Story so far
A sixty-two-year-old electrician, Walker trained Marck, Scottie and Juliette in practical work. Long confined by fear to his workshop, he encouraged Scottie to take a new job and later worried that the young man had been unhappy away from home. When Juliette brought suspicions about Scottie’s death and the defective heat tape, Walker concluded that the tape had been engineered to fail. He sent her a cryptic message and used favors with Supply to substitute Mechanical’s best materials into her cleaning suit.
Hearing that Juliette had refused to clean and vanished over the hill, Walker left his room after more than forty years. He explained the suit substitution to the workers, feared their response meant an uprising, and later blamed himself for its deaths. As fighting continued, he worked on Hank’s radio, built larger antennas and an amplifier, and with Shirly added an adjustable resistor. Starving himself by giving away rations and despairing enough to contemplate death, he nevertheless kept experimenting. He marked eleven strong signals he thought came from elsewhere.
A blast broke his magnifiers and hurt his hip, forcing him to abandon his workshop with the radio parts. In the generator control room he rebuilt the receiver using communication headphones and wept at hearing Juliette alive. He identified blasting-cap transmitters as substitutes for the transmitter left behind; Shirly fetched them, and he modified one to transmit through a headset and red detonation switch. He finally spoke with Juliette and passed the equipment to Shirly, then cried over the radio as their defenses were overwhelmed. His earlier help with Juliette’s suit remains part of what made her survival possible.
Appearance
An older man with bushy white eyebrows and wrinkled skin. A blast broke his magnifiers and injured his hip during the retreat.
Role
He is Mechanical’s electrician and inventive communications specialist, responsible for the suit substitution and radio work that connected Juliette with home.
Relationships
Juliette — Walker taught Juliette, arranged durable materials for her suit, and reestablished radio contact with her.
Scottie — Walker trained Scottie and encouraged him to accept his new job.
Shirly — Shirly brings food, helps assemble the radio and obtains transmitters for Walker.
Supply — Walker called in accumulated favors with Supply to replace Juliette’s suit materials.
Sources — 86 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 13
- Marnes describes Walker as crafty and says he never leaves his workshop.
- Marck recalls that Walker still went out occasionally when Marck was studying under him.
- Marck says Walker explained things while Juliette swept the shop on her first night.
Chapter 21
- Walker taught Juliette as a shadow to release electrical ties without cutting them so they could be reused.
Chapter 23
- Juliette considers Walker a likely person to help interpret the strange computer text.
Chapter 26
- Walker had trained Scottie as a shadow.
Chapter 27
- Walker has bushy white eyebrows and wrinkled skin.
- Walker says he encouraged Scottie to accept the new job so Scottie would not stay out of obligation to him.
- Walker believes Scottie was unhappy away from home.
- Walker says Scottie loved and admired Juliette.
- Walker suspects IT after Juliette suggests Scottie’s killer did not have far to travel.
- Walker recommended Scottie as the best person to examine the program Knox brought from Juliette.
- Walker says an eight-by-two-inch screen could be a server readout, but the program’s pixel density would make no sense for one.
- Walker locks his workshop and runs a leaking air compressor before hearing Juliette’s dangerous suspicions.
- Walker concludes that the heat tape was engineered to fail.
Chapter 29
- Walker sends Juliette an enigmatic message urging her not to fear and mentioning Supply.
Chapter 33
- Walker is an electrician.
- Walker is sixty-two years old.
- Walker stays awake all night removing damaged electronic chips to distract himself.
- Walker describes himself as having no family and no life.
- Walker pays Samson one chit for the news that Juliette did not clean.
- Walker feels proud when he hears that Juliette refused to clean.
- Walker pays Samson a second chit for further news about Juliette.
- Walker wonders whether Juliette received his note in time.
- Walker expects Shirly to bring breakfast and remove his dirty dishes.
- News of Juliette’s refusal to clean prompts Walker to leave his room after more than forty years.
Chapter 34
- Juliette believes Walker arranged Supply’s substitution of the suit materials.
Chapter 37
- Walker leaves his workshop and struggles with fear while crossing the open entrance hall to Mechanical.
- Walker comes to the gathering because he has heard that Jules has gone out of sight.
- Walker says he called in his accumulated favors with Supply to help Jules.
- Walker says he instructed Supply to secretly substitute Mechanical’s best materials for the materials requested for Jules’s suit.
- Walker believes the cleaning suits are deliberately made to fail so cleaners cannot wander out of sight.
- Walker fears that the workers’ reaction to his revelation marks the beginning of an uprising.
Chapter 39
- Juliette credits Walker with helping provide her well-built protective suit.
Chapter 40
- Knox asks Walker to announce the delegation’s visit as a delivery of repairs, assuming IT might monitor the wire.
- Knox credits Walker and helpers in Supply with giving Juliette a chance to cross the hill.
Chapter 46
- Walker habitually solders circuit boards like those inside the servers Juliette examines.
Chapter 49
- Knox recalls Walker’s warning as he recognizes the march as an uprising.
Chapter 55
- Walker struggles to sleep because both the fighting and the pauses between attacks frighten him.
- Walker has been working through the night on the radio Hank supplied.
- Walker has bypassed the radio battery with a transformer that provides constant power.
- Walker suspects the opposing side has somehow excluded this radio from its communications.
- Walker has built a stronger radio antenna that winds around the workshop rafters.
- Walker blames himself for the violence and every life lost in it.
- Walker traces his guilt to a message sent to Supply as a favor for Juliette.
- Walker contemplates cutting his veins to join Scottie and Juliette in death.
Chapter 58
- Walker theorizes that radio transmissions are ripples in the air that longer antennas can catch more effectively.
- Walker has built three large antennas in two days.
- Walker has built an amplifier more powerful than the one in Hank’s old hip radio.
- Walker imagines Scottie helping him examine the radio circuitry.
- Walker has been giving away his food rations.
- Walker has gone without food so long that his stomach feels cramped beyond hunger.
- Walker adds an adjustable resistor to the radio board labeled 18 with Shirly’s help.
- Walker speculates that IT’s power could have come from rerouting or backup batteries.
- Walker does not recognize the name Deputy Roberts heard over the repaired radio.
Chapter 59
- Juliette wonders whether Walker came to live among his work because of an obsession with solving problems.
Chapter 61
- Walker marks eleven strong radio signals and thinks none is his own silo’s signal.
- Walker speculates that the modified circuit modulates wave frequency.
- Walker is knocked to the floor by a blast.
- Walker’s magnifiers are broken during the blast.
- Walker hurts his hip when he falls onto the steel floor.
- Walker reaches for Scottie’s help in his confusion after the blast.
- Walker packs the radio components and transformer into an emptied parts bin.
- Walker is led toward the workshop door by Shirly despite his resolve never to leave the room again.
Chapter 64
- Juliette wishes Walker were present to advise her about grounding the pump.
Chapter 65
- Walker carries most of his homemade radio in a spare-parts tub while retreating from an attack.
- Walker leaves tools and parts behind during the retreat.
- Walker reassembles the radio in the generator control room.
- Walker wires generator communication headphones into the radio after realizing he has no speakers.
- Walker wants to search previously unexplored radio frequencies to determine how many voices there are.
- Walker cries with confused joy after hearing Juliette’s voice on the radio.
Chapter 68
- Walker tells Shirly that Juliette’s radio transmission is happening in the present.
- Walker believes Juliette survived and reached other people outside their silo.
- Walker says the transmitter needed to answer Juliette is on his other workbench.
- Walker built the radio for listening because that was all Jenks requested.
- Walker identifies blasting-cap transmitters as a workable substitute for the missing radio transmitter.
Chapter 71
- Walker modifies a transmitter with soldering equipment to try to contact Juliette.
- Walker uses a red detonation switch and a headset microphone to transmit a call to Juliette.
- Walker asks the unidentified respondent whether anyone else is present.
Chapter 74
- Walker calls Juliette on the radio and urgently asks her to respond.
Chapter 75
- Walker establishes radio contact with Juliette while sheltering with Shirly and Courtnee in the generator control room.
- Walker tells Juliette that he can hear transmissions from all the other silos.
- Walker passes the headset and detonator switch to Shirly so she can speak to Juliette.
- Walker becomes distraught and cries over his radio as the defenders are overwhelmed.
Chapter 77
- Juliette suspects Walker engineered the radio connection that let her speak with her home silo.
Chapter 79
- Walker helped arrange Juliette’s previous suit.