“You can,” Gerome said, his tone firm. “You just won’t.”
When we finally topped the stairs, Dalton was practically frothing at the mouth with impatience. He muttered a few words in the Mechanics’ tongue, a language unique to his department, as we stepped out onto the landing. I stared at the massive staircase heading down, the ensconced lighting making the stairs appear to extend for eternity into the darkness, pressed between the scorching heat outside and the confines of the Tower.
“Are you quite ready?” Dalton asked in the common language.
I tried not to glare at him. Really, I did. I concentrated every ounce of effort I had on keeping my face still. But I could feel my lips twisting, my eyebrows shaking. Before my expression could grow any more gruesome, I turned away.
Gerome gave me a disapproving look as he gently set down a bag he had been toting on his shoulder. “Squire—can you please help Dalton into the lash harness and give the safety briefing?”
I nodded and squatted down to open the bag, pulling out the harness with its heavy black dome set on the back. Locating the top, I picked it up carefully and turned, holding it out to Dalton. The man screwed up his face in the now familiar look of disdain—but because Gerome had ordered me to do it, he had no choice but to obey. He held out his arms and allowed me to help him put the lash harness on.
“These are the lashes,” I said as I helped him settle into it. I began pulling on straps, tightening the harness around his shoulders and chest. “When used correctly, they can prevent you from falling. Where would you like them fed through—your arms or your waist?”
“Arms,” Dalton said bitingly, and I blinked but wisely kept my mouth closed. Arms were fine, but only if you needed to move fast. The waist was better if you had work to do, but it wasn’t my place to question a seven, so I didn’t.
Coming around behind him, I felt around the base of the case and grabbed one of the two metal ends at the bottom, pulling out a long line and threading it through the small loops in his uniform, underneath his arm, and finally through a small eyelet at the bottom. I repeated the process on the other side and then began double-checking each strap, to make sure the harness was secure.
“Okay,” I said as I worked, not wanting to waste any time. “The tip of the lash is designed to absorb ambient static electricity as it flies through the air, building up a charge so that it will bond with anything it touches—metal, glass, you name it. To use it, simply—”
“I know how to use it, Squire,” Dalton practically spat, his patience apparently coming to an end. “I’m a seven, and the Cogs designed and built them for the Knights, if you’ll take a moment to remember.”
“Of course,” I said, trying to remain patient. “But I’m supposed to—”
“I’ll be fine.” End of discussion, apparently. I took a deep breath in, trying to calm some of the resentment that had boiled up in my gut.
“Ready when you are, Cog Dalton,” I said, trying to make my tone as cheerful as possible.
Dalton sighed, then looked over at Gerome, who had rethreaded his own lash to come out from the small eyelets over his hip, just above his belt. Lashes were standard equipment for Knights, so our harnesses were worn under our suits, the lines running through internally designed channels. I had configured mine that morning, knowing we were going outside, in an attempt to prepare beforehand. Apparently that effort was going to go unnoticed.
“Does she have to come?” Dalton asked as he approached the exterior hatch—the only one that led onto the branch. “I would feel much better if it was just you, Knight Nobilis.”
And I would feel better if you slipped off the branch, I thought, then flinched. Bad thoughts. I was having a really hard time controlling them today. Well… every day, really.
Gerome’s voice was patient as he spoke. As if he’d had this conversation too many times before. “She’s my Squire,” he said. “She needs training to be a productive member of the Tower. She’ll be no trouble. I stake my reputation as a Knight on it.”
Honestly, if it had been up to me, I probably would have just stayed in for the day. Going outside the Tower was always something of an ordeal, and one look at Dalton’s sneering face had told me how much more unpleasant the excursion was going to be. Still, it was my duty as a Squire to follow Gerome around and do what he said. And besides, if I didn’t do it, my parents would probably have me executed or something.
Dalton bit his lip and then sighed in defeat. “Fine,” he muttered.
He shoved the exterior hatch wide open and a blaze of bright morning light slashed in. We’d chosen this time of day so as to avoid the intensity of the sun; it would take some time before it started heating the night-cooled air. All the same, I could feel the warmth of it prickling against my skin as I looked out over the solar branch.
The branches were beautiful, in their own way. Massive slats of solar panels spread some three hundred feet out from the Tower, forming a full platform one could walk on. I hopped out after Dalton, watching as he fidgeted with the lash harness. The things weren’t standard issue for mechanics, and, despite his claims to the contrary, he didn’t seem to know how it worked. He pulled the cable from its wrist holster and stuck the glowing tip to the ground. It fizzed, and I winced.
“You’ll want to be really forceful with those,” I called. It was a novice mistake; lashes were designed to be flung with speed and force to absorb the friction in the air and form a static burst when they connected.
Dalton looked up.
“The lashes,” I said, tugging one of my own out. The tip shone with blue light. “You have to really slap them on.”
Dalton stared at me for a moment, then turned away without a word. He stepped away, using his cable to lower himself off the edge of the solar branch and down the side.
“He really should be more forceful with that,” Gerome said, peering out beside me.
I felt a small stir of pride at that. Gerome, like most people aside from my weapons trainers, rarely told me that I’d gotten anything right. Even this wasn’t praise per se but at this point in my life, hearing that I wasn’t a complete colossal failure was worth something.
I peered out over the edge and watched as Dalton slowly descended, the feed in his suit lowering him down. The view was breathtaking; the vibrant green of the river below, coupled with the brighter yellow desert—a desolate wasteland. Coincidentally enough, it was called The Wastes. The sky was already a bright blue, even though it was early morning—but there was nothing to diffuse or block it with. There was rarely a cloud in the sky, and the mountains in the distance were barely visible on the best of days—the heat from the desert acting as a mirage to hinder the view. But on nights when the full moon was out, they could be seen, sitting very small, to the south. Everything else was vast, empty and devoid of life.
Gerome slapped down his lash with a forcible tink, the electricity pulsing in a small series of arcs around the impact point, and began to rappel down slowly, following Dalton. Without wasting another moment, I moved to one side and stepped off, not bothering to throw my own lash until I was plummeting. It hit the side of the branch with a click and the harness arrested my fall by feeding out more line to slowly catch me. I braced my feet on the side of the glass, taking care not to damage the solar panels, and threw my second lash down. It stuck firm, and I released the first line as I kicked off, dropping down a few more feet and coming to dangle from the very bottom of the branch, my heart pounding.
As cocky as the move had been, my stomach lurched. The Tower was over a mile tall and the sides were sheer. I could see the world splayed out below me, and the massive wall of the octagonal Tower. The thing was flawless and brown, the perfect form broken only by the great solar branches jutting out of and around the gargantuan block. Hanging in thin air from the side of the monstrous edifice was terrifying. And exhilarating.
Gerome dropped beside me, beating Dalton down. Gerome, of course, had attached his lashes the proper way, a
nd his descent was a bit more controlled than mine.
I scrutinized Dalton’s faltering progress above. The mechanic was slow. His every movement was so plodding that I wished I could do the job myself. It would have been one thing if he had been doing it safely, but he didn’t even seem to know how to use the tools correctly. He was handling them like they were going to break. He placed his free lash so gently each time, letting it lower him down before he gingerly placed the next one to repeat the process. It would have been comical if it wasn’t also deeply dangerous. All it’d take would be one failed connection and Dalton would get to do his best bird impression for over a mile-long drop.
Then again, it wasn’t really his fault. Despite his proclamations, he was using Knights’ equipment. The Knights were very protective of it—lashes included—which was why whenever anyone from another department requested their usage, they got a pair of Knight escorts with it, to make sure their equipment got returned in working order. I just happened to be one of the escorts today. It also wasn’t his fault he was out here; it was common for sevens and sixes to get selected for the more dangerous work—they were of a high enough ranking to be reliable in their duties but a low enough ranking to be expendable.
I scanned the underside of the branch and quickly identified what we were there for. A clump of wiring had fallen loose, spilling out through a break in the metal plating. It happened sometimes—the air was still right now, but winds whipped by at high speeds and would cause shearing to some of the plates, until they broke off or the screws came out.
I threw out a hand, letting another lash fly, pulling me in closer to the damage. Dalton was just reaching it as I did, and began lashing himself over quickly—so quickly, in fact, that I paused and allowed him to go first, which earned me a sullen, angry look as he lashed by. I waited before I resumed my movement, careful to stay far enough away so that the man wouldn’t feel inspired to actually start talking again.
Dalton drew himself in close to the exposed wiring. I winced as he used his fingers to connect his lash to the metal surface above, not even watching for the flash that confirmed its attachment. He then began fiddling, tugging a wire this way, then that, and I relaxed a little—his lash was holding. I let out a yawn, releasing the lashes with my hands, trusting my weight to the harness and settling into the lines. Some might have felt worried, hanging that high up. Me, though? In spite of any trepidation I felt at the height, I always felt more at home on lashes than I did on the ground. They were my wings.
“Watch him carefully,” Gerome said, coming to my level.
I glanced at Dalton. He definitely didn’t strike me as the criminal sort, but then again I was a four. According to Scipio, I was pretty rife with dissident urges of my own.
“If it was up to me,” Gerome muttered, “a seven would have no place here. It is a respectable number, but the branches are too valuable to risk. There are nines among the mechanics. I would rather they do it.”
I felt a spark of irritation.
“And a four?” I asked. “Where should she be?”
Gerome shook his head. “You’re different, Squire. And you aren’t touching any of the machines directly.”
And there’s the truth of it. So long as I wasn’t actually doing anything, Gerome would overlook my number, for now.
I looked back at Dalton and paused. The man had given up on sorting through the wires and was now poking at the branch’s wall with one of his lash cables with increasing desperation, the other one holding all of his weight—one had disconnected. I raised an eyebrow. It looked like he couldn’t get the thing to reconnect.
“Gerome?” I said. The way Dalton was handling the lash wasn’t just unsafe; he was going to—
There was a flash of blue light and Dalton’s only connection broke. The lash tore free. He attempted to turn in our direction and had just enough time to reach out a hand to us before gravity began its deadly pull.
Gerome let out a shout of surprise and I saw his arm moving, a cable spinning from his hand to strike the metal surface beside where Dalton had been hanging, but Gerome had always been cautious, precise, professional with his lashes. Dalton was plummeting, desperately throwing lashes in all directions in a futile attempt to save himself.
I didn’t like Dalton. He was a pompous ass, cruel to those he viewed as inferior, and smug in his assurance of his technical knowledge. But I couldn’t let him die. I began retracting my lashes as I spun upside down on them, letting the slack pull in before I kicked off the bottom of the branch to send myself torpedoing earthward. In an instant, I was staring at the ground, over a mile down, the sheer brown expanse of the Tower rushing by my side.
He’s a jerk, I thought as I fell. He’d been nothing but abusive. But, hey, here I was, falling through the air. And there he was, plummeting down just feet below. What choice did I have, really? My body moved on its own.
I pressed my arms and legs together to move faster than Dalton, and tore through the air toward where he was flailing about. I felt the pressure of the wind against my body, the air blazing against my suit. I gritted my teeth, pushing forward, and with a guttural yell I reached out and grabbed one of Dalton’s flailing lashes by the cable, avoiding the tip—that would have hurt like hell and the shock through my suit could knock out my own lashes, which would be bad. I pulled the line to tug us closer together until I could get my arm around his waist. He clung to me, and I could feel him vibrating with terror as we dropped.
I whipped my head around to stare at the Tower as it streaked by. To Dalton’s credit, the shot was tricky. Estimating the angle to throw at and the drag on the line, the shot needed to be precisely and forcibly executed. I sucked in a breath, paused for an instant, then fired the lash.
It struck the side of the Tower and rebounded, the tip sparking angrily. I cursed, glancing down. Another branch was hurtling toward us, solar plates glinting like teeth. In my arms Dalton was thrashing about like a panicking fish. I was sorely tempted to hit him upside the head, but instead I turned back to the Tower. One more throw.
I threw. The lash spun through the air, colliding with the side of the Tower. It buzzed and then, with a flash of blue, it stuck. I felt the jolt in my arm as our fall was slowed, and then we were swinging, our feet practically skimming the lower branch before we hit the side of the Tower. My legs were already braced for the impact, and I managed to catch our collective weight with a grunt.
"Hold on to me,” I ordered, and I felt the terrified Cog wrap himself around me as the mechanisms in my harness helped pull us up. My arm now freed, I threw a second lash through the hole in my uniform at the wrist, arcing it so it landed fifteen feet above us, and I slowly began to pull us back up to the branch where Gerome was still hanging.
Dalton was still flailing about like he was going to die. I shot him a look. “Would you hold still?” I snapped. “I really don’t want to drop you.”
A lie—but hey.
Back inside the Tower, I reached up and ran a hand through my black hair, panting but flushed with triumph. The cool air washed over my skin, and in that moment I could have kissed the nearest air circulation unit. At my side, Gerome actually gave an approving nod.
And then I looked at Dalton.
The mechanic was staring at me. I expected gratitude, or at the very least some joy at being alive… but instead I found nothing but hatred.
“What makes you think,” he said, voice soft, “that you can just… handle me like that?”
My stomach dropped and for a moment my mouth didn’t seem to work at all.
“I… What?” I managed.
“I was fine,” Dalton snapped insistently. “I was fine, and you felt the need to—”
“You were not fine!” I retorted, taking a step toward him and suddenly aware of the baton I wore at my side. I wondered if a sharp blow to the side of the head would improve Dalton’s temperament.
“My lashes were fully operational,” he replied. “I was entirely capable of saving
myself, and certainly didn’t need a four to come to my aid.”
“Well, excuse me, Mister Seven,” I said. “It looked to me like you were falling to your death. Maybe next time I’ll just let you get on with it.”
“Liana.” Gerome’s voice held a note of warning, but I didn’t care. I was too frustrated to apply any sort of brake to my mouth.
“Maybe you should!” Dalton sneered. “The idea of a four thinking I needed saving, of laying hands on me! I have a family, you know. I can’t even imagine what my wife would say if she knew.”
“She’d probably rather have you saved by a four than have you come back in a bag, Cog,” I hissed. “Or, you know, not in anything at all. It’s hard to get bodies back when they’ve fallen off the damn Tower.”
“Liana.”
I turned sharply, glaring at Gerome. “And what do you want? Are you going to scold me, too? I saved a life—and even if he won’t admit it, you know I did. Was it wrong? Was it bad? What?”
Gerome’s features were somber as he reached out, seizing my right arm and lifting it so that I could see the dial on my wrist. Tears pricked my eyes as I stared at it. It couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be. The number shone hot and red, though. At risk.
“Oh, dammit,” I breathed.
2
I stared, stomach churning, at the dial on my wrist. A tremble rolled through me. Being a four had been bad enough as a Squire. But no matter what department you were from, once you hit three, Medica treatment was no longer just recommended; it was required. If you were a two you were placed in confinement on your floor and sent to mental restructuring, a rigorous process of intensive drug cocktails and heavy indoctrination designed to raise a person’s number by completely rewriting their personality. If I dropped to a two, I would be automatically expelled from the Knights. Ones disappeared into the dungeons of the Citadel—I wasn’t even sure what happened to them.
“A three?”