The Gender End

by Bella Forrest

  “Don’t,” I said, the sharp edge of warning in my voice, and he stopped, looking at me. “We don’t know what’s on the other side of that door.”

  The king immediately let go of the wheel and turned around, scowling at me. Like a true coward, however, he turned and began yelling at his wardens rather than addressing me directly.

  “How could you just let them get the drop on us? I’m your king! It’s your duty to keep me safe!”

  Mark, Viggo’s former second in command, turned away and looked at us.

  “We have this handled,” he stated flatly. “And the king needs his weapon if he’s going to survive in this place.”

  He stooped over to pick it up, and Owen reached over the clearly dazed Peter to grab his arm. His face was filled with warning, eyes flashing with violence.

  “Don’t do it.”

  “What are you doing here, Mark?” Viggo asked, taking a step forward, his voice softer now, almost concerned. Mark shot him an angry look.

  “The same thing you should be doing,” he retorted, pulling his arm out of Owen’s and taking a step back. “Following our king’s orders.”

  “Mark…” Viggo said, trailing off, clearly at a loss for words.

  Viggo, I’m in the system. Thomas’ voice only buzzed in our ears, and as one, we turned to look at him. Mark’s eyes flipped between us, unable to hear what we were saying but watching our attention move. Thomas continued to speak, his mouth moving but producing no sound, except in our earbuds. This is a really good system. Really good. Like… it shouldn’t even be in this antiquated terminal, sort of good.

  Tell me something worth knowing, Thomas. I realized Viggo had turned his subvocalizer back on. Mark stared at him a moment, watching his mouth move, a scowl twisting his features.

  “What are you doing?”

  “None of your business,” I said. “Stay quiet until we decide what to do with you.” The man glared at me, but didn’t say anything else.

  While Viggo and Thomas talked between themselves, I kept a close eye on Maxen and his group. Peter groaned loudly again, and Owen took a step back. Thomas continued to speak as if he hadn’t noticed the tension in the room.

  Well, I’ve found an itemized species list, he said. The next room is a botanical one, attached through a long tunnel to something containing… He paused, looking at a list. Some sort of spider species, and centipedes.

  I shuddered at the thought of centipedes, my skin already beginning to crawl from the feeling of a thousand phantom legs running over me. Panic almost swallowed me right there, the sensation was so real in my mind, but I managed to refrain from dropping my gun and batting at myself. I still had nightmares about getting bitten or being buried alive in dirt that turned into thousands of wriggling bodies.

  Violet, Ms. Dale’s voice came through the subvocalizer, and I jerked my mind from the dark place it had gone. While Viggo is busy, let’s start tying the king’s group up. Make them go to the corner of the room—we can leave them here if we have to.

  Following her cue, the rest of our group advanced on the king and his men, all our weapons trained on them. I spoke for our side, knowing that most of my companions’ subvocalizers were still on.

  “All right, guys, you’re going to move to the corner of the room. We don’t want you to have to get hurt.”

  Dammit, Thomas said, as the group of them begrudgingly began to shuffle toward the corner.

  What is it? Ms. Dale demanded.

  I can’t get control of their system, he replied. This system is flawless. Apparently there’s a master computer in one of these workstations located closer to the palace, and that’s the one we would have to use to take control. There’s nothing I can do about—

  He stopped as the screen went dark. A second later, Elena’s smiling face filled it, and a pang of fear shot through my gut.

  “Attention, intruders. Perhaps you felt as clever as a cat stalking a mouse in a cellar, confident of your dinner for the evening, but allow me to twist this little scenario for you and invite you to be the dinner.”

  The screen turned off, and I heard the sound of all of the airlocks hissing, as the light on the inside began to flash yellow. The wheels began to turn without the aid of human hands, and I shoved my gun into my pocket, suddenly unable to worry about the king and his crew.

  “Masks!” I shouted, and pulled my mask out from under my arm, fumbling with the straps but managing to get it on.

  The moment our guns were no longer trained on them, the group of wardens scattered, picking up weapons and grabbing gas masks from where they had set them down. Mark scrambled forward, and before I could do a thing about it, he’d snatched up his gun and handed it to Maxen, helping the king pull his mask on before pulling his own on over his face.

  “We have to run!” the king shouted through his mask, clearly in a panic, and for a bare moment I felt relief that they were clearly too worried about the escalating situation to be able to try to win back control of the room from us.

  “No—Mark—stay here,” Viggo pleaded his former comrade, abandoning his argument with the other man. “We’re safer in numbers.”

  “You don’t get a say,” Mark said frostily. “We are following the king. If you’d like to remember your duties and join us, by all means do so, but—”

  “Line up at both doors and try to keep anything from getting through them!” Ms. Dale shouted, her voice ringing loud in our ears, interrupting Mark and pulling her rifle out while adjusting the strap over her shoulder. “No need for silence now.”

  I slid my pistol into the holster and drew my rifle around my body, moving to a spot between the two doors so I could turn and fire easily. The outer set of doors hadn’t opened yet—the wheel was still spinning, slowly enough to let the fear within my gut blossom into terror that I held at bay with action.

  I dropped down to a knee, and within seconds Mark and the other wardens were moving over to me, temporarily accepting our truce, taking up positions in front of the left door, while Tim, Amber, and Logan took up positions at the right. Maxen slipped around us until he was behind me, but as I turned, I saw Thomas pointing a gun at him, waving him back toward the line. He frowned, and then moved next to Mark. Viggo, Owen, and Ms. Dale stationed themselves at the other door, with Thomas lurking in between the three groups—all of us with pistols drawn.

  The outer doors started to swing open, my eyes snapping to them, and I pulled the stock of the gun up to my shoulder, bracing myself. Viggo and the others did the same, and as the doors opened fully, mist curling out of them, I held my breath, waiting hopelessly for something—anything—to stop them.

  I heard Viggo shout in warning and turned, seeing a flash of something silver, and Viggo opened fire as a silver python slid in from the door behind us. I noticed the fat lump squirming within its belly, just a few feet under its head—likely this was the monkey creature that had been in pursuit of us—and a nauseated feeling grew in my stomach as the people defending that side of the room pelted the creature with bullets. Its body jerked as Viggo fired, and then everyone on that side was firing into the wide-open door. I returned my gaze to the other doors, searching for movement in the tunnels ahead and finding none.

  A quick glance at Viggo showed me that Ms. Dale’s plan was working. Already the bodies of pythons littered the floor, silver coils blocking parts of the entrances. Owen tossed something out the door, and an explosion followed. I looked back toward my door. It was still clear.

  “Viggo,” I shouted. “This door is clear. We should start falling back to—”

  Something detached from the ceiling on the right and swung in, landing in a crouch in the area between the two lines and coming up swinging. One of the Porteque men on the left caught the blow, and there was a sickening crunch—and then his body fell to the ground, the straight line of his neck interrupted by an obvious break. A young man wearing black pants, a black sweater, and a black balaclava mask twisted around to face us, his hands still in fis
ts.

  Elena had sent the boys to fight us.

  Before I could even react, Maxen began firing at the boy, catching him in the shoulder and chest. He went down, and Maxen shouted, “Let’s go!” before darting through the door on the left. The Porteque man closest to me started to turn toward me, bringing his gun around, and I shot him without hesitating, dropping him to the ground. Tim raced past me toward the fallen boy, moving to check his pulse.

  The others began to follow Maxen just as something dark and huge exploded into the room on the other side, clawing its way over the body of a python with a hunting howl. The fear that sound sent through me was nothing, though, compared to something I almost felt before I heard—the sound of buzzing.

  “Run!” Ms. Dale roared, and I saw her toss something at the monkey-wolf creature as Tim came to push me up, shouting for me to move. I didn’t even catch a glimpse of which door we went through, just scrambled through the airlock, trying to avoid the explosion.

  There was a loud bang as Ms. Dale’s grenade went off. My ears rang from the force of it, and we all stumbled. I shook my head to clear it, climbing back to my feet and helping Tim up beside me. I moved over and did the same for Morgan, the haze that had drifted into the room through the open airlocks making it difficult to see anything. The buzzing grew louder.

  “We have to go!” Morgan said, and she grabbed my hand, dragging me with her.

  Then we were running, out and away through another cave, running from the buzzing of the red flies. They’d have plenty to feed on in that room with all the bodies, and I fervently hoped that would buy us a little bit of time, just enough for all of us to get out safely. I ran as fast as I had ever run, scanning wildly through the mist with my flashlight.

  The ground was uneven, and I stumbled and stubbed my toes and should’ve fallen a dozen times—but somehow I was still up and moving. I drew to a sudden stop when I almost impacted with a wall, and took a few steps back, breathing heavily and listening for sounds to tell me what was happening and where the next door was.

  Looking around, I gasped and almost dropped my flashlight when I saw Morgan appear suddenly out of the mist, my hand twitching for my gun. I could see her eyes darting around, looking for others, and I shook my head. I turned on my subvocalizer.

  Viggo? I wheezed into the comm-link. There was a burst of static, and then nothing. I tried it again, several more times, each time growing a little more frantic.

  “It’s no use,” Ms. Dale’s voice came out loud as she approached, much like Morgan had—seemingly from nowhere—giving me the cut-off signal with her hands. “We’re either being jammed or the rock is interfering with our signal. Either way, I haven’t seen anyone else. Have you?”

  I shook my head and straightened up, realizing I was shaking, though I didn’t know whether it was from adrenaline or from rage.

  “No. And Maxen shot that boy and got away. We need to—” I stopped as a shadow emerged from the mist behind Ms. Dale, my gun going up and firing a warning shot near it. The shadow shifted and quickly drew away as Ms. Dale whipped around, her gun raised.

  For several moments everyone was still, waiting and watching. Then Morgan moved past us, slowly, pushing slightly into the mist. She stood very still for a second, and then turned.

  “It’s gone,” she whispered, moving back toward us. “I think you scared it, but it can’t last long. What were you saying?”

  It took me a moment to remember what I had been saying. My heart was still pounding, and the adrenaline rush was making my skin tingle with alertness.

  “That we need to find Maxen and get him off the playing field.”

  “Wrong,” Ms. Dale said, shaking her head. “My first priority is to get to Elena. Let’s stick to the plan.” I rubbed my forehead.

  “You’re the primary for this mission,” I said, and she nodded. We’d ranked everyone on the team from primary to tertiary, so in the event we got split up, those who were of the highest rank would take control over the others and lead them on the next part of the mission. It was to ensure that we had a backup plan, and that both of our objectives were achieved. “So this is team ‘stop the queen.’”

  Morgan swallowed. “We were all assigned to that mission anyway,” she said, her face rueful, and Ms. Dale smiled wanly.

  “What are the odds of that?”

  “That we got separated right into our mission group… or that all three Matrian women are going after the queen?” I asked, and she blinked, and then gave a ghost of a smile.

  “I didn’t even consider that last part. I was going with the first.”

  “Well, my answer is, who cares?” I replied, shouldering my rifle. “We need to get moving. If we can, we need to find a way to get her down here and closer to us, where the playing field is less to her advantage.”

  Ms. Dale had opened her mouth to reply—then she seemed to spot something on the wall behind me, and moved toward it instead. The mist billowed and shifted around her as she moved, and I saw a cabinet on the lab wall, filled with several familiar canisters. She pulled them out, five in total, and passed two to me and two to Morgan, taking one for herself.

  “Good times,” I said when she handed it to me, unable to stop myself from thinking of the time Ms. Dale had taken me into The Green for training, before I entered Patrus. Ms. Dale smiled wryly.

  “Good times, indeed,” she replied. “Let’s move. We don’t have access to Thomas’ map, and this place just got worlds more dangerous.”

  I nodded and began walking, keeping a hand against the wall and following it, trying not to jump at the various growls and sounds erupting all around us. Maybe, just maybe, we could get through this one unnoticed and unscathed.

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  32

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  VIGGO

  When all hell broke loose and the buzzing started, my first thought was to chase Tim as he ran after Violet, leaping over the Porteque man she’d shot, my legs moving furiously. Then I caught a glimpse of Peter moving through the door on the left, and something took over—a snap decision, an instinct from deep within. All I knew was I couldn’t leave that man running around the caves. He hated Violet, hated me, and he would hurt her to get to me. The thought of him and her ending up in this horrific place together after I’d let him pass by was unbearable.

  The mist was dense, but I followed the dark shape of his shadow, my gun still in my hands, my feet pounding on the uneven ground. Without missing a single step, I ejected the magazine and slammed in a new one, continuing my pursuit. I kept his form in my sights through the swirling mist, but always felt one step behind.

  Someone’s scream lanced through the cave, and I paused, my ears straining. Sweat had accumulated on my brow. I wiped it off impatiently, my chest heaving. The scream stopped suddenly, and I heard growling and the wet snapping of teeth, but the sound was muted, seemingly coming from somewhere in the distance.

  Licking my lips, I looked around, my listening hard for any sound of Peter’s footsteps but finding none. I moved forward. I had been running for at least a minute, maybe closer to two, and I still hadn’t hit the edge of this cavern. It must stretch out widely, and the lighting had changed to the soft blue of ultraviolet light, making the fog glow an eerie green.

  I moved forward through the mist and stopped again when I heard a grunt, somewhere off to my left. I took another step forward, and then froze when I saw a dark orange vine cutting across the moss just inches from my left foot. My heart pounded as I slowly withdrew my foot to avoid contact with it, Alejandro’s warnings ringing loudly in my ears. The orange vines were attached to a carnivorous plant, one that used the vines to ensnare prey.

  “God, what is this?” somebody muttered, and I immediately recognized Peter’s voice, a rush of cold rage going through me. I stepped over the vine and kept an eye out for any more. The mist swirled and spun as I stepped through it, and I waved a hand in the air, trying to get it to settle. It thinned some, and I could make
out someone struggling a few feet away.

  I stepped over another vine, keeping a healthy distance from it, and then I saw him. An orange vine was wrapped around his leg, steadily moving up to encircle his torso. The man was bent over, fiddling with his shoe, while the vine was already excreting slime that acted as a digestive juice. Eventually, according to Alejandro, the vine would drag Peter back toward the heart of the plant, where he would be deposited in a giant pod and left to be digested, the plant growing stronger as it fed on his remains.

  As I watched, the vine flexed and grew tighter around the man’s midsection, making him cry out in pain. The slime was covering his torso now, his clothes beginning to disintegrate. He continued to struggle, which only caused it to exude more digestive slime, and I hesitated.

  This man was about to die, either by my bullet or the plant’s slime, and for a long moment, I considered just walking away. It would be a painful, gruesome death, but one that he deserved. He was a monster who tormented women. Surely he deserved this. I should just walk away.

  Yet as my conscience was decrying those dark, hideous voices crying out to leave him, he stood up victoriously, a satisfied smile on his face and a knife in his hand. Before I could even shout warning, he began cutting the vine.

  You should never ever cut an orange vine, Alejandro had told me.

  At first, nothing happened as he sawed into the fibrous vine, trying to cut it off.

  “Stop,” I said, stepping forward through the fog. Peter paused only for a moment, looking at me like he didn’t even register my presence, before he began to cut deeper. The plant flexed under his hand, and white, milky liquid began to ooze from the cut. At first it only dripped, but as he sliced deeper, it sprayed out, catching him in the face.

  Peter’s skin erupted in burning blotches, and I could actually hear the sound of his flesh sizzling. The fiery rash spread rapidly down his neck, chest, and arms, and he opened his mouth to scream before collapsing on the ground in agony, his body jerking and flopping around as he tried to tear at his flesh.