The Gender Lie(42)

Now that I was in her office with her, I wasn’t leaving until she answered my damn questions.

Desmond had relinquished her hold on my hand and turned to Owen to shake his. He smiled broadly as she pulled him in for a hug, whispering a thank you in his ear. Then Desmond leaned back against her desk, relaxing.

I watched her curiously as she picked up her handheld and held it up to her face. “Thomas, I’ve got Violet and Owen here,” she said after he came online.

“Good job, you two. That was close!” Thomas said, relief thick in his voice.

Owen replied for us. “Thanks Thomas, especially on the clear instructions. How did you know what to—”

“Electronics are my specialty—besides, they didn’t build it that well. I guess when they built it to explode, they never considered people might be inside who would want to stop it.”

Owen and Desmond nodded in agreement, but I frowned. That seemed like a pretty big scenario to overlook. I mean… I knew that the facility was buried in The Green, but surely they had considered the possibility of a human incursion on their base. Or that maybe one day the boys would break free.

“We just need to be thankful for the lack of Matrian foresight,” Desmond said. “In my day, we would have rigged that thing to be unstoppable. Clearly my successors aren’t nearly as thoughtful as I am… Thomas,” she went on. “I want you to dig through the blueprints and find every explosive location in the base, then send me a report on how to safely remove them. I want this place free of any advantage to them that would do us harm.”

“I’m already on it, Des. I’ll have it for you in three hours or less.”

“Good,” she replied, before hanging up.

Then she turned her attention back to Owen and me. Standing up, she inclined her head toward us. “I’ll let you both know what Thomas finds, if you want to be part of the team that helps do the disconnecting. I’d understand if you didn’t want to, however—you did just save us, after all. That entitles you to a little—”

“Won’t be necessary,” interrupted Owen, who had straightened to his full height. “It doesn’t merit us to anything.”

Desmond shot Owen a winning smile and nodded. “All right then. I’ll send a runner for you when Thomas gets the report to me.”

Owen nodded and turned at her clear dismissal, while Desmond went to sit behind the desk, her hands scrolling through various files on her handheld. Owen stopped at the door when he realized I wasn’t following.

“Violet,” he hissed, and I met his gaze.

“I need to have a chat with Desmond,” I announced, causing Desmond to glance up at me.

“Owen, it’s all right,” she said. “I’ve… I’ve been putting this chat off. I’ll see you later.”

Owen gave us both a dubious look, but acquiesced, drawing the door closed behind him. I turned and stared down at Desmond whose mouth was drawn tight.

“I already know what you want to talk about, Violet, and I am sorry for putting you off, but—”

“How could you,” I said through clenched teeth, cutting Desmond off.

She froze, her mouth still open to speak, and then leaned back in her chair, giving me a stern look.

“I made the decision because it was the right one to make,” she said.

“We were right here in this office when you agreed—”

“We discussed it, Violet, and I told you I agreed with you in principle,” Desmond snapped. I shot her a contemptuous look and she tossed the pen in her hand on the desk with a clatter. “I’m sorry you disagree, but the truth is that if this is the enemy’s weapon, then we have to utilize it or be destroyed. It is an arms race, albeit a genetic one, and we are losing.”

“But Solomon –”

“Solomon knew what he was doing. He knew the risks and he did it anyway. Let me ask you this—if your roles had been reversed, if you knew your partner on a mission was about to rush headlong and needlessly into death, would you try to stop him?”

“Of course I would, but that doesn’t mean I’d need some super pill to do it!”

She shot me an acerbic look and shook her head. “Now you’re just being stubborn. Let’s imagine it’s your young Mr. Croft. Only he isn’t about to do something stupid—he’s been hurt. He’s got nearly fifty pounds of pure muscle on you—all dead weight—and the enemy is closing in. The only options are to take a pill that might drive you insane, leave him behind, or both get caught and executed. Would you do it for him?”

“Of course I would, but that doesn’t mean—”