Outside In (20 page)

“No. Fosord said everyone.”

“You’re lying.”

“I wish I were.”

Bubba Boom shut the panel.

The next time my door opened, Ponife rushed in. His agitation was clear. I braced for pain, but he yanked me to my feet and dragged me from the cell. It was the first time he had touched me. He was surprisingly strong. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the X in his hand.

He hurried me to a room in Sector E5. Five Outsiders lay on a row of beds. Blood drooled from their mouths and they were all curled on their sides as if in agony. Bubba Boom, Hank and a few others hovered nearby, but they looked panicked.

I didn’t wait for orders. Running to the closest Outsider, I felt her pulse. It raced and her skin felt clammy. She shook as a spasm seized her muscles. I opened her eyes. The whites were stained red.

“They had acclimated and were doing fine,” Ponife said.

“We need to get them to Doctor Lamont, now.” I shouted to Hank and Bubba Boom to help me carry them. The beds didn’t have wheels.

They jerked, but remained frozen in place.

“Hurry! They’re dying,” I said.

Ponife said, “We will bring the doctor—”

“No. She’ll need access to her medicines and equipment.” I pulled the slight female Outsider upright and managed to get her weight over my shoulders.

Bubba Boom followed my example and swept one of the Outsiders up in his arms. Without waiting to see if the others followed, I bolted for the lift between Quad A5 and Sector B5.

We carried them down to the infirmary.

Lamont pushed a gurney over to me. “What’s wrong?”

I rattled off what I had learned as I laid the Outsider on it. Without hesitation, Lamont took control, shouting orders and checking vitals. I filled syringes and fetched instruments.

Bubba Boom and Hank helped as well. Ponife and the two others who had carried the Outsiders stood to the side, keeping out of the way until Lamont ordered them to bring canisters of the Outsider’s air mixture down from level five.

We worked for hours and saved three of them. The other two never recovered. I closed their eyes, arranged their arms and covered them with a sheet. When I looked up I met Bubba Boom’s gaze. He had been watching me.

“I’m sorry,” Lamont said to Ponife. “We did everything we could. They were just too far gone. Do you need me to prep them to be recycled?”

“No. We send our dead out into Outer Space.” Ponife didn’t act too upset. “Come, Trella, we must return.”

“No.” Lamont stepped in his way. “I need her help.”

“I will send you plenty of helpers.”

“She knows what to do. You saw for yourself. I don’t have the time to train another.”

He hesitated.

“Where do you think she’ll go that you
can’t
find her?” Lamont asked.

“Do not leave the infirmary,” Ponife said to me.

Hank, Bubba Boom and the other maintenance men followed Ponife. Before he left, Bubba Boom once again met my gaze. He gave me a slight nod. Hope touched my heart for the first time in weeks.

Lamont grilled me as soon as the men were out of hearing range. She already knew quite a bit about the Outsiders and the command collar. Riley had explained much of it to her before he had disappeared. Her questions focused on me.

And after I assured her I was at least healthy, she asked, “Okay what’s the plan?”

“I’ve no idea. I don’t even know what week this is.”

“It’s week 147,027, hour fourteen.”

“Thanks.”

“And you don’t have to worry about being overheard. Riley found the microphones planted in the infirmary and removed them.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got nothing. Everyone’s been arrested. Level five is filled with Outsiders and everyone thinks they’re the long lost Controllers who are going to make life better.”

“Thinks?”

I explained our soon-to-be change in location.

“Then we need to stop them.”

I laughed, but the sound lacked mirth. “How?”

“You tell me.” She stared at me as if daring me.

“I told you—”

“Nothing, I know. Let’s see if we can change that. Did you know that even with all this insanity, I’ve been testing people and telling them their family bloodlines?”

I had forgotten all about that. “But I didn’t send anyone to you. And you can’t—”

“I
couldn’t
leave level three, but that was before. Once everyone knew I had the tracer, I removed it.”

“How many—”

“About half have been tested. I’ve been busy.”

“I see.”

“And I know something else that’ll help you.” She had a smug smile.

“What?”

“The Outsiders need us. Otherwise they won’t survive very long.”

“How?” Now it was my turn to challenge her.

“All those weeks living in that transport vehicle has affected their heath.”

“So? They’ll be in here. Nice and safe.”

“Won’t help.”

“All right, Mother. Spit it out.”

She faltered for a bit and I realized what I had just called her. Oh well. Nothing I could do about it now.

“Well?” I prodded.

“They need us because they’re sterile.”

“STERILE? AS IN UNABLE TO HAVE CHILDREN STERILE?”
I asked.

“Yep,” Lamont said.

“All of them?”

“That’s harder to determine. Two of these three are and so was one of the two that died. From what I’ve been able to observe, the younger generation—those under twenty-five hundred weeks old or so are all sterile, but the older Outsiders aren’t. It’s just a matter of time before no one is able to have children.”

“What caused their sterility?”

“Long-term exposure to the radiation in Outer Space. When you discovered Outer Space, I found a few files about the adverse health effects of being Outside. Inside’s Walls have a lead lining to protect us from this radiation, but the article mentioned these things called…meteoroids that could hit us hard enough to make a hole, letting in radiation.”

Yet more things we didn’t know about. Lovely. If the Outsiders had indeed been in charge of running Inside, they had to know.

“They’re planning to evacuate our entire population,” I said.

“You might be able to use this information to your ad vantage. Plus, if you tell all the Insiders about the Outsiders’ plans, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of volunteers to help.”

“The Insiders see them as our saviors. They won’t help me. I’m the one who caused all this trouble in the first place.”

“Then educate them. Recruit them. You can do it.”

“The collar—”

“I’ve heard. Come back to the exam room, I want to take a look.”

No arguing with the doctor, I sat on the examination table as she used various diagnostic tools to inspect the collar.

I explained how we had thought the device broken before the air plant raid. “Ponife called it living metal.”

“It’s quite amazing,” she said. “As far as I can tell, it’s connected to your body’s electrical system and using it to power itself.”

“I have an electrical current inside me?” I asked.

“Yes. A body produces a small electrical charge.”

“Any way to turn off the current?”

“Yes. When you die, but that’s
not
an option.”

I considered. “Why? In a controlled situation, you could stop my heart and—”

“Absolutely not.” She shot me her fiercest frown. Impressive. “Besides,” she said, “it might not work. The collar is also linked to your nervous system, which is why it causes such intense agony.” Her voice softened. “You have some nerve damage. Did they…”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. I can handle it.” I lied to my mother, and I half expected the collar to zap me. “Would my nervous system shut down if I died?”

“Not an option, Trella. You’ll have to find a way to get that X from Ponife.”

“He won’t come close enough. And most of the time he has a couple of the maintenance guys with him.”

“You’ll have to wait for the right opportunity.”

Easy for her to say.

Ponife visited the recovering Outsiders at hour twenty four. Bubba Boom and Egan accompanied him. I felt much better. Almost optimistic, even. Amazing what a long shower and eight hours of sleep on a real bed could do.

Lamont and I answered his questions about his colleagues’ health. Then Ponife dismissed Lamont. Shooting me a significant look, she headed to her office.

“We have started to load the first transport ship,” he said. “In six hours all the residents of level four will be on board.”

I did a quick mental calculation. “The ships can fit over two thousand people?” I asked.

“They are designed for one thousand. They were intended to ferry people down to a planet’s surface and not to live on.” Bitterness laced his tone. “We have eight ships and your population is currently at 22,509 people.”

This calculation was a bit harder. “You’re going to put a little over twenty-eight hundred people on one ship?”

“You are fast. Seven ships will have 2,813 and the eight will have 2,809,” he said.

I glanced at Bubba Boom. Did he catch that? Ponife had counted everyone. Bubba Boom wouldn’t meet my gaze. Instead, he told Ponife he needed to speak with the doctor and went into the back.

“But that’s too many.” I tried.

“Not your concern. We are going to need you to do a sweep of each level and in all the ducts as boarding progresses,” he said. “No one is to be left behind.”

They were trusting me with an important task. Too important. There had to be a catch. “What if I miss someone?”

“We plan to fumigate before we move in. Anyone still here will die from the poison. Try not to miss anyone. We do not wish to dispose of too many corpses.”

Lovely. “Do you need me now?” I asked.

“We will start in two hours.” He gestured to my clothes. I had changed from my climbing suit to my medical clothes. “Make sure you are ready and the doctor has a suitable assistant.”

“Okay.”

Bubba Boom returned and, without looking at me, followed Ponife from the infirmary. Curious, I searched for Lamont. She was in the surgery, organizing supplies.

“What did Bubba Boom want?” I asked.

“He asked a bunch of strange questions.”

“Like what?”

“Questions I really couldn’t answer. Like how much food and water would two thousand people need to survive. I told him to ask Riley’s brother, Blake. He works in the kitchen and should know.”

Blake! I had forgotten about him and Riley’s dad. And if I thought harder, I could name a number of others who would support me. Unless they had been arrested? Too bad I couldn’t go anywhere.

“Bubba Boom also asked for… Trella, you have that gleam in your eyes. What are you thinking?”

“How are your persuasive skills?”

I had two hours, but we had six until the first transport left. Lamont ran around Inside, recruiting the people I named. They trickled in at first, Jacob, Blake, Emek, Rat and even Sloan came, although he didn’t look happy to see me. Then Domotor rolled into the infirmary, followed by the remaining free members of the Force of Sheep—Takia Qadim and Hana Mineko. Breana Narelle had already been evacuated. Kadar and Ivie arrived along with Wera and Cain—Sloan’s friends. And the last person to arrive was Captain James Trava.

They had come, but they sat or stood in little peer groups or alone as if they couldn’t trust each other. That would be the first thing I’d fix.

“Stop it,” I said to them. “Stop thinking about being a scrub or an upper. About being a Trava or an Ashon. We’re all
Insiders.
And we’ve been boarded by hostile Outsiders who are going to take our world and kick us out unless we stop them.”

I waited as their protests about not having weapons or access to the computer network dwindled.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’ll work around it.”

“How?” Sloan demanded.

“We have weapons. Blake, how many knives do you have in the kitchen?”

“Dozens,” he said. “And we have meat cleavers and some nasty serrated blades.”

“Can you gather them all and hide them in Quad A1?” I asked. It was a common area and would be the last level to be evacuated. His resemblance to Riley made it hard for me to look at him for too long.

“Hide them where?” he asked.

“The ducts should work. Can you do it now?”

“Sure,” he said.

I then turned to the stink bombers. “Kadar and Ivie, how many bombs can you make?”

“Depends on how much time we have, and how big of a blast you need,” Ivie answered. Dirt stained her overalls and she had a smudge on her cheek. She was a pretty girl with long golden brown hair twisted into an oversized bun.

“I need distractions that won’t injure people or damage equipment. Something like a stunner, but more widespread. You’ll have about five hours,” I said.

“One an hour.”

“When you’re done, bring them to Quad A1 and someone will tell you what to do with them.”

“What are you planning?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure, but it wouldn’t be good for morale for me to confess this. “A coordinated attack from all sides.”

“What about the air plant?” Domotor asked. “If we resist, the Outsiders will fill the air with poison.”

“We can disconnect the poison gas canisters,” James Trava said.

“What’s he even doing here?” Domotor asked me. “The Travas are
cooperating
with the Outsiders.”

James answered before I could. “I’m an
Insider.
I don’t want them taking
our
ship. Some Travas are helping, but the rest are being loaded onto the transports with everyone else.”

“Trella, you aren’t going to trust him, are you?” Domotor asked.

Jacy and Riley had trusted him. That was good enough for me. “Do you know where the gas canisters are and how to disable them?” I asked the Captain.

“Yes, I do. But I’ll need a few helpers.”

Wera and Cain volunteered without hesitation. The three of them rushed off.

In order for us to be effective, we needed more Insiders. Many of them won’t believe unless…unless they see it for themselves! “Domotor, can you put together a working computer that isn’t tainted by the Outsiders?”

“If I had the right supplies,” he said with a surly tone, still annoyed.

I turned to Emek and Rat. “Can you fetch for Domotor?”

“Yes,” Emek said.

“Jacob, can you rig the electricity for the computer?”

“As long as there’s juice nearby,” he said.

“Where do you—Quad A1, right?” Domotor asked. He stroked his narrow chin with his long fingers.

“Yep. Call it our headquarters.” Then I had another idea.

“Any way to make the monitor bigger? So a lot of Insiders can see it at the same time?”

“We have a projector,” Emek said.

“A projector?” I asked.

“It’s old tech. It has a light and lenses.” When he realized we didn’t understand, he said, “Basically, it takes a small picture and makes it bigger. You can aim it at a wall.”

“I’ll take a look at it,” Domotor said. “Couldn’t hurt.”

They left. Emek pushed Domotor’s wheelchair, Rat wrote down supplies on a wipe board and Jacob added items.

Sloan, Takia, Hana and Lamont remained. They waited for their orders. I squelched a moment of doubt. This wasn’t the time for second thoughts.

“Takia and Hana, I’m going to need you to be evacuated with the others.”

The women were alarmed and unhappy until I explained why. “I’ll have to find them first, so if you can hide in one of the rooms in Sector F4 that would be perfect.”

They agreed and went to get into position.

I drew in a deep breath. Sloan and Lamont remained. Since I’d been collared, I needed an admiral to bring this whole attack together. Who to trust? My mother, who betrayed us during the last rebellion or the man who started the riot and slapped me?

Deciding I needed both, I addressed Sloan. “You’re in charge of getting recruits. You’ll need to bring them to Quad A1 and convince them about the Outsiders. Then you’ll be needed to lead teams up to level five.”

He laughed. “And then I’ll grow a metal skin so I’m invincible. See? I can be ridiculous, too.”

I stared at him until he frowned. “Why are you here, Sloan?”

“Guilt. I failed to protect Jacy and the Outsiders got him.”

“Leading those teams will save him,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know how I’ll be able to convince everyone about the Outsiders.”

“If Domotor and Emek get the computer and projector working,
you
won’t have to.”

Sloan straightened his shoulders. “We’ll need to coordinate. Do you have any microphones?”

“No. Mine busted ages ago.”

He pulled out a couple sets from his tool belt. “For you and the Doc. I’ll make sure the others get them as well.”

I couldn’t wear mine yet so I slid them into my pocket. “Thanks.”

“If you manage this thing, I might change my opinion about you,” Sloan said.

“Just when I thought there wasn’t a reason to stop the Outsiders, you go and provide me one.” For a moment I almost forgot the pain he’d caused me. For a moment.

He gave me a sly grin. “After that crack, I can’t like you…ever.”

“Fine with me. Then I won’t feel guilty when I slap you later.”

“If we survive to later, I’ll give you a free shot.”

“There it is! That’s all the motivation I need.”

After Sloan left, I discussed Lamont’s job with her. “You have a legitimate reason to be on level five. You need to check on their health, see if others might be on the verge of having a seizure. Plus you need to discuss their fertility problems and see if it’s widespread.”

“And incapacitate as many Outsiders as possible when the attack starts?” she asked.

“Unless it goes against your doctor’s creed?”

“I’ll be a doctor up until that moment, then I’ll change jobs for the duration.”

Curious. “To which job?”

“A mother.”

“Fighting Outsiders isn’t in that job description.”

She laughed. “It is when the child is you. No one hurts
my
little girl and gets away with it.”

Bubba Boom and Ponife arrived right at hour twenty-six. I had just finished changing into my blue climbing suit, and adding a few special items to my tool belt.

Ponife gestured to the belt. “Why do you need that?”

“Since you destroyed the air plant, there are a number of air filters blocking the ducts. I need my tools to get through them. Unless you want me to climb down and bypass all of them. It would take up more time.” I shrugged.

“No. Bubba Boom, make sure she does not have any weapons in there.”

Damn. I unhooked my belt and gave it to him.

He inspected the various pockets. Handing it back to me, he said, “Looks good to me.”

I hooked it around my waist, suppressing a relieved grin. He knew exactly what a few of my special gadgets did, yet he’d kept quiet. An excellent sign.

The Outsiders had the stairway blocked so no one could go to the upper level. I’d assumed they guarded the other stairs and the lift as well. I hoped Takia and Hana had found a way to bypass them.

As we climbed to level four and walked down the deserted corridors, I asked Ponife how they managed to convince everyone to leave.