The Girl Who Dared to Stand (The Girl Who Dared #2)(3)

“What is this place?” I asked, finally settling on one of the millions of questions flying through my brain.

“Oh, this is my home. But it was once the office of my creator, Lionel Scipio, for whom I am named. But he’s gone now. He’s been gone for, oh, I’m not even sure how long.” Scipio’s voice was wistful and resentful, and I immediately empathized with him, the pain of Roark and Cali’s deaths fresh in my mind and heart.

He had said “Lionel Scipio,” and it made sense to a point. The man had been the mind behind the Tower, and had brought together the best and brightest of the age to help him make his Tower a reality. Those minds later went on to be the Founders of each department and created the first council. There were several history classes on each of them that I’d had to take when I was younger, but most had been devoted to the visionary behind the Tower. How he had made his dream of a place that would survive the End a reality. How he had spent his life devoted to making that place as ecologically sound as possible, so that humanity could continue to survive, safe from the devastated world outside. How he had created Scipio, a computer that would work effortlessly to avert disaster and keep us safe. How we all owed our lives to him and his creation.

We never talked about the nuclear Armageddon that had occurred three hundred years ago. Or how it came to pass. Or how Lionel had seemed to know it was coming in time for him to finish the Tower before it happened—which was one of my biggest pet peeves.

We knew so little of the world before. There were stories, but the history was short and brief: mankind failed, and the Tower was the ark in which we all hoped to survive the endless radiation that kept us trapped in here.

The only thing that really changed about the Tower was the land around it. Images of the outside world as it had been before confirmed that something had happened outside the walls. Stories were told of gray earth, gray clouds and gray ash that reportedly hadn’t stopped falling for decades. The river had been so contaminated that minute doses of radiation managed to avoid getting filtered out, killing many of the young and elderly alike. Then the atmosphere had finally failed, due to the damage caused over centuries of neglect and abuse, and things changed again.

The environment outside had shifted dramatically in the opposite direction. When humanity sealed itself inside centuries before, much of our power was generated by the solar panels covering the walls of the Tower and quite often needed repairs over time. Repairing the panels had invariably carried a death sentence, even at night. Yet the citizens did their duty, and died for the cause of the Tower.

And then that changed, too. The heat grew less and less intense, and soon fixing the panels only resulted in second-or third-degree burns, and then one day, no burns at all. It was a little less than two decades ago that we were able to step outside without protection. By that point, the radiation levels had fallen, especially higher up on the Tower, and we were able to emerge without the white protective suits.

Without the AI Lionel had created, none of this would have been possible, as the machines that kept us alive performed constant checks on the world outside and transmitted the results to Scipio, who would then recommend changes to help bolster the Tower’s defenses and preserve as much life as possible if things went wrong. He was not without checks in that regard; each department had its own computers that would investigate and verify Scipio’s findings in a matter of seconds. But without him and his checks and balances, we would all die via starvation or suffocation—or we’d be making a mad dash over the irradiated sand outside, trying to find a place to hide.

But that did nothing to help me understand what was happening here. I bit my lip, trying to find some logical explanation to explain this Scipio. This one who experienced sadness—an emotion that I would never have thought to hear from the cold and arrogant voice that had always transmitted to my net.

Was it possible that there could be two of them?

“You’re not the Scipio, are you?” I looked around the room, not entirely sure what I was expecting him to say.

“No, I am—”

There was a short pop, and then a series of sparks shot out from the wall behind me. I immediately ducked and covered my head, moving away from it. The fountain of sparks died after a moment, and Scipio sighed, the sound distorted by a series of buzzes and beeps.

“—y power is —etting low. Can y-y-y-you —lp me?”

His voice, now broken by sharp popping sounds and digital synthesizers, held a note of desperation, barely audible through its broken quality. I bit my lip, hesitating. I was fairly confident that he wasn’t my enemy, but I had no idea what helping him might lead to. I had six other people whose lives depended on me not making a wrong move. I had no idea whether this would jeopardize them.

“Please.” The word was filled with terror and desperation, and every one of my concerns faded under the urgency there. I was too raw and vulnerable to let anyone else die today. Because that was how he made me feel: like he was going to die if I didn’t help.

Besides, I couldn’t let anything happen to him—I had too many questions for him. I had no idea what he was, but something told me he wasn’t what I thought, and if I didn’t help him now, I risked losing a potential source of information. Possibly even some sort of bargaining chip or ally. I didn’t know, honestly, but I did know I wouldn’t find out if I didn’t help him now.