Leaving the deputy’s office, Juliette climbed through levels that had seen much of the fighting, and she noticed once more the silo’s wounds of war. She rose through ever-worsening reminders of the battles that had been waged in her absence, saw the marks left behind from the fighting, the jagged streaks of bright silver through old paint, the black burns and pockmarks in concrete, the rebar poking through like fractured bone through skin.
She had devoted most of her life to holding that silo together, to keeping it running. This was a kindness repaid by the silo as it filled her lungs with air, gave rise to the crops, and claimed the dead. They were responsible for one another. Without people, this silo would become as Solo’s had: rusted and fairly drowned. Without the silo, she would be a skull on a hill, looking blankly to the cloud-filled skies. They needed each other.
Her hand slid up the rail, rough with new welds, her own hand a mess of scars. For much of her life, they had kept each other going, she and the silo. Right up until they’d damn near killed each other. And now the minor hurts in Mechanical she had hoped to repair one day – squealing pumps, spitting pipes, leaks from the exhaust – all paled before the far worse wreckage her leaving had caused. In much the same way that the occasional scars – reminders of youthful missteps – were now lost beneath disfigured flesh, it seemed that one large mistake could bury all the minor ones.
She took the steps one at a time and reached that place where a bomb had ripped a gap in the stairs. A patchwork of metal stretched across the ruin, a web of bar and rail scavenged from landings that now stood narrower than before. Names of those lost in the blast were written here and there in charcoal. Juliette treaded carefully across the mangled metal. Higher up, she saw that the doors to Supply had been replaced. Here, the fighting had been especially bad. The cost these people in yellow had paid for siding with hers in blue.
A Sunday was letting out as Juliette approached the church on ninety-nine. Floods of people spiraled down toward the quiet bazaar she had just passed. Their mouths were pressed tight from hours of serious talk, their joints as stiff as their pressed coveralls. Juliette filed past them and took note of the hostile glances.
The crowds thinned by the time she reached the landing. The small temple was wedged in among the old hydroponic farms and worker flats that used to serve the Deep. It was before her time, but Knox once explained how the temple had sprouted on ninety-nine. It was when his own dad was a boy and protests had arisen over music and plays performed during Sundays. Security had sat back while the protestors swelled into an encampment outside the bazaar. People slept on the treads and choked the stairway until no one could pass. The farm one level up was ravaged in supplying food to these masses. Eventually, they took over much of the hydroponics level. The temple on twenty-eight set up a satellite office, and now that satellite on ninety-nine was bigger than the temple that had sprouted it.
Father Wendel was on the landing as Juliette rounded the last turn. He stood by the door, shaking hands and speaking briefly with each member of his congregation as they left the Sunday service. His white robes fairly emitted a light of their own. They shone much like his bald head, which glistened from the effort of preaching to the crowds. Between head and robes, Wendel seemed to sparkle. Especially to Juliette, who had just left a land of smudge and grease. She felt dirty just seeing such unblemished cloth.
“Thank you, Father,” a woman said, bowing slightly, shaking his hand, a child balanced on her hip. The little one’s head lolled against her shoulder in perfect slumber. Wendel rested a hand on the child’s head and said a few words. The woman thanked him again, moved on, and Wendel shook the next man’s hand.
Juliette made herself invisible against the rail while the last handful of churchgoers filed past. She watched a man pause and press a few clinking chits into Father Wendel’s open palm. “Thank you, Father,” he said, this farewell a chant of sorts. Juliette could smell what she thought was goats on the old man as he filed past and wound his way up, probably back to the pens. He was the last one to leave. Father Wendel turned and smiled at Juliette to let her know he’d been aware of her presence.
“Mayor,” he said, spreading his hands. “You honor us. Did you come for the elevens?”
Juliette checked the small watch she wore around her wrist. “This wasn’t the elevens?” she asked. She was making good time up the levels.
“It was the tens. We added another Sunday. The toppers come down for late service.”
Juliette wondered why those who lived up top would travel so far. She had timed her walk to miss the services entirely, which was probably a mistake. It would be smart for her to hear what was being said that so many found alluring.
“I’m afraid I can only stop for a quick visit,” she said. “I’ll catch a Sunday on my way back down?”
Wendel frowned. “And when might that be? I heard you were returning to the work God and his people chose you for.”
“A few weeks, probably. Long enough to get caught up.”
An acolyte emerged on the landing with an ornate wooden bowl. He showed Wendel its contents, and Juliette heard the chits shift against one another. The boy wore a brown cloak, and when he bowed to Wendel, she saw the center of his scalp had been shaved. When he turned to leave, Wendel grabbed the acolyte’s arm.
“Pay your respects to your mayor,” he said.
“Ma’am.” The acolyte bowed. His face showed no expression. Dark eyes under full and dark brows, his lips colorless. Juliette sensed that this young man spent little time outside of the church.
“You don’t have to ma’am me,” she told him politely. “Juliette.” She extended a hand.
“Remmy,” the boy said. A hand emerged from his cloak. Juliette accepted it.
“See to the pews,” Wendel said. “We have another service yet.”
Remmy bowed to both of them and shuffled away. Juliette felt pity for the boy, but she wasn’t sure why. Wendel peered across the landing and seemed to listen for approaching traffic. Holding the door, he waved Juliette inside. “Come,” he said. “Top up your canteen. I’ll bless your journey.”
Juliette shook her canteen, which sloshed nearly empty. “Thank you,” she said. She followed him inside.
Wendel led her past the reception hall and waved her into the lower chapel, where she’d attended a few Sundays years prior. Remmy busied himself among the rows of benches and chairs, replacing pillows and laying out announcements handwritten on narrow strips of cheap paper. She caught him watching her as he worked.
“The gods miss you,” Father Wendel said, letting her know that he was aware how long it’d been since she’d attended a Sunday. The chapel had expanded since she last remembered it. There was the heady and expensive smell of sawdust, of newly shaped wood made from claimed doors and other ancient timbers. She rested her hand on a pew that must’ve been worth a fortune.
“Well, the gods know where to find me,” she answered, taking her hand off the pew. She smiled as she said this, meant it lightly, but saw a flash of disappointment on the father’s face.
“I sometimes wonder if you aren’t hiding from them as best you can,” he said. Father Wendel nodded toward the stained glass behind the altar. The lights behind the glass were full-bright, shards of color thrown against the floor and ceiling. “I read your announcements for every birth and every death up there in my pulpit, and I see in them that you give credit in all things to the gods.”
Juliette wanted to say that she didn’t even write those announcements. They were written for her.
“But I sometimes wonder if you even believe in the gods, the way you take their rules so lightly.”
“I believe in the gods,” Juliette said, her temper stoked by this accusation. “I believe in the gods who created this silo. I do. And all the other silos—”
Wendel flinched. “Blasphemy,” he whispered, his eyes wide as if her words could kill. He threw a look at Remmy, who bowed and moved toward the hall.
“Yes, blasphemy,” Juliette said. “But I believe the gods made the towers beyond the hills and that they left us a way to discover, a way out of here. We have uncovered a tool in the depths of this silo, Father Wendel. A digging machine that could take us to new places. I know you disapprove, but I believe the gods gave us this tool, and I mean to use it.”
“This digger of yours is the devil’s work, and it lies in the devil’s deep,” Wendel said. The kindness had left his face. He patted his forehead with a square of fine cloth. “There are no gods like those you speak of, only demons.”
This was his sermon, Juliette saw. She was getting his elevens. The people came far to hear this.
She took a step closer. Her skin was warm with anger. “There may be demons among my gods,” she agreed, speaking his tongue. “The gods I believe in … the gods I worship were the men and women who built this place and more like it. They built this place to protect us from the world they destroyed. They were gods and demons, both. But they left us space for redemption. They meant us to be free, Father, and they gave us the means.” She pointed to her temple. “They gave me the means right here. And they left us a digger. They did. There is nothing blasphemous about using it. And I’ve seen the other silos that you continue to doubt. I’ve been there.”
Wendel took another step back. He rubbed the cross hanging around his neck, and Juliette caught Remmy peeking around the edge of the door, his dark brows casting shadows over his dark eyes.
“We should use all the tools the gods gave us,” Juliette said. “Except for the one you wield, this power to make others fear.”
“Me?” Father Wendel pressed one palm to his chest. With his other hand, he pointed at her. “You are the one spreading fear.” He swept his hand at the pews and beyond to the tight rows of mismatched chairs, crates, and buckets at the back of the room. “They crowd in here three Sundays a day to wring their hands over the devil’s work you do. Children can’t sleep at night for fear that you’ll kill us all.”
Juliette opened her mouth, but the words would not come. She thought of the looks on the stairwell, thought of that mother pulling her child close, people she knew who no longer said hello. “I could show you books,” she said softly, thinking of the shelves that held the Legacy. “I could show you books, and then you’d see.”
“There’s only one book worth knowing,” Wendel said. His eyes darted to the large, ornate tome with its gilded edges that sat on a podium by the pulpit, that sat under a cage of bent steel. Juliette remembered lessons from that book. She’d seen its pages with those occasional and cryptic sentences peeking out amid bars of censored black. She also noticed the way the podium was welded to the steel decking, and not expertly. Fat puckers of paranoid welds. The same gods expected to keep men and women safe couldn’t be trusted to look after one book.
“I should leave you to get ready for your elevens,” she said, feeling sorry for her outburst.
Wendel uncrossed his arms. She could sense that they had both gone too far and that both knew it. She had hoped to allay doubts and had only worsened them.
“I wish you’d stay,” Wendel told her. “At least fill your canteen.”
She reached behind her back and unclipped the canteen. Remmy returned with a swish of his heavy brown cloaks, the shaved circle on his head glimmering with perspiration. “I will, Father,” Juliette said. “Thank you.”
Wendel nodded. He waved to Remmy and said nothing else to her as his acolyte drew water from the chapel fountain. Not a word. His earlier promise to bless her journey had gone forgotten.