The Girl Who Dared to Think by Bella Forrest (e reader for manga TXT) 📕

the genius with inventions—and it blocks Scipio’s scanners from detecting us down here. I am sort of the de facto leader, but that’s more out of a desire or need to trade to get other supplies. As for this place, it used to be one of the water monitoring stations, back in the early years of the Tower, before Scipio was fully operational. Now that he is, the station is remotely operated, which means no one comes down here much.”

She paused to pour herself some water from a pitcher in the middle of the table, and took a sip. “Let’s see... Shortly after I lost out as Champion, I fell into a state of depression. If it weren’t for Doxy, I’d never have gotten through it. Anyway, my rank crashed and burned. I’d actually had some suspicions about the system being skewed to begin with, but when my number refused to improve no matter how good I felt, I knew something was going on. I started digging, and the more I dug, the faster I fell. I probably would’ve let myself get caught, if it hadn’t been for Maddox, because I was so stubborn about finding out the truth. She convinced me to run, and we ran. We’ve been hiding ever since.”

I took this all in, and looked around the room. “What about Quess?”

“Oh, I can explain that,” he said around a mouthful of broccoli. “You see, I was pretty much told to join the Eyes, which I wasn’t complaining about. As a Medic, I was garbage.” He grinned at me and added in a low voice, “Can’t stand the sight of blood. Anyway, I was excited to go to the Eyes because I thought it’d be tough and challenging. I had a good head for numbers and tested well in basic programming. Well, it took about three years before I got bored.”

I frowned. “You requested another transfer?”

Quess threw back his head and laughed loudly. “Oh, lord no. The head of IT would never have allowed it. Too many questions going on. But I didn’t really have to. I just created fake credentials with a new identity for myself, and showed up the next day with new quarters in Cogstown.”

“Yeah, but then what happened?” Grey asked from next to me, and I saw a muscle twitching in his jaw. I could see he didn’t like Quess and his flirtatious mannerisms—and I had to admit, he looked very attractive when he was jealous.

I used my hair to hide my smile and turned back to Quess, who shrugged. “Got bored there, too. Problem is, there’s no room for innovation or creation in the Tower outside of medicine. I couldn’t rebuild or adjust or streamline the antiquated machinery around the place. Everyone gets twitchy when you mention it, yet they run around like madmen trying to keep up with the day-to-day needs of the Tower. It’s exhausting and depressing.”

“So you fell,” Roark said, again around a mouthful of food, and I couldn’t stand it any longer—I began serving myself small portions, not wanting to take too much from the people we’d found. Maddox arched a taunting eyebrow as I scooped up a spoonful of the beans with some rice, but I ignored it and took a bite.

Simple, but divine after the day we’d had.

“Pretty much,” Quess said. “And don’t worry about giving us your backstory. We got it from Cali already. You guys really think there’s life out there?”

“Selka saw it. She touched it with her own hands, and they killed her for wanting to spread the truth to everyone. The powers that be can’t stand to let the Tower go, so they crack down and keep the people living in fear of the world around them.”

“The Tower wasn’t meant to last forever,” Quess added in the wake of Roark’s statement, his blue eyes sad. “Nothing we create ever does, but yeah... it will start to fall apart eventually, even with all the TLC it’s given. But still, this is a huge leap based on the belief of one person.”

“He’s right,” Maddox said, breaking her stony silence by dropping her utensil onto her now-clean plate. “You’re betting everything—your very life—on believing that your wife saw what she said she saw.”

“And her getting killed for it,” Roark thundered, his fists banging on the table hard enough to make dishes clatter. “You think they would’ve executed her if she’d just been mad? No, she was a danger to their perfect image of the Tower, so they did away with her. Like she was nothing.”

He looked away from everyone, but not before his eyes had filled with the bitter sorrow of a man who was railing against a faceless system. Against those who had stolen his life and wife from him.

“On that note,” Cali announced softly, filling the awkward silence that had stretched out into the small space with a confident command, “we should all start getting ready for bed.”

I immediately got to my feet. “Then I should go. I need to get back up there before anyone notices that I’m missing.”

Cali looked at me and then stood in one fluid motion. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you leave right now.”

“Excuse me?” I stared at her, trying not to gape at the woman telling me I couldn’t leave.

Her face was made of stone as she shook her head at me. “You know you heard me correctly, dear. And I’m sure that your friends have already come to the same conclusion as well.”

“Gerome knows something’s going on between the three of us,” Grey said quietly, craning his neck up to meet my gaze, his eyes also reticent. “He’s going to be waiting for you to surface so he can question you.”

“And people are still out looking for us—and subsequently you,” Roark added. “No way they’ll let you pass by them without wanting to know how your pursuit went. Where are you going to direct them? How are you going to avoid attention, even leaving this place?”

“And