The Gender Lie(24)

Almost immediately I felt the corresponding tingle as the suit engaged. The electric thrill that coursed under my skin to all of my extremities might have become less painful with practice, but it was still weird. It felt like after my foot had gone to sleep, trying to force blood back into the area. It was a constant barrage of prickling, all over my body.

I focused on my breathing and kept my eyes on the hall in front of me. I wanted to avoid moving—my control over the suit was still tenuous.

The sound of the boots on the floor became a cacophony of rolling thunder down the narrow hall. I pressed up against the wall—a small movement that almost broke my concentration—just as one man walked in, holding a flashlight. I refrained from wincing and held my breath, watching the beam of his light as he swung it around the room.

The beam swept toward me, and I prepared myself to leap at him as soon as it interacted with the suit, hoping that the sudden appearance of me in the darkness would surprise him enough that I could get an advantage over him. Hopefully, Solomon would get involved as well—we had sparred a few times and he was a solid brawler.

It made me wish we had opted to enter these buildings while cloaked, but we had discussed using it as a backup plan. There were two main reasons for that: the first was that the suits were the Liberators’ most carefully guarded secret. They were only issued full-time to Desmond, Owen, Solomon, and a few others—the rest were handed out before missions, and Owen had explained to me that if one of us were killed on a mission, we were expected to cut the suits off of them. Or burn the bodies if there wasn’t enough time. Personally, I liked the second option better—there was something fundamentally wrong about stripping a dead body.

Using them, especially on camera, was only allowed in desperate situations, and if there did happen to be cameras, we had to go out of our way to destroy any and all footage.

The second reason was simply one of functionality. It didn’t matter how strong I was, my muscles had limits. Eventually, they would relax, and I would reappear. There was a contest among the Liberators, who could stay cloaked the longest when standing, moving, or even fighting. Owen held all three records. He could maintain the cloak while standing still for over an hour, while walking for half of that, and for five whole minutes while fighting or interacting with objects.

The beam had slowed to a stop, and I slowly released the breath I had been holding until I realized it was pointed at the unmoving foot of the guard we had killed. I tensed my already tense muscles as the guard slowly made his way over to body, his hand on the butt of his pistol.

“McGee,” he whispered, his eyes darting about.

McGee, of course, did not answer. After a second, the man moved his hand off his gun, switched the flashlight to his other hand, and pulled out his radio.

“Sir, Gustoff here,” he said, taking a slow, measured step back.

“Go ahead,” replied a tiny muted voice through the speaker.

“Sir, we have a code red—I just found McGee’s body. He’s been shot.”

There was a long pause. “Are there any signs of the perpetrators?”

“Negative, sir. I must have passed them on my sweep. Or they’ve fled.”

“Retrace your steps slowly. I’m sending Murtaugh and Lowens to sweep up from our end and see if we can’t trap them between us. Be careful though, and don’t shoot at one of ours.”

“Roger,” Gustoff said, before hooking his radio to his belt. He carefully switched hands again and slowly pulled out his pistol, turning around to head down the hall.

I was moving before he had even gone a step, quickly closing the gap between us. I was quite proud—I made it halfway there before I lost control of the suit. As I strode past the desk, I snagged a heavy-looking paper weight. The guard tensed, his body starting to turn toward me, when I lifted my arm and slammed the weight down hard on his skull.

He dropped like a bag of potatoes, his gun clacking loudly on the ground. I looked around and quickly grabbed him under the armpits. Solomon appeared next to me.

You all right? he asked, moving to the guard’s feet. I nodded and we quickly moved him out of the way.

We need to move quickly—you heard the transmission.

Solomon hesitated. Violet, more guards are coming. They know something’s going on. We should scrub the mission.

I checked the channel and breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t transmitted that to Owen, only to me. We are not leaving, I said, staring him down. I didn’t come all this way to give up. Either follow me or don’t, but we need to move. Now!

Solomon’s jaw tightened, but he quickly reached down and grabbed his bag. We pulled our gear back on and began moving down the corridor again.