Story so far
Paul Thurman brings his daughter Anna into the Atlanta project as Donald’s lead engineer while she is on leave from MIT. A former lover of Donald, she handles mechanical spaces and piping and shares the work of designing the underground facility. Her research includes wireless harmonics, remote charging, and radio control of electronics. At the convention she takes Donald’s ATV key to prevent him from leaving for the Tennessee delegation, then helps Charlotte pull him toward safety after the blasts.
Awakened in secret during the silo crisis, Anna reports lost contact with eleven facilities and doubts anyone there remains alive, though the cause and residents’ survival are uncertain. She requests Donald’s awakening, hoping he can persuade her father to save Silo Eighteen. She gains control of the affected silos’ collapse mechanism and works to jam radio towers. As Donald investigates and grieves over Helen’s life with Mick Webb, Anna comforts him, and their former intimacy returns before she is quietly put back into suspension.
Anna leaves an urgent message asking her father to wake her. Donald initially reads its number as a date, then as a locker reference; he suspects she engineered his separation from Helen. When he wakes Anna, she apologizes for what she and Mick did and says she could not bear Donald dying alone elsewhere. She says another shift revealed something, warns that her father made a pact under which they would never be awakened, and asks Donald to help her escape. After drinking the mixture he gives her, she becomes unexpectedly sleepy and dies in his arms.
Donald later concludes that Anna left the note for him and removed her father from power by switching Donald with another man. He imagines that she discovered the truth alone and became afraid of her father. Anna remains dead during Donald’s confrontation with Thurman, but Donald chooses not to tell him. Thurman believes Anna disclosed the plan to kill the other silo populations.
Appearance
Auburn hair, freckles across her nose, and pale skin. During her secret work she has dark rings under her eyes and wears her hair in a bun secured with a pen.
Role
Anna was an engineer and wireless specialist involved in the silo project and its crisis response. Her final warning and the identity switch Donald attributes to her outlive her.
Relationships
Paul Thurman — Paul Thurman is Anna’s father; she warns Donald about his pact, while he does not learn of her death during their confrontation.
Mick Webb — Anna apologizes for what she and Mick Webb did; Donald suspects their actions separated him from Helen.
Helen — Anna comforts Donald over Helen’s later life; he subsequently suspects Anna helped arrange their separation.
Sources — 99 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 2
- Anna is Senator Thurman’s daughter.
- Thurman says Anna is taking leave from MIT to help with the project.
- Thurman appoints Anna as Donald’s lead engineer.
Chapter 4
- Anna installs an extra monitor in Donald’s office at her father’s suggestion.
- Anna has auburn hair.
- Anna says she arrived in town the previous week and has been settling into an apartment.
- Anna says her father wants her to handle the mechanical spaces in the plans.
- Anna is taking a sabbatical from the Institute for the Atlanta project.
- Anna proposes meeting Donald weekly to review their work.
- Anna warns Donald that dust could ruin his computer.
Chapter 6
- Anna is collaborating on the Atlanta project.
- Donald has left whole floors and mechanical spaces empty for Anna to design.
Chapter 8
- Thurman reports that Anna is confident Donald can stay ahead of schedule and says they make a great team.
Chapter 12
- Donald says he and Anna exchange plans instead of meeting regularly.
- Donald tells Helen that Anna was not at the job site with him that day.
Chapter 18
- Anna has auburn hair and freckles across her nose.
- Anna wants approval for the bottom third of the design so construction can proceed to more floors.
- Anna describes herself as a consultant paid to lay out the pipes.
- Anna says her mother was almost forty when she was born.
- Anna theorizes that hopes of extreme longevity are leading people to postpone children.
- Anna claims that people practice cloning despite its illegality.
- Anna believes repairing freezing damage at the cellular level could make cryonic preservation feasible.
- Anna hugs Donald and kisses his cheek when her car arrives.
Chapter 19
- A woman in the frozen pod Troy examines has a face he recognizes, but she is not his wife.
Chapter 20
- Mick says Anna told him Donald had skipped the facility tour.
Chapter 22
- Anna helped Donald design the underground space beneath the Tennessee delegation.
- Anna says she also tried to see the competing bunker designs.
- Anna thinks the facility will attract worldwide scrutiny.
Chapter 23
- The woman Troy recognizes in a cryopod has auburn hair that she sometimes wears in a bun.
- Troy believes the sleeping auburn-haired woman wanted to be his wife.
Chapter 24
- Anna removes Donald’s ATV key to prevent him from leaving for the Tennessee delegation.
- Anna follows Donald uphill during the anthem and tries to pull him back down.
- Anna remains composed enough to direct Donald during the evacuation.
- Anna and Charlotte pull Donald past the Senator and into a tent after the blasts.
Chapter 32
- Anna has been awake for almost a year.
- Anna embraces Donald when they are reunited.
- Anna has pale skin, dark rings under her eyes and hair pinned into a bun with a pen.
- Anna says wireless networks are her specialty.
- Anna says Thurman, Erskine, Dr. Sneed and the assistants who awakened her know she is awake.
- Anna reports that contact has been lost with eleven silos.
- Anna believes she has contained the loss of communications, but its cause and the survival of residents remain uncertain.
- Anna personally doubts that anyone remains alive in the silent silos.
- Anna warns that Eighteen appears headed for self-destruction.
- Anna says the system was built to run itself rather than depend on one person being in charge.
Chapter 33
- Anna tells Donald that she requested his awakening because she needs his help.
- Anna rejects Donald’s suggestion that the silo project was a mistake.
- Anna hopes Donald can persuade Thurman that Silo Eighteen is worth saving.
- Anna says she knew Victor and insists that he was not crazy.
- Anna proposes that Donald work with her downstairs until they make progress.
- Anna asks Thurman to bring another computer so she can set it up.
- Anna also requests a second cot.
Chapter 37
- Anna prepares to attend Victor’s funeral with Donald.
- Anna recognizes Mick when Donald opens the records of Helen’s husband.
- Anna urges Donald to stop looking through Helen’s family records.
Chapter 38
- Anna comforts Donald while he cries in the lift.
- Anna’s waking is known only to her father, Dr. Sneed, Erskine, Donald and herself.
- Anna considers Erskine a friend.
- Anna argues with her father after Victor’s ceremony.
Chapter 39
- Erskine says Anna’s awakening made him wish to wake his own daughter.
Chapter 40
- Anna sets up a computer and folders of notes for Donald.
- Anna is a former lover of Donald.
- Anna holds Donald as he weeps.
- Anna reassures Donald that everything will be all right.
Chapter 44
- Anna monitors the radio in hopes that Silo Forty and its neighbors remain silent.
- Anna researched wireless harmonics, remote charging, and radio control of electronics at MIT.
- Anna gained control of the affected silos’ collapse mechanism.
Chapter 45
- Donald is developing mixed feelings for Anna.
Chapter 47
- Anna reports that her work jamming radio towers will soon be finished.
- Anna asks what would happen after they identified people with surviving memories.
Chapter 52
- Anna has been awake for almost a year across two full shifts.
- Anna is put under early in the morning to avoid being seen.
Chapter 53
- Anna has told Donald that the airborne machines are designed to attack only particular materials.
Chapter 65
- Anna sent her father a message asking him to wake her when he received it.
Chapter 69
- Anna wrote her father an urgent note about a locket with a date.
Chapter 74
- Anna is asleep below and has left a note asking Thurman to wake her.
- Anna previously said Silo Forty had hacked the master system.
Chapter 79
- Anna’s note contains a number that Donald now interprets as a locker reference rather than a date.
Chapter 80
- Donald remembers Anna’s expertise in wireless systems and hacking.
- Donald recalls that Anna took the ATV keys from him before he entered the silo.
- Donald suspects Anna deliberately arranged for the two of them to be left together in this silo.
Chapter 81
- Anna recognizes Donald after waking and says she knew he would come for her.
- Anna says her father never intended to wake them from the deep freeze.
- Anna apologizes for what she and Mick did, saying it seemed right at the time.
- Anna says her father woke her for another shift while Donald remained in the deep freeze.
- Anna says she discovered something during that additional shift.
- Anna says she and Donald were meant to be together in the place they built.
- Anna says she could not bear the thought of Donald dying alone elsewhere.
- Anna asks Donald to help her escape, warning that her father made a pact.
- Anna becomes unexpectedly sleepy after drinking the mixture Donald gives her.
- Anna dies in Donald’s arms.
- Donald remembers Anna giving him their first kiss after he spent a night supporting her as she slept on a fraternity-house sofa.
- Donald remembers sharing a cot with Anna during their last shift.
Chapter 86
- Donald believes Anna used her influence with her father to manipulate a last-minute switch involving Mick and Thurman.
Chapter 91
- Donald concludes that Anna left the note in Thurman’s account for him.
- Donald imagines that Anna discovered the truth alone and became afraid of her father.
- Donald concludes that Anna removed her father from power by switching Donald with another man and leaving instructions to wake her.
Chapter 96
- Donald regards Anna as having subjected him to the misery of waking into silo life.
Chapter 101
- Anna is dead, but Donald chooses not to tell Thurman during their confrontation.
- Thurman believes Anna told Donald about the plan to kill the other silo populations.