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

come in to save your ass if something goes sour, so he needs to know you understand what to expect. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Fine!’ Eloise mumbled. The truth was, she was more than terrified by the prospect of what she was supposed to do that evening. Annoying Rivas was a great distraction, but it did nothing to address the issues that frightened her so much. Part of her wished she knew how to express her worries to Gonzalez, but VRPs didn’t have an interface to deal with players’ anxiety so she wasn’t sure how to approach the problem.

‘I want both of you in VR in five, working your way through your meeting with Wagner,’ Gonzalez continued. ‘Once you have worked out how to function with the mic and cam, I want both of you to walk through a few possibilities with Rivas playing Wagner’s role and—’

‘I can whip up VR Wagner in a few minutes. It will be crude but functional,’ Eloise interrupted hopefully.

‘No,’ Gonzalez replied, without even considering the option. If he had a few weeks, sure, that would have been one of the things he would definitely insist on, but in the few hours they had, he needed Eloise exposed to as much real life as possible, and that meant a living, breathing human being, not a VR puppet. Even without Rivas’ extensive training and ability to manage operations like this on the fly, contact with reality would be far more important than the comfort of VR interactions.

‘But that would be more real. Seeing Wagner, I mean.’ Suddenly she was enthralled with the idea of hiding in a VR enviro where she could build up her confidence to her heart’s content. Or more correctly, where her confidence did not need building up.

‘No,’ Gonzalez repeated firmly. ‘Please go and double-check on the VR image of Wagner’s residence that Tilly created based on Megan’s recordings and map. Lieutenant Rivas will be with you in a minute.’

Eloise looked like she was about to protest, but even she found herself succumbing to Gonzalez’s tone of command. A distant part of her brain was pondering how to replicate his aura of authority in one of her future VRPs when her survival instincts told that voice to shut up. There might not be any future if she didn’t pull her shit together.

‘Raymond, I want you to stop rolling over for her.’ Gonzalez turned his attention to Rivas when Eloise had left and the echo of her steps had subsided. ‘We don’t have time to pussyfoot around her. Cut her off at the knees if you have to and—no, strike that.’ Gonzalez rubbed his face wearily, suddenly aware of just how little sleep he’d had in the last few days. ‘Don’t do that. I need her to remain a voluntary participant in all of this. Just… make it clear there are limits to the amount of crap you’re going to put up with and that she has crossed that line already.’

CHAPTER 31

Roc de Chere

Lac d’Annecy

Afro-European Alliance

Monday 27 April 2725

DAY 8

‘No!’ Eloise announced stubbornly for the third time in a row.

At first, she had been delighted when Gonzalez called her over, inserting a break in her ‘schooling’ under Rivas’ watchful eye. They had spent a couple of agonising hours in VR and she had developed a serious case of anxiety-ridden shivers that intensified each time Rivas yelled ‘Again!’ Just hearing it in her mind made her body freeze, unable to follow conscious orders to move while she felt the terrifying shakes rumble inside her. Her chest seemed to rattle so hard it hurt. She just couldn’t do it. No matter how many times Rivas reminded her what she should do and how, her body just refused. Every second of her training was like torture.

So when Gonzalez called, she almost ran towards him, relieved to escape Rivas’ clutches. But then Gonzalez explained what he wanted, and suddenly going back to the training torture sounded very appealing.

‘No!’ she repeated, feeling the tightness in her chest intensifying yet again, her overused intercostal muscles screaming in protest. She wanted to get up and storm off but felt too weak to make a move. She didn’t like the sensation of functioning through so much exhaustion—she wasn’t used to it. The intensity of the day so far, and the ensuing emotional roller-coaster, didn’t help. The thought that there was so much more planned for her that evening paralysed her.

She was no stranger to all-nighters or working long hours without a break. When she coded, she could easily forget about mundane things like sleep or rest. But the word exhaustion had acquired a new meaning since Inspector Norah Bellefeuille walked into her life and set these insane events into motion.

‘Ms Moretti, I am very sorry about this, but we do not have a choice. Now that your Tilly runs our system, we can easily link up with Till—the original Tilly, I mean, and check what’s going on at your residence. The Chandler N-Suit Research Base has been under a lot of scrutiny, and sooner or later Wagner’s people will break in. We cannot take the chance that they will be able to lift any data. We need you to program your original system to self-destruct the moment they breach the building.’

‘They won’t break in!’

‘Your system is not unbreakable! Lieutenant Rivas proved that it can be shut down. And I know that the people who work for Wagner would have tried the same trick if they weren’t worried about setting off some booby trap that will destroy the facilities. That is the only reason they have played it safe so far. But they are a single order away from using brute force. And when that happens, I need the whole thing to go up in flames. Not just a computer virus that will delete the data. That’s not good enough, regardless of whatever masterpiece you might have up your sleeve. I need sufficient physical damage to the whole complex so