The Airlock
The Airlock is the silo's single door to the forbidden outside, used only for cleanings: argon, fire, sealed suits, and the short walks of those the silo sends through it.
The Airlock is the silo's one door to the outside, a chamber of yellow steel doors at the top of the shaft, just beyond the sheriff's office. It exists for a single ceremony: cleaning. When the silo condemns someone, they are dressed in a sealed suit, given wool pads and cleaning fluid, and sent through the airlock to scrub the sensor lenses that feed the cafeteria's wallscreen its view of the world. The outside air is toxic; the suits only delay it; cleaners do not come back. Between uses the chamber waits behind its warnings, flushed with argon and scoured by fire after each opening, its inner door among the most feared sights in the silo. To stand near it is to stand at the edge of the world.
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