Chapter 5
Once I was out of Lieutenant Commander Karla’s toxic sight, I sighed with relief. It was short lived. I had gotten off easy. Too easy. I was probably in LC Karla’s crosshairs. A dangerous position to say the least.
The Pop Cops tended to be cocky in their dealings with the scrubs.
Yes, they arrested and recycled without any backlash, but they seldom jumped to conclusions.
They watched. They waited. They knew they could find a scrub without much effort, and they enjoyed seeing who else the bad scrub could draw into trouble.
That was why I had always thought the prophets were Pop Cop spies.
The prophets preached about Outside and the final reward for enduring the horrible living conditions just to see who believed and who remained a skeptic.
The skeptics eventually vanished as if the Pop Cops sanded them out of the masses like rust spots, removing the defective genes from the general population.
I had been wrong about Broken Man being a spy. The Pop Cops wouldn’t be searching so hard for him if he was one of theirs. And now the Pop Cops had learned a person could disappear in the lower levels, which meant their flippant attitudes would change.
Instinctively, I knew LC Karla wouldn’t give up her search for Broken Man. So I was screwed and destined to become fertilizer for hydroponics. What could I even hope to gain from this situation? I doubted finding Gateway would make everything rosy.
Longing for Outside to be a real place, welled up from the tight corner of my heart where I had squashed it.
The type of longing that could overwhelm me and reduce me to a mental case, chanting “a million weeks, a million weeks,” as I dash through the plain hallways of Inside.
Hallways so empty of character that if the sector and floor level hadn’t been painted on every wall, people wouldn’t know where they were.
Scrubs as empty of character as the walls.
Because we all knew that hope and longing and desire were deadly to our peace of mind.
My involvement with this search for Gateway was to prove it didn’t exist. To show my heart it was wrong to long for change, forcing it to accept my life and focus my energies on finding the small joys Inside might have to offer.
Joys that Cogon had already found. And yet, he had always been drawn to the prophets, seeking their stories about the rewards given for good deeds.
Unwanted thoughts swirled in my mind. The time spent at the assembly in the dining room followed by the interrogation by LC Karla had run well into my sixty to seventy hour shift. Five hours remained.
Forget it. I looped back to the dining room; hoping Karla and her goons were gone. A few Pop Cops lingered nearby—normal for this area.
As I stood in line for food, tension poured from the other scrubs. Taking a bowl of the leafy green slop, I found an empty chair. The meal failed to improve the mood of the room. When I stood, a scrub pushed me aside and sat in my seat. Typical.
Only the vision of Broken Man starving made me return to the food line.
After a half-hour wait, I filled another bowl with the spinach casserole.
By the time I reached the tables, most of the scrubs I had sat with were gone.
I threaded my way through the dining room, pretending to search for a seat.
Once I reached the back, I checked to see if any Pop Cops had noticed me, then slipped out the door.
Taking food from the dining room was not uncommon, but since the Pop Cops searched for Broken Man, I knew carrying a bowl of food would draw immediate suspicion.
Sliding into the nearest heating vent, I pushed the casserole ahead of me as I crawled through the duct. The warm air flowing across my skin turned hotter as I drew closer to his room, but I stayed in the vent. The risk of being spotted outside his door was too great.
“Trella! Where the hell have you been?” Broken Man demanded as soon as I poked my head through the heating vent.
I didn’t answer him. Dripping with sweat, I rolled from the shaft and onto the ground.
Broken Man lay sprawled on the floor. Black streaks of grit stripped his clothes.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You were gone so long, I had to use the washroom.”
A man-sized, clean track on the floor from the chair to the washroom. His present position made it clear getting into a chair was harder than sliding out.
I stood and helped him back into his seat. My assurance to Cogon that I would take care of Broken Man’s needs seemed foolhardy once I fully realized his physical limitations.
I handed him the food. As Broken Man shoveled the casserole, I realized the ear-aching noise of the power plant was muted. Foam had been sprayed onto the walls, and, when I opened the door, a sheet a metal covered the entrance.
When he finished his meal, I took his bowl.
The rank aroma of stale sweat filled my nose, and I coughed to cover my expression.
From the way he wrinkled his face, I could tell I didn’t smell any better.
Funny how people can stand their own stink, but not others.
I explained to him what had happened since Cog had been here.
“The lieutenant commander was quite upset about your disappearance,” I said. “Do you know her?”
“Lieutenant commander?” Broken man tapped his spoon against his lower lip. “Which one?”
I blanched for a moment, envisioning an army of LC Karla’s patrolling the lower levels like clones. “Said her name was Karla Trava.”
“I know her. Unfortunately.” He considered. “You never did ask for more information about your biological parents.”
“I’ve been a little busy,” I said. My words laced with sarcasm. “Besides, you fed me a line of bull just to get me to help you.”
“Believe what you will, but watch out for this LC. She’s intelligent, cunning and intuitive. Her family is not only in charge of the Pop Cops, but work closely with the Controllers as well. She’s well connected to all the powerful people.”
“Why worry about the Controllers? Aren’t they just in charge of the uppers?”
“They tell the Travas what to do. And the Travas make all the decisions for Inside. Every admiral is a Trava, and every time an upper links with the computer, a Trava knows. Every mechanical system running Inside has a Trava at the switch.”
“That’s the way it’s always been. Why do you make it sound as if it’s wrong?”
“It hasn’t always been this way. You scrubs know nothing of what goes on in the upper levels. Exactly what the Trava family wants.”
I really didn’t care what the uppers did or didn’t do. My throat burned from the heat and dust, and my short nap hadn’t been enough to fully revive me. “I need more sleep before my next shift.”
“I need more food,” Broken Man said. “I did some exploring. There’s a kitchen here, but no electricity.”
“I’ll turn on the juice, but it may take me a while to get you other supplies. I’ll see what I can do.”
Broken Man nodded even as he frowned at me. “I should get a few hours of sleep, too.”
I helped him into bed and guilt twinged as black dust puffed from the mattress, causing him to choke. It would probably be another twenty hours before I could bring him food and help him shower.
The bedroom and washroom were two small squares adjacent to each other.
Both led out to the living area, another square which bordered the equally tiny kitchen.
Inside was divided into rectangles and squares.
The designers had to be obsessive-compulsives, and I cursed them for their lack of imagination. Again.
Grabbing a couple of drinking glasses from the kitchen, I filled one with water.
I set the glasses on the night table beside the bed.
When Broken Man peered in confusion at the empty glass, I told him it was for urinating into so he didn’t have to drag his body to the washroom.
His face muscles drooped in sad understanding as I waved goodbye.
Reconnecting the electricity to the small apartment proved arduous. If I hadn’t been tired, it would have taken me half the time to find the connectors.
Finally, I found a quiet place to sleep in one of the heating shafts. As I drifted off, an odd thought touched my mind. Why was Inside always heated?
I awoke at hour seventy-nine. Clocks had been installed in every room and corridor of Inside so scrubs couldn’t use the excuse of not knowing the time.
I had an hour until my next shift so I headed toward Sector F1’s washroom.
Peeling off my sweat-stiffened uniform, I stood under the shower’s warm water.
Once I dried off and put on a clean uniform, I checked my tool belt, making sure all my tools were in the right spots and that my flashlight still worked.
I wasn’t properly dressed until the familiar weight of my belt settled on my hips.
I fought my way through the corridors to my scheduled airshaft. On the way, I encountered Cog. He scraped paint chips from one of the corridor walls. Patches of rust sprinkled the metal. Another of Inside’s evils, rust was not tolerated and re-painting remained a constant chore.
Glad to see him, I touched his arm. His honey brown-eyed gaze slid in my direction. Tight lines of worry streaked across his sweaty face. Cog pulled the scraper from the wall.
“What’s going on?” he whispered. “Is everything okay with—you know?”
I nodded. “He’s fine.”
Cog pointed with his nose toward the two Pop Cops who hovered at the end of the hall. “They’re watching me.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Cogon winced. “The Pop Cops escorted me to their office for questioning about my little skirmish before they arrested Broken Man.”
I studied his face in concern, but didn’t see any bruises. Understanding my look, Cog touched his ribs and winced again. This time in pain.