The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)

“Yeah, well, right now we’re dangerously close to Porteque territory,” she replied. “We need to be ready to run like scared rabbits. Trust me, I know this area particularly well.”


“Rabbits freeze when they’re scared,” I replied, standing up and waving for everyone to move forward.

Offering a hand to Mags, I helped pull her up from where she had been seated against the building, ducked down behind an overturned newspaper stand. “Same old Viggo,” she said dryly as she tucked the handheld into her satchel. “Doesn’t change the fact that those barrels are lighting up the intersection like a beacon. Somebody really wants to see what’s going on down there.”

I shot her a look and began to move away, threading my way through the chaos of broken-down cars. My boots ground against shards of glass coating the street as I walked, but I managed to mitigate the sound, trying to keep our approach as silent as possible. Mags and Alejandro moved similarly to me—the trick was putting weight on the outside edge of your foot when you stepped, rolling your foot down rather than planting it. It had felt odd when I’d first started practicing it, but after a while it had become ingrained.

But the limited time we’d had to train with our refugees—and even a few of Mags’ team—meant that many people were making more noise than necessary. I kept a sharp eye on the building windows on either side of us, but didn’t stop until we were a few feet from the intersection. I motioned with my hand, and we split into two teams, one on either side of the street. At least they were all fairly proficient at following my signals.

I glanced over to where Alejandro stood up front. He was peering down his scope at the building on the adjacent corner. I turned to Margot and nodded, and she slowly raised her rifle, scoping the building on the other side. Our practice was to stand at the corners and appraise the other team’s side of the intersection for better visibility.

“The building opposite you is four stories tall, set behind a small park,” said Alejandro on the team channel. “The park creates a wide-open space, which gives the building behind it a better view of the street.”

“The one on your side is two stories, and pressed right up against the street,” I replied. “It’s doubtful anyone’s holed up in there.”

“Which means if there is anybody watching, they will be in the building Alejandro has eyes on.” Mags’ voice sounded grim. I hesitated, and then pushed up closer to the intersection, heading for the sharp corner of the building. “What are you doing?” she asked as I crossed the threshold from darkness to light, the glow extending beyond the actual intersection.

“I want to see what we’re dealing with,” I said as I eased forward.

I kept my eyes on the building on Alejandro’s side, just in case, but there was no movement in any of the windows. As I reached the corner, I knelt down, and then slowly peeked around the side, staring at the building across the street. The gray concrete building Alejandro had noticed rose above the small park, the windows dark and eerie. I watched it for a long moment, knowing I was exposed from either side, and then moved back to the shadows.

“It’s too good an ambush spot,” I admitted to Mags. “We need to go around.”

Mags crossed to me with quick, silent steps, pulled out her map, and spread it open on the hood of one of the many broken cars nearby, using a penlight with a red glow to illuminate the large piece of paper. I bent over it to find our location while Mags pulled the handheld from her satchel, flicking it on and searching through camera feeds.

“Mulbury and Doxit?” I asked, tapping on the intersection back and to the north.

Mags began speaking into her radio on the other channel, asking Henrik about the camera numbers for the intersection, and I continued to examine the map, feeling more and more dejected as I studied it. If Mulbury and Doxit weren’t clear, then we’d either have to head four blocks back or two blocks to the east before we could start another trajectory, easily losing half an hour in the process.

“Viggo?” I turned and found Tim standing there.

“Hey, buddy. What’s up?”

The lanky young man looked over my shoulder at the intersection. “What problem?”

I frowned. “You’re not supposed to break rank, Tim,” I said. He gave me a sardonic look, and I sighed. “The fires in the intersection might be bait meant to draw people out, and there’s a building that has a good view of the street. If we move into the open, and there are people in there with guns, they could easily kill a lot of us.”

He frowned and tossed his hair. “Take out lights?”

I glanced down the road at where he was looking, studying the barrels. They weren’t secured by anything, but I didn’t see a good way of putting the fires out. They were too large, too spread out, and too likely to cause chaos if they tipped. Maybe someone could get one, but if there were shooters in the building, I doubted very much that whoever went in would be coming back out.

Opening my mouth to explain this all to Tim, I was interrupted by Mags snapping her fingers at me to get my attention. I followed the line of her arm up to her face. “Main channel,” she said, turning her handheld around and showing me a strangely dark screen.

Clicking over, I came in on the middle of Thomas saying, “—hacked. It’s only a matter of time before the Matrians—ninety percent chance it’s the Matrians—get into our system.”

“What’s getting hacked?” I asked, straightening in alarm.

“The cameras!” he practically shouted, and I could hear the stress in his voice. “I’m hacking her back, but she’s good, and she’s clearly got better equipment than I do.”

“How long do we have, Thomas?”

“A lot longer if you’d all stop bugging me,” he bristled. “So stop bugging me!”

I switched back over to our channel and moved over to Mags. “How did that other intersection look?” I asked.

“Not good,” she said as she turned the handheld around and held it out to me. Two of the cameras were out and a third was transmitting upside down—presumably having been torn from its mount—but it only showed a small fraction of the street, the remaining screen filled with the blank surface of a pole the lens was facing. The last camera was upright, but the angle was bad on that one, too.

In the view from that camera, two dark shadows were grappling with each other in the orange flicker of a fire burning just off screen. One man’s face was visible, and I could see wet blood coating half of it. They pushed against each other, the man’s mouth opening in a roar, and then something cut in from the side and tackled them both, pulling them down and off screen.

“I’ve seen at least four different people since Henrik gave me the numbers,” she said softly. “I think we gotta risk it.”