Wool

Juliette scavenges materials from Supply and brings them to the Suit Lab in IT, which she has made into her bedroom. Beginning to understand how the cleaning suits are designed, she has also collected useful items with no specific purpose, such as a rechargeable battery.

While scrounging about the silo, Juliette has come across violent scenes, such as two men from Supply who slit their wrists while holding hands. Juliette thinks of the silo is “haunted” (365) and has the feeling of being watched.

Thinking about Lukas, Juliette works on building a suit that will allow her to breathe underwater. Solo proudly brings in some freshly baked bread that Juliette has taught him to make. Juliette reflects that Solo is in many ways “stuck with the mind of a teenager” (366). She explains that she wants to go into the flooded bottom of the silo to get power to the pumps down there, which will be able to drain much faster than the ones she has already repaired.

In the bunk, Lukas closes a book: “How long could he go on like this? Reading and sleeping and eating? The weeks already felt like months” (369). The scale of the world he is learning about in the books is frightening to him.

Peter Billings comes to the server room door with a tray of food for Lukas. Lukas feels that Peter is “silently mocking him,” and senses a “competitive tension between them” (370), even though Bernard one day plans for Peter to be mayor and work together with Lukas. Peter asks Lukas to stay and eat at the door with him. Lukas lies to him that he has been working on maintaining the servers in the room, just as before. Peter tells him that Bernard is planning to blast open the wall Mechanical built in front of their entrance.

Juliette calls and Lukas runs to pick it up, despite Peter’s protests that Bernard ordered Lukas to finish his tray of food. Juliette and Lukas bicker about the uprising. Lukas feels frustrated by Juliette’s expectations of him and wishes they could go back to talking about trivial things. Juliette reminds him that he’s not like the rest, and Lukas lies that he has to hang up. Lukas slumps against the server, haunted by memories of shooting McLain.

Shirly and Walker puzzle over the transmissions they hear through the radio. As they listen to a conversation about an impending cleaning, Walker marks another position on the potentiometer where he has heard a strong signal. He has found 11 places so far aside from their silo. They are stunned to think that the label “18” means that there are at least 18 silos. Shirly leaves to go tell Jenkins.

Suddenly, Walker is knocked over as the wall guarding Mechanical is blown up, injuring his hip and breaking his magnifying glasses. Jenkins picks Walker off the ground and tells him that they are “falling back” (378). Shirly arrives and starts frantically gathering the pieces of the radio. She grabs Walker and pulls him out of the workshop.

Juliette feels panic as she puts on the underwater suit and is reminded of being sent out to clean. She puts the kitchen knife in her pocket and starts to breathe easier. Although she is scared to dive underwater, Juliette figures that she is more afraid of going crazy while she waits for the slow pumps to drain the flood.

Juliette thinks about Lukas as she puts on her helmet. Solo, with whom she can communicate through a radio in her suit, will monitor the compressor while she is underwater. Juliette instructs Solo to attach weights to her knees and pass her the wire with the power. She plummets into the water.