The Gender End by Bella Forrest (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

I asked, fighting back another yawn as I poured some more water into her open mouth.

Behind me, Belinda tossed something metallic onto the floor, giving an irritated grunt, but I ignored her. It was an important question.

Kathryn swallowed the mouthful and exhaled. “It’s hard to say for certain. I can’t really tell how fast we’re going, and have no idea if we’re flying against the wind. At top speed with the hardest headwind we could actually continue moving against, we would’ve been halfway through our supply an hour ago. But since we are moving quickly, it’s hard to say.”

“How much time with no headwind?” I asked, and Kathryn crunched the numbers, then looked at her watch. “Two more hours? Maybe a little bit more. But again, there’s no telling what speed we’re moving at, not without the handheld.”

Another metallic clang came from behind me, and I turned to see Belinda looking over her shoulder at us, the manual on the other side of the gap in the floor. “A little help.” It wasn’t a question.

I looked at Kathryn, and she gave me a little shrug as I recapped the water and sat it next to her. “Let me know if you want more,” I said as I moved over to the manual. Picking it up, I stared at the first few dozen words on the page, trying to decipher the images and words there.

“Read it to me,” Kathryn instructed as she gave a groan and slid down a few inches.

I repeated the words, skipping down a few lines as she told me they’d finished that part, and then listening closely. She took a minute, and then quickly explained the next batch of wires for Belinda to work on.

We were just on the last few wires—thank God—when Kathryn sat upright with a jerk, dragging my attention from Belinda, who was carefully soldering another wire to a metal contact. “What is it?” I asked, immediately alarmed.

I was already standing up and moving, even as she breathed, “What is that?”

As I looked out the window, I also found myself viewing the scene with confusion.

“I got it, if either of you care?” grumped Belinda from behind us.

“You see that, right?” asked Kathryn, looking up at me as I gazed at the massive gray and black structure that rose up from the desert at a ninety-degree angle, shooting up into the sky. The structure was so massive that the river that flowed by it seemed to disappear behind it. The walls were perfectly flat, the structure angled in an almost hexagonal shape, with strange black wings jutting out from the sides near the top.

“This might mean people!” I gasped, trying to resist the urge to press my nose against the glass, desperate for a clearer look. “Maybe they could help us. Maybe we could land there!”

“Are you crazy?” asked Kathryn, just as Belinda said, “There’s people?”

“Look for yourself,” I told her, stepping back from the window. Belinda set the handheld down and moved over to the window, looking at the structure as it continued to grow in our view. The platforms jutting off the side revealed themselves to be thicker than I’d first thought, and as it continued to draw nearer, it was clear that they were bigger than I could’ve imagined.

“Oh my God,” said Belinda, her eyes growing wide. “It’s so big. How can it be so big? It looks… sinister, like something from my worst nightmares.”

“You have some pretty tame nightmares, then,” I retorted, perhaps a touch bitterly, under my breath.

If Belinda heard me, she gave no sign of it as she continued to gape out the window. “It’s so big,” she repeated in awe. “It has to be at least a mile tall. Maybe more.”

“Actually, I should be able to tell,” said Kathryn. “Violet, the handheld.”

I moved over to it, sitting down on the floor in front of it. The thing had dozens of wires jutting out of the back, and moving it too much could cause any one of them to disconnect—better just to go to it rather than attempt moving it. I clicked the screen on and immediately paused at the sight of the flashing red alert that popped up.

“Kathryn, you may want to get over here and look at this,” I called over my shoulder.

“Belinda, help me up,” she ordered, and I watched over my shoulder as Belinda bent over her, gently hoisting her up. Kathryn sagged heavily against the larger woman, and moved over, her legs almost giving out on her. Belinda helped lower her to the floor next to me, and she peered over my shoulder at the screen, reading the display. She spat out a curse and looked out the window. “I guess you’re going to get your wish, Violet. We need to land now.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, and she licked her lips nervously.

“The problem with the hydraulics is worse than I thought. All of the flaps, the blades, everything mechanical needs some of that fluid, and the system is bone dry. If we don’t stop now to fix it, then the entire thing will lock up, and this thing will be about as movable as a flying brick. Then it’s just a matter of time before we hit something, or run out of fuel.”

“We could land on the ground,” insisted Belinda. “We shouldn’t land on that… thing! If there are people inside—”

“Then hopefully they’ll be curious first,” I cut in.

“It doesn’t matter, Belinda,” Kathryn replied tiredly. “The ground is too far below us. Trying to take it that far down with the hydraulics like this will only make everything worse. That tower is our only chance.”

I looked over at Kathryn. “What do I do?”

“Push that button there, and then pull up the index. Go to the flight readout, then add a window for the controls. You’re going to have to input my numbers precisely here. This is a more… mathematical way of landing.”

I gave her an alarmed look even as my fingers danced across the