Wool

Knox and McLain plan their attack on IT while McLain’s dog sidles up to Knox. Knox finds McLain, a small elderly woman, to be imposing. Knox tells McLain: “It’s not an uprising” (274). She replies, “I’m sure that’s what my great grandparents said” (274). Knox is frustrated with McLain’s insisting on planning, thinking: “They just needed to go up there and do it” (278).

To Knox’s surprise, McLain tells him that she believes they will find more sympathy for their cause from the people up-top than those in the mid-levels. The people up-top live with the sight of the dead cleaners on the top-floor screens, while the people from the mid-levels unthinkingly aspire upwards. To create a diversion, they decide to engineer a blackout that will drive the people from the mid-floors away and give Mechanical and Supply an excuse, however weak, for going upwards to IT on the 34th floor. Knox is dismayed that McLain insists on coming with them. Despite his dislike for dogs, Knox finds himself petting McLain’s dog. The chapter ends with Knox’s reflections on the heavy burden on him and McLain as the leaders.

Juliette goes to the silo’s farm looking for food and water. She leaves her knife as a doorstop so that she can see the farm by the meager light of the stairwell.

The air is pungent with the smell of rot. The state of the farm gives her an idea of when the silo was abandoned—“it hadn’t been hundreds of years, and it hadn’t been days” (280). She finds water in a pipe and breaks it off to use as a thermos. She figures that between the two farms in the silo, she should have enough water “to drink for a very long time” (281).

Juliette is puzzled to find a fresh, plump tomato in the garden: “Her time estimate suddenly shrank” (282). While eating it, she hears the door slam. Frightened, she goes to the door to look for her knife. The knife is missing, as well as the pipe of water. Suddenly, she hears footsteps “ringing out on the stairwell below her” (283).

Supply manufactures guns and bombs. Knox holds a gun in his hands, “understanding why such things were forbidden” (284). Supply and Mechanical divide into two groups for the climb up to look less conspicuous. “The slower climbers would go first and act casual” (285), and the faster ones will aim to catch up with them by the 35th floor. Knox is increasingly worried about the people following him. He asks McLain not to start fighting before the second group arrives.

Juliette realizes there are other people in the silo. She chases the footsteps she heard, propelled by adrenaline and the fear of being alone forever, and comes to the 34th floor. She pulls the door open, breaking a broomstick handle that has been jammed into it. Inside, there is “an explosion of light” (288). She walks through the floor and find that it is in disarray, with piles of paper and furniture scattered about. She pulls open a heavy door and enters a “massive room” (289). Juliette realizes this is the server room and that she is in IT.

She hears a sound and runs after it. She sees someone replacing the floor in the back of a server. She struggles with the stranger, who sticks the knife out from under the grate while she tries to remove it and follow him in. He stabs her finger. Juliette screams. He emerges, looking scared and apologizes for wounding her. The man has an unkempt beard and shaggy appearance. Barely able to speak, he tells Juliette he has been “solo” (291) for years and has no need of a name. Juliette thinks of him as “Solo.” He is not surprised by the news that she came from a different silo. When Juliette tells him that she shouldn’t be alive, he replies, crying: “None of us should” (292).