The Gender War Read online

  I had considered this. “Could you hack them?” I asked, and he shook his head, pushing his glasses up his nose with a finger.

  “Not from here—it’s a closed system. I’d have to be there to…” He trailed off, his eyes growing wide. “No,” he said emphatically. “No.” He turned to Amber. “You said you would leave me alone!”

  Amber shrugged. “I thought we could. But it looks like we need you there.”

  “Yeah, well, I need to live. I don’t know what you’ve got planned, but I will not go along with it, you hear me?”

  I nodded for a second, trying to find the reserves inside my adrenaline-flooded mind to deal with this on his level. Finally, I moved forward, leaning over Thomas until he squeaked in fear and tried to back away, feebly scooting his computer chair back a few inches. “Tabitha has my family,” I said, breathing in through my nose. “She will make them suffer before they die. Thomas, she has Quinn. She tortured him in front of Amber’s face. You’re the only one who can possibly increase their odds of survival.”

  “Thomas,” Amber said, her voice low with anger, “we have to get Tabitha. We’re going to get Violet’s family back, and we have a plan to take Tabitha down.”

  Thomas’ small eyes glanced to her, then back at my face. The man was shaking under my gaze. His shoulders were scrunched up tight, and he pressed his hand over his heart, as if checking to make sure it was still beating. “I will not—” he began.

  “Look,” I said, trying to be as cold and rational as I could. “Thomas, we need you to get into that castle. Tabitha knows we’re here. If Tabitha knows, then Desmond will know. If I don’t get there in time, they will kill my family, and then they’ll come for us here. Desmond will know you’re here, Thomas. And she will have you killed. And there will be nobody left to stop her… Or,” I breathed, feeling inches from either crying or strangling the man, “you can go with us now. Help get us into the palace. Help us get Quinn and my family back and stop Tabitha. Maybe she hasn’t told Desmond about our base yet. Maybe we’ll be in time to stop her from coming here. But we need you there.”

  I leaned back, taking some of the pressure off Thomas, but not letting my eyes leave his. The small man regarded me from behind his glasses, and I waited, holding my breath.

  After a moment, he breathed out noisily and met my gaze. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go with you. But… you’ll owe me one.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said softly, thinking about the picture in my bag. “I’ll owe you six.”

  Amber seemed to know what I was thinking. “Seven,” she said grimly. “Seven.”

  Thomas didn’t reply. Now that he’d decided, he just quickly detached the handheld from the cable and handed it to me, then clicked through his programs on the computer, finishing whatever it was he was doing.

  A knock on the door startled me, and I whirled, wondering if somebody had overheard the whole scene. I didn’t want any more complications. Not now.

  When I heard Jeff’s voice say, “Violet?” I breathed out in relief. Jeff was one of the most effective people I’d met, but he wouldn’t try to convince us to change our plan, even if he’d overheard it. I unlocked the safe room door and let him in.

  “Yes?” I asked. “Did you get ahold of Viggo?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” he said. “I’m currently trying to locate our inventory list for the handhelds that came from Mr. Ashabee’s armory so I can find out which one he took, but I’m not sure that list actually exists yet.”

  My heart, which had leapt with hope at the sound of his voice, felt leaden again. “Thanks for telling me. I don’t think I’ll be able to talk to him… ”

  “Before you leave for the palace,” Jeff finished, so smoothly that I barely even noticed what he was implying. When I did, I looked sharply up at him.

  “Jay talks very loudly,” Jeff said simply. “Can I be of assistance to you, Violet, or shall I take my leave? I’ve got plenty to do supervising those refugees.”

  I sighed. “Just keep trying to get ahold of Viggo. Tell him the situation. But…”

  My heart dropped as I realized there was something I desperately needed to say to Viggo. And this time, I really might not get another chance. “Could you give Viggo a message for me when he gets back?”

  “I can bring you a pen and paper,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, then found myself stopping, looking over at Thomas. “Wait… no… I think this might work better. Thomas, can you record a message for me? And leave it in a form that he can listen to?”

  Thomas rolled his eyes at me, but replied, “Yes, I can perform that incredibly simple task.”

  Before we started, I turned to Amber. “I think we should split up for this one,” I said. “I’ll finish this and walk Thomas down to the heloship. Can you go get—”

  Amber was already nodding, her face fierce, aware of this part of the plan. “I’d be glad to,” she said sharply, patting the gun at her hip, which she’d probably taken from her father’s armory, almost happily. She headed back up the stairs as Thomas told me, “It’s ready now.”

  It didn’t take long to record my message, which Jeff promised to deliver. I wanted Viggo to hear this from my own voice. And I wanted him to have something to remember me by, if… if… I wasn’t going to think about that.

  Afterward, I thanked Jeff, and then Thomas and I headed through the house toward the front lawn, our gait casual. “We’re just going to walk down as though we’re inspecting it,” I told him. “The heloship is operated by computer—why not have a computer genius check it out?”

  Thomas was sweating so hard by this time that I doubted he noticed my attempt to flatter him. We made it out to the lawn without anyone delaying us, however. At the press of a button, the heloship’s back door, which at first looked like just a panel in its curved side, folded down and open with a swoosh, making a little gangplank for us to walk up.

  “Now what?” Thomas asked irritably.

  “Now we wait for Amber,” I said, probably sounding irritable myself. “I’ll fill you in on the rest of the plan while we’re in the air.” I didn’t want any of the other members of our group wandering into the heloship and overhearing our plans. I looked around at the convex walls, still slightly boat-shaped. In the front, a huge, one-hundred-and-eighty-degree bubbled window bulged out around the controls, nearly surrounding the command center. It wasn’t spacious, but looked quite well designed.

  The pilot and co-pilot’s seats were set low in front of the window. Around it in a semicircle were several other chairs mounted to the wall, with seats that could flip down with a gentle pull, and two narrow doors—one straight back, through which we had come in from the cargo bay and troop carrier area, and one at an angle, which led to the lavatory. In the center of it all, a metallic table rose from the floor, the horizontal surface made of the same flat black plastic a computer screen might be. I wasn’t sure what it did, but it looked modern and fancy.

  I’d never been in a heloship before. Before this whole adventure started, I wouldn’t have ever expected to see the inside of something as crazy as this, let alone ride in one. But by this point, almost everything was like that. Now that we were in here, it was starting to sink in that this was actually happening. I thought back to my message to Viggo, hoping it was enough. Hoping he could forgive me for leaving him behind, even though I had to.

  I wondered, too, about Tim and Jay. I hadn’t seen them while I made my preparations, and although I knew Tim had been angry with me, I couldn’t help but feel hurt that he hadn’t even said goodbye. Jeff hadn’t known where they were, and I knew I couldn’t spare the time to go searching for them. But it was breaking my heart. I had to get back alive, I resolved more firmly to myself. This couldn’t be the last time my little brother saw me.

  There was a tapping sound, and I looked back at the door to see King Maxen, his face contorted with the indignity of it all, stepping up the gangplank, followed by Amber. The king’s wrists were handcu
ffed again, and a gag of what looked like torn-up curtains covered his mouth. But his eyes were rich with hostility for us as Amber prodded him up the aisle with her pistol.

  “He started shouting for help when we got to the lower floor,” Amber said icily, indicating the gag, “but thankfully, nobody uses the servants’ stairs anymore, so we got out without being seen. Sit in one of those seats,” she commanded the king, who did as he was told, muttering something under his gag.

  “Nice to see Your Majesty too,” I growled at him as Amber dropped silently into the pilot’s seat, flipping switches and turning dials. I heard the engines outside start up with a fluttering sound, like a plastic bag caught in the wind, which quickly grew into a high-pitched whine.

  “Ready?” she asked, and I nodded. As ready as I ever could be.

  Within moments, we were airborne, flying away from the mansion faster than I would have thought possible. I couldn’t see it from the back—there were no windows there—but I could feel the distance in my heart, a slow ache that seemed to deepen the farther away we flew.

  32

  Viggo

  Miles of flat, bland farmland stretched around me as I clutched the wheel of the little car. Owen and I had taken it out up the long underground tunnel that led to the fields from Ashabee’s private armory. Neither of us spoke much. In truth, I hadn’t really intended to invite Owen, of all people, on my scouting mission, but when I’d mentioned that I’d wanted to test-drive one of those cars, he’d looked so eager that I’d reluctantly agreed to let him tag along. I’d developed a grudging respect for the young man since he’d helped us escape from the Matrian palace. But I hated small talk, and I wasn’t about to start any deep discussions with this one either.

  We’d chosen a small car from Ashabee’s collection, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Although, with how modern, sleek, and clean this vehicle was—and how many weapons we’d packed into the backseat, just in case—I doubted we would fool anybody. But out here, there was nobody to fool. Nobody who wanted to approach us, anyway. We’d gone out hoping to see evidence of more refugees, meet more people, and find news, or at least some place we could hide out in case Ms. Dale’s group turned up nothing.

  So far, about an hour and a half in, we hadn’t found anything. The small farms had mostly been occupied, vehicles in their driveways. Some of them had tents pitched in front of them and in fallow fields, and people who were clearly refugees wandered desolately about, cooking over fires. Some of the farm buildings looked like something more sinister had happened—windows were shot out, a car overturned on its side. We avoided the little trail of smoke that billowed far away down one back road. I wondered if the Matrians had gotten to these places, or if groups of refugees who were less honest, or more desperate, than the one we’d encountered had just tried to take those holdings by force. For all we knew, they could have succeeded.

  We’d been thinking about turning back soon, but I had wanted to press just a little bit farther. Honestly, it was just good to press my foot to the gas and eat the miles up, letting my mind fade into the handling of the car—which was superb—and getting out of the atmosphere of tragedy that still hung around the mansion. Although it wasn’t as good as a ride on my motorcycle would have been, it definitely helped ease the tension and sorrow that seemed etched into my very bones these days.

  We came to a long stretch of dirt road without a single curve, yellowing cornfields on either side of us for at least five miles. “Hey,” I said, and looked at Owen with a smirk. He looked back at me, narrowing his eyes as though trying to understand what I meant. He jerked his head toward the road in front of us, eyebrows raised, when he suddenly got it.

  “Straightaway,” he said eagerly.

  I nodded. “Let’s see how fast this baby can go.”

  I hit the accelerator hard, and the small car revved into gear, purring smoothly, then making a roaring sound that was surprising for its size. Dirt rose up around us as I shifted up once, then twice, then three, four, five times… The cornfields whipping by were a blur, and the bumps in the road beneath us had mostly evened out.

  “75…” Owen was shouting, his eye on the speedometer. “80… 90… 95…” I kept my foot on the gas, relishing the speed, my mouth turning up in the kind of grin I hadn’t felt in a long time. I wish Violet were here for this, I thought.

  And then loud beeping blared through the car, and all the paranoia and close calls of the last few days awoke in my mind again at once. I hit the brakes so fast that the vehicle skidded for yards, the wheels spinning out on the dirt, so it was all I could do to keep the vehicle from spinning off the road into the cornfields.

  “What—” Owen said as the car ground to a halt and the sound continued. “That’s not the car…”

  There were no warning lights on the dash, nor was there anything descending on us from the sky… I finally realized what the noise was and groaned. “Dammit, it’s that blasted handheld.” I looked at Owen, who shrugged as if to say, “It’s not mine!” Which was true—he’d given his to Ms. Dale’s crew, which had prompted me to find a new one from among Ashabee’s ample supply. Why they hadn’t just gotten new ones… Well, that came down to poor planning.

  I answered the handheld. “Viggo here.”

  Jeff’s face appeared on the screen. If I hadn’t been working closely with the man for days now, I would have thought him impassive and mild as always. But now, I knew instantly that he was nervous, on edge. And anything that put Jeff on edge was enough to be worried about.

  “Viggo! I’m so glad we found the correct unit number. We’ve been trying to get ahold of you for about forty minutes.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  There was the slightest of pauses. Then Jeff bowed his head and said, “There’s no good way to tell you this, Viggo. Violet and Amber are headed to the king’s palace to meet Princess Tabitha. They’ve taken King Maxen and Thomas with them in the heloship.”

  I stared at the screen, stunned. Owen’s mouth had dropped open. “Violet took the heloship?” he said. “She can’t even fly it!”

  “Amber was piloting, I believe,” came Jeff’s worried voice from the handheld.

  I hadn’t managed to respond yet, because I was counting to ten, slowly, inhaling and exhaling evenly—just to quell the impulse to throw the handheld across the car. A dozen thoughts rushed through my mind at once. I needed to know why all this was happening. I needed to know what could possibly compel Violet to pull such a horrifying, foolhardy, suicidal stunt. She would never have done such a rash thing on her own, which meant that there was something… something terrible… that had forced her hand.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” I barked at Jeff. “I need to know everything.”

  Jeff coughed slightly. “Maybe that had better be left to Violet. We’d been trying to contact you earlier, but she had to leave before I could reach you. She left you a message, though. Now that I have your handheld’s unit number, I can transmit it.”

  “Do it,” I said, trying not to let my impatience with Jeff’s long-windedness leave me screaming at the screen.

  I looked at the screen as the message loaded, then put Jeff’s call on hold and pressed the button to play the message. Violet’s face appeared on the screen, and I felt relieved just to see her alive, even if it was about forty minutes ago. Her gray eyes were hard, scared, and determined as they looked out toward me. She looked deeply sad. She swallowed before speaking close to the microphone, and I held the screen close, turning away from Owen.

  “Viggo,” she began, “I’m sorry to leave like this… I’m sorry I didn’t get to say this in person. We tried getting ahold of you but it just didn’t work. I didn’t have time to wait any longer.

  “Amber and Quinn were captured before they ever got out. Quinn was tortured in front of Amber, and she gave them everything. Don’t blame her—I doubt I could’ve kept quiet either, if I were in her place. Viggo, Tabitha sent Amber back to us with a message: she wants me,
the egg, and the king in exchange for Cad and his family. My family. I couldn’t leave them there to die… especially not when Tabitha already knows where we are hiding out. It’s only a matter of time before they come for us, so I figured, let’s take the fight to them first—when they least expect it.

  “I know I’m walking into a trap, but I’m not doing it empty-handed. Tabitha thinks she has the upper hand, but she’s in for a surprise. Please believe me when I say I haven’t given up hope. This isn’t a suicide message, Viggo.”

  Then Violet’s eyes turned softer and warmer. “God, I’m so terrified right now. To be honest, I’ve spent the last hour wishing you were by my side the whole time. But I think it’s probably better this way. Don’t come after me, Viggo. If… if it goes bad, the rebellion, everything we’ve worked for, they’ll need you alive. And I need you alive, to take care of Tim, to fix things and make things right… and so I can go on living. And if I get back… when I get back in one piece…” She swallowed, then looked directly into the camera.

  “I’m so sorry I haven’t said it to you sooner—I accept your proposal. Yes. My answer is yes. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, even if it turns out to be short. I want to be your wife and fix this country so we can have that little cabin in the woods somewhere…” Her eyes stared straight into the screen, as though she saw me watching, knew how much this filled me with joy even as my heart broke at the thought that I might lose her now.

  “I have to go,” Violet finally said, gulping. “But I promise, I will find you, as soon as it’s done. I love you, Viggo… Always. Don’t forget that.”

  And then the message was over. I breathed again, realizing I’d been holding my breath.

  “Like hell,” I found myself saying to her message, as though she were right in front of me spewing this nonsense. “Like hell I won’t come after you.”

  I’d almost forgotten about Owen in the passenger’s seat until he echoed my thoughts. “We can’t let her go in there alone,” he said. “That’s insane. They’ll all just get killed. We can’t let that—”