The Girl Who Dared to Lead Read online

  To me, it seemed likely the animals were getting poached, and that an investigation needed to be done, in spite of Scipio’s recommendation. However, I had no idea what it would mean if I hit No. One look at the screen told me it was a moot point anyway, because everyone else had already agreed, even Plancett. Recording a negative at this point would only serve to separate myself from the consensus, which wasn’t a great idea.

  Reluctantly, I hit Yes—but I couldn’t help but think of it as a mistake.

  “The request is marked resolved, with no action needed,” Scipio announced. “Archiving it now.”

  I leaned forward, suddenly excited. This was it—the moment I had been waiting for. I pulled up the notes I had made last night, decided to speak them rather than type them out, and waited.

  “Now on to the final item for the day,” Scipio announced. “The expulsion law that authorizes humane executions of all rank ones in the Tower is under review due to illegal tampering by Devon Alexander, deceased. There is no precedent on this matter, so I will open the floor to the councilors on discussion and debate.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but then stopped when a new line of text appeared on my computer screen, from Sadie Monroe.

  Requesting the debate be tabled until the IT Department can finish its investigation of Scipio, to ensure that there are no remnants of the virus that was used still embedded in his code.

  I stared at the screen, blinking. She wanted to wait to perform an investigation into that? Hadn’t Scipio already cleared himself at my trial? I knew he was being manipulated, but why wouldn’t Sadie take his word for it? Everyone else would—because they were supposed to. The fact that she looked like she wasn’t was… odd. What the hell was this?

  “Request received. Does anyone second the motion?” Scipio asked, and I looked up, alarmed. This wasn’t right; if they postponed the discussion, then the law would still be in place, and the ones already being held in the bottom of the Citadel would continue to die! I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Uh…” I said, trying to figure out how to stop this. The screen shifted again, and I saw that Plancett had seconded the motion. My heart sank lower in my chest. When was I going to get the chance to say something?

  “All those in agreement?” Scipio asked, and I blinked in surprise as everyone hit Yes, including Lacey and Strum. What the hell? Why hadn’t they voted it down? Lacey had told me herself that she hated those chambers, and had even manipulated Scipio into pointing to the vote to implement the rooms as evidence of Devon’s interference! So why were they suddenly letting Sadie slow everything down? We had the votes to stop it—at least tie it and challenge the motion.

  “Opposed?” he asked, looking at me.

  I stared at him, and then looked back at the screen. “Am I allowed to make a different request?” I asked.

  “If this one fails, then yes,” he replied. “If it passes, you will have to wait one week for the next vote.”

  A week? My stomach twisted and my eyes bulged. “I see,” I lied, because no, I did not! How could they let what was happening down there continue for even a day longer? It was anything but humane, as Scipio had called it. Those rooms were deplorable and monstrous!

  I hit the No button, this time unable to resist, and uncaring about Lacey’s order that I should vote with her and Strum. There was no way I was going to agree to anything that left those rooms in use a moment longer, and even though it was pointless, it was a matter of pride.

  “Four agreed and one negative. The motion passes. This discussion will be continued in one week’s time.”

  I fumed in my seat, angry at what I had just seen and been a part of. No one in the council had even bothered to show up, and then they had just done practically nothing, certainly nothing of any importance. And what was worse, they were fine with it!

  I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think straight, so I missed Scipio’s final remarks regarding the next meeting.

  It wasn’t until the councilors left the chatroom, creating little bonk sounds as they exited, that I came back to myself. I looked up to see Scipio giving me a sad smile before evaporating into thin air, leaving me alone.

  For a long time, I just sat there, feeling helpless and impotent thanks to what had just happened. This had been a moment when we could’ve saved lives and changed things for the better, but it had slipped away.

  No, it had been thrown away. And for what? Some investigation into Scipio that clearly wouldn’t reveal anything, considering that no one in IT, save my brother, had even seemed to figure out that he was dying. If they couldn’t see that, then how the heck were they going to find any speck of a virus that was used twenty years ago? And the request came from Sadie Monroe, the head of IT, a woman who should definitely have known what was going on with her charge. Scipio was literally her job, and yet she had never reported any problems.

  Which meant that she was in on it, somehow. She had to be. The alternative was that she was incompetent, and while I was familiar with many of her negative qualities, that wasn’t one of them.

  And if she was in on it, then delaying the repeal of the expulsion chambers had a purpose—likely tied in with the legacy group’s need to exert control and create a state of fear. As long as rumors that the Knights were authorized to kill those who fell from Scipio’s grace remained, people would work harder, keep their heads down, and, most importantly, obey Scipio. Who was being controlled by someone else. I wasn’t about to let that pass… but I wasn’t sure what exactly I could do about it.

  So I tabled this subject for now and stood up to collect my things.

  My appointment with the Medica awaited.

  11

  “Hello again, Liana,” a masculine voice announced.

  Blink. There it was again—that untethered sensation that had haunted my days and nights lately. I looked around the room, searching for the owner of the voice, but only saw the obnoxiously pure white glow of the Medica’s walls. The last time I had been here was when we had tried to rescue Maddox… and Leo had killed Devon Alexander. That room had been heavily damaged in the process, but this one was clean and tidy.

  My eyes finally landed on a man who had just emerged from a hole in the wall, the portal behind him already closing up. Dr. Bordeaux hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I saw him. He was a rotund man, with skinny legs that made it look like he was waddling slightly as he walked in, his gaze on the pad in his hands. He still wore a pair of thick, horn-rimmed glasses over his dark brown eyes, and the bottom half of his face was obscured by a heavy brown beard. His hair was a mixture of thick curls that reminded me vaguely of Lacey’s afro.

  “I see you’re here for a neural transmitter?” he said, his voice questioning. “I’m not entirely sure why you would request me for this. Any Medic can do this procedure easily.”

  I narrowed my eyes as I picked up the slight recrimination dusting his words, and realized that I had wounded his pride by requesting him as my doctor. Evidently, he thought he had better things to do than “grunt” work, and by asking that he do the procedure, I had insinuated that I didn’t think him capable in his current position within the Medica.

  Tough cookies, I thought as I raised my chin up to meet his gaze head on. “You know that my mother died recently,” I said—although it was harder than I’d thought it would be. The words were like rocks that I had to force out of my throat one by one. I swallowed when I was done, and then doggedly pushed forward. “I’m having a hard time processing that. But you know the Tower. If they hear that the Champion is suffering from depression…” I said as I rolled my eyes. On that point, I wasn’t lying. The Tower thrived on gossip and drama, and any hint of a depressed council member would be talked about for weeks. I did not want that to happen, which was why it made for a believable excuse.

  “Ah, yes,” Dr. Bordeaux said, coming closer to take a seat across from me. “I apologize for my tone before. I should’ve realized that you had not made the request arbitrarily.”r />
  I smiled, but it was a bitter one. Dr. Bordeaux may have looked the same, but now that I had soothed his wounded ego and reminded him of my rank and position, his manner had shifted from condescending to obsequious in a matter of moments.

  He leaned back in the chair and looked at his pad. “Even though we try to endure it, loss can weigh heavily on certain more… sensitive individuals. How have you been sleeping?” he asked.

  I narrowed my eyes at the backhanded insult. “Sensitive individuals?” I said, my tone icy. Okay, to be fair, I was sensitive about my mother’s death. Clearly and maddeningly so. But I didn’t like the insinuation that my pain was a weakness. It was something I was processing, yes, but it didn’t make me weak.

  Just… y’know… irrational when it came to certain topics. It was a work in progress.

  He blinked owlishly at me, and I had the distinct pleasure of watching his expression morph into one of alarm as he realized his mistake. I didn’t have direct power over him, but I was a member of the council, and I was certain he knew I could find fun and interesting ways to make his life a living hell if I wanted to.

  I wouldn’t, but I could see the thoughts drifting behind his eyes, the fear of it growing as he carefully struggled to backtrack.

  “My apologies,” he managed slowly. “I did not mean that how it sounded. Your case comes with a certain amount of trauma associated with it. Your mother did not simply pass due to old age. The accident in the arena was tragic and sudden, and that can also have an effect on the grieving process. Now, back to your sleeping habits the past few days… How have they been? I want to make sure I prescribe the right medication.”

  Medication? That was so not happening, even if I was having problems sleeping at night. I wasn’t just going to swallow a pill that would steal my grief away. It was mine, and I wanted it. And it bugged me that it was his instant go-to. He didn’t ask how I was feeling; he only cared about the physical side effects that could prevent me from doing my job.

  Not that I was surprised. It was the Medica’s way to prescribe drugs rather than provide therapy. You had to insist on the latter if you wanted it, and then the doctor would send you to a “specialist.” In other words, a first-year medical student who spent more time asking you about your aversion to pills than your actual problems.

  It didn’t matter anyway, because I did not want to actually talk about it. I was here for two reasons, and neither of them revolved around talking about my mother. Luckily, I had a good cause to delay, in the form of my first objective.

  “Before we do this, can we get the transmitter implanted? I might get called away unexpectedly on Citadel business, and I need to make sure that’s done first.”

  He looked up from his pad, his mouth forming a surprised O, but then quickly nodded. “Of course,” he replied earnestly, hefting himself up. I started to join him, but he raised his hand, indicating that I should remain seated.

  He walked over to the treatment bed that lay along the wall and pressed a button. A section of the wall dropped away, revealing a terminal. “Neural transmitter for Liana Castell, 25K-05,” he said out loud.

  The screen flickered to life, and my credentials immediately filled it, the crimson background a harsh contrast to the white glow of the Medica walls. A little window appeared over my profile, containing the word APPROVED. There was a hum, and then another section of the wall dropped.

  I couldn’t see what happened next, as Dr. Bordeaux reached for it, his body blocking my view, but when he turned around, he was holding a white, cylindrical object with a black tip. A pneumatic injector.

  He approached me confidently, but my eyes drifted back to the terminal as I realized that this was my in for switching over to the other reason I was here: Jasper.

  “What happened to Jasper?” I asked casually, looking back at the doctor as he closed the distance between us.

  He frowned for a second in confusion and came to a stop in front of me. “The computer program?” I nodded, and his frown deepened. “The project was terminated right after you killed…” He trailed off, his eyes widening as he realized what he was about to say. “That’s… Well… I mean…” He sucked in a deep breath, his cheeks darkening some. “What I meant to say was that it was terminated on the day Devon Alexander died,” he finally managed without stammering.

  It was an odd feeling to realize that you were making someone nervous, and an even odder one to recognize that at the heart of that anxiousness was fear. He was now afraid of offending me, afraid of saying the wrong thing—and afraid of how I would react now that he had botched it. For a second time.

  “I know what I did,” I said, in an attempt to make him more comfortable. “So do you. It’s not going to hurt my feelings to talk about it.”

  He slowly looked up at me, relief evident in his dark brown eyes. “Here, let me do this,” he said, holding up the injector. “Can you tilt your head up toward me, please?”

  I lifted my chin, and he reached out and touched me on the side of my head, forcing me to tilt slightly away from him. Then he pressed the tip of the injector to my temple. I felt a sharp pain as he clicked the button, but it faded quickly, leaving only a dull sense of pressure. Then the injector was removed, and Dr. Bordeaux carried it back over to the wall for disposal.

  “Is that it?” I asked, massaging the spot with my fingertips, searching for any sign of the implant—a hard nub or something—but finding nothing.

  “Not yet. We’re going to test it right now,” he replied, turning around and lifting his hand. “Contact Liana Castell, 25K-05.”

  A moment later, the net in my head began to buzz and my indicator lit up, showing Dr. Bordeaux’s name and identification number. I accepted the call, and then looked up at him. “What do I do?”

  “Just think hard about what you want to say. You’ll know when it is sent.”

  That sounded easy. Too easy. And also… what should I even think at him?

  I thought about it for a moment, and then focused intently. Pressure formed at the injection site on my temple—tiny and not exactly painful—and was followed by a soft pop. And I knew in that moment that I had just transmitted I feel stupid doing this to Dr. Bordeaux.

  To my surprise, he smiled. “It worked,” he said, and I had the added bonus of hearing it twice—once in real life, and then a second later in my ear, transmitted through our open net connection.

  Cool, I thought at him, smiling as the pressure/pop sensation went by faster. Ending the transmission. I touched the indicator on my wrist to end the call a second later, and exhaled. It wasn’t exactly what I had been expecting, but having it was like gaining a measure of privacy that I had never had before. Now I didn’t have to worry about my side of a net transmission being overheard; I could just let it all play out in my head, and no one would know.

  Well, they might in the beginning. The sensation was a little distracting, and I was certain that I would have an odd look on my face the first few times I used it. Still, I was happy to have it.

  Dr. Bordeaux had moved back over to the chair while I was dwelling on the new freedom I had with the neural transmitter, and now pulled his pad back around. I realized I had gotten distracted from my original line of inquiry, and that he was about to resume dissecting my emotional state. But I needed to get back on track about Jasper—before Dr. Bordeaux could bring up my mother.

  “So what happened with him?” I asked, taking a moment to reposition myself casually in the chair and cross my legs. The movement was calculated on my part. It, coupled with the idle curiosity in my voice, would hopefully signal to him that this was just small talk and nothing more.

  He blinked as he settled back into his chair. “I suppose there is no harm in telling you,” he said, crossing his own narrow legs. “You are a member of the council now. The program apparently had too many bugs in it, and IT recalled it to fix them.”

  “I see.” I scooted my hip over a little bit more, fidgeting slightly. “Still, he was a bit od
d for a computer program, wasn’t he?”

  “How do you mean?”

  His question sounded genuine. He was intrigued, but I couldn’t tell whether that was good or bad. He might never have thought much about Jasper before, but if I spent too much time asking questions about the AI, he might get questions of his own and start asking around, and who knew what sort of trouble that would create. I had to be smart about this.

  “Well, I just mean he was so incredibly lifelike. Honestly, it felt like I was having a conversation with him, not just ordering him around, y’know? It freaked me out a little, because I thought Scipio was the only one like that.”

  He chuckled. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t like the realistic voices the computer programs have around the Tower. In certain cases, it creates feelings of anxiety and paranoia, but it’s important to remember that it’s just a program. I also found it to be incredibly realistic—perhaps one of the most interactive programs ever invented, really. But it was only a program. And a buggy one as well. I was glad when they pulled it.”

  “They?” I asked, perking up slightly. He narrowed his eyes at me, just for a second, and I realized I had gotten a little too eager, which had aroused his suspicions. I gave him my most winning smile and hoped it would be enough to keep him talking.

  “IT and Chief Surgeon Sage,” he said. “It was Sage’s idea to have a sort of… mentorship program for the less experienced Medics. A support structure that could offer advice and confirm diagnoses. It was an intriguing idea, just one that didn’t pan out, I’m afraid.”

  He didn’t sound too disappointed by it, though, and the casual disregard for Jasper made me slightly upset. But Dr. Bordeaux was a typical example of how a true citizen ought to be: completely trusting of the system. If those in charge told him the program was broken, he bought it. Hook, line, and sinker.