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

don’t know… I guess you could call it pride. I’ve just decided there is no need to resort to playing the game I had to play as a Leech to survive. The lives are just so different. I don’t have to do it anymore. And if I did, I’d never be able to convince myself I didn’t want to do it. That I didn’t enjoy it on some level.

‘I have no reason to suspect Captain Palmeiro of double intentions, but as you noted, he is very Elite and proud of it. It’s hard to feel anything for someone if that red alarm goes off at the back of your head, because it could turn out no different than your past. My past, I mean.’

Gonzalez tried hard to school his face into a non-expression. He didn’t want to come across as seem patronising. But even more, he wanted to avoid coming across as an Elite ignorant, because what she had said was an answer he had never considered.

Those doubts and old memories probably plagued quite a number of Leeches who had made it through the Freedom Wars. Once the men and women of Leech birth learnt that offering sexual favours would make their life easier it must have been hard to draw a line and say no more. Especially with Q9 distorting reality.

‘I’m sorry to have pried into your personal life,’ Gonzalez eventually replied. Which sounded infinitely better than a lame ‘I’m sorry this has happened to you.’ There was no rape or sexual violence during his basic training as an Elite officer candidate, and he knew that any Elite officer indulging in such barbarism with another Elite would be instantly brought up on charges. Leeches didn’t benefit from the protection of the law, or common decency.

‘If it was just me, I would probably have felt rather weak and pathetic. But it isn’t just my life. All the Leeches that enlisted back then, or were pressed, went through it one way or another. With time, you almost begin to miss the early days, when the abuse shocked and hurt you and you were sure you desperately wanted it to end. But to survive you had very few options left. You could retreat into your mind, leaving the body up for grabs and choosing to live the lie that you didn’t care, you fell apart and suicided or you learnt to play the game, trying to use whatever you could to your advantage. In a way it was worse for men.’

Gonzalez cocked his head. For a moment it didn’t register, but then he understood. You could take a man out of the era when all men were brainwashed into needing to be strong alpha males, never admitting that something had affected them, but you couldn’t take the shame away from them when they did succumb to weakness. That stupid conditioning was still killing.

‘In a way, yes, it might have been worse,’ he said quietly.

It was dangerous to question the World Government’s, and now the Afro-European Alliance’s, philosophy or claim that their efforts had been in vain, but gender bias really seemed to be hopelessly persistent. No matter the draconian measures used to force genuine equality, it persisted with sickening resistance.

‘Are you going to be okay?’ he asked, not because he doubted it but because he wanted her to say the positive affirmation out loud.

‘Of course, sir,’ she replied. A smile lifted the corners of her lips, though it didn’t reach her eyes. ‘With your permission, I will go and take care of Captain Palmeiro.’

CHAPTER 41

Roc de Chere

Lac d’Annecy

Afro-European Alliance

Tuesday 28 April 2725

DAY 9

Back in the conference room, Rivas held Eloise, rocking her gently just like he had seen her rock herself a few times before. For a few minutes, the woman abandoned herself to the soothing sensation, but then she extricated herself from his embrace and got up to leave.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Talk to me. Don’t just walk away and shut it off.’

‘Earlier today you told me coddling is bad. Why would dwelling on my loss be any better?’ she asked. She had pushed everything she felt so far away that there was nothing but cold emptiness left. To some extent, it felt more like her usual way of being than the insane emotional roller-coaster she had been experiencing the last few days.

Rivas opened his mouth to answer, but then closed it, realising he had no good answer. The realisation that he just wanted to take her pain away because he cared about her more than he had thought possible surprised him.

‘The option is there if you want it,’ he said eventually. He stood up and rearranged his clothing, which had got twisted around his body during their brief but violent struggle. ‘Is your shoulder all right?’

‘It’s sore, but undamaged,’ she said, and swept her arms in a few circles to demonstrate the full range of motion. ‘Why do you care? About my home, I mean.’

‘Because it must feel like you lost the only life you have ever known, and now you have lost the only tangible link you had with it. And…’

‘And?’

‘And because I was where you are. It sucks,’ he said quickly, avoiding her eyes.

Eloise watched him in her usual assessing way, her head cocked and her eyes slightly narrowed, but deep inside she felt more than just professional curiosity. This wasn’t yet another blueprint for yet another VR character. This was a real, breathing and unpredictable person, and despite her own tragedy something inside her twisted, sharing his long-denied pain.

‘What happened?’ she said. It didn’t come out as a mere question, and he smiled wryly at the demand in her voice.

‘I didn’t join the military because I wanted to. It was that or prison. The details have been classified, but someone found out I was in basic because of a court order and soon it spread around the training camp. The cultural shock of a military life after nearly three decades of being a spoilt and