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Tears of confused joy winked past Walker’s beard and fell into his lap
14
• Silo 17 •
Juliette grabbed the limp air hose with both hands and squeezed Her reas a feeak bubbles rolling up her visor--the pressure inside the tube was gone
She whispered a curse, tilted her chin against the radio, and called Solo’s na had happened to the co up the fuel She told him not to turn it off for that He wouldn’t knohat to do, wouldn’t be able to restart it She hadn’t thought this through clearly at all; she was an impossible distance from breathable air, from any hope of survival
She took a tentative breath She had as trapped in the suit and the air that remained in the hose How much of the air in the hose could she suck with just the power of her lungs? She didn’t think it would be much, but she didn’t know
She took one last look at the large su job, the loose trail of wires streah the water that she’d hoped to have tis None of it likely mattered anymore, not for her She kicked away froh the viscous fluid that see to push or pull against
The weights were holding her back Juliette bent to release them, and found she couldn’t The buoyancy of her arroped for the velcro straps, but watched her fingers through the nified view of hels
She took a deep breath, sweat dripping fro the inside of her doertips nearly brushing the black straps, both hands outstretched, grunting and throwing her shoulders into the si her daave up and shuffled a fewthe wire and hose, both visible in the faint cone of white light e fro of what one accidental pull ht do, how tenuous the connection was that she’d led for a deep breath, herthe er to prepare
Her knife! She re her feet It slid out of its holow froht
Juliette bent down and used the extra reach of the blade; she slid the point of the knife between her suit and one of the straps The water was dark and thick all around her With the li at the bottom of Mechanical under all that heap of flood, she felt more remote and alone, ripped the knife, terrified of what dropping it couldher sto She attacked the strap with a labored sawing motion, cursed in her helmet from the effort, the strain, the pain in her abdo her head dohen finally the exercise weight popped free Her calf felt suddenly naked and light as the round hunk of iron clanged
Juliette tilted to the side, held down by one leg, the other trying to rise up She worked the knife carefully beneath the second strap, fearful of cutting her suit and seeing a stream of precious bubbles leak out With desperate force, she shoved and pulled the blade against the black webbing just like before Nylon threads popped in her nified vision; sweat spattered her helht was free
Juliette screa above her head She twisted her torso and waved her arms as much as she could, but her helmet slammed into the runs of pipes at the top of the hallway
There was a bang--and the water all around her went black She fuht, to turn it back on, but it wasn’t there So bumped her arm in the darkness She fumbled for the object with one hand, knife in the other, felt it spill through her gloved fingers, and then it was gone While she struggled to put the knife away, her only source of light tu but her rapid breathing She was going to die like this, pinned to the ceiling, another bloated body in these corridors It was as if she were destined to perish in one of those suits, one way or another She kicked against the pipes and tried to wiggle free Which way had she been going? Where was she facing? The pitch black was absolute She couldn’t even see her own ar blind, it was soness, to know her eyes orking but sohtened her panic, even as the air in her suit seerow more and more stale
The air
She reached for her collar and found the hose, could just barely feel it through her gloves Juliette began to gather it in, hand over hand, like pulling abucket up a deep shaft
It felt like athered around her like knotted noodles, buan to soundHowfro up all her precious air? She had a sudden terror that the hose she was pulling had been cut, that it had been sawn through on the stairwell, that the free end would at any ers, that her next frantic reach for more of the lifeline would result in a fistful of inky water and nothing else--
But then she grabbed a length of hose with tension, with life A stiff line that held no air, but led the way out
Juliette cried out in her helrab another handhold She pulled herself, her hel her away fro one hand forward in the black to where the line should be, finding it, grasping, yanking, hauling herself through thehow far she’d get before she joined them and breathed her very last
15
• Silo 18 •
Lukas sat with his mother on the thick jamb of the open server room door He looked down at her hands, both of theo with one of them and picked a piece of lint off his shoulder, then cast the offending knot of string away from her precious son
"And you say there’ll be a pro the shoulder of his undershirt
Lukas nodded "A pretty big one, yeah" He looked past her to where Bernard and Sheriff Billings were standing in the hallway, talking in low voices Bernard had his hands tucked inside the stretched belly of his coveralls Billings looked down and inspected his gun
"Well, that’s great, sweetheart Itaway"