Nothing out of the ordinary happened during my shift. I had plenty of time for the information Broken Man had told me to eat its way through the layers of my mind like acid sizzling through metal.

Devious, the way he had phrased his words. Your father was from the Garrard line. Past tense, meaning he was dead. Your mother is a Sanchia, implying she was still alive. Devious, except he had forgotten I had been raised as a scrub. Family lines meant nothing to me. Biological parents were the concern of the Pop Cops. I might have a fondness for my Care Mother (CM), but that was as far as it went. Broken Man was just trying to con me into his schemes. Give the Pop Cops a reason to recycle me.

The cleaning troll grunted as his motor strained. He had come to a bend. I gave him a little push, and the troll continued on his way. The angle of the air duct started to sharpen. I braced myself in the pipe, using my bare feet to climb behind the troll. The air shaft was one of the main trunk lines, servicing multiple levels of Inside. It cut between the levels and I could follow the troll up to level four if I could unlock the air filter between levels two and three.

Broken Man’s voice tapped into my mind. Information about Gateway might be on some disks hidden on level three. Might be. Most likely not. At least I would have proof the prophet was a fake to show Cog.

During my ten-hour shift of babysitting the troll, I kept changing my mind about whether or not to check Broken Man’s story. When the troll finished the last air duct on my schedule, I pulled him out and stored him in a cleaning closet.

Officially, I was off duty until hour forty. All scrubs had the same schedule. Ten hours off, ten hours on, with a break every five hours. There were no such things as vacations or holidays. Since one week equaled one hundred hours, we worked five shifts per week. Everything in Inside could be divided by the number ten. It made life simple so even the scrubs could understand. Work groups comprised ten scrubs. One CM for every ten children. Ten weeks equaled a deciweek, and a hundred weeks was called a centiweek. And so on. Although, a few old-timers called a centiweek a long year, but I had no idea what that meant.

The work shifts were also staggered so only half the scrubs worked at one time. It saved room in the barracks. I shared my bunk with another scrub I never saw. Not that I ever slept there anyway.

My shift ended on level two in Sector D, and I needed to make a decision. Below me were the rows and rows of bunks that filled Sectors D, E and F on both lower levels. From this location, it was just a matter of heading due east for two sectors, then up one level to search for Broken Man’s disks.