It was nice to be able to take a shower without having to wait in a long line every sixth day. She had never known privacy like this, and she loved it.
And even though she hadn’t seen another human in days, she was starting to feel a little less lonely. Being an anonymous cog in the machine, seeing other workers but not talking much to one another, felt far lonelier than being out here on her own, living this free day-to-day lifestyle. Though she was on a mission, her heart was swelling with possibility. Anything could happen. Every day had a new surprise in store. She had no idea what the next morning might bring, and it thrilled her. The message she waited for on her PRD was very different from the corpse cleanup messages she waited for in the city. The only thing that changed back then was who died and where, but the bleak task always played itself out in the same way.
Until last time, she thought grimly.
After she got dressed, she collapsed on the bed. At least now she felt caught up on her sleep. Despite being on the run, she felt more rested these last few days than she ever had before.
She lay in the dark, drifting off to the sounds of the opossum tottering around the shelter.
H124’s PRD beeped. She sat up in bed, and it beeped again. Hurrying to the table where she’d set it down, she saw Willoughby’s face flash on the floating display. She waved her hand through the image to complete the connection. He smiled when he saw her. Worry creased his face, but he managed a smile. “You’re okay,” he breathed.
She nodded. “Are you?”
He glanced around his office, then turned to her with a nervous smile. “Yes.”
“Did you find them?”
“I did.”
She watched him type in a few commands.
“I’m sending you the coordinates.” He frowned.
“What is it?”
“They’re farther away than I thought. A lot farther. Hundreds of miles from you. Scuttlebutt has it that they’re packing up their camp in a few days, and there’s no word on where they’re moving to. You won’t make it on foot.”
She thought of the solar car. “I might have that one covered.”
He raised his brow. “Really?”
She nodded. Her PRD beeped again, letting her know that Willoughby’s coordinates had arrived. She waved her hand to another window in the floating display, bringing up the map. Her mouth fell open. He wasn’t kidding. The Rovers lay eighteen hundred miles from where she was.
She looked at the time on the PRD. It was almost dawn. “I’ll set out today. Just need to get this vehicle running.”
“You have to be careful. The PPC hasn’t given up its search for you. They’ve alerted other media-run cities. You’ve got to avoid those. I’ll send you coordinates for those too. They figure you won’t survive in the Badlands, and if you do, sooner or later, you’ll end up in a city center again. And they’ll get you there.”
She leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “Why do they care? I’m just one person. A laborer, at that.”
“They know you have copies of the information you found. They’re worried that you could distract consumers from . . .”
“From what?”
“The order of things.”
“I don’t understand. Don’t they want people to survive?”
Willoughby ran a hand over his face. He hadn’t shaved. “They don’t think there’s a real threat. They think it’s a hoax.”
“A hoax? For what reason?”
Willoughby leaned closer to his PRD. She could see he hadn’t slept. Dark circles clustered under his eyes. “Public Programming Control uses those who are plugged into the network for free labor. The PPC provides all the entertainment windows on the display, but there’s a task window too. Every few minutes, sometimes seconds, you have to enter a code or press a button to keep the entertainment streaming in. What people don’t know is that these commands keep the city’s infrastructure running. Maybe your task window starts the food cube machine. Maybe it regulates one of the temperature control stations. Maybe it stabilizes the generators that provide electricity to the PPC tower.
“This way the media doesn’t have to put any effort into maintaining the city themselves. Consumers don’t even understand they’re doing it. They’re taught the code when they’re little, so it’s instinctive to them. But from time to time, we deal with hoaxes from those who want to funnel power away from the PPC and get the consumers to use their task windows to power some unsanctioned project. Other times hackers just want chaos, or feel like breaking down the media’s control. If consumers spend time watching pirated programming from these hoaxers, the attention is routed away from their task windows, and the infrastructure starts failing. The PPC suffers every second the consumer is engaged elsewhere.
“It’s easier for them just to kill you outright than to lose any power. They can’t afford you to release that information in this city or any other. If people really started to open their eyes . . .”
“The PPC’s hold would crumble,” she finished. Her stomach turned.
“So keep your eye out. They’re coming. They won’t follow you into the Badlands, but they know you can’t broadcast from out there anyway.”
She couldn’t believe this. A sour taste filled her mouth.
Willoughby glanced around, more uneasy than ever. “Someone’s
