Dust

How it opens

Juliette Nichols, now the mayor of Silo 18, takes the miners' excavator and batters at the silo's outer wall in Mechanical, breaking a taboo against digging there. She has seen the schematic and knows there are other silos out there, and she thinks of Solo and the kids, alone in an empty silo she cannot reach. When the wall gives way, the diggers shine a flashlight through the hole and see a dark space and the rusted side of some huge machine. Juliette orders the hole widened, while Shirly, the new head of Mechanical, is unhappy about losing workers to the dig.

Who you meet early

• JulietteJuliette Nichols is now mayor of Silo 18, though she spends her time hammering through walls in Mechanical. She has been outside the silo, and fighting broke out when she refused to clean, leaving friends of hers dead. Solo and the kids remain alone in another silo.
• RaphRaph is a pale albino miner, strong from years in the mines, who works the dig beside Juliette. He pulls her back when the excavator breaks through the wall.
• ShirlyShirly is the new head of Mechanical and an old friend of Juliette's. Her husband, Marck, was killed in the fighting, and Juliette blames herself for his death.
• DawsonDawson is the new third-shift foreman, a man in his late thirties with big, knotted hands from work and from fights. Juliette leaves him in charge of the dig.
• FitzFitz, an oilman with missing teeth, is among the mechanics and miners crowding the hole Juliette has cut. She hands him the flashlight when she steps away.
• BobbyBobby, a heavily muscled worker, takes the excavator's controls when the hammering on the wall starts again.