Marnes

Marnes is the deputy of the silo's top levels, a lean, mustached lawman who has spent most of his life in the sheriff's office without ever taking the sheriff's badge for himself. He served for years at Holston's side and knows the office's files, cells, and rhythms better than anyone. The post above him is empty, and Marnes accompanies Mayor Jahns on the long walk down the great staircase to recruit a candidate he himself put forward: Juliette, a mechanic from the down deep whose work he once saw firsthand. He is gruff, loyal, and older than his hard manner suggests, and the long descent stirs an old, careful closeness between him and Jahns that neither of them names.