“Shortly after his friends left, we were chatting in the living room, when I swore I heard the sound of the door opening. I stood up to check it out, and then suddenly six or seven people…” She shuddered, exhaling slowly. “I’m honestly not sure how many. I just know that three of them were on me before I could…” She trailed off with a choked cry, and Zoe scooted closer to her, rubbing her arm soothingly. I doubted Maddox noticed. She was practically shaking, tears running down her cheeks. “They grabbed me and dragged me into the kitchen. One sucker-punched me in the stomach, and I went down. They started kicking me. They started kicking both of us. I heard Ambrose… He tried to fight back, but there were so many, and then there was this crunching sound, and Ambrose… He just stopped making any noise. I was certain I was next… I thought I was going to die.”
Her voice grew high, her breathing panicked as she tried to recount everything from start to finish. I knew she was leaving the details out, but I could understand; she didn’t need to tell Astrid what it felt like to feel her ribs breaking while she was helpless on the floor, listening to Ambrose’s cries of pain, the sound of his death.
Zoe was constantly there, trying to soothe her. A moment later, she gave Astrid a questioning look. “Do you need any more, or can I take her back to bed? She needs her rest.”
Astrid tapped her pad and then rotated it to face Maddox, answering Zoe’s question indirectly. “Do you recognize any of these people from the attack?” She held the pad out at an angle, and I could see rows and rows of image grabs from net IDs, but paused when I noted the background color. Background colors were how we could tell the work status of a citizen, with the color of their department to show that they were working, a flat gray to show that they weren’t, yellow if they were injured. The backdrop for all of the photos was purple, indicating that they were all contestants from the Tourney.
Maddox stared at the pictures, her eyes searching, and then reached out and tapped on two to drag the images up and scroll through them. She picked two more, and then shook her head. “Those are the only ones I remember,” she said tiredly. “They were contestants?”
Astrid took the pad back, her face an unreadable mask. “I’m going to tell you something, but only because it will be made public in a few hours, on my insistence. The Tourney and the Citadel have had a massive security breach. These ten people—” She tapped something on the pad and turned it around to me, revealing two rows of five pictures. “—seem to have used false nets to gain access to the Citadel and the Tourney.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “How?”
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “We’re not entirely sure yet, but it seems that they exposed a weakness in how we handle our citizen/net scans. We assumed that the scanners in the Citadel were foolproof, but apparently they managed to get around the system by uploading a virus into the scanner’s buffer and forcing the computer to accept the false IDs as the real thing—and that included giving them permission to enter Ambrose’s apartment through the door override privileges they got as a result of their falsified ranking.”
I was stunned. The level of preparation that had gone into this was staggering. They’d had to falsify nets, which meant getting blank ones, which I knew from personal experience wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Then they had created a virus in order to bypass the security in the Citadel. It wasn’t something anyone could have done on a whim. It took time. It took planning.
“Have you captured any of them?” I asked, hoping that she would say yes. I wasn’t sure how I could pull it off yet, but if she had one of them, then I had some questions for them. I wanted to know who they worked for, and whether they had gone after Tian to draw us away from Ambrose. I knew it had to be the same people, and I was going to make them tell me where Tian was. Also… I wanted to look into the faces of Ambrose’s killers—and I was betting Lacey would want to as well.
Astrid’s frown twisted even tighter. “No,” she grated out. “As soon as the techs discovered the credentials of the last person to enter the room before you and Grey did, we moved to detain him and his entire team—but they were gone. That made us figure out something else was wrong, and I ordered them to dig a little deeper. It seems my gut was right, because the techs uncovered the virus. We ran a trace on it through the remaining candidates, and these six stood out. Unfortunately, they were already gone as well. What’s more, we ran facial recognition on their image grabs, but there isn’t a single match to be found in the Tower. Whoever these people are, they are very good at covering their tracks.”
I gave her a hard look. “Are we safe?”
She returned my gaze, and answered honestly. “I don’t know. Which was why I didn’t make a big deal about all of you being up here. There’s a conspiracy at work here, I’m sure of it. I just can’t seem to figure out what it is.”
She tucked her pad away and leaned back in her chair for a moment, stroking her cheek. “All right, kids, who’s got questions for me? Bearing in mind, I’ve said all I’m going to say about the investigation at this point.”
It was a fair statement. No doubt she’d already revealed more than she should’ve, but knowing her, she had made sure to include the slip in her notes. She had too much integrity not to. Still, I was disappointed. I wanted to know more about the ten individuals who had infiltrated the Tourney, and why facial recognition couldn’t find them. I supposed that they could have assumed disguises, like Quess did, but… would they be wearing the makeup the rest of their lives? How could they disappear inside the Tower?
I knew how we did it: we had paint designed by Quess that blocked our net transmissions, making it impossible for Scipio to see us. But this wasn’t the same. Our faces would still be recognized by the sensors around the Tower, which was why we’d had to disguise ourselves. These ten people had made a massive sacrifice in murdering Ambrose; they were now enemies of the Tower, and their faces would be searched for constantly, until the day they were found. Wherever they were hiding would likely be their home for the rest of their lives, for they would be unable to step outside again without risking exposure—which seemed like a miserable life.
“I hope this doesn’t sound awful, but… what will happen to the Tourney now?” Leo asked.
Astrid sniffed. “You’ll receive notification in a few hours that, if you wish to drop out, you’ll have to do it by tomorrow evening. Teams that were found to have infiltrators in them will be broken up and randomly reassigned or formed into new teams. If your team chooses to continue, you’ll have to select a new leader, and your open slot will be filled randomly—although you can reject the first candidate, if you’d like to. That’s if you choose to proceed, of course. No one would blame you for backing out. Still, Ambrose was the driving force behind your team, as I understood it.” She smiled at me. “How do you feel about it, kid? You’re the most popular candidate on your team.”
I hesitated. I hadn’t even thought about what would happen with the Tourney, nor whether or not we were proceeding. In truth, once I had seen Ambrose’s still form, I had figured that we were done with it. That we’d have to escape the Citadel… or die trying. But Lacey hadn’t followed through on her threat to turn us in, and Tian was still missing, so I felt… stuck. And uncertain of what to do.
Astrid took my hesitance as a negative response, and looked disappointed. “That’s too bad,” she murmured softly, slowly pushing up from her chair. “But I think your mother will be relieved. She netted me last night, asking about you. Are you and she not on speaking terms?”
I shifted awkwardly. My relationship with my parents was the very definition of strained, but the last few interactions with my mother had left me feeling confused about her. Like she was actually starting to care about me—the real me, rather than the girl she had always wanted me to be. She seemed concerned about me, and not just in a selfish way, for once.
I wanted to explore it, but at the same time, I was afraid. I had been willing to cut both of my parents out
of my life when I had left, but my mother was making it difficult to do so, which was… strange.
“She stopped by eight times, yesterday,” Zoe added. “It was all I could do to keep her out and let you get your rest.”
Eight times? That was a bit much, especially for my mom. Was she… Was she worried? Was this what worried looked like on her?
“I’ll make sure to net her,” I said with a nod.
Astrid’s eyebrow twitched—a sign of disapproval—but she nodded. “Good. All of you, thank you for your time. I hope to find whoever killed your friend soon, and bring them to justice.”
“Thank you,” I murmured. I stood up and followed her over to the door. “Let me know if there’s anything more we can do.”
Astrid smiled at me. “Of course. Net me if you think of anything else.”
She exited, and the two Knights waiting for her fell into line. Lewis turned long enough to wave, and then they were gone, heading back down the hallway. I watched them go for a minute, feeling surprisingly optimistic that something would actually get done with Astrid on the investigation. Maybe if we were lucky, she’d figure out who was conspiring with those ten individuals, and possibly give us a clue as to who our enemies might be. We wouldn’t have to be alone anymore; we’d have experienced Knights who could help us…
I sighed and shut the door. It was wishful thinking. As much as I looked up to Astrid, and had enjoyed our family dinners with her, there was no way of knowing what her true motivations were. For all I knew, she’d been selected because she was the best person to execute a coverup. Her integrity was beyond reproach, earned from years of dogged investigations and a reputation for never backing down, no matter where her investigation took her. But how much of that was true? How could we trust that she was actually trying to catch Ambrose’s killers?
I wasn’t sure, but there was nothing we could do about it.
I turned around and headed back into the living room, freezing when I saw everyone looking at me expectantly.
“What happens now?” Zoe asked.
7
The question caused my stomach to twist in knots, a deep anxiety gripping my throat. They were all wondering what happened next, and they expected me to have an answer for all of our problems. I’d given each issue some thought here and there, but was paralyzed by a deep insecurity that I was about to make the wrong call. Like I had so many times before.
I didn’t even know which issue to address first, and the realization hit me like being splashed with a bucket of icy water. The entire room was expectant, watching me, but I was frozen, unable to even determine what we should do next. Find Tian? Plead with Lacey? Contact Mercury? Talk to Leo?
A sharp pressure started to weigh on my chest, and I realized that I needed to get out of there before I had another panic attack.
My mind fumbled for an excuse, and I was relieved to realize that Astrid had provided me with a simple one. “Before we do anything, I think I should probably go and see what my mom wants,” I said hurriedly. “If not, she’s liable to barge in here at any moment, and might hear something that we don’t need her to hear. I won’t be long. Maybe just half an hour.”
“I’ll go with you,” Leo said, pushing off from the wall and starting toward me.
“No!” I said emphatically, shaking my head for good measure. The last thing I wanted was for Leo to come with me. Things were still too weird after this morning, and I had no idea how to even bring up his behavior without causing deep embarrassment.
His eyes widened, and he looked away, one arm reaching up to grab his bicep in a self-conscious way. “You shouldn’t go alone,” he said after a moment, sighing.
“I’ll be fine,” I insisted, quickly spinning through a few ideas on how to reassure them that I was right. “My parents only live six floors up, and I can take the elevator at the end of the hall. Plus, the Citadel is on high alert right now. It’ll only take me a few minutes, half an hour at the most, and I’ll net if anything comes up.”
I was rambling, and slowly backing toward the door. Zoe stood up, her expression concerned, but I hit the button and slipped out, shutting the door with an “I’ll be okay.”
I quickly hurried down the hall, moving away from the apartment as if I had wings made of fire. I checked over my shoulder after a few seconds, and was relieved to see that no one had followed me. I was confident that Zoe had called them off, perhaps recognizing that I needed some time to get myself together—and I loved her for that, even if I was running away from her, too.
A deep gloom had settled into the Citadel. The hall felt quieter than usual, as if the entire structure was in a state of deep melancholy. Apprehension crept down my neck as I walked, and I couldn’t help looking around, paranoid that someone could sneak up on me at any moment.
This might not have been the best way to get alone time, Liana, a voice in my head chided me.
I ignored it and kept walking.
Oh, and by the way, you’re still in your undergarments and robe, the voice mockingly said in parting, and as I looked down, I realized it was right. But I wasn’t going back, so I drew the edges of the robe around myself, and kept walking. If anyone wanted to report me for being out of uniform, they could. I didn’t care.
The hall ended right at the elevator bay that ran through the center of the Citadel. I entered the reception area, considered the elevator for a second or two, and then moved around the twin circular tubes of the elevator shafts into the small, narrow space behind them.
In the Citadel, most Knights used their lashes to move up and down, exiting through the lashways that led outside. I knew for a fact that the lashways were sealed up—it was standard protocol when the Citadel was in lockdown mode—so everyone was probably using the elevators instead.
Which meant the stairs would be even more deserted than usual. Even with the lashways closed, Knights considered climbing steps to be mundane. And why wouldn’t they, with the lashes giving them wings? Here I would be guaranteed solitude, which would give me time to think.
I pressed on a panel on the wall, and gave the scanner my name and ID number. It ran for a long time, and I realized it was probably confirming my identity with Scipio before giving me access. I had just about given up hope that it would let me in when it suddenly beeped softly, and the door slid to one side with a pneumatic hiss.
The stairwell didn’t quite match up with the rest of the architecture of the Citadel. Instead of dark metal with beautiful whorls of lighter color through it, the entire thing reminded me of a grate or a cage, made of thin sheet metal with patterned holes. Lights ran along the walls, but on the outside of the stairwell, creating thousands of artificial sunbeams that poured in through the hundreds of densely packed holes.
I began to climb, shoving my hands into my pockets. I had to come back to my friends with answers and a plan or two for what to do, and that meant breaking each problem down and ranking the issues from most important to least.
I considered my problems, weighed them carefully, and then begrudgingly placed the nebulous situation with Lacey over finding Tian. I rationalized that everything that could be done there was already being done. I was certain that Quess, Mercury, and Alex—my twin—were all scouring the Tower, looking for her. I also convinced myself that if I didn’t try to get ahead of Lacey before she had a chance to move against us, none of us would even have a chance at finding Tian. Lacey would make sure of it.
I bit my lip, my heart aching for Lacey. I might not completely trust her, but I did like her, and I hated that she was suffering right now. I knew there was nothing I could do to make her pain go away, and that any attempt to apologize would be met with derision and possibly violence, so I decided to steer away from an emotional approach and focus, instead, on a logical one.
What could I offer Lacey that would keep her from turning her evidence over and having us arrested and expelled for committing a terrorist act against Scipio?
I considered it for a long time. My
first instinct was to offer to hunt down Ambrose’s killers and take them to Lacey. I was certain that the idea would appeal to her; after all, whoever had ordered Ambrose’s death was working against her, and I had to imagine the information his killers could offer would be of great use.
Not to mention, I worried about Astrid actually making any headway in finding Ambrose’s killers. If her intentions were honorable, then that meant she had no idea of the legacy war that was just getting started. If her intentions weren’t honorable… then that meant she was working with the legacies herself, and that Ambrose’s murderers would get away with it. That was something I wasn’t willing to stand for.
But justice for Ambrose wasn’t the only thing Lacey wanted. She had asked me to protect Ambrose during the Tourney so that she and her group could get him into the position of Champion, and have another vote in the council. They claimed they were on Scipio’s side, trying to save him from the other legacy groups who were attacking him, though I only had their word on that. Regardless, Ambrose’s death left their plans for gaining some modicum of control over the council in tatters. And a very real possibility existed that whoever won the Tourney would be working for their enemies.
They needed that seat. Desperately. Right now, they were just two out of six members of the council, unable to do much in the way of enacting policy changes. Whether that was a result of the other councilors blindly following Scipio’s recommendations, or was for more nefarious reasons, was moot; the fact remained that they didn’t have enough power or allies inside the council. But if they had an ally in the position of Champion, they’d be able to stop any new laws or protocols that were dangerous and damaging to the Tower. Possibly even overturn a few of the more insane ones.
If that was what Lacey ultimately wanted, then the practical solution was easy to reach: find Lacey another ally, and help that person win the Tourney. That… wasn’t so easy.