The Inventor perched one fist on his hip and leaned closer to the screen.
He pointed to a folder. ‘That one, miss.’
She recognised the folder that contained the maps of the city, but it was greyed out. Carissa tried her old code by thinking it, but nothing happened.
‘I can’t get into it. My permissions aren’t working,’ she huffed.
This was a mistake. The rebels should never have trusted her to do this.
Thomas looked over Jacob’s shoulder. ‘We can try a dictionary attack.’
‘A what?’
‘We try permutations of numbers in the hopes we hit upon one that works.’ Thomas looked at her. ‘What code were you trying to use?’
She rattled it off. It wasn’t anything special. Just her Copy number—173-C—and a few other identifiers.
‘Wait, no.’ Thomas stroked his chin, looking worried. ‘If the Collective has blocked her from the system, anything she tries with her Copy code could time out. I’m not sure a dictionary attack will work on the active folder.’
‘So what do we do?’ said the Inventor.
‘We should try to access the backup of the folder. Her permissions might not have been altered there.’
Carissa watched Thomas enter a few commands on screen. On occasion, he asked Carissa to open certain files. Some required no pass code—like the files that recorded the times of the Copies’ daily downloads. Other things, like the frequency code for the force field around the city, were locked. Why, when the barrier was currently inactive?
Thomas typed in a few new commands. Bright-green text appeared on screen.
‘All computer systems are the same,’ he explained while typing. ‘If I can find the backup storage, we might be able to grab the last saved copy.’
Jacob frowned over his shoulder. Carissa zoned out while he worked.
Her eyes grazed the room that she’d spent so many hours in, watching the Inventor work. Having seen him in the rebel camp enjoying the freedom he claimed to have lost, she couldn’t picture him working here again. She now saw this place for the prison it was.
‘I have it!’ Thomas said. She snapped her attention back to him. ‘Call out your command to me again.’
Carissa did and he typed it in.
‘It’s not locked,’ he said sounding relieved.
A new document opened on screen. It was a black map with a white outline showing the schematics of the city. She leaned in closer, breaking her connection to the machine. She gasped and checked the screen. But the image remained. It was a general outline of the city above ground that showed its concentric design.
‘You need to go deeper than the surface,’ said Carissa, standing up. ‘You need the maps with the tunnels.’
Thomas opened a second one. It showed the medical facility layout and the library.
Carissa studied the library. This version included the secret room that Canya—Anya’s Copy—had been staying in. The one the Copies hadn’t known about until Carissa told them about it. That meant the Collective had updated the map recently.
She examined the medical facility. The secret tunnel between the workshop and the Nurturing Centre had also been added.
‘These are recent,’ she said.
The Inventor nodded. ‘That’s something, at least. We can use them to find areas that haven’t been catalogued by the Collective.’
Thomas produced a piece of paper and a pencil from the bag. He superimposed the paper over the screen and began sketching.
She watched him work. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Drawing the layout. We can’t take the machine with us.’
The Inventor hurried over to the counter. He opened a drawer and removed several new pieces of paper. One with an image on it floated to the floor. Carissa bent down to pick it up.
She stared at an image of herself. The drawing was done in pencil and was a good likeness.
‘What’s this?’
The Inventor glanced at the page, then at her. ‘I used the spare time to draw.’
‘Me?’
‘Things—people I care about.’
She held the picture to her chest and checked inside the open drawer for more. There was another picture—of Rover. She plucked it out and held it up.
‘You like him,’ she said matter-of-factly.
The Inventor nodded. ‘He saved us.’
‘He’s not like the other wolves.’
‘No, he’s not. He’s like you. All the images I drew are of those who did not fit this place.’
She crumpled the page with her image to her chest. ‘Can I keep it?’
The Inventor smiled. ‘Of course. I meant to give it to you. It’s not perfect, but I thought you might like it.’
Carissa studied the drawing. The lines were sharp and overlapped in places. Her nose was disproportionate to her eyes, which were set a little far apart. Her smile was a little misshapen. The children could draw better.
It was perfect.
‘I’ve got the medical facility layout and the library,’ said Thomas. ‘What’s next?’
Carissa forgot about her drawing for a second. ‘The Learning Centre. Accommodation for the Copies. Check for all the buildings the Copies have—had—access to.’
She returned to her seat and set the picture down on her lap. Thomas had found a map of the Learning Centre.
The Great Hall took up most of the ground floor. There appeared to be a room next to the screens that the Collective often appeared on. She didn’t remember seeing it any time she’d been there.
Thomas sketched the layout and opened the accommodation that she’d lived in after she’d been connected. Copies and humans had lived separately. Newborns in human care were the exception. He then moved on to the school where Carissa had attended lessons.
When he finished, the Inventor switched off the machine.
She gripped the drawing. ‘Is that it?’
Thomas nodded. ‘That was all that were available in the folder. It
