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

ignorance was his self-prescribed penance, and Ingram fought hard not to avert her own gaze.

It was hard not to feel angry, even betrayed in some irrational, petty way. It was hard to stomach that even the good Elites were once ignorant to the plight of fellow humans, dismissing them as nothing more than mere Leeches. Her life had served her a cold dose of reality the day she was old enough to walk. She had never known the luxury and the shielded, safe life most Elite children enjoyed.

‘Thank you for being honest,’ she said eventually, fighting the primal anger. Wherever this story was heading, there was no need for him to share his personal past with her. It was his choice to do so.

‘Since then, I’ve kept my eyes open. Basic training gave me ample opportunity to learn more about the brutal reality Leeches had to contend with. Of course, I never set foot in a Leech camp, but it wasn’t hard to overhear the training officers and other officer candidates exchanging stories—they made me sick. We had Leech servants in the house my entire childhood, but they were generously paid and suffered no hardship. It didn’t take me long to realise my parents’ house was a lucky place to work in.

‘I began struggling to pretend I shared their bloodthirsty and ignorant points of view. Some tried to snub me for it, but no one dared to touch a Larsen; my family name was like a protective charm.

‘One night I was nano-drugged and taken away. I met an Elite officer who is still my contact to this day. I don’t know how they knew I shared their views, but luckily for me they found me before I made more mistakes by letting my true feelings show. They taught me how to act normal and blend in. They taught me the smart way to resist Q9 and other nano-hells—that was about a month after the coma accident. I was never as good at it as you were, but I learnt enough to fool my training officers. I became a model officer candidate, and that combined with my family name landed me at the top of my graduating class with instant acceptance into the Special Forces School, copious privileges and early promotions. I was being groomed to fight the System before I even knew what was happening.’

And so were you, my dear Aisha, Gonzalez added mentally, taking a long sip of his coffee. Although it isn’t the right time for you to find out that our black-silhouetted General is the one who fought Military Command to keep you alive after Ortega’s success in the Final Strike, and who has been shepherding your career ever since your nano-transformation into an Elite officer.

‘With the end of the Freedom Wars, and the decreased appetite for Leech troops,’ he continued, ‘it got harder to catch Elite officers abusing their powers. They still do it, but now they have time to cover their tracks. We have been able to blow the whistle on a few illegal research labs and other facilities.’

‘Like the ones outside Madrid and Dakar.’ Ingram nodded, naming their two previous ops.

‘Like Madrid and Dakar,’ Gonzalez agreed. ‘And as you know, those who got busted in the process were mere employees with no information about the people who hired them. What we need to do is find the source of the rot and corruption. Something more than vague suspicions.

‘The reason I became so hell bent on the dead Leeches fished out of the Rhône is that they reminded me of the photo my father was blackmailed with. Over the years we have acted on dozens of tips about the military using Leeches for inhumane purposes, but really we were just stumbling in the dark, trying to expose those who were in charge. Too many Leeches were still going missing for natural causes to account for, but we couldn’t start a murder investigation without a body.

‘Illegal experiments on Leeches during the Wars were bad enough, but using them as sex toys and discarding them when no longer needed is infinitely worse. Leeches are now dying because Elites are bored.’ He paused to take a deep breath. There was no point lecturing Ingram on obvious things she knew very well. ‘Anyway, the question I asked myself when all those bodies were found in the river was why.’ Gonzalez paused, letting Ingram process the facts and waiting to see if she could connect the dots in the same way he had.

Ingram opened her mouth to say the obvious, that they were cleaning up, but then paused. That made no sense. It wasn’t a clean-up operation if the bodies were found. A superheated fire left nothing but a small heap of ash—that was cleaning. No bodies, no evidence.

And then it hit her.

‘You think someone did it on purpose, don’t you? Someone on the inside, leaving breadcrumbs for us to follow?’ Her eyes rounded with enthusiasm, all signs of tiredness forgotten.

Gonzalez smiled, nodding with approval. Ingram was as sharp even when tired as any CO could hope for.

‘How is that possible?’ she asked, thinking out loud as her brain cogs whirled. ‘Do we have people on the inside? But if we have someone that close, why not get in touch, for fuck’s sake?’

‘Calmly, Aisha.’ Gonzalez had lectured her many times on analysing the facts without getting personally involved by judging other people’s decisions, but it was the one thing she seemed to have made little progress on.

‘Sorry, sir,’ she blurted out, not sounding particularly sorry. She was aware that she was often too quick to jump to conclusions and that her reactions tended to be just a little too visceral, but years-old habits were hard to break. It was that quick, visceral response that had saved her ass so many times. And with the last few days bringing back the demons of her past to haunt her, she felt less able to stay calm than normal.

‘I know the last few