Wool

Days earlier, as sheriff, Juliette sits in the holding cell with her work, having been driven there by Marnes’s grief and anger. She looks at the view of the outside and wonders what compels people to want to go out. She herself loves the silo. She starts to understand, however, that the views of the outside might lead to “inevitable questions,” making it “important to squelch certain ideas before a stampede to the exits formed, before questions foamed on people’s mad lips and brought an end to them all” (127).

Juliette looks through a folder on the case of the murder of her former lover, which was found to be an accident. This is the case on which Juliette helped, impressing Marnes. Next, she opens the folder on Holston and wonders what drove him to clean. She obsesses over these two closed cases rather than the open ones that require her attention. Juliette feels a bond with Holston; she lost her lover like he lost his wife. He was also the only person to whom she revealed her relationship, which she had not officially declared, going against the silo’s rules. Marnes, meanwhile, obsesses over the folder on Jahns’s death.

Bernard comes to introduce himself to Juliette. He informs her that he is now—according to the rules of the Pact, the silo’s laws—acting mayor until the next election, and he expects Juliette to keep him updated about everything. Juliette implies that he is the prime suspect of Jahns’s murder. The meeting with Bernard strengthens Juliette’s resolve, and she puts on the sheriff’s star for the first time.

Juliette sends Marnes home at the end of the workday. She deduces from his grief that he loved Jahns. Deciding that she cannot do her job properly without first solving the mystery of Holston’s decision to go out to cleaning, Juliette sends a wire down to Mechanical to ask for his computer files.

After staying in the office late, Juliette goes into the cafeteria for food. A man is there, sketching the view of the screen. He pays no attention to her, and she finds him suspicious. Scrounging food from the kitchen using her sheriff’s keys, she comes back to the cafeteria and they start to talk. He explains to her that he is sketching the position of the stars, which Juliette has never seen before. He points them out to her, making Juliette feel exhilarated. He introduces himself as Lukas and says he works in IT. Juliette finds herself attracted to him. 

In the morning, Juliette receives a package from Scottie, who used to be a shadow in Mechanical before IT recruited him. He routed the request she sent to Mechanical and sent her a data drive with Holston’s computer files. On it is a note from Scottie cautioning her not to be caught with the drive. Using the ability to forgo sleep that she picked up in Mechanical, Juliette pores over the files.

She notices that Marnes is late for work, which is unlike him. Worried, she runs down to his apartment. He doesn’t answer the door. She lets herself in and finds that he has hanged himself, having left a note that says: “It should have been me” (161).

Juliette feels herself abandoned and lonely. She skips dinner again and goes to the cafeteria at night to look at stars. Lukas silently comes to sit next to her. After a dozen minutes of silence, he expresses condolences for Marnes’s death. He confesses that he knew the clouds would be too thick to see the stars that night, but that he came up anyway, implying that he came just to see Juliette.

They discuss the rumors that Marnes and Jahns were secret lovers. Lukas cannot “imagine loving in secret” (152), while Juliette feels that she does not need anyone’s permission to enter into a relationship. Lukas reveals that he is 25, and Juliette tells him she is 36.