“Hi!” The single girl waved. “I’m Magrit. But my friends call me Mag.”
I waved back.
“Brie and Dorrie here.” A petite girl with blond, curly hair waved. Her arm was tucked around the waist of a tall, willowy girl whose deep brown skin contrasted beautifully with the paleness of the other. They sat back, an obvious couple.
“Hey,” I said.
“I’m Paulette.” Her voice was sharp as a blade. One she’d probably like to bury deep inside me, from the look she gave me. Anger shot through me, but I held it in.
She clearly knew who I was, but I didn’t know if she was aware that I knew who she was. If I wanted to be in the Sisterhood, I would need to figure out how to get along with this girl. I realized, if she was here on this call, then she wasn’t with Sal, wherever he was. So maybe Wei was right. Maybe she was just a necessary evil to endure, as Pops would say. Thinking of it that way made my “Hi, Paulette” sound a lot nicer than it would’ve otherwise.
“So,” Wei said. “When we all talked, I told them about how we met, and I gave them some background on you. How you figured out where your mother had hidden that FeLS info, and that you saved my life.” No details, she mouthed to me. “And they know that you’re Alan Oberon’s daughter.”
Paulette muttered, “I still say that doesn’t—”
Brie butted in. “Paulette, we discussed this to death already. And, Nina, you should know that it’s not because you’re Alan Oberon’s daughter that we’re inviting you to join the Sisterhood. Wei recommended you. We voted. You’re in.”
Brie, Dorrie, and Mag all nodded.
“If you want to be,” Paulette said.
“Listen,” I said, “if this is a big problem for you, I don’t have to—”
“You’re in, Nina.” Wei said firmly. “Right, Paulette?”
“Sure. Whatever.”
I refused to let Paulette’s attitude get to me. As I looked at the other girls, I saw support and welcoming smiles.
“Tell them about today,” Wei said. “Chris only gave me the bare facts, Nina. I know there’s more.”
The familiar warmth moved up my neck. Doing something in the heat of the moment, like rushing down to the Bureau with Pops’s meds, was one thing; talking about it was completely different. I drew a deep breath and told them the whole story of my trip to the Bureau. When I was done, Mag clapped.
“I can’t believe you walked into the Bureau without an appointment, and with a bag of anything, let alone unauthorized meds. You’re lucky that woman only threatened you—usually they stun first and ask questions later,” Mag said.
“Wow!” Dorrie said. “Weren’t you scared?”
“I didn’t really think about it until after I got out of there. And then I was terrified at what I’d done,” I admitted.
“You’ve got some courage going,” Brie said.
“I didn’t feel very brave,” I said.
“Well, courage is when you act even though you’re scared to death inside.”
“Foolhardy’s more like it,” Paulette muttered.
“Like you wouldn’t do something risky to save one of your family members?” Brie asked.
“In the first place, Brie, my family members wouldn’t put themselves in—”
“Paulette. Brie.” Wei’s voice had an edge I’d never heard before. “Calm down. Shut up.”
“Look,” I said. “Pops needed his medicine. It was something that had to be done. That’s all. You guys do things to help the Resistance, things that need to be done. That’s exactly what I did.”
“Well said.” Brie settled down. “Welcome to the Sisterhood, Nina.”
“Yeah, welcome,” Dorrie said.
“Definitely. Glad to have you.” Mag chimed in.
“Right.” Paulette stared straight ahead.
This wasn’t going to be hearts and flowers, not with Paulette in the group. But at least I was in. That was good.
“So is now the time to talk about, you know… Joan?” I asked Wei.
“Yeah. They know some of the truth about FeLS, but I haven’t filled them in on Joan’s situation. Now’s as good a time as any.”
“FeLS? There’s more than the sex-slavery crap?” Dorrie sat up. “That is the most disgusting… Thank goodness I’m tier three and exempt. Ha! Never thought I’d ever say that.”
Brie hooked her arm in Dorrie’s. “Someday there won’t be any tiers at all. People will be able to do whatever they want to without being held back or forced to be some way they’re not.”
Without trying to appear as if I was checking her out, I snuck a look at Dorrie. Sure enough. Unlike Brie’s ultrachic clothes, Dorrie was wearing Sale-o-rama jeans, like me. I’d kind of assumed all the Sisterhood would be upper tier, like Wei, and obviously Paulette. On closer examination, Mag was wearing mid-tier. Not Mars 9, but not Sale either. We were a mixed bunch.
“So what’s the additional info?” Paulette asked.
“You all know that Nina’s mother was murdered. She’d been spying, collecting information on FeLS, details about how they forced—sorry, ‘Chose’—tier-one and tier-two girls into training as sex slaves, and how the ones who didn’t make it through the so-called training were shipped off to Mars to ‘service’ the miners. And she was killed because someone wanted the evidence she’d been gathering about FeLS.”
Sympathetic murmurs came from everyone, even Paulette. I tried not to let it get to me. I’d spent the last few months steeling myself against the emotions surrounding Mom’s death. I scrunched my sadness deep into my gut; no way would I break down now.
“But her killer didn’t find the evidence. Nina’s mom hid it, and Nina found it.”
I flashed back to that last confrontation with Ed in the abandoned building. To finally finding the package of information my mom had lost her life to get from him… Wei’s voice broke through my cloudy thoughts. “Nina and I got the info to the Resistance, to her father, just a few weeks ago. Dad says we should be hearing an Alert on the Media soon.” She humphed. “Should be interesting to see how they’ll spin the fact that only a few girls entering FeLS were actually trained as diplomatic liaisons. How the rest of them were turned into toys for high-level government officials. No one, no matter if they are tier one or tier two, should ever be treated like that. I really wonder what’ll happen when the truth is out?”
Echoes of “Yeah, no kidding,” “About time,” and “That’ll set the GC back” ricocheted around the room.
“So,” Paulette said, “you still have not told us about this Joan.”
“Joan is the sister of one of my best friends,” I said. “She was chosen for FeLS. The sex training. She couldn’t take it, and when she broke, they consigned her to Mars. I don’t know how, but she was rescued. By NonCons, I think. She ended up living with a group of homeless women down by the river. I recognized her one day, and I’ve talked with her a few times. She needs to get off the street and get some care, but she can’t go to anything GC related. As far as they know, she no longer exists.”
“Why doesn’t she go to her family? And what makes her any different from hundreds of other girls just like her?” Paulette asked.
I stiffened. “Her family doesn’t know what happened to her—they think she’s still in FeLS. Do you think she can really afford to tip off the government by letting her family know where she is? Or what happened to her? And also, she’s a friend of mine. And I don’t know and haven’t seen those ‘hundreds of other girls,’ but I have seen Joan. I know where she is, and I know she needs help. Whether or not the Sisterhood wants to be a part of that… well, I’m going to do something, even if I have to do it alone.” I set my jaw. That was it. One way or the other, Joan was going to get help.