The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)

“There’s too much weight,” Mags whispered through the link. “We need to spread out.”


I nodded and moved to one side of the path, waving Tim through. Behind him were Alejandro and Janice, followed by Gregory, then April. I waved them past slowly, wanting to build up a bit of distance. I could see Cruz waving people back into the tunnel, trying to relieve some of the weight from that direction.

Harry slipped past me, and I looked over to see Tim arriving at the other side. I raised a hand for him to hold up, and then followed Harry, not wanting the young man to be the first to put boots to the ground. The first one into a room filled with hostile enemies was more likely to get shot, and even with Tim’s advanced reflexes, it was my job to lead.

Mags materialized next to me. “I got this,” she whispered, indicating my post midway through the catwalk, and I nodded, moving toward Tim.

I was a good twenty-five feet away from him when I heard a surprised shout go up over the rush of the water, and I ducked down as bullets began to ping off the metallic grated flooring of the catwalk. “Return fire,” I shouted, pulling my rifle around and shooting down through the railings at the floor below.

A Matrian woman standing by the lip of the pool ducked down behind it as I fired on her, disappearing from sight. I climbed back to my feet, intent on making my way to the other side, when I heard a primitive scream go up. I looked back to where the woman I had been firing at disappeared, and saw her olive-clad form emerge at a dead run, heading toward a wall. I hip-fired at her, but she was unfazed, running headlong through the sparks flying around her.

She leapt into the air, almost eight feet up, and then slammed her fists into the wall. I gaped as she began to leap up it, her hands and feet moving in a blur as she used her newly gained strength to crawl up one of the huge pipes lining the wall, holding on to the sides, and then began to cross toward us on a series of horizontal pipes, moving in huge, impossible leaps. She moved in at an angle, drawing closer and closer to the catwalk, and then leapt out, practically flying through the air and landing hard on the railing near Mags.

The entire catwalk shuddered, Mags’ side dropping down a few inches, the men and women on it giving startled screams or shouts and reaching for the handrail. “Back up!” I shouted, turning back, but it was too late. The bolts groaned as they were yanked out of the wall.

“Magdelena!” Alejandro shouted in alarm, and I held up my arm to stop the older man as he leapt forward, uncertain whether our side would continue to hold up.

Mags was already racing, leaping over the gap and grabbing on to the stable edge that my side provided, her fingers slipping through the holes in the grates as she landed. There was another metallic snap behind her, and I lifted my eyes to see the section of catwalk we’d come from tear free, leaving a ten-foot gap in between, most of my team on the other side.

I watched as the ten-foot chunk of metal plummeted, carrying the warden down with it, splashing into the water. The section of catwalk sank into the dark depths, but the warden surfaced and began swimming toward the side of the pool. She was halfway there when the blade came up in front of her, and within seconds she had been swept under, sucked into whatever undercurrent the blade was creating.

Mags grunted as her biceps flexed, pulling her body higher up onto the groaning, tilted surface of the remaining catwalk. I got as close to the edge as I dared and reached out my hand to her. She tightened her arms more, raising herself up a bit higher, and then let go of the grate and grabbed on to my wrist in a talon-like grip. “I can’t swim,” she reminded me desperately, and I wrapped my hand around her wrist and began to pull, helping her get her hips and legs back onto the catwalk.

The gunfire continued around us as I pushed her past me, and I kept low, trying not to think about all the ways a ricochet could go terribly wrong. “Cruz!” I transmitted, hoping the man had not fulfilled my previous wishes for his demise by falling into the vat below.

“Yeah, I’m here. We are stuck on this side—what should we do?”

“Stay up there and provide us with covering fire,” I replied. “Hit the doors especially, but keep them off of us.” Another feminine roar filled the air, lashing with a seething violence. “And stay alive!”

“We’ll cover you—just get to that room and complete the mission.”

I gave a thumbs-up over my head as I continued to push Mags forward. The catwalk swayed from side to side, groaning as we moved quickly across it, trying to duck under the spray of bullets being shot at us. I was certain the catwalk would give at any moment.

I saw Alejandro fire into the room, covering us as we moved up, and seconds later Tim followed suit. He, Alejandro, April, Harry, and Gregory staggered their fire, using short, controlled bursts to conserve ammunition. I made it to the ladder, climbing onto the pipe and then lowering myself down behind it, planting my foot on the fourth rung from the top.

“Follow me,” I shouted, and began to climb now. Bullets zinged past me every so often, and a few times I shielded my eyes, more out of instinct than any notion that it would stop a bullet. I felt vulnerable on the ladder, even with the pipes working to disguise our movements. I hated presenting my back to a battlefield. It made me feel like I had “target” written all over me in bright neon colors.

I made it down the ladder, and took a moment to check on Tim’s progress. Then I made a quick scan of the ground I could see and stepped out from under the pipes, coming out in a crouch and moving forward without waiting to see what was looking at me. Electrical boxes rose from the concrete around the pool every fifteen feet or so—probably a different aspect of the moving blade—and I flung myself toward the nearest one. Overhead, I could see the flashes of the muzzle fire from our partially stranded group ahead, and I tracked their trajectory to find out where the trouble was.

I made it to the box and knelt behind it, studying the curve of the tank and where the concrete disappeared. I heard a gun go off behind me and turned to see Tim standing there looking in the other direction, a woman on the ground and bleeding, but not dead. He readjusted his arm and shot her again, delivering the killing blow, and then loped over to me.

I turned my head back down the hall as he moved over. “As soon as Alejandro’s here, we run for it.”

“Viggo, more are coming in from the next room!” announced Cruz in my ear, and I grimaced.

“Scratch that, we need to move now!” I said, standing up to shoot a woman who had appeared around the bend. She dropped, and so did I, ejecting the spent magazine and slapping in a new one. “Are Alejandro and Harry down yet?”