Outside In Part 25

Turning around, I tried to pick up a couple, but the bin was just high enough that even up on my unsteady tiptoes, I could touch it, but not get to the nails. Instead, I grabbed the bin and yanked.

I fell forward, landing on my knees. Nails rained down on my legs and bare feet. Sloan would regret his little payback, I promised. At least I had plenty of nails to use. And after a few awkward tries, I succeeded in keeping the nail in my hands long enough to poke it into the tape. When I added in being light-headed from lack of food and water, I realized a quick escape wouldn't be in my future.

Time ceased to have any meaning and by the time the doork.n.o.b twisted and the keypad beeped, I'd only ripped a little bit of the tape. I sagged to the floor in exhaustion.

The door flew open and Bubba Boom was next to me in a heartbeat. "Are you all right?"

I nodded. He pulled out his penknife, and cut through the tape on my wrists and ankles. I winced as he peeled it away from my skin.

He touched the one on my mouth. "Do you want to do it or should I?"

I pointed to him.

"On three?"

Again I nodded.

"One. Two." He ripped it off.

I yelped. My lips burned and tears stung my eyes. "No three?"

"Sorry. I thought that would be better."

A sticky residue from the tape coated my cheeks, wrists and ankles. "That's okay." I touched his arm. "Thanks."

He gave me a shy smile. "You certainly keep a guy hopping." Bubba Boom freed a few strands of my hair that had stuck to my cheek, and tucked them behind my ear. "Doctor Lamont's on the way."

"I'm fine. Just starving."

He took my right hand in his. Turning my wrist, he traced the tiny scar on my forearm. "We would have found you sooner if you hadn't taken the tracer out."

"We?"

"Hank and the others. And Doctor Lamont. We've all been searching for you."

"Did she rat me out about the tracer?"

"No, but we figured it out pretty quick." He grew serious. "Who locked you in here?"

"Sloan."

He nodded as if expecting that answer. "Who were the two guys who took you from the infirmary?"

"Jacy's goons. I don't know their names."

"Do you know why they grabbed you?"

"I think Jacy found out about my tracer. He wanted to know what I had been doing and I wouldn't tell him. It's obvious he's up to something and he thought I'd figure it out and cause trouble."

"So he made a preemptive strike," Bubba Boom said.

"Sounds likea""

"Trella!" Lamont rushed into the room. She dropped her medical bag and wrapped me in a tight hug. Her muscles trembled.

Stunned, I didn't move.

"I've been so worried!" She pulled away to look at me. "Are you all right? If they've hurt you, I'll dismember them without antiseptic and feed them to Chopper one tiny bit at a time."

Impressive. All I wished to do was slap Sloan a few times.

"Can you walk? I want to do a full scan right away." Lamont checked my pulse.

"I'm fine. Just really thirsty and hungry." I appealed to Bubba Boom. "Can you come with me to the cafeteria?"

But Lamont wouldn't take the hint. "I'll come along. You haven't eaten in at least twenty-six hours. You'll need to be careful about what you put into your stomach."

"Twenty-six hours? Are you sure?" That seemed too long. I wondered if Logan had been successful and what was going on with the Outsiders.

"Oh yes. I felt every one of them." Lamont thumped her chest. "You were stunned and, since you're small, it probably knocked you out for ten to twelve hours."

Funny, I didn't remember being unconscious. I'd been stunned before and hadn't blacked out.

Bubba Boom helped me stand. The room spun for a moment and my knees considered buckling. He put his arm around my shoulders, steadying me before we headed to the cafeteria.

Our ragtag group caused quite the stir in the dining room. At this point, I didn't care. Lamont fetched me a tray of food. Then everything blurred together as if a part of me had already fallen asleep. Gulping water, eating, returning to the infirmary and being tucked into bed by Bubba Boom combined into one long dream.

Before leaving, he kissed my forehead. I slid my hand into my pocket and clutched my pendant as I slipped into a deeper sleep.

When I woke, I took a long, scalding hot shower. Lamont descended on me as soon as I finished, ordering me to eat a large bowl of her special soup. I needed to visit Logan, but she wouldn't let me leave until I agreed to a full physical.

I stifled the desire to argue and remind her of her promise not to mother me. Her medical request bordered on overprotectiveness. However, it had been nice to know people had been upset by my abduction and had been looking for me. Before I had gotten involved in the search for Gateway, I could have died in the pipes and only Cog would have cared.

"Aside from some bruising, a couple strained muscles and slight dehydration, you're in good health," Lamont said.

I jumped down from the examination table glad to be done.

"Do you really need to leave so soon?" she asked. "You should rest and rehydrate."

"There's too much going on right now. I'll rest later," I said.

I debated if I should climb into the shafts or not. Almost everyone in Inside knew about the tracer. Deciding not to risk being seen in the wrong place by the wrong people, I returned to my room.

Lamont trailed after me. "Trella, wait."

I turned. She hovered in the doorway, uncertain and vulnerable. Not Doctor Lamont, but Kiana Garrard. Interesting how she morphed from one to the other. At least I had some warning that this wasn't medical.

"You understood my clues, right? You knew there were two armed men waiting to ambush you."

"Yes. That's why I dropped in from the ceiling and tried to stun them." I still needed to get my gun back from Jacy.

"Why did you come? You could have saved yourself twenty-six hours of suffering. You had to know they wouldn't hurt me, and yet you came anyway and ended up turning yourself over to them."

Ah. A good question. Did I have a good answer? Was it because she was my mother? Or because she was an excellent doctor? Or because I was the reason she had been targeted in the first place? How about all of the above?

Riley's comment from the maintenance closet replayed in my mind. "It's what I do. I guess you could say it's my role or job. Rus.h.i.+ng to the rescue, and doing what I can so others don't suffer." I spread my hands, trying to find the right words. "I don't really think about it, I just react and hope for the best." I shrugged. "Worked so far."

"You shouldn't have risked yourself for me, Trella."

"A moment of weakness." I smiled. "A mistake even. Everyone is ent.i.tled to make a few mistakes."

Logan slept on the couch. His arm covered his eyes and one foot dangled off the edge. I dropped down. The light thud woke him. Before I could say a word, he hopped up and embraced me.

"Trella! You're here," he said with glee.

"Even though I'm not as smart as you, I do know where I am."

"I feared the worst. No one could find you. Anne-Jade had all her ISF officers searching."

"I wasn't in any real danger. And I'm sorry to have kept you in suspense, but no one had time to stop by here." I explained about Jacy and Riley's plans to build a separate network. "Riley's stringing wires as we speak."

"Ooh. I like! Why didn't I think of that?" He bounced on his toes as his gaze turned inward.

"Because it's been me, you and Anne-Jade, while Jacy has recruited a bunch of people."

"True."

"What about your idea?"

He stopped bouncing. "When you said I should climb the Expanse, you didn't explain there wasn't a ladder."

"The ladder starts about seventy-five meters up, but there are lots of things to hold onto."

"That's a.s.suming I have the strength to hang on and pull myself up the Wall. I don't know how you did it, but I didn't make it past twenty meters before my legs and arms turned to mush."

"What about Anne-Jade?"

"She was too busy, and I thought it would be less suspicious for one person to be up there. Besides, I doubt she would have climbed much farther." He plopped back onto the couch. "Is there another way up there?"

I considered. "I could rig a pulley to the end of the ladder and hoist you up."

Logan bent over and pulled a wipe board out from under the couch. "You'll need more than one wheel in order to lift my weight." He wrote a list of supplies on the board and drew a little diagram of how to hook them together. "This should work as long as the pulley is securely attached to the ladder."

I studied his diagram. It didn't appear to be too complicated. Hank could put this together in no time. Except Hank wouldn't like us exploring in the Expanse. I had a difficult time believing Hank was behind all the sabotage. He was Cog's right-hand man and good friend. Perhaps he wasn't involved. And perhaps I was kidding myself.

Why did I have no trouble accepting Jacy's involvement with the Outsiders? No answer. My head spun and I sat next to Logan. The trip to his room had taken me twice as long as normal. I had to keep stopping to catch my breath.

"Are you all right?" Logan asked.

"Just a little dizzy."

"Me, too. I'm not sure if I'm sick, but I keep having these dizzy spells."

That seemed odd. Lamont had also commented on feeling light-headed. "Since when?"

"A few hours after you rushed off to help the doctor. Do you think something's wrong with the air plant?"

"Could be. Last I heard, it was working even though not all the air filter bays have been repaired." A strange thought floated to the surface of my mind. "Logan, do you know what's going on with the Outsiders?"

He gestured to the computer. "I managed to get into a few subsystems. It's frustrating as h.e.l.l, like putting my toe in the water, but not being able to jump in!"

"And?"

"Oh. Their vehicle is still attached, but I think no one has opened Gateway yet. I don't understand why they haven't."

"Maybe our air isn't right for them? Maybe the people who want them to come in have to adjust it slowly or risk hurting us?"

"Pure speculation. Maybe they're waiting for us to be told about them. Can you imagine if they just showed up? Ma.s.sive panic."

"Then why aren't their cohorts spreading the word?"

"Maybe they plan to sneak in? Get a sense of the situation first?"

Too many unknowns at this point, guessing would be a waste of our limited time. "You're right. It's all conjuncture. We need more data."

"That's my girl." Logan slapped me on the back. "Spoken like a true Tech No!"

Unfortunately, in order to get more data, I would have to get closer to Bubba Boom. I'd rather be getting reacquainted with Riley. I checked the power plant's control room on level four, the air plant and maintenance in Sector B2, but couldn't find Bubba. He might be sleeping. I didn't even know what barrack he lived in. Actually, I knew very little about him.

While climbing around level four, I had placed the wipe board with the pulley diagram in Riley's bedroom, hoping he could make one and pa.s.s it to Jacy. Since I'd run out of places to look for Bubba Boom, I returned to the infirmary to help Lamont.

People filled the patient area. Lamont moved among them, handing out cups of water and white pills. Hair stuck out from her braid and she moved as if walking through a thick stew.

"What's going on?" I asked her.

"Headaches, dizziness and nausea," she said. "And a few patients have minor b.u.mps and bruises from pa.s.sing out. Everyone's blaming the air plant."

When I had poked my head into the plant, the air filtering machinery appeared to be working. However, a number of maintenance workers had been repairing one of the air scrubbers. "How can I help?"

"Can you wrap Jenna's sprained ankle? She twisted it when she stumbled down the stairs."

"Sure." I grabbed a roll of bandages and crossed to the girl with a bag of ice on her ankle.

We worked for a few hours as a steady stream of people from level three came in. My energy dropped faster than normal. And a couple times, I needed to stop and catch my breath. I worried that the Outsiders might just be slowly killing us all, which added to the low-simmering panic in the pit of my stomach. At any moment, it felt as if the terror would erupt into a full boil.

Bubba Boom arrived. He appeared upset, and I asked him if he was feeling sick.

He glanced around the full room. "No. I heard you were all over Inside, looking for me."