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And Knox, that stout and unone

Marck hurried down the steps, wounded and afraid He was a long way from the safety of the down deep--and he desperately wanted to find his wife He concentrated on this rather than the past, tried not to think of the explosion that had taken his friends, had wrecked their plans, had engulfed any chance at justice

Muffled shots rang out fro steel--only steel, thank God Marck stayed away fro, away fros above with their sood people of Mechanical and Supply had been running and fighting for over a dozen levels; Marck silently begged the ive the

Half a level later, he caught up to threeported, ar the backs of their yellow coveralls He yelled at the, couldn’t hear his own voice, could just feel it in his chest So in was his own

With his injured arainst his chest, his rifle cradled in the crook of his elbow, Marck kept his other hand on the railing to keep fro headfirst down the steep stairwell There were no allies behind him, none still alive After the last shootout, he had sent the others ahead, had barely gotten away hi, tireless Marck would pause now and then, fumble with the unreliable ammunition, chamber a shot, and fire wildly up the stairwell Just to do so To slow them down

He stopped to take a breath, leaned out over the railing, and swung his rifle toward the sky The next round was a dud The bullets buzzing back at hiainst the stairwell’s central post, he took the time to reload His rifle wasn’t like theirs One shot at a tiuns like he’d never heard of, shots cohtened pulse Hebelow, could see curious faces through a cracked doorway, fingers curled around the edge of the steel ja forty-two The last place he’d seen his wife

"Shirly!"

Calling her naered down a quarter turn until he was level with the landing He kept close to the interior, out of sight from his pursuers, and searched the shadowed faces

"My wife!" he yelled across the landing, a hand cupped to his cheeks, forgetting that the incredible ringing was only in his ears, not theirs "Where is she?"

A mouth moved in the dark crowd The voice was a dull and distant drone

Soed; the cracked door twitched shut as another ricochet screahtened boots below and the chasing ones above Marck eyed the illicit power cables draped over the railing and re to steal electricity fro the thick cords, desperate to find Shirly

One level down, positive that his ould be inside, Marck braved the open space of the landing and rushed across He threw hirabbed the handle and tugged, shouting her na held fast with the sinewy restraint of unseen ar a pink paler bullets rattled by his feet--one of the and covering his head, he scurried back to the stairwell

Marck forced hiht be better off She could strip herself of incris settled down If she were below--he needed to hurry after her Either way, doas the only direction

At the next landing, he caught up with the sa on the decking, eyes wide The other tere tending to hiht One of the Supply workers was a wonized from the march up There was a cold fire in her eyes as Marck paused to see if they needed help

"I can carry hi by the woundedMarck shook his head and pointed to his ears

She repeated herself, lips ether She gave up and shoved at his ar him away The woundedout from his abdo protruding there, a s of a chair

The woman pulled a bomb from her satchel, one of those pipes that promised so much violence It was solemnly passed to the wounded

The two members of Supply pulled Marck away--away fro fro stomach The shouts sounded distant, but he knew they were nearby They were practically in his ear He found himself yanked backwards, transfixed by the vacant stare on the face of this doomed and wounded man His eyes locked onto Marck’s The ers curled around that terrible cylinder of steel, a grilanced up the stairhere the boots were finally gaining on the into view, black and bloodless, this tireless and superior ene trail Marck and the others had left behind, co for them with their ammo that never failed

He stued by the others, one hand on the railing, eyes drifting to the swinging door opening behind theface appeared there, a curious boy, rushing out to see A tangle of adult hands scrambled to pull him back

Marck was hauled down the stairs, too far down the curving stairs to see what happened next But his ears, as deadened as they were, caught the popping and zinging of gunfire, and then a blast, a roaring explosion that shook the great stairwell, that knocked hi His rifle clattered toward the edge--Marck lunged for it He grabbed it before it could escape and go tu his head, stunned, he pushed hied to rise slowly to his feet Senseless, he staggered forward down the shuddering steps, the treads beneath his feet ringing and vibrating as the silo around them all continued its spiral into dark madness

2

• Silo 18 •

The first moe of the down deep There was talk of holding there, of setting up some kind of barrier, but it wasn’t clear how the entire stairway could be blocked to include the open space between the railing and the concrete cylinder beyond This was the gap where the singing bullets lived, a place where jumpers were known to meet their ends, and where their enemy could surely find so the last leg of his run Enough to groeary of the rhythrunts, the noise of his exhausted pants for air He heard someone say that the last explosion had wrecked the stairway, had ie? No one knew

Tensions ran high on the landing; the news of McLain’s death had unsettled the people of Supply The wounded in yellow coveralls were taken inside, but it was suggested--and not gently--that Mechanical’s injured would be better off receiving treath these arguments, the voices still somewhat muffled and distant He asked everyone about Shirly, several in yellow shrugging as if they didn’t know her One guy said she’d already gone doith some of the other wounded He said it a second tiood news, and he figured as ed without warning fro hiaze fell to his wounded arm

"Oh, God!"