Silo 49: Deep Dark - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Ann Christy (Prologue) #3

Prologue

Wallis tossed down the book in frustration and pointed his finger at Grace. Eyes narrowed in skepticism, he asked, “Are you getting rid of those colors because you don’t like them or do you have some actual logic here?”

“Honestly, Wallis! Why do you always have to be so contrary?” She picked up the book he had just tossed down and turned pages rapidly. She knew exactly what she was looking for so it didn’t take long. They had both been pouring through his journals since Graham died, but Grace was the one who always seemed to know where to find specifics. She found the passage she sought and turned it for Wallis to read, a finger pointed at the line.

With a sigh that told Grace she had already won, Wallis peered at the page and read.

‘Gold. Really? Gold? What’s that? And silver? What possible purpose does it serve to have the most difficult cloth to work with, repair or clean be reserved for a select few if not to set them apart? Sure, red and green and gray and all the others identify people but don’t set them apart in the same way. Silver and gold are boasting and intimidating and probably meant that way. Plus, they are ridiculously uncomfortable. I feel like I’ve got a piece of plastic stuck to my balls whenever I wear them. I’d ditch them if I could and make the colors match the rest of the work groups. Probably gray for IT and tan for the other.’

When he finished reading, Wallis sighed again. He looked at Grace, her face one that was quickly becoming essential to his daily happiness. He gave a grin of surrender when he saw her lips lift in victory. “Okay,” he said, touching her fingers as he let the book go, “I see the point. But now I have to get new coveralls.”

Grace pinched the odd fabric in her fingers and teased, “You just like wearing gold.”

“Yeah, yeah. You won already, so let’s not rub it in.” He picked up the pages full of lists they had been going down, designing and deciding as they went using Graham’s words as their guide. It would be a whole new silo once the “Great Forgetting” was started and complete. He put a careful check-mark next to Grace’s neat script. “Okay, coveralls are done. Next, it looks like we’ve got identification, communications and government.” He made a sound of disgust and asked, “Can’t we pick something less dreary for the next one?”

She gave him a level look, all her humor gone. “Whatever we do now will be what everyone after us will live with and build upon. We owe them to get the basics correct or else who knows what the silo will be like in a hundred years.” She nodded at the list and said, “Pick one.”

He hung his head a little and studied the list for a moment. “I would pick one but I think we have to settle the whole IT issue. Everything before led to IT. We should figure out where all those loose ends will go now that we don’t have the other silos and IT controlling us.”

“That does make sense.”

“So, what do we do about the whole IT thing?” Wallis asked.

“Well, I have some ideas about that, too.”