The Inventor grabbed her arm. ‘What is it?’
She kept her eyes on it. She’d been there before. Not by choice, but by summons.
Carissa swallowed. ‘It’s part of the Learning Centre.’
Anya stood up fast. Dom was by her side in a flash, hand on her back, as if to stop her from leaving.
The Inventor glanced at the others. ‘It’s where the Collective lives. I’ve been there once.’
He looked down at Carissa, his eyes widening. ‘Where in the Learning Centre, miss?’
She squirmed beneath his gaze. When she didn’t answer, he grabbed her arm and shook it.
‘Is it the Great Hall? That’s just a large room. This drawing clearly has corridors.’
She shrank back from him, never having seen him so intense before, and pointed at a broken line on the drawing. ‘That’s the entrance. It breaks off into various corridors where we—the Copies—upload.’
She hadn’t uploaded or downloaded for days. Did that make her less of a Copy now?
The Inventor released her arm. ‘I’m sorry, miss, I need more. The entrance, then where?’
She studied the sketch, which she superimposed over a map in her memory banks. ‘The entrance, then the corridors for the download rooms.’ She closed her eyes. ‘The corridor on the left brings you to the Great Hall, but this one—’ she gestured ahead ‘—takes you to another area, behind the Great Hall.’
She opened her eyes.
Everyone was staring at her. She concentrated on the only face that mattered: the Inventor’s.
He was frowning at her. ‘Will we be able to access it?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen the space behind the Great Hall.’
‘Could it be beneath the Learning Centre?’ said Thomas.
The Inventor rubbed his chin. ‘It’s possible. Maybe we can access it through one of the unexplored tunnels.’
Dom stepped forward while Thomas collected up his sketches from the ground. ‘We should search for it above ground first, to get a feel for any access points.’ The rebel leader looked at Carissa. ‘How likely are we to run into trouble there?’
Carissa closed her eyes, searching for any connection that might hint that the city was still online. She opened them. ‘I don’t know.’
Dom nodded at the others. ‘Okay, we should return to the medical facility. Get June and the others, and get the hell out of here.’
The rebels walked on, forgetting about Carissa’s crucial help. Not one person thanked her.
The Inventor stayed with her. He patted her on the shoulder. ‘You did good, miss.’
She looked up at him. ‘I did?’
He smiled and nodded.
Then why did she feel like she’d sentenced herself to a lifetime of being alone?
The Inventor frowned at her. ‘What’s wrong, miss?’
‘I can’t feel anyone here.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it? It means the Collective is gone.’
She looked up at him. ‘The Collective lives inside a program, Jacob. Where would it go?’
She marched on ahead, needing to be alone. 148-C watched her curiously. The Copy had punished Dom and pretended his mother was still alive. This guard’s obsession with Dom had been in the report sent to the Collective. She wondered if 148-C had been left behind on purpose.
His cold Copy eyes watched her closely, making her skin crawl. She marched ahead faster, then stopped and rubbed her arms. Looking back, she saw 148-C had a small smile on his face.
Tired of this Copy’s games, Carissa strode up to him. He visibly flinched.
‘Where is the Collective?’
148-C stared at her like she was insane. I might well be.
‘Gone. I don’t know where.’
‘How did they leave this place? Who helped them?’
The guard shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
Anger bloomed in her chest. She beat his arms with her fists.
It only made the Copy angry. ‘I said I don’t know!’
Her breaths came short and fast.
The Inventor rushed over to her. ‘Miss, what’s wrong?’
‘Something isn’t right, Jacob.’ She looked away from him. ‘This place... I don’t know.’
He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Why don’t you run on ahead and check on June? We’ll catch up.’
She nodded and looked at Zone C. The medical facility wasn’t far, maybe five minutes’ walk. It would be good to stretch her legs and clear her head.
Hugging her body tight, she walked away, feeling her stress halve the farther from the group she got.
Halfway into her fast walk, a voice stunned her into stillness. Her biogel ran cold.
‘173-C, I’ve been looking for you.’
‘Quintus,’ she breathed, glancing behind her. The others were a distance back. ‘W-where are you?’
‘I’m close. I’m safe. Don’t worry.’
‘A... are you in the city?’
‘173-C, I need your help.’
Her stomach lurched. Carissa swallowed hard against the feeling. ‘What help?’
‘Have they found the Beyond yet?’
She didn’t see any point in lying.
‘No, Quintus,’ she whispered, even though she was alone.
‘How close are they to discovering it?’
‘I don’t know.’
It was the truth.
‘Listen to me, 173-C. I need you to keep close to them. When they find it, let me know.’
Despite the healing properties of her neuromorphic chip, she couldn’t sense any other minds here. ‘How? I’m not connected to anything.’
‘You’re connected, just not to the others. Do this for me. It’s very important.’
She turned on the spot. ‘Where are you? Are you watching me?’
‘I got away, 173-C. So did the others. When we couldn’t resurrect the barrier around the city, we retreated to a safe place.’
‘So you’re not watching me?’
‘No, 173-C. I can only speak to you in your head.’
Her pulse slowed upon hearing that.
‘You killed their leader, Max, in the open.’
‘That wasn’t me, Carissa. Septimus ordered the strike. I tried to stop him.’
It sounded like something that voice of disagreement would order. Quintus was the only one she really knew. ‘I’ll keep close to them, Quintus.’
‘Good. They trust you.’
‘How do I contact
