rushed off.
She scanned the room, then spotted the bag on the floor. She tipped her head back and looked directly into the vent. Every cell in my body turned to ice.
“All sectors clear, sir,” another Pop Cop said.
“Get me some RATSS,” she yelled. “Post guards on all air vents in Sector F3. Now!”
Her order shocked me into action. I hustled along the duct with as much speed as I could muster one-handed. The Pop Cops’ Remote Access Temperature Sensitive Scanner (RATSS) would search me out through the ducts using heat-seeking technology. I had to leave Sector F3. Now. I had to find a hot spot to hide in.
As I slid through the air shaft, snatches of conversations reached me from the corridors where an alarming number of Pop Cops rushed to take up positions under the vents. I just stayed ahead of them.
“Someone sprung the trap.”
“Escaping through the vents.”
“Use the gas.”
“Stunners only. No kill-zappers.”
“Alert all sectors on level three.”
My heart hammered, driving me forward on the edge of panic. With the Pop Cops in every room, I couldn’t get to the near-invisible hatch. Instead, I raced toward Sector B3 where I knew of a well-placed laundry chute I could use. Impossible to climb up, laundry chutes only worked one way.
Just before I reached the chute, something bit my foot. Yelping, I twisted around. A RATSS had clamped on my toe. Damn!
Its little antennae vibrated, probably reporting my position. Imagining the information racing through the complex network of wires crisscrossing every level, I yanked my wrench from my tool belt and smashed the RATSS. After reducing it to scrap, I jerked it off my foot.
When I reached the laundry chute, I slid down two levels without having any dirty garments tossed on my head. A small bonus. I landed in a half-full bin.
The dryers hummed productively, creating one of the warmest sections of Inside. If a RATSS had followed me here, it would lose me in the heat from them and from the mass of scrubs who labored here.
I found a small crawl space behind a row of dryers and collapsed into it to catch my breath.
Questions swirled in my mind. Where to go now? I couldn’t give the disks to Broken Man. He might have orchestrated this whole thing. Obviously the Pop Cops had set a trap for whoever came to collect the disks. But why not rig the vent? Maybe they hadn’t known where the disks were located. That would mean Broken Man wasn’t involved. So why hadn’t they interrogated him before sending him down here? I hadn’t wanted any trouble. Now I swam in it.
I could hide the disks on level three for the Pop Cops to find. If Broken Man wasn’t a plant, then they’d known someone had come for them, but not who. Then I could walk away. Stay uninvolved. It was the safest course of action. The smartest move. The Pop Cops would have what they wanted.
Broken Man had said the disks might reveal the location of Gateway. Why risk my neck for a possibility? For something even I didn’t believe in.
I just couldn’t give the Pop Cops what they wanted. It rankled too much. Shoving the disks into a pocket of my belt, I hurried to find Broken Man.
Pop Cops had infested the lower level. Groups of three and four scanned the scrubs, occasionally stopping and questioning one. My skin burned where it touched the pocket concealing the disks. Trying to remain calm and invisible, I searched for Broken Man.
The dais he had used as a pulpit was empty. Cogon sat on the edge of the platform with his head in his hands.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Broken Man’s gone,” he said to the floor.
“Disappeared?” Figures, I thought. He was a plant and I had fallen for it like a gullible three-hundred-week-old.
“No. Taken.” Cog looked up. Blood ran down his face from a gash on his forehead.
“Cog!” I ran and grabbed a towel from one of the laundry bins lining the hall. A few scrubs folded sheets nearby, appearing to ignore us, but I knew better.
“Here.” I wiped Cog’s eye and cheek, pressing the cloth to the cut. “Who did this to you?” Cog was a big man. No scrubs would dare fight him.
“Pop Cops,” he said.
The significance of Cog’s word taken finally sank in. My world shrank, tightening around my body until I felt like I was being crushed. Interrogation of Broken Man would lead the Pop Cops to me.
“When?” I demanded.
“Just now.” Cog gestured down the hallway. “I tried to talk to them. Stop them. But…” He touched his forehead.
Figures. The Pop Cops knew a good beating was an effective way to warn a scrub. Give them trouble another time and a scrub is arrested and never seen again in the lower levels.
“How many?”
“Three to subdue me,” he said with a smile, “but only one took him away. He can’t do much from a wheelchair.”
“You could have been fed to Chomper,” I admonished him, but I was distracted.
“Could have, Trell. Doesn’t mean I would have. Besides, I would have felt terrible if I didn’t try to help.” He sighed. “I’m talking to a wall. You don’t care about anyone in this place.”
An old argument. My response would be how I cared about him, and he would claim I had a funny way of showing it. But not this time. “You’re right. So why do you bother with me? Why do you drag me to listen to every prophet?”
“It’s called hope. It’s called seeing the best in people despite the miserable conditions.” He grabbed the towel from me. His shoulders sagged as he covered his face with the bloody cloth. “Maybe you’re right and it’s all a lie.” He gestured to Broken Man’s dais.
The prophet hadn’t lied about the disks, but soon the Pop Cops would know about them, too. A plan raced along the circuits of my mind. “Which way did the Pop Cop take Broken Man?”
“Why?” Confusion pushed his thick eyebrows together.
“Just answer.”
“Toward Quad A1. Probably going to take him up the lift to level four.”
I had to hurry. “Cog, you better get to the infirmary. I need to go.”
“Go where?” He glanced at the clock. “Your shift doesn’t start for another two hours.”
“Not your concern,” I said, looking up at the ductwork. I quickened my pace, planning the best route to Quadrant A’s lift.
But Cogon trailed after me. “Why do you care which way he went?”
I ignored
