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

them. He had simply viewed playback recordings. And Gonzalez desperately needed Eloise to see them. One in particular.

‘Ms Moretti, how is it going?’ he enquired, entering the VR lab with Ingram on his heels.

The Elite woman tensed instantly. She carefully finished what she was typing before turning sideways to look at Gonzalez.

‘Slow. I can download the VRP onto your system, but your system is woefully too basic to perform the kind of clean-up job and analysis I need in a timely fashion. I tried establishing a wide enough link to use my own system remotely, but my system is having trouble creating a sufficient connection due to how primitive this system is.’

‘I see,’ Gonzalez muttered.

Ingram watched Gonzalez stiffen, and bit her lip to avoid laughing out loud. The colonel is really proud of his system, of the whole bunker, in fact. This crazy Elite seems to know exactly which buttons to push to piss him off.

‘I hate to sound like I’m rushing you, but I have a couple of other VRPs I would like you to look at,’ Gonzalez said.

Eloise gave him a measured look. She had realised a while ago, instinctively at least, that she had no choice but to trust Gonzalez. She knew he was monitoring all her actions and bodily functions through her BCC. More than that, she knew that he wanted her to know that. There was no way she could bring the security net down and call for help without alerting him. Frankly, she wasn’t sure what he would do if she tried. So far, he had been the most rational and calm of the trio, but she had seen enough steel and fire in his grey eyes to know he could be just as dangerous as Ingram and Rivas. Maybe even more so, given how the other two loyally worshipped him.

Eloise didn’t want more sedatives or pain. She wasn’t sure which one scared her more.

Working code was doing wonders to keep her relatively calm, but she was far from feeling herself. She missed being at home, alone and away from other human beings. She didn’t know what to do with people or how to interact with them. She didn’t understand them. And frankly, she wasn’t used to not knowing or not understanding anything.

She desperately wanted to believe that Gonzalez and his people really meant her no harm. Despite her abhorrent ignorance in some aspects of life, she did have a functioning brain. While her current situation was at least stable, her future looked nothing of the sort. What would happen once they got their analysis back and had no further use for her? Would she ever be able to go home? Would they let her? Would it be safe to go back?

Playing with code was helping to distract her from that uncertainty, but now, the mention of more work for her brought those concerns to the front of her brain. She could no longer ignore them. Part of her wanted to know more about their mission, but at the same time, the more she knew, the more implicated she would become. Would she be a loose end needing termination, like in the old spy thrillers she used to read when she was a teen?

‘Why?’ she asked softly. It wasn’t one of the usual ignorant whys; it was a genuine plea for answers, and Gonzalez sighed.

His hopes back at the 4th had been to find Ms Moretti, show her the VRP, ask for her opinion and send her safely back home. No classified information. No ‘Here is the story of how corrupt the System is, and by the way, we see ourselves as revolutionaries in the proverbial shining armour.’

But things hadn’t worked out the way he had intended them to. They never did.

‘Ms Moretti, I am willing to share more information with you, given the circumstances, but I need to insist you do not pry beyond a certain point. It is safer if you do not know certain things. You need to trust me on that.’

Eloise swallowed loudly and nodded. She’d had access to classified information before, when the military requested certain VRPs from her, but nothing like this.

Gonzalez grabbed a chair and sat next to the Elite woman, while Ingram parked herself against a wall, giving her superior some space.

‘It came to our attention some time ago that there is a link between Military Command and the disappearances and murders of civilian Leeches. This is why the MIS is officially involved. In short, Ms Moretti, we are looking at a 28th-century resurgence of sex trafficking. Worse, the organisations that should prevent it, like the Central Police Inspectorate, are also implicated. Technically, crimes of that sort are none of the military’s concern, but when the military itself is involved, and I am not talking about an average Elite officer here, it becomes the MIS’s job to deal with it.

‘Military Command and the units under its jurisdiction were formed to protect the citizens of the Alliance. These days it is not the danger from outside the Alliance we are fighting. It is rot that has spread within.

‘There is a reason why prostitution has been legalised worldwide by the World Government. It introduced uniformed protection for both the service provider and the punters. It became safe and controlled, and through that exclusively consensual. The fact that adult services have largely moved into VR over the last decades has made it even safer.’

Ingram shifted slightly, and Gonzalez winced internally.

He was talking Elite bullshit, and he knew it. Every day Leech men and women found themselves with no choice but to offer their sexual services in VR brothels in exchange for food and basic supplies. It was one of those jobs that not only offered good money but was reasonably easy to find. While it was safer than letting a stranger into your own bed, Leeches were still Leeches and their pimps were almost always Elite.

‘There is no logical reason for anyone to illegally force anyone to provide them