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

“Good. Scipio, initiate Project Prometheus on my authorization. Sync?”

“Sync,” Scipio replied automatically. “Shutting off main power to all departments and stopping all elevators in use. Sealing all entrances and exits from the outer and inner shells. Sealing all access to Greeneries 1, 2, 3, 4…”

“Scipio, mute updates,” Sage snapped irritably. “I heard it all the last time. Oh, and one last order. Fire on Liana Castell until all power to the Council Chambers has been depleted. Sync?”

My mouth went dry, and I looked over at where I could see Scipio staring in my direction.

“Sync,” he said. And then the guns began to whir.





4





I scrambled up and out of the corner I had tucked myself into when the first charge hit, the jolt of purple sending an explosion of violet flames and wooden shards outward. I managed to make it behind the second partition before they impacted, but I felt the rush of heat behind me, scorching despite the heat-resistant properties of my uniform. I sped up the stairs on all fours, but the second hit caused the entire staircase to shudder, and I lost my balance and fell to one side.

I glanced over my shoulder to see a wash of purple flames consuming the staircase only a few steps below where I had landed, and practically shot away from it as the liquid plasma bubbled from where it clung to the edges of the impact site. Molten drops of the viscous fluid flicked out as one of the bubbles popped, spattering against the steps, several drops hitting just inches from my boots. As soon as they impacted, the drops turned a deep crimson and the wood began to burn, the plasma hot enough to create more flames—orange in color—that began to spread.

I climbed away from it in a belly crawl and reached the top of the stairs. Smoke was beginning to form as the fire grew, and I used a patch of it for cover as I came around the corner.

Lacey was more or less where I had left her, only she had managed to push herself into a sitting position under the desk. “Well, you certainly know how to piss people off,” she said. Another round whizzed past overhead, blasting through the wall behind us. I ducked under the roiling heat of it, and then moved to keep any of the splatter from hitting Lacey.

“I need to take out those guns,” I told her, once the initial shockwave had passed. “But if you stay up here, you’ll burn to death before I can get back to you. Can you move?”

Lacey looked down at her blood-soaked coveralls, and then back up to me. “I think so,” she said. “Are the stairs intact?”

I shook my head and glanced over my shoulder. The last shot had ripped a hole right in the side of the building, and we were only about ten feet off the ground outside. Granted, the wall was on fire, the edges of the hole being melted and burnt away by the plasma, but it was really the only way to get her out safely.

Thank Scipio my lash lines were coated with an iodizing material that made them heat resistant. I just hoped they were up to the task.

“Lacey, I am really, really sorry about this,” I said, jerking a length of line out of my sleeve and giving it a little spin to build up a static charge at the galvanized ends. I snapped it down against her coveralls, avoiding the dark patches of blood.

Her mouth widened into an O, but I ignored that and snapped my other line toward the wall, aiming for a few inches above the hole. I reached out to grab a fistful of Lacey’s uniform for extra support—the lash line on her serving to hold her weight—and then retracted the line that had attached over the hole, surrendering my weight completely to the lash harness so that I was the pulley. There was a sharp tug as the gyros in the harness sprang to life, and suddenly we were hurtling toward the wall.

I winced as we drew near it, eyeing the distance and calculating the odds of us hitting the plasma that clung to the edges of the hole, and then we were swinging through it and out into the darkened space beyond, where the only light was the blue glow of the Core, and the purple-and-orange fires burning behind me. I jammed the hand controls to force the gyros in my harness to begin feeding me slack as we hit the apex of the swing, and we quickly began to descend, swinging back toward the wall. I lifted both legs to brace myself against the wall and kicked off, grunting when Lacey’s weight forced me to go into a deep squat for extra power first. I looked over my shoulder at the ground below, and then slowed our descent speed, timing it to stop just as Lacey’s boots hit the ground.

I let go of her uniform and detached the line holding her, then reversed the controls and shot back toward the hole, courtesy of the line still attached to that inner wall. As much as I wanted to slip away with Lacey, I had no idea what was happening with Dylan and my other Knights, and I wasn’t about to leave them behind to deal with two sentinels. Besides, I was going to need as much help as I could get rushing to the Citadel, and they were the only Knights within spitting distance.

I was also worried about what Alice would do if she didn’t find my body in there. There was little doubt in my mind that she would update Sage, and he would order her to hunt me down. I wouldn’t get too far if they thought I was alive. So if there were any sentinels still in the room, I had to find a way to destroy them, because escaping them was impossible. I wasn’t sure it would help. For all I knew, all the Alices saw what one saw, but at least this way, I could buy us some time to get a lead before the next group of sentinels showed up. If I could, I should try to grab Sadie again. Sage had said he needed her in the Core, so taking her might mean delaying him. But that meant taking out both sentinels.

And with the entire Council Room locked down, the best way to the antechamber was back through the fire.

I tucked myself into a tight ball as the hole loomed closer, the flames much larger than they had been seconds ago. The heat they were emitting was searing, and I could see that the fire was moving even more quickly than I had anticipated, consuming the delicate, three-hundred-year-old wood.

I wanted to weep at the destruction of something so precious, but I couldn’t. Things were going to get a lot worse than that, and soon. So I hardened my heart against it and focused on what I needed to do right now. I squeezed my eyes shut as the heat became sizzling, threatening to boil all of the liquid in my body, and then it was gone, signaling that I was through the hole.

I quickly flipped my momentum forward, planted a steady boot on the first patch of clear floor I could find, and disconnected the line, then took several low steps. Hazy smoke was filling the small space, and though Scipio’s sensors were equipped with thermal scanners, they weren’t going to be working well with the heat being kicked up by the plasma fires. I didn’t think he’d even know I was still here.

I winced when another purple shot tore through the black smoke encompassing the center of the room, and then froze when I saw that it hadn’t been directed at me, but at the door to the antechamber.

“Once more, Scipio,” Alice commanded, now in two voices. “We are almost through.”

Another shot, this time from a different gun, suddenly cut a path through the smoke, and smashed into the door. I realized then that they must’ve assumed I was dead, and then frowned, my fingers moving up to the back of my neck. Scipio should’ve been able to sense that I wasn’t, but for some reason, he didn’t seem to notice. None of the shots were being directed at me.

Which meant he either couldn’t see me, or he was ignoring me. I wasn’t sure which it was, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Again!” There was another blast from a third gun, followed by a horrendous tearing sound. “We’re through!” Alice declared gleefully.