The Girl Who Dared to Think 7: The Girl Who Dared to Fight

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 find 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.