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

“Have you heard anything about the Citadel?” I asked, resuming my quick pace.

“Actually, yes,” Lynch replied, jogging to keep up with me. “The update from Scipio allowed us a few seconds to use their connection to hack into their data feed, and we were able to determine that Water Treatment, Cogstown, and the Citadel all have power. Apparently they didn’t anticipate our departments not getting hit in the initial power drain, and have sent orders for us to shut it down so they can work on restoring Scipio, but fat chance of that happening. I can’t tell you what’s happening inside, but they are fighting back. Which is good, because Scipio has deemed the entire Knights Department psychologically contaminated.”

I stopped and looked at him, my shock at his revelation causing my jaw to drop. “He declared the entire department psychologically contaminated?” I repeated, unable to help myself. By doing that, he’d condemned every Knight in the Citadel to death in the eyes of the Tower. He was trying to wipe out an entire department! But why? What purpose would it serve to eradicate the entire department? Was it just to kill more people, or to punish them for voting me in as the Champion?

Lynch nodded, his face twisting in sympathy. “You’ve been painted as the ringleader, which calls into question the entire department. They elected you, after all. And before you go getting upset about that… it gets worse.”

My stomach twisted, and I steeled myself for more bad news. “What is it?”

“Scipio’s announcement included a report that all departments were under lockdown, and that power would be cut to them until they selected new department heads, to prevent further rioting and insurrection. If anyone from any department is found to be aiding and abetting you, then the entire department will suffer the consequences. Which means you need to avoid any other departments once you get out of here.”

I nodded. It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be, but it wasn’t optimal. Still, I felt less awful about heading away from the Citadel to fetch Tony, knowing that the Citadel still had power and was fighting back.

“Anything else?” I asked as he stopped at an open shaft where a basket hung from a woven metallic rope. I had seen these all over Cogstown before but had never ridden in one.

“The power that Scipio is supposedly cutting off is actually being diverted,” Lynch told me as he approached the basket and gripped the edge of it tightly with one hand, waving for us to get in. I quickly did just that, hauling myself over the edge while he continued to speak. “We can’t figure out where it’s being diverted to, but based on the legacy memories of the last Requiem Day, we know that it’s going somewhere in the Core, and that they need every bit of power the Tower can produce to do whatever they’re doing. Now that Water Treatment is breached, it’ll only be a matter of time before the sentinels divert that department’s power to the Core, and then they’ll mount an attack on Cogstown to do the same.”

“Do you have weapons to mount an adequate defense?” Dylan asked, stealing the question from my very lips as she got into the basket.

“Not against sentinels,” Lynch said, warily watching Rose as she approached the basket. “They’re tough to kill.”

He wasn’t wrong, although I knew for a fact that electricity in high enough amounts could slow them down. I turned my attention to Rose for a second as she tentatively put one foot in the basket, and tried not to yelp as the concave bottom flexed under her weight.

“You are sure this is able to hold my weight?” Rose asked the engineer. “I can always climb down if it would be safer.”

“It’s made to hold five tons,” he said flatly. “We use it for hauling heavier things. Now hurry up. We don’t have much time.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the snap in his voice, but I kept my mouth shut and waved for Rose to come join us. The metallic rope screeched slightly as she settled her full weight in the basket, and I looked up at the ceiling above, where the wench mechanism for the rope was seated, eyeing the brake to make sure it wasn’t failing. The components continued to groan as Rose sat down, and the basket started to sway some, offset by her weight.

Lynch quickly hopped in after her, and then turned a hand crank on the side, and within moments, we were descending into the shaft. We descended for several seconds while I thought about what he was telling me. Sage was diverting the power from other departments to the Core, but for what? Surely it was part of his plan to kill Scipio and replace him with Kurt, but how would more power do that? If anything, wouldn’t that make Scipio stronger?

And somehow, amid all this chaos, the Citadel was fighting back, resisting the energy drain. I knew it was Leo and Quess; they had to be doing something to keep the power going, which gave me at least some small hope that they weren’t completely unaware of what had happened in the cells. I just hoped that they were able to mobilize the Knights to stand against Eustice and the others, and that they didn’t ask too many questions when the fighting hit the fan. They needed to focus on their survival.

I needed to focus on slowing Sage’s plan down. And that meant getting Tony.

Yesterday.





11





Lynch wasted no time leaping over the lip of the basket as soon as we hit the bottom of the shaft, waving for us to follow. I jumped out quickly, taking a moment to give Dylan a hand, and then walked at a brisk pace behind him. I wasn’t sure why, but the few minutes we had spent in silence descending twenty floors seemed to have given my body some sort of permission to start feeling every ache and pain from the last two days, coupled with a deep exhaustion that made even my bones feel heavy.

I did my best to shake it off, but with every step I took, I became more aware of my discomfort, as well as how thirsty and hungry I was. It was like my body was just rubbing salt in the wound, and I couldn’t help but feel angry at it for trying to remind me that I was only human. I couldn’t afford to be human today. Today, of all days, I needed to be more than that.

Moving helped, and as soon as we emerged from the forest of girders that made up the bottom floor and hit the crowds of people racing around the massive central air processing unit, my guard went back up and my head went down, Lynch’s warning still bright in my mind.

Rose was a big enough deterrent to have people scurrying away from us without even casting Dylan and me a second look, but the closer we got to the air processing unit, the thicker the crowd became, until we were practically surrounded by people, their eyes dark with mistrust and wariness. The only thing that seemed to hold them back was Lynch, who repeatedly bellowed, “These individuals are allies to the department and have been given safe passage through Cogstown,” in a loud voice that seemed to help pacify those who looked ready to assault Rose outright.