Pondering the future

The people in the Housing Authority have been awful tight lately with the morning roll call and bed checks at night. They've been saying it has to do with people from Outside coming in and either moving in for the free food and a roof, or taking away our citizens to work as slaves on the Outside. I've heard it both ways, but nobody seems to agree enough to be real solid. I need to find some tires for my bike, and I was thinking about riding out to the Perimeter to see the Fence. I went there once with a class group, and we got to meet the soldiers at a tower, and got a glimpse of what was out there. Looked like a lot of nothing to me, but there was one squatter camp not far away. They looked pretty miserable in there, too. Then they gave us cookies and loaded us back on the wagon to head back to the schoolhouse. It sure beat a normal school day, I'll say that.