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  I shuffled forward in line, dreading my turn. After you insert your arm in the vamp box, two prongs jabbed into the skin and sucked a couple drops of blood out through a tube and into a chamber where it was analyzed in an instant.

  The Pop Cops checked for illegal substances, pregnancy and other health markers the scrubs didn’t really care about. Blood tests were done at random hundred-hour assemblies, but they were never more than six weeks apart. The Pop Cops had them scheduled in advance and, for a price, you could find out when the next test would be. A scrub named Jacy had a whole network of informers, and he always knew when the Pop Cops planned tests and inspections.

  The next scrub to be checked was a woman. The ensign running the analyzer grabbed her arm. Before the woman could react, he clamped a bright yellow bracelet on her wrist. She was pregnant. Shock, fear and surprise warred on her face as she tried to cope with this new information.

  “Eight week checkups required,” the ensign droned. “Schedule with the infirmary.”

  The woman was waved on. She staggered toward the dining room with her other hand gripping the irremovable bracelet. Now the entire population of scrubs would know she was with child. She’d work her shifts until she gave birth, spend a week in the infirmary, hand her baby over to the care facility and then return to work. It felt more like a breeding program than a miracle of life. One of the many reasons I would never have a child.

  I took my turn with the vamp box and wove my way through the dining room toward the kitchen, finding a seat as close to the kitchen doors as possible. LC Karla stood on one of the tables. A fire burned in her eyes as she barked orders to the Pop Cops around her. I wondered why she chose this location instead of the other two meeting areas. Perhaps she enjoyed standing on the table. Yeah, right, just like I enjoyed these assemblies.

  Another buzz sounded, signaling all scrubs were in their designated locations.

  Karla addressed the crowd. “Citizens, welcome to the end of the week celebration. Now begins week number 147,002.”

  An old scrub sitting next to me chanted. “A million weeks! A million weeks! A million weeks!”

  Another scrub leaned over to him and said, “Hush, old man, you’ll be lucky to see another two weeks. No one cares about the millionth week. We won’t be here.”

  His companion laughed. “Just think,” said the second man, “in another seven thousand weeks or so, everyone in this room will be gone and there will be a whole new generation forced to listen to the same crap.”

  They chuckled together as the old scrub squinted at them. In the minds of the scrubs, the millionth week had been blown to mythical proportions. Some prophesied that on week one million, our fuel and air would run out, ending all our lives. Others claimed we all go Outside. But when you considered the average life span of a citizen was sixty to seventy centiweeks, and there would be roughly a hundred and twenty-two generations of scrubs before the millionth week, it was hard to get too concerned.

  With a gnarled finger, the old scrub tapped the man who had hushed him. “Laugh all you want, but the millionth week isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.”

  “…Broken Man.” Karla Trava’s voice cut through the buzz of voices around me. My attention snapped back to her.

  “Information is still needed. You will be rewarded for any tips that lead us to him.” She stopped for a heartbeat. “But don’t lie to me.” Her tone turned deadly. She gestured. Two Pop Cops pulled a scrub forward. Karla yanked the poor guy up to the tabletop by his collar. He swayed on weak legs and his face was a mask of fear. His hands trembled. Silence blanketed the dining room.

  Karla patted her weapon belt, looking as if she debated. With a blur of motion, her kill-zapper jumped into her hand. She pressed the nozzle to the scrub’s chest.

  “This,” she said, “is what I do to liars.” A crackle built to a crescendo as the man jerked and twitched.

  When the lieutenant commander pulled the weapon away, the man dropped to the floor with an echoing thud.

  Chapter 6

  The sound of the scrub hitting the floor burned into my mind like the kill-zapper had burned into the man’s chest. I shook in my chair, feeling hot and short of breath. It didn’t take much imagination to envision myself an arm’s length away from LC Karla with a kill-zapper at my breast.

  She stepped off the table and let the usual ensign read the weekly announcements. The ensign stumbled over his words, probably thrown by the unnatural silence in the room.

  Little by little, whispered conversation spread, and the ensign’s voice evened out. My plans to collect food during the assembly took on a higher level of danger. Karla Trava had raised the stakes.

  Even so, I couldn’t let Broken Man starve. Time was running out. I faked a coughing fit. My seatmates glanced at me in annoyance. I sputtered and choked for a while then stood and headed for the kitchen doors, hoping anyone who was interested would assume I sought a drink.

  As soon as the doors closed, I bolted to the refrigerators. Grabbing cheese, sheep’s milk and containers of vegetable casseroles, I piled them on one of the stainless-steel counters. I shut the refrigerator and sprinted to the freezer, tossing a few hunks of frozen mutton onto my pile. With panic fueling my actions, I leapt up on the counter next to the food. Right above my head was a vent to an air duct. I opened it and loaded the shaft with the provisions. Careful not to block the airflow, I shoved and stuffed until my breath came in puffs.

  When finished, I replaced the vent cover, hopped down and filled a glass with water. I slipped back into the dining room, covering my gasps for air with the drink as I reclaimed my seat. None of the scrubs gave me a glance, and I hoped no one suspected.

  When the signal sounded to end the assembly, I filed out with the rest of the scrubs. The line of people bulged sideways. Even though the scrub’s body had been removed, everyone avoided the spot where he had fallen.

  As I passed Karla, she pressed her lips together and cocked her head to one side. I dropped my gaze and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible, which only resulted in her calling out to me.

  “Trella, come here,” she ordered.

  I stepped out of line. My heart jumped in my chest. “Yes, Lieutenant Commander?”

  “Feeling better?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your cough. I hope you’re not getting a virus.”

  Her concern was frightening. “No, sir,” I said, my mind roiling. “I just must have swallowed something wrong.”

  “Oh, yes, I understand,” she said with an even flat tone. “I find myself having to swallow wrong things all the time. They leave a bitter taste. Makes me choke. Churns my stomach.”

  I had no answer. My mind buzzed with warning signals.

  She studied me for an eternal minute, then said, “Hour zero. Time to report to your station for your next shift. Air duct twenty-two, I believe.”

  “Yes, sir,” I managed to squeak out. I joined the flow of scrubs to the hallway, not daring to look back at the LC. She had been reading my file. She knew all about me, and she wanted me to know. Damn.

  An interesting fact about air duct number twenty-two was it crossed right above the kitchen, and eventually, if you followed it far enough, it passed right on top of Broken Man’s hideout.

  Once I reached my cleaning station, I hefted the troll into the air shaft. Then I raided a maintenance closet for extra supplies. Crawling behind the troll, I built a crude skid. I kept glancing behind me, checking to see if LC Karla had sent a couple of RATSS to spy on me.

  When the troll reached my stash of food, I shut it down while I rigged the skid up to it. I peered through the vent. The kitchen bustled with activity. Scrubs filled containers and chopped vegetables. Two ensigns strolled through the chaos. They were probably keeping track of the knives, countin
g in their heads to make sure a scrub didn’t steal one and attack the Pop Cops.

  No sign of Karla. My relief surprised me. Subconsciously I must have been expecting her to ambush me; to reach through the vent and cry “Gotcha!” before she kill-zapped me.

  With that awful image in mind, I loaded the food onto the pallet as fast as I could, then restarted the cleaning troll. The troll’s engine strained with the extra weight. I had to smile when I flipped open one of the control panels on the side of the troll and turned a tiny thumbscrew. Cogon had shown me how to increase the machine’s throttle, so it could move faster. An increase of speed meant I would finish my work sooner, and would have more time off—provided no one caught me.

  The troll lurched forward as the engine roared. Its speed stayed the same, but it had no trouble pulling the skid.

  Paranoia made me keep checking for RATSS, but the troll and I reached Broken Man’s rooms without incident. I popped the vent off and swung down, dropping to the floor.

  “Hello, Trella,” he said.

  I spun. He sat in a corner of the living room. I smelled him from here. He was ripe.

  “I don’t have a lot of time,” I said. Pulling a chair under the open vent, I used it to reach the food.

  “Here, let me help.” Broken Man sprawled on the floor and used his arms to drag himself across the room. He wriggled into a sitting position and held his hand to me.

  I handed the supplies to him, and he made a pile next to his legs. When the skid was empty, I hopped off the chair and carted the food into the kitchen.

  “Hungry?” I asked from the kitchen.

  “Very.”

  I brought him a spoon, and he dug into one of the yellow vegetable casseroles. When everything was put away, I stepped onto the chair again.

  “I’ll be back after my shift with fresh clothes,” I called. He waved his spoon in goodbye. I climbed into the duct, turned the troll on and completed the air shaft.

  When I finished my assigned ducts, I headed to the washroom. Fresh laundered uniforms and clothes were always stacked in large canvas bins on wheels. Empty bins were then used for dirty garments.

  I collected a bunch of clothes, linens and soap and bundled everything together with a towel. At my next stop I added some cleaning supplies, hoping to reduce the black dust coating every surface of Broken Man’s rooms.

  He had returned to the corner when I plopped down with my bundle. I showed him what I had brought. He smiled in relief, but I cringed over the black grit between his teeth.

  “Shower?” I asked.

  “Please.”

  I hesitated for an awkward moment. How to go about this? Fortunately, he had thought ahead. Poor man, he had hours alone with nothing to do, and I didn’t think to bring him anything to occupy him.

  “Get a chair from the kitchen and put it in the shower,” he said. He set a businesslike tone as he gave me instructions.

  As I placed the seat under the nozzle, he pulled himself into the bathroom and began to undress. His short commands only faltered when I tugged off his pants and underwear and hoisted him into the chair. I turned on the water and gave him the soap and the washcloth, leaving him to wash himself in private.

  As I cleaned the dust, I wondered how he had gotten the long jagged scar stretched across his lower back. Shorter scars marked his arms and torso. His withered legs had flopped when I had moved him. I stopped wiping for a second to try to envision his life before the accident. One insight I did have while helping him into the shower. He was a natural blond, and I should probably apologize for the harsh comment I had made when I first met him about going back to the upper levels to have his hair dyed.

  When I checked on Broken Man, he had turned the water off and sat dripping. I handed him a towel and assisted in drying and dressing. I debated how to move him. Despite my smaller size, all the time I’d spent climbing through the ducts and pipes had strengthened my muscles. Not wanting him to drag his clean clothes over the floor, I wrapped his arms around my neck, pulled his weight onto my back and in a hunched-over shuffle managed to get him into the chair in the living room.

  “Thanks,” he said as he combed his fingers through wet hair.

  “Food?” I asked.

  He nodded. I brought him a bowl.

  As he ate, he pointed to one of the walls where a rippled pattern was the only notable feature.

  “See that? I bet it’s a computer terminal. I couldn’t reach it from the floor. Can you lift it?”

  I studied the pattern. It consisted of horizontal sheets of metal about two-centimeters wide connected like a curtain. A dent at the bottom allowed my fingers to slide under.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  I pulled it up, then stepped back in alarm as the metal curtain disappeared under the wall with a rolling sound. Behind the sheet were a flat computer screen and a console of buttons and plugs.

  “Yes!” Broken Man said. For the first time since we had rescued him, his face glowed with excitement. “Help me get closer.”

  I pushed his chair next to the wall. He reached out to touch a button.

  “Wait,” I said in alarm. “If you turn it on won’t the Controllers know about it?”

  “No. It’s only when you hook up to the internal system. The basic public system for the scrubs doesn’t require a port. Besides, I just want to see if it works.”

  He pressed a series of switches. His hands moved with a practiced grace. The computer screen brightened, and the symbol for Inside appeared. Typically unimaginative, the symbol looked like a cube with a capital I on the front panel. As the children in the care facility would say, “Boring.” Little did they know the activities and schooling in the CF would be the most interesting part of their lives. I shook my head of the gloomy thoughts as Broken Man changed the image on the screen.

  After a while he said, “It’s still connected to the main system. We could access my disks from here.”

  “Which would lead the Controllers right to us?” I asked, again afraid this seemed too easy. Too convenient. It made sense the upper worker who used to live here had a computer hookup, but that it still worked was suspect.

  “Yes, it would. Except I have a program to reroute the tracking software, so the Controllers would be led to another computer station on level four.”

  “You know it works?”

  “Well…” Broken Man rubbed his back, considering. “Obviously my original program had a few flaws, but I had found another more effective program hidden in the system. I copied it onto my disks. Unfortunately I was caught before I could use it.” The memory of pain spread across his face. His gray eyes squinted into the past.

  “Who created the other program?” I asked.

  “The security on it was too good to crack. But I believe it was probably a member of the Garrard family.”

  “Garrard?”

  “They are unhappy with the status quo. All the major families were upset with the Trava takeover, but in time they grew complacent and believed there was nothing they could do to restore the original balance of power.”

  “Hold on. The Trava takeover?” I asked. “The Travas have always been in charge.”

  “No, they haven’t. The Travas want the scrubs to believe that, and they’re hoping eventually, with enough generations born, the uppers will forget they ever had a say in the running of Inside. But I’ve uncovered the truth. All nine families at one point had an equal vote. Each family elected one of their members to be a part of Committee. This Committee made decisions and supervised the various mechanical systems of Inside.” Broken Man frowned. “Each family had a specialty—air systems, waste water, electrical—which turned into a major disadvantage.”

  “Why?”

  “The Travas’ specialty was security and
only they had access to the stunners and kill-zappers.”

  “Oh.”

  Broken Man met my gaze. The wrinkles on his face deepened as if he alone shouldered all the responsibly in letting the Travas dominate. I guessed he was around forty-five centiweeks old.

  “There was a group of uppers who tried to regain control of a few systems, but they failed,” he said.

  “Would the group be willing to help us if you actually find Gateway?” I asked.

  “No.” Broken Man fiddled with the computer. “The consequences of getting caught are too great for the uppers.”

  It had been a hypothetical question. I planned to prove there was no Gateway. Prove to Cog that the people of Inside had been sealed off from Outside.

  Besides the Pop Cops’ insistence of a purely spiritual final resting place for the good people, the rumors surrounding Outside ranged from wild guesses to tales of horror. I knew something had to be beyond our walls. And whether this place was Outside or something else, speculation ran rampant.

  A few scrubs claimed it was a vast wasteland, others a magical kingdom where fairies flew through the air, a number declared water surrounded us and a couple maintenance scrubs thought our own garbage was piled around us. We reused and recycled everything, but a small portion of pure waste disappeared through a flushing system the Controllers maintained. Cog had tried to use that fact in his argument about Gateway.

  All the rumors didn’t sway me. I didn’t care. Why worry or speculate about an inaccessible place? We were trapped in Inside until we ceased to exist and Chomper turned our bodies into fertilizer. End of story.

  I concentrated on Broken Man’s statement about getting no help from the upper families. It fit—uppers wouldn’t risk themselves and their cushy life for a bunch of scrubs. Although, I couldn’t help thinking about Riley in his hideout on level four.

  His family names seemed important to him—a source of pride. How did he feel about the Travas controlling our world? Maybe Riley and a few uppers would like to see life altered? I grimaced. Sappy bull. I was getting soft, letting hope grow a centimeter. Snip. Snip. I mentally cut it back.