The Pipes were a system of underground tunnels that led all around the city, even beyond it. Trim's words echoed around them as she took a step back, letting Hiro take it all in. The black walls seemed to run on forever, and Hiro noticed that they formed a perfect dodecagon. He wondered why. "So this is how you guys get around," he breathed, awe-struck at the idea that something like this had existed under his feet for so very long, and he had had no idea.
"Oh, yeah. I guess this is the part of the day where you ask your questions, and I answer them."
Hiro shot her a glance, recognizing this as her poking fun at his earlier words. "Yeah," he said, taking a deep breath.
Trim plopped down on the crash pad, folding her legs under her as she waited for him to start questioning her.
"Okay, first things first... are you in Antigravity?"
Trim nodded, the expression on her face seeming to say, but you already knew that.
"So, last night, when you stopped me in the alley, you had just come from one of the break-ins that was reported this morning."
"Right again."
"What was in the bag?"
"Plans," she said simply. Anticipating Hiro's next question, she continued, "For a new type of listening device the government wants to put in everyone's clothes."
Hiro started. That wasn't what he had been expecting. He thought it might have been money or weaponry, but plans for more surveillance? "Why?"
"What do you mean 'why?' It's what we do!"
"It's what you do?" Hiro repeated, not understanding. They only stole plans? No, that wasn't right. He had heard reports of government officials going missing, prototypes being stolen, property being destroyed, all linked to Antigravity.
"Yes," she said slowly. "Don't you know what we do?"
"Of course I do," Hiro shot back defensively. "You plot to take down the government... and stuff."
"No!" Trim all but shouted, shaking her head. "Well, a little bit. It's not so much a problem with the government as a problem with government surveillance." She got to her feet and started walking down the tunnel. Not knowing what else to do, Hiro followed her.
"Doesn't it bother you," she continued, "that you're constantly being watched? That you can't say what you want to say, because someone is always listening? Does that seem fair to you?"
"Well, no, but it's fo-"
"'For the public's protection,' I know, I know. I've read the fliers."
That was the government's big line: everything was "for the public's protection." When a worker arrived at the house to install a new, upgraded door sensor, it was "for the public's protection." When the number of cameras on each street was doubled, it was "for the public's protection." When curfew was changed to be two hours earlier, it was "for the public's protection."
Trim looked back at him over her shoulder. "You know, there used to be a time when this place was the land of the free? Tell me, don't you ever feel like you're trapped? Or stuck in a cage? Have you ever actually felt free?"
Hiro was shocked. He never let himself recognize that he did, indeed, feel caged in in his city. That was part of the reason he liked going to the bot fights so much- the thrill of breaking curfew, of sneaking through the streets in the dark, of being fooling the governments "inescapable" surveillance.
"I see your point," he said as they turned into a different segment of the Pipes.
"You see?" Trim said, shooting him a smile. "We're not so terrible."
"Well, I don't know about that," Hiro joked.
Trim laughed as they came up on another crash pad. She walked over to the wall at the foot of it
, placing her foot on it and leaving it there until a series of ladder rungs popped out. Looking up, Hiro could see that they led to another entrance to the Pipes, again hidden as a silvery "puddle."
"Up you go," she told him, nodding to the ladder.
Hiro walked up to it and placed his hands on one of the rungs. There he stopped, thinking. Just that morning he had been terrified of Trim, and now... "See you tonight?"
Trim shook her head. "Seriously? Me and the gang are packing up and moving out?"
"What? Why?"
"Why wouldn't we? So we could stay and get arrested? No thanks."
Oh. She thought he was going to report them. And he was, wasn't he? That's why he had gone looking for Trim. And even though Antigravity wasn't trying to completely destroy the government, they had still stolen and kidnapped and who knew what else! Any good citizen would have reported them within two seconds of even having glimpsed them.
But Hiro wasn't a good citizen; he was a rule-breaker.
"Don't worry," he said with a smile, "I won't tell."