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Present Time

Holston sat on the lone steel bench in the airlock, his brain numb from lack of sleep and the surety of what lay before hi lab, knelt in front of hi of the white hazard suit over Holston’s foot

"We’ve played around with the joint seals and added a second spray-on lining," Nelson was saying "It should give you istered for Holston, and he re The top floor of the silo with its great screens showing the outside world was usually es The people inside couldn’t bear to watch what they’d done--or maybe they wanted to coet it But Holston had watched; there was never any doubt that he would He couldn’t see Allison’s face through her silver-h the bulky suit as she scrubbed and scrubbed with her wool pads, but he knew her walk, herher ti it well, and then she had stepped back, looked in the camera one last time, waved at him, then turned to walk away Like others before her, she had luing toward the dilapidated spires of that ancient and cru city just visible over the horizon Holston hadn’t moved the entire ti her hel while the toxins first ate away the spray-on linings, then the suit, and finally his wife, he hadn’t moved

"Other foot"

Nelson slapped his ankle Holston lifted his foot and allowed the tech to bunch the rest of the suit around his shins Looking at his hands, at the black carbon undersuit he wore against his skin, Holston pictured it all dissolving off his body, sloughing away like flakes of dried grease froenerator’s pipe while the blood burst frorab the bar and stand--"

Nelson alking hih a routine he’d seen twice before Once with Jack Brent, who had been belligerent and hostile right up to the end, forcing hiuard by the bench And once with his wife, whoh the airlock’s s these others, but he still needed to be told His thoughts were elsewhere Reaching up, he grabbed the trapeze-like bar hanging above hirabbed the sides of the suit and yanked them up to Holston’s waist Two empty arms flapped to either side

"Left hand here"

Holston numbly obeyed It was surreal to be on the other side of this--this mechanical death-walk of the condemned Holston had often wondered why people co Even Jack Brent had done what he was told, as foul mouthed and verbally abusive as he’d been Allison had done it quiet, just like this, Holston thought as he inserted one hand and then the other The suit ca because they couldn’t believe it was happening None of it was real enough to rebel against The animal part of his mind wasn’t made for this, to be calmly ushered to a death it was perfectly aware of

"Turn"

He did

There was a tug at the s sound up to his neck Another tug, another zip Two layers of futility The crunch of industrial Velcro over top Pats and double-checks Holston heard the hollow helers inside the puffy gloves while Nelson checked over the doo over the procedure one more tilanced toward the airlock door leading back to the silo Holston didn’t need to look to know so "Bear with me," Nelson said "I have to do it by the book"

Holston nodded, but he knew there wasn’t any "book" Of all the enerations, none matched the cult-like intensity of the suit ave the, but these were the people who made it possible These were the men and women who maintained the view to that wider world beyond the silo’s stifling confines

Nelson placed the helot your scrubbers here" He patted the wool pads stuck to the front of the suit

Holston pulled one off with a ripping sound, studied the whorls and curls of the rough material, then stuck it back on

"Two squirts fro bottle before you scrub with the wool, then dry with this towel, then put the ablating filh they were clearly labeled and numbered--upside down so Holston could read them--and color-coded

Holston nodded and met the tech’s eyes for the first time He was surprised to see fear there, fear he had learned well to notice in his profession He al before it occurred to hiht, that Holston would walk out--like everyone in the silo feared all prisoners would--and not do his duty Not clean up for the people whose rules had killed hiear he and his colleagues had built, using those secrets and techniques handed down froo away and rot to no purpose?

"You okay?" Nelson asked "Anything too tight?"

Holston glanced around the airlock My life is too tight, he wanted to say My skin is too tight The walls are too tight

He just shook his head

"I’m ready," he whispered

It was the truth Holston was oddly and truly very o

And he remembered, suddenly, how ready his wife had been as well

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