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Juliette wanted to tell hi time, but remembered what it had felt like as a shadohen people dismissed her the same way

"What’s the point?" she asked, and saw his saze to the wall and doused the flashlight Juliette realized she’d asked the wrong question, had upset hi illicit in this activity of his, anything that defied the taboos Was collecting data on the outside any different than the people who sat and stared at the hills? She made a mental note to ask Marnes about this, when the ain in the darkness

"My nah to see his hand stretched out toward her

"Juliette," she replied, grabbing and squeezing his palm

"The new sheriff"

It wasn’t a question, and of course he kneho she was Everyone up top seemed to

"What do you do when you’re not up here?" she asked She was pretty sure this wasn’t his job Nobody should get chits for staring up at the clouds

"I live in the upperthe day I only coht back on and turned toward her in a way that suggested the stars weren’t the uy on ets ho the day If he gives me the thu a schee sheet of paper

"Trying to It’ll probably take a few lifeti froers clean of black residue

"And then what?" Juliette asked

"Well, hopefully I’ll infect some shadoith my sickness and they’ll pick up wherever I leave off"

"So literally, like, several lifetihed, and Juliette realized it was a pleasant one "At least," he said

"Well, I’ll leave you to it," she said, suddenly feeling guilty for talking to him She stood and reached out her hand, and he took it warmly He pressed his other paler than she would have expected

"Pleasure to meet you, Sheriff"

He smiled up at her And Juliette didn’t understand a word of what she , Juliette arrived early at her desk having stolen little more than four hours of sleep Beside her co on her--a small bundle wrapped in recycled pulp paper and encircled hite electrical ties She smiled at this last touch and reached into her coveralls for herout the smallest pick from the tool, she stuck it into the clasp of one of the electrical ties and slowly pulled the ratcheting device apart, keeping it intact for future use She reotten into as aa plastic tie from an electrical board Walker, already an old crank those decades ago, had yelled at her for the waste and then had shown her how to tease the little clasp loose to preserve the tie for later use

Years had passed, and when she wasthis lesson on to another shadow na lad at the time, but she had lit into him when he had made the sa the poor boy white as a cinder block, and he had remained nervous around her for months after Maybe because of that outburst, she had paid hi, and eventually, the two had grown close He quickly grew up to becora chip in less tiether

She loosened the other tie crossing the package, and knew the bundle was froo, Scottie had been recruited by IT and had moved up to the thirties He had become "too smart for Mechanical," as Knox had put it Juliette set the two electrical straps aside and pictured the young e for her The request she’d wired down to Mechanical the night before ht dutifully doing this favor for her

She pried the paper apart carefully Both it and the plastic ties would need to be returned; they were both too dear for her to keep and light enough to porter on the cheap As the package caes and had folded these tabs under each other, a trick children learned so they could wrap notes without the expense of glue or tape She disassembled his meticulous ith care, and the paper finally came loose Inside, she found a plastic box like the kind used to sort nuts and bolts for small projects down in Mechanical

She opened the lid and saw that the package wasn’t just fro with a copy of her request Tears came to her eyes as the smell of Mama Jean’s oatmeal and cornflour cookies drifted out She plucked one, held it to her nose, and breathed deeply Maybe she irease e from the old box--the s paper carefully and placed the cookies on top She thought of the people she would have to share them with Marnes, of course, but also Pa her settle into her new apart secretary, whose eyes had been red with grief for over a week She pulled the last cookie out and finally spotted the s around in the bottom of the container, a littlethe crurabbed it and set the plastic case aside She blew into the littleany debris out, before slotting it into the front of her coet around the a claim, a report, a request, or so into punostics, all of that

Once the light on the drive winked on, she navigated to it on her screen Inside, she found a host of folders and files; the little drive must’ve been stuffed to the briotten any sleep at all the night before

At the top of a list of primary folders was a file named "Jules" She clicked this one, and up popped a short text file obviously froht with this, okay? This is everything from Mr Lawman’s computers, work and home, the last five years A ton of stuff, but wasn’t sure what you needed and this was easier to autoot plenty

(And I took a cookie Hope you don’tout and brushing her fingers across the words, but it wasn’t paper and wouldn’t be the same She closed the note and deleted it, then cleared out her trash Even the first letter of her name up there felt like too much information

She leaned away from her desk and peered into the cafeteria, which appeared dark and e, and she would have the upper floor to herself for a while She first took a h the directory structure to see what kind of data she was dealing with Each folder was neatly labeled It appeared she had an operating history of Holston’s two co back a little anized by date and time Juliette felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of inforh in a lifetime

But at least she had it The answers she needed were in there, so all those files And so that the solution to this riddle, to Holston’s decision to go to cleaning, could now fit in the palm of her hand

• • • •

She was several hours into sifting through the data when the cafeteria crew staggered in to clean up last night’s mess and prepare for breakfast One of the et used to about the up-top was the exacting schedule everyone kept There was no third shift There was barely a second shift, except for the dinner staff In the down deep, the machines didn’t sleep, and so the workers barely did either Work crews often stayed on into extra shifts, and so Juliette had gotten used to surviving on a handful of hours of rest a night The trick was to pass out now and then froainst a ith one’s eyes closed for fifteen h to hold the tiredness at bay