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

I lifted my head slowly, doing my best to ignore the way the right side of my face felt as if it were sliding downward and melting off, and slowly twisted my head more to the right. The axis of the world shifted slightly, my equilibrium not remotely calibrated to handle that angle yet, and I closed my eye for a second, trying to still the sudden rocking sensation.

A rustle of movement had me setting my head down rapidly, and I heard footsteps marching across the floor behind me. I remained focused on my breathing while whoever had just emerged from the room began picking things up and setting them down with impatient mutterings. It took me a second, but I realized it was Sadie, likely coming out to get something to wake Grey. And from the sounds of it, she was having a hard time finding it. I seized the opportunity to open my eye again and resume my lookout, hoping that if the sentinels were around, they were watching her and not me.

She suddenly shouted, “What does it look like?” over her shoulder, loudly enough to make me freeze.

“It’s a pneumatic injector, Sadie,” Sage declared irritably.

“Not the injector, Father,” she snapped, and I realized that neither was paying attention to me. I continued to survey the room, finally noting the set of robot legs standing just to the right of the door, facing in. “The damn vial! What color?”

A quick glance to my left told me the second sentinel wasn’t there, meaning it was either behind me, or had gone back to the main entrance to the room to prevent further intrusion. I couldn’t check behind me with Sadie back there, but as soon as she was gone, I could move.

“The red one! And hurry up. I’m ready to put this to an end. How about you, Scipio? Ready to die?”

“Please,” I heard an agonized moan reply, and I realized that Scipio’s hologram was in the room with them. “Anything to make it stop. I can’t take it. The voices… They’re screaming for me to help, but these chains you’ve put on me… Just end it, please.”

My heart twisted to hear the great machine so desperate for death, in that much pain, and remembered that he felt every death that was happening in the Tower at the exact moment it was happening. He was suffering from it, his very core being corrupted by it, and was powerless to do anything to stop it.

He was beyond broken.

I put my head down as Sadie made a satisfied noise, and listened to the sound of her footsteps marching past me and into the room. As soon as they stopped, I lifted my head up again and risked a glance behind me, peering through a bleary, unfocused eye for any hint of the other sentinel. The world seesawed back and forth, but I just swayed with the rhythm of it and focused, until I was certain it wasn’t lurking back there. I swiveled back around, took one last furtive glance at the sentinel by the door, and then began to crawl.

It was awkward, with one arm still aching and tender from all the places it had been hit. I wasn’t sure if the damn thing was broken or dislocated at this point, but it wasn’t doing much to support my weight as I moved.

But thankfully, I didn’t have to move very far. Within seconds I was close enough to brush my fingers across the gun’s rough grip, and I dragged it toward me with one finger, then two, my eye on the sentinel’s legs. They remained still, her focus completely on whatever was happening inside the room, and a few moments later I had the gun in my palm, the feel of it as heavy as it was reassuring.

I blew out several breaths, and then slowly began to pick myself up off the floor, getting one boot under me, then the other. I ignored the sound of Grey’s sharp gasp coming from the opening, and the sentinel herself, just focusing my will solely on the act of rising. I wasn’t sure where I was finding the energy; I was beyond spent, broken in both body and soul.

Yet somehow, I rose.

I took several more deep breaths, steadying myself as my balance began to sway with the world. Grey gave another sharp cry—this one pained—and the world suddenly snapped into focus.

I turned and leveled the gun at the sentinel, aiming for the black box on its back, which was partially obscured by a metal cage over it. I didn’t have Tony to steady my aim, but I had found some sort of stillness inside that was giving me focus.

I squeezed the trigger, the gun jerking in my hand.

There was a spark from the hard drive, but it was hard to tell whether I had hit the cage or box. I took a step forward, preparing to fire another round, and then the sentinel made a sharp, “EEEEEEEEE!” noise that sent a piercing pain through my head.

I winced, just as a flash of movement emerged from the doorframe, and I fired at it, letting instinct guide me. The sharp noise from the sentinel cut off with a sharp zzt, and I immediately opened my eyes, and saw Sadie standing with one foot through the doorframe, a pulse shield in her hand. I started to fire at her again, already knowing I was too late, but then paused when she looked down at her chest. I followed her gaze… and saw the hole there, already pouring out blood.

Pouring out of the left side of her chest—from approximately where her heart was located.

She looked up at me, her brows furrowing in confusion. “But…” she breathed, before toppling over.

I felt nothing as she fell, and after doing a quick check of the sentinel to make sure it was out, I took a staggering step toward the doorway. The light inside was glowing brightly in an array of prismatic colors. It was like the room I had met the Lionel program inside of, only not glowing white.

The kaleidoscope of colors was like gravel being dragged along the inside of my brain, but I pushed through it, knowing I’d already come so far.

The protocol was on the tip of my tongue. All I had to do was yell it at Leo, and he’d be uploaded into the server, where he could take out Kurt and stop Sage’s plan once and for all. Leaving me to finally kill Sage. I moved up to the side of the door, intent on shouting it through the doorframe.

“Leo!” I cried. Or at least I tried to. But my voice came out as barely a harsh whisper, a gurgle of noise that felt like my entire voice box had been smashed. I suppressed a curse and gritted my teeth. If I couldn’t yell it at him, then I’d have to get closer.

I became aware of the beating sounds of a sentinel’s footsteps, and on impulse, dove through the door. A gunshot exploded right ahead of me, and I felt it impact directly into my thigh, but I was suddenly too enraged to care. Because I could see Sage standing just off center, next to where Grey was bleeding on the floor. His gun was already pointed at me, and I saw the flash of another bullet explode from the muzzle as he fired at me.

My arm snapped out at him, my eyes already settling on the colorful target his uniform was making in the spectral lights. My heart thundered in my chest as I expelled a slow breath and squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked in my hand, making my arm throb with agony, but I ignored it, my eyes watching Sage. The bullet hit him on the left side of the chest, and I barely caught the old man’s look of surprise before he spun away and fell. I exhaled, lowering the gun, and then cried out as I felt the burning in my leg where I had been shot. It was like someone had driven a spike through my thigh.

“Liana?”

I opened my eyes, the weak sound of Grey’s voice chasing the pain away for a moment. I scanned the ground, and saw him lying near where Sage had fallen, already climbing across the floor to get to me. The beating sound of the footsteps came closer, and I knew that at any second, the sentinel would enter, see what we had done, and kill us both.