Opening Gateway depended on the success of task two, plus we would need uppers to cover the computer alerts. I had a list of possible sympathizers, but one of them was a spy. Logan had planned to check the computer records of the uppers. If he couldn’t discover who worked for Karla, we’d need to find another group via Riley, and hope we didn’t contact another spy. If we did—game over.

The last task, turning myself in to Karla had the least problems. And once the game was over, it would be the only job left for me to do.

I needed to communicate with Karla somehow, and I really needed to find out what she knew and what she planned. Too bad I couldn’t crawl through the heating vents again and maybe listen—

Jacy’s device! I had planted one above Karla’s office. If I could pick up the audio signal, I could listen in. I ignored the fact I had no idea how to do it. My whole future depended on so many ifs and hopes and assumptions and possibilities that I would consider it impossible right now if I thought about it too much.

I decided to think positive and impart maximum damage.

My tool belt was close enough to reach with a minimal amount of bending. I removed the microphone. Jacy might regret his offer to help.

I flipped it on and said, “Jacy, I need your help again. Lieutenant Commander Karla is offering me a deal and I need you to be my negotiator. Tell Karla that I will turn myself in if she promises to free Cogon so he can return to work in the lower levels and promises she won’t recycle me. She won’t accept those terms and she’ll make a counteroffer. Tell her you’ll communicate with me and let her know in twenty hours. Drag the negotiations out as long as possible. I don’t care what the final terms are for me as long as Cogon stays alive and no one else is arrested. I’m trusting you.”

“You don’t care what the final terms are?” Riley asked. He closed the door and stood there holding a steaming bowl.

“No. As long as I cause problems and do maximum damage.” I wondered how much he had heard.

“What about your friends? Don’t you think they care?”

“But I would be helping them. And besides, it’s my decision.”

“Maybe they don’t want you to help them. Did you ever think of that? Did you think about how your decision impacts others? Those you leave behind to deal with the gaping hole in their existence?”

Riley’s agitation seemed excessive. He noticed my confusion. “I guess it must be a family thing. Something a scrub wouldn’t understand. Although I wouldn’t call me and my still-grieving father a family.”

I remembered. Riley wasn’t angry at me, but at his mother. Her name was on Domotor’s recycled list. “I know you miss your mother—”

“You don’t know. You’re a scrub. You don’t have a family.”