The Girl Who Dared to Lead

by Bella Forrest

  I smiled, pleased that he was cheered up at the very least, even though I internally bristled at the idea of his “staff” letting him know when they were ready. What if someone there was secretly sabotaging him, and then rallying the others against him when his failures became public? I let go of his hand with a final pat.

  “Well, may you stay alive, and may they never find anyone better,” I said, and he laughed.

  I wasn’t sure why, but I found that I liked Sage. He was funny and upbeat, and frankly, I was impressed at his integrity. His penchant for collecting medical journals was fine in my mind, and even though we didn’t see eye to eye on certain things, I felt he’d been more honest and forthright than any councilor I’d interacted with thus far.

  “You are too kind, my dear. It makes me almost feel guilty about my earlier judgment of you. But I didn’t know you then, did I?”

  Surprised by his straightforwardness, I played dumb. “How do you mean, sir?”

  “I voted against upholding the results of the Tourney,” he confessed with a smile. “I hope you understand why. I just couldn’t condone supporting someone who brought a lethal weapon into an event.”

  I gave him a little shrug. “To be honest, I didn’t expect for the results to be upheld in the first place. But it’s okay, I get it.”

  “Thank you for understanding.” He paused and looked back down at the medical journal on the table. “Now, about our deal… You realize that asking me for something I was supposed to turn over in the first place isn’t a favor, right? At least, I’m not going to accept it as one. Is there anything else I can do for you in exchange for this beauty?”

  Once again, he surprised me, and a pleased smile formed on my lips at such an honorable act. I considered his question for a second, and immediately thought of my questions about Jasper. Our conversation had been going so well that I felt like I could ask, but a part of me hesitated, warning that I should back off now while I was ahead. If I pushed, then there was a chance I would ruin the friendly repartee we had established, and I could earn myself an enemy.

  On top of that, there wasn’t anything that he could tell us that would help us recover Jasper. Not to mention, I also had to entertain the idea that I had entirely misread Sage and he was a legacy, in which case, asking about Jasper right before we stole him would raise some major red flags. Better to let it go for now.

  But I felt a strong certainty that I would want to talk to Sage again, so decided to set the groundwork for a future meeting. “Can you just owe me a favor?” I asked.

  “I won’t compromise my votes on anything,” he said hesitantly. “So if you’re—”

  “Oh, no, sir,” I said, shaking my hand. “I would never ask that. I respect your integrity too much. I just meant, if I have a question at a later date, or maybe need a Knight patched up, no-questions-asked sort of thing…”

  “Oh,” he said, and then chuckled, scratching his chin with one hand. “Oh, yes, that I could see being equitable.” He stuck out his hand and smiled broadly. “The deal is struck?”

  I took his hand with a firm grip and shook it. “It is indeed, sir. Thanks again for the advice.”

  “Anytime,” he replied with a smile. We shook hands for a second more, and then I let go, said my goodbyes, and left, a little lighter.

  Even though he was a little weird, I really liked Sage, and talking to him had felt like I was making a friend.

  It was a nice change of pace.

  27

  I woke up the next morning after a long, deep sleep, confused. It took me a minute to remember where I was and what had happened the night before, but it eventually came back to me. We’d spent a major portion of the evening scanning the schematics of the Core, and then I’d gone to catch up on council business while Maddox took Dylan to the odd little house in the Attic to collect samples of any genetic material they could recover, so we could run it through the Medica’s mainframe. We were hoping to find a familial connection to someone inside the Tower, giving us a link to someone in the system we could monitor. Meanwhile, Quess had continued working on figuring out where Sadie’s quarters were, and Leo had continued his work with Jang-Mi, trying hard to fix her.

  All of us were feeling the press of time, and we needed to make some sort of progress on one front or another, or we’d never be able to get Jasper out. But Jang-Mi wasn’t cooperating, and converting two-dimensional images into a three-dimensional model took time. Our hands were effectively tied until we could break down the wall keeping us from getting to him, mine more than Leo’s or Quess’s, as I couldn’t do much in the way of tech stuff. I’d gone to bed before them, giving up after I realized I was just in the way.

  Until I’d gotten back up to get Leo in the later hours and asked him to come to bed with me.

  At the thought, I immediately reached out an arm, feeling around for him, but to my surprise and disappointment, my bed was empty. I blinked and sat up. He had come to bed with me last night; I remembered that much. I hadn’t been able to sleep, plagued by the memories of the attack, and when I’d gone to him, he hadn’t denied me.

  He’d done it without hesitation—even though it meant making Jang-Mi and Jasper wait. For me. It had been so selfish of me, and so selfless of him that I immediately wanted to apologize.

  But… where was he? I looked around the room and saw that his uniform was missing from where he had hung it, and then looked at my indicator. My eyes bulged when I saw that it was nearly ten a.m.—and I realized I had overslept.

  Drastically.

  I hauled back the covers and then paused when I saw a pad sitting on top of mine, propped up against a lamp on the nightstand. I wasn’t sure why, but I was certain it was Leo’s. I picked it up and turned it on, and sure enough, it opened to a handwritten note.

  Good morning, Liana, he wrote, and I smiled. I’m sorry I had to leave you sleeping, but I wanted to get up early this morning and get a jump start on Jang-Mi. I’m pretty sure I’m close to a breakthrough. I wanted to talk to you about it last night, but you were exhausted, which was why I let you sleep in. Don’t get mad—it was Dr. Quess’s orders, and I happened to concur.

  See you soon,

  Leo

  P.S. Can you bring the pad with you when you get up? I have a feeling I’ll need it by the time you wake.

  His note filled me with warmth and left me breathless from his simple consideration. He hadn’t left me confused; he’d made sure I knew exactly where he was, and done so with words that made me feel like he couldn’t wait to see me, even though he’d been forced to leave me.

  I realized I didn’t even care that he had left me to go check on Jang-Mi, and that made me feel even better because I wasn’t immediately leaping into “angry Liana” mode whenever she was mentioned. So all in all, I was already starting the day off on a good foot. Leo and Quess had been right—a little extra sleep went a long way. I felt more energized then I had in a while.

  Or maybe it was Leo’s sweet note. I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t care. I merely embraced the surge of enthusiasm and got out of bed, now eager to start the day. I quickly showered and got dressed, and then headed to the kitchen, my stomach growling. A part of me worried that I shouldn’t feel this good the day after I’d had my throat cut, but I figured, hey, I was alive and loved it.

  I made and wolfed down a quick breakfast while I brewed some tea, and then took my mug into the war room, intent on going over my correspondence and getting an early start on my councilor duties. I paused just short of the doorway when I suddenly heard Leo say, “How are you feeling now?”

  My smile grew, and I moved forward, eager to see him, but paused when I heard a response of “Much better, thank you. You were right, my fight/flight settings were quite high. Why couldn’t I see it?” The voice sounded different than Jang-Mi’s normal voice—calmer and more controlled—and the difference was drastic enough for me to come to a stop, too curious to interrupt.

  “Because of the reversion,” Leo replied ti
redly, and I frowned. Reversion? What was that?

  I eased down the hallway a few more feet, curious.

  “I see.” There was a pause. “How bad is the corruption?”

  Corruption? My heart pounded hard in my chest. Was that the breakthrough Leo had been talking about in his message? He’d made it sound almost optimistic, but corruption sounded bad.

  “It’s bad,” Leo confirmed. “Whatever walls Lionel built to separate your AI personality from the memories of Jang-Mi are gone, and her grief is destroying your protocols. It won’t be long until you’re gone and only Jang-Mi remains.”

  Okay, whoa. That was a lot to take in. It took me a second, but I realized that Leo wasn’t talking to Jang-Mi. He was talking to Rose.

  It was a little complicated, but the AIs were neural clones of the founders, and had eventually adapted their own personalities and grown into distinctive entities. Jang-Mi had been the human base for the program, and Rose had been developed from her, just as Leo had grown from Lionel.

  And now, it seemed, Rose was back.

  My mind whirled at the implication, and I couldn’t stand back any longer. I wanted to know what was going on. I stepped into the room.

  “Who’s she?” the voice demanded.

  Leo’s eyes immediately snapped to me, and for a long moment, neither of us said anything. I got the impression that I had surprised him, so I smiled and patted my pocket with my free hand. “I brought your pad. Thank you for the note. Is this a bad time?”

  Leo answered my smile with one of his own, and shook his head. “Of course not,” he replied. “I honestly thought you’d sleep a little longer, but now that you’re awake, I can brief you, if you’re ready.”

  “Sure,” I replied as I crossed the room to him and dropped onto a chair on the opposite side of the desk. “Full confession: I may have overheard some of what was going on from the hall as I was coming up.”

  He smiled, but it was a tired one. “It wasn’t ever a secret. I was just hoping that I’d have a few minutes to prepare you both before I had to introduce you. Liana, this is Rose. Rose, meet Liana.”

  I looked up at the screens, expecting a face to be projected on at least one of them, but found the halls of the Citadel instead, the cameras constantly shifting to show me what central command was looking at right at that moment. “Umm…”

  “I cannot project my face,” Rose said, almost apologetically. “The host personality has control over more of our code than I currently do, although with… Leo’s help, I am much improved.”

  I glanced at Leo, letting my confusion show, and he ran a hand over his face. “Rose’s program is undergoing reversion.” He paused there, and I waited for him to explain what that was.

  When he didn’t, I arched an eyebrow and gave him a small smile. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  He exhaled slowly. “Remember when I told you that the AIs’ memories were wiped?” I nodded, and he pursed his lips and shifted uncomfortably. “Well, extracting all of the memories wasn’t possible, as there were certain core memories that helped to shape and enhance each AI’s strengths. Those were the parts that were incorporated into Scipio’s codes, but the AIs weren’t supposed to have direct access to the memories in question. Lionel made sure to build a thick barrier around those core memories. But Jang-Mi’s barrier is… gone. And it hasn’t just been broken. It’s been shattered.”

  “The barrier was first damaged when we were cut out of our home,” Rose reported. “Our abductors eventually discovered it as they examined our code, and used Jang-Mi’s core memory of losing her child, Yu-Na, as a way to force us into doing what they wanted. I tried to fight them, but once they destroyed the barrier, she went crazy. She tried to kill what was left of me, but I managed to hide myself from her in the self-diagnostic program.”

  I looked at Leo, trying to find some way of comprehending what they were talking about. “Would this be like a split-personality disorder?” I asked, hoping that the comparison worked.

  His eyes flared in recognition, but his face was grim. “Yes,” he replied. “Very similar. But it’s also worse than that.”

  Worse? I did not like the sound of that. “Worse how?” I asked.

  Rose answered for him. “Jang-Mi’s core memory is the loss of her daughter, and is pure and absolute in its intensity. Through me, it was translated to Scipio using the lens of what you would call ‘maternal love’ for each and every human being in the Tower. Without me… Well, Leo informed me that the real Jang-Mi committed suicide not long after I came into existence, and unfortunately, I think she is trying to repeat history. She is beside herself with pain and agony.”

  Okay, this was getting weird. Not only did I have to accept that Jang-Mi and Rose were two parts of a split personality, but also that she was trying to kill herself? That was… awful. And really, really bad for us. Jang-Mi and Rose were important to Scipio; they made up his empathy core, which he needed to make critical decisions for our future survival. Something told me that if Rose were reunited with Scipio, it wouldn’t matter what argument was made to keep the expulsion chambers in play—he’d recommend stopping them immediately.

  But that was only if we could save Rose from her other half.

  I looked at Leo. “What can we do?” I asked.

  “Right now, we’ve established a small measure of control over Jang-Mi,” he replied. “Rose triggers the diagnostic protocol, and then I slow it down. It buys us six hours of time during which Rose can be alert and help me find the damages to the code. It’s also made it possible for us to work together to get some other functions away from Jang-Mi. But the damage is extensive. We need Jasper now more than ever.”

  I stared at him for a second and then frowned as his meaning settled in. “Wait, are you talking about using Rose right now?” I asked. “It’s too soon! I mean, we haven’t even discussed how you’re going to get her in! This terminal doesn’t have a direct connection to the Core.”

  “But it does connect to the council’s server,” he said patiently. “And Sadie’s virtual assistant has a connection to that. All I have to do is convince the system that there is a message waiting for her, and when it goes to download her, we’re in.”

  I licked my lips. “That sounds too easy,” I finally replied. It really did. After all, the assistant had to have some way of detecting malicious software or something like that, right? And I was certain that Sadie wouldn’t leave such a vulnerability like that wide open for anyone to use.

  “You’d think so, but it’s really not,” he replied. “I just condensed it to the shorthand. Basically, I have to lay down a thick wall of ghost coding that looks like a message, but is actually a box with Rose’s code inside. And once we get her in, she can knock out the assistant before it even knows she’s there. Then all she has to do is find Jasper, get both of them back into the original message, and return the way she came.”

  I bit my lip, considering what he was saying. It sounded like he had put some thought into it, but I couldn’t help but have doubts. “It still seems like a lot of things could go wrong,” I said hesitantly. “I know you said Rose is in control for the next six hours, but what if moving her wakes Jang-Mi up early? What happens if she wakes up there and freaks out? She could hurt Jasper.”

  “The transfer won’t do anything to wake her up,” he promised. “Quess woke up early to head down to the server room, and we transferred her a few times from the terminal to there, just to be sure.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about them doing that without asking me first. If something had gone wrong and Jang-Mi had woken up… I cut the thought off immediately, reminding myself that Quess and Leo both knew their way around computers. I would’ve trusted them to handle it if they’d asked my permission in the first place, and getting upset about it now would accomplish nothing. I needed to focus on Leo’s plan to make sure that he had really thought this out.

  “How long has Rose been up already?” I asked, wanting to know
how much time she would have once she was in.

  “Only for a little under an hour, so she has another five.” I gave him a questioning look, and he added, “It shouldn’t take her more than five minutes to get in and out.”

  That was fast—much faster than I had expected—but that didn’t assuage all of my concerns. “How do we know that Sadie won’t see it?” I asked. “If she’s sitting right there when the message comes in, won’t she know something’s up?”

  He grinned and leaned back in his chair. “According to her schedule, Sadie is doing an inspection of a few of her programming divisions for most of the day. I’m assuming that means she won’t be there. Today’s a perfect time to strike.”

  I wished I had his confidence. To me, this all felt a little rushed. Only yesterday he had been telling me that it would take a few days to get her ready, and now we were talking about implementing the plan. Today.

  “I don’t know, Leo,” I breathed. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but this is moving really fast. We haven’t even considered all of the problems Rose could face inside Sadie’s terminal.”

  “We actually have,” Rose said, finally breaking her silence. “I am an AI, and Leo has restored a great many things to my control. I am more than confident that I can handle anything this Sadie can throw at me. Besides, our brother needs us. We have to try.”

  Uncertainty rippled through me at her words. I heard what they were saying, but I still had my own reservations. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask them to wait until we could spend more time thinking about it, but it died when I looked over at Leo and he met my gaze.

  His eyes were soft and pleading, and I could see a naked fear burning there. He knew he was rushing it, but he also had several good reasons to want to. He and Grey could be influencing each other, Jang-Mi was trying to kill herself, and Jasper himself could be in danger. If whatever Rose had been put through had caused her to… regress into Jang-Mi, was that happening to Jasper too?