I really did have the best friends, I thought to myself.
17
The six of us filed out of the apartment and into the hall, a sharp band of tension stretched between us. Zoe and Eric were taking turns checking the lash harnesses that they had borrowed from Quess and me, and I felt a moment of apprehension for them. Neither was formally trained with lashes, and while I had let them both try mine out a few times, they had never gone outside the shell of the Tower before.
Maddox was also nervous, but for another reason. I watched as her eyes darted back and forth across the hall, constantly scanning for any sign of attack. She kept rubbing her hands and wrists, as if trying to squeeze her anxiety out through her hands. I could tell she was tense, just being out in the open like this, and I felt horrified that she was so anxious about stepping out of the apartment that she felt the need to be prepared for an attack, her eyes darting all along the halls before she slowly stepped out.
And the tension was contagious, spreading through us until it felt like we were all holding our breaths to the point of suffocation. Which was perfectly understandable. This was the first mission where we were going to be spread so thin, and that left us vulnerable to attack. It was dangerous, and that was partially my fault. I was insisting we split up to save time. But it was definitely my job to lead them, and I knew I couldn’t let them go with those dark shadows in their eyes. I had to say something.
“Okay, everyone,” I said softly, pitching my voice low so that only they could hear. The halls might be empty, but there were cameras everywhere, and I couldn’t be entirely sure who was on the other side, monitoring them. “I know we’re all feeling a bit scared, and I want you to know, that’s okay. We’re splitting up, and we’re going to be a little vulnerable.”
My friends’ eyes darted around toward each other, as if wondering where I was going with this, and I didn’t leave them hanging. “You are all smart and capable. I trust you to use your heads. If something feels off, get out and call us. Stay inside the Tower as much as possible. And most importantly, if you see anyone, anyone at all, then get out of there.”
“The same goes for you and Quess,” Leo said, concern warm in his voice. “You have the more dangerous mission.”
“Yes, but we don’t have to leave the Citadel,” I retorted. “Look, everyone just be careful, and we’ll meet back here in a few hours. If Quess and I finish early, we will borrow some spare lashes and come and help you with the relays. And, like I said, if you have any problems—”
“We’ll net you and try to come back here immediately,” Maddox cut in impatiently. “Fine. Is there anything else?”
Maddox’s gruffness was slightly off-putting, but I let it go, sensing that her issues weren’t necessarily going to be touched by words alone. “Yes. Because you and Leo are the better lashers, I want you to split up. One of you take Zoe, and one of you take Eric. Sorry, guys,” I said, directing my gaze to the friends in question, “but I want to make sure you’re with someone who’s experienced.”
“I’m fine with that,” Zoe said, giving Eric a sideways glance and a small smile. “This one is a little too big for me to be rescuing alone, and even though I prefer working with him, I suppose Leo will make an okay substitute. It’ll give us a chance to talk.”
That sounded ominous, but as I looked at Zoe, I realized that she was going to talk to him on my behalf, and hopefully get him to ease up a little bit. She might not understand exactly what had happened, but she could tell something was up, if only through my body language screaming ‘help me.’ I knew he didn’t mean to, but now every time I saw Leo, there was this… expectation emanating from him. As if he wanted me to answer a question that I wasn’t even ready to hear yet. Namely, would I let him kiss me, so he could remember it. Hopefully, Zoe could find a way to help with that, because I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to work with him if he kept doing it, and I needed him on my team. I needed to keep him happy, if only for Grey’s sake.
Not that I thought he’d use that against me. Leo was too honorable to do anything more than what he had promised to do for Grey.
“Good,” I replied. “I’ll see all of you very soon.”
Quess and I broke off from the others and began moving away, heading for the elevator. As we walked, the silence stretched between us, but I wasn’t inclined to break it. I was too nervous. We were about to try to steal something from the armory—a crime that was considered a capital offense. If we were discovered…
Well, suffice it to say that I wouldn’t be Champion if we were discovered. More than that, we’d be arrested as potential terrorists, and interrogated thoroughly with that in mind. They would likely try to tie us to Ambrose’s murder, or assume that we were involved—or worse—and we’d be right back where this mess started.
I considered reaching out to Lacey for help, but quickly rejected the idea again. Lacey was angry, hurt, and filled with grief. That kind of emotional turmoil didn’t put people in the right mind frame for practicality, and in her case, she might change her mind and turn us in before we had a chance to finish the Tourney. It was too risky to approach her with anything less than Ambrose’s murderers—either information that would lead to them or the people themselves.
Still, I didn’t like it.
The apprehension grew when we entered the elevator, and as we began to rise, I suddenly felt sweat break out on my forehead. Something was wrong. It was too risky. Eyes were everywhere within the Citadel, scans more strenuous and patrols more numerous. Without a foolproof plan, we’d get caught.
I had to make sure we had one before we even got there.
“Elevator, emergency stop. Block access to this shaft on my authority, Liana Castell, 25K-05,” I ordered quickly, following my gut.
“Acknowledged,” the computer-generated voice announced. “Elevator shaft blocked. Redirecting traffic.”
Quess was giving me a penetrating look when I turned to face him. “Liana?” he asked, his voice and eyes hesitant—and concerned. “Are you okay?”
I was worrying him. Great. “I’m fine,” I said reassuringly. “But I’m starting to think that going to the armory is a bad idea. I keep thinking about how security is so much tighter right now, and that we can’t afford to jeopardize the Tourney, or else Lacey will come after us! So please tell me that you and Leo came up with something good, or else I’m thinking we need to come up with something else.”
Quess’s eyes flashed with some emotion, but he looked away quickly, trying to mask it.
“What?” I asked.
He shifted awkwardly, one hand going up to rub the back of his neck self-consciously. “Well, Leo and I couldn’t actually get access to their systems with the time we had,” he admitted. The shock that was rippling through me must’ve shown on my face, because he continued, rather hurriedly, “I know I should’ve told you, but I figured once you got me inside, I could just directly hack into their system.”
“Quess!” I exclaimed, already beginning to feel the embrace of anger. I took a moment to put it in check, and modulated my voice slightly. “Quess, why would you—” I stopped myself mid-sentence and sighed. “Tian.”
“I’m sorry, Liana, but it was going to take us days to get into their system, and as soon as the Tourney kicks back in, I know Tian will be left on the back burner! And I understand why that will be, but I’m sorry—I can’t accept it! So no, I didn’t tell you the truth, but I figured it wouldn’t matter. I’ve seen you talk your way out of impossible situations, so how is this one any different?”
I listened closely to what he was saying, and then made the conscious decision not to get angry with him. Instead, I focused on being grateful that he was telling me now, while there was still time.
But now we needed to figure something else out. If we couldn’t get a Class B weapon, then we needed to come up with some other way of neutralizing the sentinel. Unfortunately, I didn’t know enough engineering to think of what that might possibly be.
/> Quess, however, might. He had likely been studying the thing’s specs since I first brought them up. And he was, after all, our resident inventor.
“Quess, is there any other way we could knock out the sentinel?” I asked slowly.
He rolled his eyes and then sighed, folding his muscular arms over his chest. “I considered that, and it is possible, but it would be untested tech. If it fails, we’ll be dead.”
He was right, and we wouldn’t be able to test it until the heat of battle, which meant risking a situation in which it didn’t work—and the sentinel tore us apart. But going in blind after a Class B weapon was just as dangerous. Even more dangerous in some ways. We’d definitely be executed if we were caught, and tortured for answers long before death came.
Of course, Quess didn’t need to know that second part.
“And if we get caught trying to steal a Class B weapon, we’ll definitely be dead. After a very short trial.”
His mouth flattened at that, and after a moment of internal deliberation, he finally said, “Point taken. We’ll need to go to Sanctum. Not all of my tools got transferred to Zoe’s apartment, and I need what’s there.”
I nodded and quickly informed the computer of our destination change. Getting to Sanctum would take a little bit of time, but if that meant Quess could make something that would help us defeat the sentinel—and prevent us from getting caught stealing a weapon—then I was okay with the delay.
Forty-five minutes later, I slid into our former home through a vent. It had changed drastically since I had last been here, the once-homey living area now disassembled and packed up into bags lining the floor. I stared at it as I stood up, missing the cozy meals we had shared in the tiny space Zoe had created with curtains.
“We did a pretty good job of packing it up,” Quess boasted as he slid out of the vent behind me. “Most everything is ready to go, but my tools are still out. I used this place to alter my appearance for my spy work, and wound up doing some tinkering as well. C’mon.”
He had righted himself as he spoke and was now walking away, heading for an irregularly shaped opening in the wall on the left side of the room. We had cut the hole ourselves, in an attempt to avoid wasting time using the vents moving from room to room, and Quess had converted the room we created into a workstation.
He ducked through the low opening and moved over to his table, where he started sifting through his tools and sorting them. I paused at the doorway, watching him.
“So what do you think you’re going to build?” I asked, curious as to what he thought he could do. And how long it would take—though I would wait to ask that question.
“The sentinel’s skin… hide… whatever you want to call it… is impervious to most levels of electricity, up to ten thousand volts. However, if you can hit it with something more powerful…”
I followed his trailed-off thought to its natural conclusion: the sentinel would go down. And once it was down, we could crack open the outer shell and pull out its hard drive and power core. Of course the real question was whether it would stay down the entire time.
“It’ll go down,” I finished for him. “But for how long?”
He gave me a look over his shoulder and frowned. “I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t even know how far over ten thousand volts I should go! Too low, and it could shake the charge off. Too high, and we have every chance of frying its internal systems. And I need those to be intact if you want me to track down who’s behind all of this.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” I said encouragingly. I licked my lips. “How long do you think it will take?”
Quess leaned back, considering his tools. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “I could maybe have a few prototypes in an hour, but they’ll be untested, and—”
“It’s better than going against that thing with nothing, Quess,” I said, my mind working. An hour. Right. That was a long time, and there wasn’t much I could do to help him do it more quickly. I certainly didn’t have the technical skills or knowledge to be able to back him up. “Do you think you could get it done any faster? We need to be ready to go as soon as the others are done.”
“Yes, I know that, Liana,” he said, a thread of irritation worming its way into his voice. “I am well aware of what’s on the line.”
“I’m sorry, Quess,” I said. “I’m just nervous.”
And the emptiness of the place was beginning to get to me, but I didn’t mention that. Still, it was different being back here, in the Sanctum, especially after everything that had gone down. Sitting here doing nothing wasn’t going to help, but if I stayed around Quess, I’d probably wind up interrupting his work. I needed to do something, if only so I could feel useful.
I thought about it, and then on a whim, decided to go to the only place that could possibly hold my interest an entire hour: Lionel Scipio’s office. I was betting it wasn’t packed up yet, and at the very least, I could do something about that, to save the others some time and work off some of my own nerves.
“Quess, I’m heading for the office,” I told him quietly. “Gonna look at some books and do some general snooping around.”
“I’ll call you through the anchor if anyone shows up,” he said dismissively.
I nodded and headed for the vent. It took me a few minutes to wriggle through the tight spaces, but when I emerged from the opening into Scipio’s office, I was happy I had made the trip. None of the things in here had been packed up. Although, gauging from the books that had been plucked from the shelves and placed on the table between the two overstuffed sofas, Zoe had no intention of leaving anything behind.
I was grateful, and also eager to expedite the process, so I pushed up my sleeves and got cracking.
Stacking and carrying books was mindless, but good work that kept me busy. Occasionally I would pause to open up a book, sliding my hand over the luxurious white paper and tiny printed script before examining its contents. Most books seemed to be on programming stuff, but there were more than a few things that caught my eye, and I wound up setting those books aside in a separate pile, wanting to take them with me so I could start reading them.
After half an hour, I had managed to clear half the shelves in the room, and was moving to the next shelf, this one on the opposite side of the painting Lionel’s safe was hidden behind. I was also making a mental note to ask Leo for the code so we could empty the safe’s contents as well.
I glanced at it as I thought this, and paused, staring at the gap between the painting and the wall. It was wide—over an inch, to be precise—and that stood out to me. Normally the painting lay almost flat, so for it to be sticking out like that…
I set down the books I had been in the process of collecting and carefully lifted the painting with both hands, moving it to one side and setting it on the ground. As I straightened up, I immediately spotted the cause for the painting’s strange seating.
The safe was open, a gap of nearly an inch spanning between the wall and the door. The lights on the front were dead, and when I reached out to stroke over it, they didn’t turn back on.
I bit my lip, wondering what had caused it to become unlocked.
Before, Leo had been the only one who could access it, using his terminal. Now that the terminal was gone, though—maybe that had sent a signal to the safe to open, lest everything inside be lost forever.
Or, Lacey and her team had managed to crack it while they were down here. I bristled at the thought; she’d already violated our privacy once by managing to track our location to this place. She’d also taken samples of the paint Quess had made, though I’d managed to get the legacy net out of the deal, so that was something. Still, if she’d also done this and failed to tell us, I didn’t care that she was angry with me. I’d call her out on it and demand the return of all the items immediately. I didn’t know all the secrets the safe contained, but they could hold clues to Leo’s plan to fix or replace Scipio, and we needed those.
I reach
ed out and yanked the door open, trying to recall everything I had seen in there before. To my surprise, nothing looked like it had been touched. There were still two locked boxes—one flat and wide with a handle on the top, the other long and tall—both with digital keypads requiring a six-digit code. Underneath those were several data crystals, all lined up in a tray with a soft fabric inside. There were a few file folders on the bottom, and some strange, uniform, green and white paper that depicted the image of man with round cheeks who was balding on the top of his head, but still had thick, wavy hair coming from the back and running down to his shoulders. The paper was in multiple stacks, bound by thin white strips that read $10,000 USD—whatever that meant.
Nothing seemed like it had been touched, which meant that Lacey probably hadn’t found it. The safe had likely opened due to the terminal going off.
Whatever the cause, I couldn’t leave the items in there like that. These things had been kept in a safe, and were obviously valuable. I wasn’t going to let them fall into anyone else’s hands—and I was certain that if Leo knew about the safe, he would want me to move the stuff inside to a more secure location.
It took me a few minutes of rummaging, but I found a duffle bag with a long strap I could use for carrying everything, and quickly filled the bag with the items from inside the safe. Then, after discovering I had more room, I followed it up with the books I had been setting aside.
A quick check of my watch told me I had been at it for forty-five minutes, and that I should check on Quess. I quickly closed the safe and rehung the picture, then turned and left, eager to see how Quess was progressing.
Getting through the vents with the bag wound up taking longer than I expected, and by the time I emerged, pushing the heavy bag ahead of me, I was speckled with sweat and panting slightly. I managed to pick up the bag and carry it a few more feet toward the exit that led back up through the Menagerie, setting it just next to the entrance so I wouldn’t forget it.