CHAPTER 14
“Outsiders.”I repeated the strange word. “You think the Controllers are Outsiders? How… Why…” The concept was so outrageous, I couldn’t say more.
“Logan isn’t the only one who is good with the computer, Trella,” Domotor said. “I’ve been trying to find a way around the Controllers since they showed up. I managed to isolate a small part of the network, and I traced where the link is coming from and it’s not from anywhere in Inside.”
“Are you sure? Jacy?—”
“He could be helping them. It wouldn’t surprise me. That boy’s an opportunist.”
“Do you know what the…Outsiders want?” I asked.
“To come in.”
Suddenly, I was unable to breathe as ice stabbed deep into my bones as if I’d drifted into Outer Space. “Can they?” My voice squeaked.
“Yes they can and will.”
No wondered he looked so haggard. “Maybe it would be a good thing. They could be in trouble or need our help.”
“Then why didn’t they ask? They infiltrated our network, they ordered us to lock down our people and they told us they’re boarding. Not the actions of a friendly group.”
“Can we stop them?” I asked.
“I’ve been trying, but since this last explosion they’ve shut down all access. I can’t get into my isolated system.”
My head spun. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“You need to give this…” He handed me a small round disk. “To Logan.” Domotor studied my face. “He needs this disk to get to the isolated system. I know you’ve been visiting him so don’t lie to me and say you can’t. This is vital to our world.”
“What can Logan do that you can’t?”
“Work his magic, get control back, and stop the Outsiders from coming in.”
“What if he can’t?”
“Then we’re all at the mercy of the Outsiders.”
Logan didn’t mince words. “Holy crap, Trella this is bad.” He had inserted Domotor’s disk into his computer and had been typing away.
“How bad?”
“We’re screwed.” He tapped the screen with a fingernail. “No wonder we couldn’t locate the link. I never considered an Outside source.”
His fingers flew over the keys as he murmured and cursed under his breath.
“But now that you know what’s going on, you can stop them. Right?” I prodded.
“No can do.”
My knees refused to hold my weight. I sank into a nearby chair.
He pushed back from the computer. “We’re blocked out of everything. Domotor isolated an area, but I would need an untainted computer to access it.”
“Untainted?”
“One that hasn’t been hooked into the network.”
“What about the computers in the Travas’s Sector?” I asked. “Anne-Jade said they were cut off from the network.”
