The Girl Who Dared to Descend Read online

  “This first challenge is called Lightbringer. Each team will be given a ceremonial torch to carry through the obstacles inside. Three cauldrons are situated somewhere past those objects. Four teams will enter the arena at a time, and the first three to light a cauldron will proceed to the next challenge tomorrow.”

  An official stood up and began passing out the torches: three-foot-long pieces of metal with tips that glowed a bright white. They emitted no heat or smoke, but shone brightly. Definitely something that would give our locations away in the labyrinth we were going to have to navigate.

  Which would only invite more trouble, as we ran the risk of any other team we encountered potentially trying to kill us. But there was little we could do about it, and Ambrose accepted the stick that was handed to him.

  “We’ll have to get through as quickly as possible,” I muttered to the others.

  I saw them nod from the corner of my eye, but didn’t take my eyes away from Scipio.

  “Good luck, competitors. May your deeds be noble and gracious, and let your honor and integrity guide your path.”

  The screen cut off, and a moment later the lights came back on. I swallowed, awareness settling into me as I remembered that we would be the first team in. I needed to keep my head in the game, and make sure we got through.

  Ambrose started moving, and I quickly got in line.

  The other groups, which were clustered together, fell silent and drew apart as we pushed by them and came to a stop before the door. The official scanned our nets, re-confirming our identities. As soon as the brain-rattling experience was finished, she gave us a nod and a brusque “Good luck,” and then opened the door.

  We stepped into the little room beyond it—barely big enough for the four of us—and I began shaking the excess energy from my limbs. “Let’s go over the plans,” I said as a little timer appeared on the door leading to the arena beyond, the time counting down from thirty.

  Talking would help calm whatever nerves we were all experiencing.

  “We check to see if we can climb up the outer walls—if there are any,” Ambrose said first.

  “If we can’t get on top of the maze, we lash through as quickly as possible,” Maddox added.

  “And if we can’t do that, we run,” Leo said, with a little smile.

  I nodded. Climbing up had been my idea. Most people never even thought of it; they just chose to run through blindly, and hope that their speed and ability to remember the way they had come before would help them navigate. But going up was unexpected, and we could move directly to it, instead of wasting times on the twists and turns of the maze.

  Suddenly the clock hit ten, and I took several deep, calming breaths. “We can get through this, guys. Let’s just work together.” I wasn’t really sure what I meant by that; it just felt like an appropriate time for a pep talk.

  “And make sure I light the cauldron,” Ambrose added, and I glanced at him. His face was guarded as he regarded me. “It has to be me.”

  I pressed my lips together and nodded. He knew as well as I did that we couldn’t guarantee what was going to happen once those doors slipped open, but he wanted me to do it anyway. It cost me nothing to agree—and it would only slow us down if Ambrose and I got into a fight when it came to lighting that cauldron.

  5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

  I tensed in expectation of some loud noise, but to my surprise, there was just a gentle chime as the door slid open, revealing steps leading up. Ambrose sprang up them first, his boots heavy on the stairs, and I followed close behind, cursing that I hadn’t gone through before him. We had no idea what awaited us at the top of the stairs, and if our enemies had the reach I believed they did, they could have set a trap to snare us right off the bat. Which meant that sending Ambrose first was a big mistake.

  He popped up into the open space before I could do anything and moved to the right, revealing an opening cutting through a dense forest of pipes running around the passageway to form walls and a ceiling. The pipes were of various sizes, but none were wider than the length of my palm. Most of them ran horizontally, but a few were vertical. All were tightly meshed together, the lines of them wrapping in, around, across, above, and under the others, making it impossible to tell where one pipe began and another ended.

  The stoop just outside of the door was encased as well, but there was a shaft over our heads, about ten feet long and five feet wide, that ended in an open, rectangular space. Light was pouring through from above.

  I immediately pulled my lash out, stepped to one side to allow Maddox and Leo through, spun the line in my hand, and threw it up. The lash end arced up several feet before hitting the black metal wall. It pinged, then, to my complete amazement, bounced off and began falling back down toward us. I reeled the line in quickly, and then recast it.

  It hit, but refused to stick.

  “Could it be your lashes?” Maddox asked quietly as I dragged the line back in. My thoughts were already aligned with hers, and I spun it up quickly and then let it go at a pipe just inside the entrance. It stuck fast.

  Beside me, Leo cast his line up toward the pipe side of the shaft above. It, too, bounced harmlessly off.

  “Why isn’t it working?” Ambrose asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied, once again activating the gyros in my suit and retracting the line as I thought about it. Clearly, the designers of this challenge had wanted to restrict the usage of our lashes. But why did they work inside the passageway, and not farther up?

  “There’s something coating it,” Leo said, and I looked over to see him withdrawing his hands from the wall and rubbing his fingers together. “Could they have made it resistant to the static charge?”

  I thought about it. I wasn’t sure about the science, but there were times when our lash beads didn’t work—namely whenever there was too much ambient humidity, which prevented the charge from building. Based on that, it would be an easy enough thing to create a substance that would keep the lashes from working.

  “It’s possible,” I said after a pause.

  “Who cares?” Ambrose said. “We can’t climb, so let’s go to plan B!”

  “Plan B is lashing,” Maddox said. “We can’t lash inside the halls, even with our lashes working!”

  She was right; there were too many gaps and holes in and around the pipes, so even though our lashes worked inside the maze, if we were off in our throws by an inch, we could go crashing into a wall—or each other, or worse.

  “Fine, then we run! We’re losing precious time, here!” Ambrose shouted, already moving through the entrance.

  “Ambrose, wait!” I said, my eyes studying the shaft leading up. I heard him stop, but continued to study the gaps between the pipes. We might not be able to use the lashes, but we could definitely climb. There were natural handhelds made by the pipe itself. My mind seized on that, thinking. Before we had wanted to go up for the advantage and to avoid the other competitors. Now, I was beginning to think we had to if we wanted to win.

  “We’re wasting time!” he said. “This was your plan, Liana.”

  “And plans change,” I said. “Look, going up was always what we talked about, to create an advantage, but now that the designers have what is practically a screaming invitation for the other competitors to take, we have to assume that they’re going to head straight up top.”

  My assumptions about the map had been contingent on there not being a roof, and on tall walls being used to cut off the path. Most people wouldn’t have bothered to climb if that were the case, but now, considering the fact that the walls and roof were easily climbable, thanks to the handholds created by the pipes, and practically lit up with light from above—there was no way the others wouldn’t climb up.

  It put our chances of winning in a precarious position. On the one hand, if we stayed below we would be less likely to draw any attention. But if our enemies knew our gate entry point, and had access to the map as well, we could be walking into a trap, one that would
be very hard to see coming thanks to the complicated twists and turns that were in the maze system. If we stayed on top, we’d be more exposed, but we’d also be able to see trouble coming.

  Even if we didn’t have any enemies in this round, we ran the risk of getting eliminated if we stayed below—it would take more time to get to the cauldrons down there then it would up top. Climbing wasn’t just a strategy anymore. It was a necessity.

  “No, we don’t,” he said obstinately. “For all they know—and we know, as well—that is a trap.”

  “It could be, but I don’t think it is,” Maddox said, her voice picking up a thread of excitement. She pushed past Ambrose and into the tunnel, peering down the intersecting tunnels that sat only a few feet back. “There are shafts of light coming from down the hall; it looks like there are several places to climb in and out of the maze. The designers wouldn’t put them there unless they wanted the competitors to go up.”

  That set Ambrose back for a second, and he blinked and shook his head. “You don’t know if it’s going to be like that all the way through!” he shouted. “We need to go, now.”

  I turned to him, not wanting to break the peace, which was already tentative. “You’re right; we could get up there and it could be a trap. But I don’t think it is. If anything, I think it’s the designers’ way of pushing for us to get up top and fight. It’ll make for better drone footage.”

  “I think Liana’s right, Ambrose,” Maddox added, stepping back out of the passageway and over to the wall. “We have to go, or we risk the other teams using the strategy we planned, and getting us eliminated.”

  She began to climb, and I looked back at Ambrose. “Trust me,” I said earnestly.

  He clenched his jaw, and then exhaled sharply. “Fine,” he said. “I hope you’re right about this.”

  There was little I could say in response, so I placed my hand on a pipe a few feet over my head, my boot on one a foot off the ground, and began to climb, using the pipes as handholds. Ambrose might not be happy with our plan, but he was right about one thing: We couldn’t afford to waste any time.

  26

  The climb went surprisingly quickly, and after Leo pulled me up onto the wide pipe that encircled the hole leading out, I took a step forward onto an adjacent pipe to balance, and looked out.

  The pipe network extended as far as the eye could see, forming an almost serviceable walkway—if we took our time and didn’t rush too much. Luckily whatever they had coated the walls with didn’t make anything slippery, so the only thing we had to worry about was tripping on an uneven pipe.

  As I scanned the network, I noted several gaps that were clearly designed to be there, given their uniform nature. One solid block of pipes jutted out in the middle of the scene, stretching up an additional fifteen feet to form a platform. From this distance, I could see the cauldrons—gleaming silver orbs shaped much like eggs, but with the top part cut away in a sharp, steep, diagonal slice that opened up to a hollow space inside. That was where we had to put the torch.

  I immediately looked up, checking to see if they had lowered the ceiling for us to use lashes, but the ceiling was some fifty feet above us—twice the range of my lash cable. Besides, if they had done something to the walls to keep us from using our lashes, they had definitely done something to the ceiling—and, presumably, that network of pipes.

  Ambrose grunted behind me, and I turned and saw him heaving himself over the edge of the shaft, panting slightly. I shifted my weight onto the leg closest to him and bent over, extending a hand. He grabbed it, and I hauled him the rest of the way up, using the two pipes I was standing on to brace against his weight. Our balance wobbled for a second, but then he caught himself and dropped my hand.

  I gave him a nod and a pat on the back, and then looked at Maddox and Leo. “We’re going to cross here to get to that platform,” I said. “We need to move quickly, but watch your footing—it’d be easy to slip and twist your ankle here.”

  I turned and started gingerly hopping from one pipe to another, my one and only warning delivered. Pipes of various sizes going in multiple directions spread out before me, and I began picking my way over them. We were all tentative, at first, but after a while it became easier, and pretty soon we were moving at a slight jog across the uneven pipe floor.

  Once I got into it, it was actually a little bit fun. The floor wasn’t even—some pipes were inches lower or higher—and it tested my balance more, making my rhythm more of a hopping run as I angled myself to jog across one straight segment of pipe for as long as possible, and then leapt to the next one.

  I paused when I saw one of those gaps in the pipes drawing closer, and took a look from above. Several feet below, I saw the floor of the arena. The holes led in and out of the maze—Maddox had been right. They littered the entire ceiling, then, meaning that anyone could go up or down as they pleased. It also meant it could be easier for us to be ambushed from several different directions, if someone had a mind to do so. I considered that as Maddox paused beside me, following my gaze.

  “So anyone can get in and out of the area below?” she asked. “I knew there were holes, but I didn’t think they’d be this extensive.”

  I nodded. “We should avoid them. Someone might be passing by, below. We can—”

  There was a sudden loud trumpet sound, and I flinched, the words dying on my lips. I immediately looked up and saw one of the cauldrons already lit, the flame a deep, vibrant blue that shone even brighter when it was reflected off the silver of the cauldron, which was now almost glowing. Beside it, a solitary figure stood, fists held high, and I realized it was Dylan.

  She’d somehow managed to get there first.

  “How’d she get there so quickly?” Ambrose asked, his voice alarmed. “That’s impossible! We’re barely halfway across, and we’re moving pretty fast.”

  It was a good question, but one I didn’t have the time to dwell on at the moment.

  “Let’s keep moving,” I said, shaking it off. With one cauldron gone, only two remained. We needed to get to one of those two.

  I went back to picking my way across, adrenaline surging. The pipes vibrated under my feet as I jumped over one and landed on the ball of my foot, but I kept my balance by spreading my arms wide.

  I was so absorbed in my task that only Leo’s softly formed, “Liana, look,” could break my focus. I paused and glanced to my left, to where he was standing, and then followed his finger back to the cauldrons. Two people, a man and a woman, were emerging from one of the shaft holes not twenty feet away.

  A heartbeat passed as I watched them, a moment of indecision coming over me.

  “Liana, the drones are gone!” Maddox suddenly shouted.

  I jerked my gaze from the two people and tilted my eyes up, searching the space around us. I’d barely noticed them when they were there, but now that they were gone, I suddenly felt their absence. I looked at what was drawing their attention, and saw six people some seventy feet away, in the middle of fighting with each other.

  My mouth went dry. This was either a coincidence, and the fight over there was a distraction so the two coming out of the hole could get past and light the second cauldron, or they were here to try to kill Ambrose. And I didn’t remember seeing either of them holding the torch.

  This was dangerous.

  I returned my gaze to the pair, who were now climbing to their feet, and confirmed that the torch was nowhere on them. The man reached into a pocket on his suit and pulled something out, fitting it onto his hand. The woman beside him pulled something of her own out, and I could see that it was a thermal cutter. Thermal cutters were used in both Water Treatment and the Mechanic Department to cut through metal. They emitted a plasma beam from a ten-inch handle, and could be adjusted in size, depending on what the wielder needed.

  The blade erupted from the pommel, shooting out to a length of three feet, the light of it reminding me of a bruised orange. The woman looked up at us and smiled, a bearing of teeth, and the
n began to stalk across the pipes toward us, moving with a confidence that told me she was very familiar with walking on pipes.

  Her companion trotted along, waggling his shoulders back and forth like he was preparing for a fight. He threw a few punches in the air and then lowered his arms, making right for us.

  “Run,” I said, and a heartbeat later I was turning and running. There was no time to make calculated moves as I darted across the pipes, my friends just a few feet ahead of me. We were all spread out—too far apart for my taste—so if they singled any of us out, it would take precious seconds before the rest of us got there. I lagged behind to present a juicy target, hoping to buy my friends time to get farther away.

  I paused to take a quick look over my shoulder, and saw that they were just feet behind and gaining. I darted to the side just as the man aimed his closed fist right at me, and felt a force brush over my back. He’d fitted a pulse shield to the outside of his knuckles, then. If I got into any hand-to-hand fighting with him, he could easily kill me with a sharp jab to the head—as long as that thing was on his fist.

  I shuddered at the thought, and poured the horrifying image it produced into finding new speed, desperately searching for a way out of this. We were exposed all around, and they were gaining on us. We needed to level the playing field—and that meant getting on solid ground.

  “Get into the maze!” I shouted, and immediately angled toward the closest hole. Leo made it first, and jumped in immediately, not even bothering with the lashes. It was only a ten-foot drop, but still, it made my heart leap into my throat and the bottom of my stomach drop out to see him go.

  Maddox did the same seconds behind him, and then Ambrose followed. It was my turn after that, and I had to trust that they’d cleared my way. I raced up to the edge and dropped down. The velocity of my running carried into my fall, and I slammed into the wall opposite from where I had jumped in, hitting it hard with my shoulder. Pain flooded in, but the impact caused my muscles to react from memory alone, and with my good arm, I reached out and grabbed onto one of the pipes, catching myself from falling farther.