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

“Tony!” I screamed, coming to a stop a few feet away. “Move away!”

The crimson wind began to shift away from the white glow at its center, but a second later, Sage’s claw-like hand reached out and seemed to grab a section of Tony’s code, clenching it tight. The wind disappeared instantly, leaving instead a small, dark-haired boy with wide, frightened eyes.

“NO!” he cried. I brought my gun up, but Sage held Tony up in front of him, blocking the bulk of his code from me. To get him, I would have to shoot Tony, and I couldn’t do that.

“Put him down!” I shouted, slowly focusing my imagination on whatever the AI equivalent of a flash grenade was. I felt it form a second later but was too transfixed by Sage as he reached up and put a hand on the boy’s head.

“No,” Sage said, and then dug his fingers into the boy’s head.

“Liana!” Tony cried in pain, reaching for me, and then there was a sharp crack. The top of his skull caved in from the force of Sage’s grip, releasing an energy pulse. It hit me hard, throwing me back in a tumbling spin. For several seconds, I kept spinning, until it occurred to me to just put my feet down, and then suddenly I was standing, the world still again.

I looked around to reorient myself, realized I was standing on Kurt’s knee, and jumped off seconds before his hand came slapping down, right where I had been standing. I rolled on impulse, years of muscle memory shaping my actions. I knew Leo was handling Kurt, so I focused entirely on Sage, secure in the knowledge that once I killed him, Leo and I could take out Kurt together.

Sage was already inside the bubble, which was beginning to flicker as he got closer to Jasper. I pictured a spear, the lines of it taking shape in my hand, and threw it before it was fully formed, flinging it toward Sage.

It streaked off like a star shooting across the night sky, heading right for the point where Sage’s neck met his spine, but Alice leapt in the way, once again taking the shot with her own body. I bit back a growl of frustration, and then decided to see what horizons my imagination could really take me to on this plane.

I leapt to where she was falling, my hands outstretched to grab her head. She kicked at me as we fell away from the fight, but I ignored it, tangling my fingers into gobs of her hair and focusing on her eyes. If my imagination and will could manifest anything here, then maybe I could use her as a conduit. Maybe I could kill them all at once.

And the only thing I could think to use was fire. I closed my eyes and imagined flames, the heat and color of them, roiling down my arms and bleeding into her. She started to scream seconds later, and I opened my eyes to find my hands burning holes in her chest. What was more, I could see the thousands of threads—nearly invisible to the naked eye—streaking from her code into the darkness behind her, and feel the weight of her other minds on the other side.

So, I followed them, bringing the heat and intensity of the fire so that it could spread and consume each thread. More and more of them sprang up where others burned away, but I kept burning, until I found a very small orb at the center of it all, like a golden spider. In my mind, I grabbed it, my hands on fire, and focused my rage on it. For several seconds, the orb continued to burn golden through my amber fire. Then I felt something snap in my hands, and Alice’s scream intensified, hitting a shrill, piercing final note, and then her code broke into a thousand fragments with the concussive force of a small bomb, throwing me back hundreds of feet.

I recalled my earlier trick and straightened my legs, willing the world to stop, and I was standing yet again—only this time I was upside down, looking at the dome below.

Or where the dome used to be. Jasper was now battling Sage, trying to keep the larger code away from Scipio and Rose, and failing. Even as I began to formulate a plan, Sage shoved his hand through the fragment’s chest and then yanked it back again, something orange and glowing clutched between his fingers.

Jasper took several stunned steps back before falling to his knees, and then his code simply… blew apart, scattered to oblivion by the invisible wind of some unknown force.

Then Sage lifted his hand to his mouth, swallowed whatever he had just stolen from Jasper, and started to glow brighter, his form beginning to twist and change.

I didn’t hesitate this time. I manifested a sword a quarter of the size of Leo’s and launched myself at Sage, intent on cutting the bastard in two.





45





I focused my will upon the sword, imagining that it was razor sharp and indestructible, and brought it down in an overhanded blow, aiming for the top of Sage’s head. His body was pulsating with color, streams of orange lines trailing down his jaw and throat, burrowing into his stomach and then shooting through his arms and legs, the orange-and-white codes intermingling and giving him an outline, and he seemed to grow slightly, his stooped form becoming straighter, taller, more imposing.

He lifted his other hand to his mouth, and I saw bursts of crimson light flashing between his claw-like fingers. It was Tony—or rather what was left of him—and Sage was about to swallow him down, just as he had Jasper. He tilted his head back, lifting his hand to his open mouth—and then spotted me, seconds away from driving my sword through him.

He flowed backward, leaving only a ghostly image of himself, and I sliced through it, planting a foot on the floor and going after the real him. I slashed over and under, trying to land a blow, but he sidestepped each one, avoiding any cut by inches. I grated my teeth together in frustration as I continued to press and he continued to retreat, until finally I feinted a low blow to the left, and then brought my blade up on the right.

The blade severed the arm that clutched Tony, just below the elbow. Sage grabbed what was left of his arm and screamed, molten white code pouring out of the stump, while his arm landed a few feet away. I ignored it, focused solely on trying to end him, but noticed a purple lasso flying through the air from the right out of the corner of my eye, and knew that Rose was trying to secure whatever was left of Tony. I brought the sword around, trying to slice through Sage’s neck, but the old man twisted away, as slippery as an eel, and began bounding across the floor.

I ran after him, changing the sword in my hand for two guns, and began firing, sending small amber streaks of fire after him. They collided with some sort of energy barrier, bouncing off of him with small flashes of light, and I shoved more of my rage and anger into the bullets, forcing them to spew out at a rapid speed. The harder I hit the barrier, the more I could see of it—like the bubble was being outlined by the shots—and it grew brighter and more visible with every additional bullet. I continued to hammer my shots into one spot, trying to find a weakness, and in response, Sage changed his angles, created pads to start leaping up and away through the darkness. I darted after him, bouncing through the darkness in pursuit of him, and continued to fire.