The Gender End (The Gender Game #7)

I had opened my mouth to reassure her, when the door leading to the server room clanged open and Thomas emerged, carrying a bundle of wires in one hand and flipping through some notes in his notebook with the other. He dropped the length of cable to the floor and then jacked the end of it into the television, turning it on. Pulling out his modified handheld, he clicked a few buttons, and the screen lit up into the familiar display of the handheld screen.

Placing the handheld on the table, he dropped into the closest chair—right next to Morgan—and stifled a yawn before writing a few things down in his notebook. The room was exceptionally quiet, and it was easy to see why. Everyone was exhausted and still coming down from the excitement from yesterday and today, but there was very little end in sight. There was no relief, no one to take over for us while we slept. And so we trudged on, trying to put out fires we couldn’t even see yet.

“Well, we’re all here,” announced a gruff voice from behind us, and I turned to see Andrew “Drew” Kattatopolous, one of the three rebel faction leaders, walking toward the table with Logan by his side. Between them was Mags, still wearing her sling, and she shot me a smile as she plopped into the chair at the far end, opposite Henrik. Owen brought up the rear, and I was surprised to see him there for just a moment—we hadn’t had time to discuss or change his station in our command chain before the battle, but it hardly seemed to matter. I was happy to see him; noticing my gaze, he nodded toward Henrik, as though to explain his presence, before sitting down on Morgan’s other side. She jerked slightly in surprise, and then seemed to sink farther into her chair, fidgeting with her hands. I didn’t even think Owen noticed. He was staring nervously at Violet and me, as if waiting for some sort of punishment. I gave him what I hoped was a friendly smile, but he looked down and away quickly.

Henrik looked up from some papers he had started rummaging through while I was talking with Mark and gave us all a tired smile. He looked pale, and I knew for a fact the man was running on zero sleep, but he exuded control as he leaned forward.

“I know it’s been a long forty-eight hours, everyone, but we have some things we need to discuss before we can get to bed.”

“Like?” asked Drew.

“Like the command structure, the vote, and our next move,” said Henrik, tapping the papers together. “And... a report from The Outlands, apparently.” He gave Violet a pointed look, and she nodded gravely.

“I know it’s not necessarily about what is happening here,” she said, looking around the table, “but you guys will really want to hear this one.”

Violet and I had decided that we had to tell the whole group about the tower at once—there was no stopping the questions, and the revelations we’d found out there were world-changing. Besides, we didn’t want to have to explain this twenty times within the next week; better to get it over with all at once. I guessed that Ms. Dale had relayed our decision to tell everybody about it to Henrik while we were showering.

Violet’s statement was met with raised eyebrows from Drew, obvious interest from Mags, and a curious look from Ms. Dale, who had already seen some of the alien technology.

Henrik nodded. “I have no doubt we will,” he said. “Let’s just get our command structure straightened out, and then we’ll go straight to your report.”

“That’s easy—” Mags spoke up immediately, looking right at Henrik. “Our new commander should obviously be you.”

Drew gave her a surprised look, clearly having expected Mags to try to take command herself, and her grin grew. “I lead only when I have to, Drew. When there’s someone more capable, I step aside. Henrik knows his stuff—it was his and his team’s planning that made it possible for us to succeed. Even you have to give him credit for that.”

Drew looked over at Logan, who gave a little shrug. “I have no problem with it,” Logan announced. “I asked around, and Henrik here used to be a warden back in the day—one with a stellar record.”

Frowning, Drew laced his fingers across his chest and tilted his head up to think about it. After several heartbeats, he nodded, and I felt a burst of relief, followed by the thought of We should have more meetings when everyone’s tired. It seems to move everything along rather quickly.

“Well, glad that’s over,” grinned Henrik, who seemed to have no objections to his new position—and no ego, either. “And I’m grateful for your trust in this. I promise I’ll do my best to listen to what you all have to say, but we’re all leaders here in one way or another, so I don’t expect you to make it easy for me to get my way.” He winked comically, and it seemed to defuse some of the strain that had settled into the room. “Violet, I’ll hand it off to you now.”

Violet took a breath, and I could see her mustering her thoughts, trying to decide what to tell everyone first. Logan and Amber, who’d seen the tower firsthand, looked out at the others with expressions of smug anticipation, which would have been more amusing if I hadn’t watched them bicker for an entire heloship trip.

Finally, when the quiet was getting a little jarring, Violet spoke, and I could see she was going for broke. “Guys,” she said, “we’re not alone out here. There are people living in The Outlands.”

The reactions across the table were a mix of disbelief, shock, wonder and curiosity—I could see the idea breaking across people’s faces in waves, as Mags’s mouth dropped open, Morgan’s eyes widened comically, Drew fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat, Owen’s hand opened and closed a few times… Henrik stroked his beard, his eyes narrowing in intensity.

“Don’t just leave us hanging like that,” Ms. Dale finally said, breaking the silence. “Tell the rest, Violet!”

Then the whole story had to come out—and even summarized, it was impressive. The flight with Solomon, Desmond’s death, the tense situation with two Matrian wardens who wanted to take her back to Matrus and execute her—it sounded like something out of an action comic, even to me. At Violet’s description of the tower, the people and their strange greetings—and then, their horribly powerful light beam that weaponized the sun—people’s faces got even more intense. We’d all been tired; but this put new energy in the room, if only for a moment.

“They healed Solomon’s bullet wounds?” Morgan said. “Do you think that they… Do you think they fixed his brain, too?”

Violet stretched out her own healed right hand as if considering. “I don’t want to dare to hope that,” she said. “But if they could heal my arm in 24 hours…”

“What I’d do to get my hands on a weapon like that,” Drew said wistfully. “Do you think they are really not open to trade? We could learn so much from another society. I can’t believe they’d just let you guys go, frankly.”

“Sounds like bad news to me,” Ms. Dale said, shaking her head. “We’ve already seen what one mad queen can do to a group of people. But forcing them to stay in their tower and never even acknowledging that you were there? That is a dangerous amount of control, and it sounds like a ticking time bomb if you ask me. People can’t stay in these kinds of situations forever. They start to want answers. We should know.”