part 2 proper gauge
13
marnes and jahns were guided to the mess hall by marck, a mechanic just getting off second shift.
marnes seemed to take umbrage at needing a tour guide. the deputy possessed that distinctly male
quality of pretending to know where he was, even when he didn’t. walking slightly ahead in an
attempt to prove this, he would pause at some intersection, point questioningly in one direction, only
to have marck laugh and correct him.
“but it all looks the same,” he grumbled as he continued to forge ahead.
jahns laughed at the manly display and hung back to bend the young mechanic’s ear, recognizing
that he worked on juliette’s shift. he smelled of the down deep, that odor that wafted in whenever a
mechanic came up to repair something in her offices. it was the blend born of their work, a mix of
perspiration, grease, and vague chemicals. but jahns was learning to ignore that. she saw that marck
was a kind and gentle man, a man who took her by the arm when a trolley of rattling parts was
hurried past, a man who acknowledged every single person they passed in those dim corridors of
jutting pipes and drooping wires. he lived and breathed well above his lot in life, jahns thought. he
radiated confidence. even in the darkness, his smile threw shadows.
“how well do you know juliette?” she asked him, once the noisy cart rattled out of earshot.
“jules? i know her like a sister. we’re all family down here.”
he said this as though he assumed the rest of the silo operated differently. ahead of them, marnes
scratched his head at the next intersection before guessing correctly. a pair of mechanics crowded
around the corner from the other direction, laughing. they and marck exchanged a snippet of
conversation that sounded to jahns like a foreign language. she suspected marck was right, that
perhaps things did work differently in the deepest depths of the silo. people down there seemed to
wear their thoughts and feelings on the outside, seemed to say exactly what they meant, much as the
pipes and wires of the place lay exposed and bare.
“through here,” marck said, pointing across a wide hall toward the sound of overlapping
conversations and the tinking of knives and forks on metal plates.
“so, is there anything you can tell us about jules?” jahns asked. she smiled at marck as he held
the door for her. “anything you think we should know?” the two of them followed marnes to a
handful of empty seats. the kitchen staff bustled among the tables, actually serving the food rather
than having the mechanics line up for it. before they’d even situated themselves on the dented
aluminum benches, bowls of soup and glasses of water with lime slices bobbing on top were being
set out, and hunks of bread torn from loaves and placed directly on the beaten-up surface of the table.
“are you asking me to vouch for her?” marck sat down and thanked the large man who portioned
out their food and spoons. jahns looked around for a napkin and saw most of the men and women
using the greasy rags that dangled from their back or breast pockets.
“just anything we should know,” she said.
marnes studied his bread, sniffed it, then dunked one corner into his soup. a neighboring table
erupted with laughter at the conclusion of some story or joke being told.
“i know she can do any job thrown at her. always could. but i figure you don’t need me to talk
you into something you’ve already walked this far to get. i’d imagine your minds are already made
up.”
he sipped on a spoonful of soup. jahns picked up her utensil and saw that it was chipped and
twisted, the butt of the spoon scratched like it’d been used to gouge at something.
“how long have you known her?” marnes asked. the deputy chewed on his soggy bread and was
doing a heroic job of blending in with his surroundings, of looking like he belonged.
“i was born down here,” marck told them, raising his voice over the din-filled room. “i was
shadowing in electrical when jules showed up. she was a year younger than me. i gave her two
weeks before i figured she’d be kicking and screaming to get out of here. we’ve had our share of
runaways and transfers, kids from the mids thinking their problems wouldn’t dare follow them—”
he left the sentence short, his eyes lighting up as a demure woman squeezed in next to marnes on
the other side of the table. this new arrival wiped her hands with her rag, stuffed it into her breast
pocket, and leaned over the table to kiss marck on the cheek.
“honey, you remember deputy marnes.” marck gestured to marnes, who was wiping his
mustache with the palm of his hand. “this is my wife, shirly.” they shook hands. the dark stains on
shirly’s knuckles seemed permanent, a tattoo from her work.
“and your mayor. this is jahns.” the two women shook hands as well. jahns was proud of
herself for accepting the firm grip without caring about the grease.
“pleased,” shirly said. she sat. her food had somehow materialized during the introductions, the
surface of her soup undulating and throwing off steam.
“has there been a crime, officer?” shirly smiled at marnes as she tore off a piece of her bread,
letting him know it was a joke.
“they came to harangue jules into moving up top with them,” marck said, and jahns caught him
lifting an eyebrow at his wife.
“good luck,” she said. “if that girl moves a level, it’ll be down from here and into the mines.”
jahns wanted to ask what she meant, but marck turned and continued where he’d left off.
“so i was working in electrical when she showed up—”
“you boring them with your shadow days?” shirly asked.
“i’m tellin’ them about when jules arrived.”
his wife smiled.
“i was studying under old walk at the time. this was back when he was still moving around,
getting out and about now and then—”
“oh yeah, walker.” marnes jabbed a spoon at jahns. “crafty fellow. never leaves his workshop.”
jahns nodded, trying to follow. several of the revelers at the neighboring table got up to leave.
shirly and marck waved good-bye and exchanged words with several of them, before turning their
attention back to the table.
“where was i?” marck asked. “oh, so the first time i met jules was when she arrived at walk’s
shop with this pump.” marck took a sip of his water. “one of the first things they have her doing—
now, keep in mind this is just a waif of a girl, right? thirteen years old. skinny as a pipe. fresh from
the mids or somewhere up there.” he waved his hand like it was all the same. “they’ve got her
hauling these massive pumps up to walk’s to have him respool the motors, basically unwrap a mile
of wire and lay it back in place.” marck paused and laughed. “well, to have walk make me do all the
work. anyway, it’s like this initiation, you know? you all do that sort of thing to your shadows,
right? just to break ’em down a little?”
neither jahns nor marnes moved. marck shrugged and continued. “anyway, these pumps are
heavy, okay? they had to weigh more than she did. maybe double. and she’s supposed to wrestle
these things onto carts by herself and get them up four flights of stairs—”
“wait. how?” jahns asked, trying to imagine a girl that age moving a hunk of metal twice her
weight.
“doesn’t matter. pulleys, ropes, bribery, whatever she likes. that’s the point, right? and they’ve
got ten of these things set aside for her to deliver—”
“ten of them,” jahns repeated.
“yeah, and probably two of them actually needed respooling,” shirly added.
“oh, if that.” mark laughed. “so walk and i are taking bets on how long before she cuts and runs
back to her old man.”
“i gave her a week,” shirly said.
marck stirred his soup and shook his head. “the thing was, after she pulled it off, none of us had
any idea how she’d done it. it was years later that she finally told us.”
“we were sitting over at that table.” shirly pointed. “i’d never laughed so hard in my life.”
“told you what?” jahns asked. she had forgotten her soup. the steam had long stopped swirling
from its surface.
“well, sure enough, i wound the coils on ten pumps that week. the whole time, i’m waiting for
her to break. hoping for it. my fingers were sore. no way she could move all of them.” marck shook
his head. “no way. but i kept winding them, she kept hauling them off, and a while later she’d bring
another. got all ten of them done in six days. the little snot went to knox, who was just a shift
manager back then, and asked if she could take a day off.”
shirly laughed and peered into her soup.
“so she got someone to help her,” marnes said. “somebody probably just felt sorry for her.”
marck wiped his eyes and shook his head. “aw, hell no. somebody would’ve seen, would’ve said
something. especially when knox demanded to know. old man nearly blew a fuse asking her what
she’d done. jules just stands there, calm as a dead battery, shrugging.”
“how did she do it?” jahns asked. now she was dying to know.
marck smiled. “she only moved the one pump. nearly broke her back getting it up here, but only
moved the one.”
“yeah, and you rewound that thing ten times,” shirly said.
“hey, you don’t have to tell me.”
“wait.” jahns held up her hand. “but what about the others?”
“done them herself. i blame walk, talking his head off while she swept the shop that first night.
she was asking questions, badgering me, watching me work on that first pump. when i got done, she
pushed the pump down the hall, didn’t bother with the stairs, and stowed it in the paint shop right on
the trolley. then she went downstairs, got the next pump, and hauled it around the corner into the
tool lock-up. spent the entire night in there teaching herself how to rewire a motor.”
“ah,” jahns said, seeing where this was going. “and the next morning she brought you the same
pump from the day before, from just around the corner.”
“right. then she went and wound copper four levels below while i was doing the same thing up
here.”
marnes erupted with laughter and slapped the table, bowls and bread hopping.
“i averaged two motors a day that week, a brutal pace.”
“technically, it was only one motor,” shirly pointed out, laughing.
“yeah. and she kept up with me. had them all back to her caster with a day to spare, a day she
asked to take off.”
“a day she got off, if i remember right,” shirly added. she shook her head. “a shadow with a day
off. the damnedest thing.”
“the point is, she wasn’t ever supposed to get the task done in the first place.”
“smart girl,” jahns said, smiling.
“too smart,” marck said.
“so what did she do with her day off?” marnes asked.
marck pushed his lime down beneath the surface of his water with his finger and held it there a
moment.
“she spent the day with me and walk, sweeping the shop, asking how things worked, where these
wires went to, how to loosen a bolt and dig inside something, that kind of stuff.” he took a sip of
water. “i guess what i’m sayin’ is that if you want to give jules a job, be very careful.”
“why be careful?” marnes asked.
marck gazed up at the confusion of pipes and wires overhead.
“’cause she’ll damn well do it. even if you don’t really expect her to.”
