MAXIMUM OUTFLOW

摘要

"just move them," Iggy said. He andJia were climbing down a ladder, her first. Now she'd stopped. Iggy had a big bag over his shoulder and couldn't fit into the narrow compartment until she got out of the way.Fighting back a gag, Jia extended her arm through a curtain of coils. They were warm and clammy. She squeezed through.Past the coils was a larger space, and the air was cooler. Iggy scrambled in behind her. "AJ showed you this?" she asked.Iggy put down the pack, put his hands on his knees. Breathed hard. "I fell through the membrane coils. AJ had to come get me," Iggy said. Grief and fatigue strangled his words. "Come on."iggy didn't know anything about anything back when AJ pulled him out of school. As a kid, maybe 9 years old, Iggy knew that the whole world was inside. Home was Building 8; school was Building 2. One of the teachers told AJ that Iggy had a knack with tools but not much else, and A J made Iggy a tech. AJ showed Iggy the other half of things. The guts, he called it, every duct, pipe, tube, and pump that held together the cluster of buildings and domes. Outside: nothing left to eat, drink, or breathe. Inside: all the people, on top of an oozing, respirating clot of innards. Nobody knew the guts better than AJ.