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

a psychopath like Wagner was enough to shatter anyone’s illusions about justice and hope. Without them, Megan needed something else to fixate on, otherwise there was no point getting out of bed.

Ingram wanted to believe that Megan would be fixated on doing her duty, but from experience she knew one thing—duty was an immaterial, vague concept. People were much more likely to offer their loyalty, and their life, to those who inspired them than to grand concepts like honour or the Alliance.

And I don’t really have to spell out for the colonel whom she would have given that loyalty to. He knows. He knows she wouldn’t hesitate to give her life for him.

‘If she believes that tracking down who Wagner is planning to meet tomorrow is crucial, the order you gave her won’t matter,’ Ingram finished. ‘Not this time. Not after what she’s been through lately. And especially not when every fibre of her being wants to see Wagner squashed. He has become a symbol of the System for her.’

Gonzalez nodded slowly. He knew it. He had known from the moment he allowed her to stay behind at the 4th that this might happen. And dammit, how it hurt.

***

‘We have been through this four times already. You are wasting my time,’ Eloise huffed, sounding utterly bored.

She was sitting on an old-fashioned swivel chair, amusing herself by childishly pushing off the ground, lifting her knees to curl into a ball and seeing how many rotations she could make before the chair stopped spinning. So far, she had managed three.

In reality, she wasn’t as amused as she was trying to look, but it irritated Rivas and that was definitely worth the nausea. Also, she loved rubbing his face in the fact that she could do such pointless and childish activities while still nailing his questions.

Dammit. How many times is he going to run me through their primitively simple emergency procedures, code names and other boring crap? I knew all this before we even started—I’ve been programming it into VRPs for three decades.

It had taken her literally a couple of minutes to sift through her memories and discard those facts that were out of date and no longer in use. The 28th-century Armed Forces of the Afro-European Alliance clung to tradition just like its predecessors and equivalent organisations throughout Earth’s history, so very little had actually changed.

‘If you would just stop fooling around for a minute and show me that you are paying some attention, I would probably have finished a long time ago.’

Rivas tried to match Eloise’s bored tone of voice, but there was too much frustration bubbling under the surface and his effort was less than successful. Eloise might have lacked the subtle ability to perceive non-verbal body language and cues instinctively, but she could read it all on a conscious level and programme it into her VRPs. Because her understanding wasn’t instinctive, it usually took longer while her conscious mind analysed various facts and joined them into one cohesive impression. However, when she got the answers she was looking for, it was usually far more accurate and detailed than what most people sensed with gut feeling. And that annoyed Rivas even more.

‘I heard you the first time, Lieutenant.’ Somehow, she managed to make his rank sound even more disrespectful than when she had called him an adolescent idiot. ‘I can repeat every single thing you said verbatim.’ She rolled her eyes in a purposefully exaggerated fashion, and Rivas sighed.

‘I don’t want you to repeat the words verbatim, I want you to understand, to feel, the meaning.’

‘You can’t feel a meaning,’ Eloise replied, momentarily stunned by his crazy suggestion, and nearly lost balance as the chair spun out of control.

‘I think I would have more luck talking to a wall,’ Rivas grated with resignation as Eloise rearranged herself on the chair for another spin.

‘Are we all still alive in here?’ Gonzalez walked into the VR lab, which now doubled as their planning space thanks to the availability of large holo-screens. He had been trying really hard not to eavesdrop, but it was virtually impossible not to hear the last part of the exchange through the open door.

‘Yes, sir, we are—’ Rivas replied, and then snapped his mouth shut when Eloise interrupted him.

‘Barely alive. I’m bored. Undervalued. And did I mention bored?’ If she had realised she sounded like a spoilt brat she would probably have chosen a different way to annoy Rivas, but with no point of reference she just ploughed right on.

Gonzalez looked from Rivas to Eloise a few times and fought hard to avoid sighing in unison with Rivas. How was it that Ingram had lost her shit with Eloise several times and the Elite woman never seemed to notice, but for some strange reason she seemed to delight in practising her newly acquired sarcastic, passive-aggressive attitude on Rivas at every opportunity?

‘Enough!’ Gonzalez snapped. He didn’t have time to plead, explain or beg. ‘Raymond, if Ms Moretti has got the theory please move on to practical applications. Ms Moretti, we are trying to make sure you’ll still be alive this time tomorrow, so please stop playing with the chair and act like you understand the seriousness of the situation. Wagner is a dangerous psychopath. We will be monitoring everything that happens through the mic and cam, but that is not the same as being there with you. You will have to learn to get a feel for the situation. So I suggest you practise feeling things.

‘I really do not care right now how huge a grudge you hold against Lieutenant Rivas, but I suggest you put it aside, just like you switch a VRP off and play a new one.’ Gonzalez had mixed feelings about using the VR analogy, but at least he could be sure Eloise understood exactly what he meant. ‘He is your best option to polish some of your skills, and you will make the best of it. He will also be the one who will