The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)

“Riots?” said Amber, her eyes growing wide. “That’s good news, right? It means the message got out there.”


“It could be good news,” chimed in Ms. Dale, “but until Tiffany contacts us with more details, we’ll hold off on classifying it. Let’s have our scouts keep an eye out for any refugees out of the city, though. We might get good information out of them. We also need to consider moving our base. Especially with winter coming, we need to find better shelter for people, and that will mean breaking our forces up into smaller groups and working in cells.”

“How much time do you need to scout?” I asked, leaning forward.

“Probably about a day or two,” Ms. Dale replied. “We can’t really use the heloship, as it’s running low on fuel.”

“King Maxen will probably know a good place to check for the kind of fuel we need,” said Amber. “We actually don’t need much. Unlike cars, the heloship actually runs on a specialized cell, one that requires a very small amount of propellant to operate. But regular gas won’t work—only T-136.”

“I’ll have someone ask him, though all but two of the depots we searched today had been emptied, so I wouldn’t expect much. On that note, we did recover eight vehicles, fifty barrels of gasoline…”

Ms. Dale droned on, going over her report. Then the topic changed, discussing the move and areas in which to search. It was toward the end that Dr. Tierney wandered in, heading over to the fire to grab a pot of coffee. We were still operating on minimal electricity for the house, which meant we only had the communal coffee pot over the fire, and it was in use practically twenty-four hours a day.

“All right, that’s all I can think of right now,” Ms. Dale said. “We’ll reconvene tonight and update each other on where we are with organizing our teams and equipment.”

The meeting finished, and we all milled around discussing the various other chores we had overlooked, letting the conversations run into the general brainstorming session we regularly had after a meeting. I was listening to a discussion between Ms. Dale and Violet regarding possibly modifying the two remaining drones, when I noticed Cruz slip into the room, look around, and then make his way over to Dr. Tierney. Curious, I took a step back, shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation, but feeling completely justified by the fact that Cruz was supposed to be impressing me—he knew I was going to have eyes on him, so why not start now?

“Pardon me,” he said as he approached Dr. Tierney, his tone husky. I rolled my eyes. “Madam, it is a pleasure to see such radiance thriving, in spite of these primitive conditions. May I have the honor of your name?”

Dr. Tierney cocked her head at him, an incredulous look on her face. “No,” she said decisively. “Absolutely not.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing as the small doctor stepped around Cruz and walked out, still cradling her mug of coffee. I should’ve known better than to doubt even for a second Dr. Tierney’s ability to handle unwanted attention from a male. As for Cruz, well… I hadn’t exactly expected better from him.

Moving back closer to Violet, I watched as the man left, my smile growing as he approached the door, then deepening when I saw Jeff standing on the other side, about to come in. He stepped out of Cruz’s way to enter the kitchen, bustling over to both of us.

“Oh, Violet, I’m so glad to see you’re okay!” he said, interrupting Ms. Dale. He must have been truly emotional about it—I’d never seen Jeff interrupt anybody before unless he had to.

Ms. Dale just grinned at the intrusion and leaned over to Violet to finish her thought. “I think you might be onto something. Bring it up at tonight’s meeting, and maybe find time to talk to Thomas about it.” With that, she left.

“Hi, Jeff,” Violet said, reaching up to hug the taller man. He hugged her as if she were a fragile thing, and then quickly let her go.

“How ever did you survive?” he asked, his eyes wide.

“Actually, I was saved by that weird elevator that led to your room. It allowed me to sneak out from under Desmond and get the drop on her.”

Jeff’s mustache twitched and he took a step back, his cheeks flushing. “I see.”

Violet took a step forward, clearly concerned by his distress. “Jeff? What was that thing? Why was it so small?”

Jeff met my gaze, and then hers, and his flush deepened. “Ahh, I suppose you would never have seen a dumbwaiter before,” he said, with nothing condescending in his tone, only a bit of embarrassment. “It’s meant to carry food from one part of the house to another. Not people. At one point in the house’s life, that room used to be a kitchen.”

“Oh,” she said, her face screwing up as she digested the information. Most of the time, it didn’t show that Violet had grown up in an orphanage—and a series of terrible work camps—but at moments like these, I could see the people around her remembering.

“Then why did it lead to your room?” she asked Jeff, and I could almost see the gears in her head turning. When she’d told me that story, I’d had similar questions.

Jeff stroked his moustache, perhaps nervously. “Well, you see… Mr. Ashabee didn’t want the other servants to know about his secret armory. I was the only one he would trust with his secret, and the only reason he did that was because…” His moustache turned down. “I was responsible for maintaining his collection, you see. And also, of course, for checking on him to make sure he didn’t dwell down there too long when his more creative manias struck him. With the dumbwaiter left over, he told me I had to move into the room it was in so that I could go help him in secret. Oh, I begged him to modify it and make it bigger, but he refused on the grounds that constructing another would be too obvious to the other servants. I quite disliked that thing. It was… humiliating. But… if it saved your life, then I am grateful for it, and to him, for having any kind of elevator there at all.”

Violet’s face softened, and she pulled the butler in for a hug. “Ashabee was not a good man,” she said as she hugged him tight. “And you are. Here.”

She pulled something from her pocket and handed it to Jeff. He grabbed it, and I realized it was a picture. Inside it was an image of Jeff and an older woman, probably his mother. “You took this for me?” he said, his voice slightly strangled.

“I hope you don’t mind. I just saw it in your room and thought… Well, I’m glad I did now. Especially with what happened.”

Jeff smiled, his eyes glistening. “I left all my pictures behind,” he said wistfully. “I didn’t want to carry too much, anything that would slow me down.”

Violet nodded, her hand on Jeff’s arm. “I understand. I know what it’s like to lose pictures. I’m sorry I didn’t grab the rest.”