The Girl Who Dared to Think

  “You really expect me to fall for that again?”

  Grey’s eyes were warm and filling with something I didn’t quite recognize or understand... something that made it feel like all of the oxygen had suddenly deserted the area, and caused my heart to pound heavily inside my chest.

  “Expect, no. Hope?”

  My heart continued to palpitate as he seemed to sway closer, his eyes dropping to my lips. Nervous, I licked them, and his gaze grew even heavier, causing my skin to tingle and my face to blaze with heat.

  “I…” I faltered, unable to find any words. I wasn’t sure what to do or say... I could barely remember what we had been talking about before, and it had just occurred five seconds ago.

  “Screw it,” Grey said, and his arm shot out, his hand settling on the small of my back and drawing me in. I let him pull me tightly to his chest, his gaze never leaving my face, and felt my heart start skipping beats, the rhythm erratic and frantic.

  He lowered his head, and I felt my chin tip up, eager for the feel of his mouth on mine. Our lips pressed together, and mine parted slightly, unwittingly giving him access to my mouth, which he immediately took advantage of. His other hand cupped the back of my head, holding it in place while he kissed me with a sizzling intensity that made my toes curl, made me want to melt into him.

  I was lost in the kiss, drowning in it, until I heard a rustle of something coming from the stalks of wheat, and jerked away. From the corner of my eye, I saw something dark move, and I turned toward it, the paranoia from earlier flooding back in.

  “Who was that?” I asked, my hand automatically going for my baton.

  Grey, looking a bit alarmed himself, shook his head. “Who was what?” he asked, confused.

  I looked over at him to see that he was genuinely baffled as to why I had broken the kiss, and frowned. I could’ve sworn I’d seen something, but... just like the market earlier, there was nothing there. The wheat swayed in the wind, but there were no sounds of anyone running away. There was nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said after a second, removing my hand from my baton. “I thought I...” I trailed off and met his gaze, suddenly nervous.

  “It’s okay,” he said after a moment, his disappointment deteriorating. “This isn’t the best place to be caught making out.”

  I chuckled, and then slipped my hand into his when he offered it, unable to keep a goofy smile from splitting my face wide open. I’d have to hide it later, but for now... for now I wanted to be Liana and not a nine. I wanted to be a girl, walking with a boy who had just kissed her.

  And that’s what I allowed myself to be.

  22

  Once Grey and I parted ways, I didn’t expect to hear from him until the rest of the month we had originally agreed upon had passed, but to my surprise, he netted me only a few days later. My head buzzed as the neural net activated to notify me of the communication attempt, and when a quick check of my wrist showed me Grey’s name, I immediately accepted it.

  “Hey,” I said, stepping off to the side to let the busier traffic on the platform running around the inside of the shell move past me unimpeded. “What’s up?”

  I was worried; his contacting me this way could mean a myriad of things, and my imagination was already starting to spin out of control, the foremost theme being Devon Alexander kicking down the door to Roark’s little home, and Grey trying to warn me.

  Hey. You got some free time?

  Some of the alarm faded, because his voice came out calm and self-assured. “Yeah, why?”

  I found another potential new friend. I was wondering if you wanted to come with me.

  I smiled, instantly pleased. “You want me to come with you?”

  Yeah. You were really good before. I figured I could use some of your finesse.

  My smile grew even wider as my heart skipped a beat. Finesse. I liked that.

  I considered his question, and found that I did want to join him. I’d enjoyed helping Sarah. It had filled me with a sense of happiness that had stuck with me the last few days. “I’d love to come with you. Where do you want me to meet you?”

  An hour later, I found Grey waiting outside of one of the Water Treatment closets buried deep on Level 17. It was several floors away from Zoe’s house, but I kept a careful eye out for her, not wanting to make contact unless I absolutely had to. Grey smiled when he spotted me and moved to meet me halfway.

  “Hey,” I said, stopping just short of him.

  “Hey.” He ran a hand through his hair and rocked back on his heels. “You ready?”

  I grinned. “Obviously. Who’s the target?”

  “Silvan Wash,” Grey replied. “Our friend in the Eyes notified us that he hit a three.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  Grey shook his head. “No, the process isn’t very detailed, actually. With Sarah and Silvan both, we just got their names, housing designations, and ranks before they fell. Roark says that’s all the Eye will give.”

  “How does he pick them? I mean... you are recruiting people who can help the cause, so to speak.”

  It was a question I had meant to ask a few days ago, but after that sizzling kiss, and the subsequent awkwardness afterward... well, it slipped my mind, to say the least.

  “I asked Roark the same thing after Sarah. He’s looking for those who have achieved high enough rankings in their fields to be useful to us, but then dropped rapidly. It usually indicates emotional distress, apparently, which is a window of opportunity in which we can offer them another way.”

  “Won’t they climb back up once whatever it is has passed?”

  He chuckled and glanced over at me, meeting my gaze almost immediately, because I was staring. Like an idiot. I looked away.

  “Roark says his IT friend told him that once you drop to a four, it’s almost impossible to get back up again without receiving Medica services.”

  Somehow, the news did not surprise me at all. If anything, it made me feel sad. It was just another layer to a system I had already known was rigged.

  We made our way to the house of the man in question. Like with every home in Water Treatment, the doorway was flush with the wall, with a white call button in the middle of it.

  As soon as Grey pressed it to alert Silvan that he had guests, a slat on the upper side of the door peeled aside to reveal two large blue eyes, topped by thinning eyebrows and covered with wire-framed glasses. He peered at us for a second, and then shut the slat.

  Grey and I exchanged looks, before the door slid open with a hiss and Silvan stepped out. He was older than I’d expected, fine wrinkles lining his mouth and forehead. His eyes were wary, the dark circles underneath giving him a vaguely rodent-like look. He grew rigid when he took in my uniform.

  “Knight,” he said, offering a polite bow, shaved scalp gleaming in the bright light of the hall. He looked over, spotted Grey, and made a similar gesture. “Honored nine,” he said reverently.

  That didn’t bode well, but then again, it could be an act. Maybe he was trying to ingratiate himself to us to start making a case against taking him to the Medica. It happened from time to time, but the Knights almost never chose to defer treatment to a later date. Besides, I wasn’t a Knight yet.

  “I’m still a Squire, sir,” I said carefully, offering him a brief smile. “May we come in for a few minutes? There is something we want to discuss with you.”

  Silvan nodded without even a moment of hesitation and stepped out of our way to allow us inside. I entered, and found that the interior was covered with papers and sketches of mechanical equipment. He closed the door behind us before pushing past and starting to sweep his papers away into a pile. I grabbed one that he missed, taking a look, and saw what appeared to be a valve.

  I turned it back and forth, trying to make heads or tails of it, hoping to identify its purpose, or even what it was.

  “Please,” he said, voice shaking as he shoved the disheveled stack of paper into a drawer on the other side of the room. “
Make yourselves at home. What is mine is yours.”

  I hesitated, his anxious manner making me feel a bout of anxiety as well. I smiled at him in a way I hoped would make the man relax some. I had to wonder whether he was anxious about us being here because he thought like Sarah had thought: that we were from the Medica, coming to take him away for treatment. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man. His clothes were rumpled, and he tugged nervously at his sleeves as I assessed him. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

  “Relax, Citizen Wash,” I told him. “We’re just here to talk. May I call you Silvan?”

  His head bobbed, and he brought both hands to his temples and craned his neck. “I am honored to speak with ones such as yourselves,” he said, voice soft. “I am not worthy. My tainted name should not come from the lips of someone like you.”

  He muttered something about a beverage and then moved off to the kitchen, leaving the two of us standing in his living room, looking around.

  “I don’t like this,” Grey muttered.

  “Me neither, but it could be that he’s just terrified we’re going to take him away to the Medica. Or, he’s trying to act like a ‘model’ citizen of the Tower, but is petrified of being discovered to be something other than that. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, okay?”

  “Okay... Just... be careful with this one,” he said.

  “I will,” I replied, just as Silvan returned with a tray of teacups, before moving back into the kitchen area, his hands flying to and fro. A kettle appeared, and was put on.

  “Would you like some tea?” he asked, looking back at us with hopeful eyes. “I have chamomile and... oh... more chamomile.”

  His expression fell in disappointment at not having a variety of teas to offer, and I quickly spoke up. “Chamomile is my favorite,” I told him. “I would love to have some.”

  Silvan’s face brightened, and he nodded eagerly, drawing out a bag of tea before looking at Grey. “And you?”

  “Chamomile is fine,” Grey said apprehensively. I gave him another look, mouthing the word relax to him. His nerves were going to make Silvan jumpier, which was literally the opposite of what I had asked him.

  Silvan busied himself for a moment, then froze, staring at his hands. I heard him mutter a curse as he spun back to face us.

  “Please, have a seat,” he said, gesturing almost frantically to the pile of cushions on the floor. “I’m so sorry, I should have offered that first. Your comfort is paramount while you are in my unworthy home.”

  “Silvan, there is nothing about your home that is unworthy,” I said as Grey and I both sat, finding a position around a small floor table that sat in the middle. It might have been messy with papers when we had first walked in, but with them gone, the room was surprisingly tidy and neat. I doubted that the Praetor’s own home was half as clean as this place.

  Silvan’s face darkened as he regarded his home, but then he shook his head, hurried forward, and seated himself on the cushions on the other side of the small table.

  “So,” he said. “How can I help you? Are you here to take me to the Medica?”

  I looked at Grey, noting the tremor in Silvan’s voice, and the look Grey gave me as he replied to Silvan’s question was tentative. Cautious.

  “Not exactly, but we do want to talk to you about your number.”

  Silvan looked up, a flash of anger flickering through his eyes. “I figured,” he said. “It fell to a three just recently. I already have my Medica appointment for tomorrow, so don’t worry.”

  There was a bitterness there, and that helped me relax some. What we were seeing was an act, I was sure of it. It was all a matter of making him comfortable, and he’d reveal himself.

  “You don’t seem... very eager to engage in treatment,” I said, and Silvan looked at me, swallowing hard.

  “I am,” he replied, his eyes darting between Grey and me before he lowered them again. “I obviously want to be of service to the Tower, and to Scipio.”

  He looked at his number, as if expecting the three to have changed during his five-second speech, and when it didn’t, he sighed. “I would do anything to get my number back up,” he said.

  “Anything?” I asked softly. “Surely your ranking isn’t so bad. What caused the fall?”

  “You mean how did I lose Scipio’s favor? I was an eight, on my way to nine, before all of this happened, and it was jealousy that brought me down, I’m afraid. The head of my work group brought in a new Diver, and he’s just... better than me. Faster and smarter and...” He trailed off, looking blankly ahead with unseeing eyes. “I’d been working for thirty years to get to where I was, and just like that, someone else walked in and could do it all as easy as breathing. It’s not fair.”

  “You’re not wrong,” I said. Grey’s knee nudged against mine in warning, but Silvan just thrust out his number. The three glowed upon his wrist, and he stared down at it with loathing in his eyes.

  “I’ve given my entire life to the Tower,” he muttered. “And it has deemed me unworthy. I have to fix it.”

  I hated seeing people like this, because it was all too familiar. Sarah’s sadness, Silvan’s anger—all reactions to a system willing to toss them aside for not serving in the way the Tower demanded. Even worse, the only way out was one that involved losing all sense of self in order to be met with approval.

  “Does your anger make you want to do harm to the Tower?” Grey asked, leaning forward, and I looked at him, curious. What made him ask that question?

  Silvan’s eyes widened, and he made a frantic gesture. “Of course not,” he said indignantly. “I may not be desirable to Scipio any longer, but this is my home. Besides, where else could I go, really? No, my only chance at redemption is Medica treatment.”

  “How does the thought of receiving treatment make you feel?” I asked.

  Silvan looked around the room, considering the question, and then shrugged. “I don’t honestly know. On the one hand, of course you don’t want to have to take the Medica’s fix. The people who take it are... distant and cold. But on the other hand... if there is a deficiency within me, I have to do something to fix it. I don’t want to be a burden. I want to serve.”

  The poor, brainwashed man. Of course he blamed himself—I had too, more often than not, during my descent. He didn’t want Medica treatment, not really. But he didn’t think there were other options.

  I opened my mouth to tell him about the pill, but was forestalled by Grey. “I understand your drive,” he said. “And it seems your loyalty to the Tower is still strong, despite all of your troubles. Is that a correct assessment?”

  Silvan’s head whipped up and down so aggressively that I thought it might come flying off. I frowned at Grey. That question was loaded, especially to someone with the rank of three. They wouldn’t deny that assessment, because if they did they’d be admitting their own dissidence against the system. And I was a Knight; no way he was going to admit that he didn’t agree in front of me. Unless we explained who we were and what we had to offer.

  “The Tower has rarely had a more loyal servant,” Silvan reassured us amicably, his hands shaking. Behind him in the open kitchen, the kettle began to whistle softly, steam burbling up through the top and fogging the glass side of a pipe that ran across the ceiling.

  “I can see that,” Grey said. “So you are completely resigned to Medica treatment?”

  A pause, followed by a nod. “I will keep my appointment,” he said. “I will be better. I promise.”

  The direction the conversation had taken left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Grey wasn’t telling this man he had another option. Instead, he was treating him like a sycophant. That was wrong, though—he needed to tell him what was going on.

  “What if there were another way?” I asked.

  “Liana,” Grey said in a hushed voice, placing a hand on my shoulder in warning. But I shrugged it off, angry that he wouldn’t even discuss the option. I understood that the man was saying all th
e wrong things, but I was certain he was saying them for all the right reasons. He was trying to protect himself.

  I looked at Silvan, taking in the shadows under his eyes and the fear within them. He didn’t want this. Who could ever want Medica treatment?

  “You don’t need to go to the Medica,” I told him.

  Silvan stiffened. His mouth locked shut, his eyes flashing. I moved forward to place my hand over his, the words flowing freely from my mouth now.

  “Liana!” Grey said again, trying to stop me. “I’m sorry, sir; she’s speaking out of turn. She doesn’t—”

  “There is a pill,” I cut in, ignoring Grey and getting Silvan’s eyes back on me. “It is called Paragon. It can change your number without touching your mind. It allows you to continue being yourself.”

  He stared up at me, his eyes confused and uncomprehending. “Are you trying to trick me?” he asked.

  I wasn’t surprised by his questions. If it were me in his shoes, I would ask the same thing, or something along those lines. Then again, I had to dig to find out. Here we were, offering him an option that seemed highly suspicious. I didn’t blame him for not immediately jumping at it.

  “I understand why you would think so, but no. We’re not trying to trick you; we’re trying to help you.”

  “I’m confused,” Silvan said after a few seconds of contemplation. “Who are you, and why are you here? Are you with the Medica? Is this a new line of medication that they are testing out?”

  “It is,” Grey said smoothly, moving to stand up. “But I’m sorry; you don’t qualify for it.”

  I gave him a sharp look, and his answering one was thunderous—enough to give me pause. Biting my lower lip, I started to get up as well, but Silvan’s question brought me up short.

  “Why not?”

  I looked at Grey and saw him frozen, alarm radiating from his features. “I...”

  Silvan craned his head up so he could look at Grey from his seated position. “As I said, I’m loyal to the Tower. Shouldn’t the Medica wish to give a devoted Diver the chance to improve?” His eyes shifted over to me, burning with intelligence. “Or is it illegal? Is that how you got your nines?”