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

I felt something reaching out for me, a line of connection that promised that if I tried, just one more time, I’d be rewarded. It wouldn’t be that bad.

Grey’s face filled my mind—a memory of us standing on the catwalk by the hydro-turbines, the moment that had hung between us, coupled with the recollection of Leo, his lips pressing against mine in a hot, hungry kiss that was all him, even if he had been inside of Grey’s body at the time.

The reminder of the two men in my life, the love I felt for them, gave me the fire for one last try, and this time, I just went for it.

My eyelids snapped open, and I resisted the urge to shut them immediately against the harsh light, and squinted instead. It took a few seconds for the glare to lessen, my pupils slowly contracting to filter out the excess light. My head ached fiercely, but even as I thought about it, there was a significant decrease in the pain, making it somewhat easier to breathe.

How’s that? a voice asked in my mind, and I tensed.

Tony? I asked, instantly confused. What—

You took a few thousand volts, and your heart almost stopped. Luckily, Dylan had enough first-aid training to inject you with adrenaline, and something that she said will help with the damage to your nerves.

A synaptic neural gel, I told him, knowing exactly what Dylan had done. It was smart, too. Her quick thinking had likely spared me any long-term nerve damage. Where are we?

Even as I asked, my vision finally began to focus, the dark and light colors sharpening, gaining shape and definition. I realized I was sitting down in a hall, my back pressed against the wall, just outside of a door. We were no longer in the server farm. The halls were lit differently, and were significantly warmer. But beyond still being in Cogstown, I had no idea where we were.

Level 25, Tony replied. Dylan took charge after you passed out, and at Rose’s insistence, put me inside you, in case there was any brain damage. There was not, by the way, and I managed to get the rest of my program into the net before Scipio crashed the server, so there’s that. I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of piloting your body up here. It was super fun, by the way; you’re kind of really flexible, huh?

If Tony had been any older, or had any sort of a lecherous tone in his voice, I would’ve been creeped out. But he wasn’t, and I could sense the compliment. Even still, that did nothing to detract from his revelation that he’d been “piloting” my body while I was unconscious. I’m not sure I’m—

There wasn’t any time, he interjected impatiently. Scipio fried the servers controlling the doors, to try to get me to escape through the transceiver. I set up a dummy program to continue opening the doors for the Cogs after I left, but it’s gone. That means that whatever doors were open are going to stay open until the Cogs close them manually. If they don’t get them closed in time, then Alice is going to get in, and everybody’s up poop creek without a paddle. We had to keep moving.

I bristled under his words. He was right, of course. I just didn’t like the idea that he had taken control of me. Still, I could tell he hadn’t done it maliciously; his thoughts were like an open book to me, and I could feel the innocence of his actions. Which was odd, considering he was over two hundred and fifty years old.

I understand, I told him, deciding to let it go. Now, why are we on level 25? That’s right above Water Treatment. It’s the wrong direction.

Your blood sugar is dangerously low, and your electrolytes are depleted. Dylan asked Lynch to find you some food and water, and this was apparently the closest place. I wanted to work on waking you up, so I stayed out here while they went inside to grab some grub. But, now that you’re up, you should probably get in there. They seem to be at an impasse regarding what to do next. Or rather, how to do it.

His words filled me with a sense of foreboding, but I ignored it and slowly climbed to my feet. Every movement was filled with some sort of twinge, sometimes painful, but other times electric, like amps of energy had somehow managed to hide themselves just under my skin. I ignored that, too, and eventually made it to my feet.

I was exhausted by the effort, but Tony had mentioned one important detail that seemed to override everything else weighing on my mind.

Food and water.





15





I pressed the door control to open the door and stepped inside, trying my best not to stagger. My knees felt rubbery, and every nerve ending in my body seemed to twitch with excess energy, but I somehow managed to keep a smidgeon of dignity.

Dylan and Lynch were standing on either side of a dining room table filled with food and water bottles—telling me we were in a residence. They were also in the middle of a shouting match. Rose stood on a third side, her head darting nervously back and forth as the two exchanged verbal volleys. She looked as if she were ready to intercede the minute things turned violent, and I couldn’t blame her. I had arrived when both parties were just about turning blue in the face.

“What’s going on?” I asked, and then paused at the hoarse grating sound my voice made. I sounded awful, like someone who was about to die. Luckily, the strange croak was jarring enough to catch both Dylan’s and Lynch’s attention, and they both stopped whatever incoherent rant they were in the middle of and turned toward me.

“Liana?” Dylan asked cautiously, taking a step toward me. “Or Tony?”

I stared at her for a second, and suddenly understood perfectly how Grey must feel every time I did that to him. First, I was confused. How could she not recognize me? Then I was angry—not at Tony or her, but that I couldn’t remember getting here or any conversation Tony might have had while he was using my body to get around. I took a deep breath and let it go, my current needs far more pressing than my wounded pride.

“It’s me,” I said, moving toward the table, my eyes focused solely on one of the water bottles. It had condensation on the side, telling me that it had been, at one point, cold. Dylan grabbed it before I was halfway there and tossed it to me. I caught it awkwardly, the joints in my hand too stiff to move properly, and wound up using my arm to press it to my chest. I then pulled it out, unscrewed the lid, and began drinking the water.

It was still cool, and beyond refreshing. I guzzled it down, pulling mouthful after mouthful, unwilling to relinquish it until I had sated the terrible thirst that had seized me. For several seconds everyone was silent, leaving only the sound of my heavy gulps in the room.

I stopped only when it became necessary to breathe, pulled the bottle away, and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. “Thank you,” I said, my voice significantly improved with the aid of the water I had just consumed. Dylan and Lynch both nodded.

“How are you feeling?” Lynch asked, stepping around the table. “Has Tony—”

“He got me mostly up to speed in the hallway,” I told him. “I’m still confused as to why we came down here for food. Surely we could have gotten some from an apartment closer to the Grounds.”

I reached for a loaf of bread from the table as I said this, gripping it between two hands so I could rip a chunk of it off and shove it in my mouth. My hunger was asserting itself so aggressively that manners weren’t even an option.

“Number one, because this is my apartment,” Lynch said. There wasn’t any condescension in his voice as he said this, but at my curious glance, he added, “I didn’t feel right using my authority to access other people’s apartments to take their food. But that’s not the real reason. It has to do with the sentinels.”