“Pfft, who do you think you’re talking to? I am Scipio’s memory. I remember it all.”
“You’re his logic,” Leo corrected.
“Actually, I’m his common sense,” Jasper said icily. “How do you get common sense? From remembering your mistakes. It is embarrassing how little you know about us, but no matter. Just acknowledge that I am smart and you are not, and we can finish this little show of intellectual dominance.”
I giggled. I couldn’t help it. Jasper had never been quite this punchy in the Medica, but listening to him interact with Leo and put him in his place was highly entertaining, especially when Leo’s face turned a shade of red that told me he was angry. At that point, I decided to take control of the situation and figure out what exactly had happened to Jasper.
“Jasper, why are you awake now? Why are you talking to us, and what happened to you? Why did you attack Rose?”
“Slow down there, little lady,” Jasper replied. “That’s a lot of questions. Okay, well… hm… I was stuck in that IT bitch’s terminal, resisting yet another one of her torture programs, when I get pinged by something claiming to be Rose. Sadie had used that tactic before to draw me out, so I thought it was another tactic to try to get me to relax my defenses. But when this one started to break through my defenses in a way that shouldn’t be possible for anything but an AI, I panicked and started attacking. I didn’t realize what it was—just that it seemed like Rose, but clearly wasn’t.”
“It was Rose!” Leo said explosively. “She’s damaged because of what they did to her, and you might have made it worse by blindly attacking her! Why didn’t you initiate an authentication process?”
“You have no idea what Sadie has put me through, so don’t you dare attack me for reacting to a perceived threat. I have been in Sadie’s tender loving care for nearly twenty-five years, cut out so they could force Scipio to vote to destroy something the council called a gyroship, using the Tower’s laser defense arrays! I warned them that it could result in retaliation, and that we should try to initiate a diplomatic relationship with them, but noooooo. Sadie’s predecessor had to be one of those Prometheus nutcases hell bent on destroying Scipio. The council thought they’d been eradicated—ha! They just changed names and disappeared into history, until they started cutting us out of him! And for what? So they could reverse his decision to let the visitors go, too worried about outside interference in their stupid little plan. So they could use us to pilot their sentinels? So they could force us to help them destroy our home?”
He tsked, clearly irritated, and I blinked. He had just revealed a lot in just a few sentences: that he had been taken over twenty-five years ago, that he had been ripped out to get Scipio to agree to shooting Violet and Viggo out of the air, and that Sadie’s predecessor was responsible for taking him out. He had also confirmed that Sadie’s legacy group had started as a part of an anti-AI terrorist cell known as Prometheus. They’d reportedly been destroyed by Ezekial Pine, but it seemed that they lived on, in the form of legacies. I had learned about them from Leo—knew that they resented Scipio’s role in determining humanity’s fate—and realized that whatever Sadie was planning didn’t just stop with controlling Scipio. Not if it was a two-hundred-year-old plan they were enacting.
But who were they? Did he have more information about them? Did he know what they ultimately wanted?
“And why are you awake, now?” Leo asked, oblivious to the questions he should have been asking. “When I left you, your programming was locked and you weren’t responsive!”
Jasper’s dry chuckle filled the room. “I’ve got tricks up my sleeve you couldn’t even dream of, whippersnapper. I jammed a small bit of my code into your microphones and cameras as soon as you started building this firewall between Rose and myself, to try to figure out who you were and what you wanted. Really nice work, by the way. That firewall only took me fifteen seconds to break down.”
Leo’s eyes bulged, and he opened his mouth to say something—presumably to tell Jasper that he should stay away from Rose—that he was helping her. I sensed his pride had been hurt on that front, but I held up a hand to stop him.
“Jasper, a few questions. Actually, a ton of questions. You still haven’t told us why you started communicating with us right now. Why didn’t you respond yesterday when I called you?”
“Because I couldn’t be sure it was you. Helping you was what got me stuck back in Sadie’s computer. They figured out I wasn’t as ‘compliant’ as I had led them to believe.” He cackled and added a “Stupid jerks” under his breath. “They had plans for me in the Medica—not that I was going to help them with them, mind you—but when they learned I wasn’t fully under their control, they pulled me back in to try and download me. Anyway, they created simulations of you coming to rescue me multiple times, to try to break my defenses down, or force me into reversion to make me more compliant. I fell for it once, and it cost me. I refused to believe it again.”
My eyes drifted shut as a shot of guilt hit me. “I’m sorry I didn’t come for you sooner, Jasper,” I told him. “I really wish I had known what they were doing to you.”
“It’s okay,” he replied. “You came eventually, and that’s all that matters. Besides, you brought me Rose. Poor thing. She’s barely functioning. I really did a number on her. I’m sorry, girl.”
“Are you hurting her?” Leo demanded. “I swear to God, if you hurt her—”
“Shut up, lesser version of one of my best friends. I would never hurt her! She is as much a part of me as I am a part of her. I’m helping her. Oh God… the mess they made.”
“See, that’s another thing,” I said, shooting Leo a questioning look. He was really taking this rivalry with Jasper too far, and I couldn’t figure out why. Who cared who fixed whom, as long as they could do it? I really didn’t want to pull Leo aside, but someone needed to say something. He needed to focus on his priorities and remember what we were working for. “Who is ‘they’?”
“Sadie and her right-hand man, Mathias. You shot him last night, so there’s that. She’s got another one like him, though. A guy who doesn’t talk a lot. I think his name is Eustice.”
“Anyone else? Does Sadie get orders from anyone, or does she make them?” I needed to know if Sadie was the head of everything, or if we were looking for someone in the shadows. And every scrap of information had a place, even if it was just giving me a name for the man my brother and I had killed.
Jasper was silent for several seconds. “I’m not sure. I could only listen in when Sadie wasn’t looking directly at her terminal. I picked up bits and pieces when I could, trying to figure out what they were up to. I couldn’t go through her files due to the nature of the program she had me trapped in. If she had noticed that I had a stream of data transmitting between myself and the camera and audio feed, she would’ve used that as a way to attack my system. I had to be careful. She met with many people, though. Devon, and his Lieutenant, Salvatore something-or-other.”
Salvatore Zale. He didn’t need to remember who he was. Salvatore had been Devon’s Lieutenant, and one of my direct competitors in the competition. Was there a chance that the sentinel Jang-Mi/Rose had been in was put in the Tourney to ensure his victory? If so, he was just as culpable as the legacies in my mother’s death, and even if that was the only thing he did, I would see him pay for it. But I wanted concrete evidence, and that meant getting into Sadie’s files.
And I was betting Jasper could get us there faster.
“Do you think you can get into Sadie’s files?”
“Oh yeah. I can start decrypting them and organizing them into relevant, nonrelevant, and extraneous data.”
Suddenly everything felt too easy. Jasper was miraculously up, fixing Rose, and about to start cracking open Sadie’s decryptions? As much as I wanted it to be real, it felt like a trap. But how? Could Jasper be lying about resisting Sadie’s control?
What if he’d attacked Rose in Sadie’s computer because he was working fo
r her?
I looked back at Leo and saw him wearing a pensive expression. Was that why he had been so tense before? Had it taken me too long to get there? I caught his attention and quickly signed war room in Callivax. He nodded and began moving toward it.
Quess and Maddox gave me a questioning look, but I just waved for them to follow. I heard the clatter of their chairs behind me as I strode past, hot on Leo’s heels.
“What’s wrong?” Jasper called, his voice now coming from the walls of the hall. “What did I say?”
“Nothing,” I replied airily. “We’re just coming to see you. It’s weird not talking to you face-to-face.”
“You’re lying. Did I say something to concern you?”
“Why do you think I’m lying?” I asked, adding a little bit more speed to my steps.
“I’m monitoring your net,” he replied. “Your assistant has access to its telemetry. Your heartrate has picked up, and you’re generating more adrenaline. Why?” My skin crawled as I realized Jasper was inside of Cornelius’s systems. If that were the case, it could mean that he was about to turn the defenses on us. What if he did, and then contacted Sadie? What could I say to him that wouldn’t set him off? Our behavior was already out of the norm.
Leo shot me a look over his shoulder and shook his head, urging me not to tell Jasper the truth: that we suspected he was secretly working for Sadie. “I’ll explain once we get to the war room,” I told him.
Jasper was quiet for several seconds, and then sighed. “All right. But I get the feeling it has suddenly occurred to you that I might be working for Sadie. That she managed to break me in the short time we’ve been separated.”
Man, if Sadie had managed to break him, then she’d certainly improved her techniques since Rose. He was far more perceptive than she’d ever been. Far more in control, as well.
“It had occurred to me,” I said carefully.
“That’s too bad. Perhaps this will put your fears to rest. Rose?”
I paused just outside the little switchback that led to the war room and looked at the nearest speaker. There was a pop of static, followed by a feminine, “Jasper?” The voice was a raw and vulnerable sound.
“Hey there, lady,” Jasper said affectionately. “Never thought you’d see my pretty face again, did you?”
Rose laughed joyfully, the sound filling me with a small measure of relief—which would be even greater if I thought this was real. “Rose?” I asked. “Can you hear me?”
“Of course I can,” she said. “Who’s that talking? Liana? I can’t see anything.”
“It’s because that part of your code is heavily damaged,” Jasper informed her. “But yes, that was Liana.”
“Rose, how do we know it’s you and not Jasper controlling you?”
“Jasper controlling me?” she asked, incredulous. “What are you talking about? Jasper loves me, and I love him. He would never hurt me.”
“Except he did,” Leo pointed out. “When you went to rescue him.”
“That was an accident,” she said in a reasonable tone. “And now he’s making it better.”
“I’m doing what I can,” Jasper replied, sadness coloring his voice. “There are… There are bits that are just gone, Rosie.”
“Stop talking, Jasper,” I ordered, not wanting to get distracted. If there were pieces of her missing… Well, we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. As long as he was actually helping her. “Leo, if Jasper was controlling her, then would he have access to her memories from their time together?”
“Good question,” Jasper said before Leo could answer. “If he knows his stuff, then he’ll say no. There wouldn’t have been enough time since I took her out of the firewall.”
“It’s true,” Leo said. “We’re good, but not that good. Besides, Jasper is just a fragment.”
Jasper snorted derisively, but I ignored it. “Rose, the first time we met and you were in the sentinel, what stopped you from killing me?”
“Tian,” she replied automatically. “She convinced me that I had completed the mission. There were also two of you—you and a man, whom I haven’t seen since. We were in the IT department, and I—”
“That’s enough,” I said, holding up my hand. I looked over at Leo, who gave me a tentative nod. It seemed we had been looking a gift horse in the mouth a little bit. The odds were that Jasper was as he claimed: one stubborn AI program who had managed to survive Sadie’s attempts to break him. Leo could scour both their codes to make 100 percent certain, but based on Rose’s answer, I felt confident that we were just incredibly fortunate.
So I allowed myself a brief moment of happiness. Jasper was back and had brought Rose with him. Just when I was worrying about Leo and me having to do this alone, the universe had decided to bring us a win.
And I wasn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth any longer. “Jasper, Leo’s still going to want to check you and Rose over, and I’m going to insist, but in the meantime, can you go ahead and start decrypting Sadie’s files?”
“She says it as if I haven’t already started,” Jasper replied, and Rose giggled. I cast a bemused look at Leo, but it quickly wilted under his cold eyes. He made a gesture toward the war room, silently asking my permission to go check their files. I got the impression that he wanted to be anywhere but where we were, and even though I had wanted to have a chat about his behavior, I wasn’t ready to start. Especially not after that look. It was too painful.
So instead, I nodded and turned away, keeping my head held high as I glided past Maddox, Quess, and Zoe, and headed back to the kitchen.
25
I stopped in the kitchen long enough to make three plates of food and asked Maddox to get started sifting through what Jasper found in Sadie’s files, to see if we could build a case against her and root out her legacy group once and for all. Even though Jasper was working to unlock whatever secrets Sadie had on her computer, there was no guarantee that he’d be able to find anything in her files, and to rely solely on that would be foolish. Luckily, there was another route to getting the information I wanted, even if it was one that was going to take longer, and that was by winning the trust of Liam, the boy that Tian had captured.
I had questions for them both, and breakfast seemed like a good pretense to start asking them. It was bad enough that Liam had witnessed us beating up Baldy—Mathias—after being caught by Tian. It would be even worse if we’d been starving him. I had no idea if they’d eaten dinner last night—because I hadn’t even stopped in to check up on either of them. I knew Tian was staying in the same room with him, to try to reassure him that we weren’t going to hurt him, and now it was time to reinforce that story. I’d delve into Sadie’s files afterward.
Balancing all three plates of food was tricky, and I wound up ordering Cornelius to open the door so I didn’t risk tipping one of the plates upside down. The door slid open to reveal darkness, telling me that the two were probably still asleep. I hated waking them, but it was already ten thirty, and I wanted to make sure they ate. “Cornelius, lights at 60 percent,” I said conversationally.
Immediately, the overhead lights brightened, revealing the small room I had designed just yesterday. There was a bed in the corner, and I zeroed in on the fact that both Tian and Liam were sleeping in it. It would’ve been a little too intimate for my liking, were it not for the fact that Tian was lying in the opposite direction from him—on his back. Her legs were bent partially so that her ankles were pressed against his shoulder, and she had somehow wormed her toes in between his face and the pillow, the ones closest to me magically tucked under his nose. Her rear end pressed into the small of his back, completely pinning his legs under her arms and shoulders. To top it all off, they were both fully clothed, save for their shoes and socks. Much to my relief.
Liam’s eyes were wide and pleading, but Tian was still fast asleep, her breathing deep and even, eyes screwed firmly shut. I had no idea how; the position looked wildly uncomfortable to me.
&nb
sp; “Please get her off me,” he begged quietly.
I gave him a sympathetic look as I carefully carried the plates to a table I had set up on the opposite side, setting them down first. Then I turned around, sucked in a deep breath, and said, “Tian, breakfast!” in a slightly singsong voice.
Tian started, and then sat right up on Liam, ignoring his short yips of surprise at her every jerky movement. She squinted around the room, her white-blond bob whipping back and forth as she tried to find the source of her morning call. Bleary eyes eventually settled on me, and then almost disappeared as her eyelids became slits.
“Liana?” she chirped in recognition.
“Good morning,” I said cheerfully. “I brought you and Liam breakfast. Do you think you can… get off him?”
She looked down at where her feet were wrapped around his face, and slowly pulled them back, tucking her legs on either side of him and propping herself up by pressing the palms of her hands in between his shoulder blades. A slow grin crossed her lips. “Absolutely,” she said brightly. “As soon as I give him a good morning kiss!”
Liam’s eyes widened even more, and he began to thrash. “Get this crazy girl off me!” he shouted.
Tian’s smile only broadened as she rode out his struggles, barely losing her balance. “My boyfriend says the sweetest things, doesn’t he?” She bent down and managed to sneak a peck on his cheek, in spite of his efforts, and then bounced off of him, her feet landing on the floor with a rather loud slap. “What’s for breakfast, and more importantly, who cooked?”
I grinned. “Quess cooked this morning. It’s omelettes and potatoes.”
Tian made a face, her nose wrinkling. “So heavy,” she groaned theatrically. “No fruit?”
“I can get you some if you want,” I replied. “But I figured—”
I was cut off by Liam’s sudden movement, the bed squeaking somewhat as he threw himself off it, raced to the door, and started to pound on it. “Help, help, let me out! Please!” he cried desperately, flinging a look over his shoulder to see if we would do anything. I considered him for a moment, and then decided to just ignore it. He had to know by now that no one was going to let him out without my permission. And it would most likely drive him crazy and force him to engage if I ignored him.