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

But it wasn’t right for me. I tossed it back and held out my own hands, closing my eyes. I pictured in my head the plasma rifle—the smooth lines of it—and my skin began to hum in response. Seconds later, I opened my eyes and smiled when I saw it waiting for me, hardening to a translucent amber that held a small glowing orb of energy, pulsating as if with the beating of my own heart—except I didn’t have one anymore. Not in the conventional sense, anyway.

I held it up to my shoulder and looked at Leo. “You realize that if I don’t survive, you’ll have to find someone else to bond with for the New Day protocol, right?” I asked, needing him to understand that I wouldn’t take it personally if he had to bond… fuse… whatever, with someone else.

His smile faltered, and he nodded—and for a second, I caught a glimpse of Grey, as if superimposed onto his image. “I won’t like spending an eternity without you, but… everyone gave their lives getting us here. I don’t take that lightly, and I won’t dishonor what they died for, even if it means losing you.”

Love for him blossomed, feeling like a warm rush of wind blowing inside me, and on impulse, I reached out for him and pulled him close. I was afraid, yes, but I wasn’t alone. I had lost everyone, including both Grey and myself, my real self, but I still had Leo. I still had the will to end this, and my will had already carried my body far beyond what it should have been capable of. Let Sage and Kurt stand in our way. I damn well dared them to.

I held him for several seconds, taking comfort in what could be our last moments together, and then let him go. “Let’s end this,” I said, hefting up my gun.

“After you,” he replied, casually balancing his oversized sword on his shoulder. I rolled my eyes at him, and then took off running toward the storm.

Running in cyberspace was unlike anything I could fathom. Each step felt like it ate up hundreds of miles in the horizon, and within seconds, we were within spitting distance of the war zone. I zeroed in on the dome first, the soft glow of several AIs inside it capturing my attention. Jasper stood at the center, his hands lifted up to the sky, pouring forth the bubble that was protecting the others. Inside, I could see Scipio’s blue form, his code pale and damn near transparent, curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth. Hovering over him was Rose, her code even more fragmented now than it had been the last time I saw her. She seemed to be feeding energy into Scipio, trying to heal him. Beside her was Tony, his head pointed up at the sky, his eyes calculating.

Lightning crashed down onto the dome as we watched, the sickly green color smashing against it and forcing it to shrink in size. I looked up at the clouds, and realized it was them: Kurt, Alice, and Sage. I narrowed my eyes at the white cloud, knowing it was Sage, and immediately cranked the plasma rifle I had created up as high as the charge would go, focusing all of my rage and anger into the blast.

The amber ball of light that exploded from the other side was almost laughable in size, resembling what could only be described as a small sun that, when shooting through the clouds, lit them up with an amber light. The light began to brighten and intensify until beams of it were punching holes in the swollen vapors, scorching the other clouds around it.

Moments later, three figures had materialized overhead, standing on absolutely nothing, and, as if the landscape were trying to make sense of the fact that they were floating above us, a structure began to form under them, complete with stairs. I ignored them—Leo had said I could use my imagination—and seconds later, small pads formed in the air. I launched myself toward them, using each one as a springboard while Leo raced up the stairs.

Alice didn’t wait for us to meet her but leapt off the side of the building that was forming beneath her. Her form here was that of an inferno—a golden fire wrapped around the form of a woman, with dark holes acting as her eyes and mouth. She fell feet first, her arms reaching up, and strands of code began to stream into her hands, forming long whips with sharp edges, meant for shredding.

I watched it for a second, marveling at how beautiful it was, and then pulled the rifle to my shoulder, following her falling form for a few feet before squeezing the trigger. My shot hit her in the chest, throwing her through the building that was still manifesting behind her. There was an explosion of brick and mortar as she punched through it, but I kept moving up, manifesting more amber discs to help me.

Above me, I saw Kurt’s green form begin to glow, growing brighter and brighter, and I had to shield my eyes to keep it from blinding me. I slipped, and because of the strange mechanics of cyberspace, I was suddenly falling, plummeting toward the ground. I opened my eyes and threw out my hand, and a lash—just as real as the ones I had used my whole life—arced from my sleeve, hitting the side of the building and bringing me to a jerking halt.

A moment later, the building exploded under the weight of a massive foot, and I was thrown clear with the digital rubble that erupted outward. I caught myself midair, my heightened reflexes rapidly flipping me around, and stood up, immediately scanning the rubble for Leo.

I found him hurtling through the air toward Kurt’s now-gigantic form towering at least fifty feet above us all, his large sword held in an underhand grip. Kurt noticed him as well, and stepped back, but not before Leo slashed through a section of code on his thigh. Light bled from the wound—pure and sickly green—and I raced for it, sensing it was a weakness.

I fired several shots from the hip. The first one caught him in the knee and forced him back a few steps. The second missed entirely, and the third—which would’ve scored—was deflected by Alice, who had launched herself up into the air from somewhere. Her chest was a black crater, with dark cracks running through her code, but she was still moving.

And she was coming for me. I had a second to react before she was on me, but I didn’t falter, my mind spinning out thousands of ways to avoid her before settling on one. I leaned back as she reached for me, bringing the rifle up between us as she flew overhead and pulling the trigger, releasing all the pent-up rage I had in my heart for her—for what she did to Zoe, Eric, Maddox, Dylan, and Rose, as well as every other person in the Tower she’d killed today.

Her eyes widened in surprise as the amber shots tore through her code, and she screamed an inhuman howl that seemed to shake the very datasphere we were fighting in, before disappearing from sight.

I spun around to find her crumpled on the ground, her code pouring out of her with flashes of golden light that were flickering in an erratic pulse.

“More!” she screamed into the darkness. “We need more!”

A moment later, a beam of light flashed in from the darkness and landed directly on her, and I watched as another Alice was dropped in, superimposing over the first. Rage seized me as I realized that she was pulling copies of herself in to replace the damaged code, and I shot this one before she could even take a step toward me. Then I turned away. I couldn’t afford to be distracted by the Alices. Not when I had Kurt and Sage to contend with.

Leo was still going after Kurt with his sword, borrowing a page from my imagination to create little landing pads for himself as he tried to scale Kurt’s massive frame. I searched for the white glow that was Sage, knowing he was lurking somewhere nearby, and found him heading for the bubble where the fragments were cowering, a small white scalpel in his hand.

I raced for him, but once again, the scope of the landscape had changed. I shot a blast at him as he brought his arm up and then down, cutting a slit through Jasper’s shield, but it went wide, missing him. The ground shuddered under Kurt’s heavy footsteps behind me, but I ignored it, shooting at Sage while he reached out to grab the edges of the cut and force them apart.

A second later Tony was there, his crimson code shooting around Sage’s as a tornado. Sage’s hair whipped around his head as he stumbled back, and Tony pressed the attack, growing larger and spinning faster. I had to admire his creativity—I had never considered changing form like that—but it was blocking me from shooting Sage.