The Girl Who Dared to Descend Read online

  How had that happened? How had so much damage been done to him?

  It was strange, but suddenly I didn’t feel afraid of the great machine. I felt sorry for him. Who knew what changes had been made over the centuries? It must have been a slow and deliberate death, with small doses of poison over a long period of time. And in my eyes, the great machine no longer looked indifferent. He looked weary.

  I made a note to have Alex do a little digging, and returned my focus to the matter at hand.

  “Then that means Squire Castell is a hero,” Head Farmer Plancett declared, breaking through my dark thoughts. “She punished a man who violated Scipio and threatened our very existence in the Tower.”

  Well, not your existence, but certainly mine and my friends’, I thought as I folded my hands in front of me. Although, Devon had admitted to doing something to Scipio, so perhaps Plancett was right.

  Except that one of the two Inquisition agents with him had referred to someone else—their own leader, presumably—who was working with Devon. That meant someone else was pulling the strings. And whoever they were, they certainly weren’t going to fall for Lacey and Strum’s trick, if they had as much control over the system as the two councilors claimed. They would know it was a lie, a fabricated memory.

  Unless Lacey and Strum were the leaders Devon had been answering to, and they had done all of this to eliminate Devon and keep whatever code he and his family had developed over the years for themselves.

  But none of that mattered right now, and I certainly couldn’t ask right then and there without blowing everything to smithereens. So I kept my mouth shut and my head down, and waited to see what would happen—whether Lacey and Strum’s efforts would work.

  “Yes, but we’ll have to go back and review every decision made in the past twenty years to be sure,” Monroe said, folding her arms across her chest and tossing her wild mane of hair to one side. “This is a nightmare. What are we going to do?”

  “Not talk about it while Squire Castell and Citizen Farmless are in the room,” announced Lacey. “Thank you for your testimony, but you two are dismissed. Please follow the attendant back, and wait for one of us to come to explain what happens next.”

  “Yes, and keep your mouth shut about all of this,” Sadie demanded.

  Our dismissal was delivered suddenly, and with such a note of finality that I had little choice but to leave, with the vague impression that… maybe things had gone well?

  That note of hope didn’t seem right given our present situation, and as we left the dome, I realized why: I hadn’t actually expected this plan to work.

  And even as we walked out, I still wasn’t sure that it had.

  6

  My eyes snapped open at the sound of the handwheel turning, and I pulled my cheek off Zoe’s shoulder and scrambled to my feet. Leo was already upright, and looked like he hadn’t slept at all, given the dark shadows under Grey’s eyes.

  It had been hours since we had been brought back, and after filling everyone in on what had happened, I had ordered us all to sleep. It was the fastest way I knew to pass the time, and the best way to avoid repeating questions that no one in the room could answer.

  Now the door pulled open, revealing a person who could answer those questions, and I stared blearily as Lacey stepped in.

  “What happened?” I demanded, moving up to her. “What’s going to happen now?”

  “Relax,” she said, holding up her hands, palms out, before bringing them together in front of her. “Everything went according to plan, thanks to Scipio corroborating your story.”

  “You mean your story,” I stated flatly. “And speaking of which, how you did that is just one of the many questions I have for you. Are you and Strum now in control of Scipio?”

  She arched an eyebrow and looked over my head toward the group pressing in just behind me, easily able to hear every word. “You do realize, of course, that not a word of that can be breathed outside of this room, or go beyond any of the people present, correct?”

  “You mean, do we realize that we can’t go running around the Tower screaming about how council members are manipulating the entity practically worshipped by everyone in the Tower as some sort of electronic god, in an attempt to have complete and total autonomy so they can do whatever the hell they want? You mean, we shouldn’t do that?”

  Lacey blinked several times and then shook her head. “You made your point, although it was a bit on the sarcastic side for my tastes.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” I replied. “But I’m tired, sore, scared, angry, and worried about all of the people behind me. I also have a bajillion and a half questions for you, regarding what in the heck you did to Scipio, and how I can trust that you won’t go back on your word now that the deed is done.”

  “Well, for one thing, you and Mr. Farmless are going to be celebrated as heroes, and you’re all to be integrated back into the Tower. We have a net for each of you, with your identity and the identities of Mr. Farmless, Mr. MacGillus, and Ms. Elphesian restored, while your undocumented friends will receive new identities. Except for you, young lady.” She turned and speared Maddox with a pointed look. “If it’s not known throughout the Tower that you’re Devon Alexander and Cali Kerrin’s daughter yet, then it will be soon. Some things are too juicy for us to keep quiet, and it’ll add to the rumor mill, and keep people away from the knowledge that Scipio was manipulated.”

  Maddox blinked in surprise, a hot flash of anger coming over her face. She had taken the news about Devon with some… understandably mixed emotions, but we’d all been there for her, and she was keeping it together. I could only imagine how she felt, and in truth none of us would ever know what it was like finding out your long-lost father had killed your mother and tried to abduct you as well, but all we could do was be there for her. “Do I get to choose which surname I use? I don’t want to have my father’s.”

  I hadn’t even considered her dilemma, and I realized that I hadn’t put any thought into what would happen after the council meeting. To be honest, I never thought it would go well in the first place, so the fact that there was even an “after” to consider left me a little disoriented.

  But hey, everything had been happening pretty quickly, all things considered, so I assumed this was just how life was going to go from here on out.

  “Of course you may,” Lacey replied, slightly aghast. “I can only imagine what you went through in all of this.”

  “Yeah, about that,” I said. “How did you know about Cali?”

  Lacey crossed her arms and smiled. “How did you and your friends break into the Core? Or gain that much access to the Medica?”

  The answers were Mercury, my twin brother, and Leo, in that order, but there was no way I was telling her that. And she knew it—which was why she had countered my questions with her own. Questions I wouldn’t answer in exchange for questions she wouldn’t answer.

  I sighed and ran a hand along my face. Lacey’s sometimes enigmatic, sometimes direct communication style was a little frustrating, but honestly, I kind of liked her. I just wished I knew what she and Strum were up to, and that what she had done to Scipio had been to help us rather than exert more control over him to hurt people.

  I had so many questions for her about what she and Strum had done, who they were, what their plans were, and what they wanted from me. Who their enemies were, and whether they would be after us now. How long it would be before we could disappear again—and resume our mission to escape this twisted place.

  Or use Leo to replace Scipio, a prospect made seemingly impossible by the fact that we lacked the other AI fragments that had been used to fabricate the full Scipio unit. Unfortunately, their original codes had been destroyed by the council. Weirdly, I had discovered Jasper, a computer program that I met in the Medica, before I had learned any of this, and it turned out that he was one of the fragments needed to help grow Leo’s program—whatever the hell that meant. Yet with his existence, we now had reason to question
whether the other AIs were still around—which meant the plan, however insane it seemed, was still on the table.

  In short, we hadn’t decided on which plan we were actually following, outside of trying to rediscover Roark’s formula for Paragon, the pill that would mask our ranks and keep us from dropping to ones. Keep us—and those under our care—safe in the Tower, at least for a while.

  There were too many thoughts rattling around my skull, but I was finally able to settle on one. One question above all the others that stood out in my mind, and it wasn’t even something I had heard from Lacey, but rather Devon. Still, I was certain Lacey had to know.

  “Lacey, what is a legacy net?”

  Her eyes widened and then narrowed, and she took a step closer. “Where did you hear about those?”

  I hesitated, and then realized that there was no harm in telling her. “One of the Inquisitors who was talking to Devon mentioned that they had recovered one from Cali’s body.”

  “Cali was a legacy?” Lacey’s gaze grew distant, presumably as she became lost in thought, and then snapped back to me. “Legacy nets are… were… at one point readily available to everyone in the Tower. Then the IT department notified everyone that there was a lack of the material needed to make them, and that criminal elements in the Tower were harvesting them to implant new IDs and avoid authorities. They voted a change to the models still being issued today—models that did not have the vast storage space of the legacy nets, or the knowledge they contained of the world before. Only a few of the original nets survived removal, and the legacies now use them to pass information and knowledge to the next generations, namely all the coding changes each previous generation has done to alter Scipio… or to fight his attackers. Cali… My group discovered that she had tried to expose Devon’s actions for months after she disappeared, and I always wondered about that. But we couldn’t find any evidence that her family line was ever a legacy, which is what it’s become, most nets being passed down from parents to their children. So I’m baffled as to how she managed to get her hands on one.”

  I looked at Leo, who nodded, confirming that she was at least telling some truth about the nets. “Thank you. So, what happens next for us?”

  “Well, the only thing that’s left is for your team to pick what departments they want to be in. Save for you, of course. We need you to stay in the Knights, for now.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, need? We’re done.”

  Lacey looked slightly guilty. “I’m sorry, but we’re not. We need you, Liana.”

  “For what?” I asked. “We held up our end of the bargain, and yours was our freedom and reintegration. You can’t go back on it now.”

  “We can and we will,” Lacey said firmly. “Removing Devon was only the first step in our plan. Now we need to replace him. Now, we have a candidate who is a part of our network of legacies, and he’s certainly skilled enough to take the title, but…”

  “But the Tourney is dangerous,” I finished for her. “And you need human meat shields like me out there to keep your candidate safe.”

  “Exactly,” Lacey exclaimed with a smile. “And you’re in a position and have the skills necessary to help him to survive.”

  I glared at her, annoyed that she had so glibly ignored my dry humor. “And yet, I am still not inclined to help you.”

  She gave me a long, hard look and then looked away. “I’m really sorry, Liana, but I was hoping that you would be more agreeable. After all, I thought you would want to help the Tower. We need to put someone into the Champion seat, and we need to make sure our candidate gets out of the Tourney alive. We don’t have a lot of active agents in the Knights. In fact, the Knights are likely filled with more of our enemies than allies. So, if you won’t help us willingly, then we move on to threats—something I would prefer not to do, as it puts strain on our fledgling relationship.”

  I stared at her, studying her closely. She seemed earnest about what she was saying, but I had heard her lie during the council meeting. She could be convincing when she wanted to be.

  “What is the threat?” I asked, needing to know exactly what she was promising to do.

  “That you fabricated the memory inside Scipio to help clear your own name and get away with murder. Your friends’ undoc statuses will be revealed, and everyone will be arrested by the Knights.” She said the words as if they made her angry, and her body language reflected the same emotion—coiled tightly and ready to spring.

  If she was acting, it was masterfully done, but I was inclined to believe that she was reluctant to do this. In fact, she seemed puzzled and confused by my desire to refuse, and I could understand why. She had no idea that we were considering washing our hands of the Tower and escaping. It was unfathomable to most, as we’d all been taught that life couldn’t be sustained outside the Tower. So to her, we were just acting selfishly. Which she couldn’t understand.

  “I see.” I folded my arms across my chest and thought about what she was asking me to do. With Devon dead, the Knights needed to select a new Champion—something they did through the Tourney, a series of events that took a week. The events were designed to test a candidate’s ability to command, respond, and protect the citizens and the Tower. Knights were eliminated until only one remained.

  The last one had happened only a few years before I was born, and in truth, I hadn’t expected to see one for at least another twenty to thirty years. Let alone participate in one.

  And now I was going to have to, if I wanted to keep everyone safe from being exposed and arrested. Fan-freaking-tastic.

  “Excuse me? Engineer Green?” I turned, and followed Lacey’s gaze toward Quess, who was helping to support Maddox by letting her lean on him. I looked at him quizzically, but he didn’t meet my gaze, and instead held hers. “I feel like I speak for all of us when I say we know what department we want to join now.”

  “You do?” Lacey looked back to me, and then to him. “All of you?”

  “Well, obviously,” Zoe said. “We go where Liana goes. We’ll be joining the Knights as well.”

  “Zoe,” I said, shaking my head. “Everyone, you don’t have to do that. I’m sure I can handle keeping one Knight safe. And the Tourney is dangerous—it’s not worth all of you risking your lives. Besides, I know there are departments some of you have always dreamed of joining. Now is your chance.”

  I gave Zoe a pointed look, knowing that it had always been her dream to join the Cogs, but she just smiled.

  “That’s very noble of you,” Lacey began, but Maddox cut her off.

  “It’s more than that,” she said softly. “We’re a family, and we’re not going to let you tear us apart in whatever mad little scheme you have for the Tourney. We watch each other’s backs, which means we’ll work together to make sure your guy makes it through.”

  Everyone behind her nodded, and I felt a rush of both gratitude and love for them all.

  “Well… you heard them,” I said to Lacey, and after a moment’s hesitation, she nodded.

  “Very well. I can certainly do that for the young man over there, Ms. Kerrin, of course, and Grey, since he was in my department to begin with. But Ms. Elphesian and Mr. MacGillus must go back to their original departments, as it would be too noticeable for them to be in a different department within a few hours of their exoneration. We can fabricate transfers later on, but for now you must proceed as if everything has returned to normal. The youngest one will need a guardian—probably one of your undoc friends—and she will be expected to go to school with all the other children. Your undoc friends will be placed as out-of-department recruits, but, Liana, your parents are Knights. You’ll have to stay with them until you’re twenty-one.”

  My heart sank into the pit of my stomach, so deep that I was quite certain it had plummeted down the remaining thirty stories to the bottom of the Tower, where it was currently trying to find the smallest, tightest, and darkest hiding place.

  “My parents?” I managed, trying not t
o sound too terrified. Someone grabbed my hand—Zoe, was my guess—and squeezed it, offering me unwavering support and sympathy. But I could barely feel it.

  I hadn’t considered that coming back into the Tower meant having to deal with my parents again.

  And now that I knew… well, I wasn’t exactly excited to see the people who had conceived me and raised me for the past twenty years.

  Especially since I was guessing they wouldn’t be too pleased to be saddled with me again. Because hero or not, I was still their screw-up of a daughter, and an embarrassment to the Castell name. They had flat-out told my twin brother to refuse any contact with me after Gerome was found murdered and I was blamed for it. Because they thought I had done it.

  And now I got to move back in with them for a whole… I realized I had no idea what the date was, but my birthday had been six or seven weeks away when I went into the Medica for rank intervention treatment. It had to be close, though—maybe even a few days. Hopefully no more than three or four.

  Piece of cake.

  7

  “I’ll let you all have a few minutes to talk things out. When I return, I’ll have new nets and uniforms for all of you, as well as some food.”

  Zoe murmured something—I wasn’t sure what—and then Lacey left, a once-again closed door replacing her in a matter of seconds.

  Several more seconds passed, and then everyone began talking at once.

  “Did you hear what she said about—”

  “How do you think—”

  “Why does she—”

  “What’s a Tourney?”

  The last one was asked by Tian, and it was the easiest of them to answer.

  “The Tourney is a competition,” I told her. “Meant to test an applicant’s abilities as a leader in order to find out who will make the best Champion.”

  “And Lacey wants you to protect her friend during the Tourney?” she asked, her features muddled with confusion. I nodded, but her frown only deepened. “Why does she want you to protect her friend? Is the Tourney dangerous?”