I yanked my arm away. “Who do you?—”
“I’m Anne-Jade and he’s my brother, Logan. We want to help you find Gateway.”
Stunned, I gaped at them a moment. “But, I’m not?—”
“Save it for the Pop Cops,” Logan said. “We know what you’ve been up to. We saw you with Cogon before he entered the lift. Saw the lift stop and Cogon leave the elevator’s maintenance room with the laundry bin. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
They hadn’t told Karla, which meant a bribe. “What do you really want?”
“To help,” Anne-Jade said. Her lips pressed into a thin line, drawing her oval face into a serious expression.
“Why? You could get killed.”
She swept her hand out, indicating the mass of people. “This is intolerable. I’d rather be recycled than to continue to live as livestock.”
Instinct kicked in. Too many people increased the chances of getting caught. Besides, I couldn’t trust them and I preferred to work alone. “Sorry, no. I can’t get anyone else involved.”
“We’re already involved,” Logan said. “Who do you think covered for Cogon?”
I scrambled for a reply. “Look, I’m thankful you saved Cog, but I really don’t know how you can help right now, and?—”
“Listen.” Logan held up a metal wind-up toy near his ear then handed it to me.
“What—”
Logan gestured for me to listen to the toy. Not happy, I brought it close and almost dropped it when Broken Man’s voice whispered in my ear. He talked about Gateway and the disks, and I heard my own harsh reply. I stared at the little mouse murmuring in my hand. Its metal key turning. “How?”
Logan grinned. “Voice transmitting device sewn onto Broken Man’s shirt. This,” he picked up the mouse, “records and replays the conversation.” He held the device in the palm of his right hand, acting indifferent to the incredible danger he had placed us all in.
Realization finally clicked, and my bad situation turned downright rotten. I groaned. “You’re Tech Nos.”
Working in the recycling quadrant, Tech Nos “rescued” certain discarded items from the upper levels. They played around with the illegal technology—illegal for scrubs to have—and made it better. The Pop Cops hunted and killed these Tech Nos as fast as if they were disease-carrying vermin. It was amazing Logan and Anne-Jade were still alive.
“How do you…where do you…” I couldn’t finish. The recycling plant workers were monitored, their bunks searched on a regular basis.
“We’re allowed to make toys and different supplies from the metal waste.” Logan twisted the key. “Most of our toys are delivered to the uppers for their children, but we keep a fewspecialones.”
With space being a premium, scrubs owned few possessions. “Where?”
“Here and there. A few stay with us. This little guy is my favorite right now, and if a Pop Cop asks about it, I just say I’m doing safety testing on it before sending it to the uppers.”
Impressive and scary. “How much did you hear?”
“The conversation you had with Broken Man and Cog,” Anne-Jade said, “and the rescue. But wherever you have hidden him, we can’t get a signal.”
At least they didn’t know about the port. “I still don’t think you can help me.”
“We’re assuming you’re going to need to enter a few secure locations in search of Gateway. We haveothergadgets,” Anne-Jade said.
When I didn’t respond, she huffed in frustration. “How did you plan to get past the motion detectors?”
“With creative wiring.”
“No need. We’ve built an invisibility device,” Logan said with pride.
I couldn’t mask my disbelief. “You can make me invisible?”
“To the sensors. When you turn on our Not There Machine, the sensors won’t detect your presence.”
