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

found it hard to resist putting her hand on his arm for a reassuring squeeze.

‘I don’t know if it was routine or a one-off, but… a few weeks ago, a young girl was put up for auction. The winning couple was given her life; they killed her in VR. I don’t know the details, and frankly, I’ll be just fine if I never find out exactly what happened, but it wasn’t a quick death.’ His voice wavered, but then he cleared his throat and continued, his eyes unfocused. ‘I haven’t been around long enough to have seen it, but apparently on average the pleasure slaves last no more than eight to ten months before their minds stop functioning. Gradually they shut down, refusing to cope with the never-ending drugs and the fucked-up realities they’re exposed to.’

‘Why not ease off on the nano-hells?’ Ingram said, repeating the question Gonzalez had asked through her earpiece.

‘It’s easier to control them that way. The psychos that buy their services want a well-trained, compliant and perfectly arousing man or woman to spend a few hours with. Not a wreck of a human being, beaten into submission, too terrified to think. Leeches are still easily replaceable. Going through a few dozen warm bodies every few months is more than financially profitable. I think they like fresh faces and new bodies anyway.’ Kaal’s voice wavered again. Talking about the suffering of young men and women was clearly hurting him more than the abuse he himself had been through. ‘I think that’s why they wanted to perfect the nano-hells. They wanted their pleasure slaves to be more appetising, but I don’t think they cared about long-term survival.’

‘Perfect the nano-hells? How?’ Ingram asked, turning to face Kaal. It sounded like a new thought rather than a continuation of what he was talking about.

The man seemed to hesitate. He owed her his life, but she remained Elite, and he was a mere Leech. The distrust he felt was strong.

‘Sergeant, I might be Elite, but I’ve spent my entire life trying to change the System. Some of my best friends died to get me this far. I do not under any circumstances sympathise with the psychopaths running Cassandra.’

‘Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am!’ Kaal snapped to attention, but then faltered as Ingram frowned.

‘Sit back down, Sergeant,’ she ordered sharply.

Kaal had been through too much to jump off a chair just because she spoke a bit more harshly. She certainty knew Elite officers who would expect serving Leeches at attention in their presence at all times, but she had always found that obscene and pointless. She had been forced to stand at attention for hours just because a stuck-up Elite asshole had the power to make her, and she saw absolutely no reason to perpetuate the treatment.

Not to mention, the last time she saw Nathaniel Kaal he was her superior, and a huge part of her still respected him as such.

‘Back to my question?’ she prodded more gently as the confused man settled down.

‘Nano-hells aren’t perfect.’ Kaal seemed in equal measure surprised and relieved by Ingram’s accommodating attitude. ‘When I said they wanted to perfect them, I really meant just that. People can learn to resist them; some can learn to overcome their effects almost entirely. Cassandra’s scientists believe that the process of resisting is what leads to the mind shutting down, rendering the person useless. Apparently, the resistance is genetically encoded. From what I understand, their research went in two directions. In one they explored genetic therapy to modify the genes coding for that resistance, and in the other they were searching for stronger nano-hells that would switch free will off.’

Ingram winced. It was hard to imagine where she would have been if Molina Ortega hadn’t been able to learn how to resist the damn nano-hells so effectively.

‘They experimented on us with the new cocktails they created. They had partial success… and they had some failures.’

‘Wallace,’ Ingram muttered.

‘Wallace,’ Kaal agreed.

It was another name Ingram recognised from Kaal’s squadron from the Wars. A good, hard-working and loyal man. Another who had been reassigned after the massacre of Ashgabat.

‘We have full records of what the assholes did to him. He will get the best medical care.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Kaal nodded.

He was too clever to hold his breath, believing the highly unlikely. He had seen the same amount of physical and psychological abuse as Molina Ortega. He knew that sometimes when the mind decided to give up, there was nothing anyone could do. Even the best medical care in existence was useless if the mind couldn’t find a reason to keep going… and if Cassandra’s bastards had actually managed to alter his will to survive…

‘He’s strong. He’ll make it,’ Ingram reassured him. It sounded like nothing more than a genuine attempt at lifting Kaal’s spirits, but the man looked at Ingram strangely, his eyes narrowing in thought.

Dammit, girl, watch your mouth. A few more comments like that and he’ll start suspecting something for real. Just because you don’t look like Molina, doesn’t mean that deep down you don’t think like her. Regardless of what you like to pretend.

Before either of them had a chance to say anything else, a tall, slender, black-haired woman approached them. She had been the only woman kept in the coffin cells, and Ingram knew she probably wasn’t going to like what that gender bias meant.

‘Major.’ The woman nodded respectfully. ‘We have cleared this level. The last immobile Leeches are being carried to the Chimera as we speak. We are predicting heavier problems on levels minus eleven and ten. I would like permission to have more sedatives ready just in case.’

Ingram tilted her head. Clarissa Okeke was not only the only woman but also the only person to emerge from the coffin cells who didn’t have any military background whatsoever. Despite the lack of training, she was as calm and efficient as Kaal. She fitted in smoothly with the rest of the ex-military working on the evacuation plan. There was