6
Across the hall, a man sat behind a desk that once had belonged to Donald. Donald peered up at this man and found him peering right back. It was as though someone had installed a funhouse mirror in the hall, or some kind of tear in the cosmos had ripped open, allowing him to see into the past. That was him on the other side. He used to gaze across that hallway in the opposite direction. And while this man in his former office—who was heavier than Donald and had less hair—likely sat there playing a game of solitaire, Donald struggled with a puzzle of his own.
His old login of Troy with his passkey of 2156 wouldn’t work. He tried old ATM codes, and they were just as useless. He sat, thinking, worried about performing too many incorrect attempts. It felt like just yesterday that this account had worked. But a lot had happened since then. A lot of shifts. And someone had tampered with them.
It pointed back to Erskine, the old Brit left behind to coordinate the shifts. Erskine had taken a liking to him. But what was the point? What was he expecting Donald to do?
For a brief moment, he thought about standing up and walking out into the hallway and saying, “I am not Thurman or Shepherd or Troy. My name is Donald, and I’m not supposed to be here.”
He should tell the truth. He should rage with the truth, as senseless as it would seem to everyone else. “I am Donald!” he felt like screaming, just as old man Hal once had. They could pin his boots to a gurney and put him back to glorious sleep. They could send him out to the hills. They could bury him like they’d buried his wife. But he would scream and scream until he believed it himself, that he was who he thought he was.
Instead, he tried Erskine’s name with his own passkey. Another red warning that the login was incorrect, and the desire to out himself passed as swiftly as it had come.
He studied the monitor. There didn’t seem to be a trigger for the number of incorrect tries, but how long before Eren came back? How long before he had to explain that he couldn’t log in? Maybe he could go across the hall, interrupt the Silo Head’s game of solitaire, and ask him to retrieve his key. He could blame it on being groggy and newly awake. That excuse had been working thus far. He wondered how long he could cling to it.
On a lark, he tried the combination of Thurman and his own passkey of 2156.
The login screen disappeared, replaced by a main menu. The sense that he was the wrong person deepened. Donald wiggled his toes. The extra space in his loose boots gave him comfort. On the screen, a familiar envelope flashed. Thurman had messages.
Donald clicked the icon and scrolled down to the oldest unread message, something that might explain how he had arrived there, something from Thurman’s prior shift. The dates went back centuries; it was jarring to watch them scroll by. Population reports. Automated messages. Replies and forwards. He saw a message from Erskine, but it was just a note about the overflow of deep freeze to one of the lower cryopod levels. The useless bodies were stacking up, it seemed. Another message farther down was starred as important. Victor’s name was in the senders column, which caught Donald’s attention. It had to be from before Donald’s second shift. Victor was already dead the last time Donald had been woken. He opened the message.
Old friend,
I’m sure you will question what I’m about to do, that you will see this as a violation of our pact, but I see it more as a restructuring of the timeline. New facts have emerged that push things up a bit. For me, at least. Your time will come.
I have in recent days discovered why one of our facilities has seen more than its share of turmoil. There is someone there who remembers, and she both disturbs and confirms what I know of humanity. Room is made that it might be filled. Fear is spread because the clean-up is addicting. Seeing this, much of what we do to one another becomes more obvious. It explains the great quandary of why the most depressed societies are those with the fewest wants. Arriving at the truth, I feel an urge from older times to synthesize a theory and present it to roomfuls of professionals. Instead, I have gone to a dusty room to procure a gun.
You and I have spent much of our adult lives scheming to save the world. Several adult lives, in fact. That deed now done, I ponder a question more dire, one that I fear I cannot answer and that we were never brave nor bold enough to pose. And so I ask you now, dear friend: Was this world worth saving to begin with? Were we worth saving?
This endeavor was launched with that great assumption taken for granted. Now I ask myself for the first time. And while I view the cleansing of the world as our defining achievement, this business of saving humanity may have been our gravest mistake. The world may be better off without us. I have not the will to decide. I leave that to you. The final shift, my friend, belongs to you, for I have worked my last. I do not envy you the choice you will have to make. The pact we formed so long ago haunts me as never before. And I feel that what I’m about to do … that this is the easy way.
-Vincent Wayne DiMarco
Donald read the last paragraph again. It was a suicide note. Thurman knew. All along, while Donald wrestled with Victor’s fate on his last shift, Thurman knew. He had this note in his possession and didn’t share it. And Donald had almost grown convinced that Victor had been murdered. Unless the note was a fake— But no, Donald shook that thought away. Paranoia like that could spiral out of control and know no end. He had to cling to something.
He backed out of the message with a heavy heart and scrolled up the list, looking for some other clue. Near the top of the screen was a message with the subject line: Urgent - The Pact. That word had appeared more than once in Victor’s note. Donald clicked the message open. The body was short. It read, simply:
Wake me when you get this.
— Anna
(Locket 20391102)
Donald blinked rapidly at the sight of her name. He glanced across the hall at the silo Head and listened for footsteps heading his way. His arms were covered in gooseflesh. He rubbed them, wiped at the bottoms of his eyes, and read the note a second time.
It was signed Anna. It took him a moment to realize that it wasn’t to him. It was a note between daughter and father. There was no send date listed, which was curious, but it was sorted near the very top. Perhaps it was from before their last shift together? Maybe the two of them had been awake recently. Donald studied the number at the bottom. 20391102. It looked like a date. An old date. Inscribed on a locket, perhaps. Something meaningful between the two of them. And what of the mention of this Pact? That was the name the silos used for their constitutions. What was urgent about that?
Footsteps in the hallway broke his concentration. Eren rounded the corner and covered the office in a few steps. He circled the desk and placed two folders by the keyboard, then glanced at the screen as Donald fumbled with the mouse to minimize the message. “H-how’d it go?” Donald asked. “You got through to everyone?”
“Yeah.” Eren sniffed and scratched his beard. “The Head of sixteen took it badly. He’s been in that position a long time. Too long, I think. He suggested closing down his cafeteria or shutting off the wallscreen, just in case.”
“But he’s not going to.”
“No, I told him as a last resort. No need to cause a panic. We just wanted them to have a heads-up.”
“Good, good.” Donald liked someone else thinking. It took the pressure off of him. “You need your desk back?” He made a show of logging off.
“No, actually, you’re on if you don’t mind.” Eren checked the clock in the corner of the computer screen. “I can take the afternoon shift. How’re you feeling, by the way? Any shakes?”
Donald shook his head. “No. I’m good. It gets easier every time.”
Eren laughed. “Yeah. I’ve seen how many shifts you’ve taken. And a double a while back. Don’t envy you at all, friend. But you seem to be holding up well.”
Donald coughed. “Yeah,” he said. He picked up the topmost of the two folders and read the tab. “This is what we have on Seventeen?”
“Yep. The thick one is your cleaner.” He tapped the other folder. “You might want to check in with the Head of eighteen today. He’s pretty shaken up, is shouldering all the blame. Name’s Bernard. There are already grumblings from his lower levels about the cleaning not going through, so he’s looking at a very probable uprising. I’m sure he’d like to hear from you.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Oh, and he doesn’t have an official second right now. His last shadow didn’t work out, and he’s been putting off a replacement. I hope you don’t mind, but I told him to get on that. Just in case.”
“No, no. That’s fine.” Donald waved his hand. “I’m not here to get in your way.” He didn’t add that he had absolutely no clue why he was there at all.
Eren smiled and nodded. “Great. Well, if you need anything, call me. And the guy across the hall goes by Gable. He used to hold down a post over here but couldn’t cut it. Opted for a wipe instead of a deep freeze when given the choice. Good guy. Team player. He’ll be on for a few more months and can get you anything you need.”
Donald peered across the hall at the man in the funhouse mirror. He remembered the vacuous sensation of manning that desk, the hollow pit that had filled him. How Donald had ended up there had seemed unusual, a last-minute switch with his friend Mick. It never occurred to him how all the others were selected. To think that any might volunteer for such an empty post filled him with sadness.
Eren stuck out his hand. Donald studied it a moment, then accepted it.
“I’m really sorry we had to wake you like this,” he said, pumping Donald’s hand. “But I have to admit, I’m damn sure glad you’re here.”