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She was left at last with Walker’s note, the only one she couldn’t figure As the sun set over the harsh landscape, the wind dying down for the night and allowing the dust to settle, she read his words over and over, trying to deduce what heThe truth is a joke and they’re good in Supply

-Walk

• • • •

She wasn’t sure how she fell asleep, only that she woke up and found notes like peeled chips of paint around her cot, ht Juliette turned her head and peered through the darkness, realizing someone was there A man stood behind the bars When she stirred, he pulled away, a wedding band singing with the sound of steel on steel She rose hurriedly frorabbed theh the darkness as the figurethrough the grate

But he didn’t turn The tall figure hurried his pace, slipping into the void, a e now, as well as a distant childhood memory

• • • •

The following sunrise was so to behold There was a rare break in the low, dark clouds that allowed visible rays of golden smoke to slide sideways across the hills Juliette lay in her cot, watching the di on her hands, the s froht of the hts to construct a suit tailored for her, their blasted parts ported up froh, to get her through the cleaning but no further

In all the ordeal of her handcuffed cliht of the actual cleaning had never occurred to her until now, on the veryof that duty She felt, with absolute certainty, that she would not perform the act She knew they all said this, every cleaner, and that they all experienced soical, perhaps spiritual, transformation on the threshold of their deaths and performed nonetheless But she had no one up-top to clean for She wasn’t the first cleaner from Mechanical, but she was determined to be the first to refuse

She said as much as Peter took her from her cell and led her to that yellow door A tech fro last-minute adjustments to her suit

Juliette listened to his instructions with a clinical detachn She realized--if she hadn’t been so busy working two shifts in Mechanical to keep the floods out, the oil in, the power hu--that she could make a better suit in her sleep She studied washers and seals identical to the kind ened, she knew, to break down The shiny coat of heat tape, applied in overlapping strips to form the skin of the suit, she knew to be purposefully inferior She nearly pointed these things out to the tech as he proed on her gloves, helped with her boots, and explained the numbered pockets

Juliette repeated the mantra frohing The truth is a joke And they are in good Supply

The tech checked her gloves and the velcro seals over her zippers while Juliette puzzled over Walker’s note Why had he capitalized "Supply?" Or was she even re it correctly? Now, she couldn’t remember A strip of tape went around one boot, then the other Juliette laughed at the spectacle of it all It was all so utterly pointless They should bury her in the dirt farood

The helmet came last, handled with obvious care The tech had her hold it while he adjusted thecollar around her neck She looked down at her reflection in the visor, her eyes hollow and so er than she felt Finally, the hellass The tech reon blast, of the fires that would follow She would have to get out quickly or die a far worse death inside

He left her to consider this The yellow door behind her clanged shut Its wheel spun on the inside as if by a ghost

Juliette wondered if she should siive this spiritual awakening a chance to persuade her What would they say in Mechanical when that tale spiraled its way through the silo? Some would be proud of her obstinacy, she knew Soone out that way, in a bone-charring inferno A few h to take the first step out the door, that she’d wasted the chance to see the outside with her own eyes

Her suit crinkled as the argon was puh pressure to temporarily hold the outside toxins at bay She found herself shuffling toward the door, al in the roo bench, and she knew the end had co like the skin of a pea, giving her a view of the outside through a haze of condensing steah that crack, followed by another And Julietteit on her own terh this lilass, she suddenly realized

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Bernard watched the cleaning froathered their supplies in Peter’s office It was his habit to view these things alone--his techs rarely joined hied their equipht for the stairwell Bernard was ashamed sometimes of the superstitions, the fears, he fostered even in his own men