The Girl Who Dared to Think

  “I’m just surprised, sir. I didn’t expect to see you today. I’m not on duty.”

  Gerome frowned, his eyebrows meeting over his nose as he drew them together. “We were supposed to meet today, remember? We discussed this on Tuesday.”

  I frowned, doing the math, and my frown morphed into a scowl. No, you and Prim discussed it. Liana was not around.

  Then relief washed over me as I realized he wasn’t there to arrest me. We just had something we needed to talk about, I guessed. I took a deep breath, trying not to let my relief show in front of Gerome. He’d notice.

  “I’m sorry, Knight Commander,” I said, shaking my head. “I must have forgotten. It’s a side effect of the medication, you know. Can you refresh my memory?”

  “Of course,” Gerome said smoothly, nodding us toward the bridge. “But it’s a lot better if I just show you.”

  13

  Gerome and I walked in relative silence back toward the Citadel, and I used the time to collect myself... and speculate on what this appointment could be. I still had no access to memories from when Prim had been in control, so that didn’t help me. Could it be an early assessment? Was he recommending that I be promoted to full Knight? A rush of excitement went through me at the thought. I looked down at the nine sparkling on my wrist and felt the corners of my mouth quirk up. But I quickly forced them down. Nines did not smile that often.

  The guards loomed ahead, and I turned my wrist out as I approached, watching their recognition turn stupefied as they took in my new number. As if they had never expected me to reach that rank.

  “Your number has risen so much, Liana,” Gerome said as we entered the main terminal—the centermost levels in the Citadel, reserved as offices for receiving complaints and running missions. “I was satisfied when you had increased to a five, but when I heard from your parents that you had reached nine, I knew you were ready for this. Ready for the chance to serve Scipio properly.”

  I thought about the possibility of a promotion and found myself smiling again. “It’s my honor to serve Scipio in whatever way I can,” I informed him, and he gave a tight nod. He ushered me onto an elevator—we actually had to wait a minute for a group of Hands heading to another level—and then we were descending.

  “So where are we going?” I asked, the breeze of displaced air from our descent causing my hair to blow around my face. I gathered it and twisted it into a ball, securing it with a band, and looked over at Gerome, who was watching the numbers descend.

  “To the prisons,” he replied, and I frowned. Why would we be going there?

  Because this is a ruse, a scared voice inside me whispered. He’s leading you like a lamb to slaughter, and you’re falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.

  I pushed through the fear and propelled myself forward off the lift as soon as it hit, trying not to gag at the stale scent of dried sweat already radiating from the dimly lit tunnel. This part of the Citadel was different from the rest; instead of dark, mottled metal, the walls were grated, with thin slits of red light coming through them and washing everything with the color. Exposed yellow bulbs in the ceiling glowed dimly, but it made the entire area seem grungy, and a foreboding feeling settled at the base of my spine. I suddenly did not want to be here.

  Gerome continued forward, oblivious to my hesitancy. I watched his departing back, considering the elevator behind me, and managed to talk myself out of the urge to run away. Running would mean guilt. Running wouldn’t be something a nine would do.

  We were halfway down the hall when the first glass window appeared. I looked through it, curious, and paused when I saw a medical table inside, covered in straps, with long, mechanized arms that held gleaming needles ominously hovering over it. The table was, thankfully, empty, but I cringed to think about the views ahead. Were they going to be empty as well, or... were there going to be people in them?

  “Gerome? What is this?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  Gerome paused, some ten feet ahead of me now, and turned back, looking at me. “I know you’ve never been here before, Liana... but surely you know what we do down here.”

  Restructuring. The final process to try to salvage the best traits possible in a one or two. The process was a secret, known only to the highest-ranked members of the Citadel. My stomach roiled as I eyed the table in the room, the mechanical arms holding long needles poised and ready over the headrest, and I was suddenly grateful beyond words that Grey had given me that pill. A three had been too close to this fate. Far too close. I looked down the hall past Gerome, at the windows ahead, and he, for once, seemed to understand what I was feeling.

  “It’s okay to be nervous, Liana,” he said. “I was too, when I first came down here. Be that as it may, I made sure to schedule this for a time when treatments weren’t happening. All the rooms are empty right now.”

  I exhaled, and was suddenly grateful to Gerome. Grateful, and surprised—it didn’t seem like him to protect me from anything. That also meant there was a reason he had done so. And that meant, whatever restructuring entailed, it was pretty awful. I shuddered and moved away from the window, eager to be out of this hall.

  I kept my eyes down as we walked, only glancing ahead and not through any more windows as we moved. I couldn’t bear to see those tables, imagining myself on them, let alone any of the people I cared about. If I stared, it would stop me cold. I would look just the way I felt, which could clue Gerome in that my nine might not be as genuine as he thought. The door at the end of the hall was wreathed in red lights, and Gerome came to a stop in front of it.

  “Knight Commander Gerome Nobilis,” he announced.

  There were a series of beeps and chirps from an unseen machine, and then the lights turned green one by one as the doors slid apart.

  “Welcome, Knight Commander Nobilis,” said a voice. I frowned when I realized it was the same clipped, regal-sounding voice they used for Scipio. If this machine was using Scipio’s voice, did that mean it was networked with Scipio? But that shouldn’t be possible—there were interdepartmental rules against it, so that no department could gain influence over another. I must have been mistaken, but I filed it away to bring up with Alex later.

  The door slid open and Gerome stepped in, me close behind him, eager to get away from the hall. This room had to be better than the hall, at least.

  The hope died almost immediately as I turned and took in the room. It was divided into two areas—a viewing chamber on one side, our side, and a cell on the other, a thick layer of glass separating us. There was a door on the viewing side—off to the left—that presumably led into the cell. Inside the cell, a woman was propped up in a corner.

  She looked small. She was thin, her arms and legs curled in upon each other like roots seeking nourishment and finding only air. The dirty skinsuit covering her form was shredded down to rags and stained with blood and grime, so much so that it was hard to make out the color. Her hands flopped weakly against the wall, and I realized she was using her own blood to draw something on the wall behind her. Her mouth moved as she smeared her blood around, but whether she was singing or talking, I couldn’t tell—there was no sound.

  I could see the one on her wrist, plain as day. And suddenly Grey’s voice was back in my head.

  The Knights killed Roark’s wife.

  “Gerome,” I said softly, questioning. I needed to remain calm—I couldn’t give myself away—but I needed to know. “What are you doing to her? Is this part of restructuring?”

  Gerome didn’t seem to be listening. He stared into the cell, his eyes hard and merciless.

  “These people,” he said, approaching the glass until his breath fogged it. “These... ones. They are a rot upon our Tower. Have you ever spoken to your farmer friend about what rot does to a tree, Squire Castell?”

  I shook my head, walking up to the glass.

  “It gets inside,” Gerome said. “It gets in deep. There comes a point when cutting it out would cause the whole thing to collapse.”


  The woman was crying. Tears spilled down her cheeks, leaving trails in the dirt, her hand slapping against the ground now. Was she tapping out a beat? Humming a song? There was no sound coming from the other side of the glass—the devices that normally enabled communication had been shut off.

  “Scipio invented the ranking system to help us find the darkness in our society,” Gerome said, and as he looked at the woman, he was his usual self. No pity. No empathy. No emotions. Just Gerome’s stark, unflinching face. “He invented it so we could be safe. Strong. Before, we were left to deliver justice based on crimes, evidence, and arbitrary things. Now we have the justice communicated to us by something greater.”

  But I could barely hear him. The woman’s body had begun to shake with sobs. I could see now that the tattered rags upon her frame were gray beneath the muck. A mechanic, then. I looked at her long fingers and saw that at least one was broken.

  “What are you going to do to her?” I asked.

  Gerome ignored me. “Your remarkable climb has been going so well,” he said, and there was real pride in his voice. “With your skills and improved mindset, you stand a chance of becoming the very best of us. That is why we decided to show you this early, Liana. That is why you are here. Why we are all here.”

  I gave him a look. “What are you going to show me, Gerome?” I asked, my mouth dry and my instincts pleading with me to just turn away, to run and hide. But I couldn’t listen to them; I had to know what was going on.

  The woman clutched her knees to her chest, and I could see long marks, burns, running up and down her pale skin. What had they done to her? How could they treat another person like this and not feel anything?

  “Ones are a threat to the Tower, Liana,” Gerome said, finally meeting my gaze. “We have to remove the threat.”

  There was a click.

  I spun, and saw Gerome pressing a red button beside the viewing glass, his eyes fixed on the woman.

  “They’re rot,” he said. “And unless rot is rooted out, it will topple the whole tree.”

  I turned back to the cell and watched in horror as white gas began to pour from the vents in the ceiling, curling down like tendrils of sentient smoke and reaching for the woman. Her mouth opened, but I couldn’t hear her scream as she scuttled toward us, pressing herself against the glass. I pressed my hands against it too, trying to reach for her, but the pane of glass didn’t evaporate.

  “Gerome!” I cried. “What are you doing? Stop this.”

  What are we doing?

  “Keeping the Tower safe,” he said. There was no emotion there. No humanity. “At any cost.”

  The woman’s eyes were inches from mine. Panicked. Desperate, as she clawed against the divide. I saw the gas swirling around her head, coiling down her arms and midriff in languorous tendrils. I had to stop this. I had to do something. I was a nine, now. Didn’t that count for anything? Wasn’t that supposed to mean that things were different?

  I whirled, intent on stunning Gerome with my baton and getting her out, when she collapsed, her body jerking and shaking in seizure. It lasted for a moment, resulting in her going rigid, her back bowing as her limbs quivered. Lines of blood snaked from her nose, eyes, and ears, and when she opened her mouth, foaming red spittle burst out in a pop.

  Then she fell silent. Still. Eyes wide open and staring at me with hollow accusations.

  You let this happen to me, they said. And I couldn’t disagree. I took a step back, and then another, horrified and unable to tear my gaze from her lifeless eyes.

  Gerome pressed another button, and there was a humming sound as the gas was sucked from the room. The woman’s hair fluttered as the vacuums did their work. Behind me, a pair of Knights entered, speaking in hushed tones as they opened the side door dividing the viewing room and the cell. Moments later they entered the cell and, with practiced efficiency, lifted the corpse and carried it from the room.

  I hadn’t moved an inch through the entire process, merely watched it, an odd numbness beginning to settle into my bones and muscles. I was pretty sure I was in a mild state of shock, but I needed the numbness right then. I needed Prim, because I wasn’t certain how long I could maintain the façade.

  “How are you doing?”

  I looked up to see Gerome gazing down at me, and was surprised to see one big hand settled in a strangely paternal gesture upon my shoulder. “I was shaken the first time I saw one of those,” he added, when I didn’t immediately respond. “But you must understand. This is for the best, Liana. That woman didn’t have a hope of rising back up for longer than a few days, and everyone near her would lower as well—Scipio gave us all the data, told us what needed to be done.” He sighed. “It is the only way to save the Tower we all love.”

  Prim felt like nodding, so I nodded. I could still see the pink streaks on the glass where the woman had been scrambling in her efforts to escape. I wanted to protest, to scream and kick and cry, but Prim overruled it. Gerome’s hand on my shoulder was heavy, and suddenly I couldn’t bear it touching me, feeling revulsion radiating from the site. Prim had me step away, toward the glass, and I hated her for it, even though the action continued to keep me safe.

  “You’ll handle the next one,” he said when I continued my silence.

  The words speared through me, and I felt my knees weaken. Even Prim couldn’t stop the bile rising into my throat, but she managed to swallow it down, forcing me to breathe through my mouth in long, slow breaths. They weren’t steady, but they were slow.

  Gerome didn’t miss any of it.

  “The first time you see one is never as difficult as doing it yourself for the first time,” he warned as he pressed another button, which produced an eerily pleasant chime sound. “It’s never easy doing the right thing, but it does get easier. I promise.”

  The door on the far side of the cell slid open, revealing a dark holding area beyond. A figure was being pushed forward, shoved into the cell, a one glowing bright on his arm. As he came to a slow stop and lowered his eyes, I felt my heart lurch and the world around me deteriorate and fall apart before my eyes.

  “It’s just the press of a button,” Gerome said. “And they feel no pain.”

  In the cell, the prisoner stood, gazing around with brown eyes. His clothes were just as I remembered them; it had only been a day since we had talked. His hands were balled into fists, and he had a long, bloody cut across his chest.

  “Just one button, and the Tower is safe.”

  In the cell, Grey turned, and even though I knew he couldn’t see me, it felt like he was looking straight at me.

  The Knights killed Roark’s wife, his voice taunted in my mind. And this time, a Knight had to kill Grey.

  14

  “Liana, the button?”

  Prim’s and my eyes flicked over to Gerome, and the big, red, glowing button on the wall just over his shoulder. I felt her consider it, her practicality cold and unyielding. I jerked her back and took over, unwilling to let any aspect of me—drugged or not—commit that atrocity.

  “Liana?”

  I had to stall for time, figure out a way to get him out of there, get him to safety. It wouldn’t matter if it was Grey or someone else; I couldn’t allow this to happen. I couldn’t kill him. My heart pounded in my chest, but I kept coming up with nothing, my mind flashing to the woman’s eyes and imagining what it would be like to see Grey’s eyes in their place. Or Zoe’s. Eric’s. Alex’s. My parents’. Mine.

  I imagined the helplessness of being in there, no control, in pain from whatever brutal treatment I had endured, only to have my life stolen from me. The only crime committed: the failure to conform.

  “Liana.”

  “I can’t,” I blurted out honestly, unable to think of anything else.

  Gerome stared down at me with his cold, flat eyes. “You can’t?” he repeated.

  I made my head bob, and suppressed a look at Grey. I was fairly certain the glass was one-way, but I didn’t want to risk the chance I
was wrong. If the glass wasn’t one-way, I just hoped he didn’t give away that we knew each other—if he did, I would never get him out of there.

  Gerome took a deep breath, then actually smiled. “That’s all right,” he said. “I was reluctant my first time, too, and for good reason. It is hard taking a life, as it should be. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be right. I’m sure you’ll come to realize that soon, and understand that these are sacrifices we make for the good of the Tower.”

  No, I won’t, I replied in my head, feeling the heat of my conviction rushing through me.

  “For now,” Gerome said, “we’ll let the matter be.”

  I felt a moment of relief, then realized what he was saying. If I didn’t kill Grey, would he?

  “Sir? What will happen to him? Will he be returned to restructuring?”

  I wasn’t sure what prompted me to ask the question about restructuring, but as it left my lips, I realized that I desperately wanted to know. After all, it was supposedly what these cells were all about: rehabilitation of the most depraved ones, if possible. Not to mention, I’d seen Grey only yesterday. That meant they’d caught him between then and now, and it didn’t seem like they had done anything to him like they had to the woman. Yet.

  “Restructuring rarely works,” he informed me. “The success rate has only been six percent, and even then... well, let’s just say this way is more humane. We perform it for a week to give them one final chance, but more often than not, it’s easier to bring them here and be done with it. Sometimes Scipio agrees. This one, for example, skipped restructuring per Scipio’s orders. This one is for you to kill, Liana. Now, I suppose I can give you some time to come to terms with what you have to do, but I can only keep him aside for you for a week. After that, he’s overstayed his welcome.”

  He smiled at his own quip, and I felt a surge of revulsion at how casually he could joke about such things. It was all I could do to hold it together.

  Looking at Grey, believe it or not, helped steady me. I had bought time, and no small amount. Now I just needed to come up with a way to get him out of there.