Story so far
Short, portly, and protective of IT’s authority, Bernard opposed Juliette’s appointment as sheriff and became acting mayor after Jahns’s death. He was the prime suspect in the investigation of that death, though he proposed a forgiveness moratorium while planning to keep both offices. He later detained Juliette, dismissed her from the sheriff’s role, and watched her cleaning expecting her to die within sight. When she crossed the hill, he hurried to the servers to report the failure to Silo One. Preserving their data was his highest priority.
Bernard chose Lukas as his shadow and disclosed the hidden study, the other silos, and The Order. He confined his apprentice while directing the fight against Mechanical, expecting hunger and force to end resistance. Even as he enforced the system, Bernard condemned the people who had destroyed the world and described the silos as prisons. He told Lukas that obedience brought suffering but breaking the rules could kill everyone. He also taught that a leader’s duties included killing people considered threats.
After Lukas uncovered evidence that George had been murdered, Bernard admitted the killing but refused to name the killer. He interpreted Lukas’s request to leave confinement as a request to go outside and arranged his cleaning. Over the radio, Bernard threatened Juliette’s friends and promised to make Lukas’s suit himself so he could not survive to the hills. Lukas subsequently accused Bernard before Peter Billings and said he had proof of a killing. Bernard’s removal for cleaning ended his unopposed election campaign.
Juliette returned intending to rescue Lukas and tried to shelter the cleaner beneath a protective blanket during the airlock fire. The dead man was instead Bernard. Lukas now remembers him burning rather than going out to clean or accepting rescue.
Appearance
Short and portly, with glasses, crooked front teeth, a wispy mustache, and pressed silver IT overalls.
Role
Deceased former head of IT and acting mayor, whose rule connected local repression to the authority of Silo One.
Relationships
Lukas — Bernard selected Lukas as his successor, confined and trained him, then tried to have him sent to clean.
Juliette — Bernard sought Juliette’s death; she later attempted to shelter him in the airlock while believing the cleaner was Lukas.
Sources — 166 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 10
- Bernard Holland runs IT.
- Bernard is short and portly and wears glasses.
- Bernard has crooked front teeth and a wispy mustache.
- Bernard reports that eight known atmospheric toxins have declined slightly and two have risen.
- Bernard has already obtained Peter Billings’s acceptance of the sheriff position without Jahns’s approval.
- Bernard refuses to make a formal accusation against the preferred sheriff candidate.
- Bernard apologizes for his interference in choosing the sheriff.
Chapter 11
- Jahns fears Bernard is accumulating influence through judicial and sheriff appointments.
Chapter 15
- Bernard invokes clauses in the Pact to support IT’s exemptions from power restrictions.
- Bernard accuses Jahns of using the power holiday to retaliate against him.
- Bernard says rising server temperatures could force an unprecedented reduction in operations.
- Bernard refuses to sign Juliette’s appointment contract himself.
- Bernard questions whether Jahns will outlive another sheriff.
- Bernard directs Lukas to sign Jahns’s paperwork and make copies.
- Bernard orders that Sims refill the visitors’ canteens.
Chapter 16
- Jahns and Marnes discuss making a concession to calm Bernard.
Chapter 19
- Bernard introduces himself to Juliette as Bernard Holland.
- Bernard says the Pact makes him acting mayor until a vote can be arranged.
- Bernard is the prime suspect in the investigation of Jahns’s death.
- Bernard reports a rumor that Jahns died from exhausting herself on the climb.
- Bernard demands that Juliette keep him informed about everything as acting mayor.
- Bernard is small and potbellied, wears glasses, and dresses in pressed silver IT overalls.
Chapter 23
- Bernard is serving as interim mayor.
- Bernard says he intended to remove Holston’s closed case file for refiling in his offices.
- Bernard reminds Juliette that she reports to him under the Pact.
- Bernard plans a forgiveness moratorium to clear cases and reassure the silo.
- Bernard throws both files in the rat dispute into Juliette’s recycling bin.
- Bernard chooses “Forgive and forget” as his election motto.
- Bernard intends to serve as mayor while continuing his IT duties.
- Juliette recognizes that Bernard’s proposed forgiveness could cover a case in which he is the prime suspect.
Chapter 24
- Juliette thinks she hears Bernard’s voice in the late-night IT meeting.
Chapter 26
- Bernard says Scottie committed suicide after becoming distraught over recent tragedies.
- Bernard says Juliette is held for unauthorized entry, threats, tampering with IT affairs, and removing IT property.
- Bernard says a vote will address the restriction against simultaneously being mayor and IT head.
- Bernard offers to drop the charges if Juliette returns below and checks in with deputies along the way.
Chapter 29
- Bernard does not appear while Juliette is being charged.
Chapter 30
- Bernard watches Juliette’s cleaning from the cafeteria.
- Bernard has watched nearly a dozen cleanings.
- Bernard enjoys the deceptive transformation in cleaners’ perceptions that he and his predecessors have refined.
- Bernard hopes Peter Billings will eventually become mayor.
- Bernard considers remaining mayor for an election or two but believes his IT duties are harder to replace.
- Bernard expects Juliette to collapse near the bodies of two previous cleaners.
- Bernard races to level thirty-four after Juliette disappears over the hill.
- Bernard’s highest priority is preserving the server data.
- Bernard is ordered never to allow anyone sent outside to pass out of sight.
- Bernard still believes Juliette cannot survive outside after she disappears from view.
- Bernard has visited Mechanical once to kill a man.
- Bernard oversees the restoration to data drives of information deleted during the last uprising.
- Bernard believes that controlling both IT and the mayor’s office will let him conceal the disruption caused by Juliette.
- Bernard calls Silo One to report a problem in Silo Eighteen.
Chapter 32
- Marsh complains that Bernard is making him do too much climbing.
Chapter 33
- Samson says Bernard witnessed Juliette’s departure.
Chapter 38
- Bernard angrily questions IT technicians after Juliette survives beyond the hill.
- Bernard takes Juliette’s belongings from Lukas and orders him to join the inspection.
- Bernard searches for an explanation of how Juliette reached the far side of the hill.
- Bernard wants Juliette’s notebook examined for possible collusion.
- Bernard angrily dismisses Sims after Sims suggests Juliette was lucky.
- Bernard says he has never taken a shadow because he dreads anyone else running his operation.
- Bernard claims silos have been destroyed because leaders failed to plan for their successors.
- Bernard wants a successor who already has access to the servers.
- Bernard asks Lukas to become his shadow.
Chapter 41
- Bernard intends Lukas to continue his regular duties while learning to take over in an emergency.
- Bernard says his will would explain his responsibilities to a successor in an emergency.
- Bernard wants to replace Sims as executor of his will.
- Bernard confirms that overseeing cleanings would be a small part of Lukas’s new responsibilities.
- Bernard insists the hidden floor access must be locked after returning upstairs.
- Bernard describes the hidden knowledge he will share as a gift he once received himself.
- Bernard claims the silo and all its inhabitants depend on what he is about to show Lukas.
Chapter 43
- McLain believes Bernard is probably away from IT because he is acting as mayor.
Chapter 47
- Bernard says no one else comes into the hidden area he is showing Lukas.
- Bernard predicts deaths and disorder because the cleaning did not take place.
- Bernard says the silos were designed to prevent the disorder he expects.
- Bernard promises Lukas a spare key that Lukas must keep around his neck.
- Bernard instructs Lukas to study the book containing their history and emergency procedures.
- Bernard says the book’s authors experienced many bad things.
- Bernard identifies the book’s authors as the one people, predating those before the uprising.
- Bernard tells Lukas he needs to know where to find information in the book rather than memorize it.
Chapter 51
- Bernard stands behind the sheriff and issues instructions to his men before the attack.
Chapter 52
- Bernard regains consciousness after a blast with a throbbing head, ringing ears, and a bleeding nose.
- Bernard admits he did not expect the attackers to have guns.
- Bernard orders Lukas to remain below because he cannot risk both of them being harmed.
- Bernard wants to report the attack through the server.
- Bernard initially plugs his headset into line 1, then cancels the outgoing call when he sees line 17 flashing.
- Bernard had believed the silo calling on line 17 to be dead.
- Bernard recognizes the caller but denies knowing who it is.
- Bernard responds to the caller’s accusation by insisting the caller knew the rules.
Chapter 57
- Bernard brings Lukas pork ribs for dinner.
- Bernard says the pig was killed in crossfire during a flare-up of resistance in the bazaar.
- Bernard says most of the pork was distributed to spouses of people his side lost.
- Bernard reports five losses in addition to three from the first attack.
- Bernard has left the decision about Lukas’s continued confinement to Sims.
- Bernard believes hunger will eventually force Mechanical to surrender.
- Bernard plans to have Lukas run IT after the election is rescheduled.
- Bernard wants Lukas to build a caller indicator with red for silo seventeen and green for all other silos.
- Bernard lets the incoming server call go unanswered.
- Bernard is trying to arrange for Lukas’s mother to visit him in the server room.
- Bernard instructs Lukas to study the Order’s sections on insurrections and uprisings.
- Bernard forbids Lukas to answer the server before his induction and clearance with the other IT heads.
Chapter 59
- Thoughts of Bernard prevented Juliette from settling in the apartment intended for the head of IT.
Chapter 60
- Bernard has secretly told Lukas that he is preparing Peter Billings to become mayor.
- Bernard has told Lukas that he and Peter will eventually work together.
- Peter says Bernard decides when Lukas can leave confinement.
- According to Peter, Bernard has discussed bringing Lukas’s mother to visit.
Chapter 63
- Bernard directs security forces in the down deep by radio while working in the hidden study.
- Bernard requires Lukas to learn the Order before reading the other books.
- Bernard says many people will eventually read the Legacy books if the silo survives.
- Bernard says constructing the silos took decades.
- Bernard says moving people and supplies into the silos took much less time than building them.
- Bernard says information about what happened outside is stored in the hidden area but is not in the books.
- Bernard insists that the past differs from the Legacy and that knowing the past does not matter.
- Bernard tells Lukas that he is almost ready after hearing Lukas’s interpretation of the Order.
Chapter 64
- Juliette wonders whether returning alive from a cleaning and revealing the truth could expose Bernard.
Chapter 67
- Bernard is serving as acting mayor.
- Bernard has prepared Lukas for likely questions during his appointment.
- Bernard connects the headset for Lukas’s formal appointment conversation.
Chapter 70
- Bernard says he chose Lukas because Lukas already had some knowledge of the material stored on the servers.
- Bernard says his own training confinement lasted just over two months.
- Bernard does not know whether the destruction outside is still continuing.
- Bernard says forty-seven silos remain.
- Bernard says the destruction happened a few hundred years ago.
- Bernard condemns the men who destroyed the world and says he would kill them if he could.
- Bernard regards the silos as prisons intended to force their inhabitants to fulfill the founders’ vision.
- Bernard theorizes that the founders wanted people too alike and interdependent to fight one another.
- Bernard theorizes that the founders ruled a declining powerful country and acted to preserve their way of life.
- Bernard suspects secretly manufactured bombs helped destroy the world.
- Bernard tells Lukas that killing to preserve secrets will be part of his future job.
- Bernard says breaking the imposed rules kills everyone while obeying them causes suffering.
Chapter 73
- Bernard directs the fighting from his office by radio.
- Bernard has kept Juliette’s generator manual in case the trouble in the down deep worsens.
Chapter 76
- Bernard dismisses Lukas’s concern about smoke but promises to have a replacement mechanic investigate.
- Bernard plans to move farmers into Mechanical.
- Bernard proposes putting Sammi in charge of Mechanical.
- Bernard admits that George was killed but refuses to identify the killer.
- Bernard tells Lukas that his future duties will include eliminating people considered threats.
- Bernard claims fourteen threats have been eliminated this year.
- Bernard interprets Lukas’s request to leave the room as a request to go outside and reports it to Sheriff Billings.
Chapter 77
- Bernard orders everyone else off the radio channel after recognizing Juliette.
- Bernard warns that transmitting on this frequency merits being sent to clean.
- Bernard says Juliette’s friends are lined up for cleanings beginning the following day.
- Bernard claims to have discovered how Supply helped Juliette survive her cleaning.
- Bernard vows to construct Lukas’s suit himself to ensure Lukas cannot reach the hills.
Chapter 78
- Bernard has told Lukas that he will not survive being sent outside.
- Bernard’s request for radio silence does not stop Peter from listening to the exchange at reduced volume.
Chapter 79
- Juliette thinks her voluntary return outside may achieve the death Bernard previously tried to bring about.
Chapter 80
- An unnamed cleaner kneels facing the inner airlock door instead of going outside.
- The cleaner initially remains still beneath Juliette’s protective blanket.
- The cleaner crawls out from beneath the blanket despite Juliette’s attempt to hold him back.
- The cleaner’s suit is severely burned when Juliette finds him lying against the door.
- The dead cleaner is not Lukas, whom Juliette intended to rescue.
Chapter 81
- Bernard sentences people to death despite radio reports of their surrender in Mechanical.
- Lukas accuses Bernard of killing a man and claims to have proof.
Chapter 82
- Bernard had been running unopposed in the mayoral election.
- Bernard’s removal for cleaning led to the election being called off.
Chapter 152
- Eren identifies Bernard as the head of Silo Eighteen.
- Eren says Bernard blames himself for the failed cleaning.
- Eren says Bernard lacks an official second because his last shadow did not work out.
Chapter 160
- Bernard reports that his chosen shadow has already been vetted for server access through previous work.
- Bernard says Lukas’s possible-gazer report came from an overeager rival candidate later assigned to security.
- Bernard insists that Lukas visits the wallscreen at night to study stars rather than dream of the outside.
- Bernard suspects Mechanical knew about the hidden cameras because its workers do their own wiring.
- Bernard proposes sending a priest who shadowed with Security into Mechanical to bless the dead.
Chapter 161
- The current head of eighteen wrote a memo arguing that the cleaner lacked qualifications for authority.
Chapter 179
- Lukas says his boss wants him to schedule time in the Suit Labs.
Chapter 207
- Bernard previously guided Lukas’s studies of the Order.
Chapter 213
- Juliette recalls struggling with Bernard during her earlier return through the airlock.
Chapter 225
- Lukas remembers watching Bernard burn rather than go out to clean or accept rescue.