The man laughed. “A star,” he said. “If you wait, you might see it again. We’ve got thin clouds tonight and high winds. That one there is getting ready to pass.”
Juliette turned to find her chair and saw that he was holding his charcoal at arm’s length, staring up at the spot where the light had flashed, one eye winked shut.
“How can you see anything out there?” she asked, settling back into her plastic chair.
“The longer you do this, the better you see at night.” He leaned over his paper and scribbled some more. “And I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“Doing what, exactly? Just staring at the clouds?”
He laughed. “Mostly, yeah. Unfortunately. But what I’m trying to do is see past them. Watch, we might get another glance.”
She peered up in the general area of the last flash. Suddenly, it popped back into view, a pinprick of light like a signal from high over the hill.
“How many did you see?” he asked.
“One,” she told him. She was almost breathless from the newness of the sight. She knew what stars were— they were a part of her vocabulary—but she’d never seen one before.
“There was a faint one just to the side of it as well. Let me show you.”
There was a soft click, and a red glow spilled over the man’s lap. Juliette saw that he had a flashlight hanging around his neck, a film of red plastic wrapped around the end. It made the lens look like it was on fire, but it emanated a gentle glow that didn’t barrage her eyes the way the kitchen lights had.
Spread across his lap, she saw a large piece of paper covered with dots. They were arranged haphazardly, a few perfectly straight lines running in a grid around them. Tiny notes were scattered everywhere.
“The problem is that they move,” he told her. “If I see that one here tonight—” He tapped one of the dots with his finger. There was a smaller dot beside it. “—at the same exact time tomorrow, it’ll be a little over here.” Turning to Juliette, she saw that the man was young, probably in his late twenties. He smiled, was quite handsome, and added: “It took me a long time to figure that out.”
Juliette wanted to tell him that he hadn’t been
“What’s the point?” she asked, and saw his smile fade.
“What’s the point of anything?” He returned his gaze to the wall and doused the flashlight. Juliette realized she’d asked the wrong question, had upset him. And then she wondered if there was anything 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 man turned to her again in the darkness.
“My name’s Lukas,” he said. Her eyes had adjusted well enough 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 knew who 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 upper mids,” Lukas said. “I work on computers during the day. I only come up when the viewing’s good.” He switched the light back on and turned toward her in a way that suggested the stars weren’t the most important thing on his mind anymore. “There’s a guy on my hall who works up here on dinner shift. When he gets home, he lets me know what the clouds were like during the day. If he gives me the thumbs up, I come take my chances.”
“And so you’re making a schematic of them?” Juliette gestured toward the large sheet of paper.
“Trying to. It’ll probably take a few lifetimes.” He tucked his charcoal behind his ear, pulled a rag from his coveralls, and wiped his fingers clean of black residue.
“And then what?” Juliette asked.
“Well, hopefully I’ll infect some shadow with my sickness and they’ll pick up wherever I leave off.”
“So literally, like, several lifetimes.”
He laughed, 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 palm to the back of her hand and held it a moment longer 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 muttered in return.
4
The next morning, Juliette arrived early at her desk having stolen little more than four hours of sleep. Beside her computer, she saw a package waiting on her—a small bundle wrapped in recycled pulp paper and encircled with white electrical ties. She smiled at this last touch and reached into her coveralls for her multi-tool. Pulling out 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 remembered the trouble she’d gotten into as a mechanic’s shadow the day she’d been caught cutting a 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 was much older, she had found herself passing this lesson on to another shadow named Scottie. He had been a young lad at the time, but she had lit into him when he had made the same careless mistake she once had. She remembered frightening 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 him more attention as he continued his training, and eventually, the two had grown close. He quickly grew up to become a capable young man, a whiz with electronics, able to program a pump’s timing chip in less time than it took her to break one down and put it back together.
She loosened the other tie crossing the package, and knew the bundle was from him. Several years ago, 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 man preparing this package for her. The request she’d wired down to Mechanical the night before must’ve bounced back up to him, and he had spent the night 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 came apart, she noticed that Scottie had crimped the edges 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 work with 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 from Scottie—it must’ve been hurried up to him along 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 imagined it, but she swore she noted a hint of oil or grease emanating from the old box—the smells of home.
Juliette folded the wrapping 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 Pam in the cafeteria, who had been so nice in helping her settle into her new apartment. And Alice, Jahns young secretary, whose eyes had been red with grief for over a week. She pulled the last cookie out and finally spotted the small data drive rattling around in the bottom of the container, a little morsel baked special by Scottie and hidden among the crumbs.
Juliette grabbed it and set the plastic case aside. She blew into the little metal end of the drive, getting any debris out, before slotting it into the front of her computer. She wasn’t great with computers, but she could get
