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Marck dropped his rucksack, kissed her cheek, and ran with his rifle back up the stairs He tried to take the out, the ricochet of a miss His body felt incredibly heavy, slow like in a bad dreaun level, but the shooters were further up, peppering the crowd froher above

He checked that he had a fresh round in the ho Severalout over the railing above, barrels trained doard the ground floor of Mechanical One of the hbor and pointed toward Marck Marck watched all this down the length of his own barrel

He fired a shot, and a black rifle tu over the railing before sagging down and disappearing

Gunfire erupted, but he was already diving back toward the stairs The shouting grew furious both above and below him Marck went to the other side of the stairs, away from where he’d last been seen, and peered down The croas thinning by the security barrier More and h He could see Shirly looking up, shielding her eyes against the stairway lights above

Boots rang out behind hihest step he could see along the upward spiral He waited for whatever was heading doard him

When the first boot appeared, he steadied himself, allowed more of the er

Another black rifle clattered against the steps and bounced through the railing; another rip on his own gun, felt it bang against his shins as it skittered away from him, and he didn’t stop to retrieve it He slid down the steps, lost his footing, landed on his ass and bounced back up He tried taking the steps two at a tis like rusted steel--

There was a bang, a ht up, had punched him in the back, had hit him

Marck sprawled forward and bounced down the steps, his chin striking the steel treads Blood was in his ot his feet beneath him, and stumbled forward

Another roar, another punch to the back, the feeling that he’d been bit and kicked at the saht numbly He spilled down the last few steps, lost sensation in his legs, crashed to the grating

The bottom floor was nearly empty One person stood beside the tiny hole Another was half in and half out, boots kicking

Marck saw that it was Shirly, on her belly, looking back at hi on the floor So coainst his cheek There were noto shoot

Shirly was screa there

One of her arle, reached for hih cuts in the steel plates Her body slid forward, pulled by some force beyond, pushed by this nice person in yellow still standing by the strange wall of steel where the entrance to his ho she wouldn’t screa his words "I love you--"

And as if by command, her feet slid into the darkness, her screaular, shado

And the person in yellow turned The nice reide, his mouth fell open, and then his body jerked fro Marck saw, this man’s deathly dance

And he only distantly felt, but for a tremble of time, the end of him that came next

3

Three weeks later

• Silo 18 •

Walker remained in his cot and listened to the sounds of distant violence Shouts echoed down his hallway, e frounfire cauys followed by the ratatatat of the bad

There was an incredible bang, the roar of blasting powder against steel, and the back and forth crackle ended for adown his hallway, past his door The boots were the constant beat to the music of this neorld,from his cot, even with the blankets drawn over his head, even with his pillow on top, even as he begged, out loud, over and over, for it to please stop

The boots in the hallway carried with theainst his chest, wondering what tiet up

A brief respite of silence forroans too faint to penetrate his sealed door

Walker tried to fall asleep before the music was turned back up But as always: the quiet orse During the quiet, he grew anxious as he waited for the next patter to erupt His ihtened that very sleep away And he would grow terrified that the resistance was finally over, that the bad guys had won and were cory fist unmistakable to his expert ears Four harsh knocks, and then she was gone

Shirly She would have left his breakfast rations in the usual place and taken away last night’s picked-over and runted and rolled his old bones over to the other side Boots clo And his once quiet hallway, so far fro to, was now a busy thoroughfare It was the entrance hall that mattered now, the funnel into which all the hate was poured Screw the silo, the people above and the round, pile the bodies on either side until one gives, do it because it was yesterday’s cause, and because nobody wanted to remember back any further than yesterday

But Walker did He reap in his filthy cocoon, Walker could see Jenkins, a boy in his twenties but with a beard that made him appear older, a boy who had inherited this h the ht for Walker’s cot