there Some stood to either side, and an unfaround The others, the ones he knew by heart, hole and shining, not twisted and jagged Holston gazed over the crest of the verdant hills and i over them at any minute But that was ridiculous Hoould she know he’d been expelled on this day? Would she remember the anniversary? Even after he’d missed the last two? Holston cursed his foro to her, he decided
He had a sudden impulse to do just that, to tear off his hel but his carbon undersuit, breathing in deep gulps of crisp air and laughing all the way to his waiting wife in so children
But no, there were appearances to keep, illusions to maintain He wasn’t sure why, but it hat his wife had done, what all the other cleaners before him had done Holston was now a roup There was a press of history, of precedent, to obey They had known best He would coroup he had just joined He wasn’t sure why he was doing it, only that everyone before him had, and look at the secret they all shared That secret was a powerful drug He only knew to do what he had been told, to follow the numbers on the pockets, to mechanically clean while he considered the aweso one couldn’t live to see it all, couldn’t breathe all the air, drink all the water, eat all the food
Holston dreas while he scrubbed dutifully on the third lens, wiped, applied, sprayed, then moved to the last His pulse was audible in his ears; his chest pounded in that constricting suit Soon, soon, he told hirime off the final lens He wiped and applied and sprayed a final ti back in its place, back in the nueous and healthy ground beneath his feet Done, Holston stepped back, took one last look into the nobodies not watching froe, then turned his back on those who had turned their backs on Allison and all the others before her There was a reason nobody caht, just as there was a reason everyone cleaned, even when they said they wouldn’t He was free; he was to join the others, and so he strolled toward that dark crease that ran up the hill, following in his wife’s footsteps, aware that soer lay there That, too, Holston decided, had been nothing more than another awful lie
7
Holston was a dozen paces up the hill, still rass at his feet and the brilliant sky above, when the first pang lurched in his stoer At first, he worried he was going too fast, first with the cleaning and noith his i in that cumbersome suit He didn’t want to take it off until he was over the hill, out of sight,whatever illusion the walls in the cafeteria held He focused on the tops of the skyscrapers and resigned hi down One step at a tihts of stairs should er this ti for it to pass When did he eat last? Not all yesterday Stupid When did he last use the bathrooet the suit off earlier than he’d hoped Once the wave of nausea passed, he took a fewto reach the top of the hill before the next bout of pain He only got another dozen steps in before it hit hi he’d ever felt Holston retched fro He clutched his abdoave out in a shiver of weakness He crashed to the ground and groaned His stoed to crawl forward a few feet, sweat dripping fro on the inside of his helht white, several ti strikes Confused and senseless, he crawled ever upward,laboriously, his startledthat hill
Again and again, his view shiht before it flickered away It beca before hiazed forward, up the hill, waiting for a clear sight of what lay ahead, but saw only infrequent strobes of green grass
And then his vision went away completely All was black Holston clawed at his face, even as his stolow, a blinking in his vision, so he kneasn’t blind But the blinking see fro It was his visor that had become suddenly blind, not him
Holston felt for the latches on the back of the helmet He wondered if he’d used up all his air Was he asphyxiating? Being poisoned by his own exhalations? Of course! Why would they give hi? He fuloves They weren’t loves were part of his suit, his suit a single piece zipped up twice at the back and velcroed over It wasn’tto die in it, poison hiasses, and now he knew true fear of contain to this as he scrambled for release, as he writhed in pain inside his tailored coffin He squirers were too big And the blindness made it worse, ain in pain He doubled over, hands spread in the dirt, and felt solove--a poke
He fumbled for the object and found it: a sharp rock A tool Holston tried to cal others, of bringing stability to chaos caripped the rock carefully, terrified of losing it to his blindness, and brought it up to his helloves with the rock, but he wasn’t sure his sanity or air would last that long He jabbed the point of the rock at his arht where the latch should be He heard the crack as it landed Crack Crack Pausing to probe with padded finger, retching again, Holston took more careful aiht intruded as one side of the hel on his exhalations, on the stale and used air around him He moved the rock to his other hand and aimed for the second latch Twofree
Holston could see His eyes burned fro able to breathe, but he could see He blinked the tears away and tried to suck in a deep, crisp, revitalizing lungful of blue air
What he got instead was like a punch to the chest Holston gagged He threw up spittle and sto to flee The world around hireen No blue No life
He collapsed to one side, landing on his shoulder His helmet lay open before hih the visor Holston reached for it, confused The outside of the visor was coated silver, the other side was nothing No glass A rough surface Wires leading in and out of it A display gone dark Dead pixels
He threw up again Wiping hisdown the hill, he saw the world with his naked eyes as it was, as he’d always known it to be Desolate and bleak He let go of the hel the lie he had carried out of the silo with hi him from the inside He blinked up at the black clouds overhead, roaotten, how far it was to the crest of the hill, and he saw the thing he had stu It hadn’t been there in his visor, hadn’t been a part of the lie on that little screen, running one of the programs Allison had found