“No, listen to me,” she hissed, reaching out to grab my forearm in a vice-like grip. “I didn’t bring Tony with me. I brought a transceiver. We designed it so that when it was plugged in, it would trigger a wireless download. I planned to destroy it if anything went wrong, but then things went wrong in all the worst ways.”
My eyes widened at what she was saying, and then terror caught me hard and fast, reminding me of something that I had almost forgotten. My net. Sage could be watching it right now! He would know I was alive, see what we were talking about, and—
I shut off my thoughts mid-stream and focused instead on what I needed: the laser cutter. “Liana?” Dylan said weakly. “What’s—”
“Shut up,” I ground out. “Both of you. My net is still in, and Sage has a way of monitoring it.”
There was a pause, and then the two women fell silent while I dug the laser out of the first-aid kit. I quickly pushed my hair aside and pressed my fingers against the back of my neck, feeling for the incision point. It didn’t scar, not exactly, but there was a hard ridge under the skin that showed where to cut. I felt for it with my fingers, and then spread the area flat between them, trying to give myself guidelines that I could use to cut blindly. I made sure the laser was set at the lowest setting, and then prayed that I didn’t make too much of a mess when I made the incision.
I winced when I activated the laser, the back of my neck starting to sting, and carefully dragged it down, only shutting it off when I felt the tendrils of the net in my brain begin to retract. The sensation was disconcerting, but finished within seconds, and I quickly reached in with my fingertip to remove the hard chip that the net formed in its inactive state.
I released a breath I hadn’t known I had been holding as I held it up to look at it, my fingers and the chip red with blood, reminding me that I was still bleeding. I set the net down and quickly squeezed some bio-foam out onto my fingers, then pressed them against the wound and smeared the pink goop inside. The wound closed, and I quickly wiped off the net and tucked it into my pocket. Even though I knew Sage could sense my thoughts on it, I might need it at some point, and hopefully if I kept it out for long enough, he would think I was dead and stop monitoring it. I turned to Lacey.
“Okay, what are you talking about?”
Lacey rolled her eyes and reached forward to grab my lapels. “Tony is in Cogstown! We still have time to get him! If we can keep him out of Sage’s hands, we can—”
She started coughing suddenly, the coughs wet and hard, racking the poor woman’s form. I struggled to hold her still, worried she would rip open the bio-foam, and then pulled a small packet of water from the first-aid kit, ripping the corner open and trickling some in between her lips. She nodded when her mouth was full, and I pulled it away and quickly took a swig myself, my tongue still dry.
I offered the bag to Dylan and concentrated on what Lacey was telling me. If Sage needed Tony for whatever he was planning, then we needed to get him before Sage could use the transceiver. But that likely meant heading to Cogstown, which was down, not up. It meant heading away from the Citadel, and away from my friends, who were currently being hunted by Sage’s death squad. Power was off everywhere except for the Core, which meant the elevators weren’t working, and neither were the doors. If I went down to Cogstown, I could get trapped below the Grounds, unable to get back up.
But if I didn’t, I would be giving Sage everything he needed to achieve his plan.
“Liana,” Dylan said, snapping me out of my dismal thoughts.
I blinked and glanced at the woman, only to find her pointing at something just over my shoulder. Shifting my angle, I looked up, past the raging fire of the Council Room, and saw something that gleamed silver and crimson climbing up the wall like an insect, a figure in white clinging to its back. A little lower down was a second something—only the person riding this one’s back was dressed in a dark gray.
“Sadie and Sage,” I growled, rising to my feet. “They’re climbing…”
“They have to.” Lacey coughed. “Don’t you see? They have to get to the Core to plug the sentinels and Tony in. It will take them hours. Which means we have time to get Tony before they do.”
“But not a lot of it,” I murmured, recognizing the wisdom in what Lacey was saying, but also seeing the speed with which the sentinels could move. “Three or four hours at most.”
“Five,” Dylan said, and I looked at her for an explanation. She offered a half-shrug and a rueful smile. “Sorry, I thought we were taking bets, and I was shooting for optimism.”
I stared at her for a long second, wondering how she could be making jokes at a time like this, but then Lacey chuckled and said, “Well, then call me the pessimist in our little trio, ‘cause I’m giving us no more than two. Thank Scipio that Cogstown is just under here.” She patted the floor next to her and offered her own weak smile.
I very much wanted to join in, but my stomach was twisting with worry, and I looked up, my eyes heading for the familiar dark arches of the Citadel, lit now only by the blue glow of the Core, my heart heavy and torn. “The others have no idea what’s going on,” I murmured. “If I don’t get to them…”
“Get to who?” Dylan asked. “You are both speaking in riddles, and I have sat here quietly, trying to piece it together, but this isn’t helpful.”
“Sage released the legacies in the Citadel,” I said, turning back to her and kneeling down. I picked up the scanner again and resumed looking for the break, finding it moments later, halfway down her calf. Both bones were broken clean in half. “He ordered them after Grey and the others but told them to kill any Knights that got in their way.”
Dylan sucked in a deep breath as I retrieved a specialized cutter from the kit and began cutting her pants leg off. “But who is Tony?” she asked, wincing as I used the small laser to cut through the microfiber. I could tell she was nervous about me cutting her, but I kept the beam short, and worked quickly.
“An AI,” Lacey said. “Part of one. It’s complicated, but at one point, he and four others like him were put inside of Scipio to give him the best probability of survival. Sage—who is freaking Ezekial Pine, by the way—has been cutting them out one by one to try to kill Scipio.”
Dylan’s eyes widened, her jaw dropping practically to her chest. It was the one part of the story that I had kept from her, because I still hadn’t been fully certain I could trust her with that knowledge. I had already given her a peek into how corrupted the system had become by exposing her to the truth of the legacies, but this information would change everything she knew to be true about the Tower. It would destroy her belief that Scipio was infallible. Dylan was definitely unique as a Tower citizen, but that didn’t mean she could handle it.
And she had just seen how broken the system really was. Not only thanks to Lacey’s words, but because of what had transpired in the Council Room.
I pulled out a sheet of bone regeneration packs and wrapped the gelatinous material around Dylan’s leg, sealing the sheet under her and trying to decide what I should do, and knowing there was only one answer.
The effect of the pack was immediate. Dylan sucked in a deep breath, her head lolling back in relief as the pain was alleviated. The medicine in the gel was already working on setting her bone, and she’d be able to walk within a matter of minutes. The bone would still be broken and the area tender, but it would be fully healed in twenty-four hours.
I quickly repacked the bag, placed the strap over my shoulder, and stood up, looking down at both of them. “Lacey’s right. We need to go after Tony first,” I said, the words thick in my mouth. I wasn’t even sure when I had made the decision—sometime while Lacey was talking, I supposed—but I knew I had to do it. It might not stop Sage, but it would certainly slow him down.
Besides, my friends could take care of themselves.
At least, I hoped they could.
“Cool,” Dylan said, flashing me a thumbs-up. “Also, your purple-eyed sentinel is here.??
?
I turned to see a sentinel standing a few feet away, its hands awkwardly clasped together in front of it. Seeing her purple, glowing eyes was almost overwhelming, bringing memories of my mother’s death to my mind, but I pushed that down. Rose was better now, her code fixed by Leo and Jasper, so I doubted she would revert again to Jang-Mi—her human counterpart who had been obsessed with the loss of her daughter. My reaction was just a visceral response to seeing her in that form again. Not a rational one.
“Excellent,” I said. “You okay, Rose?”
“Perfectly fine,” she said with a nod. “And I have been listening for the past two minutes. I am glad that you decided to go after Tony. CEO Green, can I help you?”
Lacey stared at the sentinel for several seconds and then nodded slowly, fear making her dark eyes almost black. “Yeah. Sure.”
Rose looked at me, and I rolled my eyes. “Pick her up. Dylan, you good to walk?”
“All good,” she said, and I turned to see her giving another thumbs-up before slowly climbing to her feet. Rose moved around me to come to Lacey’s aid, and I held my breath, trying not to look nervous as the sentinel carefully scooped the woman up into her arms.
She handled her delicately, much to my relief, but it was still odd to see a creature built for death being so gentle.
“Right,” I said, once Rose was standing again. “Best way to get down, Lacey?”
“That way,” she said weakly, pointing to the southwest corner of the Tower. “Access shaft that leads to the shell, a few bulkheads away from a Cogstown entrance. This level should have some emergency power left, enough to open the shaft. After that, we’re on our own.”
I nodded and took the gun back from Dylan when she handed it to me. “Then let’s get going,” I replied.
6
We made our way as quickly as we could across the Grounds, but it was hard. With the lights off, navigation that would’ve once taken us minutes dragged out as we checked and re-checked our position, lest we get lost on one of the twisting paths through the forest. Then there were the noises. Once we were far enough from the roar of the fire, I started to hear shouts and cries of panic echoing through the darkness, periodically punctuated by shrill screams that made us jump or come to a sudden stop, searching the darkness. I knew that I was listening to the sounds of people dying—during the last Requiem Day, nearly 4 percent of the population had died by stumbling to their deaths in the darkness—and tried to block the thought from my mind to keep us moving.
It was a relief when we reached the access hatch, as I felt exposed and vulnerable on this level. I quickly followed Lacey’s rasping instructions to open the panel in the floor, and then slid into the hole first, ignoring Dylan’s harsh whisper asking me not to. I had a pretty bad track record when it came to going into rooms first, and it was now a rule among my friends that I wasn’t allowed to. But this time, I had to: Dylan’s leg was broken, which meant she was favoring that side while she moved, making it difficult for her to fight, and Rose was holding Lacey. I was the only one who was fully capable.
I swung onto the ladder and began heading down, stopping after several feet to pull a hand light from my pocket and turn it on. I hadn’t wanted to use it above, as I knew it would serve as a beacon to the sentinels climbing the walls of the Tower, and alert Sage that someone had survived. It was possible that Alice had been able to update Sage about us stopping her before Rose took out her sentinel, but if there was even a chance that he thought I was dead, I wanted him to keep thinking it.
I slid my arm through the rung of the ladder, hooking it in the crook of my elbow, and then quickly fixed the hand light to my temple, using the adjustable strap to tighten it. I clicked it on and checked down the shaft, revealing the exit hatch thirty feet below, then resumed my descent, moving quickly. There was a digital keypad still glowing at the bottom, likely drawing power from the Grounds above, and I quickly keyed in the code that Lacey recited to me.
The hatch slid open, and I froze as a piercing scream forced its way out, the sound feminine and filled with terror. I covered my light and held still for several seconds, trying to gauge how close it was when it suddenly cut off.
But it was far from quiet. Disembodied voices seemed to flood the tight space, taut and sharp with panic. They wafted up into the shaft, distant enough that I couldn’t make out the words. I took that as a sign that they were relatively far away and took a deep breath before lowering myself enough to peer into the hall, letting some of the light shine out through my fingers. Nothing moved, and I dropped down, landing heavily on my feet, and checked the rest of it, making sure it was empty.
“It’s clear,” I whispered, moving to one side to give Dylan some space to exit.
I was taking a few careful steps down the hall, heading for the T-intersection up ahead to check to see if it was clear, when another sharp scream sounded, shriller and higher. A child.
“What is going on?” Dylan asked, her voice tight with fear. “What is that? Is it a kid?”
“Shush,” I said, holding up a hand behind me and approaching the cross-section. We were in a section of the shell, just a few junctions away from a door that would lead us to Cogstown, but the people who had been trapped inside when the power went out were panicking as they discovered the power outage wasn’t just sectional. It was exactly what had happened on Requiem Day almost a hundred and fifty years ago, when Scipio had gone down for three days. Thousands of people had died during that time, and many of them had died because they were freaking out.
But something told me this was more than that. Ever since Requiem Day, departments had taken time to train people extensively for what to do in case it happened again. It was too early for this level of panic—or at least it should’ve been. They should’ve been reporting to whatever rendezvous spot their department had designated in case of an emergency, and then letting the highest-ranking member of their department figure out what to do next. Not panicking. A few more steps led me to the mouth of the hall. Dimming the light and turning it to the side so it wasn’t giving me away in the darkness, I took a quick glimpse around the wall, ducking back when a series of moving lights raced through an adjacent corridor, giving me glimpses of faces and uniforms as people streamed past.
“This way!” someone shouted, and the steps quickened, moving away.
I moved back toward the shaft, just as Rose slowly lowered her robotic body down one-handed, holding Lacey firmly against her chest with one arm. “Something’s going on,” I told her grimly. “People who were inside the shell when Sage cut the power are freaking out.”
“It’s Requiem Day,” Lacey muttered. “Of course they’re freaking out.”
“Not like this,” I said insistently. “All the departments do Requiem Day training and preparation, but people are panicking. It’s too soon for that, so until we know why they are, I think we should do everything we can to avoid them.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lacey groused. “Most of the people in the shell here will be Cogs. No worker in my department would turn against me.”
“Even if Sage ordered Scipio to send out a message blaming the two of us for this problem?” I shot back hotly. I didn’t mean to get angry. It was sometimes difficult to remember that few people had studied Requiem Day as much as I had. I knew from the records how awful humans could become when you threw them into darkness and uncertainty, and I knew how committed most of the people were to Scipio. Sage could use those things to turn every individual in the Tower against us, Lacey’s assertions be damned.
Lacey’s mouth tightened in a grimace, telling me that she had gotten my point, and she pointed a finger down the hall. “Straight and then left,” she whispered. “Take the third hall on the right and follow it all the way down. It’ll get us to one of the Cogstown doors.”
I nodded and began to move, keeping to one side of the corridor and dimming the light on my head. I checked to the right, where people had been racing by moments ago, only to fi
nd it empty, and quickly seized the opportunity to move to the left.
I walked quickly, trying not to tense at all the noises I heard—which I knew were being amplified by the halls themselves—but it was hard. In the dark, sounds have a way of making you believe that the person or thing making them is standing right behind you, mere inches away. I had no idea what would happen once we encountered people, but I knew from history that we could be attacked to have our possessions stolen. It had been a common occurrence during Requiem Day.
I slowed at the first hall, giving it a cursory glance to make sure there wasn’t anyone there, and then darted across it, waving for the others to follow before I headed toward the next shadowed opening.
I stopped a few feet away when I heard a voice coming from it, and then closed the distance to the edge and peered down it.
Several lights illuminated a group of men and one woman, all wearing blue uniforms. Divers from Water Treatment. One of them was kneeling on the ground, a wrench in his hand, while the others huddled around him.
“Anything?” the woman hissed, her arms wrapping tightly around her abdomen.
The man kneeling cocked his head and moved closer to the wall. I noticed a moment later that there was a gray pipe running along the halls here, and realized they were trying to communicate with members of their department. It was a Diver trick that my best friend Zoe had taught me about.
“Nothing,” he said after a moment, standing up. “Let’s try the south side. C’mon.”
He waved for his people to follow, and then began leading them down the hall—away from us, thankfully. I waited a few seconds until everyone had their backs to us, and then slipped by the entrance to the hall, moving away. I paused to make sure that Rose, Dylan, and Lacey were still behind me, and then moved up to the third hall and peeked around the edge.
Thankfully, it was clear for as far as my light could reach. However, according to Lacey’s instructions, we had to go all the way until it ended, and I was betting there were a lot of side halls that branched off from it.