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

head. Suddenly, he wished fervently that Eloise was military and could fit into their command structure without so much unnecessary disruption.

Eloise turned an angry glare on Rivas. Ever since their first encounter at Roc de Chere, she had done her best to ignore him pointedly, but that seemed to amuse Rivas, which was not what she was trying to achieve. Maybe it was time for a more direct approach to show him the level of contempt she felt for him.

‘No, excuse me,’ she mocked, ‘I’m just wondering how an overgrown adolescent who broke into my home, beat me up and jumped me knows what a date is. Your manners suck.’

Rivas opened his mouth to reply, but Gonzalez’s raised hand stopped him.

‘Ms Moretti, you’d better hope that Lieutenant Rivas knows all about dating, because I want you to work together to make sure your VR dating skills transfer smoothly into the real word.’

Eloise and Rivas stared at Gonzalez with similar levels of incredulity, and it was Ingram’s turn to bite her lip to stop it quivering in laughter. It was funny, watching Rivas work through all the things he wanted to say, realising there was no point in saying any of them and moving down the list of retorts until he ran out of possibilities.

Finally, he sighed. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘No, dammit!’ Eloise was far less willing to accept the inevitable. ‘This adolescent idiot will not—’

‘This adolescent idiot,’ Gonzalez said firmly, ‘is a Special Forces lieutenant working for the MIS, so show some respect, please. When he supposedly beat you up and jumped you, he was acting upon my direct orders to give you a warning you needed to hear. If you have a problem with what he did, please bring it up with me.’ Gonzalez paused, waiting for Eloise to argue, but the woman closed her mouth in firm protest. ‘Good.’ He nodded and turned his attention to Rivas, who seemed to be blushing just a tad over Gonzalez’s firm support.

‘Raymond, make sure Ms Moretti is fully familiarised with our surveillance equipment and comfortable with its use. I want a nano-mic implanted under her skin—work on finding the most optimal location—a nano-cam implanted in her right eye and an earpiece nano-receiver in her right ear. Walk her through the codes and emergency procedures. Make sure she knows the layout of Wagner’s house like the back of her hand. And… keep your hands off her, just in case,’ he added, his eyes dancing when Rivas gave him a long-suffering look.

Eloise wasn’t impressed, and found the joke even less amusing than Rivas did, but she said nothing. It wasn’t him putting his hands on her that she had a problem with—even the slap seemed irrelevant now—it was him barging into her sanctuary that she wasn’t going to forgive, or forget, ever.

On the other hand, working with the little prick will give me plenty of opportunities to annoy him,she mused, realising that a direct approach was rather fun.

To everyone’s astonishment, Eloise got up and followed Rivas out of the room without a backward glance—and maybe, just maybe, with the hint of an evil smile.

‘Which do you think will lose it first?’ Ingram laughed, no longer feeling obliged to hold her amusement in.

‘Not funny, Carlotta,’ Gonzalez mock-growled.

‘No, sir,’ Ingram replied obediently, and dissolved into an uncontrollable giggle. Gonzalez only shook his head, failing to keep a grin off his own face.

Damn, it feels odd to be laughing again, but we both need it badly.

‘Seriously though,’ Gonzalez said after a while, watching Ingram briskly wipe tears of laughter off her face. ‘They need to sort their shit out, and I’m not their mama to hold their hands while they do it. Also, Rivas is going to be with her in Lyon, and they need to be on the same page.’

Of course, what he had in mind was not actually a date. But knowing Wagner’s attitude and his sick desire to put notches on his belt, it wouldn’t hurt to think about the meeting as such. If they could only get Eloise to do her part.

‘You don’t expect this to actually work, do you, sir?’ Ingram was all serious again. ‘She might be a true hero in her VR world, and her VRPs might be indistinguishable from reality, but we both know there is one huge difference. Human brains know that we can’t get hurt in VR. Well, our minds might be bit less gullible, but her mind has specifically always relied on that safety net, even if she wasn’t consciously aware of it.

‘I’ve seen how she fell apart in the slums. She isn’t ready to function in the real world. I get the feeling she would love to, and the disparity she sees between how we deal with reality and her failures seems to be gnawing at her rather hard, but it isn’t like she can snap her fingers and make it happen.’

‘I know, Carlotta.’ Gonzalez sighed. ‘I know. She won’t be able to deceive Wagner for long, that’s a given. But it’s impossible to meet her and ignore just how awkward she is, so I’m betting that Wagner will be suitably confused long enough for this to work.’

‘Then what is your plan, if I may ask? The real plan, I mean.’

Gonzalez pondered the question for a few seconds. In an ideal world, he would have a few weeks to work with Eloise to train her properly. Or better yet, use nano-tech to create Moretti’s double out of a highly trained MIS operative. But they didn’t live in the ideal world. And they had just a few weeks less than that. Again.

‘The idea of us breaking in, knocking Wagner out and interfacing with his account from his residence is simple enough that it’s tempting. Megan provided us with an excellent map of the residence and surrounding terrain, and with Tilly’s help we could bring the security down without anyone realising what has happened until it’s too late.’

‘But?’ Ingram prompted.

‘But recovery of Wagner’s account, while a wonderful source