Needless to say, it had worked, so here I was, in one of the communal annexes in the shell—the one closest to the Citadel, which made it the one to which I was assigned.
The apprenticeship program was supposed to be a way of giving each citizen of the Tower a baseline understanding of the other sections. A Knight could come to understand the importance of the greeneries (the farming floors), or an Eye could learn the inner workings of Water Treatment. Twice a week, a group of youths assembled to be taught something new by a member of one of the departments, and we all either pretended to be interested, or, like my friend Zoe, actually were interested.
I entered the small gray room full of chairs with uneven legs and others around my age with a certain amount of trepidation, and was, unsurprisingly, met with stares. My peers took one look at my ranking… and then walked away from me without so much as an excuse. One girl actually turned pale, like my number was a disease that she could contract. For an instant I was tempted to chase the timid thing and tackle her. That, however, was once again probably a good indicator as to why I was being sent out for Medica treatment.
I looked sullenly at my wrist—funny how something as insignificant as a number could make people believe the best or the worst about you. I sucked in a sharp breath and pushed the negative thought out of my head; if I wanted to avoid the Medica, then I had to get my number back up. I had to think happy thoughts.
“Whoa, look at you, you rebel.”
My lips twitched into the closest thing to a smile I’d worn all day, and I turned to find my friend Zoe, her hand on her hip, her long brown hair braided down the center of her skull, the sides of her hair shaved close. It was the custom of the Divers—the workers of Water Treatment—to shave part, if not all, of their hair.
Zoe was twenty, like me, and a Roe, a trainee in Water Treatment. Unlike me, the only reason she hadn’t been accepted into Water Treatment was because she was putting it off until the last possible moment, while she waited for her application to the Mechanics department to be accepted. She might have been a great Diver, but the girl lived and breathed machines.
“As you can clearly tell, yesterday was a stellar day for me,” I said wryly.
“Ah, sarcasm,” Zoe said dramatically, clutching her fist to her breast and gazing wistfully up at the ceiling. “Thy name is Liana, and we have met before.”
I snorted out a laugh, but the levity of the moment faded quickly under the looming weight of my Medica appointment. Zoe gave a long sigh and sashayed over in the hip-based gait that all the Divers seemed to have, as if walking were just swimming vertically. She slid her arm over my shoulder, and I shivered. The arm was both cold and wet; Zoe, like most Divers, preferred to simply dive into the access hatches in the pipes and swim to wherever she needed to go. Even the suit she wore, designed to be water-repellent, never quite seemed to keep her dry.
“Tell Mama Zoe all about it,” she said, her tone maternal. “Zoe is here for you now, you poor child.”
“Oh, God, she’s talking about herself in the third person again,” another voice cut in loudly over my laugh, and I looked up to see Eric pinching the bridge of his nose under his spectacles, shaking his head in mock disapproval.
Eric was an old friend from the nearby greenery, and unlike Zoe and me, he wore simple clothes, his brown hair held off his brow by a sweatband, his strong arms, streaked with dirt, emerging from short sleeves. Eric never seemed to feel the chill of the Tower.
“Zoe knows how to drown people,” Zoe said, giving Eric a salacious wink, and he smiled broadly at her.
“Does Zoe know how to give Eric a hug?” he teased back, and I rolled my eyes.
The two were so into each other, it was actually kind of painful to watch sometimes. They flirted constantly, but when it came to actually admitting their feelings or taking a chance on a relationship, they invariably chickened out, and in the most ridiculous of ways.
Zoe’s arm slipped off my shoulder as she moved toward him, seemingly confident. Eric stood waiting, an inviting smile on his face. There was a moment—I felt like I could almost see it—in which they seemed so hopeful, so optimistic that this was it, this was when it was finally going to happen, and then… Zoe’s hand trembled slightly, and she suddenly whipped around to face me so quickly that the end of her hair slapped wetly (and loudly) off of Eric’s face.
“Wait, do Zoes ever actually hug Erics?” she asked cutely, acting both completely oblivious to the fact that she had just smacked Eric in the face, and like she hadn’t just completely lost her nerve. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning at her; as friend to both of them, it was my duty to tease them about it mercilessly. But only in private—never with the other around.
Eric slowly wiped water off his face, shaking his head. “Smooth,” he muttered as he shook his hand, water dripping on the gray floor. “Can’t wait to return the favor. So, Liana, what’s up with the three?”
“Yeah, what happened?” Zoe asked, taking a step closer to me, her mouth tugging down in a small, concerned frown.
I quickly told them about Dalton’s ungrateful attitude after I saved his life, and the fight that led to my number dropping, before telling them about Grey. And about his one morphing magically into a nine. Luckily, we still had a few minutes before class began, so I was able to get through the tale before we were interrupted by the arrival of the instructor.
“I still don’t understand how he did that,” I finished, staring at the floor. “I tried to make my parents see that there was something more going on, but all they cared about was that my number had dropped.”
“How did you say it?” Eric asked, giving me a knowing look, and I sighed.
“Not very well, but they barely even let me speak! They didn’t care! Their trust in Scipio is unshakable. If there’s a nine on his wrist, then Scipio put it there.”
“They’re not wrong,” Eric said softly, and I gave him a sharp look. He held up his hands, his eyes widening. “No! God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that how it sounded. Well, maybe a little, but—”
“It doesn’t change the fact that no one has ever cheated the system,” Zoe finished for him, meeting my gaze with her own vibrant blue one. “I mean, think about it, Liana. How could his number change like that? Did he hack his own net? Does he have the background for that?”
“No, he was a Hand originally, but they dropped him, so maybe—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Eric said, with no small amount of disdain. “There has never been a Hand accepted into the IT department, not once, in the history of the Tower. They hate us. Notice how they only ever send their first-year Bits down here to teach us? It’s because this is primarily a Hand school.”
“But they do the same thing at other schools,” Zoe pointed out.
“We’re getting off topic, guys,” I cut in. “Not to be needy, but I got a lot on my plate, and unfortunately not a lot of time to talk about it.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry, Liana.”
I smiled at Zoe. “No problem. Now, he might not have had the code, but…” I hesitated. Thought about the mystery pill I was carrying even now in my pocket. Suddenly, I didn’t want to tell them—not yet. Mostly because it could be nothing, but partially because it could be something. Something illegal, which meant something dangerous, and I didn’t want to recklessly jeopardize them before I understood the size and scope of what was going on. “What if something is wrong with Scipio?”
“Don’t even think that,” Eric hissed. “Asking questions like those in a public place is dangerous. People get scared easily, especially if they think something’s wrong with Scipio. Don’t you remember Requiem Day?”
I shuddered. Requiem Day had been one of the more horrific chapters in the history of our Tower—the day when Scipio had crashed. It was the first time in the history of the Tower that he had gone offline, and because his subroutines controlled so many aspects of Tower life, when he went down, we went down. Oh, yes, the greeneries c
ontinued to collect electricity, but there was no way for them to pass it down to Cogstown without Scipio’s help.
On that day, the Tower’s population had been close to forty-one thousand people when the lights cut off. People plummeted to their deaths in the elevator shafts and Knight after Knight died in the plunge. On the second day, people began to panic—with none of the services functioning, and no way to net each other, the lack of information regarding other sections of the Tower made people scared about what they were going to eat and drink. It wasn’t until the evening that people really started to turn on each other.
When the lights came on during the third day, there were only thirty-two thousand people left alive.
“That is a really good point,” I said, looking around. Luckily, we were far enough away from the few other students in the room that they probably hadn’t heard us. Still, I lowered my voice. “Fine—so what if he found a way to cheat the system?”
“It’s not possible.” Eric’s expression was adamant even as he shook his head back and forth, denying the very premise. “No one has been able to cheat the system.”
Not that we know of. It was on the tip of my tongue to say, but Eric’s somber expression stopped me. It took a lot for Eric to look serious, and I didn’t want him dwelling on possibilities that could jeopardize the eight on his wrist.
It took a long moment before anyone was willing to speak again.
“Couldn’t your parents ask for a deferral and give you a chance to raise your number on your own?” Zoe asked, and I glanced over at her to see the thoughtful expression on her face.
“They could, if my parents, y’know… actually cared about who I was. But no—my parents have wanted me to get Medica treatment since my number hit five, but I refused. Now that it’s a three…” I trailed off with a sigh, finding it unnecessary to carry on with the sentence. They knew what the stakes were. They knew there was no way out.
“What if you got it to go back up before your appointment?” Eric asked.
We both looked at him.
“I’ve been trying,” I said pointedly. “I think I’m broken.”
“You’re not broken,” he replied. “Just think positive thoughts. Scipio just checks for concentrations of positive versus negative, right?”
As much as I loved Eric, he really could be dense sometimes. It wasn’t his fault—he was just one of those naturally pleasant people. He enjoyed almost everything. In fact, I’d never heard him say a cross word about anything. As a result, his number was eight, and even though he hung out with morally questionable people (meaning me—Zoe’s number was a six), that number had never once twitched as a result.
Zoe quirked an eyebrow, her head tilted all the way back to stare up at him.
“It’s not quite that simple,” she corrected him. “Scipio uses complex algorithms to…”
I watched Eric’s eyes glaze over as Zoe warmed to one of her many areas of expertise. Her father had run a shop down in Old World Market—one of the common areas toward the bottom of the Tower—trading this and that for that and this. He specialized in books, mostly tech manuals and the like (although I knew that more than a few of the outlawed works of fiction had found their way through there). His main profit came from recovered and restored tech manuals, and he sold them to a few interested parties with higher ranking in the appropriate department (as per the law), but not before Zoe got her chance to read them.
And I swear to God, she had a photographic memory.
Luckily, our instructor interrupted her rant partway through. He was a tall, fit man whose head was shaved bald, and a Diver’s mark shone blue on his white scalp, the tattoo wrapping around the back of his skull in intricate little lines. He smiled kindly around at everyone as he came to a stop in the middle of the room, nodding his head once.
“I believe this is Room 937D, is it not?” he asked in a pleased voice, gazing around the room.
“Yes, sir,” Eric said before anyone else had quite gathered themselves.
The man looked at Eric, then gave a kind smile of approval toward the eight shining on Eric’s wrist.
“Leristas, young man. I am called Phineas Lute, and I will be teaching you the special language the Divers use to communicate underwater. Does anyone know what the language is called?”
My hand shot up immediately, and Zoe gave me a coy smile as she kept her hands folded across her chest. Diver Lute looked over at me, and nodded expectantly.
“Callivax,” I said. “Named after Anthony Callivax, the first Praetor of the Divers.”
“Very good, Squire…”
“Castell,” I said, brimming with pleasure. Maybe I could use this class to get my number back up! Diver Lute seems nice—maybe he’s a little different.
A small hope, but it never hurt to have them.
Until they were crushed moments later. His eyes flicked to my wrist, the approving smile on his face growing tight and forced.
“Squire Castell. I see you are a three?”
My cheeks burned as I realized that everyone was now staring at me, and I nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why are you here and not at the Medica?”
“I wanted to come here first. I didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to learn how to be of better service to the Tower.”
“You wish to be of service?” he asked, sounding surprised by my statement.
“Of course I do,” I said a bit hurriedly. I cringed, not wanting to seem argumentative, and cleared my throat. “I’m just not quite sure how to do that.”
“Well… you have to follow the Water Ways, my child.”
“Oh, great,” Zoe muttered, her voice so low it was almost impossible to distinguish from the hushed whispering of my peers around me. “Typical.”
The “Water Ways” was the spiritual belief system that all the Divers followed. Their ideology followed every other departmental philosophy—protect the Tower at all costs—but had spun a religion around it. A lot of it was based on the collective history of the Tower, but with moralistic rules about not being negligent or dissident, lest you get exposed to the toxic waste the machines in the Tower generated.
“The Water Ways can save you, child,” Diver Lute said kindly, his eyes urging me to say something.
“Oh.” It was all I could come up with, considering the uncomfortable level of attention I was currently receiving. “I’ll have to think about that.”
His face became disappointed rather than disapproving, but I didn’t care; his assertion that I needed the Water Ways to fix myself was irritating. He didn’t know me, but clearly the number on my wrist told him I was a lost soul in need of an intervention, and now that was how he would treat me. It was just so damned galling—I had gotten an answer right, and he should’ve left me alone. Not turned me into a spectacle for the whole class to watch, a warning to all of them to keep their numbers up.
“You do that, child. In the meantime, you’ll need to come up here and stand with me for the class. Protocol says that I must keep you within reach at all times.”
“Would protocol allow me to vouch for her, sir?” Eric asked, standing and angling his wrist to show Diver Lute his number. Irritation rolled over me as I looked up at him, silently condemning a system that would force a babysitter upon me. Of course I needed an escort; I was a dangerous element. I couldn’t even learn in peace. “I can keep a careful eye on her, and that will allow you to teach us without worrying about what she is doing at all times.”
“I don’t think there is anything in the protocols that disallows it,” the older man drawled, giving him a considering look. “You two are friends, are you?” he asked, obviously noting the fact that Eric and Zoe were the only two anywhere near me.
“Yes, sir,” said Eric, so quickly that I let go of my annoyance. It cost him nothing, yet meant the world to me, and suddenly I was grateful for his friendship, and that he was willing to spare me any humiliation. “Liana is the daughter of two Knight Command
ers, and a Squire herself. This is a temporary issue, and I’m willing to take full responsibility for her actions.”
Phineas nodded, his smile growing wider. “See that you do,” he said, then turned away. “Now, if you could all take one of these manuals, we’ll begin.”
“Thanks for that,” I muttered as the class began to pass around a stack of small gray manuals. “I did not want to be standing up front as some sort of visual warning for what happens when your number gets too low.”
Eric grinned at me, a big, lopsided thing. “What good is being an eight if I can’t look out for my friends?” he asked, waving his wrist about.
Zoe laughed and punched him on the shoulder. “Look at you, acting all chivalrous,” she said. “Are you using this hero thing to try and romance her?”
“And risk certain death? Pass. I mean, I love you, Liana, but not in the romantic sense. I just wanted to spend as much time with you as I could before you went into the Medica.”
I knew he didn’t mean it—Zoe reached over and smacked him with one of the gray booklets, and the look he gave us was immediately contrite—but it didn’t matter; it hurt all the same, the knowledge that I would be in the Medica in a few short hours. I looked at my friends, and realized what I was about to lose. I felt the pill in my pocket, and thought of the mysteries I would never solve. Inwardly, my mind began to churn, trying once again to find some sort of way out.
Learning Callivax didn’t seem all that important after yet another unsurprising defeat on my never-ending quest to get my rank back up.
6
The Medica was comprised entirely of sheer, curved white walls, brilliantly lit by thousands of lights so that the whole floor was almost glowing. It seemed so pure—a beacon of light in the darkness—but all I felt was dread as I crossed the wide, flat bridge that connected the Medica to the Tower. I’d taken the long way around along the Tower’s inner shell, trying to delay the inevitable.