羊毛战记 Part 4 The Unraveling 32

　　32

　　A glooming peace this morning with it brings;The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.

　　Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished.

　　It was the morning of the worst cleaning of Lukas’s life—and for once he considered going intowork, ignoring the paid holiday, to pretend it was a day like any other. He sat at the foot of his bed ashe worked up the courage to move, one of his many star charts in his lap. Lightly with his fingers, soas not to smear¹ the marks away, he caressed² the charcoal³ outline of one star in particular.

　　It wasn’t a star like the others. Those were simple dots on a meticulous⁴ grid⁵ with details of datesighted, location, and intensity⁶. This wasn’t that kind of star—not one that lasted nearly so long. Itwas the five-pointed kind, the outline of a sheriff’s badge. He remembered drawing the shape whileshe was talking to him one night, the steel on her chest glowing faintly as it caught the weak lightfrom the stairwell. He remembered her voice being magical, the way she carried herself mesmerizing,and her arrival into his boring routine had been as unexpected as the parting of clouds.

　　He also remembered how she had turned away from him in her cell two nights ago, had tried tosave his feelings by pushing him away.

　　Lukas had no more tears. He had spent most of the night shedding them for this woman he hardlyknew. And now he wondered what he would do with his day, with his life. The thought of her outthere, doing anything for them—cleaning—made him sick. He wondered if that was why he’d had noappetite for two days. Some deep part of his gut⁷ must have known he’d never keep anything down,even if he forced himself to eat.

　　He set the star chart aside and dropped his face into his palms. He rested there, so tired, trying toconvince himself to just get up and go to work. If he went to work, at least he’d be distracted. Hetried to remember where he’d left off in the server room last week. Was it the number eight tower thathad gone down again? Sammi had suggested he swap⁹ out the control board, but Lukas had suspecteda bad cable. That’s what he’d been doing, he remembered now: toning out the Ethernet runs. It’swhat he should have been doing right then, that very day. Anything but sitting around on a holiday,feeling like he could be physically¹⁰ ill over a woman about whom he’d done little more than tell hismother.

　　Lukas stood and shrugged¹¹ on the same pair of overalls¹² he’d worn the day before. He remainedthere a moment, staring at his bare feet, wondering why he’d gotten up. Where was he going? Hismind was completely blank, his body numb⁸. He wondered if he could stand there, unmoving, hisstomach twisted in knots, for the rest of his life. Someone would eventually find him, wouldn’t they?

　　Dead and stiff, standing¹³ upright, a statue of a corpse¹⁴.

　　He shook his head and these black thoughts loose and looked for his boots.

　　He found them; it was an accomplishment¹⁵. Lukas had done something by getting himself dressed.

　　He left his room and ambled¹⁶ toward the landing, weaving around kids squealing¹⁷ from another dayoff school, parents trying to corral them and get their boots and overalls on. The commotion¹⁸ was littlemore than background noise for Lukas. It was a hum, like the aches in his legs from the long climbdown to see her and the even longer climb back up. He stepped out onto the apartment’s landing andfelt a habitual¹⁹ tug²⁰ upward toward the cafeteria. All he could think about was all he had thought of forthe past week: making it through another day so he could go up top for the chance to see her.

　　It suddenly occurred to Lukas that he still could. He wasn’t one for sunrises—he much preferredthe twilight²¹ and the stars—but if he wanted to see her, all he had to do was climb to the cafeteria andscan the landscape. There would be a new body there, a new suit with the shine still on it glimmeringin whatever weak rays the sun dribbled²² through those blasted clouds.

　　He could see the image clearly in his head: her uncomfortable sprawl—legs twisted, arm pinned,helmet turned to the side, gazing back at the silo. Sadder still, he saw himself decades later, a lonelyold man sitting in front of that gray wallscreen and drawing not star charts but landscapes. The samelandscapes over and over, looking up at a wasting might-have-been, sketching²³ that same still posewhile weeping tears that dripped and turned charcoal to mud.

　　He would be like Marnes, that poor man. And thinking of the deputy, who died with no one tobury him, it reminded Lukas of the last thing Juliette had told him. She had begged him to findsomeone, to not be like her, to never be alone.

　　He gripped landing fifty’s cool steel railing and leaned over. Looking down, he could watch thestairwell drill its way deep into the earth. The landing for fifty-six was visible below, the severallandings between jutting²⁴ off at unseen angles. It was hard to gauge²⁵ the distance but he figured it wasmore than enough. No need to walk down to eighty-two, which most jumpers preferred for its longclear path down to ninety-nine.

　　Suddenly, he saw himself in flight, tumbling down, arms and legs splayed. He reckoned he wouldjust miss the landing. One of the railings would catch him and saw him near in half. Or maybe if hejumped out a little further, maybe if he aimed his head, he could make it quick.

　　He straightened, feeling a twinge of fear and a rush of adrenaline from picturing the fall, the end,so vividly²⁶. He glanced around and checked the morning traffic to see if anyone was watching him. Hehad seen other adults peer over railings before. He’d always assumed bad thoughts were goingthrough their heads. Because he knew, growing up in the silo, that only children dropped physicalthings from the landings. By the time you got older, you knew to keep a grip on all that you could.

　　Eventually, it was something else that slipped away, something else you lost that tumbled downthrough the heart of the silo, that made you ponder leaping after—The landing shivered with the beat of a hurrying porter; the sound of bare feet slapping againststeel treads came next and spiraled closer. Lukas slid away from the railing and tried to focus on whathe was doing that day. Maybe he should just crawl back into bed and sleep, kill some hours withunconsciousness.

　　As he attempted to summon some sliver²⁸ of motivation, the speeding porter flew past, and Lukascaught a glimpse of the boy’s face twisted in consternation²⁹. Even as he sped out of sight—his paceswift and reckless—the image of his worry remained vividly lodged³⁰ in Lukas’s mind.

　　And Lukas knew. As the rapid patter of the boy’s feet wound deeper into the earth, he knewsomething had happened that morning, something up top, something newsworthy about the cleaning.

　　A seed of hope. Some wishful kernel³¹ buried deep, where he was loath³² to acknowledge it lest itpoison or choke him, began to sprout³³. Maybe the cleaning never happened. Was it possible herbanishment had been reconsidered? The people of Mechanical had sent up a petition. Hundreds ofdaring signatures, risking their own necks to save hers. Had the mad gesture from the down deepworn the judges down?

　　That tiny seed of hope sprang roots. It grew vinelike through Lukas’s chest, filling him with anurgency to run up and see for himself. He left the railing, and the dream of leaping after his worries,and pushed his way through the morning crowd. Whispers, he noticed, were already foaming³⁴ in theporter’s wake. He wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

　　As he joined the up-bound traffic, he realized the aches in his legs from the days before hadvanished. He prepared to pass the slow-moving family in front of him—when he heard the loudsquawk of a radio behind him.

　　Lukas turned to find Deputy Marsh³⁵ a few treads back fumbling³⁶ for the radio on his hip³⁷, a smallcardboard box clutched to his chest, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

　　Lukas stopped and held the railing, waiting for the mids deputy to reach him.

　　“Marsh!”

　　The deputy finally got the volume down on his radio and glanced up. He nodded to Lukas. Theboth of them squeezed against the railing as a worker and his shadow passed them, heading upward.

　　“What’s the news?” Lukas asked. He knew the deputy well, and he knew he might spill it for free.

　　Marsh swiped his forehead and moved the box into the crook³⁸ of his other arm. “That Bernard iswhoopin’ my ass²⁷ this mornin’,” he complained. “Done climbed enough this week!”

　　“No, what of the cleaning?” Lukas asked. “A porter just hurried by like he’d seen a ghost.”

　　Deputy Marsh glanced up the steps. “I was told to bring her things to thirty-four as quick asgrease. Hank nearly killed himself bringing ’em partway up to me.” He started up the stairs as if hecouldn’t afford to stay. “Look, I’ve gotta keep movin’ if I wanna keep my job.”

　　Lukas held his arm, and traffic swelled³⁹ below them as annoyed climbers squeezed past and againstthe occasional traveler heading down. “Did the cleaning go through or not?” Lukas demanded.

　　Marsh sagged⁴⁰ against the railing. Quiet chatter⁴¹ popped through his radio.

　　“No,” he whispered, and Lukas felt as though he could fly. He could fly straight up the spacebetween the stairs and the concrete heart of the silo, could soar around the landings, could go fiftylevels at a leap—

　　“She went out, but she didn’t clean,” Marsh said, his voice low but laced with words sharp enoughto pierce Lukas’s dreams. “She wandered over them hills—”

　　“Wait. What?”

　　Marsh nodded, and sweat dripped from the deputy’s nose. “Plumb out of sight,” he hissed⁴², like aradio turned down low. “Now I’ve got to get her things up to Bernar—”

　　“I’ll do it,” Lukas said, reaching out his hands. “I’m going to thirty-four anyway.”

　　Marsh shifted the box. The poor deputy seemed liable to collapse⁴³ at any moment. Lukas beggedhim, just as he had two days earlier in order to see Juliette in her cell. “Let me take them up for you,”

　　he said. “You know Bernard won’t mind. He and I are good friends, just like you and I have alwaysbeen …”

　　Deputy Marsh wiped his lip and nodded ever so slightly, thinking on this.

　　“Look, I’m going up anyway,” Lukas said. He found himself slowly taking the box from anexhausted Marsh, even though the waves of emotion surging through his own body made it difficultto focus. The traffic on the stairs had become background noise. The idea that Juliette might still be inthe silo had slipped away, but the news that she hadn’t cleaned, that she had made it over the hills—this filled him with something else. It touched the part of him that yearned⁴⁴ to map the stars. It meantno one would ever have to watch her waste away.

　　“You’ll be careful with that,” Marsh said. His eyes were on the box, now tucked into Lukas’sarms.

　　“I’ll guard it with my life,” Lukas told him. “Trust me.”

　　Marsh nodded to let him know he did. And Lukas hurried up the stairs, ahead of those rising tocelebrate the cleaning, the weight of Juliette’s belongings⁴⁵ rattling⁴⁶ softly in a box tucked tightlyagainst his chest.

 

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