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

I moved up to join her, stepping through the doorframe. A trickle of water managed to sneak past the arm I put overhead, running right down the back of my suit and proving that an arm did not make for a good umbrella, but I ignored it as I approached the door. “Command override, Lionel Scipio 001-001-A.”

For a long second, nothing happened. Then the lights in the door flickered on, and the door popped open, a robotic voice announcing, “Authorization code accepted. Welcome home, Lionel.”

I blinked in surprise, then exchanged a look with Dylan. “That’s a nice touch,” I said, when all other words escaped me. “Think they should’ve left that one in for everyone to enjoy?”

It was a weak joke, but Dylan gave a snort of amusement. “Oh yeah, maybe added some variety to it. It would add a nice homey touch to the place, for sure.”

I smiled at that, and then stood aside to let her lead the way.





Going back into the Tower felt like being swallowed by an enormous monster. After the fresh air and bright sunshine outside, I was now cast back into the claustrophobic darkness, with only my hand light to serve as a thin shield against it. Walls and pipes cropped up suddenly without warning, and every creak and groan of metal contracting and expanding set my skin twitching like I’d been electrocuted. I had to resist the urge to flash my light around wildly, trying to find the source of the noises in the darkness.

It didn’t help that the halls in the Attic were wider than the ones down below. If anything, it only made the environment scarier. If I turned the light to one side, I couldn’t make out the walls on the opposite side, which meant that every step forward gave the monsters hiding in the shadows time to pursue us.

I knew I was being ridiculous, jumping at imaginary things in the darkness. Then again, I’d never known an inky blackness like this. There had always been light in my world; even when they were set on nighttime settings, the lights of the Tower generated some light, so people out and about could see. And when I turned my lights off to go to sleep, there was always something on in the room, to keep the darkness from blanketing me entirely.

But this was different—grander and eerier. It gave off the sense that it was watching me. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as we traveled deeper into the Tower, the feeling that something was off increasing. It was possible I was imagining it—the experience in the shell after Sage had cut the power was likely coloring my outlook up here—but at least there had been people down below.

There was nobody up here. Which was sort of the idea in using the halls of the Attic to get to our destination, but now that I was fully experiencing it, I couldn’t help but feel that we were already too late. That the Tower and everyone inside of it had perished in the few hours we were on the outside, making our way up, then down, then up again. I knew it was silly, that my mind was playing tricks on me, but that did nothing to stop the feeling of wrongness.

It crept along my spine like a slow trickle of water, making me hyperaware of every sound, every movement around me.

Which was likely why I heard it first: a dull, rhythmic beat.

I froze in the middle of the hall and held perfectly still. Many noises had given me pause since I entered, but this one was so striking, so familiar in its call, that it had to be real.

Rose came to a stop behind me, and said, “Liana?” in a quizzical tone, but I ignored her, shutting my eyes so I could focus on what I was hearing. I heard Dylan come to a halt in front of me, the sound of her boots on the floor stopping, and I took in a deep breath and held it, listening.

Several seconds passed before my heartbeat began to slow after my initial jolt of surprise, but as soon as it did, I could hear it. Clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp.

So could Dylan, apparently. “What is that?” she whispered softly, alarm rich in her voice.

I hesitated, looking over at the other woman. “I’m not sure,” I finally said, unable to produce an answer. I’d never heard anything like it before, other than the familiar rhythm, which I was having difficulty placing. “But we should keep moving, and hope that whatever it is won’t even know we’re here.”

Dylan nodded and resumed walking, this time a hair faster, her light swinging back and forth in a slow arch.

But it didn’t matter. The deeper into the Tower we went, the louder the rhythm became, until I was certain that we were heading right for it. Dylan must’ve sensed it too, because she suddenly turned left down a junction, clearly trying to get away from the pounding, and I kept up, my mind whirring at what the source of it could be and settling on someone or something trying to use hammers to straighten out a sheet of metal.

We sped down the second corridor as the sound increased and intensified, and then Dylan came to a sudden halt, throwing one arm out to block our path. I came to a stop a moment later, following the line of her light into the darkness to see what she was looking at, and almost gasped when I saw the light catch a silver gleam some thirty feet away, revealing a sentinel in the next junction.





24





The sentinel wasn’t facing us. It was marching down the cross hall, heading toward the center of the Tower. Dylan quickly clamped her hand over her light, cutting the beam off in a mad attempt to shield us from notice, but I knew it was too late. I was already shouldering the plasma rifle, intent on taking it out, when my light caught a shadow forming on the wall behind it.

Another sentinel entering the junction behind the first.

I took an alarmed step back, even as Rose moved forward, planting a hand on each of our shoulders and shoving us back a few steps, then creating a barrier between us and the sentinels. “Run,” she instructed, her stance becoming defensive.

I hesitated, not wanting to leave Rose behind to deal with two sentinels when I had a perfectly good rifle, but it finally dawned on me that the sounds we had been hearing were them—the sentinels. They were marching, likely from wherever Sage had stowed them to whatever department they intended to hit next. And it wasn’t just one or two or three of them, but a seemingly never-ending army of the mechanized monsters.

We had to run. At any second, they were going to spring on us like ants defending their colony.

Dylan got there faster than me, her hand grabbing my shoulder and forcibly pulling me back. I took a few stumbling steps in her direction, my mouth dry and heart racing, then cast a look at Rose, watching as she activated something in the sentinel to make the lines of it start glowing purple, acting like a beacon. My heart was ripping in half at the thought of her sacrificing herself for us when something about the darkness beyond her gave me pause.

Where were Alice’s golden eyes?

“Wait,” I said softly, the absence of them intriguing enough to bring me to a halt. I knew that if I was wrong, I could delay our escape by precious seconds, but this was important. When Rose was in control, her eyes glowed purple nonstop. So why weren’t the other sentinels the same?

In fact… I cocked my head, listening intently. The sound of their feet marching was still there, thundering down the hall, but there was no other sound of movement on top of it. No sets of feet running out of rhythm with the marching, or anything that signaled pursuit. No sounds of voices calling for us to stop.

“Liana!” Dylan hissed, urgently tugging on the shoulder of my uniform.

But I shook my head, shrugged out of her hold, and moved back toward Rose. Even her posture was relaxing some, her head cocking quizzically as she peered down the hall. She glanced at me when I stepped up next to her, and then gazed down the hall.

“I don’t understand,” she said softly, shifting her weight nervously. “Why are they not chasing us?”

“Maybe they didn’t see us,” Dylan whispered, taking a few steps forward before stopping again. “We need to run.”