Shift

Jimmy Parker is in class when his mother suddenly bursts into the room and pulls him out of his seat. It’s the day before a cleaning, and they were studying the rules from the Pact. Jimmy is embarrassed and annoyed, but when he sees the fear in his mother’s eyes, he follows her without complaint.

As Jimmy and his mother work their way down the central stairs, they can hear the thunderous approach of angry people. Making their way down, they pass a dead body on the stairs. They begin running into people, and the sound from the mob below is deafening. At level 34, they’re separated by the crowd. Jimmy is pushed against the inside of the stairwell, while his mother is on the outside. Jimmy climbs up onto the railing and continues to make his way down. He spots his mother and calls to her over the crowd, and she tells him to get to his father. The crowd is so thick that it’s no longer moving. Jimmy loses his balance, falls into the crowd, and is hoisted over the railing. He injures his shoulder trying to hold on and falls to the landing below.

Jimmy lands on a group of people, who cushion his fall. He reaches IT and is used by a guard, Yani, to lure his father out. Jimmy’s father kills Yani and pulls Jimmy behind a large steel door, resetting the code with a number he asks Jimmy to give him. Then, Jimmy’s father takes him to a hatch in the floor that leads to space underneath. There, Jimmy’s father uses the security feeds to find Jimmy’s mother. Jimmy’s father gives him a quick tour of the rooms in this hidden space—a small kitchen, a bunk room, and a door that hides a pantry with enough food for four people for 10 years—and then shows Jimmy how the radio works. After telling Jimmy not to open the steel door for anyone, his father leaves to find his mother.

In an apartment down the hall from his former office, Donald discovers Thurman’s ID badge and sees his name on a pair of boots. Donald realizes that these people think he’s Thurman but doesn’t know why. A man, Eren, comes for Donald and takes him to the comm room, where they watch recorded footage of a cleaner walking away from Silo 18. They tell Donald that the woman is walking toward Silo 17, but that silo has been gone for more than 30 years. Donald tells them to let her go, assuming that she’ll die before she gets anywhere.

Donald goes to Eren’s office to use the computer, but he doesn’t know Thurman’s passcode. Donald convinces Eren to look up information on Silo 17 for him while they wait for the paper reports on both the silo and the missing cleaner. Eren tells Donald that Silo 17 went down because the airlocks opened the day before a cleaning for unknown reasons. There was a riot. Eren says they sent the collapse codes to Silo 17, so a hole in the ground should be all that’s left. They discuss the possibility of the cleaner’s going further, and Eren agrees to warn the heads of the silos on either side of Silo 17.

While Eren is gone, Donald attempts to figure out Thurman’s passcode and eventually succeeds, using a number that combines his own passcode and Thurman’s. Donald opens Thurman’s email, hoping that whoever switched his information with Thurman’s might have left him a message. He discovers that Victor left a suicide note for Thurman, discounting Donald’s theory that Victor was murdered. Pinned to the top of the inbox, he finds a note from Anna that instructs the reader to wake her, but Donald is unclear whether this was meant for him or Thurman. The note contains a number after the word “locket,” but Donald doesn’t know what it means. Eren returns with the reports on Silo 17 and the cleaner and then leaves Donald to work his shift.

Jimmy figures out how to adjust the camera views on the security footage and searches for his parents in the crowd on the stairs but can’t find them. He finds a book called The Order (which is open to a specific page) but doesn’t understand what it is. A voice calls out to him from the radio. Jimmy pushes the button like his father showed him and responds, hoping it’s his father. Instead, it’s the deputy sheriff. Jimmy’s father’s voice comes across, and Jimmy listens as he gives the deputy orders. Jimmy’s father then tells Jimmy that he’s going to find his mother and that he’ll return soon.

Several hours pass, and then Jimmy hears his father’s voice on the radio again. Jimmy looks on the monitors and sees his father in the hallway outside the steel door, but he’s not alone. Another man takes the radio and demands the code to the door. Jimmy watches the monitor as his father warns him that if he gives these people the code, they’ll kill them all. Then his father begins to fight and a man shoots him. A moment later, Jimmy can see more men dragging his mother in view of the camera.

The man with the radio orders Jimmy to give him the code again. Jimmy rushes up to the main server room and stands at the steel door. The man keeps demanding the code. Jimmy starts to enter it, but he’s so emotional he can’t remember what code he gave his father. The first time he tries, he doesn’t finish the code quickly enough and it times out. The second time, he gets the figures backward. The man tells him one can only enter a wrong code three times a day before the system locks it down, and he demands that Jimmy tell him the code. Jimmy can hear fighting on the other side of the door and hears his mother’s voice. Someone inputs numbers into the pad and they fail. A gun goes off. Jimmy curls into a ball, aware that he can no longer hear his mother’s voice.

Donald returns to his apartment and discovers that someone has delivered a package to him marked “Shift.” He opens it. Inside are a pocketknife, a double-headed quarter, and dog tags—Thurman’s private possessions, trinkets from a world that no longer exists. He thinks of Anna’s email and wonders if the locket has something to do with these possessions, perhaps something Thurman gave her. Donald wonders again why he was awakened in Thurman’s place. As he does, he begins coughing, unaware that he’s coughing up blood.

Jimmy sleeps beside the steel door until hunger wakes him. He goes back down the hatch and notices that the flashing of the red lights has been joined by a buzzing noise. He tracks it to the comm hub his father showed him. Jimmy picks up a headset and places the plug into a socket that is flashing, one that’s marked with the number 40. A voice on the other end asks what happened and then concludes that they were too late and disconnects. Jimmy notices the light beside the number one is also blinking, so he puts the jack into the socket there. Jimmy tells them what he told level 40, and the person on the other side says that they’re shutting him down. A moment later, steam leaks from the vents. The man on the other end disconnects, and the lights stop flashing red. However, they restart, and the light beside 40 blinks again. Jimmy inserts the jack but doesn’t talk to them.

Jimmy goes into the pantry and is shocked to see a huge supply of canned food. He picks a can of soup and one of corn, takes the rusty can opener, and goes into the small kitchen. Waiting for his food to heat, he studies the papers on the wall, which have drawings he doesn’t understand—drawings of circles marked as silos.

Jimmy spends most of his time watching the video feeds on the monitor, which display the cruelty of the survivors still inside the silo. He goes up into the server room a few times and hears the people in the hall attempting to figure out the code to the door, but they can’t. Bored one night, he tries to read The Order but finds it confusing. Other books are in tins arranged in alphabetical order. He pulls out the “Li-Lo” box and is shocked to see a photograph of a locomotive. When he turns the page, he sees a picture of a locust and drops the book in fear. These books are marked “Legacy.”

Donald has a call with the head of Silo 18, Bernard, to discuss his chosen shadow, Lukas Kyle. Bernard explains that they considered Lukas as the shadow several years ago, but another potential shadow had been chosen before they determined that Lukas was better suited to security. Lukas has experience with the servers, and they’ve started him on Legacy studies. Donald asks about the uprising, and Bernard says that it has been contained to Mechanical. Donald warns Bernard to get his silo in order and tells the comm operator to keep a close eye on Silo 18.

Donald goes to the cafeteria. It’s early, so the staff has just begun to make breakfast. Donald reads through the report on the cleaner, Juliette Nichols, and feels as though most of the things Bernard disliked about her are things that Donald could be accused of. Donald also looks at the report on Silo 17, confused like those before him about why it collapsed. When Donald sees a transcript of the last contact with Silo 17, he’s confused by the mention of a conversation with level 40. Donald realizes that the survivor had been talking about Silo 40, the silo that went rogue before his last shift—the silo that Anna shut down.

Donald goes to cryo-storage to visit his sister, remembering when she visited him in Washington, DC, and dragged him to the Air and Space Museum and then to the Holocaust Museum. Donald remembers the emotional impact of the Holocaust Museum, comparing himself to the men who’d designed the gas chambers and concentration camps. Dr. Wilson finds Donald and takes him to the medical room, where Donald has asked to witness the waking of a sleeping man.

Jimmy has begun to keep track of the passage of time via hashmarks on the door of a server. More than a year has passed. Some people are still trying to get through the steel door. The camera feeds have stopped, but the radios still work. Jimmy hears the other survivors talk sometimes, and knows that Mechanical is being flooded and that people are still working on the farms.

Jimmy has taught himself to use the rifle his father left behind. He reads often, researching words he doesn’t fully understand. Every day, he listens to the people come and enter random codes, three a day. He knows that they’ll eventually stumble upon the right combination and considers changing the code but can’t remember how his father did it.

The plumbing has stopped working, so Jimmy has begun using the bathroom in a corner of his living space. He broke into the cistern to access fresh water but knows it won’t last forever, so he drinks the juice in the cans of fruit and vegetables. One day, the people outside the door unexpectedly stumble on the right code, sooner than Jimmy expected. A man pushes his way through the door, and Jimmy shoots him. Another man comes, and Jimmy shoots him too. A third man has run down the corridor. Jimmy stands at the door and waits for the man to stick his head out. When he does, Jimmy shoots him.

Donald watches as the doctor and his assistant prepare to awaken a reactor technician for his fourth shift. They prepare a drink with two scoops of powder in warm water, and get a wheelchair, a blanket, a gown, and an emergency medical kit ready. They go to the man’s pod, and the doctor enters a code that begins an automated process. The pod begins to warm up, and the door opens when it reaches a certain temperature. Donald clarifies that his code can be used to start the process, and the doctor confirms it. As they take the man out of the pod and transfer him to the wheelchair, the doctor’s assistant mentions personal effects that must be retrieved. The assistant explains that there are lockers to hold any effects a person requires during a shift.

Donald volunteers to retrieve the tech’s personal effects. He finds himself in a large storage room filled with paperwork on each of the silos. Along the back walls are the lockers, each marked with a number. Donald remembers the numbers in Anna’s email and realizes that it’s the number for her locker. He begins looking for it, but first he finds one that corresponds with his own number. Inside a bag marked “Legacy,” he finds his clothing from the day of the convention. With it, he finds his wedding ring and his cellphone. Thinking about his phone and the messages that didn’t go through the day of the convention, he also remembers the many times that Mick didn’t get his messages while he was with Anna. Anna’s specialty was wireless networks. It all makes sense to Donald as he realizes that Mick and Anna worked together to trick him into being stuck in Silo 1.

Donald retrieves the items from Anna’s and the tech’s lockers before going back to the medical suite, where he waits for Dr. Wilson to leave and then makes a recovery drink and spikes it with sleeping pills. Donald finds Anna’s pod and initiates the process of awakening her. When she wakes, he asks her why she kept him away from Helen that day. Anna is confused but admits that she and Mick worked to separate Donald from Helen that day because, Anna claims, she and Donald were meant to be together. At the same time, Anna tries to tell Donald something she says is important, but he refuses to listen. He encourages her to drink the liquid. She dies in his arms.