The Girl Who Dared to Lead

by Bella Forrest

  “It is,” I lied, sparing the girl the realities she didn’t need to deal with. She had her own mission, her own responsibilities, and I was content to let those be her only burden, even if it was a big one. “How was it with Dylan? As a matter of fact, what time is it?”

  “Two a.m.,” she replied. “And it was fine with Dylan, I guess. We retraced her steps, and I figured out how she lost them—they took an access tunnel that ran all the way to Water Treatment. Dylan wanted to go farther, but I got sleepy.” She yawned on the last part, and then smacked her lips.

  “Hey,” a soft voice said from the hall, and I looked over to see Leo and Quess entering the room, both of them cradling mugs of something with steam wisping from the top. “We saw Tian return on the cameras, and I figured she might wake you, so…” Quess smiled and lifted the mug.

  “Of course she would wake me,” I said, confused by the teasing quality in Quess’s voice. Tian would wake me to report in about her time with Dylan, but he made it sound like another Tianism that I had yet to come across. I looked at her. “What’s going on?”

  “You should never go to sleep anywhere but a proper bed or hammock,” she said solemnly. “That’s how the whispers steal your soul away in the night.”

  I blanched, and then on impulse, drew the girl tight into my arms. Her parents had died from Whispers, a virus that destroyed the neural pathways to the brain. The process was awful, as victims would begin to whisper madly in the throes of their fevers, speaking about their memories and true desires for all to hear. The disease was virulent and had no cure, so when cases occurred, entire sections of the Tower were quickly quarantined and left for several weeks, until only the immune survived.

  Tian had been young when she was exposed, and had become eccentric as a result. But what she just said reminded me that she had not only been young, but also trapped with her parents and other people who had been exposed. So many had died in front of her, and if most of them were out of their beds (and often they were, having died in the halls trying to navigate through their own madness in a desperate search for food or water), it would explain why she didn’t want anyone she cared about sleeping outside of one.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I promise I won’t ever do it again.”

  She nodded against my shoulder and pulled away. “So, everything with Dylan went okay,” she said casually. “We retraced her steps and I figured out how they were able to slip free of the trap Doxy set up for them, but lost all signs of them in Water Treatment. No sign if she’s with the bad guys yet, but we’re going out again tomorrow.” With that, she turned to Quess. “What’d you bring me?” she asked, her voice cheerful.

  I snorted at her brief report followed by an abrupt change of subject, but let it go—I hadn’t expected Tian to discover anything on day one, and she’d come back unharmed. One small victory at a time.

  Quess rolled his eyes as he handed her a mug. “Pig poop. Drink up.”

  “Ewwww,” she exclaimed, scrunching her nose. She brought the mug to her nose and sniffed, then gave Quess an annoyed look. “You big liar,” she scoffed, before taking a sip of what I presumed was hot chocolate.

  I laughed, and sat up to accept the mug that Leo was holding out to me. It was filled with good black tea—just like I liked—and I took an experimental sip of it.

  “Thank you,” I said as the bitter taste hit my tongue, waking me even further. “Why is everyone up at two in the morning?”

  “I’m still working on Jang-Mi,” Leo said carefully as he straightened. “She’s a lot more damaged than I thought, and she’s resistant to help. Every time I try, she shuts down and initiates a self-diagnostic, and I can’t do anything until it’s finished. I’ve been working on taking that control away from her, but it’s going to take time.”

  He looked away when he said that, and I felt the urge to comfort him. I knew he wanted to use Jang-Mi immediately to rescue Jasper, and I could tell he was disappointed that it wasn’t working as quickly as he wanted it to. We all were, but these things took time. “Leo, we are going to do everything we can to rescue Jasper,” I reminded him. “We’re working on a way in on both fronts; it’s just going to take a little time. Be patient. We’re going to get him.”

  And soon, I thought to myself. Every minute that went by with Jasper in Sadie’s clutches was unacceptable. Who knew what she’d done to him already—or even how long she’d had him. He had still been able to help me in the Medica, but then he’d been recalled. If Sadie knew that he had helped me, then she had undoubtedly recalled him in order to establish more control over his program. I shuddered at the thought.

  It was clear from the look that Leo gave me that my comment did nothing to help his doubt. “I know that. I’m just worried about Jasper. If you’re right and he’s the only fragment left…”

  I reached out and grabbed his hand. “I know. I’m worried about him, too. But I swear to you, we’ll figure it out. Whether it’s through Jang-Mi or by going and physically retrieving him ourselves, we’ll do it.”

  His smile became genuine, the darkness in his eyes lightening. “Isn’t it amazing how sometimes words can do more than a hug ever could?” he asked in a low voice, and the sweetness of the statement tugged at my heart. In a very dangerous way.

  I squeezed his hand one more time and then withdrew, needing some space. “What about you, Quess?” I asked. “Any progress on locating an accurate schematic?”

  “I’ve been up all night trying to draw what I can remember of the Core’s layout,” Quess said, rubbing his eyes. “So far, I’ve got both the rooms I was assigned to during my time there and an approximate layout of the surrounding halls, the cafeteria, my boss’s office, my workspace—which was cubicle hell, I might add—and a few of the recreational areas. But it’s not a lot when you compare it to how large the Core actually is. I’m worried that there won’t be enough points of reference to make an accurate comparison, which is why I’m trying to be as detailed as possible.”

  He threw himself onto the couch next to me, and I sat up some more and scooted over to give him room. “Do you think it’s a longshot?” I asked as I took another sip of my tea. If it was, then we needed to abandon the idea and find an alternative way of finding a map. We had to keep pushing forward on whatever front we could. Jasper was too important not to.

  “I think it’s the only shot we currently have, short of going to Dinah—and I know you want to avoid that, if possible.”

  I nodded. Dinah’s placement in IT had saved us more than once, and I did not want to expose her to our enemies any more than we already had. It was bad enough that Jang-Mi had tracked her down and almost killed her. I wanted to keep her as insulated as possible, and that meant not running to her every time we had to break into IT. We’d do it if we had to, but I’d cross that bridge when we came to it.

  Leo moved around the coffee table and sat down on the floor, crossing his legs beneath him, and seconds later Tian joined him. Their movements distracted me from Quess’s defeated form.

  “I just didn’t want to believe that IT would lack the foresight to keep actual plans on file with the different departments,” Quess finally exploded. “What happens if their air processing unit goes out and they suffocate? No one in the Tower would have any idea what to do or how to fix it, and without IT there to support Scipio, the whole system could fall apart!”

  I listened to his impassioned rant and give him a sidelong glance. “Quess, we’re talking about rescuing a fragment AI from the head of IT—one that is supposed to be in the Core as part of Scipio. The system is broken, Quess. We need the tools to fix it, so think! Where do you think we could find an accurate schematic of the Core?”

  “In the Core’s mainframe,” he replied. “And I’m not able to hack the Core directly. Their trackers would find me long before I got anywhere.”

  “It’s too bad we don’t have Cali’s books anymore,” Tian said softly, a second later. “She had so many manuals from IT, and they wer
e made a long, long, long, long time ago.” She fidgeted. “And other books.”

  I remembered the shelves in Cali’s room, which had in fact been filled to the brim with books, and remembered all the different manuals she had—shelves and shelves of them! Blue for Water Treatment, orange for Cogs, white for the Medics, and gray for IT.

  I heard Quess say, “Yeah, those would’ve been incredibly helpful,” and could’ve smacked him for not remembering.

  “Quess, the IT manuals had schematics in them, right?” I asked him. It was a pointless question—I already knew the answer.

  He nodded. “Of course they did. They had to. The internal servers for each department didn’t go up until what… maybe thirty-three years in? I can’t remember exactly, but that’s why there were just so many manuals around. Each department was already responsible for too many things. But why does it matter? Cali’s books are gone! Devon probably cleared them out long ago, and who knows where he put them? He probably destroyed them.”

  “I miss my things,” Tian added wistfully, wrapping her arms around herself.

  I felt bad for Tian; she had lost so much more than her things when Devon followed me back to the original Sanctum. I wanted nothing more than to find her stuff and return it to her, but more importantly, I wanted those technical manuals.

  I sat back and considered Quess’s assertion that Devon had destroyed them, but something felt wrong about that. Cali’s stash of IT manuals had been rare, and exceptionally illegal, which made them valuable on the black market. I knew this because Zoe’s father had run a sort of bookstore, which was how Zoe and I had gotten our hands on a few pre-war books. But I knew for a fact he wouldn’t deal with IT’s manuals. They were relentless in their pursuit of them, and people had been killed over them in the past—and I was betting Devon knew that, too, so I doubted he had tried to sell them.

  But then where would Devon have put them? There had been too much just lying there, especially the contraband, for him to have moved by himself, and I doubted he would have just left it there. If he had tried to move it out himself, someone would’ve noticed. So then how would he have removed the books? What would he have done with them that would’ve served his purpose at the time?

  I thought back to what had been going on at the time, namely the fact that he had been framing me for the murder of Gerome and trying to paint me as the leader of a terrorist cell, and realized that if anything, he would’ve used all of the stuff in Sanctum as evidence against me, as proof of my criminal activities.

  It would’ve helped support his claim that Cali had been an undoc who had been secretly helping me. It would’ve been packed up and moved to one of the storage facilities!

  Thrilled that I had a lead that could possibly bring us one step closer to rescuing Jasper, I quickly shared my thoughts with the others. They listened—it didn’t take long—and then Quess gave me a look. “Where would they be stored?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “But I bet Cornelius does. Cornelius, where did Devon Alexander store all of the items found during his raid on Camilla Kerrin and the undocs?”

  “They were boxed up and stored in one of the storage facilities outside of the Citadel in the upper levels of the Tower. I have the location and file number, and can guide you to the approximate location,” the assistant replied.

  “Excellent,” I said with a smile. Then I looked at my friends, and realized that while I wanted to handle this now, it was two in the morning and they were exhausted. Not to mention, it would be a little weird if the Champion and an entourage left the Citadel to head up to the Attic in the middle of the night.

  “We’ll hit it tomorrow,” I told them, and knew I made the right choice when I saw the relief and gratitude in their eyes.

  It could wait, I told myself. Even if we figured out where Sadie’s quarters were, we’d still have to find a way to bypass the security, cover our tracks, and then not be detected during the entire thing.

  I figured there was a chance that Leo would have Jang-Mi ready long before we could break in—but that didn’t mean we shouldn’t have a backup plan, just in case.

  22

  We woke up early, despite our late and impromptu meeting, excitement coursing through all of us. All of us except for Maddox, of course—she’d been sleeping while the rest of us talked—but once we told her what we had discovered, her eyes lit up with such a deep happiness and gratitude that it stole my breath away.

  Even though we needed those manuals to try to figure out a way to save Jasper, I hadn’t stopped to realize that it meant more to her than that. These were her mother’s things—things that Maddox thought she’d never see again. It was a connection to her past, a part of her history…

  Suddenly I longed to return to my own family’s home and find something that had once belonged to my mother. It filled me with a deep ache, and I made a mental note to ask Maddox what my father’s schedule was so I could sneak into the apartment and grab something while he was out. I wasn’t about to ask him for permission, and I certainly wasn’t above abusing my powers for this.

  I was filing it away for later when the others suddenly burst into motion to get ready, and I would’ve leapt into the fray, had Quess not held me up to check my knee. He peeled the patch off, and after some experimental flexing of the joint with no pain, he declared me good to go and then headed off to get dressed. I joined Maddox and Tian in one bathroom—Quess and Leo used the other—and quickly washed up in the shower. And though I had arrived after the other two, I was the first one out, and hightailed it to my room to get dressed (and put Quess’s special lash beads on).

  We reunited in the kitchen, where Leo proudly presented semi-burnt toast to us all. He was arguably the worst cook in our little outfit, but we were all too excited to care, and scarfed it down.

  We barely bothered to put the dishes in the sink when we were done, and within forty-five minutes of filling Maddox in, we were heading up to the top levels of the Tower, or the Attic, as we liked to call it. These floors were rarely used, and primarily functioned as storage units. Cornelius’s directions took us to the 213th floor, and then down a wide central hallway, which we walked along for nearly twenty minutes, almost crossing the entire width of the Tower.

  Eventually he had me go right down another hall, and then stop about halfway down, at a massive door marked 213-150J. There was a keypad next to it—one that we didn’t have to override, for once—and I quickly keyed in my code. I already had a cover in mind for why I was here, and a perfectly legitimate one at that, so I wasn’t worried about anyone knowing about our little field trip.

  As soon as I finished entering my ID, the pad pulsed yellow for several heartbeats, and then turned green. There was a sharp rattle that made me jump slightly, and then the door began to heave to one side, sliding open to reveal darkness. The light from the hall cut through the widening gap, but the darkness beyond was still oppressive and thick. I waited for a light to come on as the door continued to widen, rattling along in its track until it stopped, creating an entry way nine feet wide. The glow from the hall created a bright square in the darkened room. I waited for a long moment, but nothing happened.

  “Lights?” I asked loudly.

  There was a slight hum, and then an angry buzz. Nothing else happened.

  “It could be a damaged fuse,” Quess suggested from behind me. “Want me to check it out?”

  I considered it, and then shook my head. We were planning to steal things, after all. Why not do it under the cover of darkness? I would file a report on the broken lighting system later as an added bonus. It would only add to my cover that I had been up here on official business, discovered the problem, continued with my search, and then reported the issue—exactly what a councilor would do—while adding an extra layer of security for me and my friends to work. After all, the cameras couldn’t see what we were really doing if there were no lights. Especially since we were coming in here to get technical manuals that did not belong to m
y department. I didn’t want anyone catching wind of what we were up to.

  “No,” I replied for good measure. “I don’t mind the dark. It’s not like anyone’s going to be in here, and it’ll help cover what we’re doing.” I pulled my hand light out of my pocket and clicked it on, stepping into the darkened room.

  “Fair enough,” Maddox said, and I heard a click coming from her direction, telling me she had turned on her own light. I took a few steps deeper into the room, and then twisted a dial at the base of the hand light to turn up the intensity, covering the light with my other hand so I didn’t blind myself. I shut it off for a second while I pulled out my baton, and made sure it was off before I clipped it onto the top, fitting the tip to a rubber-filled notch at the base. As soon as it was attached, I turned the light back on, and then held the baton up over my head, forming a torch of light.

  Even at its brightest settings, it was meager against the darkness of the room, only giving visibility for about fifteen feet ahead.

  Still, as I slid it left to right, it immediately hit the corner of something with a bright white flash, and I pulled it back and peered at whatever was out there. Boxes—piles of them, all packed under clear plastic sheeting.

  I’d seen this before, a few levels down in a similar storage room, back when we’d broken into the Core. The room we’d been in then had been large and stuffed full of boxes, so it made sense that this one would be, too. I just hoped that Cornelius could tell us what to look for.

  “All right, Cornelius, where would Cali Kerrin’s boxes be?” I breathed, moving closer to the stack at which my light was directed. My view of the columns and columns of boxes stacked in neat rows grew as I drew nearer to the corner of it, but still stretched up over my head and continued far past the circle of yellow light emitted by my torch.