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

Which was why I took the crystal out of the box and slid it into the pocket of my purple uniform. I didn’t want the council members changing their minds and taking it back, and was willing to steal it should they ask for its return.

It still felt weird looking down and seeing myself clad in purple. Years of wearing nothing but a Knight’s crimsons made the new color stick out like a sore thumb, but I was getting used to it. As the leader of the newly formed Diplomacy Corp, I had to, because purple was the color Leo and Lily—which was what my AI counterpart was calling herself now—had chosen for us. My contribution had been the patches; each uniform had a patch on one arm that depicted the Tower, and was woven together using the colors of every department. It had been important to me to include it, as a symbol to the citizens that the Diplomacy Corp worked only in the best interest of all the people, no matter what department they came from. We took anyone who couldn’t make it in the other departments and trained them to be explorers, ambassadors, scientists, historians, negotiators, investigators, councilors… The list was as long as my arm, because there was always some new niche role to fill.

The department’s role in the Tower varied, but centered around one idea: how can we help the people have a better, more fulfilling life in the Tower? It took me a while, but I finally figured out that we could start by ensuring equity between departments. Whenever a Cog’s transfer request was rejected from the Core and we suspected inter-departmental bias was a factor, they could come to us for an unbiased investigation into the issue. We would then submit our findings to Leo and Lily, so they could override or enforce the decision. Whenever a citizen felt that a Knight was ignoring their problem, they could come to us, and we would investigate that Knight, and said problem, on our own. Whenever an individual felt overwhelmed by their life inside the Tower, we would talk to them, and make them feel less alone.

But then the concept had grown. We had started hosting inter-departmental functions to help develop better relationships between Tower members, had advocated for non-uniformed clothes to be allowed back into the Tower so that the residents didn’t have to wear their department’s colors all the time, had negotiated territorial and labor disputes, held parties, and now had plans to start the very first inter-departmental sports competition.

But most importantly, we offered a place to anyone who didn’t have one.

And today, our mission was finally going to expand outside of the Tower, in the first cross-cultural exchange between nations.

“I’m sure the Patrians will like it,” I replied in answer to Quess’s question. “And to be honest, I think the council is genuinely in love with this exchange idea, but they’re too afraid to say it. They’re all new to this, remember? With the exception of Lacey and myself, they’ve only been council members for a year.”

Quess gave me a bemused look. “You’ve only been on the council for a few days longer than them, and you’ve changed positions to boot. I’m not sure you have a leg to stand on with that argument.”

I shrugged, but he wasn’t wrong—and sometimes I wished the other councilors would remember that I was every bit as inexperienced as they were at leading. But ever since they learned the new Scipio had half my personality in it, they seemed to constantly defer to my judgment, taking cues and advice from me alone. It was awkward, because I didn’t always think the decision I was making was the best one, so I wound up having to parrot the phrase, “I don’t know, what do you think?” when things got to be a little much.

It was half the reason I was so eager to leave; the members of the council needed to start forming opinions on their own, without my influence.

“Be that as it may, the exchange benefits all of us—the Tower and the Patrians. They’ll get a better look into our lifestyle and culture, and we will do the same with theirs. Hopefully this will lead to trade, a peace treaty, and maybe even a mutual defense pact against whatever is happening in the South. Not to mention the training and observation programs and survival courses! We’re going to gain a deeper understanding about each other’s culture, the inner workings of our governments and societies, insight into who we are and what our goals are…” I trailed off, trying to find more reasons to sell my program to him, but he laughed good-naturedly.

“You know I’m good with this,” he replied jovially. “We get to stay in a house. With doors that lead outside to the ground. Where we can pick a direction and keep walking forever!”

“Until you run into a lake or a mountain,” came a masculine voice from behind me, and I turned to behold my twin. The last year of living with the Patrians had changed him, but only for the better. He seemed calmer. Though “reserved” was a better word to describe it, I thought. It had come from living and acting as the Tower’s unofficial ambassador for the past year, and keeping the Patrians apprised of our situation until we got everything figured out. I knew it had been stressful for him—half the time, the council would tell him one thing, and then wind up changing it the next day, which drove him crazy—but he had made it work, and had grown into his own. It hadn’t been easy living without him for the last year, only getting to see him during one of his debriefing missions, but after the second Requiem Day, we hadn’t been sure what help we would need getting everything back online, and wanted to keep a line of communication open in case the power drain had caused one of the greeneries to fail. Starvation had been our primary concern, as the refrigeration had gone offline and spoiled most of our reserve crops and food, but we’d muddled through.

And then I had insisted we keep Alex in place, to begin working with the Patrians on a trade agreement.

Of course, that hadn’t gone very far, due to the changes we were making in the Tower. The Patrians had wanted our system of government stabilized before they would sign an agreement, which made sense, but it took us a while to accomplish. People were obviously upset after what happened during the last Requiem Day, and wanted a lot of answers. We had told the citizens a watered-down version of the truth: that Sage and Sadie had tried to gain control over Scipio to rule the Tower. We hadn’t revealed that Scipio as they had known him was dead. It was a big pill to swallow, and it would’ve been even worse if they had learned that an aspect of my personality had been combined with Scipio’s, so we held that back as well.

But that meant collecting evidence and having hearings with witnesses, some of which had to be fabricated, which took time. Then I stepped down and started the Diplomacy Corp, which meant we had to wait for a new Champion…

The amount of time coupled with the odds and ends of putting everything together had been tiresome, to say the least, but had gone a long way toward fixing the damage Sage had done to the Tower. Getting rid of the expulsion chambers and overhauling the ranking system were among the first of the things we accomplished. After that, we’d had to decide what our goals should be, moving forward—whether we should find a new homeland and evacuate the population, or continue living in the Tower. It had been shocking to the newly elected councilors that the world wasn’t as poorly off as they had been led to believe, but once they had accepted it, they were both scared of the prospect—and curious.

After all, the Tower had only been meant to protect us from the End, and carry us forward to a time when we could leave again. The pollution of the Tower was the only thing holding us back, since it meant the environment immediately outside was untenable, but the Patrians’ flying vessels were able to carry us over that… to a place where we could be free.

Thankfully, the Patrians seemed to be ruled by patient and understanding people, because they gave us time to sort that all out, and continued working with Alex.