NUMB

Day Ten - Jet

My hoping has paid off and my beloved leader, Beck, has granted my wish for different shifts. I am no longer bound to the night shifts for the rest of my foreseeable future. He managed to get me assigned a few midday shifts, which is nice. I get to wake up at a decent hour and go to bed before midnight for the first time since I started working here.

I'm on the gate from noon until eight PM today. Which is nice. I got to spend the morning with Seth and his parents. After they left for work, Seth told me he had something big. He's been talking to the people from the group and that girl who said she was going to ask around got back to him already. She's got someone who'd be willing to help us out as much as she can.

I'll be meeting with her on my break. Which means that I have an excuse to get inside the compound, since she said she'd be on her break around six. Good thing about working the midday shift, is that there's no Jackson to keep me here. I'm working alone right now, the other person on duty is on the walk. There's only two people on shift for the mid, since the security inside the Compound during the day is beefier than at night.

The day drags on, but for a different reason this time. I look at the clock on my walkie-phone every five seconds, it feels like. The swing shift Warden will be here at six PM. Once they get here, I'm able to take my break and get into the Compound. I'll only have thirty minutes, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to find this inside girl quickly.

Five o'clock comes crawling in with the sunset. The Compound looks strangely nice with the orange sunlight covering it. I'm on the walk, pacing and counting my steps to keep myself from checking the time again. When I get to the corner of the wall, I can see the yard and the Numb in it. It's their dinner block right now and they've got three hours before curfew. A lot of them spend their time in the yard. I can only assume that the ones who are holding conversations that carry in my direction on the wind are Ones.

Someone laughs and it echoes off the walls.

I make it back and forth along the wall twice before the door in the floor opens and someone comes up. It's Ari. Her headscarf is black today.

"Hey, Jet. I see the rumors are true. A midday shift for the newbie." She puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head. "Beck must really like you."

"I don't know if he even knows my name, to be honest." I stop a few feet from her and smile. "Here to relieve me of my duty?"

"Yep. Go take your break. I'll see you in the alcove when you get back."

I climb down the ladder so quickly I almost miss a rung and bang my chin on the one level with my face. I cannot leave the wall fast enough. Seth said I would need to be outside the rec room by the cafeteria. The guard at the chain-link fence checks my ID, swipes it across a scanner and the gate unlocks. I cross the yard and head through the main double doors. It takes a second to remember which direction the cafeteria is and by the time I remember, I see the directory on the wall with an arrow pointing right for the cafeteria.

When I get into the hallway just outside the cafeteria's double doors, I turn right towards the rec rooms. There's someone standing in the hallway, by the back wall. She's short with a head of wild strawberry blonde curls and she's wearing the green nurse's scrubs. When she turns her face to me as I walk up, she's got this pinched expression on it.

"Are you Jet?" Her voice is tinny, very girly and very short. She bites the words out.

"Who's asking?"

She rolls her eyes at me. "Tasha. I'm assuming you're Jet since nobody ever comes down this way. You're friend set up a meeting with me." Her hands go to her hips and she sizes me up. "How long have you been working here?"

I'm a little startled by how quick she moves the conversation. She doesn't even need to see proof that I am the guy she was supposed to be meeting with. "Uh, it'll be two months Monday next week."

"Where are you posted?"

"East Gate."

She presses her fingertips against the spot between her eyebrows before looking up at the ceiling. "That is the most useless position to have in this place. Have you been cross-trained at least? Can you get shifts in the Compound instead?"

I rub at the back of my neck, feel the tips of my ears burn a little. "I've been cross trained, but my group leader's kind of hard to get a word in with, so asking for C-P shifts is tough."

Tasha purses her lips, gives me the once over with her eyes. "Beta group?"

I shake my head. "No, Gamma."

"Oh. Beck then. Ugh, I can't stand that guy. He really does love to hear himself talk." She thinks for a minute, her foot tap-tap-tapping on the tile floor. "Ok, look. You won't be able to get anything done standing on that wall all day long. You need to talk to Beck about getting C-P shifts and request that you get Infirmary. For now, follow me. I'll show you something that you'll probably find useful while you're here."

Tasha pushes through the doors to her left and I follow her. We step into the infirmary. The pungent smell of antiseptic and floor cleaner hits my nose hard. Tasha moves with purpose, dodging other nurses and Wardens easily. I let my eyes wander since I haven't been in here since I brought Quinn in the other day. A few of the plastic chairs lining the walls are occupied. The Numb sitting in them stare off at nothing while they wait to be called in.

"Jet! Quickly. I don't have all day here."

I pick my pace up. She stops near the stairwell door on the opposite end of the infirmary from where we came in. Once I reach her she grabs me by my shirt and pulls to the side, to the gap between the infirmary itself and the stairwell wall.

"Okay, see this door right here?" She still has a grip on the side of my shirt, pulling me down towards her. She smells like lavender and vanilla. When I nod, she continues, "It leads to the east corridor. It's unused now, but used to be where the on-staff nurses stayed when the Compound was first starting up. They keep it locked up, but I found a key in the lab and made a copy." She lets go of my shirt and takes my hand instead. Her fingers are small and barely wrap around my hand when she presses a key into my palm. "If you go in there, the fourth door in has a door that leads outside, still inside the walls."

I nod. "I've seen that door outside."

"That's good. You can use that door to get in and out of the Compound without having to swipe your ID at the courtyard's gate. They log that traffic, to keep track of who goes in and out. The door from the east corridor is pre-scanner so it only has a deadbolt lock on it." She glances around my shoulder, squints at the people in the hallway. "If you go into the door second to the last at the end of the corridor, there's a false wall in that one. If you can find where it is, it opens up to something similar to a tunnel. I've heard that if you follow that out, you wind up on the outside of the South Wall."

"A secret tunnel?" I raise one eyebrow. "That sounds made up. Have you seen it yourself?"

"I haven't, but a friend who used to work here did. It was an emergency exit for the nurses in case something was blocking the doors out. Look, I'm just telling you what I know so maybe you can do what you need to do without having the eyes of the Compound on you all the time. Believe me or don't. I need to go. People will start to get suspicious." She takes a step away from me. "Don't lose that key and don't let anyone see you going in and out of there. There's nothing you can do here if you get yourself fired."

With that warning, Tasha leaves.