But then again, I didn’t fear for his safety like I had feared for Jasper and Rose’s. Lacey was from another legacy family who had been working with the head of Water Treatment, Praetor Strum, to stop the legacies from hurting or controlling Scipio. I wasn’t sure how much they knew of the big picture, but her family had managed to keep Kurt from falling into the hands of their enemies, and I hoped that meant he was safe.
Another twenty-five minutes gone—another twenty-five minutes of silence. It was starting to grate, but I pressed on.
The other two programs were unaccounted for, but thanks to the files, I had an idea of what they’d been doing for Scipio. Alice had been the first program to fail in the trials. Her contributions to Scipio’s programming were fear and self-preservation, and had been based on a woman named Aelish Mikhailov, who was the founder of the Mechanics Department. Tony, the second program to fail, had been the heart of Scipio’s creativity, his human counterpart a man named Anthony Kahananui. The man, a respected marine biologist and ocean conservationist who had created Water Treatment, had been from some place called Hawai’i. He’d also helped design the Terraces in Greenery 1.
It was all fascinating, but ultimately did nothing to help Leo, Jasper, or Rose. I tossed the folder down on the desk with a long groan and turned my eyes to the clock. Another forty minutes gone. “Leo?” I asked, trying to put a lot of meaning into his name.
“It’s done,” he said grimly, his fingers still going. “It’s been done for thirty minutes. But they are both offline… unconscious… and I can’t seem to wake them up.”
I studied him, deciding not to get angry that he had gotten them separated without telling me. “You should get some rest,” I said softly, concerned by the dark shadows that were collecting under his eyes. “You’ve been going nonstop since this morning, so if they’re separated and stabilized, then maybe give it a few hours, and come back fresh?”
“I’m fine,” he said, not even casting a glance at me. I hesitated, warring with the decision to insist, but decided to let it go. I wanted to make sure the programs were okay as well.
So we continued working together, side by side. Reading the files on the AIs had been interesting at first, but then the files grew too technical for me to follow, and sitting there for hours on end, doing nothing really productive except waiting for the call from Sadie or for Jasper and Rose to wake up, had me going a little stir crazy. Specific fears and worries kept crossing my mind, the chief of which was: What if I had somehow recorded a memory in Sadie’s legacy net while I was shooting Baldy’s friends? She’d know everything if I had, and probably wouldn’t even bother to call the council. Because she could just send her undoc army after me to take back what I had stolen. She could be organizing an attack right now, putting her people in place and arming them with cutters, batons, pulse shields… anything that she could. And there were at least thirty of them. I’d set up my defenses well, but I knew that if someone wanted to get in, they would find a way in. We had, after all. The fear only grew as I realized that it could explain the delay in her call, and could mean that even now she was trying to get something in place to breach my quarters.
The idea made me want to gather everyone and run, try to hide again, keep us safe.
But I refused to give in to the negative thinking, reminding myself that half the reason our plan had worked was because Sadie had been doing a complete inspection of her department, and had mentioned needing to continue it before she left. We had delayed her task by a couple of hours, and her department was large enough that it would’ve taken her several more hours, even without our interference. She probably wasn’t even paying attention to anything else. Yet.
But as soon as that logic was in place, another problem crept into my mind, namely what I was going to do about Alex. He was a liability right now, both because his self-control had all but eroded, and because he didn’t seem to care about what he had done. I wasn’t even sure how to reach him at this point if he didn’t understand the wrongness of his actions. And I was lost in regard to how to handle it. As a leader, it was my job to assess his fitness for the mission, and he was definitely currently unfit. As his sister… I couldn’t just tell him he couldn’t help because he was not stable. I was pretty sure doing so would cost me my relationship with him, and it was too precious to me to let that happen. But then, what could I do? How could I reach him? Why was he taking this so hard? I wanted to know, to ask him, but after he had stormed off, I hadn’t heard from him. I was beginning to worry, but wanted to hold off netting him to give him some space and time.
In truth, I was hoping that with time would come perspective, making him realize how far off the rails he’d gone. I was praying for it, actually.
And once that nebulous situation churned around in my skull a few times with no answer in sight, my mind decided to ask the bigger, even scarier question: What do we do next? That one scared me the most, because to be honest, I wasn’t certain. We had just saved Jasper and Rose, but now what? Both were still offline, we had no idea how damaged either program was, and we couldn’t be sure that Jasper was still himself. Rose had been tortured and traumatized until she broke, undergoing a process of reversion that let the Jang-Mi part of her free. I knew we needed the AIs to save Scipio, but we only had two out of five, and two more were unaccounted for. Rose was broken; Jasper’s condition was unknown. If the two missing programs were in the same condition, then I wasn’t sure we could do anything at all.
Which meant going after the legacies. If we could just get them off the board somehow, we could at least stop them from damaging Scipio any more than they already had. And that would give us time to find a way to restore him, provided we managed to get every single one of the bad guys at the same time. If we didn’t, then whoever escaped would be free to try again, or worse, finish the job.
Sadie’s files would hopefully reveal her network—every single person she was working with. If we had that, then we could stop them, once and for all. But if she was smart, and kept that information off her terminal, then we’d never be able to stop them. Missing even one could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
I was so grateful when Maddox returned from her meeting. We had held off from moving the contraband items we had hidden in a storage room before we reset the quarters, uncertain of what would happen to them during the reset process. She had insisted on waiting until after her meeting was done before we started fetching them, so no one was out there alone, but now that she was free, she and I could get it done.
Keeping them there had been risky, considering they included piles and piles of IT manuals that were illegal to possess, and even though I had locked the room down under my authority, someone would eventually notice and wonder why. Better to move them now than risk any unwanted questions.
Hauling the boxes through the halls was mind-numbing, back-breaking work, but even though I was exhausted from everything we had done today, I found I didn’t mind the activity. It gave me something to focus on other than all the problems we were facing. Something easy that I could complete with zero consequences.
I accepted the last boxes Maddox handed me, and then began walking back to the elevator, absorbed with balancing my load. I had taken an extra box this time in an effort to wrap things up, but keeping it on top of the others required all of my concentration. And I was so distracted that I failed to notice my brother coming around the corner from the elevator entrances and wound up walking right into him.
“Oof!” he exclaimed, and I jerked back and blinked at him in surprise.
“Alex?” Maddox asked, stepping around us both, her green eyes fluttering in confusion. “How’d you find us?”
My brother gave us a tight look as he rubbed his chest with one hand. “I called Leo and asked to be let back in,” he announced haltingly. “He said I had to bring it up with you.”
I hesitated and realized that Leo had sent me a message by sending my brother. He was letting me know that I co
uld say no. As much as I appreciated the gesture, however, I sort of wished he had just let Alex in, and not put it on me. Especially since I couldn’t tell if Alex was in the right headspace to deal with any of this, let alone talk about it. And it was selfish of me, but I still couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth and make him go, even with his behavior being so erratic and terrifying. I wanted to fix it, to help him, though I wasn’t sure if I could, or if I’d only make it worse, and—
The sound of laughter caught my ear, and I looked down the circular hall ringing the core of the Citadel to see a group of Knights emerging from a side hall, headed for the elevator. And though I was the Champion, and could easily explain the boxes away, I immediately decided that it would be easier to just go before they got there. Not to mention, my brother seemed to be spoiling for a fight, and I didn’t want him making a scene in the hall.
I started moving over to the elevator. “Let’s go.”
Maddox and Alex followed me onto the elevator as soon as the scan finished, and we began our descent just as the group of Knights came to stand at the entrance. I smiled tightly and gave them a sharp nod, which many of them returned with enthusiastic smiles, one of them going so far as to whisper, “It’s Honorbound,” in an awe-filled voice.
I hadn’t really gotten to interact with many of the Knights since I became Champion, and even though I knew they’d voted me into the position, it was still weird to see so much joy and enthusiasm directed toward me. To some of them, I was a hero; I had protected Scipio from the previous Champion, gaining back a measure of integrity for the department, in their eyes. I had made them proud, and because of that, they had put their faith in me.
Of course, they’d lock me up in a second if they found out I had broken the law in more ways than I could count. Hell, I was moving away from them with contraband in my arms right here and now. But then again, they didn’t know the truth of what was going on. My Knights were safe in their little bubble of belief that the Tower was as it always had been, not even realizing that it was slowly being corrupted. I did, however, and it was my responsibility to take care of it, by whatever means necessary.
It was a good reminder that I wasn’t just fighting for my own life, and those of my friends.
I looked over at my twin for a second and pondered the possibility that in Alex’s case, maybe he couldn’t see that. Possibly even wouldn’t, in his current state of mind. Maybe it was easier for him to just attack one problem with single-minded intensity, not caring about the big picture because it was too much for him to handle. Maybe he was letting his anger and hatred toward the people who had hurt me and killed Mom take him somewhere dark.
I would understand one, but not the other. In either case, I couldn’t allow him in without making sure he had his priorities right. It would be too dangerous for me, for the group, and for any potential missions. If he was only focused on finding the person responsible for Mom’s death, then I couldn’t count on him to put the larger mission first. That could put all of us in danger, including him.
I needed to make him see that. He needed to know what the rules would be if we went any farther together. It was time to establish some boundaries.
“I don’t know that I want you involved in this, at this point,” I announced into the quiet of the shaft. His dark eyes flicked over at me, and he shifted. “You’re becoming a liability. Your temper is out of control, and you’re not looking at the big picture. You need—”
My brother made an irritated tsk, and anger started to creep up my spine, cold and hard. I turned toward him and peered at him over the boxes I held. “I mean it, Alex. You’re going to follow my lead, or I’m not letting you back into my quarters, and I will revoke your access to the Citadel.”
His eyes snapped to mine, dark with anger for several seconds. “Why am I not surprised?” He scoffed. “You were already cutting me off before, so why not just continue with it? It’s not like I’m your twin or anything.”
His words upset me. I had explained my position, but he was clearly trying to make it personal. “It’s not like that, Alex,” I informed him. “I have the others to think of, and I have an obligation to keep them safe from all dangers, both inside and out.”
“An obligation,” my brother repeated, his eyes narrowing. “An obligation? To them? What about to me? What about to our mother, who died helping you fight a machine that your enemies sent after you? The same machine, I might add, that we encountered before and that you did nothing to stop!”
That was a blow too low, or maybe too close to the truth for me, but either way, it hurt. Deeply. So deeply that I had to turn away from him for a second to try to regain my composure. He was right—I had known about the sentinel and had failed to stop it. There had been reasons at the time, but in retrospect, they didn’t seem strong enough compared to what had been lost. I took a deep breath and tried to push my guilt aside, but it was hard.
“Alex, you need to stop talking about crap you don’t understand,” Maddox grated out. “You’re acting like a complete and utter tool right now.”
“You don’t even know me,” he bit out. “And you need to stay out of this.”
“The hell I do,” she shot back. “She is the only reason any of us are still alive right now, and I am not going to stand here and watch you attack her like this. She’s your twin, your sister, for crying out loud! Why are you angry at her?”
The elevator was slowing to a stop, but I ignored it and turned a half-step to look at my brother and see what his answer would be.
“Because I’m scared for her!” he roared, and his answer was so unexpected that I took a step back from him. “She’s been out there risking her life trying to find the people who killed our mom and hurt Scipio, and I have been stuck in IT, under surveillance, doing nothing to help. And then when I do, when I insist that we should kill Baldy, everyone looks at me like I’m a monster! I mean, she grabbed him on impulse and then decided it wasn’t a very good idea after the fact?! And you support that, but my idea to keep everyone safe was just dismissed out of hand?”
Maddox’s green eyes didn’t even bat a lash, but her chin went up several notches higher. Pride and gratitude burst over me at her willingness to defend me, even if a small voice told me that it was only going to make Alex angrier. “Absolutely. We all make mistakes, and when we do, we adapt. But you need to own up to your part in all this and admit that you didn’t have everyone’s best interests in mind when you suggested killing him.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded belligerently. “I did what I could to try to find the bastards who killed my mother and hurt my sister, and I refuse to apologize for that. He deserves death for all the things we know he’s done, and I’m betting there is a lot that we don’t know! You want to keep him alive? Sleeping only a few precious feet from your rooms? Trying to escape, get revenge, whatever?” He took a beat in his impassioned rant to give her a cold and pitying look. “If you think that’s a good idea, then maybe you need to reevaluate your priorities.”
“That’s enough,” I said, both to him and to the churning and frothing mass my stomach had become as he spoke. Maybe he has a point. Maybe keeping Baldy alive was a mistake, a small, doubting voice whispered. But then again, this doesn’t sound like my brother at all. He might have convinced himself he was doing it for us, but the more he argues for this, the less I believe him. I looked up at Alex, trying to search for some semblance of the man I had known before Mom’s funeral, but found only anger and hate. The confines of the elevator felt uncomfortably tight just now, so it was a relief when it stopped.
The change in my brother had left me ice cold, and I needed time to think about how I was going to even begin to talk to him about his behavior. For now, it was time to simply reiterate my point and escape. “I set out my terms,” I told him numbly, trying not to let the discomfort he had stirred in me show. “Follow them or don’t.”
I stalked forward, needing freedom from the tight confines of
the elevator and my brother. I expected him to take a moment to think about what I said, but when he started following, I realized he wasn’t going to.
And that he knew my threat had been a bluff. I didn’t have it in me to cut him off yet, especially now that I realized something was wrong with him. And maybe he even had a point. I had made many mistakes. Was I just messing things up? Was I making things worse for us?
I considered the possibility as I turned left down the hall and followed the curve around until it headed down a short staircase to a wide-open conference room, where I would host my Knight Commanders meetings when I eventually had them.
It took the span of crossing the room for him to start talking again, only this time it was directed at me. “So what’s your next step, then? What do you plan to do with Baldy?”
His words only added to the flames of doubt that he had breathed into me, hitting a topic I had already spent hours worrying over with no real result. I didn’t have a plan beyond going through Sadie’s files to see if we could find any incriminating evidence. And if she had been paranoid enough, she might have hidden all of that somewhere else. We might get nothing, and if that happened, I had no idea what the hell we were going to do.
Alex was waiting for an answer, and I had to give him one. I decided to hedge. “Alex, right now I am just focusing on making sure our tracks are covered. We still haven’t heard from the council about Sadie’s quarters, Jasper and Rose are offline, and I have two prisoners that I’m not entirely sure what to do with.” I paused, realizing that bringing up Baldy wasn’t a good idea, but it had already been said.
“I’m telling you what you should do, Lily,” my brother replied, this time sadness cutting through the anger. “You just don’t want to hear it. And I get it. You killed those people in Sadie’s office a few hours ago, and you’re having regrets. But you can’t let that get in the way of what needs to be done here.”
The Girl Who Dared to Endure Page 6
