Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

drugs, but I’m old enough to know responsibility is always shared. So watch yourself, Lieutenant.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Rivas replied, struggling hard not to exhale loudly. He hadn’t even realised he’d been holding his breath.

Damn, she was right—she is definitely better at handling the colonel than me.

‘All right,’ Gonzalez said after bestowing another glare on his subordinates, ‘refill your coffee cups. We have a lot of data to sift through and Tilly has just about finished her own analysis.’

‘About that, sir,’ Ingram said, giving Rivas a meaningful glare of her own. She had warned him to stay out of the enforced-sleep stunt and let her handle it, but if the lieutenant was eager to run to her rescue, he’d better be eager to support her now, because she was going to need it. ‘We need help. We need a few more people. There’s too much going on for us to handle it all effectively.’ She really wanted to add that Wagner probably had a gazillion easily replaceable minions doing his bidding, but decided that implying that Gonzalez should treat anyone as replaceable was a bad idea.

‘Did you plan this?’ Gonzalez demanded, his eyes narrowing as he contemplated the look Ingram had exchanged with Rivas. ‘Did you just give me the whole “No, I’m not going to challenge you for command” speech to now blackmail me to get more help from the MIS?’

‘What? No!’ Ingram was genuinely puzzled, but one glance at Rivas told her that the other man was suspecting the same thing. She wanted to keep denying it, but clamped her mouth shut. Too much denial would just make her look guilty. ‘Sir, we need more help,’ she repeated instead. ‘It is not blackmail. I’m not experienced enough to lead. You know that. Hell, I know that! But I also know what horrible effects exhaustion and sleep deprivation can have, sir. I’ve learnt that lesson, painfully, a number of times. And you pushed yourself too far last night.’

Gonzalez studied her closely. He believed her, but that didn’t mean her uber-intelligent instincts couldn’t have concocted the whole thing without her conscious knowledge. And strangely, even if it did, there was some logic behind it, which Gonzalez could not reject out of hand. They needed help desperately if they wanted to maintain their momentum.

‘Carlotta, you know that anyone we take in will effectively be guilty of treason the moment they follow my orders. I know this whole mess can be explained, but if for some reason it never is… If you and Raymond and I die, there will be no one to vouch for them. No one to explain. It’s not just their careers we’re talking about. We could be condemning them and their families, for what could be many long generations, to a Leech life in the slums. I can’t ask them to make that sacrifice on behalf of their unborn offspring.’

‘Yes, sir, you can,’ Rivas interjected. ‘But more importantly, you will never have to. They will volunteer if given an opportunity. This is not just your fight, sir. It’s their fight too, and they deserve to be included.’

Ingram gave Rivas a nod of approval. Their combined logic was working.

Gonzalez became pensive, multiple what-if scenarios playing in his mind. It wouldn’t be hard to fire a quick comp call to the General, asking him to send a handful of people, pick them up from some desolate spot and put them to work. It would spread the load and free him to do more long-term scheming, while at the same time ensuring they could all get some real sleep every night.

And yes, Rivas was right—they would volunteer if given a chance. Which did little to make the decision any easier. Being worshipped had always made him uncomfortable. Even these days, when he knew that the adulation he received was mainly based on the results he had delivered and not his birth, the bad taste in his mouth remained.

‘Fine,’ he said eventually, their cause, and the fight against the System, fully at the forefront of his thoughts. ‘Make me a shortlist of candidates within an hour—both of you. Elites and Leeches, pilots and combat veterans. And I want all of them to know at least the basics of computers, nano-programming and VR. I will make the final choice.’

CHAPTER 37

Roc de Chere

Lac d’Annecy

Afro-European Alliance

Tuesday 28 April 2725

DAY 9

Eloise stirred groggily, her senses coming back online one step at a time. No, her senses couldn’t come back online—she was human, not a computer, regardless of her affinity with and understanding of the latter. Then why…

Dammit, this feels familiar, Eloise heard her mental voice chip in, and it doesn’t get any easier with practice.

Her eyes were focused enough to discern the greyness and roughness of the bare rock walls, the decor of choice in Roc de Chere. The bed she was lying on felt like an equally hard and rough surface. And her head was pounding. Again.

Logic told her that waking up without the Medibot controlling her steady emergence from the nano-induced coma would have been infinitely worse. At the same time, it was hard to believe anything could be worse than the feeling of having been chewed up and spat out by a cold and uncaring machine.

Shakily, her left hand travelled to her right shoulder as the memories came back, searching for the wound, finding nothing but the familiar shape of her body instead. She remembered clearly the split-second decision and the crazed charge at the crystal, her shoulder crushing it, and itself, in the process. There was a brief flash of agony, and then nothing.

‘Your shoulder is fine,’ a gentle voice reassured her. ‘The nano-surgery was a complete success.’

Eloise turned her head, the grogginess intensifying as her eyes struggled to focus on a new target. Her stomach heaved, but the gag reflex wasn’t awake yet. There was also no saliva in her mouth. She tried to say something, her dry throat failing.

‘Here, have some water,’ Rivas added, manipulating the upper part of