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He turned and studied the scrawl of red marks on the wall schematic There were Xs and question marks There were notes in red ink with lines and arrows Ten or a dozen of the silos wereto count, to one?"

She took a deep breath "We don’t know" She finished her water, walked down the long line of chairs pushed up against the table, and reached down into the seat of one She procured a bottle and poured a few fingers into her plastic cup Better than a blue pill, Donald thought

"It started with Silo 40," she said "It went dark about a year ago--"

"Went dark?"

Anna took a sip of the scotch and nodded She licked her lips "The caot them all We lost contact with the heads over there Couldn’t raise anyone Erskine was running the shift at the tiave the okay to shut the silo down--"

"You mean kill everyone"

Anna shot him a look "You knohat had to be done"

Donald re that same decision As if there had been a decision to make The syste what ca a set of procedures written down by someone else? He reroup of students arguing that the first president to drop a bomb hadn’t had any other choice All that ti this was the only way What was heroic or brave about carrying out the inevitable? What kind of man would it have taken to have bucked the expected? What if he hadn’t aborted Silo 12? What if those people had scurried over the hills and had realized they weren’t alone? Who would be the hero then? Who the villain?

He studied the poster with the red marks "And the rest of the pull and gasped for air afterward Donald caught her eyeing the bottle "They woke up Dad when 42 went Two one dark by the time he came for me--"

Two more silos "Why you?" he asked

She tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear "Because there was no one else Because everyone who had a hand in designing this place was either gone or at their wits’ end Because Dad was desperate"

"He wanted to see you"

She laughed "It wasn’t that Trust ement of circles on the table and the spread of papers "They were using the radios at high frequencies We think it started with 40, that ue They hijacked their antenna and began co with the other silos around them, and we couldn’t cut them off They had taken care of that as well As soon as Dad suspected this, he argued with the others that wireless networks were my specialty They eventually relented"

"The others? Who all knows you’re here?" Donald couldn’t help but think how dangerous this could get, butat hiht me out But those assistants won’t work another shift--"

"Deep freeze?"

Anna frowned and splashed her cup, and it occurred to Donald how one by Another silo had been lost, another red X drawn on the map An entire corner of silos had run into some kind of trouble Thur with it His daughter as well So s with bat-like wings and piles of bones He waved his ar on this"

She jerked her head at the door and laughed "I’ve been cooped up in worse for a lot longer But yeah, it sucks I’ her expression, and Donald wondered if perhaps he ake because of her weakness just as she ht be awake because of her father’s What was next? Hi the deep freeze for his sister Charlotte? Hoould it end?

"We’ve lost contact with eleven silos so far" Anna peered into her cup "I think I’ve got it contained, but we’re still trying to figure out how it happened or if anyone’s still alive over there I don’t think so, but Dad wants to send scouts Others say that’s a bigger risk And now it looks like 18 is going to burn itself to the ground"

"And I’m supposed to help? What does your dad think I know?" He stepped around the planning table and waved for the bottle Anna splashed her cup and handed the drink to him; she reached for another cup by her monitor while Donald collapsed onto her cot It was a lot to take in

"It’s not Dad who thinks you know anything He didn’t want you up at all No one’s supposed to come out of deep freeze" She screwed the cap back on the bottle "It was his boss"

Donald nearly choked on his first sip of the scotch He sputtered and wiped his chin with his sleeve while Anna looked on with concern

"His boss?" he asked, gasping for air

She narrowed her eyes "Dad told you why you’re here, right?"

He fu ht he was in charge"

Anna laughed, but there was no hue," she told hie It just runs We built it to just go" She got up fro on the wall for a s squeaking in coive herthe holes, that was his job There were three of them who planned most of this The other two had ideas for how to hide this place Dad convinced theht The nuclear containment facility was his idea, and he was in a position to make it happen"

A flood ofconvinced to run for office Was it Mick who had goaded him into it? Or was it Thurman?

"You said three Who were the others?"

"Victor and Erskine" Anna adjusted a pillow and leaned back against the wall "Not their real names, of course But what does it matter? A name is a name You can be anyone down here Erskine was the one who discovered the original threat, who told Victor and Dad about the nanos You’llon the loss of these silos, but it’s out of his area of expertise Do you needdizzy" He didn’t add that it wasn’t from the alcohol "I remember a Victor from my shift He worked across the hall from me"

"The same" She looked away for awith Victor for a while, and he never thought of hiht of hi like Noah He wanted to wake you o because of this Silo 18, but Dad vetoed the idea I think Victor was fond of you He talked about you a lot"

"Victor talked about me?" Donald remembered the man across the hall from him, the shrink Anna reached up and wiped at the bottom of her eyes

"Yes He was a brilliant , what anyone was thinking He planned inal Pact It was all his design"