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"Then why a held here?" Juliette asked She realized suddenly that thereafter all Off to the side, down the hallway, she could see Peter shuffling back and forth like so any closer

"Unauthorized entry on the thirty-fourth," Bernard said "Threatening aIT property from secured quarters--"

"That’s ratshit," Juliette said "I was suht to be there!"

"We will look into that," Bernard said "Well, Peter here will I’m afraid he’s had to remove your computer for evidence My people down below are best qualified to see if--"

"Your people? Are you trying to be Mayor or IT Head? Because I looked into it, and the Pact clearly states you can’t be both--"

"That will be put to a vote soon enough The Pact has changed before It’s designed to change when events call for it"

"And so you want me out of the way" Juliette stepped closer to the bars so she could see Peter Billings, and have hi? Is that right?"

Peter slunk out of sight

"Juliette Jules" Bernard shook his head and clicked his tongue at her "I don’t want you out of the way I wouldn’t want that for any member of the silo I want people to be in their place Where they fit in Scottie wasn’t cut out for IT, I see that now And I don’t think you were meant for the up-top"

"So, what, I’ on? Over soes?"

"Banished is such a horrible word I’m sure you didn’t mean that And don’t you want your old job back? Weren’t you happier then? There’s so much to learn up here that you’ve never shadowed for And the people who thought you best fit for this job, who I’ht there, and it was so Jules to coe rather than just hear it She pictured tworinds tossed on top of thes, what isn’t needed for evidence, and then allow you to see yourself back down As long as you check in with ress, we’ll drop these charges Consider it an extension of htened his glasses

Juliette gritted her teeth It occurred to her that she had never, in her entire life, punched so, of not doing it correctly and cracking her knuckles on one of the steel bars, that prevented her fro an end to that streak

• • • •

It was just about a week since she had arrived at the up-top, and Juliette was leaving with fewer belongings than she’d brought A blue Mechanical coverall had been provided, one oodbye Juliette thought it was h the cafeteria to the top of the stairs, and as she turned to shake his hand, she found hiht in his coveralls, her sheriff’s badge pinned at an angle over his left breast

Juliette began her long walk down through the length of the silo It would be less physically taxing than her walk up had been, butin other ways What exactly had happened to the silo, and why? She couldn’t help but feel in the middle of it all, to shoulder some of the blame None of this would have happened had they left her in Mechanical, had they never co about the alignht as she waited for the inevitable failure and a descent into chaos as they learned to survive on backup power for the decades it would take to rebuild the thing Instead, she had been witness to a different type of failure: a throwing not of rods but of bodies She felt most horrible for poor Scottie, a boy with so much promise, so many talents, taken before his pri on her breast for but a wink, and yet she felt an incredible urge to investigate There was sons were there, sure He had been afraid to leave his office--but then, he’d also shadowed under Walker and had maybe picked up the habit of reclusiveness fro for his young h to wire her to come quickly--but she knew the boy like her own shadow, and knew he didn’t have it in him She suddenly wondered if Marnes had ever had it in him as well If Jahns were here beside her, would the old Mayor be screa her that none of this fit?

"I can’t," Juliette whispered to the ghost, causing an upbound porter to turn his head as he passed

She kept further thoughts to herself As she descended toward her father’s nursery, she paused at the landing, conte in to see him than she had on her way up Pride had prevented her the first tiain, spiraling doay frohosts froo been banished froain considered stopping There would be clues in Scottie’s office, ed to scrub away She shook her head The conspiracies were already for in her mind And as hard as it was to leave the scene of the crime behind, she knew she wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near his office

She continued down the staircase and thought, as she considered IT’s location in the silo, that this couldn’t be an accident either She had another thirty-two floors to go before she checked in with the first deputy, as located near the center of the mids The sheriff’s office was thirty-three floors above her head IT, then, was as far as it could get from any deputy station in the silo

She shook her head at this paranoid thinking It wasn’t how diagnoses werewith the first deputy around noon, and accepting a piece of bread and fruit, along with a reh theas she passed the upper apartments which level Lukas lived on, or if he even knew of her arrest

The weight of the past week see at her boots, the pressures of being sheriff dissipating as she left that office far behind Those pressures were slowly replaced with an eagerness to return to her friends, even in shaot closer and closer to Mechanical