part 2 proper gauge
11
they were almost down to the fifties before jahns could think straight. she imagined she could feel
the weight of peter billings’s contract in her pack. marnes muttered his own complaints from a few
steps behind, bitching about bernard and trying to keep up, and jahns realized she was fixated now.
the weariness in her thighs and calves had become compounded by the growing sense that this trip
was more than a mistake: it was probably futile. a father who warns her that his daughter won’t
accept. pressure from it to choose another. now each step of their descent was taken with dread.
dread and yet a new certainty that juliette was the person for the job. they would have to convince
this woman from mechanical to take the post, if only to show bernard, if only to keep this arduous
journey from becoming a total waste.
jahns was old, had been mayor a long time, partly because she got things done, partly because she
prevented worse things from happening, but mostly because she rarely made a ruckus. she felt like it
was about time—now, while she was old enough for the consequences not to matter. she glanced
back at marnes and knew the same went for him. their time was almost up. the best, the most
important thing they could do for the silo was to make sure their legacy endured. no uprisings. no
abuses of power. it was why she had run unopposed the last few elections. but now she could sense
that she was gliding to the finish while stronger and younger runners were preparing to overtake her.
how many judges had she signed off on at bernard’s request? and now the sheriff, too? how long
before bernard was mayor? or worse: a puppet master with strings interwoven throughout the silo.
“take it easy,” marnes huffed.
jahns realized she was going too fast. she slowed her pace.
“that bastard’s got you riled up,” he said.
“and you better be as well,” she hissed back at him.
“you’re passing the gardens.”
jahns checked the landing number and saw that he was right. if she’d been paying attention, she
would’ve noticed the smell. when the doors on the next landing flew open, a porter bearing sacks of
fruit on each shoulder strode out, the scent of lush and wet vegetation accompanying him and
overpowering her.
it was past dinnertime, and the smell was intoxicating. the porter, even though overburdened, saw
that they were leaving the stairwell for the landing and held the door open with a planted foot as his
arms bulged around the weight of the large sacks.
“mayor,” he said, bowing his head and then nodding to marnes as well.
jahns thanked him. most of the porters looked familiar to her: she’d seen them over and over as
they delivered throughout the silo. but they never stayed in one place long enough for her to catch
and remember a name, a normally keen skill of hers. she wondered, as she and marnes entered the
hydroponic farms, if the porters made it home every night to be with their families. or did they even
have families? were they like the priests? she was too old and too curious not to know these things.
but then, maybe it took a day on the stairwell to appreciate their job, to notice them fully. the porters
were like the air she breathed, always there, always serving, so necessary as to be ubiquitous and
taken for granted. but now the weariness of the descent had opened her senses completely to them. it
was like a sudden drop in the oxygen, triggering her appreciation.
“smell those oranges,” marnes said, snapping jahns out of her thoughts. he sniffed the air as they
passed through the low garden gates. a staff member in green overalls waved them through. “bags
here, mayor,” he said, gesturing to a wall of cubbies sporadically filled with shoulder bags and
bundles.
jahns complied, leaving her kit in one of the cubbies. marnes pushed hers to the back and added
his to the same one. whether it was to save space or merely his habitual protectiveness, jahns found
the act as sweet as the air inside the gardens.
“we have reservations for the evening,” jahns told the worker.
he nodded. “one flight down for the rooms. i believe they’re still getting yours ready. are you
here just for a visit or to eat?”
“a little of both.”
the young man smiled. “well, by the time you’ve had a bite, your rooms should be available.”
rooms, jahns thought. she thanked the young man and followed marnes into the garden network.
“how long since you were here?” she asked the deputy.
“wow. a while back. four years or so?”
“that’s right.” jahns laughed. “how could i forget? the heist of the century.”
“i’m glad you think it’s funny,” marnes said.
at the end of the hallway, the twisting spiral of the hydroponic gardens diverted off both ways.
this main tunnel snaked through two levels of the silo, curving mazelike all the way to the edges of
the distant concrete walls. the constant sound of water dripping from the pipes was oddly soothing,
the splatters echoing off the low ceiling. the tunnel was open on either side, revealing the bushy
green of plants, vegetables, and small trees growing amid the lattice of white plastic pipes, twine
strung everywhere to give the creeping vines and stems something to hold. men and women with
their young shadows tended to the plants, all in green overalls. sacks hung around their necks bulged
with the day’s harvest, and the cutters in their hands clacked like little claws that were a biological
part of them. the pruning was mesmerizingly adroit and effortless, the sort of ability that came only
from day after week after year of practice and repetition.
“weren’t you the first one to suggest the thievery was an inside job?” jahns asked, still laughing
to herself. she and marnes followed the signs pointing toward the tasting and dining halls.
“are we really going to talk about this?”
“i don’t know why it’s embarrassing. you’ve got to laugh about it.”
“with time.” he stopped and gazed through the mesh fencing at a stand of tomatoes. the
powerful odor of their ripeness made jahns’s stomach grumble.
“we were really hyped up to make a bust at the time,” marnes said quietly. “holston was a mess
during all of this. he was wiring me every night for an update. i’ve never seen him want to take
someone down so bad. like he really needed it, you know?” he wrapped his fingers in the protective
grate and stared past the vegetables as if into the years gone by. “looking back, it’s almost like he
knew something was up with allison. like he saw the madness coming.” marnes turned to jahns.
“do you remember what it was like before she cleaned? it had been so long. everyone was on edge.”
jahns had long since stopped smiling. she stood close to marnes. he turned back to the plants,
watched a worker snip off a red ripe tomato and place it in her basket.
“i think holston wanted to let the air out of the silo, you know? i think he wanted to come down
and investigate the thefts himself. kept wiring me every day for reports like a life depended on it.”
“i’m sorry to bring it up,” jahns said, resting a hand on his shoulder.
marnes turned and looked at the back of her hand. his bottom lip was visible below his mustache.
jahns could picture him kissing her hand. she pulled it away.
“it’s fine,” he said. “without all that baggage, i guess it is pretty funny.” he turned and continued
down the hallway.
“did they ever figure out how it got in here?”
“up the stairwell,” marnes said. “had to be. though i heard one person suggest that a child
could’ve stolen one to keep as a pet and then released it up here.”
jahns laughed. she couldn’t help herself. “one rabbit,” she said, “confounding the greatest
lawman of our time and making off with a year’s salary of greens.”
marnes shook his head and chuckled a little. “not the greatest,” he said. “that was never me.” he
peered down the hallway and cleared his throat, and jahns knew perfectly well who he was thinking
of.
••••
after a large and satisfying dinner, they retired a level down to the guest rooms. jahns had a
suspicion that extra pains had been taken to accommodate them. every room was packed, many of
them double- and triple-booked. and since the cleaning had been scheduled well before this last-
minute interview adventure of theirs, she suspected rooms had been bumped around to make space.
the fact that they had been given separate rooms, the mayor’s with two beds, made it worse. it
wasn’t just the waste, it was the arrangement. jahns was hoping to be more … inconvenienced.
and marnes must’ve felt the same way. since it was still hours before bedtime, and they were
both buzzing from a fine meal and strong wine, he asked her to his small room so they could chat
while the gardens settled down.
his room was tastefully cozy, with only a single twin bed, but nicely appointed. the upper
gardens were one of just a dozen large private enterprises. all the expenses for their stay would be
covered by her office’s travel budget, and that money as well as the fares of the other travelers helped
the establishment afford finer things, like nice sheets from the looms and a mattress that didn’t
squeak.
jahns sat on the foot of the bed. marnes took off his holster, placed it on the dresser, and plopped
onto a changing bench just a few feet away. while she kicked off her boots and rubbed her sore feet,
he went on and on about the food, the waste of separate rooms, brushing his mustache down with his
hand as he spoke.
jahns worked her thumbs into the soreness in her heels. “i feel like i’m going to need a week of
rest at the bottom before we start the climb up,” she said during a pause.
“it’s not all that bad,” marnes told her. “you watch. you’ll be sore in the morning, but once you
start moving, you’ll find that you’re stronger than you were today. and it’s the same on the way up.
you just lean into each step, and before you know it, you’re home.”
“i hope you’re right.”
“besides, we’ll do it in four days instead of two. just think of it as an adventure.”
“trust me,” jahns said. “i already am.”
they sat quietly for a while, jahns resting back on the pillows, marnes staring off into space. she
was surprised to find how calming and natural it was, just being in a room, alone, with him. the talk
wasn’t necessary. they could just be. no badge, no office. two people.
“you don’t take a priest, do you?” marnes finally asked.
“no.” she shook her head. “do you?”
“i haven’t. but i’ve been thinking about it.”
“holston?”
“partly.” he leaned forward and rubbed his hands down his thighs like he was squeezing the
soreness out of them. “i’d like to hear where they think his soul has gone.”
“it’s still with us,” jahns said. “that’s what they’d say, anyway.”
“what do you believe?”
“me?” she pushed herself up from the pillows and rested on one elbow, watching him watch her.
“i don’t know, really. i keep too busy to think about it.”
“do you think donald’s soul is still here with us?”
jahns felt a shiver. she couldn’t remember the last time someone had uttered his name.
“he’s been gone more years than he was ever my husband,” she said. “i’ve been married more to
his ghost than to him.”
“that don’t seem like the right thing to say.”
jahns looked down at the bed, the world a little blurry. “i don’t think he’d mind. and yes, he’s
still with me. he motivates me every day to be a good person. i feel him watching me all the time.”
“me too,” marnes said.
jahns looked up and saw that he was staring at her.
“do you think he’d want you to be happy? in all things, i mean?” he stopped rubbing his legs and
sat there, hands on his knees, until he had to look away.
“you were his best friend,” jahns said. “what do you think he’d want?”
he rubbed his face, glanced toward the closed door as a laughing child thundered down the
hallway. “i reckon he only ever wanted you to be happy. that’s why he was the man for you.”
jahns wiped her eyes while he wasn’t looking and peered curiously down at her wet fingers.
“it’s getting late,” she said. she slid to the edge of the small bed and reached down for her boots.
her bag and stick were waiting for her by the door. “and i think you’re right. i think i’ll be a little
sore in the morning, but i think i’ll feel stronger, eventually.”
