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

“Calm down, Zo,” I ordered, and I speared the old man with a look. “Are you threatening a member of the Knights?”

Grey lifted his hands, knife-free. “I certainly didn’t mean kill you,” he said. “But you’re doing a lot of snooping, and it’s beginning to feel like harassment. I was thinking I should report you.”

The man stared blankly at Grey, then shook his head and turned to me.

“Your name,” he said flatly.

“Squire Liana Castell, designation—”

“I don’t need your designation,” he said, cutting me off and waving his hand irritably. I noticed the crisp blue ten on his wrist, and a trill of excitement ran up my spine. “I can tell by your expression that you’re not going to let this go, so I’ll keep it brief. My name is Roark. I’m a chemist helping to develop Medica mood adjustment therapy.”

I blanched, thinking of the pills waiting for me back home, and he must have guessed because he raised one eyebrow. “No, not those pills. I’m conducting research on alternative methods and their effects on a user’s outlook, to see if there are other, healthier ways of helping a person’s ranking.”

I leaned forward, unable to keep the eagerness off my face. “Have you found one?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “I have found some interesting chemical interactions, but my work is private, sensitive, and secret.”

Here he took the time to actually glare at Zoe, Grey, and me individually. I didn’t pay any attention to it, instead looking at the tubes now in his hand. I thought about the pill in my pocket, and Grey’s miraculous rank improvement. About how he was here in Cogstown.

“Does the Medica have you working from here?” I asked after a moment, and he glared at me.

“What part of ‘secret’ don’t you understand?”

“The part where if this was Medica-sanctioned, you’d be doing it in the Medica, and not in Cogstown.”

Roark glared at me for a long moment, and then looked pointedly at Grey, his expression thunderous.

“It’s time for both of you to go,” Grey said, turning his gaze to me. “Roark’s tired.”

A flare of panic rose in my chest, and I realized I might have gotten too aggressive in my questioning. I just wanted to know if there was a way for me to stop the insanity of Peace and Prim, while improving my number.

“Wait!” Everybody stopped, staring at me. I flushed, but spoke anyway. “You said your name is Roark, right?”

The old man nodded.

“Roark,” I said, “I’m sorry for interrogating you, but I’m here because I need help. I want to be a Knight, you see, and the ranking requirement is—”

Roark raised an eyebrow. “I know what it is, and I don’t care. Shields aren’t welcome in my home. Get out.”

“Please,” I said, holding out my wrist. “They’ve got me on Peace, and it’s killing me!”

Roark looked at my wrist for a second, seeming to notice the four/five fighting again, and then looked away. “Get this Shield out of my house, Grey.”

I wanted to scream at him, yell at him, beg for some semblance of humanity, but Grey’s hand unexpectedly landed on my shoulder and I looked over at him, at the carefully reserved features he was holding on his face. There was nothing I could say that was going to change his mind, I realized. Suddenly, I just felt tired; this was my one chance to get away from Prim, away from losing myself to the meds—possibly even stronger meds, if they found out Peace wasn’t working—and he wasn’t going to help me.

“Thank you for your time,” I managed after a pause, before turning slowly toward the door. “Come on, Zoe… We should go.”

Grey just watched me leave, and I moved back out into the cool tunnel. Zoe was quiet beside me as I headed back toward the ladder, pausing when the wall disappeared, revealing the open space of Cogstown some thirty feet below. The entire Tower was one complex machine, everything serving a purpose, everything sharing a goal: keep us all alive. It was something you knew, but rarely got to see in action. All the gears, all the steam, all the electricity feeding in and out of each and every little thing. It all fit together so well, but in that moment I felt like a cog that didn’t quite fit, and I could feel the hammer coming down, trying to force me into place.

Zoe broke the silence, nudging me with her shoulder. “Hey,” she said. “What’s really going on? You think he’s working on a cure for the Medica and slipped Grey some?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Honestly, Zoe, this wasn’t even something I planned on reporting to the Citadel. I just was looking for a way out. I think I’m getting desperate.”

“I hate to say this, but you have to go to the Medica and report today,” she said with a tight nod. “If you don’t, it won’t be long before you get to two and your parents are forced to drop you.”

As if I needed the reminder.

“But if I go to Medica, I turn into something that isn’t me.”

She reached out and took my hand, giving me a wry smile. “I’d rather have you alive than lose you forever to restructuring. You need to be in a department. No department means—”

“No work,” I finished for her, looking up and watching some Cog children run fearlessly across a narrow pipe overhead, their bare feet slapping against it as they darted by with a laugh. “No food on the ration card, no service to the Tower, the fall to becoming a one taking a matter of days, depending on how optimistic you can be. I know.”

“Sounds like a blast when you put it like that,” she quipped, and it brought the shadow of a smile to my lips. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

“Hold up.”

The voice was Grey’s. He was trotting up the hall behind us, and came to stand before me just as I turned. He was ever so slightly taller than me, and met my eyes with that warm brown gaze of his. I watched him warily, wondering what he wanted, and secretly hoping that Roark had changed his mind.

“I’ll walk you two out of Cogstown,” he said. “They probably already know you’re here, and they might try to scare you before you leave.”

“What? Why?” I asked, baffled by his unexpected statement. I looked at Zoe, hoping for clarification. She knew almost everything, it seemed.

She opened her mouth to reply, but Grey beat her to it. “They don’t like outsiders here, and tend to want to make them leave afraid.”

I laughed darkly. “You’re an outsider,” I said. “You’re a Farmer, aren’t you?”

“Not anymore,” he said simply. “But they know me here; if I’m with you, you won’t be bothered. Besides, I doubt you’ll want to hack the elevator right out in the open in front of everyone.”

He gave me a pointed look, and I kept my face neutral, revealing nothing—though my heart was beginning to pound again. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit pleased that he thought me so capable.

Zoe rolled her eyes and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hi,” she said. “I’m the one who hacked the elevator. How did you know we had done that?”