Then I headed toward the workroom, where Quess was bent over, a pair of goggles on his face, peering through a magnifying glass and soldering something that shot off a few sparks here and there. I spotted another pair of goggles and held them up over my eyes to keep the sparks from damaging my eyes, before getting closer.
“How’s it going?” I asked, coming up beside him and looking over his shoulder.
Under the magnifying glass, I saw several small silver rings that had been hammered out to thin, flat disks. The one he was currently working on burned bright red, and he was in the process of pressing it between two blocks of metal, smooshing it down.
“Not bad, actually. I’ve been experimenting with using the material that the lash ends are comprised of, coupled with the connectivity of the tips on our batons. The fabrication process of combining them and then providing the piece with a power source to generate enough electricity is a little tricky, but… watch.”
He picked up one of the disks and threw it against the wall just a few feet away. It stuck, and then a second later a flash of white-blue electricity arced out along the walls, resembling a long-legged arachnid about the size of a pig. It remained there for several seconds, then suddenly shut off, leaving the metal disc fused in a red-hot molten mass against the wall.
I whistled, impressed. “Wow. Quess, that’s amazing. So it sticks because of the static-absorbing element of the lash ends?”
“Yes, to which I bonded a super-conductive material that doubles as its power source. It’s a difficult element to salvage, but luckily you don’t need much of it. It’s how we extract so much power from the solar panels and the hydro-turbines. Anyway, because we don’t need that static to do more than stick the disc to the sentinel, I figured I could just use the energy from it for something else, and I was right. I’m still not sure about the voltage, though, so I set it at twenty-five thousand volts.”
I blinked. “Twenty-five thousand volts? Is that too high?”
He shrugged. “The carbon matrix they used to encase the thing has a tolerance of almost seventeen thousand volts, so I guesstimated an additional eight thousand to overcome its internal system. There’s a chance that it won’t be enough, but there’s also a chance that I could fry it. The only way to know is to try it, and hope for the best.”
I sighed. I didn’t like it, but Quess knew his stuff, and I was certain that his best guess was based on more complicated science than I would understand. I barely understood how he had managed to make the discs—but I trusted that he knew what he was doing.
“How do you propose we transport these?” I asked, picking one of them up. They were small, and that meant they’d be easily lost. Also, if I transported them in my pocket, and was searched, they were odd enough to stand out.
“I already thought of that,” he replied, producing a string. I watched as he quickly knotted the brown material, and then began to loop it through the holes in the discs, doing something complicated with the string that I didn’t quite follow. “These are special knots,” he said, his fingers moving faster than my eyes could track, doing something that left each ring dangling from a loop that jutted out of a woven band. “The framework of it will remain intact, but if you pull on the shocker, it will pull out the string and allow you to slip the disc off, while keeping the rest of the band and the other shockers in place. If you wear it as a necklace or bracelet, no one will pay it a second thought.”
I nodded, appreciating the creativeness of his solution. He was right—it looked like a simple piece of jewelry, similar to the ones the Cogs made from broken bits of the Tower too small to be recycled in any useable fashion. It would be unnoticeable.
“I’ll wear it as a bracelet,” I said, thrusting out my wrist. “You’re sure it won’t go off against my skin?”
He gave me a slightly nervous smile. “I can’t guarantee it, but I’m fairly confident.” He slid the band over my wrist and tied the two ends together to fix it into place.
“Great,” I said dryly, pulling my hand away from him when he was done and admiring the work. “Just so you know, if this kills me, you get to deal with Zoe.”
Quess gave me a flat look. “Liana, if that kills you, I’ll have to deal with everyone, including myself. I am ninety-eight percent sure it won’t hurt you.”
I smiled and reached out to grip his shoulder. “I know you would never do anything to hurt me or put me in danger, Quess.”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” he replied. “Now, let’s get back up to the apartment, and see if the others are back.”
“Yes,” I replied, fingering the silver discs, a thrum of nervousness uncurling inside me. Soon, we’d be confronting the sentinel again, and even with this new weapon at my fingertips, I couldn’t help but feel a moment of doubt.
But I put it aside, and focused on what was important—which was getting Tian, and then finding out who was after us. And that had to come before my doubts.
18
My shoulder was aching from the heavy contents of the duffle bag by the time we got back to the apartment, and I couldn’t help fingering the string of metallic discs that were now draped around my wrist. The tiny little things didn’t seem very impressive, but Quess had assured me that they would pack enough of a punch to take the sentinel down.
I hoped he was right.
When we entered the apartment, my intention was to hide the bag in my room and then net the others using the anchor and find out what their progress was. But to my utmost surprise, they were already inside. From the looks of it, they had just arrived; Zoe and Eric were in the process of getting out of their lash harnesses, while Leo was guzzling down water in the kitchen. Only Maddox had taken a seat, and given the downward cast of her face, she was tired.
“Hey, guys,” I said, setting the bag down by the archway leading into the kitchen area. “You finished fast. Everything go all right?”
“It was fine,” Zoe said, her eyes not quite meeting mine. I raised an eyebrow at that, but realized she was still fiddling with the harness, which was probably what was distracting her.
“Here,” Eric said a second later, his hands pushing Zoe’s away and unclasping the harness quickly. He helped her step out of it, then set it on the chair before returning to his own.
I watched them both for a second, suspicion curling inside me. They were acting… too normal. Forcibly so, to the point that it was sending gentle warning bells chiming through me. I had also seen this behavior from them before—every time they had tried to plan a surprise birthday party for me behind my back.
“What’s going on?” I asked quietly.
Zoe looked up at me and blinked innocently. “Whatever do you mean?”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, cut the crap, Zoe. Something is going on.”
Suddenly the air grew very still and silent, as if everyone was drawing in their breath and holding it all at once. Zoe looked away again, only confirming that something was going on. Something they didn’t want to talk about. So, I looked at Maddox. She had never been the type to hold anything back, and was about as forthcoming and brutally honest as anyone could be.
“What is it?”
Maddox, to my surprise, pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing. Leo, is the tracking device ready to go?”
“Oh no, don’t change the subject,” I said, incensed that they were keeping a secret. If something had happened out there, I needed to know what it was—and the fact that they weren’t telling me made me even more suspicious. What could they possibly be trying to hide, and why would they want to in the first place? “What. Is. Going. On?”
“They don’t want to tell you that we split up,” Leo announced from the kitchen, and I turned to see him entering the room. He was wearing a pensive frown on his face. “Maddox argued that it would take too long if we worked in pairs, and suggested that we would complete the task more quickly if we each worked on our own.”
“More like just left after telling us that was what we were
doing,” Zoe grumbled, and I looked back at her, and then to Maddox, who was sitting there with a glower on her face.
“We need to find Tian,” she said obstinately, meeting my eyes with a defiant gaze.
A steady haze of anger began to settle in as I regarded her. She was still sporting livid bruises from her ordeal, but I put aside the sympathy her appearance stirred and focused instead on her, and what her action had risked. I had specifically ordered them to stay together—partially because of the threat from unknown enemies, but also because Zoe and Eric weren’t the best lashers. If something had gone wrong… If their lashes had failed or they hadn’t connected them well enough, my best friends in the entire world could’ve—would’ve—plummeted to their deaths on the radioactive desert below, and nobody would’ve been there to help them or even try to save them!
“That doesn’t excuse this, Maddox,” I said, positively irate that she would jeopardize the lives of our teammates so recklessly. “I specifically said I wanted you to stay together because—”
“They could handle it,” Maddox cut in, folding her arms across her chest. “Besides, you run off on your own all the time!”
That wasn’t the same and she knew it. But I felt obliged to set the record straight, so I did. “There is a big difference between me risking my own life and you risking those of our teammates! If Zoe or Eric had fallen… I don’t even understand why you would do that. It’s not like you.”
Her eyes hardened, and her mouth pinched. “You don’t know me well enough to know what I’m like,” she said defiantly. “I did what I felt needed to be done to get the mission finished. We’re all here, safe, and just moments away from getting Tian’s location!”
I stared at her, confused and angry about how blithe she was being about this. Zoe and Eric weren’t good at lashing. They hadn’t been trained in it the same way she and I had, and they didn’t have the natural reaction time or ability that Leo had. Leaving Zoe and Eric to their own devices had been shortsighted on her part, for that reason alone. What in the world could’ve prompted her to leave her teammates unguarded like that, especially after what had happened with Ambrose?
And then it hit me, so fast that it was like I had been sucker-punched. It was about what had happened with Ambrose, but I was looking at it from my own point of view—my approach would be to try harder to protect those around me.
But from Maddox’s perspective… Well, I could imagine that the guilt she felt from failing was doing awful things to her state of mind. The Maddox from before wouldn’t balk at such security measures, but the Maddox here and now… she was a beast of a different color. And I was betting that she was afraid of having anyone else’s life in her hands. She didn’t want the responsibility, especially since she’d failed to prevent Ambrose’s death. Having someone else relying on her had put a pressure on her that she clearly wasn’t able to handle.
I could empathize, but at the same time, I couldn’t let her actions, no matter how understandable, pass without comment. I had to handle this delicately.
It was just too bad that I had no idea how to do that.
“Is this about Ambrose?” I asked bluntly. Delicacy had never been my strong suit—and I needed to fix this now, rather than in half an hour.
Maddox’s eyes narrowed, and she stared at me, before rising to her feet. “I don’t have to take this. I’m out of here.”
She started to move toward the door, but I quickly cut in front of her, forcing her to stop. “If you are having issues because of what happened with Ambrose, then I need to know. I can’t have you coming with us to rescue Tian if you’re going to be a liability.”
“Liana,” Zoe whispered, her voice slightly horrified.
I ignored her, although it pained me to do so. I didn’t like handling Maddox so harshly, but we didn’t have time for kid gloves, either. If she was willing to jeopardize Eric and Zoe’s lives because of the attack on her and Ambrose’s murder, during such a simple mission, then I couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t go rogue during a fight, as well. Getting herself, or others, actually killed.
Maddox said nothing as she neatly stepped around me to continue her journey to the door. I stood there for a second, and then said, “Maddox, look at yourself. You are so upset by this conversation that you are willing to walk out and miss Tian’s rescue rather than admit that you might be dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic event.”
I heard her stop and looked over my shoulder to see her standing there, just a few feet in front of the door, still facing it. She didn’t move for a long time, so long that I started speaking again, this time modulating my voice and keeping it reasonable and sincere. I had to reach her, somehow, and yelling wasn’t going to do it.
“I want you to know that I’m not angry at you. I am, however, worried about you, and I think all of this ties in to the attack. But I can’t help you if you don’t admit to it. Normally, I would give you time and space so that you could come to this conclusion yourself, but we don’t have that luxury right now.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” she exploded, whirling around to face me, her arms akimbo. “I’m fine! I don’t need any help. I’m just trying to move at a faster speed so I can get Tian back!”
“You put Zoe and Eric at risk by unilaterally deciding to work alone!” I said, my voice carrying the hard edge of anger.
“But nothing went wrong,” she said smugly. “So back off, Liana.”
“No,” I replied, angrily. “You need to get help for what you’re going through, or I’m going to keep you off all of our missions.”
Her brows drew together. “You… You can’t do that!” she exclaimed hotly. “You need me!”
“No, I need you whole and able to protect your friends,” I shot back. “And let’s face it, Doxy, you jeopardized our friends today because you couldn’t handle the responsibility of protecting and caring for another person. It’s understandable, but debilitating, and I can’t trust that you won’t do something like this again. So it’s either get some help, or sit out. The choice is yours.”
Her face grew red, her jaw clenching tightly. “What do you expect me to do?” she asked bitterly, after several seconds had passed.
“You can go to the Medica for counseling,” Quess suggested quietly. I looked over at him to see him giving Maddox an earnest and pleading look, which instantly told me that he had already had this conversation with her, likely during the nights he’d been spending with her in her room. “Tell her, Liana. She doesn’t have to keep anything secret; everyone knows what happened with the attack. That she was there.” His lips trembled slightly as he looked at her, and I realized Quess was really worried about Maddox, and likely had been since day one.
Scipio help me, I wished he had told me, but everything was moving so fast that it had been impossible to keep up with it all. Still, he had clearly already been working on it, and now I had set the terms for her: she needed to get her head in the game, or else she wouldn’t be able to help us at all. We wouldn’t be able to trust her to help us, and I wasn’t willing to let that happen.
“He’s right,” I said, looking at Maddox. “The counseling services in the Medica aren’t bad, and it will do you some good to talk about what happened with Ambrose.” Her face began to grow hard again—a sign that she was about to tell us all where to stuff it—and I added, “If not for us, then for Tian.”
The look she gave me next was positively combustible, but after several long, hard seconds of glaring at me, she spat out a sharp “Fine,” and then pivoted on her heel and left the room, this time heading for her bedroom. I was pretty certain she would’ve slammed the door, except that ours operated on a pneumatic rotor, so she couldn’t.
As soon as her door was closed, though, I looked at the rest of the group. “Sorry about that,” I said softly. “I didn’t mean to call her out in front of everyone.”
“No, but you needed to,” Zoe huffed. “I tried to make her see reason, but it was
about as useful as trying to squeeze water out of a stone.”
“Hey, don’t talk about her like that,” Quess snapped defensively. “She’s been through hell and back lately. Cali, her father, now Ambrose…” He paused, and some of the anger on his face melted into fear. “She wakes up in the middle of the night covered in a cold sweat and crying. She pushes away any form of physical comfort. It’s like her heart is bleeding, Liana. And I don’t know how to make it stop.”
My heart broke for him a little bit right there, and I immediately went over and wrapped my arm around his shoulder, pulling him tight. “It’s going to be okay,” I assured him. “We’re going to get her through this, I promise.”
It took a few moments, but eventually his rigid body relaxed into the hug, until he was hugging me back. “I’m just so worried,” he told me softly, and I nodded.
“Me, too. But we’re going to figure it out.” I pulled away from him and looked him in the eyes. “Okay?”
He gave me a quick, jerky nod. “Okay.” I slowly withdrew my hands from where they were still touching him and gave him a little space, turning back to the group. The thing with Maddox was bad, but it wasn’t the only problem we currently had. I’d done all I could for her; now I needed to focus on bringing her surrogate sister home, and at least getting that worry off of her shoulders, as well as our own.
“Leo, go ahead and get that trace program running. Let’s see if we can’t find our sentinel.”
In the end, finding the sentinel had been easy. It was buried in the bottommost level of the Tower: Sub-Basement 16. Getting to it, however, proved much more difficult, because several different blueprints of the area were on public file. Apparently, the level had been renovated multiple times, adjusted in countless ways to help combat the immense weight of the Tower.
Unable to use a map to help us plot a direct course, we were forced to rely heavily on the tracking program on Leo’s pad, and navigate around beams and walls as they came up. Which turned out to be frequently. The halls down here were narrow, with barely enough room to walk in single file. Turn-offs came up every five to ten feet, but never any doors to rooms. The walls themselves were sometimes solid, but often were just exposed, interlocked beams, with some space to navigate through, but not much.