“So, do you want to lead this time, or do you want me to do it?” she asked. Her voice didn’t hold any irritation or frustration at having to ask, but I was surprised at her directness. I had been trying to figure out how to ease into the conversation without sounding like a massive jerk, but she just jumped right in, and without any recriminations.
I already knew the answer to the question: I couldn’t risk Eric’s life for anything. “I’ll go first,” I informed her.
Her answering smile told me she wasn’t surprised, but there was a bitterness about the way she did it that made me want to reassure her.
“Hey,” I said, recapturing her attention. “Look, I know this isn’t easy for you, and it certainly wasn’t the Tourney I signed up for.” True, in more ways than one, and the pain was fresh enough to make my throat swell closed, as I thought of Ambrose and his death. I stalled, but then cleared my throat, reminding myself that I wanted to at least try to make nice with her, just in case she wasn’t with our enemy.
“Anyway, what I meant about going first was that my team expected to support me, and you were never part of the equation for them. They need time to come to terms with the fact that you have to lead at some point, and I would hate for them to jeopardize your chances, and mine for that matter, because we throw it at them too soon.”
Dylan cocked her head at me, studying me for a second, and then smiled. “That’s a fair point, Liana. All right, I’ll follow your lead until the end of the challenge.”
She sounded genuine, so I accepted her words with a smile—and a silent prayer that she meant it, that she wasn’t with our enemy, and that her earlier audacious behavior was a thing of the past.
And that she wouldn’t beat me.
All in all, it took thirty minutes to run the tests and get us ready, and when we were finally led to the doors, we were notified that we were the last team to get into place. It made sense; the Terraces and the Citadel were separated by over a thousand feet of steel walls, girders, and empty space. It would’ve taken us longer to get to our position than Knights who were competing on higher floors—and that had only been compounded by the time it took to get ready.
I shifted my shoulders, my apprehension growing as Zarial wheeled himself over, his sinewy arms flexing. “One more reminder,” he barked. “The people inside are fellow citizens—some Knights, others Hands from this greenery—all of whom are playing different roles to model Requiem Day behavior. Violence is authorized, but please be kind, and if you choose to attack rather than reason with them, do not hold your batons on them for longer than it takes their elimination bands to light up.”
For some reason, his brown eyes darted over to me and Dylan as he said the last part, giving us both an appraising look. For a second, I was confused by his scrutiny, and the directness of his gaze, but then I realized he was directing that look at the potential leaders, reminding us that we had a choice about what kind of example we wanted to set for the Knights of the Citadel. Especially with the drones broadcasting our every move.
I let out a slow breath, mentally preparing myself as we gathered in front of the double doors leading into the Terraces, my apprehension mounting. A countdown appeared on the door, notifying us that we had thirty seconds before the challenge started, and that the time was running out quickly.
Eric came to stand between us, the black bag slung over his shoulder. I looked up at him as he approached, and realized that my best friend was nervous. “Are you okay?” I asked.
His mouth flattened, but his eyes grew hard and determined. “I’m fine,” he said with a nod. “Zoe talked me through how to do this repair, and I know what’s at stake. I’ve got this.”
I smiled. “I’m not worried about that,” I told him warmly. “I am concerned about what happens if someone in there attacks you.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” he said, hefting the bag up slightly onto his shoulder. “I scream like a girl and wait for you to rescue me.”
“As long as you include ‘evade enemy attacks if possible’ in that, I’m more than happy to do so. Also, do not leave Grey and Maddox’s side.”
“Yes, Mother,” he drawled, rolling his eyes before giving me a pointed look. I fought back my own smile, disguising it under a disapproving look. I still wasn’t sure if he was here as an exploitable target, or if it was an accident, and as much as I loved that he was in good spirits, I didn’t want to lose touch with how desperate this could become if it was a setup.
Still, good humor was better than nerves, and if he hadn’t thought this could be a trap, then I wasn’t about to let him know. It was risky, but there wasn’t enough time for him to process the information, and it could lead to him panicking and running in the moment—something we couldn’t afford.
There was a chime, and the door slid open, revealing an inky black portal.
Dylan immediately moved through the doorway, seemingly oblivious to the oppressive darkness on the floor. I gave myself a second and then walked in after her, using the extendable strap on my hand-light to wrap it around my head, positioning it just over my ear and clicking the light on. I adjusted it until the glare on my right side lessened, and pointed it out and ahead of me by five feet, then down.
The scent of salt and water immediately hit my nose, flooding my nostrils and lungs with the lingering smell that always filled the Terraces. It was an unfortunate byproduct of this farming floor’s production of seaweed.
Dylan had come to a stop a few feet inside the door, where a railing separated her from a thirty-foot drop into the dark, swollen waters of the tank below. Blue emergency lighting burned from the ceilings and sides of the walls, and though it did little to illuminate the greenery, I could make out the dark green and brown shape of the terraces—the agricultural technique used for growing rice that involved stacking sections of earth like steps. Each “step” was about six feet in both width and height, with several long, wide pools of water carved into it, leaving only a foot-long walkway around the sides. Water from an artificial waterfall was released into the top pools, which were then purposefully flooded so that the water trickled from the highest terrace to the lowest, dragging with it fertilizer, soil, detritus, and minerals from the levels above to those below, where fish being bred in the giant central tank could consume it and clean the water naturally, while producing excrement that would be collected and used to fertilize the rice crops.
The tank that took up the center of the room was what made the Terraces the largest greenery in the Tower. Unlike Greenery 1, which had fifty feet of space between it and the sandy desert underneath it, Greenery 2 was built directly in the bedrock of the earth below, which helped to handle the massive weight of the water in the tank. The water, collected from the river that flowed under Greenery 1 and cleansed of radiation, also supported floating islands, which had been constructed in the center of the tank for growing soybeans. Fish habitats had been set up in the water as well, using nets with buoys that bisected the tank like curtains, creating cordoned-off areas. Inside the nets, the water frothed and surged with the heavy weight of the fish—pike, char, salmon, carp, catfish, trout. Outside of those areas, the water was calm and dark.
The emergency lighting was present on the islands, as well as along the bridges leading to them, and from the heightened position of the doorway, I could see dark shapes moving across several of them. I knew they were actors, but I needed to approach this challenge with what I knew about Requiem Day, and react accordingly. The first step was trying to avoid as many of the other citizens as possible. It seemed odd, but history reflected that many Knights had been kept from making critical repairs because they were held up by other problems with citizens. If a Knight refused to help, citing another responsibility, the citizens often wound up turning on them, and occasionally executing them through mob violence.
“We need to avoid as many people as we can,” I announced softly, checking my watch. My eyes widened when I saw that a full minute had already gone by. “Eric, d
o you at least know where we’re going?”
“Right,” he said, coming through the door to look out over the water. “In one of the floating islands, there is a damaged power relay.” He pulled a pad out of his pocket and switched it on, flipping through what looked like electrical blueprints of the islands. He compared them to the islands, then put the pad away and pointed to the third island in the artificial chain. “It’s that one.”
“Are you sure?” Dylan asked sharply, and Eric gave her a sour look.
“Yes, I am sure that I am good at my job,” he replied, forcibly zipping up the pocket containing his pad.
“Yes, but how do we know that?” she shot back, not even batting an eye at her own rudeness.
“The test officials wouldn’t give us a Cog who didn’t know their stuff,” I said, giving Dylan a hard look that reminded her that I was in charge this time. I took a quick survey of the surrounding area, and spotted a ramp leading down to the terraces. “Let’s go. Eric, stay in the middle.”
The ramp ran down at an angle against the wall connecting the greenery to the Tower, and ended abruptly at the uppermost level of the rice terrace, transitioning into a carpet of springing grass. The waterfalls had been shut off, which I knew wouldn’t hurt any of the produce on this floor, but I could still hear the trickle of water as it drained from pool to pool. I picked the walkway to my right, reasoning that it would give us more ways out if we got intercepted by some of the actors. If we jumped left from it, we’d just land in a pool of slimy water that was currently filled with rice plants. If we jumped right… same result, only with a six-foot drop to serve as a delay.
I took a minute to scan the terrace, following the soft lights that illuminated the path around the ponds and through the field, and saw that we needed to make our way across a hundred feet of rice paddies, and down a sixty-foot staircase to a bridge that connected to Eric’s island. The staircase was carved in a straight line through the rice paddies, cutting a deep, narrow trench that could easily be stepped over. They were positioned fifty feet apart, so in theory, we could go straight along the uppermost terrace for the full distance, and then cut down the stairs through to the bridge leading to the island. We could also stagger our approaching, cutting down the closer staircase to then run along the next terrace, and then down again to repeat the procedure, on and on until we reached the bottom, but I didn’t like that approach as much. Once we left the upper terrace, we’d be blind on the side with the elevated position, which would make us vulnerable to attack on multiple sides and from elevated positions.
Taking us straight across the uppermost terrace also held a lot of risk; most significantly, it would mean that we could be easily spotted. However, I felt confident that the risk of being seen was much less dangerous than the risk of being ambushed, and decided to lead us straight across the top, and then make a mad dash down the stairs and onto the bridge.
“Follow me,” I told everyone, and then began walking.
I heard Dylan make a small protesting sound, but I ignored it, and she chose not to pursue it. I knew she was already keyed in to the same concerns I had about moving across the top level of the terraces, and if she had said anything, I would’ve gladly told her I had considered it. But when she didn’t, I assumed that it was because she realized that I was right, and that she meant to follow up on her whole “being a good team player” promise.
Or at least, I hoped it did. Because otherwise, she was going to use any mistake to try to assert control, and if the Knights watching us through the drones agreed with her decision to do so, then it wouldn’t matter that it was my challenge in which to lead—she’d get all the glory. I had to be careful.
The pools of water for the rice were four feet wide and ten feet long, all of the plants in various stages of growth. The ponds closest to the front seemed devoid of life, save for the dark water filling them, but as we hopped over the first set of stairs cutting down to the water, I saw that the next ponds had tufts of green shooting up, some of them mere sprigs separated by inches of space, others crowded enough to be thick vegetation.
The thick vegetation gave me pause, because someone could be hiding within it, waiting for us to pass. I motioned for everyone to hurry up, while keeping a firm grip on my baton’s handle, just in case.
We were halfway past the second pond when I heard the sloshing of water, followed by a shuddering gasp.
I immediately tensed and began scanning the area, looking for any sign of movement. For several moments, nothing happened—to the point where I began to convince myself that I had imagined it. Then the sound came again, this time a distinctly wet suctioning noise of water being displaced quickly.
The noise was coming from farther down in the rice paddy pond, and now I could see small ripples of water forcing the thick vegetation to dip and ripple. Whatever it was, however, was still hidden from my light.
I pulled out my baton, wary of an attack, and crept forward at a slow place. The thrashing came again, followed by a soft grunt. Then a sniff—one that sounded wet from tears, and high-pitched with youth.
I tracked the sound to a thatch of thick green shoots coming out of the water, and reached out with my baton to push a dense curtain of vegetation to one side, my body tensed. Something moved, water splashing up, and I was quickly yanking back my baton, preparing to strike, when a tiny arm shot out through the vegetation. Moments later, a small boy was trying to crawl his way through.
His lower half was caked with mud, as were his arms, up to his biceps. Mud was also smeared on his cheeks, and his eyes were red and raw, like he’d been crying for a while. I made an educated guess, and decided that he’d probably tried to dig himself out, and then given up and started to cry. Which told me that he’d been made to look like he’d been there for a while.
“Help me!” he said, his eyes wide and his arms outstretched. “Please!”
I hesitated, realizing that this was one of the tests set up by the test officials, and took a moment to consider whether it was a trap. On the one hand, children in distress had often been a way that a citizen lured Knights away from their partners or units during Requiem Day. The ploy hadn’t normally ended with death, but sometimes it had.
On the other hand, children had also made up twenty percent of the deaths associated with Requiem Day, often in situations just like this one, where a child was in a dangerous situation but was overlooked, unnoticed, or ignored (for fear of it being a ploy).
Then the mud and water made another sucking sound, and he sank a few more inches with a panicked yelp. That sealed my decision. Trap or not, there was a child in danger, and I didn’t have the heart—even if it was only pretend—to leave him there like that.
I put away the baton and reached out, positioning myself very carefully on the edge as I leaned over the water, needing good balance for this.
“What are you doing?” Dylan asked as I reached for the boy, my arm straining. “Wait! This could be a trap!”
“I know,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I can’t—”
“HEY!” a masculine voice shouted to my left, and I swiveled around to see four burly men wielding farming tools walking toward us—with the promise of violence in their eyes.
24
I snapped to my feet, snatching the baton out of my belt and giving it a casual whirl before pointing it at the oncoming men. “We don’t want any trouble,” I said, giving them warning.
I wanted to avoid a fight at all costs—not only because it would eat up time, but also because if this was a replication of Requiem Day, then Knights were watching to see if I would try to preserve peace, or resort to violence. And I knew myself well enough to know that I would always choose the former. Now, whether or not it would earn me support from my fellow Knights—I would have to wait and see. But even if it didn’t, I’d like to think that at the very least, I could live with myself.
Even if this was only a game.
The man in front pulled up short, brandishing
a length of pipe as long as his forearm. He eyed me warily, but didn’t back down. “This is our food,” he said gruffly. “You’ll not be stealing it.”
“We don’t want your food,” Maddox said from behind me. “We just need to get past here to make repairs.”
I winced. Cali had no doubt given Maddox a good education in history, but she’d also skipped some of the nuances, and this was evidently one of them. One of the more common causes of murder during Requiem Day had been people trying to steal the supplies others were carrying for Tower repairs. Paranoia had run deep on the days that followed Scipio’s unexpected shutdown, and there was always a concern that either the parts were being stolen by other departments, to try to eke out their own survival, or that they were secretly pilfering food necessary for their own department. Food and water were viciously fought over, even more so than parts in some places. Especially on the farming floors.
Either way, the Knights learned a brutal lesson early on about escorting workers who were frantically trying to repair the Tower: Never tell anyone your business unless you absolutely had to. It didn’t matter if you were honest or lied; chances were that if someone thought you had something they wanted, they would attack. So it was better to say nothing, and get out of the situation as fast as possible. Engagement often drew reinforcements to the citizens rather than the Knights—especially this deep into a department’s territory.
Sure enough, the man’s eyes flared with interest at Maddox’s words, and he flashed a wide, toothy smile. “That’ll be ours, then,” he said, nodding. “Hand over the bag and we’ll let you pass.”
“No chance,” I said, clicking the button on my baton and letting the tip accumulate sharp blue electric light, which glowed like a halo. “Walk away, and no one has to get hurt.”
“Listen, you don’t get to come here and tell us what to do!” the man said belligerently. “We know your kind. You think you’re so—”