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

“Uh, I have eyes with which I can see,” Quess said dryly, raising an eyebrow at my brother. “I think I’ll be all right.”

“You will be after the month-long wilderness survival training course the Patrians have been cooking up for you,” my brother replied, not even missing a beat. “So until then, no wandering too far away from the compound where we’ll be staying.”

Quess opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off when another crate dropped down on top of his own.

“From your wife,” Dylan said amicably from beside him, her crimson uniform looking pristine, the insignia of Champion resting on her lapel. After I’d resigned to form and lead the Diplomacy Corp, the Citadel had held another Tourney, and Dylan had won by a landslide. I had been relieved—not only because Dylan was more than qualified for the job, but because I’d found in her a capable ally on the council. “She told me that if you had air to talk, I was to pile on the work.”

Quess groaned theatrically, his arms straining under the weight. “Yeah, sounds like Doxy. Where is she, by the way?”

“Distracting the rest of the council for me,” I replied, motioning to Alex so we could help take the extra crate. “I didn’t want them getting in the way while we moved things out of here. They’re as nervous as you were on your wedding night.”

“Hey!” Quess said, flushing bright red with embarrassment. “You promised we’d never talk about that!”

I laughed, and Dylan clapped a hand on his shoulder, giving him a little shake. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Quess, but everyone knew.”

We all laughed at that, even Quess. It was hard not to tease him; his wedding had been three weeks ago, and rushed to boot, as they had decided to get married after Zoe and Eric’s ceremony six weeks before. It had all happened so quickly that I didn’t think even Quess and Maddox fully understood what they were doing until the day of wedding, and then the panic had set in. Maddox had handled it better than Quess, to say the least, and it was still too fresh in our minds to keep us from teasing.

I think it helped that he and Maddox had never been happier, and I was just grateful that they were alive to be that happy.

The sudden memory of them dying—Quess’s fearful voice as he was shut into that tube and Maddox’s empty and vacant eyes—caught me unexpectedly, and I had to stop and take a deep breath, trying to push the images away. Lionel had said that the memories should fade, but they hadn’t. Not really. I often had nightmares about them, waking up in a cold sweat and crying, forgetting for a second that they weren’t dead and feeling that crushing despair all over again.

“Liana?” Quess asked, and I started, surprised to see him there. It took me a second to remember where I had been, but when I did, my cheeks heated with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I got lost in my thoughts. What were we talking about?”

Quess flashed me a sympathetic smile. All of my friends knew that I was having trouble recovering from the trauma of the simulation, but after a year of conversation, there wasn’t much more for them to say or do but smile and nod. Not to mention, talking about how their deaths had made me feel wasn’t exactly the easiest thing for them. Everyone tried their best, but I could tell it bothered them to think about, and they had eventually stopped bringing it up.

“We were talking about what happens after we spend six months with the Patrians,” he informed me, setting down the crate he was carrying on top of the others I had been inventorying earlier. “I know there’s something to all of these classes you and the Patrians have put together for us. Not to mention the joint military training operation we’re going to do with their soldiers. Dylan won’t tell me anything, but I know you’ve got something up your sleeve.”

I pursed my lips to fight back a smile, and looked over at Dylan, silently asking for her approval. After all, this involved the Knights as well, as several from my former department would be joining our group. She raised a blond eyebrow, a small smirk playing on her own lips.

“Up to you,” she said with a shrug. “Although, I’d say you should only tell them if they aren’t going back into the Tower. The Patrians may be arriving any minute, but you’re not slated to leave for another hour, and you know how gossip has a way of getting around.”

She had a point, and one that I wasn’t about to argue with. Because it was important that we keep the citizens of the Tower unaware of our real mission until we knew whether or not it was going to work. It had been hard enough to break the news of Patrus to them. Many had been frightened by the idea that we weren’t alone, though they had adapted.

Hopefully, by the time we got back, they would be ready to adapt some more.

I looked at Quess and smiled. “Do you need to go back into the Tower for anything?”

“Nope,” he replied with a grin. “Which means you can tell me.”

My smile grew even wider. “I got the council’s permission to start scouting out potential locations for a colony,” I said. “The Patrians will be helping—as in, they’ve agreed to transport us and leave a few of their survival experts with us as guides. But beyond that, we’ll be alone, camping under the stars, looking for a place that could become our new home.”

Quess blinked in surprise and rocked back on his heels, considering the idea for a long moment. I had to admit, it had taken a long time to convince the council to look into the idea. It had been one of the few things we had clashed on. Many of them were hesitant to make any bigger decisions until after we had dismantled all of the laws that Sage had enacted over the years, but I didn’t think that was the wisest choice. The individual worlds that had survived the End were growing and beginning to collide, and if we didn’t get ahead of that, we would be at a serious disadvantage. We needed to carve out territory to create a wider defense, in case anyone who wanted to do us harm came knocking. The Tower was fortified, but anyone who came across us and got the idea to break in and take something from us could try it—and if they had enough support and firepower, the Tower would fall.

We needed to have a backup location ready and operational, in case the unthinkable happened.

Not to mention, it would take time for the land around the Tower to become fertile again. The toxins the Tower was pushing into the river had leached into the water table, making the landscape around us a desert. The Patrians were willing to help us clear it up using their own technology, but wanted us to dump our waste farther upriver from now on, to ensure that a unique area that served as one of their natural borders remained intact. If we wanted to take advantage of that technology, we needed to demonstrate to them that we were responsible and willing to take the steps necessary to better our world, and that meant first cleaning up the land around our Tower.

Besides, humans weren’t meant to live within four walls for all eternity. We were meant to be explorers and pioneers. But Sage was right about one thing: the people in the Tower had forgotten that at some point, and were all the lesser for it. It was my hope that the Diplomacy Corp would help revive that ancient drive in them all. I knew that not everyone would want to go, but the colony wasn’t supposed to be an evacuation, but rather an option for those who wanted to live outside the four walls of the Tower. Maybe in the generations to come, more and more of us would leave the Tower for the colony, until everyone was there—but that remained to be seen.