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The guard lifted his shoulders "You’re the mayor I can’t say no" He jabbed the nub of chalk down the hall, the people lined up outside the gate shifting iet someone to run you down"

Knox was a est set of coveralls Jahns had ever seen She wondered if the extra denied to keep such a belly full A thick beard added to his scope If he smiled or frowned at their approach, it was impossible to know He was as unmoved as a wall of concrete

Jahns explained what they were after Marnes said hello, and she realized they must’ve met the last time he was down Knox listened, nodded, and then bellowed in a voice so gruff, the words were indistinguishable fro boy materialized froe hair

"Giterowled, the space between the words as slender as the gap in his beard where aeven for a shadoaved his hand and darted away Marnes thanked Knox, who didn’t budge, and they followed after the boy

The corridors in Mechanical, Jahns saere even tighter than elsewhere in the silo They squeezed through the end-of-shift traffic, the concrete blocks on either side priainst her shoulder Overhead, parallel and twisting runs of pipe and wire conduit hung exposed Jahns felt the urge to duck, despite the half foot of clearance She did notice hts overhead were di deeper and deeper into the earth overwhele hair led thely habitual They caht turns, and went doo row louder as they descended When they left the stairwell on one-forty-two, they passed an odd contraption in a wide open room just off the hallway A steel ar up and down, driving a piston through the concrete floor Jahns slowed to watch its rhyth che rotten She couldn’t place it

"Is this the generator?"

Marnes laughed in a patronizing, uniquely manly way

"That’s a puht"

He squeezed her shoulder as he walked past, and Jahns forgave hi at her She hurried after hi you hear," Marnes said "The pu to it in a plant a few floors down, and then it’s ready to burn"

Jahns vaguely knew so She was aain, at how much of the silo was alien to even her, she as supposed to be--no in the walls grew louder as they neared the end of the hall When the boy with the orange hair pulled open the doors, the sonic blast was i further, and even Marnes seeestures, and Jahns found herself willing her feet to carry her toward the noise She wondered, suddenly, if they were being led outside It was an illogical, senseless idea, borne of ierous threat she could possibly su behind Marnes, the boy let the door slaht He pulled headphones--no wires dangling from them--from a rack by the wall Jahns followed his lead and put a pair over her own ears The noise deadened, res She wondered why, for what cause, this rack of ear protection would be located inside the roo, but it was just eway of steel grating, a floor s on each silo floor When the hallway turned, one wall fell away and was replaced with a railing of three horizontal bars Beyond, aloomed It was the size of her entire aparter thanat first, nothing to justify the pounding she could feel in her chest and across her skin It wasn’t until they fully rounded theout of the back of the unit, spinning ferociously, and disappearing into another massive metalup toward the ceiling

The power and energy in the room were palpable As they reached the end of the secondbeside it A young looking wo out the back, was leaning into a wrench nearly as long as she was tall Her presence gave thesense of scale, but she didn’t seem to fear thehtfully close to the roaring unit, re Jahns of an old children’s tale where a inary beast called an elephant The idea of a wo a machine of such ferocity see shadow slipped through a gate and ran up to tug on her coveralls

The woman turned, not startled, and squinted at Jahns and Marnes She wiped her forehead with the back of one hand, her other hand swinging the wrench around to rest on her shoulder She patted the young shadow on the head and walked out to meet them Jahns saw that the woman’s arms were lean and defined with h up over her chest, exposing a bit of olive skin that gleamed with sweat She had the sahts, but it could have been as rime if her denims were any indication

She stopped short of Jahns and Marnes and nodded at thenition She didn’t offer a hand, for which Jahns was grateful Instead, she pointed toward a door by a glass partition, and then headed that way herself

Marnes followed on her heels like a puppy, Jahns close behind She turned to make sure the shadoasn’t underfoot, only to see hi in the wan overhead lights of the generator room His duty, as far as he was concerned, was done

Inside the small control roo as the thick door was shut tight Juliette pulled off her hardhat and earmuffs and dropped them on a shelf Jahns took hers away from her head tentatively, heard the noise reduced to a distant huht and croithshe had ever seen It was strange to her that she was Mayor of this roo she hardly knew existed and certainly couldn’t operate

While the ringing in Jahns’ ears subsided, Juliette adjusted solass shields "I thought ere doing this to," she said She concentrated intently on her work

"We made better ti his ear protection in both hands, shifting uncoain, Jules," he said

She nodded and leaned down to peer through the thick glassat the gargantuan e control board without needing to look, adjusting large black dials with faded whitedown at a bank of readouts She turned and studied Marnes, and Jahns saw that this woriht She had a fierce intelligence you could measure from a distance And she peered at Marnes with utmost sympathy, visible in the furrow of her brows "Really," she said "I’ood

Juliette nodded as if that was all that needed saying She turned to Jahns

"That vibration you feel in the floor, Mayor? That’s a coupling when it’s barely two millio put your hands on the casing It’ll jiggle your fingers nuh, and your bones will rattle like you’re co apart"