The Girl Who Dared to Think (The Girl Who Dared #1)

“You wish to be of service?” he asked, sounding surprised by my statement.

“Of course I do,” I said a bit hurriedly. I cringed, not wanting to seem argumentative, and cleared my throat. “I’m just not quite sure how to do that.”

“Well… you have to follow the Water Ways, my child.”

“Oh, great,” Zoe muttered, her voice so low it was almost impossible to distinguish from the hushed whispering of my peers around me. “Typical.”

The “Water Ways” was the spiritual belief system that all the Divers followed. Their ideology followed every other departmental philosophy—protect the Tower at all costs—but had spun a religion around it. A lot of it was based on the collective history of the Tower, but with moralistic rules about not being negligent or dissident, lest you get exposed to the toxic waste the machines in the Tower generated.

“The Water Ways can save you, child,” Diver Lute said kindly, his eyes urging me to say something.

“Oh.” It was all I could come up with, considering the uncomfortable level of attention I was currently receiving. “I’ll have to think about that.”

His face became disappointed rather than disapproving, but I didn’t care; his assertion that I needed the Water Ways to fix myself was irritating. He didn’t know me, but clearly the number on my wrist told him I was a lost soul in need of an intervention, and now that was how he would treat me. It was just so damned galling—I had gotten an answer right, and he should’ve left me alone. Not turned me into a spectacle for the whole class to watch, a warning to all of them to keep their numbers up.

“You do that, child. In the meantime, you’ll need to come up here and stand with me for the class. Protocol says that I must keep you within reach at all times.”

“Would protocol allow me to vouch for her, sir?” Eric asked, standing and angling his wrist to show Diver Lute his number. Irritation rolled over me as I looked up at him, silently condemning a system that would force a babysitter upon me. Of course I needed an escort; I was a dangerous element. I couldn’t even learn in peace. “I can keep a careful eye on her, and that will allow you to teach us without worrying about what she is doing at all times.”

“I don’t think there is anything in the protocols that disallows it,” the older man drawled, giving him a considering look. “You two are friends, are you?” he asked, obviously noting the fact that Eric and Zoe were the only two anywhere near me.

“Yes, sir,” said Eric, so quickly that I let go of my annoyance. It cost him nothing, yet meant the world to me, and suddenly I was grateful for his friendship, and that he was willing to spare me any humiliation. “Liana is the daughter of two Knight Commanders, and a Squire herself. This is a temporary issue, and I’m willing to take full responsibility for her actions.”

Phineas nodded, his smile growing wider. “See that you do,” he said, then turned away. “Now, if you could all take one of these manuals, we’ll begin.”

“Thanks for that,” I muttered as the class began to pass around a stack of small gray manuals. “I did not want to be standing up front as some sort of visual warning for what happens when your number gets too low.”

Eric grinned at me, a big, lopsided thing. “What good is being an eight if I can’t look out for my friends?” he asked, waving his wrist about.

Zoe laughed and punched him on the shoulder. “Look at you, acting all chivalrous,” she said. “Are you using this hero thing to try and romance her?”

“And risk certain death? Pass. I mean, I love you, Liana, but not in the romantic sense. I just wanted to spend as much time with you as I could before you went into the Medica.”

I knew he didn’t mean it—Zoe reached over and smacked him with one of the gray booklets, and the look he gave us was immediately contrite—but it didn’t matter; it hurt all the same, the knowledge that I would be in the Medica in a few short hours. I looked at my friends, and realized what I was about to lose. I felt the pill in my pocket, and thought of the mysteries I would never solve. Inwardly, my mind began to churn, trying once again to find some sort of way out.

Learning Callivax didn’t seem all that important after yet another unsurprising defeat on my never-ending quest to get my rank back up.





6





The Medica was comprised entirely of sheer, curved white walls, brilliantly lit by thousands of lights so that the whole floor was almost glowing. It seemed so pure—a beacon of light in the darkness—but all I felt was dread as I crossed the wide, flat bridge that connected the Medica to the Tower. I’d taken the long way around along the Tower’s inner shell, trying to delay the inevitable.

I lowered my head and looked at my wrist. The red three glared sullenly back at me, chiding me about my inability to make it change, and I suddenly had the urge to try to tear it off with my teeth and throw it over the side.

Exhaling in an attempt to soothe my nerves, I began walking toward the glowing white light. I didn’t really have a choice in this, but there was no reason I couldn’t try to make the most of it. Who knew? Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I was making it out to be.

I tried to hold on to that thread of hope, but it evaporated and died even before it was born. I couldn’t even bring myself to try to believe that I’d come out of this possessing the same traits that made me me. Theo was proof of that.

I have to do this, I thought to myself. It’s this or I lose my home. I was already a three—if I fell to a two, the entire department would drop me, and when I turned twenty-one, I’d have to try to find a new department. If I wasn’t accepted before I became a one, then I’d be locked away deep within the Citadel, and I had no desire to learn what exactly they’d subject me to there.

The queasy feeling in my stomach continued to grow as I fell in with a rush of people, their uniforms a mix of white, crimson, green, gray, blue, and orange—each color representing a part of the Tower. I should’ve blended in, but everyone around me kept a wide berth, the number on my wrist somehow managing to carve out my personal space in a wash of people.

My eyes immediately saw the sign hanging over the wide door on the bottommost level: Ranking Intervention Services—3rd Level, with an arrow pointing at the stairs some hundred feet away. I fingered the end of my lash and sighed; the Medics did not allow lash use on their structure, unless it was absolutely necessary. That meant I had to walk.