The Girl Who Dared to Descend Read online

  She was wearing a pair of smoked glass goggles over her eyes, and her hands were covered by heavy gloves. In one hand was a small welding torch, in the other a pair of tweezers. She was biting her lower lip in concentration, her teeth white against skin darkened by the soot and smoke the torch was creating.

  She looked up, smiled, switched the flame off, and placed the torch on a small stand. She pulled off her goggles, leaving rings of clean skin surrounding her eyes, and I smiled at the look. She grinned back as she took off her gloves.

  “I saw what happened on the drone camera footage,” she said in a rush. “I am so, so, so glad you are all right.” She tugged me into a hug, her arms coming around me like a vice. “If you had died, I would’ve killed you, Liana Castell.”

  My heart swelled, and I wrapped my arms around my best friend. “I will endeavor not to do so in the future.”

  She released me and gave me a look that told me she didn’t believe me, then stepped around me to come face-to-face with Leo. “You saved my best friend’s life,” she said, her voice growing thick.

  Leo frowned and immediately shook his head. “I did nothing that she wouldn’t do for any of us,” he said. “I assure you, your gratitude is unnecessary. Liana is my friend. You all are.”

  Zoe cocked her head at him, and then pulled him into a hug. “Just shut up and take a hug, you confounded machine,” she breathed.

  Leo stiffened, and then lifted his arms uncertainly, as if not entirely sure what to do. I could have almost laughed at his frown as he slowly puzzled out where to rest his arms across her back, but the look faded behind a soft, tender expression that fluttered over his face as he closed his eyes and just… experienced a real hug.

  Surprisingly, tears began to form in my eyes, and I turned away from the scene to take a moment to compose myself. It was sad and strangely beautiful. He was learning what it was really like to be human—to feel cared for or appreciated beyond just what words could say. How a touch could mean more than a thousand words, and how warm and precious a hug could be.

  And though it had taken Grey nearly dying for Leo to gain the experience, I was suddenly grateful he had the opportunity.

  Because that would mean a more caring master AI program if he managed to accomplish his goal of replacing Scipio. It would mean no more executions, no more restructuring, no more ranking systems, and no more trying to divide people and humiliate them in order to encourage good behavior. It would be a more understanding place… and a place that would be worth fighting for.

  And for a moment, I found myself thinking of Lionel Scipio and how, in essence, he had created two children. One was now dying—but the other was growing stronger every day. How would he feel, knowing that one of his creations was going to die, while the other would not only take its place, but gain a knowledge of humanity that Scipio had never experienced? It was impossible to know what his intentions might have been, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this had been his goal all along.

  Which led me to think about Scipio and his damaged code. My brother had mentioned that huge chunks of his code were actually missing. Had they been deleted? But how did code go missing—and in such large amounts, as my brother had insinuated? How had someone even been able to penetrate the firewalls to gain access, let alone delete it? Why hadn’t anyone noticed? There were thousands of Eyes on him all the time—it shouldn’t have been possible. Their job was literally to watch him! The fact that they hadn’t noticed meant that the change had happened so long ago that they just assumed that was how Scipio was supposed to look, or there was a conspiracy within IT to keep it covered up. It would have to be a large one, too.

  “What’s happening?” I shouted, rushing into a small room with several computer screens that were flashing blue and red.

  “It’s Scipio!” my sister cried in distress. Her fingers paused their frantic typing on the keyboard long enough for her to push back her glasses as she stared up at the screen, her eyes wide in horror. “Someone’s attacking him!”

  “What?!” I looked up at the screen, trying to analyze the raw bits of code dancing across it, trying to see what my sister was seeing. “How? Why hasn’t the firewall gone up?”

  “Whoever the bastard is, he’s good. He hijacked the firewall to make it turn against itself, and then gave it a purpose. It’s sheering out Scipio’s security controls!”

  Panic flooded me at my sister’s words. Scipio’s security controls were what allowed him to autonomously monitor his own coding. If they were stripped from him, he’d be blind.

  “Can’t you do something?”

  My sister nodded, and then turned around to face me, her eyes hard. “I can download the code first, using Grandmother’s built-in security clearance,” she whispered. “Or as much of it as possible, so that we can replace it with a copy.”

  I frowned. Grandmother’s security clearances were the last ace in the hole we had—once we used them, whoever was attacking Scipio would be able to dig them out. Not to mention… “You can’t copy intelli-code! It loses—”

  “The ability to grow and learn will start to degrade, yes, I know. But we have to, Brother. It’s the only way to slow them down!”

  I hesitated and then nodded. “Do it.” My sister was already moving, plugging several data crystals into the ports of her homemade computer.

  “Liana!”

  Eric’s sharp voice jolted me out of the tangent memory that had gripped me, and I blinked and realized everyone in the room was looking at me.

  “Sorry,” I said, reaching up to push my hair out of my face and pausing when I noticed I was trembling. I shook out my hands, trying to clear out the residual feelings the memory had imparted, and sighed. “I’m still getting a hold on this new net.”

  “Did you have a memory?” Zoe asked excitedly. “About what?”

  I opened my mouth to tell her, but just like that, the memory was gone. I frowned, trying to recall what exactly had happened. That was weird—none of the other memories had disappeared like that, but for some reason, I couldn’t remember what had happened. Was the net malfunctioning, or had Lacey done something to it to keep me from remembering certain things? I was betting it was the latter—some sort of security protocol that kept me from learning too much about what they were up to. Lacey was nothing if not fiercely protective of her goals, and I couldn’t blame her. For as much research as she had done on me, she couldn’t be a hundred percent sure that I wasn’t a legacy planted to try to gain her trust and flush her out.

  The memory was gone, but the feelings—the anxiety, panic, and fear—all remained, leaving me a bit shaken. I tried to recall some detail, but the only thing I could remember was that it had something to do with Scipio. “I think it had something to do with Scipio,” I finally said. “The person the net was attached to at the time was frightened, but that’s all I can remember.”

  “Hm.” Zoe’s eyes narrowed in contemplation. “Any headaches or unexplained problems with your vision or the net buzzing?”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t think it’s a problem with the net. I think it’s a memory that relates directly to the legacies. Maybe there’s a safeguard in place to keep me from remembering it once it’s passed.”

  Leo frowned. “That would be pointless,” he announced. “How would only remembering something in the moment help you?”

  It was a good point. Not to mention, it undermined my goals in having it. How was I supposed to identify with Ambrose if I couldn’t even get a clear picture of what his cause was? It was frustrating, and made me feel like I was fighting with one hand tied behind my back while blindfolded.

  Of course, going to Lacey now wasn’t a possibility; she had reinforced her zero-contact rule after our meeting the other day.

  “I don’t know, but I fully intend to ask her. Unfortunately, it will have to wait until the end of the Tourney. I doubt I’ll be able to get her in a room before then.” I sighed. The problem with the net bothered me. Something important had
happened in the memory, but now it was just a blank. A part of me was tempted to march down to Cogstown and start hollering Lacey’s name until she was forced to see me, but it wasn’t exactly discreet, and I already had too much attention on me for my comfort. But one thing was certain: this was only a pause on my part, not an end.

  I wanted to know what was going on in these memories.

  I let it go, and turned my focus to Zoe, who was now going back around the worktable and fetching a crate filled to the brim with white pill bottles.

  “You’re keeping them out in the open like that?” I asked. If she was, that was alarming; inspections of quarters for contraband were rare, but they still happened. A bunch of unmarked medication outside of the Medica would draw attention, if we weren’t careful.

  “Relax, Tian came and checked this place for bugs yesterday on her way down to Sanctum. Nobody’s watching or listening. And, I hide them when I’m not working on them.” She smiled at me as she hefted them onto the table and began pulling the bottles out. “Now, this is Paragon. The number on the outside shows the rank the pill achieves, and we have a stockpile here that would last the seven of us for several months. Of course, that won’t help the others Roark and Grey recruited.”

  “But?” I nudged, noting the sparkle in her blue eyes and the cunning grin she was giving me.

  “But, I figured out how to dilute them,” she said excitedly. “And I’ve done the math. If we dilute all the nines and tens to eights, we’ll effectively create triple the number of pills. I know we’ll have to keep some of the tens to one side for us, in case we begin to slip during our time in the open, and for analysis if we can’t ever recover Jasper, but…”

  “But it’s a start,” I said. I sat down and thought about it. Thanks to the ranks of ten that Scipio had bestowed on us, we didn’t have to worry about taking Paragon. For a little while, at least. The higher the rank, the longer it took to drop—or at least that’s what Alex had insinuated after studying the net data for the past twenty years or so. But it would happen eventually. Tripling the pills was good—but still not quite good enough, when there were twenty-nine other people to handle.

  The council had indicated that the law Devon had manipulated Scipio into recommending—namely, the execution of the ones in the Tower—was going to be overturned, but there were still twenty-nine people out there who were dependent on Paragon. And if they didn’t get it, they’d be going into restructuring, the process that had been the predecessor to execution. My memory of the rooms buried at the bottom of the Citadel was horrifying enough to make my stomach turn. I wouldn’t subject my own worst enemy to it—let alone people who just had a difficult time coping with Tower life.

  And I owed it to Roark to make sure these people were taken care of. Just like I owed it to Cali to keep Quess, Maddox, and Tian safe.

  “What do you need us to do?” I asked, determined to get started.

  Zoe blinked in surprise and then gave me a delighted smile. “I didn’t think you’d help, but this is great! I’ve already figured out the ratios, and Lacey’s people left Roark’s supplies behind, which means I have a press for the pills…” She trailed off and sighed, shaking her head. “Sorry, brain is moving too fast. Liana and Leo, I want you to use this to smash these pills. Crush them ten at a time, and then dump them into these test tubes. Make sure you label whether they are tens, or nines, or whatever.”

  She pulled out several objects as she spoke, moving like a whirlwind through her makeshift workstation and laboratory. First she produced two mortar and pestle sets, for grinding pills, followed by a stand that held ten test tubes. Then, she pulled out a marker. She slid everything across to us, and beamed expectantly.

  I collected a few objects and looked curiously at Eric, who was standing quietly to one side, watching. “What’s Eric going to do?”

  “Cook dinner,” he said with a smile. “Zoe says that while she loves everything about me, my clumsiness most of all, she doesn’t need it in her space.”

  “Yes, but you also cook dinner far better than I ever could,” Zoe pointed out unapologetically. “By the way, remind me to thank your mom for teaching you.”

  “More like my sister and cousins for making me,” Eric said, moving over to plant a kiss on her head. “But hey, if it makes you happy, then it was totally worth it.”

  Zoe squealed as he started to nuzzle her cheek, and I found myself turning away and moving across the room to drop into the familiar low couch against the wall, and setting my objects on the table. Leo hovered by the table a little while longer, openly observing them, but joined me shortly after he realized I had moved.

  I looked up from where I was now counting pills out into the bowl, saw the two of them sharing a passionate kiss, and then focused on my work again. I was over being envious; my friends were genuinely happy, and there was no reason for that to upset me. But I still wasn’t comfortable witnessing their PDA. Better to just ignore it.

  Eventually they finished kissing, and Eric wandered off to the kitchen to start cooking. Zoe spun around on her stool, smiling, and started humming to herself as she began to work. I smiled as I commenced crushing the pills into a fine white powder.

  It felt good, just for a moment, to forget about the Tourney and Ambrose, and work on something that would actually help people. I only wished the nagging voice inside of me would shut up about how I could do more.

  22

  “Oh, so when do the results come out?” Zoe asked as she began to clean up the dishes from our meal. We’d been there for a few hours, and I hadn’t been paying much attention to the time. Which was good, because we were all waiting for the results from the qualifiers, and without the distraction Zoe and Eric had provided, I would probably have been an anxious mess, wondering if we had pulled it off. I looked at my indicator, swiping over the blue ten that had stubbornly remained, and checked the time.

  It was later than I had imagined, almost eight p.m. Which meant the results had been out for at least twenty minutes by now. I pulled out my pad and connected with the internal server the Knights used to post announcements and the like. The list was already there, waiting under video images of the qualifier. I ignored the latter, not wanting to see whatever cut of our team they’d put together, and clicked on the list.

  My heart practically stopped when I saw that only sixteen teams had qualified. Over fifty had applied, so for that few to have passed…

  Please, let our team be one of them. I had no idea how Lacey and Ambrose would react to the news if it were otherwise. And I didn’t particularly want to find out. We weren’t prepared to run yet if things didn’t go our way, and I certainly didn’t want us scrambling like madmen right when we were getting settled again. Not to mention, I doubted very much that we’d get away before Lacey caught up with us.

  If we hadn’t made it, I’d just turn myself over to her and hope that she wouldn’t go after my friends. And if not, well, I’d find a way to make her leave them alone, even if it meant pulling apart Cogstown with my bare hands to bury her.

  The screen loaded, and I was immediately relieved when I saw our names listed alphabetically, the third group down. I looked up to where everyone was practically hovering, waiting to hear the results.

  “We’re in,” I said, and Zoe let out a sigh, leaning back in her chair.

  “Thank God,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and standing up. “Who knows how Lacey would take it if you guys hadn’t gotten in?”

  I smiled. We had all been thinking it, and I was glad for the fact that we didn’t have to find out. I honestly hadn’t seen a way out if we didn’t succeed, which was why I hadn’t brought it up to them. Then again, it wasn’t anyone else’s responsibility. It was mine.

  “So who else is in?” Eric asked, handing a stack of dirty dishes to Zoe.

  My eyes returned to the list, and I skimmed the names. “Dylan and her all-female team got in,” I said, smiling appreciatively and giving her a little internal girl nod
of approval. It was rare that girls competed on teams with only girls, so whenever it happened, I was pleased. If only because it served to remind the guys that we could, in fact, hold our own against them.

  My gaze dropped a few names below hers, and I nodded. “So did Frederick and his team. And…” I paused and cocked my head, frowning as I saw a familiar pair of names on the list. “My parents.” I looked up at the group and blinked. “Did you guys know they were competing?”

  Zoe gave me a look over her shoulder as she submerged the dishes into a pot of water and grinned crookedly. “They’re your parents, Liana. How would we have known that? I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

  I wasn’t surprised in the least. My parents had both been ghosts around the house when I was there—which was as little as possible. I’d known they were likely avoiding me. And then I hadn’t even really informed them that I was moving out—just grabbed my already-packed boxes and left. Maybe if I hadn’t left, they would’ve told me, but…

  I cleared that thought right out of my head. My parents didn’t owe me an explanation, and I didn’t need one. So they were competing. So what? They were probably doing it to support a candidate they believed in. My eyes returned to their names, and I realized I recognized the other names in their group. One was an old friend of the family, Min-Ha Kim, but the other was Salvatore Zale—Devon’s former Lieutenant, and possibly one of the only people who knew what the disgraced Champion had been up to before his death.

  Was he involved with what Devon had been doing? Was that why he was making a play for Champion? If Devon had somehow indoctrinated Zale into his legacy “family,” so to speak… could it be that he was now trying to finish whatever Devon had started?

  And was he working with the same people Devon had been?