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

by even offering us a life inside the tower, and who knew if he was even telling the truth about that? I didn’t like the way he’d said “integrate;” what did that even mean? What net?

I, for one, was not grateful, and, as CS Sage let go of my arm, I slid my right hand down to my pants, where my gun was still tucked.

Sliding it out, I settled it on my lap and kept a tight grip on the stock. It felt amazing to be holding it in my right hand again, but there wasn’t any time for me to savor that feeling of rightness.

“My friends and I are not going to agree to that,” I announced softly, and the Knight Commander looked over at me, his brows drawing tight over his mismatched eyes. I met his gaze head on, my jaw going up a few inches. “I have a family and a fiancé back where I came from. They have families as well. So we will not be staying with you. We won’t be getting integrated—whatever that means—and we won’t be letting you touch our… gyroship.”

“You really aren’t in a position to argue,” Devon sneered, and I lifted the gun, pointing it right at his head. For once in the past few weeks, the movement was smooth, as if I had practiced it a dozen times just moments before, and I felt myself start to smile at how perfectly aimed I held it. It was solid, steady, no tremors.

His eyes took in the handgun, but he made no other reaction to it. “Is that supposed to scare me?” he asked, his hand already reaching for the black baton dangling through his belt.

“Enough, Alexander,” spat Raevyn. “You know that I, WTS Callahan, and CS Sage won’t agree to integration anyway. It’s too big of a risk to the tower. She would inevitably talk—they all would.”

“There are ways to prevent people from talking. IT Sparks and CL Mueller will back me,” Devon calmly replied.

“Which means it will be up to Scipio to break the tie,” Raevyn shot back smugly. “And per protocol—”

“It’s all moot. We are still waiting on Scipio to formulate an opinion as to whose jurisdiction they fall under,” announced Sage, his eyes completely on my gun.

His fingers reached out toward the gun, and I pulled it away, dropping my bead on Alexander and giving him a confused look. His eyes twinkled merrily as he took in the device, even going so far as to turn on the scanner and attempt to scan us both. His frown indicated that he hadn’t succeeded, but it didn’t seem to stop him from wanting to inspect it from all angles, coming around me to stare at it curiously.

“You don’t have anything like this, do you?” I asked, as Raevyn continued to argue with Devon behind them. I kept an ear to their conversation, but they were heavily debating some sort of sub-sub-section of a charter to each other, and it was enough to make me want to cross my eyes.

“What does it do?” he asked, nodding at it.

“It…”

I trailed off as I saw the Head Farmer puffing up her form, getting nose to nose with the Knight Commander. She was not intimidated by him at all, and, given the red in her cheeks, she was furious.

“Just like a Mech to only see the immediate problem and not understand the big picture,” she argued, her hands clenching. “You keep treating her like an isolated problem—she’s not. Her people are out there; they might come looking. Oh, sure, she says that they’re alone and isolated, but for all we know this could be a scout ship, or they could all be some sort of royalty! Regardless, the possibility exists. How do you want to greet a potential threat to the Tower? By treating their people with respect and some civility, and not getting caught with our hands in their cookie jar.”

Sage followed my gaze and chuckled, crossing his hands across his chest. “Cogs and Hands do not get along,” he whispered conspiratorially to me. As if I understood what that meant.

“Are they going to hurt each other?”

“Oh no, too proud to throw the first blow, those two. It’s a shame, the damned Cog should know better—he’s in an entirely different department now.”

He said it so chidingly, like a disapproving grandfather, that I couldn’t help but smile. “You know half the things you said are complete nonsense to me, right?”

“I know, hopefully it confuses our little alien girl. Do you have any words that might defuse the situation? They are discussing what to do with you, after all.”

“Just that my people aren’t likely to come after me,” I said after a moment. I had contemplated a lie, weighed and measured it, but decided it was better to come clean. They wouldn’t appreciate threats, and I had nothing to back them up with.

“Raevyn? Devon?” Sage’s voice carried over the argument with a politeness that abbreviated the harshly hissed syllables coming out of Devon’s mouth. I wasn’t even sure when he had started speaking—I was too wrapped up in the oddity that was CS Sage.

Devon dropped back in his wheeled stool with a whoop, rolling away a few feet before using his feet to pull himself back over. Raevyn turned fully toward us, a tired expression on her face.

“What, Marcus?” she asked heavily.

“The alien girl has something she wishes to say,” he announced cheerfully.

Raevyn seemed to sigh, and then looked over at me expectantly. “Yes?”

It occurred to me to lie yet again, even though I had just told Sage the truth less than a minute ago. And yet, I couldn’t justify it. Odd as these people were, they were also the only contact with another civilization that my country had ever had. It was exhilarating, as well as terrifying, but more than that, it meant that we could start forming a relationship with this civilization. We could learn each other’s cultures… histories… maybe even piece together