The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)

Lacey shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “Tony found me. And I do mean me. When I was twenty years old, before I ever became Lead Engineer. He somehow managed to break free from Scipio’s code in the Core and transferred himself into the Cogs’ mainframe, trying to escape the legacies before they took him, too. We started developing all of these glitches, and I was dispatched to figure out what was causing it. To my surprise, it was both a who and a what. But I’m not sure how much his testimony is going to help you. He’s… practically a child in his mannerisms.”

It took me a moment to respond to her comment, mostly because I had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Tony had just shown up in the Cog mainframe. I supposed it was possible that had he feared for himself and figured out a way to disconnect from Scipio to keep the people who were stealing the other fragments from getting him, too.

The fact that he was a child in his mannerisms was a little surprising to me, given what I had read in the report on him. From all accounts, he was Scipio’s creativity, but they never mentioned him being childlike. Still, I doubted Scipio would care about that when it came to testimony. Besides, he needed to know what had been done to him. And if Tony only came into Sadie’s life twenty years ago, then it stood to reason that he had witnessed every other fragment being taken. He might be the best possible witness.

“He will need to testify,” I told her. “His story is just as important as the others.”

Lacey gave me a look. “I don’t want to risk his safety.”

I smiled with what I hoped was more reassurance than dark, bitter humor. “If we manage to grab every single legacy in one night, then we won’t be risking anything. They won’t be able to control Scipio’s response, and we’ll have all the evidence.”

“Not to mention one of the councilors in handcuffs,” Strum said.

“Two,” I retorted, earning me a shocked look. “Plancett has been working with Sadie to keep his people out of the expulsion chambers.”

“He might’ve also fathered an undoc army,” Maddox added. “Him, Sage, or this old Knight named Jathem Dreyfuss. Someone has been kidnapping women from around the Tower and forcing them to have their children, and we’ve narrowed it down to three men.”

“Based on what parameters?” Lacey asked. “Who is Jathem Dreyfuss?”

I hesitated, and then dismissed the question with a simple “It’s not important. What is important is that we need a way of running another blood comparison outside of the Medica, so as not to tip Sage off. I have the DNA from each of those men, but I need a comparison made to the files we have, to figure out who is fathering those undocs.” I produced a second data stick from a different pocket and handed it to Strum, while Maddox placed the plastic-wrapped cup, handkerchief, and hair we had taken from the three men on the table. “Can you do it?”

“I can,” Strum said. “Which is which?”

“I’m not telling you that,” I told him, standing up. “I don’t want either of you running off and killing him before I have a chance to arrest him and bring him up on charges. As soon as I have the information I need, and everything’s confirmed, I will tell you—but I want him taken alive, along with the rest of them. Is that acceptable to both of you?”

The two were silent for a long time. “It is,” Strum said. “If it finally ends all of this once and for all… then it is.”

“Good,” I said. “Send me the results as soon as you get them. I’ll keep you updated as things occur.”

“Good,” Lacey said. “It’s about time you started improving in that area.”

I shot her a death glare as I left, but to my surprise, she smiled—and it looked genuine.

I just wished it didn’t look quite so bloodthirsty. But I let it go. I had my support, and soon would know which of the three men was responsible for fathering over thirty people. Then I would just need to figure out where the undocs were now.





36





The waiting was the worst part, but luckily Maddox, Leo, Quess, and I still had a lot to do in regard to creating our case against Sadie, which provided us with a productive way to pass the time. We also had our evening check-in with Alex, who was fine, but didn’t have anything new to update us on as far as the Patrians were concerned. The next morning found us all planted in the war room, continuing to sift through the files Jasper was still decrypting, trying to collect as much information about Project Prometheus as possible. There was a lot of extraneous data to sort through, even with Jasper pulling the unrelated stuff out. Schematics, blueprints, lists of people, dates, names, times… Not to mention a detailed list of everything they did to Rose to make her revert back to Jang-Mi. Nothing to tell us what their final plan for Scipio was. Nothing to tell us what their ultimate plans for the Tower were.

To make things easier, we had split certain things up. Medical reports from Dr. Smiley went to Quess, so he could figure out what they were about, while Maddox handled schematics and blueprints, trying to identify places and devices that would be perfect for sabotage. Leo handled anything AI-related and was searching through those files to see if he could figure out exactly how the legacies were influencing Scipio’s vote. Removal of the fragments wasn’t enough; they had to be using something to force him to vote the way they wanted, and we needed to know what that was, so we could make sure to destroy it.

Or at least make Scipio himself aware of it. I was praying that he could break out of it himself, once he understood it was there, but I didn’t know for certain. None of us did, really. Not even Jasper.

But we were hoping that understanding would help, which was why Leo was on it. I was helping Maddox with the blueprints, although my goal was slightly different from hers: I was looking for possible locations for the undoc legacies. Tian had told me that she had caught Liam outside of Water Treatment, so I was certain their new home was somewhere in there, and I was betting that in all of these files, there had to be a clue regarding where they were. I wanted to do everything I could to try to find it before I was forced to go in and start questioning Liam.

A momentary pang of regret came over me, and I set the pad down for a second and rubbed my eyes. I really didn’t want to have to question a sixteen-year-old boy as to the whereabouts of his family members, but as soon as Lacey got the test results back, she would be on me to know when we were going to make our move against the legacies. And I already had a deadline set in place by Marcus Sage.

Tomorrow. The council meeting wasn’t until later in the morning, but it wasn’t a lot of time to have everything in place. And if we didn’t, then Sadie was going to find out we were after her people and move them again. Which would make Liam’s information useless, as he likely wouldn’t know where the new place was.

“Liana,” Quess said, interrupting my thoughts. I blinked up at him and saw an excited grin on his face.

“What is it?” I asked, leaning forward.

“I think I figured out who Dr. Smiley is,” he replied, his smile growing. “And I was right. Looking at the pictures did help.”

I cocked my head at him, confused. “I’m going to need a little bit more than that. How did the pictures help?”

“Look, there are over one hundred legacies running around, and excluding those who are too young to be used as spies yet, that left about eighty who had gotten the surgery at one point or another. After compiling the before-and-after pictures to create a record of the changes made, I noticed that there was one person we’d seen before whose picture has never been included.”

It took me a second to understand the significance, but when it hit me, I was impressed by Quess’s cleverness. Whoever the plastic surgeon was couldn’t operate on his own face, so there would be no file for him to send. And if we’d seen him before, then that meant Quess would recognize when he was missing. “Who?” I demanded.

“The other guy who was in the Medica with Devon and Baldy after they took Maddox.”