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

It was coming up to four days since Ingram smashed her ribs jumping out of the XST. Nearly ninety hours of hard, painful decisions. It was impossible to guess which part of her had been frayed most in the process—her physical body or her mental resolve.

It was also impossible to guess what state Eloise Moretti would be in when this was over. While Ingram had a fairly good idea of what she herself was capable of, in both the physical as well as the psychological senses, Eloise’s abilities were a big unknown. With proper nano-intervention they could restore her physical well-being, but there was no predicting the damage her mental health had suffered. That too could be fixed given time, at least to a certain degree, but time was something they didn’t have. Again.

‘Never bloody enough time!’

It was a true blessing, how far nano-medicine had advanced in the last two hundred years. It could perform nothing short of miracles when viewed from the perspective of the 21st century. But when someone from the 28th century looked at it, one thing was clear—it could always be more perfect.

‘We are all spoilt cunts, always wanting more, aren’t we?’

While physical recovery was a given with the correct nano-therapy, the mind continued to challenge the scientists. Even the most modern diagnostic equipment could not answer all the questions. In theory, the brain literally stood open, now that nano-sized machines could go in and inspect it in real time, but such efforts had an annoying tendency to provide more questions than they answered. The brain had simply turned out to be too complex and unique to be catalogued easily. Some even argued that it guarded its secrets on purpose, being, you know… stubborn.

Elite scientists were equally stubborn, and the thirst for ultimate understanding persisted. Thanks to all the progress, trauma could be dealt with far more efficiently than had once been considered possible. Unfortunately, there was no way to fully remove it without removing the memories responsible for it. And that brought all sorts of problems and obstacles that were yet to be conquered.

Therefore, it was possible that all the effort Ingram had gone through would prove totally useless if Eloise woke up from the ordeal with a perfectly functioning body and a totally unresponsive mind.

‘Don’t you even fucking dare,’ Ingram mumbled, speaking as much to her own internal doubts, which were spiralling out of control, as to the unconscious Elite woman in the passenger seat. ‘You just… stay where you are and breathe and—’

The car hit a bump, jolting Ingram’s injured body, but her main preoccupation was with the Elite woman. Ingram looked sharply to the right as Eloise mumbled something incoherently and let her head roll to the left. She looked about as bad as Ingram felt. It wasn’t just the moonlight giving her face its ghostly grey tinge. She was still alive, but barely.

Ingram had managed to strap Eloise to her seat, making sure her head wouldn’t collapse forward, cutting off her air supply, but the ragged restraints wouldn’t hold if Eloise came around and started to fight them. It was tempting to look for something stronger to pacify the woman, but then the risk was that in panic she would hurt herself pulling against tougher restraints. No, keeping her unconscious, or as close to unconscious as possible, was the right choice.

‘Fuck,’ Ingram muttered as another bump in the road shook the car.

Her ribs were crudely knitted, but in the last three days she had added a dislocated shoulder (which was now relocated but painfully inflamed), a concussion, a sprained ankle and a hefty array of bruising to the count. And that didn’t even include the internal injuries. There was enough crusted blood around her underwear to give a mind healer nightmares. Sleep deprivation and limited food and water did nothing to help.

Driving the car, an old pre-war, rusted farm vehicle, across the Prealps’ narrow roads at night was pushing her beyond her limits. She couldn’t risk switching the headlights on, in fear of being spotted, so the journey was painfully slow. The only good thing was that she didn’t have to worry about oncoming traffic. Her car was probably the only one in the vicinity.

When they first exited the Underground City, Ingram had been faced with two choices. One was to cross the Rhône to the north and head east for the Bugey in the old Ain department, stretching from Lyon to what used to be the French border in the east. The Bugey, desolate and wild, was the closest territory in which she could effectively hope to hide from any pursuit. It was also along the most direct route to Roc de Chere.

Unfortunately, the Rhône wasn’t easy to cross between Lyon and Geneva. The terrain was entirely in the hands of the Leeches, and any infrastructure that had once existed had fallen into morbid disrepair. Most of the bridges, dating back a few centuries, were collapsed or dangerously unstable, and without machinery and resources they couldn’t be fixed. While the Leeches continued to use the remnants of the old bridges, combined with rocks, trees, scraps of wire and anything else they could find, to cross the river on foot, a car couldn’t hope to drive across.

Only one bridge was still standing, some six kilometres east from the old airport, which made it a perfect spot for an ambush. There were only a handful of vehicles still in the hands of the Leeches occupying the banks of the Rhône east of Lyon, so they couldn’t hope to blend in.

The second possible route involved heading south-east towards the Chartreuse Mountains, then north-east through the Chartreuse and across the Bauges. It was some fifty kilometres longer and relied on older, narrower roads and greater climbs that would slow them down, but it was a far more unexpected choice.

Wagner’s people, if they were still searching for them, and if they realised Ingram and Eloise had