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

to rappel down slowly, following Dalton. Without wasting another moment, I moved to one side and stepped off, not bothering to throw my own lash until I was plummeting. It hit the side of the branch with a click and the harness arrested my fall by feeding out more line to slowly catch me. I braced my feet on the side of the glass, taking care not to damage the solar panels, and threw my second lash down. It stuck firm, and I released the first line as I kicked off, dropping down a few more feet and coming to dangle from the very bottom of the branch, my heart pounding.

As cocky as the move had been, my stomach lurched. The Tower was over a mile tall and the sides were sheer. I could see the world splayed out below me, and the massive wall of the octagonal Tower. The thing was flawless and brown, the perfect form broken only by the great solar branches jutting out of and around the gargantuan block. Hanging in thin air from the side of the monstrous edifice was terrifying. And exhilarating.

Gerome dropped beside me, beating Dalton down. Gerome, of course, had attached his lashes the proper way, and his descent was a bit more controlled than mine.

I scrutinized Dalton’s faltering progress above. The mechanic was slow. His every movement was so plodding that I wished I could do the job myself. It would have been one thing if he had been doing it safely, but he didn’t even seem to know how to use the tools correctly. He was handling them like they were going to break. He placed his free lash so gently each time, letting it lower him down before he gingerly placed the next one to repeat the process. It would have been comical if it wasn’t also deeply dangerous. All it’d take would be one failed connection and Dalton would get to do his best bird impression for over a mile-long drop.

Then again, it wasn’t really his fault. Despite his proclamations, he was using Knights’ equipment. The Knights were very protective of it—lashes included—which was why whenever anyone from another department requested their usage, they got a pair of Knight escorts with it, to make sure their equipment got returned in working order. I just happened to be one of the escorts today. It also wasn’t his fault he was out here; it was common for sevens and sixes to get selected for the more dangerous work—they were of a high enough ranking to be reliable in their duties but a low enough ranking to be expendable.

I scanned the underside of the branch and quickly identified what we were there for. A clump of wiring had fallen loose, spilling out through a break in the metal plating. It happened sometimes—the air was still right now, but winds whipped by at high speeds and would cause shearing to some of the plates, until they broke off or the screws came out.

I threw out a hand, letting another lash fly, pulling me in closer to the damage. Dalton was just reaching it as I did, and began lashing himself over quickly—so quickly, in fact, that I paused and allowed him to go first, which earned me a sullen, angry look as he lashed by. I waited before I resumed my movement, careful to stay far enough away so that the man wouldn’t feel inspired to actually start talking again.

Dalton drew himself in close to the exposed wiring. I winced as he used his fingers to connect his lash to the metal surface above, not even watching for the flash that confirmed its attachment. He then began fiddling, tugging a wire this way, then that, and I relaxed a little—his lash was holding. I let out a yawn, releasing the lashes with my hands, trusting my weight to the harness and settling into the lines. Some might have felt worried, hanging that high up. Me, though? In spite of any trepidation I felt at the height, I always felt more at home on lashes than I did on the ground. They were my wings.

“Watch him carefully,” Gerome said, coming to my level.

I glanced at Dalton. He definitely didn’t strike me as the criminal sort, but then again I was a four. According to Scipio, I was pretty rife with dissident urges of my own.

“If it was up to me,” Gerome muttered, “a seven would have no place here. It is a respectable number, but the branches are too valuable to risk. There are nines among the mechanics. I would rather they do it.”

I felt a spark of irritation.

“And a four?” I asked. “Where should she be?”

Gerome shook his head. “You’re different, Squire. And you aren’t touching any of the machines directly.”

And there’s the truth of it. So long as I wasn’t actually doing anything, Gerome would overlook my number, for now.

I looked back at Dalton and paused. The man had given up on sorting through the wires and was now poking at the branch’s wall with one of his lash cables with increasing desperation, the other one holding all of his weight—one had disconnected. I raised an eyebrow. It looked like he couldn’t get the thing to reconnect.

“Gerome?” I said. The way Dalton was handling the lash wasn’t just unsafe; he was going to—

There was a flash of blue light and Dalton’s only connection broke. The lash tore free. He attempted to turn in our direction and had just enough time to reach out a hand to us before gravity began its deadly pull.

Gerome let out a shout of surprise and I saw his arm moving, a cable spinning from his hand to strike the metal surface beside where Dalton had been hanging, but Gerome had always been cautious, precise, professional with his lashes. Dalton was plummeting, desperately throwing lashes in all directions in a futile attempt to save himself.

I didn’t like Dalton. He was a pompous ass, cruel to those he