Shift

Mission Jones is a porter in Silo 18 who will turn 17 the following day. Mission reflects on how death balances life: His mother was sentenced to cleaning the day he was born because her pregnancy wasn’t sanctioned and she hid it until it couldn’t be terminated. Mission’s father is a farmer like his father before him, but Mission decided to leave the farms, like most of his childhood friends, and find his own destiny. Today, he’s moving a body to the coroner’s office with his friend Cam. As they make their way up the central shaft, they see graffiti on the walls. It’s a sign of the unrest that has been building in the silo.

Mission and Cam earn a big tip from the coroner, and Cam immediately heads out for another load. Mission accepts the assignment to transport a pump destined for the farms because it provides an excuse to visit his father. Outside the farms are booths where farmers sell their goods directly to the public, something they aren’t supposed to do, just like the corn being grown in the cafeteria and the beans that Mission’s boss, Roker, grows down in Lower Dispatch. Frankie, an old classmate of Mission’s, is working the security gate. Mission remembers how Frankie was encouraged to become a farmer by their teacher, Mrs. Crowe, instead of a security guard like his dad.

Mission finds his father, and they speak for a minute, mostly about the crops being grown illegally around the silo. Mission’s half-brother, Riley, comes over and plays with Mission’s knife. Mission’s father expresses concern over Mission’s future as a porter. Mission is invited to lunch, and his father asks if Mission plans to see Allie, Mission’s childhood sweetheart, but he says no. Mission doesn’t want to rekindle his romance with Allie because he knows that marrying her means returning to the farms, and he doesn’t want that. As Mission goes to make his delivery, he notices how everyone’s seemingly becoming self-sufficient, and he wonders what will happen when no one needs anyone else anymore.

Mission joins a group of porters who have heard that the farmers are moving a heavy generator on their own to save the few chits it would cost to have the porters do it. The porters cut the rope that is lowering the generator and fight the farmers performing the move.

Troy is taken to an apartment, where he’s told to rest. He learns that he was asleep for 100 years. When he asks why he was awakened, no one has an answer. The Thaw Man, Thurman, sends everyone away and tells Troy that it’s a mystery why he can remember but seems to encourage him to do so. As Thurman exits, he leaves a piece of paper on the dresser. Troy, who now knows he’s Donald Keene, picks up the paper and sees that it’s a report on Silo 12 that he wrote during his first shift.

Donald argues with Thurman, accusing him of ending the world and killing billions of people. Thurman tells Donald a story about when he was a soldier in Iran, how he had to kill a wounded soldier to save the rest of the men in his unit. Thurman relates this to what he and his coconspirators did to the world.

Donald again questions why he’s awake. Thurman says they’re curious why he remembers, and Donald confesses to not taking the pills. Thurman explains that the drugs aren’t in the pills but in the water. Thurman tells him the real reason he’s awake is that the silos are failing and they need to know why. Someone believes there’s a connection to the report Donald wrote on Silo 12.

Thurman takes Donald to an unused level of the silo, the armory. Anna is awake and living in a conference room among stacks of paperwork. On the wall is a schematic of the 50 silos. Two are marked with red Xs. Anna explains that a little over a year ago, Silo 40 went dark. They believe that the head of IT in Silo 40 went rogue and figured out how to hijack the antenna and contact the other silos. A total of 11 silos have gone dark, and now there’s unrest in Silo 18. Anna explains to Donald that three men in Silo 1—Thurman, Victor, and Erskine—were involved in planning, building, and executing the silo system. Victor, the psychiatrist who sat in the office across from Donald when he was on his first shift, wrote The Order and the original Pact. Victor killed himself two days ago.

Victor was obsessed with the loss of Silo 12 and with Donald’s report. Anna says Victor wrote notes on his copy of Donald’s report, and she needs Donald to remember everything he can to help her save Silo 18. Donald agrees, realizing that he can use Anna’s computer to find out what happened to Helen. Anna tells Thurman that Donald has agreed to help and that Donald will remain in the armory with her.

The woman who runs the school, Mrs. Crowe, is very old and uses a wheelchair to get around. Mrs. Crowe doesn’t trust the doctors or the water. She has been around so long that she taught most of the generations living in the silo. Mrs. Crowe’s classroom is filled with storybooks and posters of things that no longer exist, such as green grass and birds, and motivational sayings such as “You can be anything.” Mrs. Crowe likes to tell stories about a world that doesn’t exist, and her students have always been fascinated by them though they believe they’re fictional. Mrs. Crowe gives Mission a message to take to his friend Rodny in IT.

As Mission waits for Jeffery—a security guard who has promised to take him to Rodny—he sits in a conference room where dozens of young men from all over the silo fill out applications to join IT. Jeffery takes Mission into IT and goes to a locked door. Rodny opens it, and Mission gives Rodny Mrs. Crowe’s message, a line from a nursery rhyme. Before they go, Rodny momentarily runs out of sight, and when he returns, he shakes Mission’s hand, sliding a note into his palm.

As Jeffery walks Mission out of IT, they run into the head of IT, Wyck, who offers Mission a job for 200 chits. Mission says he’ll think about it and heads out, finding a quiet place to open Rodny’s note. The note says, “Help me.”

Donald identifies Silo 2 as the one where Tennessee had its tent the day of the National Convention. He uses Anna’s computer to search through the database to identify Helen among the first generation inside Silo 2. He doesn’t find her under her own name, so he tries various other names, including her mother’s name, and then tries the name of their dog, Karma. He finds a work badge with Helen’s picture under the name Karma Brewer. He looks up her records and learns that she was married to a man named Rick Brewer. Rick Brewer’s work badge bears a picture of Mick Webb. They had two children and multiple grandchildren.

Donald attends the ceremony for Victor, which is essentially returning his body to a cryopod since there’s no way to bury a body. As Donald observes the ceremony, he wonders where his sister is. Afterward, he speaks to Erskine about Victor. Erskine admits that he knew Victor before, that they worked in the same hospital. Erskine’s specialty was building nanobots to create super-soldiers who’d heal quickly on the battlefield. Erskine adds that he began finding someone else’s nanobots in his patients’ blood.

Alone, away from Anna and Thurman, Erskine tells Donald about nanobots he found from Iran, Syria, and Korea. Erskine walks Donald over to the cryopod containing Erskine’s daughter and explains that when he found nanobots in her blood, he knew something had to be done. At first, he argued that they could fight the nanobots with better nanobots on their side, but Victor pointed out that it would simply continue to escalate—and that if people found out what was happening, panic and discord would ensue. Victor felt that the best way to handle things was to rid the world of the nanobots and of people who knew the truth. Erskine tells Donald that Victor liked Donald and felt the world would be better off if it were run by people like Donald.

That night, Anna slips into Donald’s cot for the first time and attempts intimacy, but Donald refuses, still feeling as though he’s married to Helen. Donald resists Anna even though her touch comforts him.