I slapped my baton against the ground, forcing a shower of sparks, in an attempt to re-establish control of the situation. He seemed to be having a hard time getting it through his head. I wondered whether maybe that was because he was off the medicine handed out by the Medica for all twos and ones. The medicine I would soon be taking, my mind reminded me, and I pushed the thought away. Now wasn’t the time.
Grey lifted his arm, turning it to display his number.
“Not a one, Knight. Sorry to disappoint.”
I stared. The end of the one seemed to have gotten lazy, curled around, cooled to a soft blue.
“A six?” I said, dumbfounded.
“Nine, actually,” he replied with a suffering sigh, “but who’s counting?” He looked pointedly at the three on my wrist, one sandy-brown eyebrow slowly lifting.
“You were a one,” I insisted, trying to force the flush from my cheeks.
“Well I’m not now,” he replied. “Funny how the world works.”
“I can’t just let you go,” I said. “There’s no way that—”
“Squire Castell.”
I turned and saw Gerome approaching, his own baton held loosely in one hand. He moved straight toward the young man, who took a step back and lifted his arm again.
“I’m a nine!” he announced. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”
Gerome paused, then turned toward me. His slate-gray eyes seemed to stab clean through me.
“This is the same man, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I answered, somewhat unsure of how that was possible.
I shuffled uncomfortably, glaring at the man’s number. It couldn’t be right, could it? But to think otherwise would be to assume that Scipio was wrong, and if I wanted to start claiming that, I might as well arrest myself and spend the night in a cell.
Gerome looked at me, then at the man, his hard eyes seeming uncertain. “Very well, then,” he murmured after a pause. “We cannot arrest those in Scipio’s grace. The Citadel apologizes for any inconvenience you have suffered, Citizen.”
Grey gave him a shrug, donning an expression of mock sincerity. “That’s no problem,” he replied. “I just want to help the Tower run as smoothly as possible.”
I stared at him. His words were dripping with sarcasm, his eyes glinting with amusement. How the hell was he still a nine? It didn’t make any sense.
“You were a one!” I erupted, gesturing at him. “You fled from Knights of Scipio’s order!”
Gerome’s baleful gaze fell on me this time, and I shrunk under it. “You know as well as anyone that Scipio marks criminals with a one, to make their capture easy and assured. If he is not a one, then he has committed no crime.”
“But—”
“We’re done here, Squire,” Gerome said, his voice gaining a hint of steel as he turned and walked away.
I could only stare at his retreating form. It seemed that Gerome was as indifferent to crime as he was virtue. Actions didn’t matter to him, or to the other Knights. It was all about Scipio and the number you happened to have flashing on your wrist. They were off the hook for everything else. Gerome was too indifferent to even admit there must have been some kind of mistake. But I couldn’t exactly blame him, either; this was the only protocol he knew.
I, however, couldn’t stop thinking about it. In all my years of having my accomplishments ignored, I hadn’t really stopped to consider the things a high number could get away with. Now, my mind was abuzz. This couldn’t be right, could it? And yet, it was happening.
I shot a lingering look back at Grey. He was lounging against a pipe, his eyes bright with quiet amusement. As I turned to follow Gerome, Grey gave a mocking salute, a smug smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
Oh, I’m going to figure out exactly what you’re doing.
3
I followed Gerome along one of the many bridges that connected the shell to the entrance of the Citadel, the Knights’ headquarters. The giant cylindrical structure was dark and foreboding, stylized with great arches and loops of metal tempered to look like stone. The level we approached had high, towering walls, and lining those walls were gargoyles set upon platforms. Blue-and-silver banners bearing Scipio’s insignia (a tower wreathed in lightning) hung from the structure, and high above I could hear the whoosh and snap of Squires and Knights lashing between the arches of the Citadel, practicing their art.
Reaching the looming front doors, Gerome was waved through, while I was brought to a stop, a crackling baton barring my path. I looked up and met the eyes of Lewis, a Knight who had sparred with me once. I had even thought of him as friendly.
“Nobody below a ranking of four is admitted here,” he said, his voice unyielding. “You may take the residents’ entrance, as you still live with your parents.”
I looked to Gerome, but the man just shook his head. I should have expected the reaction, to be honest. Gerome would have arrested his mother and spared the devil based on the number on their wrists. I bet the devil was good at cheating the system too… maybe I could find him and he could give me some tips.
“Go home, Liana,” he said, rubbing at his brow. “You need to speak with your parents.”
I bit my lip. “What about my report, sir?”
“I will handle your report,” said Gerome. “I was there. At any rate, the testimony of a three is inadmissible in the records. Dismissed.”
He never said “goodbye” like a normal person might have. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he turned and disappeared into the darkness of the building beyond without another word. In front of me, Lewis continued to hold his baton, eyes level with mine.
I swallowed hard as I stared at the man. It wasn’t even that I liked giving the reports, but it was my job. To be disallowed from even doing paperwork somehow felt like a bigger slap in the face than anything else I had experienced.
What am I going to do—write a treasonous report? I thought bitterly. Then I tried to catch the sour thought, bundle it up and send it to some part of my brain where it wouldn’t be noticed. I couldn’t allow myself to fall to a two. Happy thoughts.
Hey, you okay? a soft voice in the back of my head asked.
I jumped and stared at Lewis. He just brandished his weapon again, apparently concerned I might try to force my way in. I took a step back and exhaled, looking around. It hadn’t been him talking, and there wasn’t anyone else around, which really only left me with one option: my dear brother, with his personal access to Scipio’s communication networks.
“Alex?” I muttered softly, knowing the implant in my ear would pick up the sound and transmit it back to him.
Literally and metaphorically coming at you through your thoughts, buzzed the voice in my head. I went to check in on you and saw your number had dropped. What’s going on?
I smiled and walked away from Lewis to settle down on a bench. Alexander had always been the first to ask what was wrong. I rarely heard from him these days, except in a crisis. My parents hadn’t taken kindly to his decision to leave the Knights, even to directly serve Scipio, and as a result he never visited. I missed him, truth be told. There was something earnest and good in Alex that was hard to find elsewhere, and it often made me wonder just how he had come to work with Scipio.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Stupid run-in with a moronic Cog.”
A pause.
Your ranking has slipped to a three, Lily.
I scowled at both the patronizing voice he used, as well as the nickname. He was the only person who called me that and I wasn’t fond of it.
“So?”
So, three is when compulsory Medica treatment kicks in. Not to mention, your apprenticeship is nearing an end. They could drop you.
I let my head fall into my hands, a wave of defeat rolling through me. Alex had never been one to mince words, and he knew me well enough to know exactly what I was afraid of. My number had fallen because I couldn’t stay positive, keep my thoughts in a good place on a cons
istent basis. The Medica was going to fix those thoughts, whether I liked it or not. And I had to do it, or risk losing my department forever.
“Maybe it’s just a bad day,” I muttered. “Maybe it’ll be better in the morning.” Using the net to communicate was weird; it always looked like someone was talking to themselves, although everyone knew they weren’t. Or at least hoped they weren’t.
It won’t be.
“Gee, thanks for the reassurance.”
A soft chuckle. Would you rather I coddle you with lies?
I watched as a pair of stiff, straight-backed Knights in crisp, crimson uniforms strode by, heading toward the building. Everything about the place was so rigid. So stiff. Was this really all there was to life? Rules, and grappling with your own brain out of the terror of ever, even for a moment, thinking something bad?
“What’s it like, working for the Eyes?” I asked, partially to distract myself.
Alex sighed. Work, work, and more work, he admitted. But it’s fascinating. The sheer amount of data we have access to, you wouldn’t believe it.
Data, he’d said. People’s emotions screened and compiled into a revolting blob of data.
Did I say something?
“No.”
Your negativity concentration—
“You’re reading me!?” I cried, jolting to my feet and causing a nearby Knight to shoot a disparaging look my way.
I’m just watching your screen while we talk, Alex said hurriedly. I like to keep an eye on you.
“Alex, that’s…”
Would you rather I didn’t?
I paused, considering. “No,” I said eventually. As invasive as it was, as bizarre as it was to think that someone always knew my inner state of mind, it was comforting to know that someone cared enough to look. To look at that negativity and not just slap a number on it but ask why my thoughts looked that way. Alex had always been different like that, and I adored him for it. It gave me hope, knowing that someone like my brother worked with the Eyes.
The net in my brain continued to buzz, but Alex didn’t speak for almost a minute.
Things are changing, he finally said.
I tilted my head up, looking at the Core. The great computer was located somewhere in there, but the Eyes never let anyone other than other Eyes inside. Even their trainees, called Bits, weren’t allowed inside, until after they had passed copious screenings.
“How so?”
I can’t say. Or maybe I’d simply rather not—I don’t know, he replied. Just… get your number back up, and stay away from any more moronic Cogs. Or just Cogs in general.
I chuckled at the tone of his voice—it was dryer than the desert outside. Eyes and Cogs were notoriously bad at getting along, and it seemed Alex had picked up that characteristic as well.
So it is possible to get some positivity out of you after all, he drawled. Anti-departmental humor works like a charm every time.
“Seriously, though, it’s creepy for you to just… read me like that.”
He was right, though; I was smiling.
You sure? I thought it was endearing.
I laughed. “Pretty sure you don’t have any idea what’s endearing about you.”
There was a silence, then a sigh. I have to work.
“I know.”
You going to be okay?
I stared down at the number on my wrist. “I don’t know,” I replied honestly.
Another silence.
I’ll do what I can, he said.
The buzzing in my head cut out, and just like that Alex was gone. With the noise, and my brother gone, I abruptly felt very alone. I thought about going home. About seeing my parents. But they didn’t care about anything more than the number on my wrist, and now that I had finally dropped—as they expected me to—I suddenly didn’t want to. The only thing that could possibly redeem me would be if I went off and managed to catch an entire gang of criminals—and even then it might not work. Both of them were Knight Commanders, the highest rank in our Order without becoming Champion, and that seat was held by Devon.
I realized that I didn’t want to go home. In that moment, perhaps it was more that I couldn’t. I turned, moving back across the bridge, intent on finding an elevator to take me back to Water Treatment.
The elevator decided that the three using it needed an insultingly long lecture on immorality in exchange for travel back down to Water Treatment. I waited, stewing in sullen silence, for it to finish and deposit me where I needed to go. I quickly went back to where I’d confronted Grey. He, of course, was long gone, but the pipes along the wall still bore the faint black mark where my baton had struck as I flew out of the sky to arrest him. Flew out of the sky and saw his wrist.
A nine.
I gritted my teeth as I walked forward, scanning the area for something, anything that might indicate what had happened. He had been a one. I had seen it, and even if I hadn’t I would have known. The easy smiles, the spark of character in his eyes; those things died when someone’s number got higher. Even aside from that, why would he have run if he wasn’t a one?
I moved up to the place where he had been hovering, but there was nothing obviously different about it. Uncertain, I lowered my hand into a gap between the pipes and rooted around in the little pocket within.
“So, Grey Farmless,” I muttered. “What were you rooting around for over here, huh?”
It was a stupid venture. Grey was cleared. Even if I had found a bloody knife and a confession to murder, the man would have been free to prance about the Tower while people looked at me like I was going to burn the place down. To the eyes of the world, a nine was all but infallible, and a three was just waiting to explode. Still, something drove me. I needed to know the truth.
Just then, my fingers brushed against something. It was small, smooth, and the contact sent it rolling away from me. I cursed, scrabbling for a moment, and just managed to close my hand around it before it got away. Yanking my hand out, I held it before me, then slowly opened it.
It was a pill. And while Medica pills were brightly colored and well labeled, this one was a nondescript white, the sides completely blank.
Hello… What might you be?
I rolled the pill in between my fingers, thinking. I ought to take it to Gerome was the first thought that came to my head. This was important. Significant. As I thought about it, though, I pictured Grey. Cocky, self-assured, and so… himself. So much more himself than anyone I had ever known—and so unafraid to be so. He didn’t act like someone worried their number would fall. He didn’t act like someone who was worried about their number at all.
I stared down at the three on my wrist. Medica treatment. Mood-altering pills. Liana—vanished.
I shoved the pill into my pocket.
4
“A three?”
My mother’s expression could have wilted crops. My father’s probably would have caused them to combust.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Just—”
“It is most certainly not nothing, young lady,” my mother replied, her voice soft. Lethal. I looked over at her and didn’t see my mother, but the Knight she was—everything perfectly in order, from the smooth, ebony braid dangling down her back to her shiny black boots. Nothing was ever out of place, out of line.
They were both still wearing their Knight uniforms. In fact, that was all they ever wore, the commander’s insignia shining on both of their chests, right over the heart. They had other, non-uniform clothing, but they never wore anything except their crimsons or the thin undergarments used for sleeping.
“We have been waiting your entire life for you to step up. Become the child this family needed. This, however…” My father pushed away from the dining room table at which we were all seated and began pacing the tight confines of the space. “A three. Scipio’s grace, we’ll have to send her to the Medica, Holly. I mean, do you want to get kicked out of the Citadel, young lady?”
I kept my face carefully neutral at the que
stion, but even the expectation of pain wasn’t enough to keep my heart from hurting at the sound of it. My father spoke the words as if they hadn’t been on his mind every day for the last month. Like I didn’t suspect that he was excited to finally have the opportunity to “correct” me. It made me feel heartsick and raw.
My mother’s expression twisted. “We know people in the Medica,” she said, turning to me, the Knight fading slightly back into my mother. “You’ll be okay, Liana. We won’t let you fall any farther, I promise. You’re not going to lose your home.”
It was interesting how they only ever made promises when they were promising to do something they wanted anyway, but the fear of losing my home was deeply rooted in my heart: I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I wasn’t suited for anything else.
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go to the Medica just yet,” I said, already knowing their response. “Maybe give my rank a chance to bounce back?”
“It’s too late for that,” my father replied. “I’m not letting this get any worse than it has. We’ve tried to be reasonable, really we have, but it is clear that you are incapable of handling these… dissident thoughts.”
The word “dissident” made me think about Grey, his one miraculously changing to a nine, and I nursed the smallest spark of an idea. Maybe if I could present it right, they would hold off on sending me to the Medica.
“Speaking of dissidents, Gerome and I were called in to arrest a one down in Water Treatment today.”
That caught their attention. My mother’s eyebrows lifted.
“A one?” she asked. “I heard the alert go out, but I wasn’t aware he had been apprehended. What was his name again?”
“Grey Farmless,” I said excitedly, leaning closer to her. “We happened upon him in one of the service ways. As soon as he saw us he began to run, and I chased after him, using my lashes. He got into an elevator, and—”