The Girl Who Dared to Think

  I let her rant, watching as she spoke passionately, with the snappish temper that ran in the Cog-bred part of her, and all I could feel was tired and depressed. The problems between us were insignificant compared to what I had seen, and I felt as if I couldn’t even pay much attention to them.

  “Zo, you don’t understand,” I tried again, and I could already see the dark storm clouds of her retort beginning to build. I paused and then looked away, letting whatever sketch of an idea I had about what to say evaporate.

  “Explain it to me,” she demanded, dropping back down next to me and craning her neck and head out into open air to get a fuller view of my face. I slid a long lock of hair over my ear and sighed, meeting her gaze.

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “More dangerous than hacking an elevator?”

  I nodded.

  “How dangerous?”

  “Very.”

  “Is it those pills?” she asked, her brows furrowing. “Did you get involved in something illegal?”

  I kept my mouth shut and my jaw tight, but the words were there, threatening to spill out of my mouth. I wanted so badly to tell her everything I’d seen since last night. She was my best friend—and I needed to talk to someone.

  “They’re killing people,” I whispered, and all the emotions that I had been holding inside spilled out in hot tears. My anger at my parents, my fear for Grey, my frustrations with Roark, and the feeling of being completely untethered and out of control. I sobbed into Zoe’s shoulder, and she clutched me close, patting my back as I explained the whole situation. It took a while, and by the end my eyes felt red and raw, and I was hiccupping.

  Zoe was quiet for a long time. “The Knights are killing the ones?” she finally asked, her eyes glancing over to me.

  And I could see the hope there, begging me to tell her it was all a sick practical joke. “Yes.”

  There was another span of silence, and a glance at Zoe told me she was struggling to process this. Eventually, she said, “And they want you to do it as well, and it just so happens that the man they picked out for you is Grey.”

  “Yes.”

  Another long, halting silence. Then, “And you have a pill that could get his number up, but you don’t know how to get it to him?”

  “Yes,” I grated out, trying not to grow impatient with her and her need to fact-check every point I’d told her. I dried some more tears while she stared off, deep in thought. “Look, I need a way to get this pill to him, but they won’t let me into his cell before I’ve killed him.”

  “Which would be counterproductive,” Zoe said hollowly. “What about his food?”

  I met her inquisitive gaze with an angry one of my own. “They’re not feeding him.”

  Zoe paled. “That’s unconscionable,” she declared.

  “That’s an understatement,” I replied. “And a big one. It’s awful. That woman... she looked so thin it hurts me to think about it. There’s no way of knowing how long they kept her alive before they killed her—but it seemed like a long time.”

  Zoe turned even whiter, her lips losing color, and I reached out and took her hand. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” I said.

  She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone. I mean... No one in the Tower would ever believe... Do you think your parents have—”

  “They have,” I said harshly, my hand cupping my cheek, feeling the phantom sting of my mother’s slap.

  “Oh.” She fell silent, and I did as well, still scrambling around for an idea.

  “You said there was a white mist?” Zoe suddenly asked.

  I blinked. “Yeah. Why?”

  “How long did it remain in the room?”

  “Gerome had it sucked out a moment or two after she... stopped moving,” I replied, my voice coming out strangled at the end.

  She rolled her lips between her teeth, her expression thoughtful. “What did they do with her, after they... after she... after—”

  “They came in and dragged her out,” I said, trying to understand why she was asking all these questions. “But what does that have to do with—”

  “How fast?” she asked, interrupting me, and I frowned, trying to remember. Most of the details stood out with perfect gut-wrenching clarity, but my perception of time was odd—I had only been down there for a little over six minutes, but it had felt like eternity.

  “Fast,” I said, finally able to remember, and she smiled. “What?”

  “I think I know a way to help you,” she said. “But it’s tricky.”

  “What is it?” I asked, allowing the thin thread of hope to rise up inside me.

  “It’s really simple when you think about it,” she said with a small, sad smile. “You’ll have to give him the pill after you press the button.”

  17

  I blinked at Zoe’s words and then gave her an incredulous look. “That kind of defeats the purpose, Zo. If we let them gas him first, then the pill won’t exactly be effective.”

  She grinned at me, revealing white teeth, and shook her head. “It will be,” she announced as she pulled herself back up. “C’mon, we gotta stop by my house. I need a pipe chart.”

  I retracted my lashes and let them pull me up before disconnecting them, still mystified by her statement. “Zoe, stop planning and start telling me what your plan is before you go running off the deep end.”

  “I always run off the deep end,” she replied as she hit the button to the access hatch. It grated as it slid open, and she cast an eye at it as she passed through. “This door needs to be oiled,” she chided.

  I stepped in behind her and placed my hands on her shoulders. “Zoe. What are we doing?”

  “We’re going back to my house to get the pipe chart,” she said, shrugging out of my gentle hold. “We’re close to an elevator that runs all the way to Water Treatment. C’mon.”

  She darted away down the left tunnel, moving quickly. I sighed and followed her as she moved down the tight, narrow passages that seemed to run on endlessly throughout the shell. My legs, still aching from the mad dash up here, were already protesting the fast, jerking speed as I tried to keep up with my best friend, following the flashes of her blue uniform as she navigated them effortlessly.

  We came to a stop at an elevator, and I stepped on, immediately wincing at the buzz in my head as the computer scanned us. It instantly checked my wrist, confirming the blue nine was still there.

  I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding and then crossed my arms, expecting it to start moving after it said Zoe’s name.

  To my surprise it didn’t, and I began paying attention to the computerized voice.

  “Verified—Roe Zoe Elphesian, designation 12WT-531. Your ranking is currently five. As a Diver of Water Treatment, it is your responsibility to—”

  I tuned the rest out and immediately looked at Zoe, my eyes searching for her wrist. She was already holding it up, and as she stared at it, I could see the orange light from the number shining on her wrist.

  “Zoe, I’m...”

  She looked over at me and folded her arms over her chest, hiding the indicator. “It’s to be expected,” she said, her gaze on the numbers gliding by.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything. Your mom is going to—”

  “Have to deal with it,” Zoe replied, giving me a pointed look before turning her attention back to the shaft. I stared at her, feeling hopelessly guilty for opening my big fat mouth, and finally looked away. Soon Roark was going to have to start making enough pills for Zoe, too. It was the only way to keep her safe from what I’d already exposed her to, and to keep her from the fate we were trying to save Grey from.

  The ride felt abnormally long, and the silence between us quickly became too difficult to bear. I needed to talk, to fill the air, but I knew mentioning her new ranking would not end well, so I focused on something else.

  “Aren’t pipe charts maps?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “They’r
e charts.” She stopped talking, and I thought that was the end of it, but suddenly she had a change of heart, her body softening its stiff posture and turning toward me. “Actually, a pipe chart is kind of like a map, but it’s designed to show each and every pipe that water flows through in the Tower. They’re standard issue for all Water Treatment personnel, so we can locate and fix leaks quickly. Don’t you remember this from class?”

  I was shaking my head when the elevator slowed to a gentle halt, and I got off quickly, thinking. “Why do we need one?” I asked after a moment, following her down the fluorescently painted halls, which glowed brightly in greens, pinks, and blues.

  We climbed up a series of stairs that led to a bridge over a massive glass pipe. I heard a wet splash and looked over to see two bald men diving into the water that was rushing through the pipe, arms first, with black, flute-shaped objects clenched between their teeth—artificial gills to help them breathe as they navigated the aquatic spaces. They were likely a work detail running repairs in the system, but their presence reminded me that we weren’t alone, and not everything in the Tower was as private as it seemed.

  We were heading down the stairs on the other side of the bridge when Zoe answered me. “Because I have an idea, but before it can become a reality, I have to check to see if it is actually possible.”

  I was unamused by her indirect answer, but went with it. Zoe was smart, and I had known her my entire life. I trusted her implicitly, because she had never steered me wrong, and she cared more about me than some stupid number on my wrist. I followed her through the open market that had been set up around the fishponds—a more peaceful and tranquil place than Cogstown’s market—and through the wide hall that eventually narrowed and led to her quarters.

  She pressed the button to open the door, and I stepped inside, directly into the living room. I was surprised to find Zoe’s mother sitting on the couch, her suit dripping liberally onto the cushions even though she was fastidiously towel-drying it.

  “Hello, Liana,” she greeted formally, and I inclined my head to her. Helena was a Cog-bred Diver, and had changed departments when she was just eighteen to marry Zoe’s father. He’d died a few years ago of a heart attack, which was rare, but still happened from time to time. “Hello, Zoe, darling. How was your day?” she asked.

  “Good,” Zoe said, flipping her long hair over her shoulder. “Liana and I are going to do some studying. Is that okay?”

  Zoe lied effortlessly, and I was impressed by how easily the fib slid off her tongue. Her mother gave her an appraising look and then turned to me, her smile pleasant. She was always pleasant; she was also deeply religious, having completely embraced the Water Ways. And she loved to tell everyone all about it.

  “I hear you’re a nine now,” she said as Zoe clattered down the ladder.

  I held up my wrist. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Been pretty steady for the last few days.”

  She chuckled. Her own eight glittered on her wrist, the purple color making it seem more like a bruise than an eight. “Never thought you’d have a higher number than me,” she said, smiling. “Scipio works in strange ways.”

  I thought of Grey in the cell. “It would seem so.”

  “Mom?” Zoe interjected, and her mother looked over at her.

  “Yes?”

  “May we go to my room?”

  “Well, of course! Just...” She trailed off as her gaze lowered to Zoe’s wrist, her eyes growing concerned. “Zoe, your ranking dropped.”

  Zoe’s mouth formed a thin line. “I know.” It was all she said.

  “What do you mean, you know? What happened?”

  Zoe kept her eyes on her mother, not betraying me with a glance, and the guilt that had started to settle within me churned back up. “It just dropped,” Zoe announced.

  “Rankings don’t just drop, Zoe,” her mother declared angrily, and I sensed she was just getting warmed up. “And five is dangerously low. We should get you checked into the Medica immediately. Or I can call the Praetor, and maybe he can find some time to light a prayer with you.”

  “I’m not a child, Mom,” Zoe said. “I’m twenty, which means two things. The first is that I don’t have to go to Medica, even if you order me to. It’s not mandatory until I’m a three. The second is that next year, I’ll be twenty-one, and Scipio will assign me my own domicile.”

  “Next year,” her mother echoed. “But while you’re under my roof, you will—”

  Zoe looked at me. “Go ahead to my room,” she said, her voice dangerously soft as she interrupted her mother.

  “Are you sure? I can—”

  “Go.”

  Her tone brooked no argument, and I kept my head down as I moved through the kitchen and into the hall beyond, finding Zoe’s room just as the voices began to rise in the living room. They cut off with a pneumatic hiss as the door closed behind me, and then I was in Zoe’s room, all alone.

  I considered sitting down, but I was too nervous about the fight that was happening just past the door, and wound up walking around her room, pacing in uncertainty. What if Zoe’s mother punished her and made me go home? I still had no idea what she needed the pipe chart for, nor any idea where the pipe chart was so I could look at it.

  Checking her desk anyhow, I found a few pieces of paper covered with scribbles and little diagrams, and studied the pages. Zoe had written in very clean, block print all around them, and there were more than a few mathematic equations, notes on how each machine would function, and statistics on how pieces of machinery could improve Tower life. I stared at the pages for a long moment, trying to make heads or tails of the information, and then put them down, frustrated.

  Before today, the only reason Zoe had to be unhappy was that she was still in Water Treatment, and couldn’t transfer to Mechanics. If I hadn’t told her about the Knights, I was certain she would have eventually found her way in, and would have been a ten in a matter of days. Now that she knew, however…

  I began wondering how many lives I was going to destroy just by association. First Grey, who had sacrificed his safety for mine by giving me his pills and then gotten caught, and now Zoe, whose ranking had dropped because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Were Eric and Alex next? Could I destroy their rankings with this knowledge?

  Maybe they’re already infected with my psychological contamination. I looked at my wrist, queasy, and then lowered my arm, unwilling to look at it any longer.

  The door slid open, and I whirled as Zoe stormed into the room, all but punching the door’s button behind her. Her face was red, her hands working angrily at her sides. She rested her back against the door, exhaling slowly and clearly trying to calm herself down. I wasn’t sure what to say, and I felt like it was better not to say anything, rather than pry.

  Finally, she looked up at me and frowned. “You haven’t found the pipe chart yet?”

  I looked around, baffled, and watched as she approached one of the exposed shelves with books on it and pulled out a thick blue book that was almost as wide as her chest. “This is one of the few complete manuals,” she commented as she sat it down on the desk. “From before we started training people for specific areas around the Tower. It’s been in my father’s family for generations.”

  Which meant the heavy volume now on the table was at least two hundred years old. It was impressive, but did nothing to assuage my concern for Zoe. “Zoe, what did your mother say?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “It’s not important and not unexpected,” she said, putting on a pair of white gloves. “And don’t go feeling guilty, Liana. I made you tell me, just like I made the choice to help you.” She carefully flipped open the book and began thumbing through the pages. “You shouldn’t have to face all of this alone,” she added, voice soft.

  I couldn’t resist the impulse, and reached out to hug her, feeling incredibly relieved to hear her say that. She leaned against me, but was careful not to touch me with her gloved hands, for fear any dirt from me would get on her father?
??s book. After a moment, I let her go.

  “Thank you,” I said, reaching up to pat the area under my eyes to stop the waterworks that were beginning to start up. I sniffled anyway, and she rested her head on my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me.

  “We’re going to get this Grey guy out. Now, have you thought about the others and what we’re going to do for them?”

  My moment of happiness evaporated under her gaze. I fidgeted and shook my head. “I don’t have access to them,” I said hoarsely. “I couldn’t get access if I tried, I’m guessing. The only one I have access to is Grey, so—”

  “So Grey is the only one you can save.” Her face was a sad mask, but she nodded, turning back to the book. “Then we’ll save him and figure out what we can do next.”

  She opened the book, and it turned out to be even larger than it had appeared, with pages that unfolded into massive maps, and small, detailed notes and charts on each individual pipe. She flipped through it, page by page, while I hovered over her shoulder, trying to get a peek at what she was looking for. Eventually she got annoyed and ordered me to sit down—which I did, on her bed.

  I was too nervous to stay still, though, and wound up spending my time fiddling with things or flipping through books. She said she didn’t want to tell me in case it wasn’t possible, I thought to myself, watching as she studied each map intensely, her gloved hands handling each page as if it were a piece of glass on the verge of shattering.

  When she finally said, “Ah, here it is,” I was by her side before she got to the “it.”

  “Here what is?” I asked, and then froze when I heard paper ripping. “Zoe!” I cried, appalled to see her destroying something she loved so much. Something her father had given her.