Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1), Mariana Morgan [epub e ink reader .TXT] 📗

abandonment of the Leeches. Unfortunately, unable to strike back at the Elite, the ruling class that had caused the problem, the independent freelance criminals and gangsters banded together and took advantage of their fellow Leeches, who were an easy target. The Syndicate was renowned for its cruelty, but it never struck out against defenceless families—unless, of course, it had a good reason.

For the average Leech, going down into the Underground City was suicide. If you had skills to offer or something of value to trade, or better yet both, now that was a different story. The Syndicate was always happy to recruit.

Recruitment was not what Ingram had in mind, but if there was any place Wagner wasn’t going to follow in a rush, it was the underground tunnels.

The Elite had only a vague understanding of the existence of the Underground City, and they certainly knew nothing of just how extensive the maze of passages was. There was no map; the Syndicate made sure of that. Even the Elite’s best satellites couldn’t see through the centuries of accumulated rubble and various building materials that protected the secrets of the Underground City from uninvited guests. It wasn’t like there were powerful energy sources one could scan for. No one on the surface knew that the series of seemingly uninhabitable and half-collapsed passages was nothing of the sort.

If a map existed marking one of the few remaining entrances, no Elite would last long down there. At least not until they could go in wearing full nano-armour, guns blazing and in heavy numbers. Mobilisation of the police from twelve different stations around Lyon would take time. The peace-spoilt police weren’t used to that type of operation anymore. They were a civilian law enforcement agency, there to satisfy the needs of the spoilt Elite. Their average day involved dealing with traffic offences and air-rage and other petty disputes that humans just couldn’t grow out of. Most arrests were peaceful and led to fines or bribes. The Police Forces were nearly a generation removed from needing to armour- and gun-up for action. The vast majority of them were lazy and undertrained and had exactly zero experience of ground combat or hostage situations.

No, despite the risks the Underground City came with, Ingram knew that her luck was to be found among the Syndicate. She couldn’t count on any old contacts to protect her. She would have to work the favour system, starting at the very bottom, but if she’d managed it in the past, she could certainly do it again.

Priorities, girl, priorities. Focus on what you need first. Clothes. We need to blend in.

‘Stay here,’ she ordered, pushing Eloise into a narrow gap under a staircase. ‘Stay quiet and—’

Her voice faltered. It was the first time since take-off that she’d had the opportunity to look directly into the other woman’s eyes. There was hardly anything in them. Ingram had seen her fair share of traumatised people, but that wasn’t it. The Elite woman’s different-coloured eyes were barely tracking, as if there was no connection between her brain and what her eyes saw, while her face looked relaxed, almost asleep.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Ingram yanked the other woman’s top up, exposing her midriff.

Just as she’d suspected, the Elite woman was under the influence of heavy drugs. The three nano-patches gleamed with their sterile, bright colours, looking out of place in the grim slums.

Ingram’s medical knowledge was very limited. She’d had to complete the obligatory basic medic qualification during her Special Forces training, but she had never opted for the elective advanced course in nano-medicine.

Who the hell would when there were piloting modules to sign up for instead?

A lot of theoretical knowledge had evaporated in the seventeen years since she gained her basic qualifications, but the practical knowledge she had picked up during the Wars, even before the Special Forces training, was strong and clear. Though that still didn’t make her an expert. The patches in front of her bore clear signs of personal modification, which confused her even more. She had no experience with those. The military always standardised their gear and supplies. Not to mention, personalised patches were too expensive to provide for the troops.

Just the thing a filthy Elite would have done. Ingram scowled, but then took a deep breath, dredging up the information.

Think, girl!

The basic shape and colours remain unchanged. That’s the law. The monitoring subunit is also always in the same place. The instructions encoded in it could be different, adapted to the body’s specific biochemistry, which is way past my ability to understand. The chemicals could also be different, but that shouldn’t affect the core function.

Okay. She took another deep breath. Whatever the personalised modifications, these patches are essentially no different than the standard ones, at least on a basic level… I think.

She paused, giving Eloise another look. No wonder the Elite woman was out of it. She had probably just been though the most terrifying experience ever, and her body had flooded her with adrenaline in quantities it had never experienced before. The faithful nano-patches had done exactly as programmed; they continuously released chemicals to counteract every molecule of adrenaline and other stress hormones. The more Eloise’s body was stressed, the more counteracting chemicals were released. The more chemicals were released, the more adrenaline her body produced to prepare her for the fight-or-flight response that never came. There was no cheating the way human bodies had evolved to survive at all costs. No external chemicals could convince the body to stop trying to save itself. The body would literally die trying, poisoning itself in the process. For the last few desperate minutes, while Ingram had fought to keep them both alive, the bloody patches had literally been eating Eloise alive.

Fuck.

Ingram reached out angrily to pull them off, but something made her hesitate. There was no way to predict how the Elite woman would behave when the adrenaline and other stress hormones were allowed to roam free around her body. There