Outside In by Maria V. Snyder Page A

breaths from the mask. Moving with care so I wouldn’t make a sound, I slipped through the overlap in the fabric. I paused to let my eyes adjust and my legs solidify under me. The clock read hour ninety-two, which would mean I had been out of it for sixty hours. Losing hunks of time just had to stop, I felt as if I spent more time in the infirmary than anywhere else.
    A robe hung over a nearby chair as if someone suspected I’d be creeping out of bed—Riley probably. Wrapping it around my shoulders, I scanned the other beds. A couple of patients slept in the next two, but the third had also been isolated from the room by the curtains. Logan’s, I hoped.
    I shuffled-stepped—all I could manage with my bandage-wrapped legs and tight skin—over to the hidden patient. Ducking under the curtain, I almost fainted with relief. Logan slept in the bed. Or at least I think he was sleeping. Bandages covered his eyes and a mask rested over his nose and mouth.
    He tugged it away from his face. “Who’s there?”
    “Trella,” I whispered.
    Logan reached with his free hand and I took it in mine. He also wore the special white gloves. “Thanks,” he said.
    I shrugged, but realized he couldn’t see the motion. “I just got you closer to the door. Someone else did the true life saving.” And I would need to find out his name. “Besides, you’d have done the same for me.”
    “Probably.” His smile didn’t last long.
    “What’s the damage?”
    “Ten air…filter bays. The computer—”
    “I meant you.”
    “Oh. Burns over fifty percent—” he puffed “—of my body.” He pressed the mask to his face and inhaled deeply for a few minutes. “Lost my vision…but it might be…temporary.”
    Horror swept over me and I squeezed his hand. “Might? That’s vague.”
    “Doctor Lamont…will know better…in time.”
    “How much time?”
    He shook his head. “Don’t know.”
    I waited as he drank in more of the oxygen-rich air flowing from the mask. “I have a million questions, but I’ll ask you them later. Just answer this one. Do you think the fire was an act of sabotage or an attack aimed at you?”
    “Both.”
    The news inflamed the burns on my skin, sending a hot surge of fear. “Why aren’t you surrounded by guards?” “He’s protected,” Anne-Jade said. She poked her head in between the curtain’s overlap.
    I jumped. “How long have you been listening?”
    “I’ve been here the whole time.”
    “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
    She smiled. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
    “Yeah right. You were hoping to overhear something juicy.”
    Parting the fabric, she stood next to her brother’s bed. Anne-Jade glanced at him and then me. “And just how much juice do you think I could get from a couple of overcooked mutton chops like yourselves?”
    Logan’s laughter turned into a coughing fit.
    “Okay. Point taken. Who else knows about the attack?”
    “The Committee has been informed of both sabotages and the attempt on Logan’s life.”
    She gripped the rail on Logan’s bed as if a great weight rested on her shoulders. All humor fled her eyes and I realized she teetered on the edge of exhaustion.
    Even though I was reluctant to ask, and I could probably guess the answer, I had to hear it from her. “And the Committee’s response?”
    “Lockdown and search of all levels.”
    Now I had to grab the rail or risk falling to the floor. We had come full circle. Instead of Pop Cops policing the lower levels, we now had ISF officers. They would confine everyone to their barracks until they could do a thorough search for evidence. At least, they included the upper levels.
    Anne-Jade said, “Do you have any better ideas? We can’t let them keep blowing and burning up vital life systems. We also brought Ivie and Kadar in for questioning.”
    “How did—”
    “We found your wipe board in the hallway outside the air plant. I remembered the names from our discussion with Bubba