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

Not much about what’s happening inside the Core, she replied grimly. Right after the power was cut to the rest of the Tower, my connection to Scipio was severed. I’ve got my entire section on it, trying to reestablish control, but right now, Scipio’s status is a mystery.

Great, I replied, disappointed. Dylan stepped through the door, and I moved up to follow, ever conscious of the time. I really hoped that the sentinel carrying Sage was taking its time, but I couldn’t exactly count on that. So do you know what’s happening outside the Core?

A lot, actually. I am currently tapped in to the communication hub and have devoted a small group of my people to intercepting messages to try to paint a picture of what’s going on. As I understand it, Water Treatment has been breached, and their power is about to be diverted to the Core.

Anger gripped me as I thought of all the people in Water Treatment who were now being cast into darkness, left at the mercy of the Alice units, but I tamped it down, promising myself that I would unleash that fury soon, on the bastard responsible. I knew that it had been breached, but the power thing is new. Any idea where it’s going?

Yes, actually. It’s being diverted to a location at the bottom of the central power conduit, which should be impossible, but somehow it isn’t.

Impossible? I asked, finally allowing myself to move through the door after Dylan. My eyes quickly searched the room, which was a quarter the size of the first, and I relaxed when I saw that it was empty and devoid of life.

There’s nothing there, Dinah replied in answer to my question. I have every schematic ever drawn up of the Core on a personal archive, and I’m telling you, there’s nowhere for that power to go! I have no explanation for it!

I rubbed my fingers together as I spotted a lone terminal in the room, and quickly put my gun away and moved toward it. While my goal was Tony, my mind was on what Dinah was saying. There had to be something there, no matter what Dinah’s records reflected. And whatever it was, I was betting it was where Sage was heading, or where he planned to end up before everything was said and done.

Which meant that was where it was all going to happen. If I managed to make it out of Cogstown alive, with Tony, then back up to my friends without dying, maybe we could use the emergency escape hatch to get into Sadie’s quarters and find a way to cut through the wall into the power conduit. It was risky, but worth a shot.

I just had to accomplish so many things before I got there.

Keep poking around, I told her. I’m retrieving something we need that I hope will slow Sage down some, but I don’t think it’ll keep him down for long.

Okay, she said. There was a pause, and then she added, I think you should know, there was a tech trapped inside the Citadel when the power went out. He’s been transmitting updates to his lead every ten minutes or so, and it seems that the legacies you arrested are out and wreaking havoc.

I grated my teeth together. On the one hand, I was grateful for the information. On the other, it was an unnecessary reminder that I was trapped down here, nearly a hundred floors away, unable to do anything to help. Any word what floor they are on?

Twenty, she replied, and I expelled a breath of relief. With how fast Alice and her units seemed to be moving, I had expected them to already be on the sixty-fifth floor, about to breach my quarters. Still, it was way too close for comfort. But your Knights have apparently started to form defenses against them. It looks like it’s slowing them down, so have hope. Now, we should finish the transmission. If I’m monitoring them, that means someone else might be as well, and for all the precautions I take, it’s better not to tempt fate. Good luck.

You too, I replied. A moment later the buzz under my skull stopped, signaling that the transmission had concluded.

I took several seconds to gather my wits about me, and then looked expectantly at the terminal in front of me. I was never really sure how to approach these things, but I decided to assume that the AI fragment inside could hear and see me even now.

“Hello, Tony?” I said softly, looking around. “My name is Liana Castell. Lacey asked me to come and get you. She told me to tell you the password. It’s… uh… Seymore Butts.”





13





There was a long moment of silence, and I glanced nervously at Dylan and then back to the terminal, wondering whether Tony was even hooked up to a microphone and speakers. It seemed a bit cruel if he wasn’t, considering he had the ability to hear and respond to the world around him, but maybe it was part of how Lacey had kept him hidden.

A burst of static from over the door caught me unexpectedly, and I half leapt out of my skin. The room filled with the giggle of a high-pitched voice, modulated to sound like a young boy of nine or ten. “He-he-he-he-he! You said butts!” he exclaimed happily, still chortling gleefully. “I told Lacey that would be good, but she just—”

The voice cut off and the screen clicked on, revealing a young boy’s face composed of red coding. The image looked around the room, but I heard the whir of cameras going all around me, telling me that the face was just mimicking the movement to tell me what he was doing.

He was giving us a onceover and growing more and more suspicious by the second.

“Where’s Lacey?” he demanded, and there was a thread of fear in his voice.

I looked down at my watch, and saw that there were still two minutes on the estimate Lacey had given us. Some time for an explanation, but not much. “Lacey was shot at the council meeting, and she’s several levels up, in surgery. Can you access the cameras in the room? It’s on level 45, south side of the Tower.”

“No,” he reported. “I can’t. Cogstown still has power, but cameras are down, taken out by a virus undoubtedly left by the spy who was working in the server room.”

I felt a wave of frustration at his response, not only because it kept him from verifying our story, but also because Sadie and Sage had really covered their bases. I might have forced Sage to speed up his plan, but he had already managed to achieve quite a bit within the various departments—and it all sabotaged our chances of resisting him. It was devastating. Without the cameras, the Cogs wouldn’t be able to see if any sentinels managed to find a way in. Just one sentinel could tear a bloody path through Cogstown before anyone realized it was there, and by the time a large enough force was alerted and mobilized, the sentinel would’ve killed dozens of people.

I swallowed my anger back and looked at Tony, ever cognizant of the time. “Look, I swear, Lacey gave me the password and told me where to find you. The transceiver that you built was taken by Sage, and they are going to plug it in at any minute and initiate the download. How do we stop it?”

He blinked at me and then looked at Dylan and Rose. “Why do you have a sentinel with you?” he asked, blatantly ignoring my question.

Rose moved, stepping around Dylan and closer to Tony. “Hello, Little Brother,” she said softly, and I could feel the warmth and reverence in her voice. “Oh, I’ve missed you. I’m so happy to see that you’re safe and undamaged. I worried—”

“Holy hell in a handbasket,” Tony exclaimed, his face growing smaller on the screen, as if he had taken a step back. “Rose? Wha… Ho…” He stopped for several seconds, and then his face grew larger. “Are you okay?”

Rose’s eyes “blinked,” and then she cocked her head. “Not good. But I’m more afraid for our brothers. Scipio is in trouble. Jasper and I have seen him, and it’s like there are hooks in his code that run deep, controlling some of his key functions like he’s some sort of puppet. Jasper was trying to study it and relay the information to me, but he has been taken by our enemies, and I was forced to copy myself to stay with Liana and find you. They have everyone, except for you, and it seems that Alice and Kurt are working with a man who has plotted our downfall since the beginning. Why would they have done this, Little Brother?”