After an hour, Lauren's quads burned with each step and she continually dodged people bounding up and down the stairs. She checked her watch and it was just after seven in the morning and the silo was busy with foot traffic. Officer workers and students were commuting up and down as Lauren and Deputy Clark climbed higher and higher through the pedestrian traffic.

"We'll pull over soon," Deputy Clark said, with a wheezing breath. "There's a nice diner on level forty. We can rest and have a bit of breakfast."

Lauren grabbed the rail as she climbed. "That sounds terrific to me. I've only climbed to the up-top a few times in my life and it was usually when I was young enough that my father carried me at least part of the way."

"Most people who live below the mid-level rarely make it up this far. And the majority of people who live in the lowers never make this far," Deputy Clark said. "Why would your father bring you to the up-top?"

"He wanted me to see what daylight looked like and the stars at night," Lauren said. "He wanted me to know that there's a world out there, outside the silo."

"There was a world out there a long time ago but not anymore."

"Oh I realize that now but when I was a young girl I had hoped that the world he showed me was one that I could see and experience when I became an adult," Lauren said. "I had always thought life in the silo was temporary and that we'd all leave one day. We were just waiting for the outside world to heal itself and then we'd go outside. I have picture books handed down through my family and there are drawings of children climbing trees, not climbing stairwells. I've always wanted to climb a tree."

"Well the world hasn't healed itself enough for anybody to survive out there climbing trees, at least not without special clothing," Deputy Clark said with a breathy laugh. "You have kids of your own?"

"No, I'm single and no children," Lauren said. "I have twenty children in my classroom who I love as if they're my own, but I'm not their mother," Lauren said, thinking about her dating life and how she wished she could find a husband, somebody to come home to each night. Her long school days and her evenings helping her aging father were to blame for her single life, at least that's what she told herself time and again.

"I have twin teenage boys who drive me and my husband to madness sometimes," Deputy Clark said. "We had children later in life and it's all we can do to keep up with them at our age."

"If you ever need a sitter to watch the boys so you and your husband can get away for the weekend, I'd be happy to do it," Lauren said.

"Really? Now that's an idea. I've always wanted to try that spa down on level twenty," Deputy Clark said. "I'll keep that in mind, thank you for offering, Lauren."

"I like kids, they inspire me," Lauren said.

Deputy Clark slowed her pace as she reached a landing and stepped aside as a Porter ran by along with two girls in uniform heading down to school.

"We'll pull over here and rest for a bit," Deputy Clark said.

Lauren stood on the landing and on the wall in front of her was a large faded number "Forty" that had been painted a long time ago. To her left and right were hallways that led deeper into the silo and they looked exactly the same as the hallways on her level, except the people here dressed better. The people living on level forty seemed to be white collar workers and clerical assistants. None of them wore coveralls or denim, nobody had grease-splattered clothing that Lauren had seen in the lowers. Life near the top was less physical and she assumed more mental and more creative. Maybe this is why her father brought her up here when she was young. Maybe he wanted her to see how others lived to know that there's a better way to live and that she too could be upwardly mobile one day.

"Ready for some coffee?" Deputy Clark asked.

"Ready when you are," Lauren said, rubbing her sore legs.

She followed Deputy Clark down a hallway that turned into another hallway where they passed a Deputy's Station, a Post Office, a small convenience store and finally they reached what looked like a diner and smelled like coffee. Deputy Clark waved at waitress as they walked in and sat at booth.

"I get free coffee here and you will too," Deputy Clark said. "You got diners like this on your level?"

"Yes, very similar," Lauren said, as she surveyed the diner. "None that have coffee that smells as good, though."

Deputy Clark smiled. "No kidding, the higher you go the fresher the coffee beans," Deputy Clark said.

The waitress walked over with her hands in her apron. "What can I get you two ladies?"

"The usual for me," Deputy Clark said.

Lauren grabbed the menu off the table and scanned it quickly. "Coffee and French toast, please?"

"Easy enough, I'll be back in a minute with your coffees," the waitress said.

Lauren watched her walk back to the espresso machine and she admired how her uniform was clean and not soiled like most of the wait staff on her level. Everything here was cleaner, and more contemporary than the lowers.

"I want to apologize for barking at you when we were climbing," Deputy Clark said in a whisper. "When you started asking me about the person who entered the silo, I knew I couldn't talk about it in the stairwell. The sound carries up and down the silo and there are a lot of curious people listening for any piece of news."

"I totally understand. You have specific security clearance that I don't have," Lauren said. "It makes sense that you can't talk about it."

"But I want to talk about it," Deputy Clark said, looking around the diner. "I need to talk about it with somebody. I can't tell my husband or my kids because they're sure to blab it to somebody and get us all in trouble. But since you've been called to the up-top to help with the situation, you're going to know soon enough, so I could talk with you about it, right? As long as we're not climbing where someone will hear us."

"If you're comfortable telling me what you know," Lauren said. "I'd appreciate hearing it because nobody has told me much about why I'm needed up-top."

"Ok, here it goes – so after the last cleaning when Ace didn't really clean the sensors but he flipped out and killed himself, well that got everyone nervous," Deputy Clark said. "Because suicides in the stairwells are common but nobody had up until that point committed suicide outside, on camera."

"It's a horrible thing I know –"

"Suicides are contagious, asking any psychologist. And Security and IT got all nervous that others sent to the cleaning would copycat what Ace did and no longer clean the sensors," Deputy Clark said.

The waitress brought the coffees and set them down on the table. "Your breakfast will be up shortly."

"I understand why they would be nervous about this but what does it have to do with the rumor that somebody from the outside has come into the silo?" Lauren asked.

"In all the drama watching Ace, the Security crew that let him out, didn't follow the normal procedure to secure the silo. They accidentally left the hatch open," Deputy Clark said.

"I thought they burned everything in the hatch as soon as somebody went outside," Lauren said. "To make sure they burned off any toxic gas."

"That's correct. The flames burn off toxic gas and the fear of burning to death is what gets cleaners to actually go outside. But the flames are also used for another purpose," Deputy Clark said.

"What other purpose?"

"To prevent anybody from another silo from entering silo 35," Deputy Clark said. "It's a defense mechanism."

Lauren was sipping her coffee and swallowed so hard she burned her throat. "What? Are people trying to get in to our silo?"

"Yes and when they discovered somebody in the hatch they were about to torch the person until they realized the person was so small," Deputy Clark said. "The intruder was a child!"

"My god, they didn't burn the child!" Lauren said in a loud whisper.

"Shhh, no they let her in and decontaminated her suit with chemicals," Deputy Clark said.

"So the child is a girl? Where did she come from, what did she say?" Lauren asked.

Deputy Clark stirred her coffee with a spoon. "Nobody knows what she's saying. She speaks a foreign language and that's why they've summoned you."

Lauren's mind was reeling think about this poor young girl walking through the wilderness in a protective suit only to be nearly torched to death. Had another silo sent her out for a cleaning? Who would do such a thing? What crime could a child commit to warrant that kind of punishment? What language does she speak?