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

I growled in irritation and quickly exited behind her, scanning the room for her as I did. We were in some sort of bathroom, with chest-high lockers creating rows across the space, and I spotted her heading for the door.

“Dinah, stop!” I called, practically leaping out of the hole and chasing after her. “Don’t be crazy. If there are people in that hall, they will see you, and we’ll all be caught!”

Her limping gait came to a slow stop, and I breathed a sigh of relief when she turned around to face me. “I can’t do it,” she said, thumping her cane down on the floor and taking a step toward me. “That is just… way too high.”

“Well, guess what,” I said, unwilling to let her fear get the better of her. “The Patrians that we’re planning on sending you with can fly, which means you’ll be even higher off the ground, with nothing between their ship and the earth below. If there was ever a chance to get over your fear of heights, now is the time.”

“You don’t understand! I didn’t even know I had a fear of heights. Liana, I really don’t think I can do this! I don’t want to plummet to my death.”

I drew in a deep breath, trying to calm some of my irritation with her. I could tell she was deathly afraid—her face was damn near white, and her hands were shaking—and realized she needed a little handholding. “Look, Dinah, I get it. But if you go back in that hall, you’re taking a big chance. I promise you, the lash harness isn’t as hard as it looks, and you’ll be with one of our better lashers.”

“Tian?” she replied, hope curling in her voice, and I smiled encouragingly at her, even though it was slightly forced.

“She and her friend Liam are…” I paused to check over my shoulder and saw that Maddox, Quess, and Eric were all inside, with no sign of Tian or Liam. Good. That meant they had followed my orders. It was important to me, because I didn’t want them getting sealed in here accidently by someone in the Core’s command center seeing that there was an open hatch and closing it—with no way for us to open it again. But I also didn’t want Dinah trapped in here with us, especially if Sadie was hunting her down. “Waiting outside,” I finished, turning back around to face Dinah. “You know how good Tian is with lashes. You can do this.”

Her lips trembled uncertainly, but after a moment her mouth tightened, and she gave a barely perceptible nod of assent. I turned to ask for the harness only to find Eric pulling it out of Quess’s bag. He moved toward us, but instead of handing it to me, he stepped around me to begin helping Dinah put it on.

I was surprised, but relieved he was helping. It gave me time to run her through the basics of lashing. “Okay, Dinah, the lashes aren’t difficult to use unless you’re trying to go fast. But you won’t be. Tian knows to take it slow and easy. So that’s the first thing, okay?”

The elderly woman bit her lower lip nervously, watching Eric as he quickly snapped her into the harness. “Okay, I’ll go really slow.”

“Good,” I said, pleased she was repeating it back to me. It meant she was focusing on what I was saying, and retaining it for the future, which I was all for, given how nervous she was. “Now, the lash ends are going to come out of this strap wrapped around your hips. There’s one on each side that you can easily grab. Can you reach them?”

She reached down with both hands, smoothing her palms over the straps until she found the little beads, and pulled them out. “Got them,” she said with a jerky little nod.

“Excellent,” I praised, noticing that Eric had finished cinching her in. “Now, when you throw these, they are going to build up a static charge. However, it’s always good to spin them first, before you throw, for more static. Go ahead and spin one up and then throw it at the ceiling.”

I moved to one side and watched as Dinah pulled out a little bit more line to give herself some slack, then tentatively began to swing the lash end in a circle. It took her a few painful seconds to catch the rhythm of it, followed by several more while she fidgeted with her footing, her stance, her arm, all the while looking back and forth from the ceiling to her hand, as if trying to make the line move by sheer will alone.

It took everything I had to be patient with her until she finally released the line. Luckily, she had been spinning it long enough that it had a hell of a charge on it when she threw. Unluckily, her release was sloppy, and she hit the top of the row of lockers several feet behind her. She darted a look over her shoulder, and then turned back, her cheeks flushing.

“It’s okay,” I said immediately, stepping close and gently grabbing her hand to get to the hand controls so I could disconnect and draw in the line. “It just takes a little practice to get used to, but Tian and Liam will help you, even if they have to throw your lines for you. Besides, throwing isn’t the most important part. The controls are.” I lifted her hand, flattening it out so she could study the small hand controls located on the strap running across the middle of her palm. “So these two buttons control whether you go up or down, and the dial controls how fast you go. This button disconnects your line, so only hit it when the next line is attached, okay?”

She nodded again, sucking in a deep breath as she did so. “Yeah. Don’t disconnect until the next line is holding me up. The… only line holding me up. Just… a hunk of metal and some thin line holding me to the ceiling some eighty floors above the ground.”

I could hear her starting to unravel, and quickly seized her shoulders and gave her a good shake. “I’ve used these damn things every day for most of my life, Dinah. They will keep you up and get you out of here. Now, do you understand the instructions?”

She shifted slightly, and then nodded. “Go slow. Spin up line to gain static charge. Don’t hit the disconnect button until second line is attached. Follow Tian’s instructions.”

I nodded approvingly. “Good. You’ll be fine. Now, how do we get into the integration room?”

The woman blinked in surprise, and then snapped her fingers together before reaching into her pocket to retrieve a pad. “Here,” she said, holding it out to me and clicking it on. “This is the schematic of the integration room. It’s right below the bottom of the shaft where the power is transmitted into the Core. There’s one other way in and out of the room, and that’s through the air filtration system, but you have to crawl through a pipe meant for liquid nitrogen to cool the room off to get there. There is a virus on the pad that will shut the nitrogen off for a hundred and eighty seconds—that’s three minutes—during which you’ll have to crawl through about ten yards of pipe and slip out through the emergency relief valve. Both the entry point and the valve need to be closed before the time has elapsed, or you’re going to get sprayed in the face with liquid nitrogen, and the alarms will go off. To get there, I suggest taking this path to an access panel that leads to the shelf.”

As she spoke, she clicked on the files, pointing out everything she was talking about as she went on. At one point, Quess had moved in behind me to observe over my shoulder, and as soon as she was done, he reached around me and grabbed it with an, “I’ll be responsible for that.”

I let him peruse the pad while I placed a hand under Dinah’s elbow and began guiding her toward the shaft we had entered through. “All right, we gotta go. Tell Tian she and Liam have to help you lash, step by step. Use Lionel Scipio’s code to access the nearest hatch leading to the Attic, and then use the elevator to go to the roof. If… If you see Alex, tell him I’m sorry, and not to try to rescue me. If we haven’t gotten to you by the time the Patrians arrive, assume we’re dead and just leave.”

“Okay,” Dinah said, placing her hands on the edge of the vent and stepping on the bench below it. “Be careful, and, for what it’s worth, good luck.”