The Girl Who Dared to Endure Read online

  I opened my eyes as I realized that Baldy hadn’t said anything for a long time. He must’ve ended his conversation with whoever was on the net. On the one hand, that was good for us; now that he wasn’t transmitting, we could do something about him. On the other, it meant I had missed my opportunity to try to make it to the office before them.

  “So how mad was he when you told him?” asked a feminine voice. I recognized it, too—as the one Baldy had been talking to right before he’d cut my throat. My fingers immediately itched to touch the spot, to remind myself that my neck was whole and unbroken, but I kept them firmly around the gun, straining to hear.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Claire,” Baldy replied tightly. But then, a heartbeat later, he exploded into, “That stupid order to keep that intrusive little bitch alive is a mistake, and we all know it.”

  Claire made a consoling noise. “I know, I know,” she said soothingly. “She chased us from our home, and she’s been getting into stuff left and right. But he wants her alive for some reason, and you have to respect that.”

  He went quiet, which only made the sound of stomping feet grow louder. I fought against the fear the noise created, focusing instead on their words. They were clearly talking about me, as I was the one who had accidently stumbled into their home when we were trying to recover some items we needed from the Attic. That was when he had cut my throat, as a cover for their escape. But the fact that they really didn’t want me dead left me feeling two things.

  The first being abject fear. They might have orders to keep me alive, but they clearly didn’t like it. If they found us here and got the upper hand, who knew if they would let me live a second time. They might not, if they realized what I was here for—and how much I knew.

  The second thing I noticed was that Baldy had mentioned a “he.” That meant there was a leader over Baldy… but was he over Sadie? Or was Sadie over him? Or were they partners?

  I waited for them to say more about it, but to my dismay, the next thing I heard was Claire’s voice saying, “What the hell… Why is Sadie’s desk a mess?”

  2

  My heart seemed to go very quiet in my chest, and I had to put a hand over it just to make sure it was still beating. Stomach churning, I squeezed the pommel of the gun tighter and waited for his reply.

  When it finally came, it filled me with some relief, but not much. “I don’t know,” he replied uncertainly. “Maybe she lost something and was in the process of looking for it when she had to leave?”

  That was good. They were jumping to a reasonable idea instead of immediately arriving at the conclusion that someone was here. And why wouldn’t they? The councilor’s quarters were supposed to be the most secure places in the Tower. None of them had been breached.

  Although, given the ease with which I was able to do it (ha!), maybe that record wasn’t as pristine as I had been told. I wasn’t arrogant enough to assume that my team was the only one to come up with a plan to get in.

  Still, it made sense that they wouldn’t immediately leap to that conclusion.

  But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get there eventually. We needed to move—now—away from them, before they questioned it. We could come up with a plan once we had some distance between us.

  I started to sign my plan to Leo in Callivax—the hand language of the Divers—but stopped when I heard Claire’s reply. “I don’t know. Something feels off about this.”

  Dammit, Claire, I thought bitterly. Why’d you have to be a smart bad guy?

  “What? Do you want to check it out?” If Claire replied, it must have been via a head nod, because I heard Baldy give an irritated sigh a few seconds later. “He’s going to be angry at the delay, but yeah, take a look around. I’m sure it’s nothing, but you’re right. Something feels off.”

  “Thank you,” she replied gratefully. “I’ll take Callum. You just focus on getting what we came here for.”

  I didn’t hear a reply from Baldy—only the sound of footsteps heading right toward us. And there were no other rooms between us and the office for them to check first. They had already noticed the mess, but if they noticed the hard drives and figured out that Jasper and Rose were being downloaded, too, they would definitely know someone was here. As soon as they did, we would lose any opportunity of surprising them, and it could give them a chance to call someone and let them know we were here.

  Not. Good.

  I was up and moving before I even had a chance to think, signing to Leo in Callivax that two of them were coming, and froze when I realized I wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed. I knew how to use the gun, but I wasn’t skilled in the type of combat necessary for it. I wasn’t sure where the best place to stand was, what tactics to use. The gun was familiar in my hand, thanks to the legacy net. Someone in the past had had experience with firearms, and that experience had translated to me—but only so much of it.

  Panic surged through me as I realized that my earlier confidence in having the guns might have been misplaced. Leo’s eyes were trained on my hands, but as the boots grew louder, I knew I wouldn’t be able to figure out the right move. Should we stand next to the door, opposite it, flip up the mattress and hide behind it, use our lashes to get to the ceiling… My eyes darted around the room as I considered the multitude of choices, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had no comprehension of gun strategy. A wave of frustration and fear rolled over me, and I struggled to find the best answer.

  Suddenly, a buzz shot through my skull thanks to my net, and my panic doubled. I didn’t have time to be sucked away from reality and taken by yet another memory. The episodes left me blind to the real world when they occurred, and if I was locked in one when the door opened, they’d have me. I struggled against it, pressing one hand to my mouth to cover my gasp. Leo started to rush over, but I waved him back with my free arm.

  To my surprise, though, no memory took me away. It was difficult to explain, but I felt some sort of past personality extending something like a handshake in a light, tentative brush across my brain. The touch was questioning, inquisitive, curious, but also confident and sure, as if it were saying, Girl, do you need a little help? My immediate response was that I did, and the next thing I felt was a wave of confidence suddenly translating into me.

  No, it was more than that. It was like someone else was just under my skin, controlling my very responses. Leo’s brown eyes widened as I suddenly straightened. Now, as I surveyed the room, it was like I could see the various positions I could take, and the new impulse inside of me directed me to the bed. I followed it and took a kneeling position on the bed, my arms extended straight toward the door.

  Leo cocked his head at me, but the controlling force didn’t bat a single eyelash as I lined up the shot. A deep calm seemed to settle over my muscles, and I couldn’t help but question it. I had been nervous seconds ago, but now I felt confident. Maybe too confident. What if I was just imagining the net doing this? It had certainly never done anything like this before.

  My questions didn’t affect the calm, though, and I didn’t move.

  A shadow appeared on the edge of the gap, then, and grew as the figure beyond stopped just on the other side of the door. My grip on the gun tightened. The barrier between us started to rise, and I tracked its progress with my gun as legs clad in the gray of an IT uniform slid into view. My heart thudded against my chest as a chest appeared next—female, given the ampleness.

  That meant Claire. A person with a name. A person with a family. A person, full stop.

  But the legacy net told me what had to be done, and time slowed as her neck appeared, slim and pretty. It reminded me that she had been there when my throat was cut—and had done nothing to stop Baldy. My finger tightened on the trigger.

  Her eyes came next, then, and I exhaled and squeezed. There was a sharp bang, and the gun kicked in my hand, but the memory held my hand firm.

  She barely had a chance to register my presence before the bullet caught her in the center of her
forehead. The force of it threw her back against the wall, and I was up and moving before she had even started sliding down it. I wanted to stare, to process what I had just done to another human being without giving them the decency of a warning or a fair fight, but there were two big problems with that. First, they didn’t deserve a fair fight, and second, the strange legacy memory was fully in control.

  I’d had almost nothing to do with it. I had been shocked when I felt myself pulling the trigger.

  I knew that should frighten me, but I felt like I could control it, as long as I didn’t try to fight it. The goal was now made simple: kill the other legacies, except for Baldy, before they could net anyone that we were here. Baldy, I wanted alive, to see what I could get out of him. But the rest had to die. Then we would get Jasper and Rose and the files, reset the room, and get the heck out of here.

  I crossed the room in three short steps and emerged into the hall. Sure enough, a large man with cropped blond hair was staring at Claire’s slumped form with confusion and alarm. I pointed the gun at him and squeezed the trigger twice, and he jerked as the bullets hit him on the left side of his chest, within an inch of each other. I knew I had hit him in the heart. Blood spurted, hitting the wall, but the net kept me strangely calm.

  I motioned for Leo to follow, and then moved down the hall. “Claire?” Baldy called from up ahead in the office, a worried note in his voice. “What was that?”

  The hall was curved, but the distance between the two rooms was short, and as I swung into view, I saw a man, blond as well, but lankier and shorter than Callum, leaning on the doorframe. His eyes widened when he saw me coming, and he started fumbling at his belt. Some cruel part of the legacy net let him struggle even as I closed the distance between us—or maybe it was wise, I wasn’t sure—but as soon as he began to pull the familiar shape of the pulse shield out of its holster, I squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet exploded from the end of the gun in a flash of fire, and I heard the wet sound of it striking a moment before the back of his skull exploded all over the wall and doorframe.

  “Sam!” Baldy shouted, his voice suddenly panicked. “We’re under attack! Weapons!”

  My hand went up behind me, and I realized that the legacy net was forcing me to sign to Leo that he should go right while I went left. I felt him grab my hand, pulling me to a stop, and realized that he wanted me to let him go first. But the net wasn’t allowing it, and I twisted my wrist free and plunged through the doorway, arms and gun extended in front of me.

  Something dark and gray raced up a set of stairs in the corner of the room that led to the dais, and I homed in on it, shooting the person twice in the back before I consciously ascertained that it wasn’t Baldy. His hair was way too long.

  Another shot sounded to my right, completely unexpected, and I looked over to see Leo standing at the threshold, his gun pointed at a woman who had been hiding in the corner. I saw the pulse shield in her hand and realized that she had been about to shoot me with it. Leo had stopped her. His face was grim as he turned his focus back to the desk, and the legacy net echoed the movement.

  It was already forcing me forward, racing toward the desk. Everyone was dead except for Baldy, but if he managed to net someone and let them know we were here before I got to him… I ducked as he swung up from where he had been hiding, his hand filled with a white pulse shield. I dove low, even as Leo shot from behind me. The bullet caught Baldy in the shoulder, flinging his arm up and back, and he cried out in pain and then disappeared behind the desk as he fell.

  I was up and around it in three seconds, horrified at the thought that he could already be netting someone. Sure enough, he had his wrist up, and his flat, circular indicator was glowing, telling me that he’d touched it. He looked up at me with alarm as I slid to a knee beside him.

  Reaching out, I grabbed a fistful of his uniform and hauled him up, my gun pointed right at his head. It was in my heart to squeeze the trigger right then and there; after all, he’d played a part in so much death in the Tower. And the personality in the net that was guiding my actions urged me to do just that. But even as my finger started to squeeze the trigger, I beat it back, forcing the tension in my finger to relax.

  I drew the gun back, and a vicious hatred filled his eyes. “You!” he spat.

  “Me,” I agreed, and then slammed the butt of the gun down against his temple, feeling the blow all the way down to my hip. There was a sharp crack, and he went limp. Fingers at his neck told me that he was still alive, though, and I felt a grim sense of satisfaction.

  It was quickly replaced by a sense of weakness as the net stopped buzzing, the weird memory/personality sensation dissipating. I sagged, suddenly shaky from the onslaught of adrenaline, and took a moment to catch my breath.

  As I did, I realized that I had just killed four people in quick succession.

  And we didn’t have a moment to waste. We had a minute—maybe two—to cover their deaths up before the system confirmed that they had died and the alarms went off. If we could disable their nets before that, then they wouldn’t show up as alive or dead, because the net would be too damaged to transmit their life signs and the system wouldn’t have confirmation one way or the other. That meant cutting or burning them out, and one was far faster than the other.

  “Leo?” I said, straightening up and switching the gun to my other hand so I could draw my baton.

  I wasn’t surprised to find him right there next to me, brown eyes brimming with concern. “You okay?” he asked.

  I nodded and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, suddenly remembering the way the man’s head had exploded when I shot him but managing to hold it together despite my churning stomach. “Yeah, but we have to hurry. I need you to remove Baldy’s net so they can’t track him, and he can’t net anyone. I’m going to fry the other ones before the system can register they are dead. How long until Jasper and Rose are downloaded?”

  He turned and looked at the monitor, and I saw a flashing blue status bar on the screen, two-thirds of the way full. “Four minutes,” he replied. “I’ll get to work on this guy. You get the others. We’ll move the bodies to the emergency exit and hide them there.”

  I nodded, recognizing the wisdom in his words. Each department lead’s apartment had an emergency escape route in case the Tower fell, maximizing the opportunity for some humans to survive, and utilizing Sadie’s was the only way for us to get out undetected, as there were no sensors inside them. I knew from the reset of my own quarters that Sadie’s personal items would be sorted out—which was why I was planning to destroy the desk, to cover the fact that I had stolen her files—so it stood to reason the bodies would remain as well. We had to remove them, or Sadie would find them when she got back and know something had gone down. Hiding them upstairs, in the escape tunnel, was the best thing we could do until we could deal with them. Not to mention, we could probably leave them there indefinitely. I doubted Sadie used her escape tunnel, so she wouldn’t think to look inside it for some time.

  As long as we took care of the nets first. I slid the bag over my shoulder and handed it to Leo. Then I moved to the first body—the woman in the corner—flipped her over, charged my baton, placed the tip at the back of her neck, and expended the electrical charge. Her body flopped like a fish for several seconds as I held it there, and I cringed against the horrific feeling it produced.

  I relaxed slightly when it was over, but the feeling was brief. I turned to the next one.

  One down, I thought as I approached it with grim purpose. Three more to go.

  3

  It only took Jasper and Rose four minutes to download, but it took Leo and me seven to neutralize the nets and carry the bodies to the escape tunnel. Luckily, it wasn’t far from the office. Unluckily, that extra three minutes ate into the precious time Jasper and Rose had on the slaved hard drives. Jasper’s program was mindlessly attacking Rose’s, and it was using up a lot of power to do it—which was why we had the hard drives slaved to
gether, for more power, and why we had only half an hour to get them to a more secure place, like a terminal. Transporting them was risky, because if the hard drive battery units gave out, we could lose Rose and Jasper forever.

  But staying definitely wasn’t an option.

  We raced through the rest of what we needed to do after we deposited Baldy’s unconscious form up in the escape tunnel, giving him an extra zap with the baton to make sure he stayed unconscious. Leo handled cleaning up the blood, using a few of Sadie’s sheets, while I swept everything I had taken from Sadie’s desk into the bag, my motions jerky and quick. Each second that dragged by felt like a second too long. As soon as I was done, I left Leo and fled to the emergency exit, while he set off the virus that would convince Sadie’s assistant that she was dead, and that it needed to initiate the reset of her apartment and files.

  And though I was alone for several seconds in the hall, I had no time to worry about Leo’s safety. I quickly stripped out of the IT uniform that Dinah, our ally inside of IT, had given me, and donned my own uniform, complete with lashes. Leo showed up a moment later and helped me, and a few precious minutes later we were running down the hall and into a shaft that led upward, Baldy strapped to my back. We didn’t have time for Leo to change as well, as his gear was still in the bag, so it was up to me and my harness to carry him. I utilized my lashes to climb, the gears in the gyros better equipped to handle the double weight, while Leo used a rung ladder.

  “Did it work?” I asked him as I began my ascent, keeping my voice low.

  “It did. I almost got clocked by a piece of furniture making my way back to you.”

  I couldn’t find any humor in his statement. My nerves were already fraying from the sudden dip in adrenaline, so I focused instead on the climb, relieved that at the very least we had covered our tracks.