“Leo, what’s the bad news?” I asked.
“Well, the Medic assigned to you is on their way, and you have about thirty seconds to come up with a good explanation as to why you are all here together.”
My eyes widened, and I looked around the room. “Can you send them away?”
“Not really. I’m not fully integrated yet. I need more time, and you’re going to have to buy it. I’ll be back once the Medic leaves.”
The screen went black before I could say anything, and I felt all the blood rush to my head as I realized that if I didn’t come up with a convincing lie, we were all going to get caught.
I was looking at Grey, my mouth opening to ask if he had any idea, when there was that flash of bright light that always preceded a Medic’s entry—bright enough to cause me to squint my eyes against the dazzling intensity, which left dark spots dancing around the periphery of my vision immediately afterward.
And then a woman stood a few feet away from us, a pad in one hand and a stylus in the other. Her black hair hung in tight ringlets around her face, and her dark eyes were dramatically wide as she took us in.
“Hello,” she said, her voice high pitched and ending with a slight squeak. “I’m Practitioner Myra. I see here that you checked in with a privacy request.” Her dark eyes scanned the three of us as we stood in front of her, an expectant smile on her dark red lips. “So what seems to be the trouble?”
28
My brain immediately started to spin, ready to throw out ideas—and then sputtered and performed the mental equivalent of a face-plant when I realized that I did not have enough knowledge or experience with the Medica to remotely be able to come up with a believable lie that would justify a privacy request, let alone Grey and Quess’s presence. I tried, though, attempting to manifest some sort of communicable disease that was virulent enough to explain the mystery, but not contagious enough to warrant a lockdown. I came up blank. I’d put too much hope in either Jasper or Leo being able to help us out, and I hadn’t considered that they might not be able to do so immediately.
I quickly looked over at where Quess and Grey were standing a few feet away, desperately trying to signal to Quess that I was way out of my depth on this one. He was Medica-bred, which meant he had some training. I just hoped he remembered something from his time here. A story from his parents—something that would help us out.
The Medic looked at them as well, as if taking some cue that we were all here because of them, and arched an eyebrow expectantly.
Grey and Quess exchanged looks, and Quess looked away first, leaving Grey to be pinioned with the intense gaze from the Medic.
“Well, out with it,” she said, a bit impatiently. “There are other people who could use this room.”
“She might be pregnant,” Grey suddenly blurted out, and it took me a second or two to fully register what he’d said. Once I did, my cheeks immediately flamed—and I suddenly wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Getting pregnant out of wedlock was one of the most shameful things a girl could do, because it just shouldn’t happen. Females and males were both given contraceptive devices that needed to be replaced every year, and missing that appointment and getting pregnant as a result was absolutely inexcusable.
I caught a movement from the corner of my eye and realized the Medic was looking at me, and even though I knew this was a lie, it had caught me so off guard that I couldn’t even meet her gaze. I never would’ve gone this route—never would’ve considered it an option.
Because it was absolutely degrading, and I was going to murder Grey for even insinuating such a thing.
“I see,” the Medic said, disdain already thick in her voice, and I suddenly felt bad for all of those girls who had ever gone through this. It may not have happened very often, but accidents were accidents, right?
Not to the Tower, of course, where population rates were monitored and births limited to two per family, with a third under special circumstances. Babies had to be planned for. Pregnancy with your spouse had to be applied for.
“And you two are here because…”
I looked up sullenly to see Grey and Quess exchange a flurry of glances, and then Quess winced and said, almost too fast to follow, “We’re not sure which one of us is the father.”
I was going to kill them both now.
Very, very slowly.
“Are you serious?”
I slowly dragged my chin up so that I could level my eyes to meet her incredulous look, and then looked past her to stare at both of them. I was mortified by their responses to everything, but I would be damned if I couldn’t get a dig in of my own.
“Well, they never really said we were exclusive, so…”
Both Quess and Grey flushed a bright shade of red, and some of my mortification dwindled at their reaction, and at the absolute look of irritation on the woman’s face, directed at both of them. It definitely went a long way toward making up for their insults to me. Young women may have been shamed for getting pregnant, but every department made sure the man was equally shamed for being so irresponsible.
The woman exhaled slowly, and I could imagine she was counting to ten, trying to get a grip on her temper.
“How long ago did your birth control expire?” she asked.
“Oh, um...” I tried to recall how long it was still “safe” to have intercourse after the implant expired, and had a vague feeling it was two weeks. “Three weeks,” I said. “I made an appointment to get it replaced, but my supervisor asked me to cancel it to help him with an important task, and I wanted to do my duty to the Tower, so…”
“And you two?” she asked, adjusting herself slightly to face the two men.
“Two weeks ago,” Quess said automatically.
“Seventeen days?” Grey said after a short pause, and even though I could still murder him for blurting out that I was possibly pregnant, I had to admit that he was really getting into the lie. Which would’ve been great, normally, but did it have to be this? My cheeks continued to burn.
Myra tapped a few things into her pad, and then looked up at me. “These next few questions are personal,” she said, spearing me with a pointed look. “Would you like for them to leave?”
I hesitated. Obviously, I couldn’t let them leave, but I needed a good reason why a girl supposedly having sex with both of them would want them both to stay. And then it dawned on me: why would any woman want both possible fathers to stay with her? Punishment.
“Absolutely not,” I said primly, folding my arms over my chest. “I was upfront with them about my device expiring, but neither of them—and I do mean neither of them—was as forthcoming with me. So, no, they have to stay and experience the discomfort with me.”
Myra surprised me with a smile of approval and pulled out her pad. “When was the date of your last period?”
“Over a month ago,” I said.
“And… how frequently have these… interactions been taking place?”
I speared them both with a dry look. “How many times would you say, gentlemen?”
Myra’s laugh was soft as they both flushed, and I was pleased to see Grey looking sufficiently mortified that I had flipped this on him.
Honestly, at this point, all I hoped to do was buy time until Leo figured out a way to get rid of her and get us out of here. I hoped he was working on a plan, at the very least—but until he revealed what it was, I needed to stall.
Quess cleared his throat first, casting a glance at Grey. “Um… just the once,” he said, his gaze flicking to mine and then down to the ground.
Grey looked up at me, and I watched his eyes fill with apology before he straightened his hunched shoulders and met her gaze head on. “More than once,” he said with a lazy, confident grin and a wink. “The ladies always come back.”
Myra and I froze, and once again, heat flooded my cheeks as more and more blood pumped into them. I was going to murder him. With my bare hands. Who even thought it was a good idea to tell the
doctor that you might have gotten a girl pregnant, and then flirted with the doctor mid-examination?!
“Right,” Myra said after a significant amount of awkward silence had greeted Grey’s statement. She turned back to me, a judgmental look on her face. I knew she didn’t know me and I shouldn’t care, but this was getting messy fast, and we needed it not to be. Messy got us caught.
“Are you regular?”
I immediately looked over at the men, knowing they were listening closely, and then back to her. “Fairly regular.”
“Any other symptoms?”
I rattled off a few things that were believable for this early in a pregnancy, like feeling nauseated in the mornings, and even vomiting a few times. It was vague enough that the symptoms could have been explained away by some sort of bug or flu, but convincing enough to make a twenty-year-old woman with two supposed lovers concerned about the possibility of pregnancy.
But as I spoke, I knew time was running out, and that we weren’t going to be able to stall much longer before she just ran the damn test. And as soon as she did—and found out that I wasn’t pregnant after all—we’d be kicked out. Without Maddox. Leo had better be getting close to a solution.
She nodded thoughtfully, and then slipped her pad into her pocket, looking at us with wide, bright eyes. “Now that that’s finished, I have a few things to say to all of you.” She closed her eyes, and then they snapped open, blazing with anger, disgust, and disapproval. “Have the three of you lost your minds?” she asked after a long moment in which she seemed to struggle with her temper. “How is any of this—” She gesticulated wildly, fixing us all with a disapproving look. “—of service to Scipio? I should report all three of you to the Knights right now for being so short-sighted and immature! Do you think our survival here is a game?!”
I cringed appropriately under her tongue-lashing, and offered a meek “No, ma’am” after she finished. Her behavior and the lecture weren’t unexpected.
She sneered, not accepting our contrition, and turned to me. “Finger,” she barked, pulling something out of her jacket.
I reluctantly held out my hand, curling back my fingers except for my index. She pressed a slim white rod to the tip of it, and then withdrew the rod and moved over to the portion of the wall meant for analysis. She slipped the rod into it, and pulled up a screen, which filled with enlarged red and white blood cells. I watched her hands move as she began inputting the commands.
Grey silently crossed the room to stand behind me, and I folded my arms, watching the Medic work.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered quietly. “I completely blanked and just blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.”
“And me pregnant is the first thing that came to your mind?” I shot him a look from the corner of my eye. “That’s very revealing.”
I couldn’t help teasing him. It was easier than focusing on the anxiety that was building as Myra scanned my blood for a baby that didn’t exist.
His cheeks bronzed slightly, and he fidgeted. “It’s working, isn’t it?”
“Yes, until she finishes the test and realizes that I’m not—”
“Preliminary tests show that you are not pregnant, Citizen Euan,” she said, relief coloring her voice as she turned around. “I’m running a secondary test, just in case, but I think you can safely say you dodged a—”
The screen cut off, and she stopped midsentence, cocking her head at the wall. A moment later, her pad was in her hands and she was accessing something on it. Then it also stopped working. This had to be Leo finally gaining control, and I felt a smile begin to form on my lips. I watched with growing amusement as her tapping on the screen grew louder and louder, until she finally made a guttural sound of irritation and tucked the thing into her pocket.
“It seems there’s some sort of technical difficulty going on with this wall unit,” she announced. “I can let you go, seeing as the preliminary test was negative, but policy is to run an additional test for confirmation.”
She stopped talking, and I realized that she had intended her statement as a question. I looked to Quess and Grey. It took me a moment to remember it was my decision to make, which obviously was “yes,” as it would get her out of the room and us back on track to rescuing Maddox.
“Would you mind terribly double checking? I mean, don’t get me wrong—I really don’t want a different answer than the one you just gave me. But I don’t know if I could sleep if there was a chance that—”
The woman smiled. “That’s very responsible of you,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll come up negative, but I’ll need a few minutes, okay?”
I nodded meekly and kept my eyes down to the ground until the flash of light had signaled her departure. Then I looked up and took a step away from the two men in the room, shooting them a sarcastic look.
“Okay, the next time we come up to the Medica, you two get to be the ones who are pregnant.”
29
Quess laughed, but Grey still looked guilty.
“It really was dumb,” Leo chimed in, and before I knew it, I was smiling against my will. “Because they are running DNA tests on everyone coming through. Luckily, I managed to prevent yours from being read, but only just.”
“Thanks, Leo,” I said to him. “And I’m already over it,” I added, focusing on Grey. “I’m just relieved Leo managed to save all of us from getting booted out of here.”
“My pleasure,” Leo said, his face reforming on the wall. “And the good news is, I’ve managed to gain some control over their systems.”
“Good job,” Grey said. “Where’s Maddox? Have you figured out how to run a search?”
“I have. She was just checked in with a broken leg, and a Medic is in there with her now. There are three others in the room with her as well. One is a Knight by the name of Devon Alexander, and the other two are members of the IT department… with the ranks of… Inquisitor? What’s an Inquisitor?”
“Bad news,” Quess murmured. “Internal security, basically.”
“Can you get us there?” I asked, not wanting to lose focus on the task at hand. “We should get moving.”
“Of course I can, but you’ll need a change of wardrobe if you want to go about this without attracting attention.” As he spoke, a long, narrow drawer pulled away from the wall unit, propelled by some invisible hand, and the three of us closed the distance to see what was inside.
“Oh, good,” Quess said, immediately pulling out one of the white Medic uniforms. “I was just about to ask you for these.”
I grabbed a uniform as well. Being in Medic white was the easiest way to blend in inside the Medica, so having the uniforms was imperative to moving around without attracting attention, and I was pleased that we had them.
I didn’t immediately start to change, as I had a more pressing question for Leo that no one had bothered to ask yet. “Leo, where’s Jasper?”
Leo frowned and shook his head. “He was transferred back into the mainframe two days ago,” he replied. “There are signs of him everywhere here, though, and I’m learning the system based on his preferences. I like his style—he has a lot of shortcuts. I have a feeling he and I are really going to get along when I get to meet him.”
Quess barked out a laugh, and I gave him a confused look in response, baffled by what he found so funny.
“Shortcuts,” he said simply, still chuckling to himself.
I looked at Grey in hope of some sort of clarification, but he shrugged, and I rolled my eyes and moved on.
“Can you get to him?” I asked. “And while you’re at it, can you keep Myra away from this room?”
“I’m on it,” he said. “The entire floor is experiencing a wall unit failure, so she has to head up a level to confirm the test. I have a few more delays in store for her as well, so we have a little time before she finally makes it back to discover you’ve left a room that was on lockdown. By then, you’ll hopefully have Maddox and be gone before the alarm is raised, but there isn’t
a lot of room for error. As for getting to Jasper… I’m not sure I should. The mainframe is where Scipio is, and while I am an AI, he’s much, much bigger than me, and he’d treat me as a threat. I’m not sure my programming could survive it if he decided to attack outright. Besides, if there is a chance he’s being controlled, then he could report my presence to whoever is controlling him.”
That hadn’t occurred to me, and I absorbed that information, filing it under “don’t ever suggest that again.” The last thing I wanted to do was alert any potential shadow group to the existence of Leo, as I was certain that no matter which “side” they were on, or however it worked, they’d all want to take control of him. And I wasn’t sure we could survive with what little information we did have on them. It was hard to anticipate an enemy you knew nothing about, and foolish to reveal your card before you had a chance to learn.
But that didn’t change the fact that Jasper was in the mainframe and not here. I had no idea why he’d been transferred, but wouldn’t let go of the suspicion that it was because he had helped us. I wasn’t sure how yet, or even if it was possible, but I wanted to look into trying to find a way to get him out. I owed him that, at least, for what he had done for me.
“I’m sorry that he wasn’t here for you to meet,” I told Leo.
He gave me a grateful, yet disappointed smile. “I’m not too sorry. I’m glad for the opportunity to help you. It was good that you brought me after all.”
“I agree. But we needed Jasper for more than just help with Maddox. We gave him a pill to analyze a week ago, and we were hoping he could provide us with the formula. We need it to keep our ones from alerting the Tower to our presence. He promised us he’d put it on a secret server somewhere. Is there any way to find it?”
“I’ll look,” he replied. “Can you give me an approximate date and time, please?”
“Um….” I scrambled, trying to remember just how long it had been since we were here last. It felt like ages ago, but as I tried to recall how much time had passed, I realized it was a lot less than I had thought. “Five days.”