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

“I was able to move it several centimeters, but the locking mechanism is resisting me,” she reported. “With more leverage, I believe I can get the door open.”

More leverage? I considered the problem for a second, and the implications. If we couldn’t get this door open in the next thirty seconds, then we needed to get moving and find another one, or grab a cutter and cut our way through. We couldn’t afford to—

Your baton, Tony interjected into my thoughts, and then showed me a picture of Rose sliding it through the hand wheel and using it as a crank. Immediately, I felt stupid for not thinking of it, and quickly grabbed my baton and held it out to Rose.

“Use this to add torque to the wheel,” I told her, and her purple eyes lightened in what I could only assume was understanding before she grabbed it. I heard the sound as she slid it through, the rasp of it loud in my ears, and renewed my efforts in the hallway, keeping a wary eye out.

The heavy metallic groan returned moments later, periodically punctuated by a sharp squeal of movement. I swallowed, my nerves scrabbling against the noise, screaming for her to stop giving away our position, but I swallowed it down and kept panning the light around.

Pipe. Wall. Another pipe. Flooring. Non-functional lighting. More darkness that my light couldn’t penetrate. Wall. Pipe. Wall.

“Status,” I said, when the span of time grew intolerable.

“Halfway there,” Rose reported, and I writhed at the delay.

“Dylan?”

“This side is still clear,” she reported, but I could hear the thread of fear in her voice, telling me that she was feeling the exposure just as keenly as I was.

“Keep calm,” I told her, and it wasn’t just directed at her, but also at myself. We’d come too far already to give in to our baser instincts now, and I wasn’t about to set a precedent. “We’re almost—”

I stopped when my light caught something. Not the chromatic silver of the sentinels, but rather a flash of paleness that could only come from human flesh, showing from behind one of the pipes, just at the edge of my light. Whoever it was ducked back into the darkness before I could really make them out, and on instinct, I took a step toward them.

“Hello?” I called softly, keeping my voice calm so as not to scare them. “Don’t worry about the sentinel. She’s on our side, protecting us.”

My light cut deeper into the darkness, but there was no sign of movement, even as I panned it around. I paused, listening closely, and heard the faint rustle of someone moving away, trying to muffle the sound of their boots in their passing. For a second, it was in my heart to go after them, to reassure them that we were safe and that they should come with us, but then my mind kicked into high gear, reminding me it wasn’t possible. We didn’t have another lash harness for them, and carrying them up a sheer wall would only add stress to our gyros. I supposed they could hold on to Rose’s back, but it was still dangerous. He or she had better chances inside the shell, especially if my hypothesis about who the sentinels were targeting was correct, and they had a rank higher than six. If not, then I prayed they found somewhere safe to hide until this was over.

I retreated back to the others, keeping my light moving. The sound Rose was making with the door continued for several more long seconds, and then suddenly it stopped with a loud clang.

I nearly leapt out of my skin, the sound like a thunderclap erupting right in my ear, and whirled around in time to see her shoving the door open.

Water immediately began to spill into the hall, sluicing down from over the opening to create a thin waterfall and spattering against the bottom rim and onto the floor of the hall.

“What the—” I said out loud, my shock at seeing water in a place where it was not supposed to be overriding all internal thought. Maybe there was a leak coming from one of the greeneries above? It was possible, but it seemed unlikely, given how much water was pouring down.

Rose continued through the water, ignoring it even as the part of her chest where the sentinel had been damaged sparked, causing Dylan and me to dance back to avoid getting hit by the bright embers shooting toward us. For several seconds, I could see the vague outline of her on the platform beyond, through the sheet of water, as she looked around. Then she turned back and made a gesture with her hand, indicating that it was clear.

I exchanged glances with Dylan and then took a deep breath to calm myself. Whatever the problem was, it didn’t seem to involve the sentinels, so that, at least, was a relief. I could figure out the rest once I was inside. I motioned for Dylan to go, did one last check of the dark hall to make sure we weren’t being observed, and then stepped through the watery portal, lifting an arm to shield myself from the torrential spray.

I almost slipped on the flooring as I stepped onto the landing, and Dylan quickly grabbed an arm and stabilized me. I shot her a grateful look and then turned around. The water splashed under my feet. Holding my arm down to shine the light on it, I realized immediately that the leak was not a leak at all. Water was sluicing down the staircase and the walls, creating a steady stream that didn’t seem to be ending. I shone my light down the stairs and saw that not even twenty-five feet down, the water was collecting into a pool—and swallowing up the stairs and the levels under it.

“It’s the defenses,” Dylan said, just as I was coming to the same conclusion. One of the Tower’s defenses for repelling outside invaders was to flood the outer part of the shell to drown the enemies before they could get inside. I’d never seen it happen—never even heard of it being used—but here it was, coming true.

And my eyes widened as I realized that this wasn’t an accident, either. Water Treatment had ultimate control over this particular defense, and they would not have activated it heedlessly. This was why Sage had attacked Water Treatment, why it had fallen. He’d needed the power from the hydro-turbines—and he’d wanted this area flooded.

But why? To kill the people inside in an attempt to prevent them from thwarting him? Or something else?

Something else, Tony said gravely, and I took a step up the stairs, suddenly afraid.

“What?” I asked, causing Dylan and Rose to give me strange looks. I ignored them, focusing on Tony’s answer.

The outer shell needs to be filled with water if anyone is going to initiate a system purge of the Core. The endothermic heat generated by the power transfer is enough to melt its own components unless they are cooled rapidly. That’s mostly handled with hydrogen, but the water in the shell acts as both a reservoir and a cooling element to the power conduits running through the shell. It prevents them from burning out.

How much time does this give us before he’s ready to do that? I asked, my mind racing. Sage’s plan still required Leo and Tony, and the power from the Mechanics and Knights Departments, but if this was another element to it, I needed to know what kind of timeframe I had before Sage physically had what he needed to kill Scipio.

At this rate? Eight hours.

That wasn’t a lot of time. If Dylan and I were lucky, it would only take us four or five hours to get high enough to reenter the Tower. If Sage somehow managed to figure out how to flood the shell faster, though, he’d be able to cut us off before we could get back inside. We’d still have a few options for how to enter, but none that were good. It would have to be either through a greenery, which meant facing people who were probably against me at this point, or climbing to the very top of the Tower and entering through the door there.

I supposed it was possible to turn back and try to climb up through the inner part of the shell, but when I put my mind to what that would entail, I felt the bite of impatience surge through me. I didn’t want to go back. I knew what was back there. I had to move forward, had to make it to the others. They needed me.