I accepted the packet, tucking it into a pocket of my own, and nodded. “It’s safe to say that nothing gets done without her approval.” We shared a moment of silence, and then I turned, ready to get the conversation back on track. “Alex, do you think you could figure out who Mercury is, if you had enough time?”
Alex frowned, and looked around. “I’m confused—I thought he was your friend. Don’t you trust him?”
“It’s kind of hard to trust a man you haven’t met,” I said grimly. “Especially when one word from him could bring hell down on us all. I was just hoping that, if I kept him guessing and on his toes, he would be less inclined to sell us out.”
Alex’s face screwed up tight, and he looked around the room at everyone and then back to me. “Okay, setting aside the fact that he found me, taught me to cover my tracks better, and then had us both working on identity chips while creating a plan for you, you do realize that you’re talking about a person who included a packet of hot chocolate with all of the other stuff, just for a little girl he knew wasn’t going to like net day, or whatever she called it. I mean… if that isn’t a sign of a trustworthy individual, I don’t know what is.”
I wilted under my brother’s condemnation, and—perhaps solely based on the fact that he was my brother—immediately got annoyed with him. Yes, he had good points. And yes, that was something I hadn’t really considered in that light. But did he have to look so damned superior about it?
My fist snapped out and connected with his bicep before I could stop the urge, and I smiled when he said, “Ow!” very loudly and grabbed for the spot to rub it with his hand. “Liana!”
“Should’ve trained better,” I replied tartly, and he narrowed his gaze at me. He may have loved IT, but it still ate him up that he wasn’t as athletic as the rest of our family, and in my meaner moments, I couldn’t resist the jab. He knew I didn’t mean anything by it. This was just how we fought.
“Hey, whoa,” Grey said apologetically, pressing closer, between us, to force us apart and forestalling my brother from snapping back with a retort. “As much as I’m sure that this is a sibling thing, it might be detracting from the task at hand.” He gave me a pointed look, reminding me that I was in charge and it was on me to keep us on task.
Of course, I wasn’t quite ready to play ball just yet. “One more minute,” I said, and Grey’s features softened. He knew I had been worrying about Alex nonstop since everything had happened, and wouldn’t deny me another minute. He took a step back, giving us some room, and I turned my attention back to Alex, only to find him watching Grey, suspicion stamped tight on his face.
“Who’s that?” he asked, not looking away.
I recognized the warning signs of an overprotective brother, and opted to try to change the subject, and hope he wouldn’t notice. “Grey,” I told him. “And never mind that. I am so happy to see you.” I felt the urge to hug him all over again and stepped in close, wrapping my arms around him. I breathed in deep, just taking him in. I let myself have that small moment of happiness, before withdrawing. “But, Alex… you shouldn’t be doing this. You shouldn’t have to do this. If you get caught…”
“Then I’ll be depending on you to rescue me,” he said with a wink.
I rolled my eyes. “This isn’t a joke, Alex. They are killing people. We’ve lost people.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Uh, hello, Liana—who are you talking to? I’m the one who told you something was wrong with Scipio, remember? Still not entirely certain what it is, but it’s getting worse. Scipio’s suggestions are starting to look unbalanced to me, but I can’t figure out why.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, and then swept it aside—his way of clearing the idea from the air to start fresh. “It doesn’t matter anyway. The point is that I know very well what I’m getting into. You don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
I gave him a doubtful look. “Apparently not, seeing as you got caught by Mercury.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “That, little sister, is entirely your fault,” he said. I laughed, unable to help myself, and then winced as Alex’s eyes found Grey, who was bent over discussing something with Quess, the case open on the floor between them. “So that’s the criminal, huh?”
I groaned inwardly, and shook my head. “Don’t do that. We are not doing this again.”
Alex turned, confusion radiating through his eyes. “We are not doing what again?”
I gaped at him, unable to believe that he had forgotten about his behavior at school whenever a boy approached me, with one case in particular sealing the deal in terms of my dating life at school.
“I cannot believe that you are going to sit here and tell me that you don’t remember what you did to Chester Bule in our fifth year of school.”
“Bute,” my brother corrected sullenly.
“Aha!” I crowed victoriously as I snapped a finger in his face, close enough to make him flinch. “You do remember. So you remember what you did to him in front of the entire class after he brought me a flower?”
Alex’s shoulders sank, and he glowered at me. “I pushed him down.”
“And?”
Alex rolled his eyes. “And I told him that if he ever looked at you, I’d…” He trailed off, muttering, “I can’t believe you are still holding this over my head.”
“You said you’d use his skin as a war flag!” I exclaimed, unable to keep it in. “Who even says that, Alex! It was creepy and weird, and as your twin, it made me creepy and weird too!”
“I was twelve,” he snapped defensively. “And Dad kept telling that story about that one guy who came after him with a piece of glass, shouting it at him! I was just repeating what I had heard!”
“I didn’t have my first kiss until I got into the academy,” I said accusatorily.
Alex, however, drew the line there. He crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow. “Not even sorry about it,” he informed me. I narrowed my eyes at him, contemplating the best place to punch him, when he suddenly grinned. “Besides, if I hadn’t done that, you could be married to Chester now. You could be Liana Bute.”
A huff of air escaped me, and then another and another, and as much as I tried to cling to my anger, it slid away from me like water down a pipe, and I began to laugh.
“I hate you so much,” I said.
“Yeah, ditto.”
“Hey, Alex? Why are there no nets in this case?”
We both stopped smiling and looked over to where Quess had carefully dissected the contents of the case Alex had brought in. Quess looked up at him expectantly, and Alex rubbed his neck.
“Ah, yeah—that was the other stuff I was supposed to tell you. Mercury can’t get his hands on seven of them in six days,” he said, looking around. “Even getting one takes months, and that’s the minimum time period in which it can be done safely. The IDs in those crystals are ready to go, like I said, but they’re useless without new nets.”
“Why can’t we just use our old ones?” Grey asked, and it was Quess who answered.
“The download circuit is designed to fail after one download, making it impossible to modify after the fact. It’s to make it harder to get fake IDs. They also burn out when they are removed, to prevent anyone from trying to scavenge them from the recently deceased.”
I shuddered. I never would’ve thought about doing that in a thousand years, but the fact that he brought it up meant that at some point, it had actually been a problem within the Tower.
“So we need blank nets to go with them,” Maddox announced, pointedly fixing her bright green eyes on Alex. “But you didn’t bring any.”
“Which brings me to the papers and the data pad,” Alex said. “Mercury and I put together a plan for how you can get some on your own. We, uh… hope you don’t mind capitalizing on your newly established criminal status to perform a little heist.”
A prolonged silence met my brother’s declaration, and I looked around the room, unsurprised to see almost all of their faces engaged in the bigge
st communal “no” I had ever witnessed. And I couldn’t blame them.
“Alex, the nets are inside the Core,” I needlessly reminded him. And yet, not so needlessly, as both my brother and Mercury seemed to have forgotten that the Core was one of the most dangerous places in the Tower, because it was literally where Scipio 2.0 lived. And it didn’t matter if he was simply malfunctioning or being manipulated by some sort of secret organization—in all likelihood, I was still enemy number one. My face was probably displayed on every wall and computer screen. If any of us set foot in there, we would be caught in a matter of seconds.
“You’re still doubting me, little sister. I would never send you in there without a hell of a plan. Besides, you actually can pull this off. You know why?” I widened my eyes and then shook my head. “Because you have me—the most awesome programmer the world has ever known, and I would never, ever let anything happen to you. The pad contains both the blueprints and our instructions for how to break in. There are a few other goodies in there to help with disguises and the like as well. I think you’ll be pretty pleased with what we put together. You’re clear anytime over the next three days, but if we miss that window, we’ll have to reassess, okay?”
Hm. It seemed my brother had been hit in the head multiple times, and was experiencing some sort of mental breakdown. Because even if he had come up with a great plan, it didn’t change the fact that it was impossible for me to go. Not up to the Core and back down. Not in one hour. Definitely not in two.
“Alex, you don’t understand. I can’t go to the Core.” I spoke slowly and clearly, and internally cackled when Alex’s eyes grew irritated. He hated when I did this to him. “They are actively scanning for my net right now. And the neural scrambler only works for about an hour or two.”
A thought occurred to me, latent and slow, and it took a lot of wind out of my sails as my eyes turned toward Maddox and Quess. They actually didn’t need me. They could do it without me. Which meant… that I was going to have to stay behind and let them go into danger.
Alone.
Without me to keep them safe.
Ugh.
Alex rolled his eyes. “Already considered, with a solution. Mercury came up with a modification to the neural scramblers that might offer a bit more time than the standard two hours. He said Quess should be able to handle it.”
Quess slid the folders out of Alex’s case and opened one up, mindlessly handing one to Zoe when she moved over to take a look. The two of them scoured the pages, both of them looking thoughtful as they read.
“You want to modify it to send out a pulse instead of a direct current?” Zoe asked, looking up at my brother. “Won’t that fry the circuit?”
“I brought you guys new circuit boards. They will be able to handle the load, no problem. They’re taped inside the file, inside a baggie. Be really careful with them, though—they’re basically just silica netting, with the circuit wire woven through, so they’re extremely fragile. You’ll need tweezers and a magnifying glass.”
“Gotcha,” Quess said, his eyes still dragging across the page as he read.
I could go. I settled back on my heels and let that sink in for a second. On the one hand, good—I didn’t like the idea of being forced to sit on the sidelines while making other people do the dirty work. Whatever type of leader I was going to be, it certainly wouldn’t be the kind who was above getting their hands dirty. On the other hand… we were going into the Core. Yes, we had Mercury and Alex backing us up, and with their insight and placement inside IT, they could help us if something went wrong—but still.
Something occurred to me, and I looked up at Alex. “Alex, how much trouble can you get in for this? Is any of it traceable back to you?”
He blinked, and then began rubbing the back of his neck. “Liana… I mean, we took precautions to cover our tracks and leave as little digital footprint as possible, but there’s always a chance someone notices something is off. But, in answer to your question, no more trouble than you get in if you get caught.” I let that sink in, realizing that my brother was putting his life on the line helping me, and even though I hated the very idea of it, I still couldn’t help but love him for it all the same. He was, for all intents and purposes, my only real family, parents notwithstanding. “It’s a good plan, Liana. It gets you in and out. It’ll be fine.”
I stared at him dubiously, and then sighed. We needed the nets; there was no way around it. Without them, the four of us were stuck down here, only able to leave for short periods of time with the scrambler. If we were spotted or slipped up, we’d be caught. Without one, we’d definitely be caught—a thermal image on the internal cameras with no net ID accompanying it was the same as being a one on the scanner. A new net and ID represented mobility within the Tower, which meant a better chance of staying ahead of our enemies, or at the very least escaping our enemies.
“I’m not happy about it,” I said. “But… thank you, Alex.”
He frowned at the gratitude in my voice, and pulled me into a hug. “Of course, Lily. You’re my sister. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep you safe. This is a risk I’m taking, and I will deal with it. I just want you to focus on the risk you’re taking, and please, for the love of everything, don’t get caught, okay?”
I nodded, a smile playing on my lips. “Is that your way of telling me you love me?”
He wrinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes. “Yes… but you don’t have to get all… gross like that.”
“Like what?” I asked, intentionally pitching my voice a little higher. “C’mon, Alex… just admit you love me.”
“Ugh, no! Not while you’re acting like that.”
I chuckled, and he smiled. We knew exactly how to get on each other’s nerves, and that was our way of telling the other “I love you.” I was suddenly grateful that he had even played along in the first place; it was something familiar, something I could cling to that reminded me that not everything had changed.
I looked around, and realized that everyone was now looking over the plans on the pad, five heads bent all around the glowing screen in Quess’s hand. We had some privacy, in the sense that they weren’t paying attention, and on impulse, I grabbed my brother’s arm and pulled him through the curtain.
“Liana?” he asked, concern in his dark eyes. “What’s up?”
I hesitated, and then looked down, fidgeting. There had been one question—too big for me to even fully acknowledge—that had been rattling around inside me, and I sensed that Alex would be leaving soon. There wouldn’t be much more time for me to ask it, even if I was afraid of what the answer would be.
“Alex… have you talked to Mom and Dad?”
Alex bit back a growl, his eyes already rolling in their sockets. “They netted me as soon as the alert on you went live. Wanted to make sure I understood that my obligation was to the Tower, and that we shouldn’t let something as simple as family get in the way of our duties, and blah, blah, blah…”
He trailed off, but I had already turned away, wrapping my arms around my stomach as if I could somehow block off the pain that his words had inspired inside of me. I knew he didn’t mean to hurt me, but his delivery hadn’t been the best, which had only made it sting all the more.
No, scratch that. It burned, raw and angry, an open wound that felt like salt was being rubbed into it, and I could feel each granule. I didn’t even know why I had expected anything different. My entire life I had been the biggest disappointment of all. Sure, Alex had abandoned his duty as a Knight—the Castells had always been a part of the Citadel, after all—but at least he was a nine, and serving the Tower and Scipio. But me? Oh no, I was a screw-up at conception—not abiding by their Tower laws, somehow willing myself into existence to spite their two children per family policy. Of course they had told Alex that. Their daughter was now a monster, a dissident, an enemy of their precious Tower.
I felt the hard, salty press of tears and blinked them back. As much as it hurt, the sadder part
was that it wasn’t unexpected. I took a moment to compose myself, pushing the hurt back into the familiar place I kept it inside, knowing that the first chance I got to myself, the tears would come. But for now, I held it together, a practiced hand at it by now.
Nonetheless, Alex’s arms came around my shoulders and pulled me to his chest, hugging me tight. “I’m so sorry, Liana,” he said, his hand stroking my hair. “They don’t deserve you. They don’t. But I love you, my irritating little sister. And nothing in the world is going to change that.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted gently, touched that he cared. I carefully pushed him off of me, and smiled at him, trying to prove it to him. “Honestly, I should’ve known better than to ask.”
He made a face and looked away. “Yeah, well, to hell with them.”
I laughed, and he smiled. A heartbeat or two of silence passed between us, as if we were allowing some sort of magical breeze to push the gloominess of the conversation away, and then Alex’s smile shifted, becoming slyer.
“So… this Grey guy…”
“Oh, no you don’t,” I said, cutting him off. “We are not going over this again. We are both twenty-year-old adults—you get no say in my personal life. Comprende?” Comprende meant “understand” in my family’s most ancient native tongue. We only used it when we were with each other, and, unfortunately, no one spoke the language fluently anymore. My great-great-great-great-grandmother, before the End, had kept a diary in the language that we had managed to preserve, but without any context for how to translate it, I had never been able to crack it. Still, I loved reading it and sounding it out late at night when I couldn’t sleep.
“Fine,” he said. “I guess I can leave him alone. For now. Now… There was one more thing I was supposed to talk to you about. Mercury explained about this group that wishes to speak with you, and he managed to get in touch with them about the meeting.”
“And?”
“They wouldn’t set a day or a time,” he said, and I had a moment to give him a confused look before he continued. “The deal is this: they will contact Mercury with a location for the meet, and a time no sooner than five hours thereafter. The last part was added by Mercury, because he wanted to have enough time to get the message to you so you could have time to get there.”
The Girl Who Dared to Stand Page 14