Текст книги "Inside Out"

Автор книги: Maria V. Snyder

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

13

HIS WORDS SLICED THROUGH MY HEART, CUTTING IT into little pathetic pieces. I understood how he could feel unprepared. The knowledge that the Pop Cops would recycle Cog had been trapped deep within me and ignored. I planned to deal with it later or, better yet, hoped it would disappear altogether.

“When?” I asked.

“Hour ninety-nine. They plan to walk him down to Chomper’s Lair and kill-zap him there.” Outrage filled Jacy’s voice. “They figured it would be easier than lugging his body down there. The timing is so Lieutenant Commander Karla can use his execution to lecture us during the hundred-hour assembly on the consequences of disobeying the Pop Cops.”

I did the math. Fifty-eight hours left.

“If what you’re doing can help Cog, you’d better do it quick,” Jacy said.

“I can’t do anything with a broken arm.”

He nodded and the big guy released my elbow. I rubbed the joint and turned away.

“Trella,” Jacy called.

“What?” I almost growled at him.

“Let me know if you need anything. Anything at all.”

It was a generous offer, considering the last time we conversed he had called me worthless. “Got it.”

With my emotions spinning, I hurried to meet Logan. I walked right past my turn and had to stop. Distractions would be dangerous, and all our efforts would be for nothing if we were caught before accessing the computer. I squashed my fear and worries into a small metal box and dropped in the shattered remains of my heart for good measure. Locked with an obnoxiously big lock, I pushed the container into a far corner of my thoughts.

Focused and almost robotic, I marched toward corridor A2-5. Logan fidgeted and paced, trying to appear nonchalant, but failing miserably. At least he wasn’t chewing his nails.

I led him to the door of the maintenance room next to Quad A’s lift. While he watched the hall, I opened the door’s lock. Memories of Cog and I hiding Broken Man in a laundry bin in this room threatened to overwhelm me. I clamped down on the feeling. No emotions allowed. We slipped inside and locked the door.

Pushing the air vent open, I pulled out a bundle. “Here, put this on.” I handed Logan the coveralls Riley had given me. While he dressed, I donned the student’s uniform. The black jumper with silver piping along the pants and sleeves sagged around my waist, but I cinched it tight with the belt.

When he was ready, I climbed into the air shaft and helped Logan inside.

“It’s bigger than the heating vent,” he said.

“Sounds still carry, and I’m about to show you a place only I know about. You can’t tell anyone. Not even Anne-Jade. Promise me?”

“Ooh. Sounds like fun. Of course, I promise.”

I slid through the shaft, stopped under the near-invisible hatch and pushed it open. Logan pressed a hand to his mouth to smother his cry of surprise. Turning on my light, I climbed into the meter-and-a-half-high space and moved aside so Logan could join me. He stared at his surroundings while I closed the hatch.

“What is this place?” he asked in a whisper.

I shrugged. “I call it the Gap. There’s one between each level.”

“Wow. What’s it used for?”

I gestured around. “Space for the pipes and wires. I think everyone’s forgotten about it. I can only get in here through one near invisible hatch on each level. Come on, but crawl quietly.” I hurried toward the lift. The easiest way to get Logan up to the fourth level was by riding on top of the lift.

A meter-high metal barrier divided the Gap from where the lift cut through the four floors of Inside. From the inside of the lift, it appeared the shaft was solid, but each level had a half-meter opening into the Gap. I pulled my extendable mirror from my tool belt. Shining the light in the shaft, I used the mirror. The lift was on the third level.

“When the lift comes down to our level, we don’t have much time but we need to quietly move onto the roof and stay there until we reach the top,” I said.

“What happens at the top?” Logan bit his thumbnail.

“We climb into the Gap before the lift descends.”

Logan stared, and nibbled on his nails. If he were a computer, he would be making the rumbling crunching noise that meant it was calculating.

“Once we’re on, do we have to wait until an upper wants to go to level four?” he asked.

“No. Once it’s down, there are override controls on the roof.”

Logan shivered as we waited. “It’s cold here. I wonder why there is all this extra room. Does the Gap run the entire length of Inside?”

I explained how each level was connected by steel I-beams to the Wall.

“How about under the lower level, is there a Gap there?” he asked.

“Yes. All the levels are surrounded by Gaps.”

“What’s beyond the Gaps on the sides?”

“The Walls of Inside.”

He considered. “What do the Walls feel like?”

“There’re covered with insulating foam.”

“I meant temperature. Hot or cold?”

“Oh. The foam’s room temperature, but the few places where there isn’t foam, it’s ice-cold.”

He grinned. “Have you pressed your ear to it?”

I admitted I tried to listen for sounds from the other side. “I heard nothing besides the Hum.” Produced by the machinery, the Hum was a constant background noise. It seemed like Inside’s breath, and most scrubs no longer noticed the Hum.

“Too bad.”

Eventually the lift passed with a chilly blast of air. We scrambled over the barrier, but landed with care on the lift’s roof. I pressed the override button for the fourth level. I didn’t think it would concern the occupants too much. The Pop Cops always complained about the lift’s odd quirks.

Voices reached us from below, but they were indistinguishable. I put a finger to my lips as Logan’s eyes flew wide when the lift ascended. It moved fast and in a handful of seconds we reached the top. I waved Logan on. In his haste, he fell with a grunt and a bang over the barrier into the fourth-level Gap.

We halted, listening for sounds of discovery. Nothing but the hiss of the lift’s door shutting. I grabbed the edge of the barrier and pulled until my hips rested on it. The lift dropped away, leaving my legs dangling. Logan scooted back and I joined him on solid ground.

After taking a moment to recover, I led him through the maze of pipes and ductwork to the hatch. Finding the hatches the first time had been difficult. I’d spent hours exploring each Gap for the near-invisible hatch. Grinning, I remembered how disappointed I had been when I found the last one. The search had provided me with a challenge unlike my prior week-to-week pointless existence.

When we reached it, I whispered in Logan’s ear, “No talking, no sounds at all from now on. Got it?”

“Yes.”

The fourth-level hatch opened into air duct number fifteen, which crossed over the giant water storage tanks in Sector H4 before cutting through the uppers’ rooms in Sector E4. I counted the suites, but then realized I didn’t need to as I felt Riley’s impatience through his air vent before seeing his worried face staring at the ceiling.

Under the vent, he had a stepladder set up on a table. Removing the cover, I slid my legs out. “Feet first,” I said to Logan before lowering myself down.

Riley hurried to put the ladder away after Logan had reached the floor. We stood in the middle of a small living area. Couch, two chairs and one low table decorated the room. The two men eyed each other.

“It’s safer if I don’t introduce you,” I said into the uncomfortable silence.

“He’s a scrub,” Riley said.

“So?” I shot back.

“He doesn’t have a port and can’t access the computer network.”

Logan smirked. “Don’t need a port. Where’s your terminal?”

Riley failed to look reassured but opened a metal curtain just like the one in Broken Man’s hideout. He pulled over one of the chairs and gestured for Logan to take a seat.

“What about your port?” I asked. “If you’re too close—”

“Took it out and put it in a metal box.” Riley rubbed his right jaw as if he were unused to having it missing.

Logan wasted no time. His fingers flew over the keyboard. “This is going to take a while. I have to distract the Controllers and take a circuitous route in. Don’t want anyone to know I’m in here.” He flashed us a wild grin.

Riley and I stood next to each other, looking over Logan’s shoulder. The strange symbols popping up on the screen meant nothing to me. Riley, though, frowned. Time to distract him.

“How about a tour?” I asked. “I’ve never actually been inside an upper’s suite.”

He turned his displeasure on me. “Really? But you’ve spied on them from above?”

For a moment, I wished for the goofy Riley. The one who mussed my hair and communicated telepathically with stuffed sheep. “I don’t spy on anyone. I avoid the living areas, they’re too dangerous. The places I’ve been on level four are the storeroom and Karla’s office.” And the holding cells, but I didn’t think it would be wise to tell him. I pointed to a half-open door on the opposite wall. “Is that a bedroom?”

Still unhappy, Riley showed me his room. The tiny interior had two beds with a table between them and two desks. A few metal sculptures were propped against the light blue walls, and circuit boards littered the one desk, the other was neat. Same with the beds, one was made, the other was heaped with blankets.

He followed my gaze. “I share the room with my father. He’s always harping on me to make the bed and clean up my stuff.”

No other items decorated the space. “Where’s Dada Sheepy?” I asked.

A half smile flicked on his lips before sadness dragged it down. “With my brother.” Turning away, he strode into the living room and opened the door next to Logan. “Standard bathroom.” He waved at the remaining door. “Suite entrance.”

Except for the small peephole and extra locks, it mirrored the other two.

“There. That’s the grand tour,” he said.

“That’s it?” Surprise tainted my voice.

“Yep.”

“But I thought the uppers lived in apartments with lots of rooms.”

“The admiral’s and vice admiral’s families do, but most have suites like mine. If my mom were still alive, we would have two bedrooms and a small kitchenette. But since it’s just us, we get this and a refrigerator.”

The rumors about the uppers’ living quarters had been exaggerated. I wondered what else had been blown out of proportion. “What happens if you…want a family?”

“If I find a mate, my father would be reassigned to share a suite with another single man, and if he finds a mate then I would move.”

“Does he want another mate?”

“No.”

The whole mate thing was odd to me. Scrubs hooked up with others and stayed together for as long as they desired then moved on. Any children from the pair went to the care facility. A few couples never parted. The Pop Cops tracked the pairings, and would separate them if their bloodlines were too close.

Logan whooped with joy. “I’m in!”

Riley stood behind him and watched the screen.

“Do the uppers mate for life?” I asked Riley, hoping to pull his attention away from the computer.

“Most do, but if a union isn’t working then they’ll split.”

“What do you do for fun?”

Riley glared at me. His stiff posture radiating his ire. “Trella, I know what you’re doing. You haven’t asked questions about the uppers unless it was directly related to your mission. You have a very strong opinion about the uppers, and you haven’t shown any interest in us before. But I do know the systems your friend is accessing can only be seen by people with ten-degree security clearance. So unless he’s a rear admiral, he’s neck-deep in serious trouble—”

“Only if I get caught,” Logan said. “Don’t worry, I’m ghosting.”

“Ghosting? What the hell is that?” Riley demanded.

“Not leaving a traceable trail,” I explained. Coming here was a bad idea. I hoped Logan would finish soon.

Riley’s anger flared. “You didn’t tell me the whole story. Time to talk, Trella. What exactly is this man looking for?”

“Well…” To tell him we were looking for Gateway might have ruined whatever credibility I had left with him. He knew Domotor had been trying to find ways around the Controllers to seize control of the computer for the rest of the upper families.

He studied my face and when I opened my mouth he said, “Don’t lie.” His words growled and I knew I trod on dangerous ground.

“Got it!” Logan whooped.

“Got what?” Riley asked.

Before I could say anything, Logan, who hadn’t listened to anything we’d said, proclaimed with pride, “The coordinates to Gateway.”

“Yes!” I jumped and slapped Logan on the back. Cogon was going to be ecstatic and very smug. I could already hear his I told you so. But my jubilation died when a strangled sound escaped Riley’s throat. The anger drained from his face. His flushed cheeks and red-tipped ears turned white, and I suddenly wished I could ghost back to the lower levels.

“Hold on,” Logan said. His attention returned to the screen. “No…no…you lousy unrecyclable…”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It requires a password.”

“But you just said you got it.”

“I have the file. To open the file we need a password. Any ideas?”

I wanted to shake the screen until it surrendered and let us read the file. To come all this way and to put so much at risk…I shoved my crushing disappointment aside and concentrated.

“How about Gateway?”

“Nope.”

“Inside? Outside?” I looked at Riley for help. He just shook his head. A horrified fascination settled on his face.

“No and no. Wait!” Logan sat up straighter. “There’s always a fail-safe.”

“A what?” I asked.

“People forget things. It’s part of being human. You don’t want to risk someone discovering your password by writing it down, so the computer has a way to help you remember your password.” He typed for a while.

“How?”

“It will ask you a question and the answer is the password.”

“What if we don’t know the answer?”

“Then we don’t get the coordinates and we have to guess again. Except…” He leaned forward. “There’s a limit on the number of guesses. After ten, the computer notifies the Controllers someone is trying to access the file.”

“Not good.” Horrible in fact.

“No.” The clicking keys filled the silence. “Okay. I found the question.”

“And?” I prompted.

“I don’t know the answer,” Logan said.

I reached out but managed to stop my hands from wrapping around his neck. “What is the question?”

“Oh. It’s the end and the beginning. What is it?”

14

“A CIRCLE?” RILEY SUGGESTED. HE HAD RECOVERED from his shock about Gateway, and was now intrigued by the mystery question. “A circle doesn’t have an end or a beginning.”

Logan moved his hands over the keyboard.

“Wait,” I said. “How many other passwords have you tried?”

“Three so we have seven guesses before the computer shuts down.”

“A circle is good, but let’s think this through logically.” I swiped hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear. “The question has to refer to something about Inside. We know it is an object or place and not a person’s name.”

“We do?” Logan asked.

“Yes, the question contains the word it and what. It’s the end and the beginning. What is it? A person would be who, and a place would be where.”

Riley sat in the remaining chair, and covered his eyes with a hand as if blocking out all distractions. “Everything in here is squares, rectangles and cubes. No circles.”

I settled on the couch. The living room was too small to pace. Searching my memory for circles, I tried to find a connection. “If you think about it, everything in here is a circle. The air circulates throughout Inside, going through the filters and purifiers. Same with the water and sewage. Reused and recycled, nothing wasted.”

“Should I try circle?” Logan’s fingers hovered over the keyboard.

“Yes.” I held my breath.

“Nope. Try again.”

Damn. I repeated the question in my mind. It sounded familiar as if I read it or heard it before. Maybe when I was living in the care facility. But there had been so many weeks of lessons in math, biology, science…. “Water?”

“How does it fit?” Riley asked.

“It has a cycle. Evaporation, condensation, freezing and melting as it changes from a gas to a liquid to a solid. Water is a vital resource for Inside, without it we couldn’t exist.”

“So is air and food.” He considered. “Air has a cycle. We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. The plants in hydroponics absorb the carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Growing food is also a circle with eating and producing. Think of the sheep.”

“Sheepy?” I wished he were there. “Would Sheepy know the answer?” I joked.

He removed his hand and shot me a smile. “No. Sheep eat grass and vegetables and produce manure which fertilizes the grass and plants in hydroponics. Another cycle.”

Logan tried, water, air and food. “No. Three guesses left.”

Thinking along those lines, I realized a hundred different aspects of our life were cycles, including people. Perhaps the answer wasn’t a representation of a circle, but more a concrete object or mathematical symbol. “Zero is circular. Isn’t the symbol for infinity a sideways eight?”

“That’s assuming the answer is a circle of some kind,” Riley said.

“Can you think of another answer?”

“No, but to try and connect it to a mathematical number or concept…” He threw his hands up. “There could be a million different possibilities. I wouldn’t—”

“Stop!” One of his words triggered a memory. I replayed the incident in my mind, searching for reasons why it wouldn’t work. Certainty bloomed in my chest. I knew the answer.

Logan and Riley stared at me, waiting.

“The millionth week. That’s the answer.” I remembered the assembly and the old man’s words: the millionth week isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.

Riley groaned and the hope dimmed in Logan’s eyes.

“That’s just a myth to scare people. Week one million will be like all the others. Its importance doesn’t exist,” Riley said.

“People said the same thing about Gateway.” I gestured to Logan. “Yet we’re one password away from the location.”

Logan met my gaze. “How should I type it? Week one million or the millionth week?”

“Try both.”

Unable to remain seated, Riley and I joined Logan at the computer. I held on to the back of his chair as he typed the millionth week and hit Enter. The words disappeared and the password prompt returned. This time he entered week one million.

“Are you sure?” Logan’s finger was poised over the key.

I let go of the chair and clutched Riley’s arm. “Yes.” I wanted to turn away, but I watched the screen. It turned black then lines of text raced across, matching my heart’s rhythm. I couldn’t read the words; they kept jumping up as more white lines streaked on the screen.

“Logan?” I didn’t care if I used his name.

“Yes! Got it!”

I wrapped my arms around Logan’s neck and kissed him on the cheek, then turned and hugged Riley. Caught up in the excitement, he leaned back and picked me off the floor, spinning me around.

Logan rattled off a bunch of numbers.

“How do I find it?” I asked, still dizzy and thrilled Riley’s arms supported me.

“Oh, right.” Furious typing and a crude schematic of Inside appeared, showing a cube with a pulsing dot near the bottom of one side. “It’s along the west wall in Quad G1. That’s hydroponics.”

“You’d think the workers would notice it,” Riley said.

“Maybe it’s one of those near-invisible hatches Trella found,” Logan said.

“Near-invisible?” Riley looked down at me.

He held me close. Tall and with his strong arms wrapped around me, I knew I should extricate myself from his embrace, but a part of me wanted to stay. “Some doors are hard to see. Perhaps the vines have grown over it,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Lots of vines,” Logan said.

Annoyed, Riley’s muscles tightened. “Your friend’s a lousy liar. What are you hiding?” When I hesitated, he moved his hands to my shoulders and pushed me back so he could see me better. “Enough. The location…the existence of Gateway is huge. No. It’s way bigger than that…it’s a whole other phenomenon. The repercussions are going to be unimaginable if it is really there and it works. I need to know everything right now, or I’m going to…”

“To what? Report me? You risk being implicated.”

“No. I’m going to follow you. Yes, even through those vents until I know the whole story.”

Logan eyed him. “You’ll get stuck.”

“It’s ridiculous. He’s not going to do it,” I said.

“Then I won’t let you leave until you tell me.” Riley straightened, trying to look bigger.

“Two against one,” I said. “And I’m armed.” I rested my hand on my tool belt.

He deflated and dropped his hands, but, by the gleam in his eyes, I knew he hadn’t given up.

“How about in exchange for Sheepy?”

“Really? You’d give me Sheepy?” I called his bluff.

“Yes.”

He meant it, and my reaction surprised me. I would have loved to have the little sheep. “No. Sheepy stays with his mama.” I put my hand up to stop Riley. “Just let me think.”

As Riley had said, discovering Gateway’s existence was a whole other realm of problems and possibilities. If caught right now, Riley would be recycled just for knowing about it. Too late to save him. Remembering his lecture about choices and sacrifices didn’t make me feel any better.

“You’d better sit down,” I said. “It’s a long story.”

“So Gateway wouldn’t be on the wall in hydroponics, but on the real outer Wall?” Riley asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“And no one knows about this except the three of us?”

“As far as I know. I’ve never seen anyone in the Gap, but it’s possible high-ranking uppers could know or find it in the computer.”

“Complete and detailed diagrams and blueprints of Inside have been deleted,” Logan said. He had been searching through the computer, trying to gather as much information as he could about the Controllers.

“Are you sure? Wouldn’t the engineers need them?” Riley asked.

“Each system—water, air, electrical and heating—has its own blueprints. Let’s see…if I put them…together.” Logan typed. “Still not showing Trella’s Gap or Gateway. Lot’s of other stuff’s missing, too. Historical records and logs have been wiped clean up until…week 132,076.”

Almost one hundred and fifty centiweeks ago.

“The first log is written by Admiral Peter Trava. He mentions saboteurs wielding magnets and trying to destroy Inside. He says they were stopped with no loss of life, but with major damage to the computer, causing data loss.” Logan scrolled through a few more pages. “Something’s wrong. The deletion was too clean for a magnet.”

“Do you know when the files were deleted?” I asked.

“The same week Admiral Pete’s entry was written, which was only fifteen centiweeks ago. Whoa! It’s bogus.”

“What happened that week?” I asked.

“Could have been when a few of the uppers tried to get into protected files on the system,” Riley said. “My dad told me about it. Maybe they got too close to the truth, and the Travas decided to delete all the data prior to their takeover and write the bogus entry to explain it.”

“Not all the data,” Logan said. “There are about ten hidden and protected files in the system. I bet the Controllers don’t know about them. The location of Gateway was one of them. Maybe the dissenters buried these files. They’re all password protected.” He clucked and hummed like a child with a brand-new toy.

“Could those be the files Domotor wanted?” Riley asked me.

“I don’t know.”

“Trella, what’s your birth week?” An odd tone shook Logan’s voice.

“It’s 145,487. Why?”

“And the hour?”

“Why do you need to know?” I asked.

“Humor me.”

“Hour four point fifteen.”

He whistled.

“Logan, tell me.”

“There’s a file here named with your birth week and hour.”

“What?” I moved closer to the monitor. He pointed.

“Why did you think it referred to me?”

“It says, ‘For my daughter born on…’ It’s one of the ten files Domotor or whoever thought was important, so I just guessed it might have something to do with you.”

“Can you open it?”

“Nope. Just like the others. The password question is ‘Smile and show me your pearly teeth. How many do you have?’” He glanced at me. “Count your teeth.”

“That’s too easy, and what if I lost one?”

“Have you?”

“No, but I think it’s referring to something else.” The words pearly teeth had jumped out at me. My sole possession. The comb with the pearls. The answer was the number of teeth on my comb.

“And it would be…”

“Something I don’t have with me, so we can’t answer the question anyway.”

“It’s getting late. The next shift starts in an hour,” Riley said.

I looked at the clock in surprise. So engrossed in our puzzle, I hadn’t kept track.

“I just need a couple minutes.” Logan’s fingers danced on the keyboard. “I want to put these files where I can get to them from the lower level computers.”

Anxious to get moving, I fidgeted behind Logan.

Riley also had a worried look. “Are you sure all this time you spent on the computer hasn’t been recorded or traced?”

“Yep. I’m ghosting. No port. No problem.”

“What does that mean?” Riley asked.

“Uh…just that I can get into the system without a port.”

Logan was a bad liar, but his cry of alarm distracted us both.

“What now?” I really didn’t want to know the answer.

“Gateway’s going to suck a lot of energy when it opens. Plus it has a command to alert all of Inside’s systems. We’re going to need people in the network to cover the call,” Logan said.

Yet another problem. Nothing was simple.

“I can cover electrical,” Riley said, “but we’ll need to recruit other uppers to help.” He considered. “There are a number of uppers who supported Domotor and have been lying low since his capture. But if I tell them we found Gateway, they’ll probably laugh in my face.”

“But you believed us,” I said.

“I saw Logan using level-ten clearance, and I saw the file. This is a huge risk for the uppers. They don’t know me and they won’t trust me. But they’ll trust Domotor. Can you get him up here?”

He would probably do all right pulling himself through the air shaft, but he couldn’t go between levels. “Only if we can use the lift.”

“Too exposed. Domotor is too recognizable in the upper levels. His capture and punishment was discussed for weeks. He wouldn’t be able to blend in up here, and I doubt we could get him from the lift to a room without being seen.” Riley rubbed his face. “Also I’m not one hundred percent sure the people I’m thinking about are really supporters. My dad might know.”

More problems. More people involved. To me, trusting uppers felt like the wrong thing to do, but we needed them. “Domotor would know who to trust. I can get the names from him and some kind of code word or something you can say to them to prove he’s involved.”

“That could work. But I’ll need you here, too.”

“Why?”

“To prove the scrubs are serious about opening Gateway,” Riley said.

“And if I get into these hidden files,” Logan said, “the uppers might have a way to bypass the Controllers and regain control.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Riley smiled.

Uneasiness swirled in my stomach as I steadied the ladder for Logan. I hated having to trust uppers. I trusted Riley, but he was different. Or was he?

“Thanks for your help,” I said to Riley as Logan climbed the table.

“How soon can you get me those names?”

I needed to take Logan back, then go to Domotor’s hideout. “Four hours give or take an hour.”

“I’ll meet you in our room during my break.” Riley grasped my sore elbow to help me up the table.

I yelped and he let go.

“Sorry.” Riley watched me rub the tender spot.

“Must have bumped it.”

Logan called for help. His legs dangled from the vent. I pushed him into the air shaft. When his feet disappeared, I reached for the vent.

A click slide sounded.

“Get down,” Riley ordered.

I didn’t hesitate. He pulled the stepladder from the table, folded it and leaned it against the wall. In two strides he sat at the computer and whispered, “Stand behind me. Follow my lead.” He rested his fingers on the keys.

The door opened as I reached Riley’s chair. We both glanced at the man entering the room. He stopped short when he spotted us.

“Hi, Dad,” Riley said. “You’re back early.”