The Gender End
Page 23
Kneeling at the holotable, which was right now just acting as a regular table, Ms. Dale put down the small mirror she was using, closing the lid on the large silver cosmetics case she’d been fiddling with.
“What do you say, everybody? Have I lost any of my cosmetic skills?”
I stared at her as she packed up the mirror along with the case, welcoming the distraction from the upcoming drop. Ms. Dale had used the time it had taken us to fly to the very eastern borders of Matrus to stuff us into wigs and paint elaborate disguises onto our faces—she was just finishing up the final touches on her own, having made Morgan, Amber, and Viggo into virtually unrecognizable versions of themselves. Now it was her turn, and I stared openly: a black bob wig framing her made-up face, she looked younger by at least ten years—but probably closer to fifteen—and it even seemed like the shape of her face had changed.
“I’d say your skills must have gotten better in your old age,” Viggo smirked, teasing her with the compliment like he always did on missions. Ms. Dale tsked. “Be glad I didn’t have to make you look any older—your cover would have had to be Violet’s father.”
“Ouch,” Viggo said, feigning chagrin, and I smiled a little, warmed by their friendly banter. With his hair slicked back and tied at the neck, and those infamous wire frames perched on his nose, he was still Viggo—to me—but he hadn’t shaved since before the night of the water treatment plant, and now coarse dark hair ran along his cheeks and chin, thick and full. His disguise was meant to throw the Matrians off, although they were more likely to recognize Ms. Dale or me, but I had to admit that the entire look—especially the glasses—had left me feeling breathless when I had first seen it. I sighed, wishing that was the only thing to which I could attribute the butterflies in my stomach.
My own transformation had been more alarming than exciting—and it had been enough to confuse Viggo and Tim for a few seconds, which was certainly a good sign. I looked older, more mature, with bags under my eyes and the hollows in my cheeks more pronounced. I questioned the absence of a wig, but Ms. Dale told me the short hair was a better disguise than she could’ve hoped for, as no one in Matrus would know I had short hair now. Desmond was the only one who had spotted me—well, the only one who wasn’t in a berserk rage—and Ms. Dale doubted she’d had time to report anything to Elena before her timely end.
“Amber,” Thomas said, interrupting the quiet within the cockpit, “when you kill the engine, don’t forget to keep the antifreeze pump on, or else this thing will not restart.” His voice sounded just as indifferent as before.
“Wait, what?!” I exclaimed, all the calm I’d carefully gathered while contemplating our disguises evaporating in an instant. Ms. Dale reached over and patted my arm as she cinched herself into the seat next to me.
“Relax, Violet,” she said. “This is actually going to be a little bit fun!”
I had no idea how to respond to that, so just resigned myself to keeping my mouth shut. Viggo, having finished buckling himself in, took my hand in his, bringing it up to his lips and kissing it.
“We’re going to be okay,” he assured me, his strong fingers massaging mine, and I nodded.
I wanted to believe him, I really did. Maybe if I had never fallen off a flying motorcycle or tried to maneuver a broken heloship away from a storm, I would have been less conscious of the fact that doing crazy flying stunts could so, so easily get us all killed. It had seemed simple when Thomas explained it to me. Sure, I hadn’t liked it, but I was a big girl. I could put away my fear for this.
Now I was on the ship, and rational Violet was nowhere to be found. She’d deserted me and left me zero coping mechanisms to deal with the realization that this plan was insane.
Tim caught my eye again, and I noted his concern and exhaled slowly, pushing the panic away. I had to try to stay strong for him and Viggo. At the very least, I needed to keep from having a panic attack while everything was happening. I sincerely hoped I could pull it off.
“We’re at 37,000 feet,” Amber said, her fingers clicking on the buttons.
“Excellent. Now, we’ll have to input these coordinates mathematically. We’re so high up that missing our mark could mean the added distance of at least twenty-five miles.”
“Please stop reminding me, Thomas,” Amber sang sweetly. “I’m ready to input your numbers. You check your math?”
“Always,” replied Thomas, clearly missing Amber’s joke. “And I ran it through a few computer programs to check it again. It’s right.”
“Everyone in the cargo bay needs to get up here now!” Ms. Dale shouted loudly.
A moment later, Owen and Solomon appeared from the bay. “We strapped everything down as best as possible,” Owen reported. “And the nets are secured.”
“Good. Secure the door and sit down. And for the love of everything, buckle your damned seatbelts.” Amber cleared her throat. “Start reading me those numbers, Thomas.”
Thomas began giving her numbers, and she used the keypad on the arm of her chair to input them while Solomon and Owen got into their seats, one on either side of Morgan. Morgan looked up at Owen as he sat down, and then immediately cast her gaze back into her lap, looking everywhere but at the blonde man.
I had a moment to smile, distracted from my nerves by their awkwardness, and I found myself wondering what had happened after Viggo and I left the party that night. And then the heloship began to move, the entire thing rattling.
“In position in five, four, three, two, stop.” Amber clicked something, and we went still again, hovering in place. “I’m ready when you are, Tom-Tom.”
Thomas sighed at the nickname, but said nothing as he produced a roll of electrical tape. His handheld had been resting on his thigh, and within moments he had it secured there, wrapped up absurdly with the black tape running around his leg. After a few moments, he ripped off the edge of the tape, setting the final piece down, and nodded. “All right, everyone. This is where things get a bit dicey.”
“What are the odds on this, Thomas?” Owen asked, and Thomas blinked and looked up at him.
“The mission or the landing?”
“The landing.”
“Good, surprisingly. Sixty-one percent.”
“Numbers aren’t everything, Thomas,” Ms. Dale said sharply. “Are you ready?”
He blinked over at her, and then nodded, his cheeks jiggling slightly. “We’re ready. On my mark. Amber?”
Amber exhaled softly, rubbing the tips of her fingers together, and nodded. “Go.”
“On my mark—three… two… one… Go!”
I squeezed Viggo’s hand hard as Amber leaned forward and flipped a switch.
Immediately the vibrations of the heloship stilled as the engine cut off. There was a moment in which it seemed like nothing was happening… and then we began to fall out of the sky.
Everything seemed horribly weightless, and my stomach plunged with the ship. My grip on Viggo’s hand grew tighter, and through the bubble I could see the flat, paper-thin land below start to get closer as we plummeted. The sensation of weightlessness was a lie: we were strapped into the side of a falling ship, and gravity was bringing us down, faster and faster each second.
The cockpit began to shake and shudder, and I was tossed against my harness. “It’s wind,” Amber shouted. “Just hold on!”
A whimper escaped me as a whistling sound began, all around us, and I heard someone—Solomon—ask, “What’s that sound?”
“It’s us!” Amber shouted over the growing whistling noise. I looked back at her and saw a wide grin on her face, her eyes narrowed in intense focus while her fingers hovered over a button—presumably the one that would turn the engines back on. She seemed utterly exhilarated, and the glee on her face was almost as nauseating to me as the descent.
“It’s okay!” Viggo yelled to me in assurance, but I could barely hear him over the sound of the wind rattling by outside, the whistling growing and distorting until it became a violent roar.
“Thomas?” I heard Amber ask, her voice barely discernable over the screeching noise.
“Not yet,” he bellowed.
The roaring grew louder, and tears began to leak out from under my eyelids onto my cheeks.
Then Thomas roared, “THREE, TWO, NOW!”
I grunted as gravity returned with a roar, my body still trying to go down while the heloship rocked us up. My breathing was heavy and loud in my ears, and I couldn’t open my eyes. My complete belief that we had hit the earth was conflicting with the sudden hum of engines filling the room. I had never noticed before how comforting that sound could be.
There was silence, and then a voice, softly whispering in my ear. “We’re fine, Violet. We’re okay.”
I cracked open my eyes, my heart still pounding in my ribcage, and confirmed Viggo’s assertion. We were alive. Although, given that even Ms. Dale looked a little rattled around the edges, I wasn’t certain everyone was confident about that.
“I’m setting her down,” Amber announced, clicking some buttons. “Seems a shame to leave her abandoned out here, but—”
There was a rattle of the doorknob in the cargo bay, and alarm coursed through me, although Viggo was the first to react by standing up, his gun coming out of the holster on his belt. The door pushed open, and I gaped as Logan strode in, bleeding from a cut over his eyebrow, his hair mussed. “I wish I had known what your plan was coming down,” he said, looking around. “Then I could’ve made a better entrance. Seriously, did we just fall all the way down to Matrus?”
“Logan?” Amber said, whipping around in her seat. “What the hell are you doing here? You were supposed to stay behind to help Henrik.”
“I know. I left my orders with my second in command. I didn’t want you coming here without me.”
“So you snuck onboard?” Ms. Dale asked dryly.
“How’d we miss you?” Owen added. “We were back there securing the cargo bay for at least twenty minutes.”
Logan looked over at us, and then down at his suit, and I realized he was wearing one of the Liberator uniforms. We all were, but we didn’t have that many, which meant he must have had to sneak into the inventory room to steal one. And he’d had to keep the suit on for at least twenty minutes—a feat that was impressive, even for somebody like Owen who’d had much more experience. I was impressed, at least; Amber didn’t look so thrilled.
“I can’t believe this,” she muttered, clearly embarrassed, turning back to the controls and flipping a few switches, then beginning to lower us down. I took a cautious peek out the window, and it looked like we were already on the ground—but we descended another ten or fifteen feet before the thump that announced we’d touched down.
“Amber, I’m sorry. I just… After we talked last night… How we finished things… And then you were leaving… And it’s not that I don’t think you can handle it! I do! I just wanted to be here with…” Logan trailed off as she quickly began shutting down the engine, her fingers flying, pointedly ignoring him. As soon as she was done, she stood up and turned to face him.
She was nervous; I could see it in the way she held herself. “Well, it’s too late to do anything about it now. Ms. Dale? What should we do with him?”
Ms. Dale looked at both of them, and then over to Viggo, who was finally putting away his gun. He met her gaze, and then shrugged indifferently. “You’re correct, he is here now.” She paused, contemplating him.
“I go where Amber goes,” he announced, raking a hand through his thick crop of black hair.
“Clearly.” Ms. Dale’s voice held the quality of brittle paper. “I don’t think we could stop him if we tried.”
“Could always tie him up,” Morgan said softly, and I looked over to see her standing up. If she was shaken, she didn’t show it. “But I think that would get him killed.”
“You have enough room in the vehicles,” he insisted. “And I’m good in a fight. Amber can attest to that.”
“I can attest to that,” Ms. Dale replied dryly. “Or did you forget you and I were fighting side by side at the water plant? I’ll make this short. You can come with us—but you follow every order, every command, like it’s life or death. And since I know better than to try to separate you from Amber, I will put you with her.”
Amber’s eyebrows drew together, as though she were on the verge of protest, but she held it back, giving him another long, hard look. “Am I his superior?” she asked.
Ms. Dale gave the young woman a feline smile. “Of course you are. And if he acts out, I give you permission to shoot him.”
Amber continued to stare at the man, her uncertain look quickly turning into an extremely satisfied grin. Logan didn’t seem particularly intimidated—he was smiling as well. Then again, I guessed he had just gotten what he wanted: more time with Amber.
That was actually pretty sweet, and I could tell he still affected Amber in some way. Otherwise she wouldn’t be acting like this. I just hoped he was patient enough to let her sort through whatever she was feeling and work out what she actually wanted. I of all people knew that forcing a confrontation with Amber would just make her more stubborn.
Ms. Dale seemed to think the situation was handled, because she began handing out orders. “Okay. Men, get the vehicles out and start getting ready. Thomas, explain to Logan what the plan is. Women—and Viggo—let’s make sure to touch up those disguises, starting with Amber. Remember, this next part needs to be flawless.”
“Roger that,” Solomon said, his voice low. He stood up and followed Owen, Thomas, Logan, and Tim to the cargo bay, but was stopped when Logan turned around abruptly.
“Amber?” he asked softly, and she looked up, her face an impassive mask.
“Yes?”
“I’m proud to have you as my superior.” With that he turned away, and I was blown away by that shocking display of humility. I found myself thinking he must have much deeper feelings for her than I’d thought, to humble himself like that.
Solomon looked around, moving toward the back along with the young man, and cleared his throat. “I’d be proud to punch you, if Amber asks,” he said to Logan in a voice loud enough that the entire group could hear, clapping a large hand onto Logan’s shoulder. “But in the meantime, let’s go. Time’s a precious thing.”
I watched as Logan was pushed out by Solomon. The door closed, and I exhaled. I still hadn’t even moved since we’d landed, and Logan’s appearance had been so surreal, I didn’t even have the ability to really register it. I was still shaking from the fall, and now… now was the last moment to stop and breathe before we really started the mission.
And this time, there was no room for mistakes or deviations from the plan.
OceanofPDF.com
24
OceanofPDF.com
VIOLET
The sun had set long ago, and had taken its warmth with it, and yet the sky stubbornly refused to change. The west still held the deep, dark purple of twilight, while behind us the inky black sky shone brightly with stars. Since Maxen’s announcement this morning had sped up our timeline, we’d only had the rest of the afternoon to prepare for the mission, and spent the day nailing down the plan and preparing everything we’d need. Now it was night, the time for secret missions, and I could already see the North Star shining above the horizon through the window of the car. We bounced and jostled across the uneven terrain, the headlamps finding no hazards or obstacles blocking our way.
The two vehicles we’d taken with us in the cargo bay of our ship were loaded with all the supplies we’d need. Ms. Dale drove, while Viggo, Thomas, and Owen w
ere squeezed into the backseat of the loaded vehicle, shiny handcuffs around their wrists. Thomas and Owen were disguised too, though not as well as Viggo or the rest of us had to be. They weren’t nearly as well-known within the two countries.
I stole a quick glance at Viggo as he looked out the window, his eyes serious behind the spectacles. I appreciated the sight, but I couldn’t attribute the hitch in my breath solely to Viggo as we drove across the dark gray and black plains that made up the far eastern borders of Matrus—the direction we had been heading when Solomon had destroyed the controls on Desmond’s heloship.
That was an important detail in our story, and I sucked in another slow breath, reminding myself of what I needed to say and how I needed to act.
“Be confident,” Ms. Dale said softly as she angled the car toward a fire burning some three or four hundred feet away, right behind a massive metal square that hunkered over the rocky soil. It was the enemy camp, a Matrian outpost manning the anti-heloship guns we’d had to perform the drop to avoid, and from this distance I could make out five or six figures at the post; there were likely more in the green tents pitched a bit farther behind the fire pit. “Remember, you didn’t do anything wrong. We’re going to get through this.”
“I know we will,” I said, tugging down the olive-green uniform of a Matrian warden. “Not our first rodeo.”
“They’re going to ask about the uniform—”
“I know what to say.” I stroked my fingers over the butt of my gun as Ashabee’s anti-ship missile launcher grew larger. It was much smaller than I had expected it to be. The whole thing sat on four tires that were braced by rocks to prevent it from rolling anywhere. I stared at it, resenting how such a small thing had forced us to perform such a risky move in the heloship, letting the petty anger distract me for a moment from what was ahead.