Empty corridors should have been my first warning. I had woken after a couple of hours to a strange hush and dropped down to level one to investigate. Pop Cops herded scrubs into the dining room. Surprised, I tried to retreat but was spotted and pulled into the flow.

Shoulders pressed against shoulders. I gagged on the overripe smell of tightly packed humans. When no more scrubs could be wedged into the room, the doors were shut and guarded by the Pop Cops. There were three “meeting” locations in the lower levels, and I guessed the Pop Cops also had our two common areas in Quads A1 and A2 filled with scrubs and sealed off just like the dining room.

I started to sweat, and not just from the excessive body heat. Standing on top of a table in the middle of the dining room was the female lieutenant commander who had ambushed Broken Man’s quarters. I glanced at the clock. Hour sixty. My troubles started only twenty-five hours ago. It felt more like a week.

“Citizens of Inside, I realize this is unusual,” said the LC. Her voice boomed from the speakers. “Our hundredth hour assembly isn’t due for another forty hours, but we are missing a citizen.”

Murmurs rippled across the scrubs. Everybody reported in at the end of each week. We all had assigned locations so we could hear the news and get updated on the rules and regulations. The Pop Cops called it an end-of-week celebration, but I knew it was just a device to keep track of the scrubs, checking for pregnancies and making sure we behaved.

“All citizens will remain in their secure locations until we find our missing person,” the LC continued.

It made sense; their RATSS got confused when so many people milled about.

“We are looking for a man who calls himself the Broken Man. He uses a wheelchair, so we’re most concerned he might have been injured. If any citizen has information regarding his current location or information that would lead us to him, you may be promoted to any posting of your choice.”

My guts turned to metal. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel. Lovers would snitch on each other with an offer like that. Cog and I were sunk. I shouldn’t have gone for those damn disks. We might as well turn ourselves in. Who knows, maybe they wouldn’t recycle us. Yeah, and maybe I’d be invited upstairs and given a family, a room and an interesting job. If I was going to delude myself, might as well dream big.

Oh, well. No sense wasting energy on what I shouldn’t have done. I had made my choice. I’d see it through and resign myself to whatever fate had in store for me.

Numbly, I watched as different scrubs pushed their way to talk to the LC. After two hours of waiting and sweating, the air in the room felt like a sauna and smelled like week-old dirty laundry.