The Gender End

by Bella Forrest

  It turned out to be a good decision. I found a passage and took it, the steady sound of the snake slithering behind me filling my ears. Then I rounded a corner and came to a sudden stop, regardless of the creature chasing me.

  A group of boys were standing in the chamber, right in front of an airlock door, as though they had just come through. My brothers, wearing all black and horrible masks that covered their faces, making them into blank-faced soldiers.

  Without thinking about it, I tensed my muscles and activated the suit.

  Fire exploded over my skin, and I clenched my teeth together as I tried not to cry out. Now my hand did shake, uncontrollably—I could feel it, not see it—and I felt like I was going to die.

  The serpent slid in beside me and then reared back, its head moving up in the air and hovering at least six feet over my own, seeking back and forth. Somehow I managed to take a few steps out of the way, and then the other boys swarmed it. Some of them leapt up in the air, while others went low. Two grabbed it and began pushing it back, their legs and arms straining against its muscular body.

  One boy lashed out with his foot, kicking it in the jaw, while another pulled out a gun and began firing at its head. The snake started to coil around one of them, opening its mouth, when a fourth boy leapt up and, without apparent effort, thrust his fist right through one of the snake’s beady red eyes. His arm disappeared into the eye, and the snake writhed back and forth as he jammed his arm even deeper. Then the beast started to fall. The boy leapt off of him, landing in a crouch, his arm soaked with blood. But he just stared at the snake, motionless, not even bothering to wipe the blood away.

  I fought to breathe through the pain as the snake collapsed, trying to think about what I could do as the boys began standing up. I needed to get through that door to…

  My legs were beginning to tremble from exertion. I paused, and, slowly, each movement adding more fuel to the fire burning across my skin, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the vial Dr. Tierney had given me.

  Liquid to gas, she had said… Were those black masks that left only their eyes exposed gas masks, too? But they wore them all the time… even in Patrus. The greater visibility in this room meant that the toxic mist was much thinner here. Had Elena sent them into the caverns without any protection?

  My whole body was shaking now—a sensation I hadn’t felt since some of the tests I’d been given in the Facility—and I couldn’t spend any more time contemplating. I could run if I needed to. Back into the mists.

  Hoping it would work, I tossed the vial into the middle of the room, retreating. The glass broke, and several of the other boys turned toward the noise, converging on it. They raced to the spot, and then paused, their masked heads cocking back and forth. I had time to wonder whether Ms. Dale and Dr. Tierney had tested the serum, which was supposed to negate the effects of Benuxupane in the bloodstream within moments.

  Those closest were the first to fall, but after a few moments, they had all collapsed.

  I relaxed, letting the suit’s cover disintegrate, and sucked in a deep breath of relief as the fire faded to a tingle, like a thousand pins and needles were using me as a pincushion. I shook out my arms and legs and proceeded to the middle of the room, first to check that each of the other boys was okay, and then, one by one, to take off their masks, removing the camera headset combinations underneath and breaking them apart. I recognized quite a few of them from our time in the Facility together. It filled me with feelings—some sad, some angry, some that I didn’t have a name for—to see my brothers lying there, their faces weary and dirty. Maybe now they’d get a chance to rest and heal.

  There were ten boys in total. Four of them were older than me, in their early twenties, at least. I supposed I should call them men. The six younger ones, however, were the first to start to wake up.

  I stood in the center of the room, waiting as they slowly climbed up to their feet. Some of them were looking around, confused and bewildered, while others were rocking back and forth, shaking and crying as if they were in pain.

  “Who are you?” Colin demanded, and I remembered him as one of the boys who had turned quickly on Viggo.

  “Tim,” I replied simply. “We brothers.”

  Colin sneered and looked around, squinting as though just waking up.

  “How did you get us here, traitor?”

  “Not traitor,” I informed him. “I Tim. Your brother.”

  “No!” another voice shouted, and I turned to see a boy named Matthew pushing forward through the small group now standing up and milling around, his eyes dark and angry and confused. “You tried to hurt Desmond. She helps us! She gives us medicine so we—”

  “She dead. And she lie.”

  Matthew flushed red, his hand balling into a fist, and I took a step forward, my gaze menacing.

  “Queen using you,” I announced in a low voice.

  “No!” insisted Matthew, his face going red, and I took another step forward, crowding him.

  “Desmond using you. She work for queen. You work for queen. She send down here—no gas mask. Danger. Queen don’t care. You tool. Just like gun. You kill for queen. You die for queen.”

  “You’re a liar,” Colin screamed, and I felt his movement and turned, elbowing him in the jaw and knocking him down, the momentum of his charge at me carrying him a few feet away.

  “How you get here?” I asked as he slowly picked himself up. “Where you one hour ago? Who you with? What you eat? Can you ‘member?” More than anything, right now I wished I could talk as quickly and easily as the other boys, but the words… still weren’t coming to me. I pushed the frustration deep down. My words would reach them. They had to.

  Colin looked at me with anger as he slowly picked himself up, but Matthew was looking around the room in alarm.

  “I don’t remember,” he said.

  “Because Benuxupane,” I told them. “Tamed you, make you like dog. We not dogs, we people, and we not slaves. I show you, we—”

  Just then one of the older boys sat up, so suddenly it was like someone had put a coin in him to play music, like the jukebox I’d seen once—a long, long time ago, before Violet had tried to smuggle me to Patrus. The young man’s head jerked around the room, and his gaze landed on us. He stared for a moment, his expression shifting from blank to very angry, and I took a step away from him as he climbed to his feet, his breath coming in long, slow growls.

  “We help you,” I said, but the growl grew louder and he simply swung at me. It was easy to dodge him, and he stumbled past me, clutching his head and moaning… but the four other older boys on the ground were getting up in a similar fashion. Slowly, their eyes clouded with pain and anger.

  I knew then that I wouldn’t be able to convince those boys… those men. I could see in their eyes that they just wanted to hurt everyone around them. Just like the wardens at the water treatment plant. I looked around at the younger boys, who were also gazing on their fellows with confusion and panic, and shouted, “That way!”

  Then I planted my feet and turned. I could buy them time to run away. I sidestepped an incoming blow and landed a kick to the closest one’s shoulder, knocking him to his knee, his hand coming down to stop him from toppling over.

  Jumping up, I stepped on his back and spun off it, extending my leg. A shudder ran up my leg, letting me know I had hit my target, and I landed on my feet. The second boy was down, grabbing his jaw. The third boy grabbed me—too much was happening at the same time for me to react to everything—and I gritted my teeth as I felt his grasp through my suit, trying not to scream in pain as his hand tightened around my arm, making it feel like someone was dragging a knife across my skin.

  My free arm snapped out and I poked him in the eye, a sharp jab, and he dropped my arm, screaming and grabbing for his face. I couldn’t even feel relief for a moment as the fourth man stepped around him. I expected him to punch at me, but felt his leg move like a brushing against my skin. I dove and rolled over the leg sweep
he performed, my back erupting in agony as I rolled across the floor and back onto my feet, heading after the boys where they had moved down the tunnel.

  Keeping up with them was easy. They were shouting to each other loudly and in a panic as they moved, and I followed their voices.

  “Don’t go in mist!” I shouted ahead to them. “Dangerous! You hurt!”

  Roars erupted from behind me as I ran, and I picked up the pace. The wall and voices ahead continued to curve around, and eventually led to another tunnel, which forked. On one side I could see a gathering of creeping mist as it went down, and the other fork seemed to rise out of it. I hoped the younger boys had taken my advice.

  Listening for the roars coming down the tunnel behind me, I steeled myself and went invisible one more time, biting my lip as the pain and the tremors came back, worse than before. I crouched down, my legs already burning, and fumbled on the tunnel floor for a rock. Or a dirt clod. Or a shoe. Anything.

  The pounding footsteps of the older boys came closer, then closer still. I tried to feel where they were even through the ache burning over my skin—the timing needed to be perfect…

  I wasn’t sure it was perfect, but I was improvising. When the noises reached a critical level, I threw the dirt clod in my hand down the misty fork of the tunnel, aiming for the walls. It made a loud clattering noise just as the berserkers rounded the corner—and I saw them all turn, like animals seeking prey, and take off after the noise.

  I didn’t wait to see if they would turn around. I took the other tunnel, relaxing my body out of invisibility and letting out a shaky breath. I followed it through to another airlock, where I was relieved to find the younger boys standing in a confused huddle. Far behind us now, a few roars sounded, faded and muted, and didn’t grow louder. I hoped that whatever was in the toxic mist would knock them out or drive them away soon… rather than killing them. But there was nothing I could do about that now. We had to fix things to keep more people from being hurt. I tried to focus on that.

  “I trick them,” I said shakily to the younger boys. “Us—quiet. Don’t know if they come back.”

  They all looked cautiously up at me, seeming to take things in.

  “You stayed behind,” Matthew said softly, and I shrugged.

  “You brothers. Keep safe.”

  Matthew and Colin exchanged looks and then turned away, gathering the other four boys into a small circle. I heard them whispering furiously amid their huddled group, and felt a nervous tremor run through me, knowing there was nothing I could do about it. It was up to them whether or not they’d trust me.

  The whispering died down after a short time, and they turned to look at me.

  “Can you prove it? About the medicine and Desmond?”

  “Now?” I asked, and they nodded solemnly. I shook my head. “No data chip. But… you help me. I show you queen using you. If wrong, you kill me. Deal?”

  Matthew and Colin exchanged looks, and then looked around at the other boys. After a moment, they nodded.

  “Deal.”

  My smile grew, and I nodded approvingly. “Good. Now… who open door?”

  Colin looked around and then moved over to the door, taking a moment to shake his shoulders before placing his fingers against the door’s lipped overhang. I studied this for a moment, and then shook my head.

  “Wait,” I said, walking near to him, remembering how those monkey things had gone after the door. I moved him over to the other side of the door and pointed at the hinge. “Pull out here—weakest part of door.”

  Colin examined it, and then nodded, and several of the other boys raced over to help as he began to pull and strain, trying to remove the hinge. On the other side we’d have to punch through, but it wouldn’t be so hard with all of us working together.

  All I could think was that Violet was going to be very surprised when she saw how we were going to help her take the palace.

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  34

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  VIOLET

  Ms. Dale led the way, her flashlight barely cutting through the mist. I moved behind her, gun drawn and ready to fight, but it seemed everything had died down a bit since the earlier frenzy. Still, I knew now what was lurking in these caverns, and it didn’t set my mind at ease. And the mist certainly wasn’t helping. Maybe the horrible creatures we had seen and heard weren’t chasing us because they had our teammates cornered somewhere and… I shut the thought down. There was no way of knowing. We had to keep to the plan.

  We eventually found one of the long, thin tunnels that connected caverns and often led to airlock chambers. It did indeed lead to an airlock door, and I stared at it, realizing that without Thomas, we couldn’t get through it.

  “We should head back,” I said. “We might have these orders, but—”

  “I’ve got it,” Ms. Dale said, unfastening a pocket on her sleeve and pulling out a data chip. “Thomas gave it to me. It’s a crude hack, according to him, but now that Elena knows someone’s here, we can only be stealthy for so long.”

  I frowned and watched as she knelt down, plugging the chip into the port.

  “Why would Thomas give that to you?” I asked.

  She looked over her shoulder at me and sighed, turning back to the door. Blue lines were pulsing on the data chip, and she stood up and crossed her arms over her chest, watching it.

  “Thomas and I had a very frank discussion before we left for this mission,” she announced softly. “You know that we… developed contingencies.”

  “I know that,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Unless… Were there other contingencies, not just the ones that we all discussed? Why? What for?”

  “Keep your voices down,” Morgan whispered, and I turned to see her at the entrance of the tunnel, peering out into the mist, her posture alert and wary.

  “Sorry,” I said, lowering my voice. “That still doesn’t change my question.”

  “Violet…” Ms. Dale said, her voice tired. “We didn’t want anyone to be unduly concerned. We just figured when things went wrong, we’d need to control where the pieces landed.”

  “What were you expecting to go wrong?” I asked, but I was afraid to know the answer.

  Ms. Dale looked at me, and then smiled.

  “I’m proud of you. You know that, right?”

  I blinked at her, baffled by the way the conversation had shifted. It unbalanced me.

  “No,” I said, deciding to turn into the skid. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Violet, you were one of my best students. You trained harder than the rest, had more fire and determination in your eyes, and I knew that you would be a great warden one day. But the girl who stands before me makes the Violet I trained pale in comparison. You’re fierce, yes, but more than that—you care. You care so much and so deeply that sometimes I hurt for you, knowing the burden that rests on your shoulders.”

  She paused, and I could tell she wasn’t finished, so I waited.

  “I promised myself that I would do everything in my power to keep you and Viggo safe. So that when this was all over, you and he could be together, in love. In order to keep that promise, I realized the odds of your survival were far greater apart than together.”

  I was taken aback by her words, but it still didn’t make sense to me.

  “What does that have to do with anything? Viggo and I are a great team.” I’d assumed that she and Henrik had asked us each to do separate parts of the mission because of our specific skills—not because of some secret strategy discussion about us endangering each other.

  Ms. Dale ignored the question as she moved around me, and I turned and realized the data chip was now glowing a bright green, a four-digit code in the door glowing. She hit a button, and then began turning the wheel.

  “That’s very true,” she said. “But the chances of us surviving and accomplishing our mission also dictated that you needed to be separated.”

  “I know that,” I grated. “Ther
e’s no reason to be secretive about that. But you’re acting like… You’re acting like you guys planned for one of us to die. Without talking to the rest of us.”

  She pulled the door open and called to Morgan, and I stepped into the airlock, feeling a bit dazed. Morgan stepped in behind me, and Ms. Dale came around the door, tucking the data chip back into her sleeve.

  “We had to consider possibilities, Violet,” she said evenly, but her eyes only met mine for a moment. “I know I should apologize for not being straightforward with you both.” I turned around as she talked and grabbed the hand wheel, pulling the door closed to seal us in. “I considered it for a long time. But with your marriage… Thomas said newlyweds were thirty-two percent more likely to sacrifice their own lives for each other, and predicted you and Viggo were actually at a higher percentage of doing so, as if all of us didn’t know that already. But he had a—OW!”

  My head snapped up to see Ms. Dale slapping her forearm. The door was still a few inches open, and as she pulled away her hand, I saw the crushed body of a green fly pressed against her suit. She shook her arm, dislodging the body, and then quickly pulled the door shut, sealing us in.

  Immediately, all thoughts of annoyance at Ms. Dale for withholding her reasoning from us fled my mind.

  “Let me look at it,” I said, but she brushed by me and hit the button on the door, pressurizing the airlock.

  “Let’s get inside first,” she said, her voice unconcerned as she stared at the blinking red light on the door. As soon as it turned green, she was rotating the wheel and moving inside the darkened lab.

  I quickly moved in behind her, checking the room for any sign of movement and finding none. The small room was constructed similarly to the last one—workstations in the middle, forming a circle, screens lining the outer walls. There was only one door this time, still sealed. Pulling off my bag, I opened it and began searching the contents for my first-aid kit. I pulled the egg out and sat it on a workstation. It was so cumbersome, things had a tendency to drop under it.