I’d been willing to sacrifice myself for Cogon. Would I have done it for some stranger? While I’d like to think I would, if I was truly honest with myself, the answer would be probably not. And why were we strangers at all? We lived in a giant metal cube. Granted, the Pop Cops had separated us, but if we went back far enough, we were all related to one of the original nine families.

A little zip of understanding jolted me. Could the solution to our problems be that simple?

“...look. Should I be worried? Trella?” Bubba Boom waved a hand in front of my face.

“Sorry. I was just…”

“What?”

“Thinking.”

“I already figured that out.” He tilted his head toward Lamont. “Are your deep thoughts about your birth mother?”

“Yes, but they don’t help the situation with Jacy. Do you know what they’re planning?”

“No. We’ve just connected him to Sloan and the Captain recently.”

“We?”

“Me, Hank, Phelan, Kren and Ange. The maintenance soups…supervisors.”

“Aren’t you a little young to be a soup?”

He shrugged. “After the rebellion, not many people were willing to step up and take charge.”

Guilty of the same thing, I played with my food. At least I realized my mistake.

“We think Jacy and his cohorts are trying to hack into the computer network,” he said. “It hasn’t been working right the past two weeks. And if they gain control…”

“They already have.”

Bubba Boom’s expression flickered in surprise. “How do you know?”

Time to decide. If I wanted to fix the mess, I needed Bubba Boom and Hank’s help. They had already figured out a few things on their own. I explained to him about Jacy’s group using the mythical Controllers to give orders to the Committee and Anne-Jade. But for some unknown reason, I didn’t tell him about Logan.

“You’ve been confined to level three. How did you find out about all that?”

An interesting question. He didn’t seem too upset about the Controllers, but he did suspect something wasn’t right. “I’m allowed visitors.”

He studied me a moment. “If they truly have the network, there’s nothing we can do.”

But Logan could. I hoped. “At least Jacy and the Captain plan to fix the Transmission. That gives us one less problem to worry about.”

I surprised him again. “When?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But I think you should give them a predictable time when Hank won’t be nearby so they don’t have to create a distraction. And it will also give you an opportunity to see who else is involved.” Spoken like a true Pop Cop. They had enjoyed baiting and trapping as many scrubs as possible in their schemes.

“But without control of the computers, it won’t matter if we know who’s involved or not,” he said.

“We might be able to reclaim the computer systems.”

“Might? Do you really think we have a chance?”

“I’ve done more with less.”

He laughed. “So you’re asking us to trust you.”

“Yep.”

“I’ll talk to Hank. He’s been saying we need to start over so I’m sure he’ll agree to give you all the help you’ll need.”

Logan was thrilled to hear the Transmission might be repaired. He gave me one of his new tiny Video Cameras to plant so he could watch when they started working on the machine. Between my supply runs, he spent his time building gadgets. And I spent my free time with Bubba Boom. Since Hank and his crew had agreed to assist me, Bubba Boom acted as our go-between.

Modifying the glass tube detector, Logan returned it to me. Since I didn’t have the time to sweep all the Sectors and Quadrants in Inside to search for the active link to the Controllers, I passed it along to Hank and his crew to check them.

“You want to start doing what?” Lamont asked me.

“Using the vampire boxes,” I said again. It was hour fifteen during week 147,025, and the last fifty hours of traveling back and forth to Logan’s had been physically draining. I perched on the edge of the examination table while Lamont sorted through her supplies.

“Why?”

“The files with all the blood test data are…unavailable, so I want to do tests on everyone.”

Lamont stared at me as if I displayed symptoms of a high fever. “What do you want to test for?”

“Family bloodlines.”

“Why?”

“I think it’ll help us regain a sense of community. Instead of being the uppers and lowers we can be the Ashons and Minekos. Then each family can vote for a representative to be in the Committee of nine. But I think we still need a Captain. Someone like Hank.”

“Or you,” she said.

“I don’t have any technical knowledge of the ship.”

“You don’t need it. You have Logan, who you trust. A Captain can’t do everything, that’s why she has a support staff of trusted people.”

“The people of Inside might not be too happy to see me in that position.”

“You have good ideas. When you get us on the right track everyone will be happy.”

She had a lot of confidence in me. I waited for the familiar twist of fear in my stomach, but nothing happened. At least the thought of people relying on me didn’t scare me anymore. Instead, it gave me a push of motivation. Much better.