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

“I’m sure you will hear that many times about me today,” I said. “And believe me, I know a thing or two about lying. But I am the Champion of the Citadel, Scipio’s human defender. It’s my job—my duty—to protect him from those who would do him harm. I wouldn’t lie about something as serious as this, especially when there is every chance I am going to die trying to save him. Sage has been planning this for years.” I paused and reconsidered what I was going to say next. I might be able to get them to believe this story, but not if I told them he was actually Ezekial Pine. It was just too far-fetched. “His ancestors started it, but he is going to try to finish it today. The last Requiem Day was their first attempt to kill Scipio, and though he failed, he now has almost everything he needs to succeed! If I’m going to have any chance of stopping him, I need to get into Cogstown. If you think I’m lying, then you are free to go wherever you want to and see if this gets sorted out. If you believe me, and you’re willing to help, I need you to open this door.”

The man and the crowd were silent for several seconds, and then I saw the young girl in Medica white whisper, “Honorbound,” in a reverent voice that made me distinctly uncomfortable. I could hear a few wordless sounds of agreement but had no idea whether I had managed to sway them or not. Then again, they weren’t the ones I really had to sway; it was the man who had appointed himself their leader. The man who was staring at me with eyes that I couldn’t quite read. I met his gaze with my own, silently praying that he would believe me, but ready, just in case he didn’t.

Still, when he finally gave me a nod, it was hard not to exhale in relief. “That’s what we’ve been trying to do, but we can’t figure it out,” he said, taking a step forward. “We should be able to override the door manually, but the door into Cogstown still has power, so it won’t open.”

Lacey coughed wetly, and I turned to see Rose taking a tentative step out of the hall, cradling the head of the department. “I might be able to do something about that, if I can have access to some of your tools, and a spare set of hands.”

“Of course,” he said, but a frown marred his face. “But maybe we should let the Medic take a look at you. You don’t look well.”

“Bah,” Lacey said, waving a hand in front of her face. “This is nothing. You should’ve been there when I got my leg trapped in one of the vents to an intercooling exchange chamber. Damn thing had snapped both bones and was threatening to cut off my entire foot, and I had only a minute before the chamber started to fill with liquid nitrogen and argon. Go ahead and put me down there, dear.”

The last part was directed at Rose, who obediently lumbered over to the bulkhead door to set her down. I could immediately see what the Cog had been talking about. They had manually pried open the first door and were holding it open using an expandable brace. But the second door—the one on the Cogstown side—was closed, and on the interior, there were clusters of complex internal circuitry the likes of which I had never seen before, glowing red to show that it was locked and still had power. But although it had power, the control panels on this side, which would normally be used to access that door, were inoperative, thanks to the power drain. That meant interfacing directly with the system to get access to it was impossible. They had to try to unlock the door using the circuits themselves, which was normally a job reserved for IT.

Rose sat Lacey down as gently as she was able to, but even still, Lacey’s face was tight with pain when the sentinel gingerly moved away, taking care not to draw too near to the frightened people. I was proud of her, for some inordinate reason. She was being careful to make herself as nonthreatening as possible, from the slowness of her movements to the way she kept looking down at the floor, and I made a mental note to praise her about it later. After I got Lacey to see common sense.

I turned to the girl in Medica white, pulled the first-aid kit off my shoulder, and held it out to her. “Look her over while she’s working,” I said. “Ignore her if she tries to argue. I know she’s scary, but she’s also stupid when it comes to her personal health, so don’t listen to her.”

The girl blinked a pair of wide eyes at me, and then shook her head nervously. “I-I-I can’t,” she stammered. “I’m just an intern! I was on my way down to a Medic station in Cogstown to shadow an instructor, and—”

“First, second, or third year?” I interrupted, asking her in a rather impatient way to figure out where exactly she was in her education.

“Third,” she said tentatively, wringing her hands. “But only for a month! I don’t know—”

“By second year you’ve had an introduction to how to stabilize people with traumatic internal injuries,” I informed her, hating that I had to. My knowledge of the Medica came from inter-departmental classes I had taken back when it had been important to try to show Scipio what a good little citizen of the Tower I was, and while I knew some things from those lessons, I knew she knew a lot more. What she was lacking was confidence, and I didn’t have time to give it to her.

“Yes, but—”

“No buts,” I interrupted, taking a step toward her. I started to say her name, but realized that I didn’t even know it, so I said, “Look, what’s your name?”

“Me?” she squeaked. “Anna, but—”

“Listen, Anna,” I said. “You are the only one here who has had even two years of medical training. I have done the best I can, but it’s not enough. You might not be able to fix her, but you might be able to keep her from getting worse, and that’s something. So please, try. I know you’re scared, but it isn’t about you. It’s about her. Try to remember that.”

I pushed the bag into her hands as I spoke, but held it for a second, trying to squeeze a little strength through it and into her, hoping that it would in some way give her the confidence she needed. Her eyes searched mine for several seconds, the vulnerability and fear on her face naked and raw, but somehow, she managed to push it back, and gave me a shaky nod.

“I’ll do my best,” she whispered.

“That’s all I ask,” I said, stepping out of her way so she could get to Lacey.

Lacey already had a cable hooked up to the door and was doing something that I didn’t fully understand with a device I didn’t recognize in her hand. She paused when the girl knelt down next to her. She handed the tool off to someone else and allowed the girl to work.

Relieved that Lacey was letting Anna help her, I turned away and looked at the man. “What’s your name?”

“Cyril,” he said. “Cyril Jones. What happened to Engineer Green?”

“Worry about that later. Why have we heard so many people screaming in the shell?” I asked. “I know that panic is common when something goes wrong, but this quickly?”

Cyril was immediately shaking his head, his mouth twisting downward in a nervous frown. “We don’t know,” he said hastily. “We keep running into groups of people who are trying to keep away from something, but they can’t seem to tell us what it is. Though they all have similar stories of hearing groups near them and making their way toward them, only to be chased away seconds later by screaming and what they say sounded like… something tearing the people apart. I haven’t run into anyone who stuck around to investigate, but it could be that anyone who does…”

He trailed off, but he didn’t need to go any further. The insinuation was clear: whatever was attacking the others was killing anyone who tried to interfere.

I wasn’t sure why, but Alice immediately sprang to mind. Alice and her sentinel body. Sage had three for sure, but what if he somehow had more? More than just three or ten or fifteen… What if, when the Knights had agreed to destroy the bulk of them, he had managed to hide them away instead?

But why use them to kill the people in the shell? Was it just because he didn’t want anyone outside their departments? Was he afraid they were in a better position to stop him than those who were inside? Or was it something else?

I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out. But if the people were running from something and had all congregated here, then it stood to reason that whatever was chasing them would be following.

“We need to set up lookouts in the adjacent halls,” I told Cyril, taking a step around him to look down the hall leading to the door. Just like with the others, there were several points where this one intersected with other halls, as well as a stairwell that ran between levels. “Can we send people out to monitor the halls every two junctions away from us? Do we have enough people for that?”