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

the opposite. I have to get very, very angry. Her body jerked again and then froze as a hand struck her face.

‘You said you weren’t going to hurt me!’ She didn’t recognise her own voice, or understand the meaning of the words. He did.

‘I also said, “Calm down!”’

‘Are you fucking insane? You broke into my home! You beat me up—you’re sitting on top of me!—and I am the one who should calm down? Fuck you!’ She tried to throw him off, but to no avail. ‘I’m going to fu—’

The hand hit her again and she tasted blood as her lip split. Then the hand covered her mouth, pressing so hard she thought her jaw would snap.

‘I didn’t beat you up. I only hit you because you wouldn’t calm down. I want to talk. That’s all. Talk. I didn’t realise your whole house runs on a single security system. I didn’t mean to turn the lights off. They just went off along with everything else. Just calm down and listen. Can you do that?’

She blinked her eyes in agreement, and her body relaxed, but the man didn’t fall for it. He reached into a back pocket of his jacket with his free hand and withdrew a pressurised syringe. The nano-compound was in Eloise’s bloodstream before she realised what was going on.

‘I’m sorry. It’s temporary. I promise, you will not be harmed.’ The man slowly lifted himself off Eloise’s body.

She tried to stand up. She tried to get back at him, but her body refused to co-operate. She had enough control to move her head and engage her facial muscles, but anything below her neck, below the point where he had injected her, was totally unresponsive. She couldn’t even tell if the rest of her body was still there.

‘What have you done to me? What do you want?’ a voice asked. Her voice.

‘For you to listen. Please. I have injected you with CNI-16—you may know it as a neural inhibitor commonly used in minor surgeries. It’s safe and will wear off quickly without a binding compound. As per standard operating procedures, the shot was laced with nanobots that will keep your airways clear should there be any problem. You are safe. In the meantime, I just need you to listen.’ He paused, watching her face for more signs of wild panic, but she seemed calmed. He thanked his foresight for packing the CNI-16; not only had it immobilised her safely, but the depressant and relaxant in it were working as well. ‘You have just met with Inspector Norah Bellefeuille from Lyon’s 4th Police Station. Tomorrow, you will be taken to talk to Commissioner Wagner. He is very dangerous. He—’

‘You mean he’s going to attack me and pump me full of CNI-16?’ If pure rage could kill, Eloise would be the only person alive in the room.

‘No,’ the man replied. ‘He will kill you.’

Eloise swallowed loudly. Why is this information not terrifying? Why is my brain all fuzzy and calm? Instead she asked, ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I work for the MIS,’ the man replied. ‘Special Forces. My boss has been trying to find you for a long time. Trust me, he’s the good guy.’ It felt silly to speak to her as if she were five years old, but he was familiar with the brain-numbing effects of CNI-16. Small words would work best for now.

There were other compounds he could have used that would have only immobilised her body, leaving her mind completely untouched, but none of them worked as fast. As it happened, speed was important. And a little chemically induced calmness seemed to have done her a lot of good too.

‘It is important that you do not give Commissioner Wagner anything useful tomorrow. Do you understand? Commissioner Wagner will not let your expertise advance the investigation. He will destroy the evidence. He will kill you if he realises you know too much. Do you understand? He will kill you.’

Eloise stared blankly at him. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.

‘Do you understand?’ he repeated.

‘Yes! Yes, I do!’ she replied, a lonely tear spilling across her cheek. She shook her head with frustration to flick it off. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried. ‘Why? Why me? What expertise?’

‘You are the sole designer for NanoC, aren’t you?’

She looked at him, shocked. No one knew. No one.

‘I will take that as a yes. There are dozens, probably hundreds, of VRPs that can be traced to NanoC. They are all marketed and distributed under different names: different corporations selling, advertising and distributing them. But under all of that is NanoC. You. From simple commercial relaxation, entertainment, travel and adventure to in-depth training VRPs—corporate, aviation, nautical, combat. Hell, even the VRPs the Special Forces School uses were designed by you. You know more about VR programming than all the other VR experts together. I have no idea how that is possible. Oh, I can understand how you managed all the commercial entertainment stuff, but military training? Historical battles? Special Forces? It takes a whole team of military VR programmers to make a rough sketch, and even then it’s never as good as what comes out of NanoC. You—’

‘Military training VRPs are boringly easy. It’s the commercial entertainment stuff that’s the masterpiece,’ Eloise hissed, annoyed by his ignorance. Her brain was beginning to feel less fuzzy, and she felt an odd edge of adventurous recklessness.

The man gawked at her with something like a balanced mix of professional pride being shredded to pieces and amusement.

‘If you say so,’ he sang. ‘Anyway, this just proves how totally you outclass any military or police VR expert. A couple of months ago a damaged VRP was fished out of the Rhône—’

‘Yeah, I know, that Bellefeuille woman said so.’

The man had to bite his tongue; her habit of interrupting him mid-sentence was getting annoying.

‘Wagner will want you to comb that VRP for information, something that escaped our experts. Give him nothing. Give him absolutely nothing, do you under—’

‘Article 6,