and came up to smooth his mustache. “These are the things you want to know? How it happened?”
“Yes.” Lukas nodded. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I want to know.”
“Do you think it matters? What happened out there?” Bernard turned and looked up at the schematics on the wall, then at Lukas. “Why would it matter?”
“Because it
“Decades,” Bernard said.
“And then move all this stuff in, all the people—”
“That took much less time.”
“So you know?”
Bernard nodded. “The information is stored here, but not in any of the books. And you’re wrong. It
“The difference between our past and our legacy.”
“Hm.” Bernard nodded. He seemed to be waiting on something.
Lukas thought about the difference. For some reason, a conversation with Juliette sprang to mind, something she was forever telling him—
“I think I know,” he said.
“Oh?” Bernard pushed his glasses up his nose and stared at him. “Tell me what you
“All our hope, the accomplishments of those before us, what the world
Bernard’s lips broke into a smile. He waved his hand to continue.
“And the bad things that can’t be stopped, the mistakes that got us here, that’s the past.”
“And what does this difference mean? What do
“It means we can’t change what’s already happened, but we can have an impact on what happens next.”
Bernard clapped his small hands together. “Very good.”
“And this—” Lukas turned and rested one hand on the thick book. He continued, unbidden, “—the Order.
Bernard raised his eyebrows at this last, as if it were a new way of looking at an old truth. Finally, he smiled, his mustache curling up, his glasses rising on the wrinkled bridge of his nose.
“I think you’re almost ready,” he said. “Soon.” Bernard turned back to his computer, his hand falling to his mouse. “Very soon.”
12
The descent to Mechanical was oddly tranquil, almost mesmerizing. Juliette slid through the green flood, fending herself off the curved railing each time the staircase spiraled around beneath her feet. The only sounds anywhere were the hiss of air entering her helmet and the excess gurgling out the other side. A never-ending stream of bubbles rolled up her visor like beads of solder, drifting up in defiance of gravity.
Juliette watched these silver spheres chase one another and play like children through the metal stairs. They broke up where they touched the railing, leaving just minuscule dots of gas stuck to the surface, rolling and colliding. Others marched in wavy lines inside the stairway. They gathered in crowds beneath the hollow steps, bubbles becoming pockets of air that wobbled and caught the light radiating from the top of her helmet.
It was easy to forget where she was, what she was doing. The familiar had become distorted and strange. Everything seemed magnified by the plastic dome of her visor, and it was easy to imagine that she wasn’t sinking at all, but that the great stairway was rising, pushing up through the deep earth and heading toward the clouds. Even the sensation of the rope sliding through her gloved hands and across her padded belly felt more like something tugged inexorably from above rather than a line she was descending.
It wasn’t until she arched her back and looked straight up that Juliette remembered how much water was stacking up above her. The green glow of the emergency lights faded to an eerie black in the space of a landing or two. The light from her flashlight barely dented it. Juliette inhaled sharply and reminded herself that she had all the air in the silo. She tried to ignore the sensation of so much liquid piled up on her shoulders, of being buried alive. If she had to, if she panicked, she could just cut the weights free. One flick with the chef’s knife and she would bob right back to the surface. She told herself this as she continued to sink. Letting go of the rope with one hand, she patted for the knife, making sure it was still there.
“SLOWER!” her radio barked.
Juliette grabbed the rope with both hands and squeezed until she came to a stop. She reminded herself that Solo was up there, watching the air hose and electrical wires as they spooled off their neat coils. She imagined him tangled up in the lines, hopping around on one foot. Bubbles raced out of her overflow valve and jiggled through the lime water back toward the surface. She leaned her head back and watched them swirl around the taut rope, wondering what was taking him so long. In the undersides of the helical steps, the air pockets danced mercury silver, wavering in the turbulence of her passing—
“OKAY.” The radio speaker behind her neck crackled. “GOOD HERE.”
Juliette cringed from the volume of Solo’s voice and wished she’d checked that before closing up her helmet. There was no fixing it now.
With ears ringing and the silence and majesty of the tranquil descent broken, she slid down another level, keeping her pace steady and slow as she studied the slack in the wire and the air hose for any sign of their pulling taut. As she passed close to the landing of one-thirty-nine, she saw that one of the doors was missing; the other door had been wrenched violently on its hinges. The entire level must be flooded, which meant more water for the pumps to move. Just before the landing rose out of sight, she saw dark forms down the corridor, shadows floating in the water. The flashlight on her helmet barely illuminated a pale and bloated face before she drifted past, leaving the long dead to rise out of sight.
It hadn’t occurred to Juliette that she might come across more bodies. Not the drowned of course—the flood would’ve risen too slowly to take anyone by surprise—but any violence that occurred in the down deep would now be preserved in its icy depths. The chill of the water around her seemed to finally penetrate the layers of her suit. Or perhaps it was just her imagination.
Her boots thumped to the lowermost floor of the stairwell while she was still looking up, keeping an eye on the slack in the lines. Her knees were jarred by the startling end to her descent. It had taken her far less time than a dry hike would have.
With a grip on the rope for balance, Juliette let go with her other hand and waved it through the thick atmosphere of green groundwater. She dipped her chin against the radio switch. “I’m down,” she transmitted to Solo.
She took a few lumbering and tentative steps, waving her arms and half-swimming toward the entrance to Mechanical. The light from the stairwell barely penetrated past the security gates. Beyond, the oily depths of a home both foreign and familiar awaited her.
“I HEAR YOU,” Solo answered after some delay.
Juliette felt her muscles tense up as his voice rattled around inside her helmet. Not being able to adjust the volume was going to drive her mad.
After a dozen halting steps, she eventually got the hang of the awkward wading motion and learned to drag her weighted boots across the steel decking. With the suit inflated and her arms and legs brushing around on the inside, it was like guiding a bubble by throwing oneself against its skin. She paused once to look back at her air hose, making sure it wasn’t getting caught on the stairs, and she gave the rope she had descended one last glance. Even from this distance it appeared as an impossibly slender thread, a thread hanging in that submerged straw of a
