“The ISF or as we’d like to call them, the Mop Cops.”
“Do I want to know what that means?”
“Things are a mess right now, and they’re trying to mop it all under the bed and pretend it’s not there.”
Hank had a point, but I didn’t believe the Committee and Anne-Jade had been blind to the mess, just overwhelmed.
I asked for my assignment and Hank sent me to the foreman. He eyed my skin-tight climbing suit and tool belt, handed me a stack of air filters, and listed the air ducts to install them in.
Glad to be productive, I set the filters inside the shafts. The magnets along their edges made the installation easy. The best part, I could plant the mics as I worked. The worst, my new skin protested the activity. And my muscles hadn’t returned to full strength. I lasted four hours, which equaled two meals. I found the ISF officer and made sure to report my time.
Over the next twenty-five hours, I installed filters and mics in four hour shifts. During the last four hours of the week, I planted one of Logan’s mics near the air vent above Sector D1 where Jacy tended to hold meetings with his people. An unhappy murmur drifted through the shaft over the barracks.
I slid east over the bunk beds in the barracks in Sectors D and E. With the buzz of voices below, I doubted anyone even heard me. As I crossed into Sector F1, snatches of loud conversation reached me.
“…did you see the piles of laundry?”
“…the air still smells bad. It makes me nauseous.”
“…idiots…we need a better Committee.”
“…I saw Meline and Bo behind the dryers. They’re finally together.”
“…still haven’t seen Kadar. I bet they tortured him and fed him to Chomper.”
“…uppers have it sweet. We outnumber them…can we bribe a few Mop Cops, get weapons…”
I froze, then backed up to the last vent, listening to the man.
“…I heard that Tech No is out of the picture and the computers are going crazy. Perfect time to attack. We’ll force the uppers to be scrubs and live in their posh apartments. Then feed the Committee to Chomper.”
The man’s voice grew louder and I strained to see who spoke.
“What about that little scrub who started this whole mess?” a woman asked.
“I heard the Committee’s upset with her. Maybe we could…” He lowered his voice.
I pressed my ear to the vent as he mentioned something about recruiting. My tool belt clanged on the metal, but I doubted it was loud enough to be heard amid the general noises below.
Without warning the cover popped free. In the seconds that followed, I caught a brief glimpse of a man then hands grabbed my shoulders and yanked. I fell onto the top bunk a meter below.
It was a soft landing, and I rolled over to my back. The man who had pulled me from the air shaft straddled my hips. He seized my wrists, pinning them to the mattress with his weight. I struggled to no avail—he outweighed me by forty kilograms. Finally, I stopped, but my heart kept up its fast tempo.
“Hello little bug,” he said. His smile seemed more amused than sinister. “Do you know spying on others isn’t playing nice?”
“Get off me.”
“Not until you explain what you were doing up there.”
“I was installing air filters so we can all breathe clean air. Let me go.”
His round face was close to mine. He had light brown eyes with tiny flecks of yellow, a mustache, and short brown hair. Another man’s head and shoulders appeared beside the bunk. He gripped the safety rail, probably standing on the bed below us. “Hey, Sloan, Wera said you wanted—” The scrub noticed me.
“Help me,” I said.
“Uh…what’s going on?” His voice almost squeaked.
“I caught me a blue-eyed bug,” Sloan said. “Sheclaimsshe was installing air filters and is even wearing an air scrub uniform. Can you check the duct for me?”
