Wool (40 page)

Pieter had been right: the stairwell was singing. It vibrated with the march of too many feet. Those who lived above were generally moving upward, away from the blackouts and toward the promise of power, of warm food and hot showers. Meanwhile, Knox and his people mobilized behind them to squelch a different
kind
of power.

At fifty-six, they had their first spot of trouble. A group of farmers stood outside the hydroponic farm lowering a cluster of power cables over the railing, presumably toward the small group they had seen the last landing down. When the farmers spotted the blue overalls of Mechanical, one of them called out, “Hey, we keep you fed, why can’t you keep the juice on?”

“Talk to IT,” Marck replied from the front of the queue. “They’re the ones blowing fuses. We’re doing what we can.”

“Well, do it faster,” the farmer said. “I thought we just had a rat-damned power holiday to prevent this nonsense.”

“We’ll have it by lunchtime,” Shirly told them.

Knox and the others caught up with the head of the group, creating a jam by the landing.

“The faster we get up there the faster you’ll get your juice,” Knox explained. He tried to hold his concealed gun casually, like it was any other tool.

“Well, how about giving us a hand with this tap then? They’ve had power on fifty-seven for most of the morning. We’d like enough to get our pumps cranking.” He indicated the trunk of wires coiling over the railing.

Knox considered this. What the man was asking for was technically illegal. Challenging him about it would mean delays, but telling him to go ahead might look suspicious. He could sense McLain’s group several levels up, waiting on them. Pace and timing were everything.

“I can spare two of my men to help out. Just as a favor. As long as it doesn’t get back to me that Mechanical had shit to do with this.”

“Like I care,” the farmer said. “I just want water moving.”

“Shirly, you and Courtnee give them a hand. Catch up when you can.”

Shirly’s mouth dropped open. She begged with her eyes for him to reconsider.

“Get going,” he told her.

Marck came to her side. He lifted his wife’s pack and handed her his multi-tool. She begrudgingly accepted it, glowered at Knox a moment longer, then turned to go, not saying a word to him or her husband.

The farmer let go of the cables and took a step toward Knox. “Hey, I thought you said you’d lend me two of—”

Knox leveled a glare harsh enough to make the man pause. “Do you want the best I got?” he asked. “Because you’ve got it.”

The farmer lifted his palms and backed away. Courtnee and Shirly could already be heard stomping their way below to coordinate with the men on the lower landing.

“Let’s go,” Knox said, hitching up his pack.

The men and women of Mechanical and Supply lurched forward once more. They left behind the group of farmers on landing fifty-six, who watched the long column wind its way upward.

Whispers rose as the power cables were lowered. Powerful forces were merging over these people’s heads, bad intentions coming together and heading for something truly awful.

And anyone with eyes and ears could tell: some kind of reckoning was coming.

There was no warning for Lukas, no countdown. Hours of quiet anticipation, of insufferable nothingness, simply erupted into violence. Even though he had been told to expect the worst, Lukas felt like the waiting so long for something to happen just made it a fiercer surprise when it finally did.

The double doors of landing thirty-four blew open. Solid steel peeled back like curls of paper. The sharp ring made Lukas jump, his hand slip off the stock of his rifle. Gunfire erupted beside him, Bobbie Milner shooting at nothing and screaming in fear. Maybe excitement. Sims was yelling impossibly over the roar. When it died down, something flew through the smoke, a canister, bouncing toward the security gate.

There was a terrible pause—and then another explosion like a blow to the ears. Lukas nearly dropped his gun. The smoke by the security gate couldn’t quite fog the carnage. Pieces of people Lukas had known came to a sick rest in the entrance hall of IT. The people responsible began to surge through before he could take stock, before he could become fearful of another explosion occurring right in front of him.

The rifle beside him barked again, and this time Sims didn’t yell. This time, several other barrels joined in. The people trying to push through the chairs tumbled into them instead, their bodies shaking as if pulled by invisible strings, arcs of red like hurled paint flying from their bodies.

More came. A large man with a throaty roar. Everything moved so slowly. Lukas could see the man’s mouth part, a yell in the center of a burly beard, a chest as wide as two men. He held a rifle at his waist. He fired at the ruined security station. Lukas watched Peter Billings spin to the floor, clutching his shoulder. Bits of glass shivered from the window frame in front of Lukas as barrel after barrel erupted across the conference table, the shattered window seeming insignificant now. A prudent move.

The hail of bullets hit the man unseen. The conference room was an ambush, a side-on attack. The large man shook as some of the wild fire got lucky. His beard sagged open as his mouth parted. His rifle was cracked in half, a shiny bullet between his fingers. He tried to reload.

The guns of IT loosed their own bullets too fast to count. Levers were held, and springs and gunpowder did the rest. The giant man fumbled with his rifle but never got it reloaded. He tumbled into the chairs, sending them crashing across the floor. Another figure appeared through the door, a tiny woman. Lukas watched her down the length of his barrel, saw her turn and look right at him, the smoke from the explosion drifting toward her, white hair flowing about her shoulders as if the smoke were a part of her.

He could see her eyes. He had yet to shoot his gun, had watched, jaw slack, as the fighting took place.

The woman bent her arm back and made to throw something his way.

Lukas pulled the trigger. His rifle flashed and lurched. In the time it took, the long and terrible time it took for the bullet to cross the room, he realized it was just an old woman. Holding something.

A bomb.

Her torso spun and her chest blossomed red. The object fell. There was another awful wait, more attackers appearing, screaming in anger, until an explosion blew the chairs and the people among them apart.

Lukas wept while a second surge made a futile attempt. He wept until his clip was empty, wept as he fumbled for the release, shoved a spare into the butt, the salt bitter on his lips as he drew back that bolt and let loose with another menacing hail of metal—so much stouter and quicker than the flesh it met.

Bernard came to at the sound of shouting, his eyes burning from the smoke, his ears ringing with a long-ago blast.

Peter Billings was shaking his shoulders, yelling at him, a look of fright in his wide eyes and on his soot-stained brow. Blood stained his overalls in a wide rust-colored pool.

“Hrm?”

“Sir! Can you hear me?”

Bernard pushed Peter’s hands away and tried to sit up. He groped about his body, looking for anything bleeding or broken. His head throbbed. His hand came away from his nose wet with blood.

“What happened?” he groaned.

Peter crouched by his side. Bernard saw Lukas standing at a distance behind the sheriff, rifle on his shoulder, peering toward the stairwell. There was shouting in the distance, and then the patter of gunfire.

“We’ve got three men dead,” Peter said. “A few wounded. Sims led a half dozen into the stairwell. They got it a lot worse than us. A
lot
worse.”

Bernard nodded. He checked his ears, was surprised they weren’t bleeding as well. He dotted his sleeve with blood from his nose and patted Peter on the arm. He nodded over his shoulder. “Get Lukas,” he said.

Peter frowned but nodded. He spoke with Lukas, and the young man knelt by Bernard.

“Are you okay?” Lukas asked.

Bernard nodded. “Stupid,” he said. “Didn’t know they’d have guns. Should’ve guessed about the bombs.”

“Take it easy.”

He shook his head. “Shouldn’t have had you here. Dumb. Could have been us both—”

“Well, it was
neither
of us, sir. We’ve got ’em running down the stairwell. I think it’s over.”

Bernard patted his arm. “Get me to the server,” he said. “We’ll need to report this.”

Lukas nodded. He knew which server Bernard meant. He helped Bernard to his feet, an arm around his back, Peter Billings frowning as the two of them staggered down the smoky hallway together.

“Not good,” Bernard told Lukas, once they were away from the others.

“But we won, right?”

“Not yet. The damage won’t be contained here. Not today. You’ll have to stay below awhile.” Bernard grimaced and tried to walk alone. “Can’t risk something happening to us both.”

Lukas seemed unhappy about this. He entered his code into the great door, pulled out his ID, wiped someone else’s blood off it and his hand, then swiped it through the reader.

“I understand,” he finally said.

Bernard knew he’d picked the right man. He left Lukas to close the heavy door while he made his way to the rearmost server. He staggered once and fell against number eight, catching himself and resting a moment until the wooziness went away. Lukas caught up and was pulling his copy of the master key out of his overalls before Bernard got to the back of the room.

Bernard rested against the wall while Lukas opened the server. He was still too shaken up to notice the flashing code on the server’s front panel. His ears were too full of a false ringing to notice the real one.

“What’s that mean?” Lukas asked. “That noise?”

Bernard looked at him quizzically.

“Fire alarm?” Lukas pointed up at the ceiling. Bernard finally heard it as well. He stumbled toward the back of the server as Lukas opened the last lock, pushed the young man out of the way.

What were the chances? Did they already know? Bernard’s life had become unhinged in two short days. He reached inside the cloth pouch, grabbed the headset, and pulled it over his tender ears. He pushed the jack into the slot labeled “1” and was surprised to hear a beep. The line was
ringing
. He was making a call.

He pulled the jack out hurriedly, canceling the call, and saw that the light above “1” wasn’t blinking; the light above “17” was.

Bernard felt the room spin. A dead silo was calling him. A survivor? After all these years? With access to the servers? His hand trembled as he guided the jack into the slot. Lukas was asking something behind him, but Bernard couldn’t hear anything through the headphones.

“Hello?” he croaked. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

“Hello,” a voice said.

Bernard adjusted his headphones. He waved for Lukas to shut the fuck up. His ears were still ringing, his nose bleeding into his mouth.

“Who is this?” he asked. “Can you hear me?”

“I hear you,” the voice said. “Is this who I think it is?”

“Who the fuck is this?” Bernard sputtered. “How do you have access to—?”

“You sent me out,” the voice said. “You sent me to die.”

Bernard slumped down, his legs numb. The cord on the headphones uncoiled and nearly pulled the cups from his head. He clutched the headphones and fought to place this voice. Lukas was holding him by the armpits, keeping him from collapsing onto his back.

“Are you there?” the voice asked. “Do you know who this is?”

“No,” he said. But he knew. It was impossible, but he knew.

“You sent me to die, you fuck.”

“You knew the rules!” Bernard cried, yelling at a ghost. “You
knew
!”

“Shut up and listen, Bernard. Just shut the fuck up and listen to me very carefully.”

Bernard waited. He could taste the copper of his own blood in his mouth.

“I’m coming for you. I’m coming home, and I’m coming to
clean
.”

Marck stumbled down the great stairway, his hand sliding against the cool railing, a rifle tucked under his arm, his boots slipping in blood. He could barely hear the screams all around him: the wails from the wounded as they were half dragged down the steps, the horrified cries from the curious crowds on every landing who witnessed their passage, or the shouts of promised violence from the men chasing him and the rest of his mechanics from level to level.

The ringing in his ears drowned out most of the noise. It was the blast, the god-awful blast. Not the one that had peeled open the doors of IT—he had been ready for that one, had hunkered down with the rest. And it wasn’t the second bomb, the one Knox had lobbed deep into the heart of their enemy’s den. It was the
last
one, the one he didn’t see coming, the one that spilled from the hands of that small white-haired woman from Supply.

McLain’s bomb. It had gone off right in front of him, had taken his hearing as it took her
life
.

And Knox, that stout and unmovable head of Mechanical—his boss, his good friend—gone.

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.