The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)

At the right of the screen sat a brunette woman. She was wearing all black, her hair gathered in a messy bun on top of her head. She was young—young enough that there was still some baby fat clinging stubbornly to her cheeks, but she had a wise look in her bright blue eyes. This was Mags. Of all the three leaders, she was the one we were all the most interested in meeting. Tiffany had practically sung her praises in her reports.

Next to her, in the middle, was a man in his early twenties with a shock of black hair tied in a neat ponytail on the crown of his head. The effect should’ve made him appear more feminine, but there was a masculine edge to the rest of his features, one I was sure women fell head over heels for. His eyes were also blue, but partially obscured by the thin wire glasses perched on his nose. This was probably Logan Vox. When a couple of us had commented about the surname, it had come up that this one was in the public eye—Logan was the youngest son of the owner of the company that produced Deepvox pills, but had eschewed the family business to become a heloship pilot, though he’d had some pretty public scandals even so. Now, of course, he was a rebel. He had cobbled together a pretty formidable force, even if it was the smallest one of the three.

The last man was the oldest of the trio, probably in his late thirties, early forties. He was bald, but sported a thick auburn beard. His eyes were small and his figure rotund, but he was still quite strong, gauging from the set of his shoulders and the bulge of his muscles. He had probably been quite muscular some time ago, but my guess was that after a few years of not maintaining his weight, the muscle had started to give way to fat—slowly. He was the man we knew the least about. Andrew Kattatopolous, Drew for short.

I opened my mouth, prepared to speak first, when Mags spoke up. “So you are the ones responsible for getting that message into all the stadiums?”

Her voice was lilting, curious. She cocked her head at us inquisitively, and I nodded.

“We are. My name is Viggo Croft. This is Violet Bates, Melissa Dale, Henrik Muller, and, of course, you know King Maxen.”

The three people on the couch exchanged looks as Maxen stood up. “Can you have him stand closer to the camera?” asked Logan.

I glanced at King Maxen, who rolled his eyes and then moved over to where the handheld was perched at an angle, leaning on the television. “How’s that?” he asked, stooping over slightly.

“That’s him,” came the deep gravel of Drew’s voice. “His beard’s grown in, but that’s him. They are who they claim to be.”

“Yes, Drew,” drawled Logan, and King Maxen moved back from the screen, revealing that the lanky man was leaning back, his hands clasped behind his head in a youthful sprawl. “We can see that. The question is, what do they want from us?”

Mags reached out and touched Logan on the arm. “We’ll get to that in a minute,” she said. “King Maxen, it is good to see you in one piece. Tell me, are you safe?”

King Maxen was in the process of lowering himself into his chair when she asked, and he paused, half in, before dropping into it. He looked around the room, cleared his throat, and then nodded. “I am, dear, thank you for asking.”

“Excellent. And your health?”

“Never been better.” Maxen’s posture became more relaxed under the questions, his smile growing more genuine as attention was given to him.

“Really? No broken bones, missing limbs?”

The question caught me off guard—Maxen as well—and I glanced at the screen, seeing that Mags had closed the distance between the couch and the handheld.

“Of course not,” he said, his smile flickering and fading. “Why ever would you ask?”

“Oh, just seeing what was so dire that our king had to abandon us.”

Violet snorted, and then hurriedly hid her smile behind a cupped hand. I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony as well, but to be fair, this wasn’t entirely Maxen’s fault. We had kidnapped him, after all.

“That was our fault,” announced Ms. Dale, tugging at her braid. “We… removed the king to keep him safe from danger.”

It was the king’s turn to snort, but he remained quiet, thanks to a stony glance from Henrik. Mags’s eyebrows rose up to her hairline, and then she nodded. “It makes sense. If Elena wanted him dead, they’d be tearing up the countryside for him.”

“Not just him,” added Violet quietly, and I reached over and clasped her hand, squeezing it gently.

“I’m sure,” Mags demurred. “Still, it doesn’t change the fact that many of his people view his sudden reappearance with a certain level of… derision.”

“What?” the king sputtered, affronted. “Why?!”

“No offense, King Maxen, but there are many who feel you abandoned your people by running. What makes you think that you showing up with friends to help is going to make them inclined to want your help, let alone you?”

The king fidgeted as her statement came through. We watched as Mags moved back over to the couch and sat down, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “And while we’re on the topic of your help—what do you want and what are you offering?”

Ms. Dale blinked and then smiled. “I knew I would like you,” she announced.

“We need your help, actually,” I said, standing up. “You have people on the inside, we have people on the outside. As individual pockets of resistance, we probably can’t accomplish much. But, perhaps if we could work together, we could—”

“We are desperately low on ammo,” announced Drew, leaning forward slightly. “And even weapons. We scavenged what we could, but—”

“There are lots of things we need,” cut in Mags smoothly. “But even with guns and weapons, without knowing where the other groups are, we can never move across the city without calling attention to ourselves.”

“We can help you with that,” said Violet. “We have a friend who hacked into the camera system in the city years ago. If you can get to the correct location and turn his system back on, you can access it through your handhelds.”

Mags arched an eyebrow. “Years ago?”

“It’s a long story,” cut in Henrik. “For another time. But if you can get the system turned on, then we can begin thinking of how to take back the city.”

“Take back the city?” scoffed Logan. “We’ve got civilians who need to get out of the city!”

“What, exactly, do you want to do?” asked Mags, once again ignoring the interruption.

“Tiffany informs us that there’s a group of Matrians holed up at a water treatment plant in the city. We’ve come to believe they have a plan to do something to the water that will help Elena achieve her goal, possibly contaminating it with a drug or a poison. If that’s true, she just has to keep you in there long enough for it to spread.” Henrik paused as Mags, Logan, and Drew exchanged looks. “What is it?”

“We had water in our buildings until a few hours ago,” announced Logan.

“That’s… one of the signs Thomas told us to watch out for.” Ms. Dale’s words were delivered softly, but they were as heavy as lead.

“Except for the fountains,” added Drew. “The big fountains all over the city are working, and they still deliver most of our drinking water.”