The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)(97)

Leaning back on the pipe, I felt the terse silence on the line as everyone realized the impact that this could have on our battle. I shook my head, a mix of anger, disgust, and fear clenching in my gut as I realized that some of the tainted water was already on the street. It must have been, if that man Violet had seen was affected by it. People were being changed against their will, and then probably killing others. No one could know that it was coming from the water, not yet. And how could they resist drinking it, even if they did? All other sources were already out.

If I hadn’t hated Elena before, this move would have made me despise her.

I quickly informed everyone in the main channel of Janice’s revelation as I rolled away from the pipe and stood up. When I was done, I pulled apart my fingers and gave her a stern look. “Janice, we can purge this system and save a lot of people. That’s what we’re here to do. But I need to know—is there a faster way to the control room?”

Janice returned my hard look, her jaw clenching with indecision. Then she nodded, sliding a long strand of hair behind her ear. “Yes. I can show you, but you have to let me go free.”

“Agreed, but after the battle is over. There are still rogue Matrian forces outside, and even if you did manage to make it out into the city, there would be no stopping any of the hundreds of angry people in the street looking to make someone pay for what’s happening to them.”

As I spoke, I could see Janice’s half-thought-out escape plan die in her eyes. “Excellent points,” she said. “Fine. But I stay right here. I’m not going to get near one of… one of them.”

I held out my hand, and she shook it. “This wall,” she said, pointing at the wall opposite from the one that separated us from the outside, and moving toward it slowly, “is about twenty feet thick, and holds some of the bigger pipes that draw in and out from the collection pods outside. The king who designed this place was kind of a paranoid guy, so he made it really difficult to overcome the safeguards. But he also did something to help his workers move in and out of the central room in case of an emergency.”

As she spoke, she led us closer to the wall in question, thick gray pipes running across the surface of it, the bottom one ending a mere three feet off the ground. I looked at Janice, and watched as she slipped under the pipe and stood up behind it. After a moment’s hesitation, I followed her, and blinked when I saw the rungs sticking out of the wall, creating a ladder leading up. “We discovered it on the second day,” she said. “It made life a little bit easier.”

I could tell she was thinking about the sudden shift in her circumstances, and how different things could look in the span of twenty-four hours. I felt similarly.

“Thank you,” I said to her, and she frowned.

“I want to say don’t mention it, but honestly, I’m still a little too surprised that I’m even doing this.”

“You and me both,” I replied, eyeing the ladder leading up. “But probably for totally different reasons.”





34





Violet





Morgan hooked another left, and suddenly it was there—the water treatment plant. From our position on the street, I could see the entire top of the hill, illuminated by orange flames similar to the ones that dotted the rest of the city, but these were bigger, more sinister, filled with meaning. The surrounding city buildings ended suddenly, and then Morgan was speeding past the cars I knew Viggo had used for cover barely fifteen minutes ago, seeing the bullet holes, broken glass, and… fresh blood.

Then our vehicle crested the hill, and the road beneath us leveled off. I stared, unable to fully comprehend the carnage before me—a car wrapped around a pipe, bodies strewn across the ground, billowing fires breathing smoke that disappeared in thick black plumes into the inky, moonless night sky.

Or maybe the smoke was just blocking out the stars, I thought bitterly, remembering the moonlight I’d flown the drone in earlier. It was hard to tell.

I switched to the command channel. “Guys, we’ve arrived at the plant and are on the lookout for Desmond. Please let us know if you see any sign…” Ms. Dale and several others were acknowledging me when a movement on the left drew my eye, and I paused. The novelty of a car flying toward us, rolling on its side in midair, was a difficult thing for my mind to process.

That second cost us.

The next second, I managed to shout, “Morgan!” and point, and Morgan had time to cut the wheel—then we were spinning, the world rotating around me and then tumbling sideways in midair. Everything in the car seeming to float in the air as we rolled.

Then it all crashed down again. We rolled to a final, jerking stop, landing with the hood of Ashabee’s car upside down, the bulletproof glass still intact but webbed with cracks. My heart raced in my chest like a hummingbird trapped in a tiny cage, and I fought vertigo and a sense of disorientation from time and space as I dangled from my seatbelt harness.

“Violet?” Owen said, his voice urgent. “Are you still with us?”

I reached across my body and pressed the button, releasing the seatbelt. I landed awkwardly on my shoulder on the roof of the car. “Yeah,” I whispered, rolling myself upright, grabbing my bag from where it had landed on the ceiling. My body felt numb with shock and adrenaline—it would start to hurt soon, but I didn’t want to wait for it. “You?”