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

“Excellent,” I replied. “If you don’t mind tapping twice on the pipe to let Cyril know, I’ll wait here with your friend and—”

The woman suddenly held up her hand, her eyebrows furrowing as her eyes got distant. She cocked her head slightly, and a moment later, I heard it: an erratic pattern being beaten out somewhere against the pipe.

“Something’s coming,” she whispered a moment later. “Eastern hall. Reports seeing… a crowd of people racing toward them, being pursued by six small golden lights in the distance, approaching rapidly.”

I turned around, looking back the way I had come. The eastern halls were on the other side of the main one. The one that led toward the door where Lacey was. “Fall back,” I told them. “Order everyone to the center—”

“More spotted on this side,” the man interrupted a second later, and I glanced over my shoulder to see him peering farther down the hall, his hand trembling. “Coming down all three adjacent hallways.”

Fear clenched my gut as I realized that Alice had us surrounded, and was closing in, and I slowly let a breath out against it, focusing on something productive. “Fall back,” I repeated. “Get to the door, now. Tell everyone.”

The two nodded and began tapping against the pipes using wrenches they produced from pockets in their suits. I didn’t stick around to watch them. I was already turning back to head to the door, needing to appraise Lacey of the situation.

I emerged from the hall seconds before Anna emerged from the opposite side, her cheeks flushed red with fear and exertion. “The man down the hall told me to run,” she hastily explained. “What’s going on?”

“The sentinels are coming,” I told her grimly. “C’mon, we need to get to Lacey.”

She nodded, mustering up a brave face in spite of how shaken she was, and we made our way up the hall toward the doors. We were halfway there when the first scream started. It was cut short before I could even turn around, but a second scream followed it. I heard several more screams and shouts go up and realized that everything was about to erupt into chaos. We needed to be close to the door when Lacey got it open so that we could make sure Lacey and the rest of the people got through safely.

I grabbed Anna’s wrist and began to pull her away, moving toward the next ring of lights at a brisk walk that turned into a light jog as soon as she matched my speed. Within seconds, we were running down the hall, led only by the bright lights ahead. We reached them just as the sound of running feet began to echo loudly through the halls, drowning our own out, and I came to an abrupt stop in front of Lacey.

“Tell me that you are two seconds from opening it,” I practically begged.

Lacey’s face was even paler than before, but the look in her eyes was one of fierce determination. “I take it we have guests?”

I glanced back down the hall and saw that the few lights from before had already doubled, and that the beams were jerking back and forth across the walls—which told me they were running.

“Yes,” I said. “And people are starting to panic. So please tell me you got the door!”

“Of course I have the door. The door likes me! It’s my friggin’ friend, through thick and thin!”

I looked over at Anna, who gave me a little shrug, and then glanced at Dylan and Rose.

“She’s been talking like that since Anna left,” Dylan said quietly.

“She was talking like that before I left,” I muttered, looking back at Lacey, gravely concerned about how the blood loss was starting to affect her. “Lacey, listen. The sentinels are coming, and you haven’t told anyone exactly what you are trying to do, and now you’re babbling. What do you need us to do to get the door open?”

“I need you to shut up for just one… damn… second,” she grated out, her arm stretching up to run the pen over a vertical circuit and then drag it back down toward a central node. “I’ve almost…”

The pen hit the central node and erupted in a spray of sparks. Lacey snatched her hand back, even as Anna threw herself over the woman, shielding her from the spray. The lights in the door flickered, and then turned a deep orange, before sliding to one side.

A blond woman wearing the orange coveralls of her department stood on the other side, and took a step back, her eyes widening in surprise as she took us all in. Her eyes leapt from one of us to another before finally settling on Lacey. “Engineer Green!” she said. “What’s going on? We haven’t been able to get the doors to open!”

“Power’s out in the shell,” Lacey croaked, motioning for Anna to help her up. “But still on in Cogstown. That locks the doors up to prevent them from being overridden by the Knights or anyone else trying to attack the department. A little design feature we had installed after the last Requiem Day, heh. But it’s a bitch and a half when you’re stuck on the outside, trying to get in. Now…” She paused as Rose moved in to scoop her up, clutching her side and giving a weak cry of pain. “I think I’m ready to lie down.”

“Less talking, more running!” I shouted, feeling like everyone was ignoring the oncoming wave of panicked humans behind us. “Rose, you get Lacey and Anna to a room, and then find Lacey a blood donor. Anna will explain what I mean. You, Cog girl—”

The woman pointed at herself, and when I nodded, she offered a tentative, “Neela.”

“Neela, people are going to be coming through here quickly. You need to keep them moving so the hall doesn’t jam up, and then be ready to seal the door. Tell me you can do that.”

Neela nodded and moved out of the way, speaking to some people just out of view from where I was standing. I ignored it for now and turned to Dylan. “You too,” I said, pointing to the doorway. “I’ll stay to help get people through, and—”

I stopped when the first person finally reached us, rudely moving between us to go through the door. Dylan and I exchanged looks, and then the first wave of people was on us.

“What’s going on?” I shouted as they began to push through, frantically making their way toward the door.

“Two people are dead!” a woman—who I recognized as Lacey’s volunteer blood donor—shouted as the crowd grew thicker, and more compact, slowing down due to people pressing to be first.

“Slow down,” I ordered them, shoving my hand in between bodies to prevent them from pushing farther forward and jamming things up. “Don’t panic! If you slow down and maintain patience, this can move quickly.”

“THEY’RE AT THE NEXT JUNCTION!” a voice in the crowd shouted, and everyone erupted into pandemonium. I was pushed back by a shoulder and slammed into a wall, losing all sight of Dylan as a throng of people hit the opening—more than I could possibly imagine. All of them were fighting for a position in the front, screaming and jostling, eyes wide with fear and panic at whatever was coming from the hall behind them.

Out of desperation to see what was coming, I threw a lash line overhead and used my harness to reel myself up so that I had a view over the tops of the heads of the crowd. Most people carried lights of some sort, but they were all pointing them forward rather than back and weren’t holding them still at all. Still, the crowd of people—which had doubled, if not tripled—was casting enough light collectively that I could see several feet behind them in the hall, where more and more people were racing to join us.

Then one man who had just entered the light gave a surprised scream and was violently ripped off his feet and thrown backward, his hoarse shout of alarm being cut off with a harsh thud.