The Gender Plan Read online

  Viggo and Ms. Dale would enter the city separately, not only to take down two guard posts, but in order to secure two exits for us in case something went wrong. We had debated this one for a while, but in the end, we’d decided we had to risk both teams at once: the more soldiers we could get moving in on the plant, the more likely we would be able to put a stop to whatever Elena’s plan was. It didn’t make it feel any less like a suicide mission, and as I stood there, looking at some of the most important humans in my life, I felt the uncertainty hit me, the anxiety of the real possibility that someone in front of me was going to die tonight.

  I moved over to Jay and Tim, immediately kneeling down and opening the bags lying in front of them, following an impulse to try to just… prepare them as much as possible, in the best way I could in the short time that remained.

  “Violet, you can trust us,” Jay said.

  “Everything on list. Here.” Tim pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, smiling at the fact that he had presented me with the list I’d written for him.

  “I’m checking down here,” I said, rummaging through the items in both young men’s bags and mentally checking off the list again. It took me a few minutes to sift through all the items—but everything was there. “You got everything,” I needlessly informed my brother and Jay, while they threw each other annoyed looks. “Good job.”

  Then I pulled them both in for a hug, taking special care with Tim. “Please try your best to be safe,” I whispered. “And smart. Nothing beats being smart.”

  “We promise,” said Jay, his voice tight.

  “Promise,” echoed Tim.

  I held them for just a few seconds longer, savoring the hug, and then released them. “Good luck,” I said, watching them as they scooped up their bags and headed over to the cars, each one of them moving to a different vehicle to deposit his bags.

  I felt a strange mix of pride and apprehension flowing through me at that moment. I was so proud of how much they had accomplished for themselves, in spite of their traumatic experiences. They kept on fighting, unwilling to yield or compromise. On the other hand, they were heading off to a battle with no defined rules. I was worried about them.

  Viggo caught me in a hug as he went by, catching me by surprise. He lifted me up, spun me around once, and then dropped a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, his voice rumbling from his chest.

  “I know,” I replied.

  Then he was gone—moving toward his car and climbing into it, Tim by his side in the passenger seat. He put the vehicle in gear, graced me with one more look and a wave, and then drove off, heading down the narrow lane to the main road that would lead him directly into the city.

  I watched them go, trying to convince myself they would be all right. I was so absorbed in thought that I didn’t notice Owen suddenly beside me, his eyes also following the red taillights that were all pulling away from us down the road. There was a hunger in his blue gaze, and I knew how he felt.

  Still, we hadn’t really talked since the incident with Desmond. Apparently, forgiveness had been the easy part—I knew I cared about Owen too much to stay angry at him forever. I knew I would still fight beside him. But being comfortable next to each other again? Comfortable enough to laugh and joke as though everything were okay? The weight of what had happened was still too great. It held my words inside me, taking the levity out of me every time I saw him.

  “Let’s go,” I said softly, and then I turned, heading toward the door, the basement my final destination. There was a lot to do, and not a lot of time to get it done.

  20

  Viggo

  The view down the scope of my rifle wasn’t promising, but it wasn’t unexpected, either. The hip-high barricades formed three lines—the first one sat about eighty feet away from where the buildings started. It was wide and deep, where the second one was narrow and only formed a semi-circle across the road. The last one was flat, a line across the road where the city ended just as abruptly as the farmlands began. The parts of the city that they had blocked off were heavily populated and had little open space between buildings—which had made it easier for the Matrians to cut off most escape routes. Beyond the barricades, it was hard to see anything. Some places in the city seemed to be lit with streetlights, while many of the areas were dark, the buildings just silhouettes against the night sky. Even from this distance, I could see the flickering light of fires here and there. It didn’t look pretty.

  There were twelve wardens milling around inside the barricades. I didn’t need the scope to see them. The massive lights that had been attached to the roofs of both adjacent buildings shone extra bright, lighting up the road on either side. I tracked one olive-clad woman as she headed toward the building Violet had identified as their base.

  “We’re in position,” Ms. Dale reported over the main radio channel, her voice muted and soft, almost as though she were whispering. I didn’t blame her—I also felt like whispering, even though we were hundreds of feet away. Truth was, her target was the more difficult one to take, so I could understand. To compensate, she had more soldiers than I did, but I still didn’t envy the task.

  Taking the guard post was the part of our mission plan I liked the least, but then again, it was the one I knew the most about in terms of defenses. It was too late to rethink anything now, anyway. I looked around at my team, all lying next to me in the thick, decomposing cornstalks of the field we were hidden in. A massive harvester loomed behind us, providing additional cover, as the rest of the area was barren, devoid of life and trees. I knew there had been some at some point, but it was clear the guards had been busy cutting down any tree impeding their view. While their focus might have been on keeping people in, they weren’t naïve enough to think nobody could get them from behind.

  Margot found my gaze and offered a tight, nervous smile before turning and sighting down the sniper rifle she had been given. Cad was lying beside her, his own rifle pointed toward the barricades, but his eyes were on Margot. I could tell he was worried. We all were, really. Cruz, Gregory, Harry… there were fifteen of us out there—a mix of refugees and Liberators—most of them men and women I had had a hand in training. The air around them ran from excitement to nervousness, but the commitment was there. For now, anyway. Regretting that there hadn’t been time to say just a few more words to them, I exhaled and turned back to the barricade, trying to clear my mind of all the apprehension.

  “Roger,” I replied softly to Ms. Dale, pressing my gloved thumb and my forefinger together to transmit. “We’re ready.” I switched over to the team channel and pressed my fingers together again. “Get ready, guys.”

  Because there were so many moving parts to our mission, we had to work on multiple channels. Violet, Henrik, Ms. Dale, Amber, Thomas, and I were all authorized to be on the main one, trading information and modifying plans as needed. However, Ms. Dale, Amber, and I would probably spend most of our time on the channel with our team members, while Violet, Henrik, and Thomas would switch between them, delivering updated orders and, more importantly, information through our two remaining drones.

  “In position. Viggo, be aware that there are ten more guards in that building.” I pressed my eye back to the scope, angling the gun up slightly, as Violet spoke into my headset. Violet’s drone was hard to make out in the darkness above the street, but I caught a glimpse of it as she began lowering it into position.

  A round cage jutted out from the bottom—one of the innovations Violet and Thomas had spent several days conceptualizing and putting together. The design was deceptively simple, just grenades that had long strings threaded through the pins, so that when the doors beneath them opened and they dropped, the pin would pull and the grenades would explode. Hopefully, it would work.

  “Releasing in five, four, three, two, one.” As she counted down, I held up my hand and followed along in my head. Through the scope, I could see the guard I had been tracking stop short of the building entrance and look down. The
re was a pause, and then her head snapped back up, her mouth moving. I couldn’t tell what she said, but the look of panic on her face made it easy to read. She started to run. Three seconds later, the six grenades Violet had dropped from the cage went off, and I lost my mark in the flaming blast of the explosion.

  “I missed the vehicle!” Violet exclaimed in disgust, and I acknowledged automatically, then turned to Margot and the rest of my troops. “Two are down, but that’s it.” I could hear Violet’s disappointment, and I understood it. She had wanted her drone contraption to be more effective, if only to help me out.

  “Margot,” I said, pushing the sentimental thought out of my head. She was already peering down the scope, and I heard the soft puff of air as she squeezed the trigger, the silencer muting the round. Instantly, this side of the barricade went dark as she struck her target—the massive light perched on the roof on the right side of the road.

  “Forward,” I ordered loudly, already feeling like we had lost precious seconds. I pushed up off the ground, cradling my rifle to my chest, and loped forward, keeping my body low. I could hear the rustle of clothes and grass as everyone moved with me, forming a long line.

  The next sound of a gunshot came from my line, the crack of it loud enough to drown out the early sounds of alarm from the enemies still standing.

  Seconds later, bullets began to whiz past, accompanied by the flash of fire from muzzles wielded by the women rushing toward us—at first in slow, random pings, and then picking up in speed, until the area was filled with a cacophony of pop pop pops, going off irregularly. I raced forward, keeping my feet high to avoid tripping on the uneven ground, and hip-fired at a woman starting to stand up from behind one of the concrete blocks that made the first barricade, catching her in the side. She dropped, her cry merely adding to the din of noise, and the firing increased.

  “The blast didn’t damage the entrance,” Violet reported through the earpiece. “More people are coming out.”

  “We need that first ring!” I transmitted to my team, switching before she’d finished speaking. “Don’t straggle! That makes you targets!”

  I didn’t pause in my run, but I did look to the left as I spoke, where I could see several wardens emerging from the damaged face of the building. I pushed forward, firing wildly at them as they came out, and they scattered. I was pretty sure I’d hit one, but it was hard to tell—my head was swiveling around looking for more enemies.

  Margot raced beside me, her long legs churning as she held her heavy sniper rifle high to her chest, her breath coming in harsh gasps. I turned, and shouted, “Keep moving!” as I angled for one of the barricades on the left side. A woman on the other side popped up from behind the barricade, swinging her gun around at Margot, and without thinking I shot her three times in the chest, a rush of adrenaline driving my hands.

  The sound of battle was growing, with shouts and gunshots echoing all around us, both our own and the enemy’s. I made it to the barricade, diving down below it as shots whizzed all around me. Margot was seconds behind, and she dropped down next to me, pressing her back to the three-foot-tall barricade. I looked around, checking to see where everyone was, and noticed that Margot and I were among the first to hit the first ring—the rest were still straggling behind, taking pot shots at targets.

  “Run, people!” I shouted into the microphone for the second time. “Teams, report!”

  “There are so many of them!” Margot shouted beside me, panting as she pulled out her handgun and clicked the safety off.

  “Just keep firing!” I replied, and then peeked up from the barricade to find my next target.

  “Tim, Tasha, myself, and about four more are on the right side,” reported Gregory through the channel. Even though the earbud sat directly in my ear canal, the sounds of battle and shouting were already starting to mix together, and threatened to drown him out.

  I fired twice, and then the gun clicked empty. Dropping down, I slid an extra magazine from the side pocket of my black cargo pants. I took another glance as I ejected the clip and slammed the fresh magazine in.

  “Cruz here. Harry, April, Marna, and… two other people are here with us in the center.” I grated my teeth together and fired a few more shots, narrowly missing a woman as she raced toward the second barricade. She grabbed cover just behind it, and I kept my gun trained on the area she had disappeared behind, searching for signs of movement.

  “Only Margot and I are on the left side! We need more people over here!” I transmitted as I scanned.

  “Cad here. We zigged when we should have zagged, and now we’re closer to Gregory. Should we try to send people to you?”

  I squeezed off a few rounds as another target crossed my line of sight. I wasn’t sure if I was the one to hit her, but she fell all the same. “No—Cruz, send me some of those extras you have.”

  “On it,” said Cruz.

  Adrenaline surged dangerously in my veins, and my eyes skated back and forth around the chaotic battlefield. Too quickly—I almost missed movement farther back along the road into the city. I did a double take, jerking back in time to confirm that the .50 caliber machine gun mounted to a truck was moving.

  “Viggo—”

  “FIFTY CAL!” I shouted over the din of the gunfire, cutting Violet off. Margot met my eyes, her own large with fear. I grabbed her, practically jerking her across my lap and then curling my torso over her body as the .50 caliber began to fire. The sound was akin to a cannon in my ears, a nonstop, relentless staccato, and red streaked across the sky, a sign of the tracer bullets they were using to help them better identify targets. I looked up in time to see one of the men hurrying toward me—Jeremy—go down, his body convulsing as the massive bullets tore through his body. I turned away from the bloody sight, cringing. At this time in our attack, we had no way of recovering the bodies.

  “WE HAVE TO MOVE,” I shouted to Margot, practically pushing her forward along the edge of the barricade. Violet’s cousin scrambled on her hands and feet. I followed, angling right and around. Concrete exploded behind me as the machine gun continued its relentless attack. I pressed my thumb and forefinger together, activating my microphone.

  “We’re pinned down,” I shouted over the roar of the guns. “Somebody take that gun out! Go around and to the sides!”

  “I have a better idea!” replied Cruz.

  I ducked down as shards of concrete rained down over my head, trying not to imagine the inevitable bullet finding its way through the barricade. “What is it?”

  Cruz didn’t respond. It was Violet who replied, after a long moment, “Cruz ran into the field.”

  “What?” I cast a look over my shoulder, and in the low light, I could see a figure loping across the field, heading back the way we came. “Damn coward.”

  “Try genius,” replied Cruz in the headset, surprising me. I scrambled forward a few more feet to the metal barrier Margot was crouched under, noting the lack of bullet holes. A quick check revealed a vehicle parked a few feet in on the other side, but beyond it, I could see the truck with the mounted gun, and the woman standing in the back, manning the machine gun.

  “What are you doing!?” I radioed him as I caught Margot’s eyes and pointed to the other side of the vehicle. She shakily got to her knees and peeked over, then ducked back down, her eyes wide.

  “Helping!”

  I grated my teeth together and released my fingers. It wasn’t worth arguing with him, but if we survived this, I was going to give him an earful about leaving us behind and going all cowboy. Leaning closer to Margot, I looked her in the eye. “Can you get her?” I asked.

  A vein was ticking hard in Margot’s neck, her lips parted as she panted. She was afraid, but even so, she nodded. “I can do it. Just watch my back.”

  I nodded, then, pulling my rifle up to my chest and sucking in a deep breath, gave her a look—one that said ‘GO.’ Margot swung up, using the barricade as a brace to steady her gun. I rose right behind her, firing on the surround
ing guards while she lined up her shot.

  A woman was racing from one barricade to another, but from my angle, I could see her. I aimed low, for her legs, and she pitched forward with a scream indistinguishable over the sounds of battle. Margot’s chin was pressed against the muzzle of her gun, and, just beyond her, toward the city, my eye caught a woman pressed against the corner of the building inside the second barricade. She was just drawing a bead on Margot when my bullet caught her in the left shoulder.

  The gun jerked in Margot’s hands, and then she ducked back down, her eyes squeezed shut, an expression of revulsion curling her mouth downward. The .50 caliber fell quiet. “C’mon,” I said to her, the silence spurring me into motion, and I leapt over the barricade, surging forward toward the second ring. It would only be seconds before someone replaced the woman who had been manning that machine gun—so we had to get to that vehicle. I pressed my back against the car, using the tires to hide my feet, and then swung around its tailgate as the sound of automatic gunfire again blasted into the night.

  Margot slipped up beside me, still panting, her eyes wild, and I realized that had been her first kill. If we made it out of this alive, I would make sure to get a moment alone with her to ensure she was all right, but for now… We were at war.

  I shot at a woman as she began to climb into the back of the truck, and she went down. On the other side, I saw another woman fall. The six remaining guards fired back, and I spun around as two began firing at me, the bullets pinging as they hit the vehicle.

  “Get down on the ground and shoot at their legs,” I said to Margot, and she shook her head, her face tight.

  “I can’t,” she cried, rubbing her eyes with her hand and jerking down farther as more bullets impacted the car. I heard the thick edge of desperation in her voice. I was worried, but I couldn’t stop to help her now.