The Girl Who Dared to Think

by Bella Forrest

  “What a stupid thing for a one to do,” my mother said with a laugh.

  My father answered with a knowing chuckle. “Well, there’s a reason they’re ones.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the sudden stab of insecurity their comments created, wondering if they would talk about me like that, if I fell even farther.

  “Then what happened?” my mother asked.

  “Oh. Well, I thought the same as you,” I said, successfully picking up the thread of the story, trying to act like their comments hadn’t bothered me. “That the elevator wouldn’t work—but then, to my surprise, the platform began to move.”

  “What? How?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, answering my father’s question. “All I know is that it started moving almost immediately. I knew if I didn’t act fast, I’d lose him. So I used my lash and attached it to the bottom of the platform as it traveled upward. You should’ve seen it! As soon as it started to slow, I disconnected the lashes and used the cables to launch myself into the room. He thought he’d lost me, but—”

  “Liana,” my mother admonished. “That was dangerous! You could’ve died!”

  “I know, Mom,” I said, a pleasant wash of guilt flowing through me, the pleasantness a result of her showing concern for my well-being. “I was careful. Anyway, I caught up with him, and—”

  “And you caught him?” my father interrupted. “How? Where?” He glanced at my wrist. “And your number didn’t improve? Liana, you know that it’s not just about what you do; it’s about your dedication to what you are doing.”

  I bit my lip. “Well, yes, but that’s not the point. You see, when I saw him the first time, I could’ve sworn his number was a one. But when he showed it to Gerome and me… it was a nine.”

  My parents stared at me blankly.

  “He was a one,” my mother said flatly. “Ones don’t become nines just like that.”

  I made a non-committal gesture, suddenly nervous at the look in her eyes. A look that said she didn’t believe me. “He did,” I said. “You can ask Gerome.”

  “So in the end,” my father huffed, “you didn’t actually catch anyone, did you?”

  I flushed, my head dropping. I shook my head. “Well, no, but I—”

  My father’s long, heavy silence caused me to fall silent. “Oh, child,” he said, and he actually took a step closer. I could smell his breath, spearmint with a hint of metal. “Why would you even bring it up?”

  “Because it doesn’t make sense—I swear, his number was a one when we saw him, but it jumped up eight ranks. Is such a thing possible?”

  “No,” my father said flatly. “No one has increased their ranking so fast like that before. You must have been mistaken.”

  “But I wasn’t,” I insisted, meeting my father’s gaze head on. “Gerome even saw it. He was a nine. I just don’t understand why Scipio would raise him up to a nine, but drop me down to a three? I think there must be something wrong with Scipio—some sort of problem with his—”

  My father slapped my cheek, hard—but he’d hit me harder before, when my questions became too dissident for his tastes. I blinked back the shock of tears at the pain that suddenly blossomed on the side of my face and began to throb, as if still radiating ripples from the impact site. I clutched at it and looked at him, at his angry gaze.

  “Yours is not to question the will of Scipio,” he snarled. “Yours is to do your work, and do it well. With your two hands you—”

  “Mete out justice and bring order to the Tower,” I said, forcing my words out through clenched teeth and aching jaw, knowing he expected me to speak the Knight’s Oath with him, word for word. Always a sign that I had really screwed up. The words were practically ingrained into my brain; I could probably recite it in my sleep at this point. “We shield the Tower from those who would do it harm. We hold the line between order and chaos. We lay down our lives in service to the Tower.”

  My father nodded at me approvingly and took a step back. I looked at my mother, and found her eyes hard and gleaming. She agreed with what my father had done. And I’d done even more damage to my standing, in their eyes, with my story. Unfortunately for me, that was how things always seemed to go whenever I tried to talk to my parents. Only this time, it hurt all the more, because now they were willing to kill who I was in order to get a more capable daughter.

  “Squire Liana, by my power as a Knight Commander of the Citadel, you are to seek Medica treatment tomorrow. There will be no arguments, no exceptions, and no complaints. You will serve the Tower.” My mother’s words held the ring of finality to them.

  I scowled at the floor. I hated it when she did that. Took off the mask of mother and put on the mask of commander, like they were utterly interchangeable. I met her gaze and lowered my hand from my cheek, trying not to wince at the sting. Managing a curt nod, I turned and made for the front door, needing to be anywhere but there.

  “I want to hear you say it, Liana.”

  I froze at the steel in her voice. “I will go to the Medica tomorrow,” I managed, barely able to force enough air through my vocal cords to produce a sound. I squared my shoulders and continued toward the door.

  And just like that, she was trying to be my mother again.

  “Liana, where do you think you are going?” she asked, and I heard her step up behind me. I instinctively took a step away, closer to the door.

  “Out,” I said. “I need to think. Settle my mind before tomorrow.”

  I heard my father begin to speak, but my mother cut him off. “Let her go. Tomorrow these little tantrums will be over and done with once and for all.”

  I didn’t wait to be excused. I shoved open the door and rushed out into the hallway beyond.

  As soon as the door automatically locked, I leaned my back against it and turned my head toward the narrow ceiling, exhaling slowly and fighting back the urge to cry. I didn’t know what I had been expecting; they rarely cared about anything I had to say. Why had I ever thought that story about Grey Farmless would give me an out? Neither of them could ever hear anything past what they wanted to hear. They had never really let me make my point. Or maybe I had—and I’d just screwed it up.

  Feeling absolutely dejected, I made my way down the hall, needing to continue my journey and get as far away as possible. My parents lived in the lower levels of the Citadel, where the other high-ranking Knight Commanders lived. We had lived on this level for the past ten years, although Alex’s room had been given to our neighbors after he had been accepted into the Core—the walls of his room were reprogrammed so that the door on our side was sealed to us, but open to them. I liked these quarters better than our old ones; it meant that I was closer to the wide lash openings that led directly to the outside of the Citadel—exactly where I wanted to be.

  I turned right and then left again, following the wide halls and keeping my head down so as not to draw any attention to myself. The walls of the Citadel were all exposed dark steel, carved with intricate designs during the cooling process so that they looked like they had been stacked, like rudimentary brickwork. I came to a stop at the lashway—a cut-out section of wall leading to the outside walls of the Citadel. I could see the gleaming black-and-blue walls of the Core through the twisting arches and gargoyles that ran around the Citadel. There was a soft sound as I took a step to the edge, and the light around the door turned from white to red, pulsating in warning.

  “You are approaching a lashway,” the familiar, clipped voice announced. “Please make sure that your lashes are ready.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I stepped over the edge, already pulling my lashes into my hand. The air caught my hair, pulling it up, and for a moment I didn’t throw any lashings. I just fell, oddly peaceful, watching the view of the exposed lower level rush past me. A mother and child, walking hand in hand over one of the flat bridges from the Medica. A young pair of Squires sparring as they lashed by, their batons emitting sharp flashes of light. A statue of a man, eye
s held high, hands open and accepting.

  Why can’t they just stop and listen? I wondered. I know I’m onto something here with Grey and Scipio…

  I tossed out a lash, hitting a column and letting the cables slow my fall and pull me closer to the structure before detaching again, keeping close to the Citadel walls and arches, which collapsed inward the farther down it went. If I didn’t, my lashes wouldn’t be long enough to hit, and I’d continue falling until I reached the bottom. Then I probably wouldn’t do much of anything, after that.

  Why can’t I just… please them? I should have been a perfect Knight. I loved the athleticism, the speed and exhilaration. The Knights were stiff, but at least I knew them. The Citadel was my home—I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  I just wasn’t suited for anything else, not really. I wasn’t smart enough to be considered for the Eyes, nor would I work for them. I still couldn’t understand how Alex could, but it was his life. The Cogs were too insular, the Medics too coldly logical, and I couldn’t swim well enough to go to work with the Divers in Water Treatment. All that left were the Hands, and I wasn’t sure I could grow a potato, let alone be responsible for feeding the massive population of the Tower.

  I threw another lash reflexively, the harness tightening as it caught, slowing me down and drawing me closer to the building. I disconnected it heartbeats later, just as reflexively, my mind still churning.

  You do ask a lot of questions, a traitorous voice in my mind announced, adding to the frustration. So what if I did? What was wrong with a liberal dose of curiosity? Why did Scipio only want us to look down and not ask questions? What did he have to hide?

  I threw yet another lash out, only this time I had it draw me up, and slowly began to climb, one lash at a time, up the edifice of the Citadel. I didn’t make myself climb like the other Knights—hand over hand, mutinously devoid of any fun. I played. I didn’t zig, I zagged. I used gravity and the winch in the harness to my advantage, sometimes going down so I could flip up to higher levels, casting my lashes up at the apex of the climb, barely latching on to a column or arch, or even the sheer walls of the Citadel itself.

  But even with a smile cracking my face, my cheeks flushed from exertion, the dark seed of doubt remained. What if something really was wrong with me?

  Something inside me eventually gave, and I spun myself onto a landing, hitting the ground hard and stumbling forward. A nearby Knight reached out to catch me as I toppled, and I caught his arm with my hand, managing to avoid making a total spectacle of myself.

  I straightened, a grateful smile forming and dying on my lips in the speed of a glance. His eyes were on my wrist, the three illuminating the horror and revulsion on his face. He quickly snatched his hands back, as if afraid I would suddenly decide to keep them with or without his permission, and took a big step back. It could’ve been funny, if it weren’t so visceral.

  Am I a degenerate? I asked myself as I watched him scurry away.

  For a moment I stood there, the people milling about and keeping their distance from where I had landed. My own little bubble, with nobody in it. I thought briefly of my friends, but they weren’t Knights. They weren’t my people. These were my people—and they hated me. When they didn’t even know me.

  “Squire Castell.”

  The voice was as soft as the man’s footsteps had been. I hadn’t even heard him approach. I looked over, and felt my face redden immediately.

  The last time I had seen Theo he’d had a beard, a mop of dusty blond hair, and a sense of humor that could make even our surly training officer smile. We’d sparred often, and hard; he’d been the only person who could keep up with me. We’d been the lowest-ranked squires, both of us fives at the time. He’d been the only person I could remember ever joking with about my number, and I had wound up nursing a pretty big crush on him for the better part of the year. I had never been able to find the nerve to tell him about it. I wasn’t even sure if he reciprocated it, or if I’d taken ordinary moments between us and somehow imagined them as something more. I was too nervous.

  And now he was standing right in front of me. I hadn’t seen him since he’d graduated. I’d cried for a week, that perfect image of us taking shelter from the world in each other’s arms broken. I wasn’t proud of that, but he was my first crush, after all.

  He’d changed. His cheeks were clean-shaven now, his hair trimmed to a military cut. His eyes, which had once held so much life, now looked dull and flat.

  “Theo,” I said, stepping toward him, instantly concerned. I wanted him to be sick, but I knew that look all too well. “Are you all right?”

  “I am well,” he replied, his voice stiff. “It’s disappointing to see that your number has fallen so low. I had high hopes for you.”

  I winced. The words felt harsh, like salt on an already festering wound. “That’s pretty condescending coming from a guy who used to say Scipio made his number low because he was so much handsomer than everyone else,” I snapped defensively, not needing him to point out the flaws I was already beginning to pick apart.

  “Things change,” he said. He raised his wrist, and I saw the number there. A crisp eight, purple and gleaming. “I was young, irresponsible, and foolish when I was at the academy. My thoughts were naïve, but insidious; I was everything a Knight should not be.”

  I took a deep breath, putting my burst of anger aside. “I thought you were fantastic as you were,” I admitted after a moment. “I… Well, when we were at the academy, I had a huge crush on you.”

  “Perhaps that is why you are a three now.”

  I blinked at his response, a surprised laugh escaping me. I didn’t know why I sometimes did that, only that it happened at the worst possible moments. Theo gave me a disapproving look, and suddenly the urge to get away was overwhelming. I was about to make an excuse to leave, when a chime sounded and Theo looked down at the indicator on his wrist.

  “Excuse me,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

  He pulled out a bottle of pills, each one bright red, with “MSM-7” printed on the side, and I cringed as he shook two pills into his hand, knowing I would soon be taking something similar. I couldn’t look at his face without seeing my own future burned there, and I hated it. It was like watching one of the Water Treatment people getting sucked into a pipe: it was terrifying, yet I couldn’t look away, even as a queasy feeling began churning in my stomach.

  “You’re on Medica pills?” I said, the question more a statement.

  “Yes,” he said. “They saved me, Squire. I am… better, now, than I was.” He looked me up and down. “As you will be, soon.”

  I don’t want to be like you, I thought, my hands shaking. I want the number… but not like that.

  He wasn’t just changed. Theo, as I knew him, was gone. Soon, there would be another stranger walking around. A Liana who was pert and prim and obedient, doing everything right. She wouldn’t be me, though.

  “I have to go,” I said, a numb fear settling deep into my bones.

  Theo inclined his head, and I stepped away, the people parting quickly to let me pass, fear and disgust on their faces. I could hear a mother whispering to her child as I left, her fearful words catching my ears.

  “Psychological contamination,” she whispered, and inside, my conflict raged. How could I be better? How could I avoid the Medica? How could I get my number up without losing who I was?

  It wasn’t anything I did that was the problem, it seemed. It was my mind. My mind, which was so treacherous that it could infect the minds of others without so much as a glance. Because I asked questions. Because I just didn’t understand.

  I looked up at the spires of the Citadel. The Tower was massive, but it was nowhere near big enough for me to ever be able to hide from my problems. I kept combing through my mind, trying to tease out ideas on how I could fix this by tomorrow. The only thing I could settle on was to pray that Scipio found some shred of mercy for me tonight. Or develop
ed a sense of humor. Possibly even grew a soul or two.

  My thoughts invariably brought me back to Grey, his miraculous nine, and the pill in my pocket. I pulled it out and stared at it, thinking. What if this was a pill that could change your number?

  After all, that was what the Medica gave out, wasn’t it? But why was it different? How was it different? And how did Grey get his hands on it?

  What if it was a new pill that the Medica was trying out? Ones had occasionally been used as test groups for new medications in the past; maybe this was a new pill they were developing. Something that corrected our emotional imbalances without taking away our personalities.

  Still… the possibility existed that this had been created outside the Medica. It just looked so different from any of their pills—plain and without any serial numbers. They wouldn’t make something like that without marking it… which meant the pill was contraband.

  Could this really be a way to cheat the system? It was preposterous—there was no way to escape a system that was literally seated inside your brain. I had never heard of such a thing. It couldn’t be possible, could it?

  I stared at it, weighing the options. If I was honest with myself, however, it wasn’t much of a decision to make. After a couple of minutes, I tucked the pill back into my pocket.

  It was simply too dangerous to take a pill I knew nothing about. It was too dangerous to assume that it did what I thought it did. I was desperate, and my mind was trying to fabricate a way out—the perfect mental state to do something really stupid that could even turn out to be life-threatening.

  Once I’d thrown out the notion of trying the unidentified pill, it didn’t take long to come to a conclusion about everything that was about to happen. All the pieces of my messed-up life were pointing to one very upsetting but not entirely unexpected conclusion: I was going to the Medica tomorrow, whether I wanted to or not.

  5

  Thankfully, I managed to buy myself more time by scheduling my appointment to the Medica for after my bi-weekly apprenticeship lessons. My parents had considered making me skip them, citing my shameful number as a reason, but it seemed I had been on the ball this morning, and had cleverly delayed my sentence by reminding them that the lessons were in service to the Tower. How would it look to Scipio if I put my needs before the Tower’s?