I shook my head. These were dangerous thoughts. They led to hope and hope led to pain. I squelched them and opened the bag. Inside were four disks. I pulled them out. The disks had rainbow rays streaked around their silver surfaces. Enthralled, I accidentally dropped the bag. It slipped through the vent and floated to the floor.
I shrugged. No big deal. Until a red light pulsed in the dark room below. Then daylight flooded the chamber as gas hissed.
Booby-trapped was right, but not the camouflage; Broken Man’s rooms. The smoke filled the air shaft. I held my breath as my eyes stung and watered, blurring my vision. Pushing back, I blindly scooted away. The door banged open and a man ordered, “Halt.”
Instinctively, I halted.
“Clear the gas,” a female voice ordered.
A pump hummed and the gray fog around me disappeared.
Voices echoed in the chamber. Boots drummed on the floor.
“Guard the door.”
“Fan out and search.”
“Watch for ambush.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes, eased back to the vent, and peeked below. A woman stepped into my view. An intricate knot pulled her blonde hair back from her face. She wore the uniform of the Population Control Police, purple with silver stripes downthe outside of the sleeves and pants. Her black weapon belt bulged to such an extreme that she looked like she wore a tire. A lieutenant commander’s insignia glinted on her collar.
A lieutenant snapped to attention beside her. “No one here, sir.”
“Impossible. Look again,” she ordered.
He rushed off.
She scanned the room, then spotted the bag on the floor. She tipped her head back and looked directly into the vent. Every cell in my body turned to ice.
“All sectors clear, sir,” another Pop Cop said.
“Get me some RATSS,” she yelled. “Post guards on all air vents in Sector F3. Now!”
Her order shocked me into action. I shoved the disks into my tool belt and hustled along the duct. The Pop Cop’s Remote Access Temperature Sensitive Scanner (RATSS) would search me out through the ducts using heat-seeking technology. I had to leave Sector F3. Now. I had to find a hot spot to hide in.
As I pushed through the airshaft, snatches of conversations reached me from the corridors where an alarming number of Pop Cops rushed to take up positions under the vents. I was barely staying ahead of them.
“Someone sprung the trap.”
“Escaping through the vents.”
“Use the gas.”
“Stunners only. No kill-zappers.”
“Alert all sectors on level three.”
My heart hammered, driving me forward on the edge of panic. With the Pop Cops in every room, I couldn’t get to the near-invisible hatch. Instead, I raced toward Sector B3 where I knew of a well-placed laundry chute I could use. Impossible to climb up, laundry chutes only worked one way.
Just before I reached the chute, something bit my foot. Yelping, I twisted around. A RATSS had clamped on my toe. Foul air!
Its little antennae vibrated, probably reporting my position. Imagining the information racing through the complex network of wires crisscrossing every level, I yanked my wrench from my tool belt and smashed the RATSS. After reducing it to scrap, I jerked it off my foot.
When I reached the laundry chute, I slid down two levels without having any dirty garments tossed on my head. A small bonus. I landed in a half full bin.
The dryers hummed productively, creating one of the warmest sections of Inside. If a RATSS had followed me here, it would lose me in the heat from the dryers and from the mass of scrubs who labored here.
I found a small crawl space behind a row of dryers and collapsed into it to catch my breath.
