The Gender End Read online

  Turning back, I confirmed what I already knew: the river on the south side of the tower was still there, and still green. Then I turned back again to confirm the other truth: the river I could make out there, flowing north, was clearly blue—and not a natural shade. In spite of all of the ambient light and direct sunshine, the river still managed to glow an unhealthy hue.

  Had there been any moisture in my mouth, it would’ve evaporated instantly. I raced over to the edge, slowing to a stop and then kneeling down next to it. I braced myself, and then, ever so slowly, began to peek over the edge.

  I had to stop as a wave of dizziness engulfed me. Leaning back, I exhaled, trying to calm the queasy twisting of my stomach, and then sucked in a deep calming breath, steeling myself. Then, leaning forward, I started with my eyes glued to the building, allowing them to slowly drift up and then over as I continued to lean forward.

  They traveled down the side of the platform—it was hard to tell how thick it was without any frame of reference, but I guessed the entire thing had to be at least twenty to thirty feet. Below it, the yellow-orange earth stretched out, and alongside that, just next to the tower, flowed the river, glowing that same eerie blue. I lifted my head and felt a sick churning sensation in my gut.

  There must be people inside this tower. Because they were somehow responsible for the toxicity of the Veil River.

  But how, or why? Were they aware they were doing it? Maybe they merely didn’t care. What were they doing inside to produce that level of pollution? And why wasn’t there any sign of a toxic zone like The Green—could it be that nothing could grow out here, even with water?

  If so, that meant there might not be people inside, and—

  A sudden movement behind me caused my muscles to react instinctively, and I dropped low. I felt something impact my hip, heard a small noise of surprise, and felt more than saw a would-be assailant tumble over me and start to pitch over the edge. On impulse—I wouldn’t have been able to do it if my rational mind had thought about it—I reached out and grabbed a handful of the white fabric suit the person was wearing and yanked with all my might.

  We both tumbled back onto the relative safety of the platform, but I was still mostly upright. He landed on his backside, giving me my first look at him. Or her. It was hard to tell under the white biohazard suit that seemed to encase them, including little booties over their feet. They were wearing a mask with a filtration device, but the visor was tinted to block out the sun.

  Reaching forward, I snatched the hood off, revealing a man with a round face and black, pencil-thin mustache. He blinked up at me, clearly surprised.

  “Who are you?” I asked, and his eyes grew wider. He reached for something on his belt—a black stick with a rounded top—and I scrambled back to put some distance between us, keenly aware of the edge behind my back.

  Then something jabbed me in between my shoulder blades, and the muscles in my body seized up as wave after wave of electrical energy was pushed through them. I recognized the feeling from the Liberator suit I had worn, only this charge was stronger and far more painful. For a horrible moment, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything save feel the agony. And then, all at once, it stopped, and I fell to the floor.

  I lay there, my muscles twitching violently and pain still coursing through my nerves, making my body tremble and my breath come in sharp pants. I looked around and realized another figure had joined the first, their white-clad legs now coming into view. They must have been the one who had hit me with… whatever that was. Just beyond them, I made out three more white-clad figures, heading toward Kathryn and Belinda.

  Somehow, I mustered up enough energy to stand, yanking my gun out. They hadn’t even tried to take it, but I couldn’t think about that too hard as I regarded the two people from behind it.

  “Enough of this,” I said, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice. “I’m sorry we crashed on your tower, but we needed to or we would have died. Please, we only need a small amount of time to fix our ship, and I really don’t want to kill anyone if I can avoid it.”

  The two closest to me stared at my face. Then Pencil-Mustache looked up at the second person, and gave a little shrug, looking exceptionally baffled. I glanced between the two of them, noting the second person was grasping a similar black stick to Pencil-Mustache. A horrible thought suddenly occurred to me.

  “You guys speak English? Right?”

  There was another pause, and then Pencil-Mustache looked at me and nodded. “We do at that,” he said, slowly picking himself up off the ground and dusting off his suit.

  The other figure took off his mask, revealing a rather handsome blonde-haired man with a strong chin and surprisingly hard look in his ice-blue eyes. “Knight MacGillus, shut up.”

  “Well, we have to talk to her,” MacGillus whispered as he climbed to his feet. “The council will want a meeting with her. This is the first contact we’ve had with anyone from the outside.”

  “For all we know, they’re all pirates and thieves, come to rob us of our technology.”

  “Sir, it is not our jurisdiction,” MacGillus stressed, his eyebrows leaping into his receding hairline. “The law clearly states that the solar panels are under the jurisdiction of the—”

  “Farmers,” the other man finished with a sigh. “Although an argument could be made that jurisdiction has never had to be stretched out externally, so the purview of the outside could be seen as our concern, but…”

  He trailed off as he noticed me watching. I gave a polite little smile, and he held off saying anything more.

  “Violet!” shouted Belinda angrily from behind him, and I leaned to peer over his shoulder at where she and Kathryn were standing, encircled by the three other figures in white.

  “Call them off,” I said, looking at MacGillus’ superior. “Please. You’re the first intelligent life my people have met, too. I really don’t want any hostility to start because of a misunderstanding.”

  The man blinked, and then rolled his lips tight over his teeth, emitting a shrill whistle that was exceptionally loud. The figures in white stopped their advance, and I eased up on the gun a little, lowering it a few inches. His eyes tracked the progress, but he made no reaction to the gun either way. His indifference was surprising, but maybe he was that unfazed by violence. Viggo had seemed weathered like that, when I first met him.

  “My name is Jathem Dreyfuss, Knight Elite,” he said after a long moment. “You may refer to me as Jathem. You and your companions will accompany me inside the tower, so that we may get to the bottom of who you are and what your intentions might be.”

  I shook my head immediately. “No way. My people stay out here and continue their work. I’ll be the only one heading inside, and if they don’t hear from me in one hour, they will be instructed to leave.”

  “I would need permission from my superiors before I could agree,” Jathem said, his voice sounding almost tired.

  “Then get it.”

  Jathem turned his head and closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them and then nodded. “Very well, the council has agreed.”

  I frowned, my eyes flicking all over him, trying to figure out how he had managed to communicate without at least moving his mouth. His neck didn’t seem to have anything on it, but… Maybe there was something under the skin? It was deeply unnerving, either way. For all I knew he could be talking to voices that didn’t exist anywhere but in his head, and I had stumbled onto some sort of prison where insane people were kept.

  I shuddered at the grim depths my imagination would go to as Jathem lifted his arm. “Shall we?”

  “Not just yet,” I reminded him. “I still need to relay my instructions to my people.”

  He said nothing as I moved between them, heading over to the heloship like my pants were on fire.

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  7

  VIOLET

  “What is going on?” Belinda demanded as I made my way toward where she was sta
nding. Kathryn was awkwardly trying to stand next to her, although her legs didn’t look like they were cooperating.

  “These are the residents of the tower,” I said, looking at the three other white-clad figures, those same black rod things clutched loosely in their hands. The tip of one glimmered blue, and I realized that those must carry the electrical charge that had dropped me a few minutes ago. “They’ve invited me inside to, uh, meet their leaders. The excellent news is that they speak English.”

  Belinda’s eyes grew wide, and I motioned her toward the rear of the ship. She pondered me for a long moment, and then straightened up. “I’ll be right back, Kathryn,” she said, rising to her full, impressive height. She stood a handful of inches over the tallest person in white, which I hoped intimidated them slightly, although it was hard to tell behind the reflective face plates on their masks.

  “It’s all right,” called Jathem to his people from behind us, and I turned to see him and MacGillus drawing nearer. “Let them talk.”

  The group collectively took a step back, solidifying my impression that Jathem was definitely in charge. He was already waving them over into a quick conference. I followed suit, and led Belinda around and into the cargo bay. “You’re going to go with them?” she asked as soon as we were inside.

  “I have to. There are far more of them than us, and we have no idea how lethal their weapons are.”

  “Those stick things?” She squinted at me. “What do they do?”

  “They deliver some sort of electrical shock,” I said, my shoulders twinging in memory of the experience. “I already got hit once, and I don’t want to feel that again. Listen, we don’t have much time. I lied about the other guns. They’re above a panel in the bathroom.”

  Belinda immediately looked confused. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked, bewildered.

  “Because I don’t want to leave you here without any protection. And I’m hoping that will mean that if something happens and I don’t make it back but you do… You’ll take Solomon back to my people and tell them what happened. And… give Viggo Croft these.”

  I opened my bag and pulled out the wooden box Henrik had given me. Taking a minute to savor the smooth feel of the patterns, I felt the muffled clink of the wedding bands inside hitting the sides. I knew it wasn’t, but it felt like… like this was the end. I couldn’t shake the feeling that once I went inside that building, I would never get back out.

  It took a moment to summon up the courage to straighten my spine and turn back to Belinda, holding out the box. “Tell him I’m… I’m sorry we didn’t have enough time to get married first.” My voice broke slightly at the end, and I hated myself for feeling the overwhelming urge to cry. I was being ridiculous, I knew it, but I couldn’t take the chance of not leaving a message of some sort.

  Belinda stared at the box, her face suspicious. “What is it?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Belinda, it’s a pair of wedding rings. They were a gift from a very dear friend of ours. When all of this stupidity was over, Viggo and I were going to get married. Will you please do this if I don’t come back? Please?”

  Her frown deepened, and, after a teeth-gratingly long silence, sighed and shook her head. She reached out, and I flinched back, but all she did was push the box back to me. “You should keep it with you,” she said after a moment. “If he loves you, he’d want them with you. Then he could imagine you were actually married.” She blinked in surprise and then flushed, the sharp edges of her high cheekbones turning a mottled red. “Sorry. Besides, it is stupid for you to wait until this is over… We caught you, and we’ll catch your boyfriend soon and execute you both. Maybe if you’re lucky, the queen will allow you to get married before we hang you.”

  My throat seized up, uncertain of how to even process her remark. On the one hand, I wanted to laugh—right in her face. On the other, that was a shockingly morbid thought, one that made my stomach feel as if a massive lump of ice had just formed inside it, chilling me to my core in spite of the sweltering heat outside.

  I didn’t want to die not having married Viggo first. I didn’t want to risk another single moment of not having him be mine, forever. Even though we had discussed it, decided to wait, I realized I was tired of waiting. I wanted it, right then and there if he’d have me. Only he wasn’t here. He was back home, and I was determined to get back to him, no matter the obstacles set in front of me.

  I withdrew the box and tucked it back into my bag. “You’re right. I was being silly.” Shouldering the bag, I turned around and gave her a look. “I told them if I’m not back here in an hour, you’re going to leave without me. Can you do that?”

  Belinda gave me another suspicious look, and then nodded, but I wasn’t finished. “Can you also promise to wait an hour, just in case you finish the repairs before I get back?”

  She hesitated, and then nodded again. “The queen wouldn’t like hearing that we left you behind. She really wants to execute you. Like, very badly.”

  “I’ll bet she does,” I replied dryly. God, I hoped I could kill that woman one day.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” called Jathem’s voice from down the ramp, and I stepped to one side to see him and MacGillus standing there. My hand tightened around the strap, and for a moment, I felt a deep heartsickness.

  “Promise you won’t leave without me?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “I’ll give you one hour exactly, but after that, we’re gone.”

  It would have to do. I exhaled softly and moved down the ramp.

  Jathem greeted me with a polite smile, but it came off more as menacing, given that his eyes were squinting against the bright sunlight and the goatee he wore around his mouth somehow had a sinister tilt. He led the way, moving across the platform toward the base of the column. I lagged behind, wondering how I hadn’t seen them until they were almost on top of me, and then realized that the white suits used the waves of heat that made the air ripple, practically disappearing as they moved through them.

  Not wanting to lose them, I sped up, my boots thumping loudly against the glass beneath my feet. As we neared the wall, it rose to even greater heights over my head, making my head spin with the implications of just how massive it was. I dragged my gaze down as we stepped into the sliver of shade cast by the edge of the building, the temperature dropping a few degrees.

  Jathem approached the wall, confident and not the least bit confused as to his surroundings, in spite of the rows and rows of identical glass panels in front of him. He pressed on one, and it and the one above it popped open a few inches. Jathem gripped the side of it and hauled it back a few feet, revealing a dark corridor with a catwalk leading out from it, into the dark depths.

  Hesitating for a second, I stepped inside, moving forward as MacGillus crowded in behind me. The door closed with a slow hiss, and Jathem let out a breath of relief. I turned, and realized both men were quickly stripping out of their suits. I didn’t have time to feel alarmed, because even as they undressed, I realized they were wearing identical crimson uniforms underneath, resplendent with shiny black knee-high boots.

  “Is a knight like a warden?” I asked, suddenly curious.

  MacGillus looked over at me, his mustache twitching as the corner of his lip curled up. “I’m not sure what that is,” he admitted honestly.

  “A, uh, guard,” I stuttered as I tried to find an accurate analogy. “An organized force that helps catch criminals?”

  “Oh. In that case, yes, a knight is very much like that.”

  “You shouldn’t tell her that,” Jathem chided sternly, and I looked up to meet his eyes, suddenly feeling hesitant about even using the term “warden.” Still, that didn’t give away our location or surroundings—as long as I kept quiet about that, I couldn’t imagine what I might say about our social customs that could give anything away. But I needed to be more careful in the future. It was probably best not to concede anything. Viggo had shown me how a cunning investigator could gather information from almos
t nothing, and Jathem could have that talent as well.

  “Okay, well, if we can’t talk about that, can you at least tell me about your council? How many people are on it? And are they elected, or is it an aristocratic system that you must be born into to rule?”

  “How are leaders in your culture determined?” Jathem shot back, and I frowned.

  “Look, Jathem, I’ll be more than happy to answer your questions, but in my defense, we’re not going to be meeting with my leaders. We’re going to be meeting with yours. Any info would help. I mean, I don’t want to disrespect your leaders by doing something stupid like speaking without being spoken to or some other tradition I don’t understand.”

  Jathem frowned as he stepped past me, heading down the narrow passage. The tunnel was cramped—Jathem and MacGillus had to duck down to move through it—but my head barely brushed the top of the tunnel. It moved down about ten feet, and then opened up onto a landing. The wall was directly in front of me, and as I looked around, I realized we were standing on a set of stairs. There was a door directly across from me, with a hatch marking it 97-E-12. I noted it as I continued to marvel at the length of the stairs. There were no switchbacks that I could see, but rather a steady, fixed incline running along the width of the tower. I could see where it turned ahead, and there were dozens of landings with doors on either side running left to right.

  “Wow,” I breathed, looking up. “This is incredible.”

  “This is the shell,” Jathem said, already beginning to climb the seemingly endless stairs. “I don’t mind telling you this, as it relates to our defensive capabilities. If you do turn out to be some spy or nefarious individual, I want you to realize the frivolity of your cause before you even attempt it.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at that as I trailed along behind him. “Seems fair. So the shell does what, exactly?”