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That afternoon, Donald and Anna worked to restore order to the war roo a future shift All their notes were taken off the walls and filed away into airtight plastic crates, and Donald iined these would sit on another level soather dust The co coiled up, and these were hauled off by Erskine on a cart with squeaky wheels All that was left were the cots, a change of clothes, and the standard issue toiletries Enough to get the with Dr Henson the following day

Several shifts were about to co ti Two full shifts Almost a year awake Erskine and Henson would need a feeeks to finish their work, and by that time the next Head would come on, and the schedule would return to normal For Donald, it had been less than a week awake after nearly a century of sleep He was a dead man who had blinked his eyes open for but atold hiht still be a mountain of skulls to climb, but some of those bleached skulls with their eleaned froreat reset of Silo 18 Soht of them as he took his last shower, as he brushed his teeth, took his first dose of the bitter drink so that no one would think anything was a To him, this deep freeze orse than death Not only did it carry hih the years while she returned to dust, the deep freeze was a false sleep that could only be filled with nightedy

If he went back to sleep, they would never get his were so bad that he wouldn’t want to be woken anyway Unless it were Anna onceto subject hiet it

That wasn’t sleep That was a body and a mind stored away There were other choices, more final ways out Donald had discovered this resolve by following a trail of clues left behind by Victor, and he would soon arrive at the man’s sauns and drones He touched the wings beneath the tarps, and finally retired to his cot He thought of Helen as he lay there listening to Anna sing in the shower one last ti lived and loved without hi to find solace in Anna’s eht fro on her flesh, he could not be strong They had the same bitter drink on their breath, that concoction that prepped their veins for the deep sleep, and neither of them cared Donald succumbed And then he waited until she had returned to her cot and her breathing had softened before he cried himself to sleep And in that sleep, he discovered no doubts about the voyage he had planned for the following day

When he woke, Anna was already gone, her cot neatlythe sheets beneath the h he knew the sheets would be htful place in the barracks He checked the ti so as not to be spotted He had less than an hour before Thurh time

He went out to the storeroo the tarp off sent a cloud of dust into the air Donald coughed and covered his ed out the es He opened the low hangar door and arranged the tough plastic bin so that it was slightly inside the lift He lowered the door onto the bin to keep the s the adjacent door, he hurried down the hallway, past the empty barracks, and pulled the plastic sheet off the station at the very end His explorations had recently turned fro the plastic cover off the lift switch, he threw it into the up position The first tier open, but he could hear the platfor upward on the other side of the wall It hadn’t taken long to figure out a solution

Replacing the plastic sheet, he hurried down the hall He could still taste the bitter prepping agent in histhat It would be a horrible final taste

He turned off the light in the hall and shut the door The other bin was pulled out fro The contents had been asseed carefully Donald stripped and tossed his clothes under the drone He pulled out the thick plastic suit and sat down to work his feet into the legs The boots went on next, Donald being careful to seal the cuffs around the shoelace stolen from an extra boot The end had been tied to the zipper on the back of the suit He pulled it over his shoulder and tugged upward, hand over hand, like he’d seen surfers and divers do He loves, flashlight, and helloves, as the latches were difficult to operate After tugging on the second glove, he did one final check of the suit to be sure everything was properly sealed Satisfied, he closed the bin and slid the container back under the wing before covering the drone with the tarp There would only be a single trunk out of place when Thurman arrived Victor had left a mess to discover Donald would hardly leave a trace

He crawled inside the lift on his belly, pushing the flashlight ahead of hiainst the pinned bin toon the flashlight, he took a last look at the storeroom, braced hied There was a scraping sound He kicked again, and the lift shook from the violence Just a few ot his boots back inside in time There was a thunderous racket as the door sla like an explosion, and then he felt the shudder of ht jittered and danced Donald corralled the loose flashlight between histhe inside of his hel it For once, he was the agent of change He was going somewhere by choice

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The ride up took er than he anticipated There wereHis body told hi back down, that he had changed direction He greorried that his plan had been discovered, that the misplaced bin had led the recalled He urged the lift to hurry along

His flashlight gave out Donald tapped the cylinder in his mitt and worked the switch back and forth It e He was left in the dark with all the sensation of awhich as up nor dohether he was bobbing or sinking, rising or drowning All he could do ait And again, he knew that this was the right decision There was nothing worse than being trapped in the darkness, unable to do anything more than wait This final ti

Arrival ca clank The persistent hu There was a second clank, and then the door opposite the one he’d entered slowly rose A metal nub on the floor the size of a fist slid forward on a track that linked up with a groove outside Donald scrauided forward

He found hi launch bay He hadn’t knohat to expect, thought maybe he’d simply arrive above the soil on a barren landscape, but he was in a shaft A dier Above hi Beyond this slit, Donald spotted the roiling clouds he knew froray that came with a sunrise The doors at the top of the slope continued to slide apart like awide

Donald crawled up the steep slope as quickly as he could The metal car in the track stopped and locked into place Donald hurried, i he didn’t have much time He stayed off the track in case the launch sequence was automated, but the nub never moved, never raced by He arrived at the open doors exhausted and perspiring and ed to haul himself out

The world spread out before hi in a less charave, the scale and openness were inspiring Donald felt like tearing off his hel in deep breaths of non-confineht of his silo imprisonment had been lifted Above him were only the clouds

He stood on a round concrete platfor for the launch ramp was a cluster of antennas He went to these, held onto one of thee below Fro to hold onto the slick edge with bulky gloves, and then a graceless drop to the dirt