Silver Elite: Chapter 52
Nov. 29th, 2025 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penwallaWren uses the explosion as cover as she chases down Adrienne. Adrienne is in bad shape.
Wren reluctantly starts helping Adrienne get to safety, and as she does Adrienne answers her questions. This is extremely out of character for Adrienne as she's been presented so far, but we have to get this explanation in the book somehow, I guess.
Turns out Adrienne has a super-rare ability to rewire the brain to turn people into vegetables. This is so rare that Wren conveniently has never heard of it. Having delivered the necessary exposition, Adrienne makes her escape. Another explosion goes off, and Wren is interrupted in her attempt to get back to the ball by Roe.
Hmm. Is the Uprising working with one of the General's sons, and the whole plot was like...we help you get into power, and in exchange you do something for us? Hmm.
Turns out Roe talked to Ivy and knows Wren is a Mod, and they start fighting. He subdues her, and then Lyddie shows up--turns out she turned Wren in. They pull up Wren's dress to show her bloodmark--wasn't it covered by her underwear like two chapters ago? Is in groin or thigh, Wren?--and then arrest her.
Next scene. Wren is in the stockade.
Cross told her he was coming, but hasn't said anything else. Instead she is spinning a conspiracy theory about the Uprising.
The only person Wren knows for sure was corrupted was the General! Wren has no evidence this is being done on a widespread scale, nor does she know of any other victims. And we saw firsthand that it was difficult for Adrienne to do and that the ability is rare, so it makes sense that it's not a widespread phenomenon. And there's no evidence that this has anything to do with the hospital ward, either.
And like...is it morally wrong to break the mind of a violent tyrant who killed tens of thousands of people? Does Wren consider for even a second that the death of the General might be a good thing? Until Lyddie personally betrayed Wren for being a Mod, Wren was perfectly happy to be friends with her. But the Uprising do one thing she is morally against in front of her and suddenly Jayde Valence must be right.
Wren forced Jayde Valence to kill herself, by the way, in self defense, but she doesn't for a second compare that act to what happened to the General.
Wren then wonders if Vinessa, Cross's mom, was corrupted, and I bet she was because she's the only possible option. And I guess that'll be Wren's justification for whatever heinous shit she ends up doing later.
Wren links with Cross again to ask where he is, and he tells her the Uprising destroyed a significant chunk of the Command's base. Travis is now in command, and Cross doesn't think he'll be open to Wren as a double agent right now. Yeah, I think Travis was in on this somehow, considering the convo he and Cross had that Wren overheard earlier in the book.
Wren thinks about how she would never have betrayed Lyddie and how mad she is that Lyddie betrayed her, and then about Tana, who hasn't spoken to her in weeks. She finally seems to start to grasp that her friendships with other Mods might be valuable than her friendships with the members of the military unit meant to kill Mods.
Finally, Cross arrives.
Adrienne tells Wren that she's spoken on her behalf to the Authority, the council that governs the Uprising, and that Wren will be allowed at their secret base if she can escape the stockade on her own. But they can't get her out, so she's on her own unless she can make it through the Blacklands and to the base under her own power.
Naturally, no one can get through the Blacklands on foot except Wren, who grew up there. I don't buy this at all, by the way, if the Blacklands can be survived by one guy with a small child they ought to be teeming with people hiding from the government.
Wren tells Cross that the Uprising won't rescue her, but she might have a way to rescue herself. Well, that's pretty rare in this book, so I hope so, Wren. I hope so.
Chapter end.
This book is clearly trying to set up the Uprising as evil and hasn't even done a good job. But we know they're evil, because they're ruled by the Authority and because they refuse to risk everything to rescue Wren. Because remember: when people are nice to Wren they are good, and when they are mean to Wren they are bad.
“What did you do to him?” I demand.
She looks sick. Physically ill. In fact, she can hardly walk, her knees noticeably wobbling.
“What’s wrong with you?” I blurt out.
When she keels over, I instinctively steady her, shocked by how cold her skin feels. Yet her face drips with sweat.
Wren reluctantly starts helping Adrienne get to safety, and as she does Adrienne answers her questions. This is extremely out of character for Adrienne as she's been presented so far, but we have to get this explanation in the book somehow, I guess.
Turns out Adrienne has a super-rare ability to rewire the brain to turn people into vegetables. This is so rare that Wren conveniently has never heard of it. Having delivered the necessary exposition, Adrienne makes her escape. Another explosion goes off, and Wren is interrupted in her attempt to get back to the ball by Roe.
Hmm. Is the Uprising working with one of the General's sons, and the whole plot was like...we help you get into power, and in exchange you do something for us? Hmm.
Turns out Roe talked to Ivy and knows Wren is a Mod, and they start fighting. He subdues her, and then Lyddie shows up--turns out she turned Wren in. They pull up Wren's dress to show her bloodmark--wasn't it covered by her underwear like two chapters ago? Is in groin or thigh, Wren?--and then arrest her.
Next scene. Wren is in the stockade.
Cross told her he was coming, but hasn't said anything else. Instead she is spinning a conspiracy theory about the Uprising.
I’ve had time to sit and think. To obsess. To try to make sense of everything that happened tonight. The Uprising is destroying people’s minds. Adrienne confirmed that tonight. But on what scale? Does her ability to corrupt have something to do with the fragmented hospital ward I stumbled upon? Were some of those people corrupted rather than fragmented? Were some of them actually Primes? Most of them, from the look of their veins, were Modified. And I can’t envision Adrienne being okay with experimenting on our own.This is an insane overreach.
But I also wouldn’t have believed she could stand there and fry a man’s brain if I hadn’t seen it firsthand.
The only person Wren knows for sure was corrupted was the General! Wren has no evidence this is being done on a widespread scale, nor does she know of any other victims. And we saw firsthand that it was difficult for Adrienne to do and that the ability is rare, so it makes sense that it's not a widespread phenomenon. And there's no evidence that this has anything to do with the hospital ward, either.
And like...is it morally wrong to break the mind of a violent tyrant who killed tens of thousands of people? Does Wren consider for even a second that the death of the General might be a good thing? Until Lyddie personally betrayed Wren for being a Mod, Wren was perfectly happy to be friends with her. But the Uprising do one thing she is morally against in front of her and suddenly Jayde Valence must be right.
Wren forced Jayde Valence to kill herself, by the way, in self defense, but she doesn't for a second compare that act to what happened to the General.
Wren then wonders if Vinessa, Cross's mom, was corrupted, and I bet she was because she's the only possible option. And I guess that'll be Wren's justification for whatever heinous shit she ends up doing later.
Wren links with Cross again to ask where he is, and he tells her the Uprising destroyed a significant chunk of the Command's base. Travis is now in command, and Cross doesn't think he'll be open to Wren as a double agent right now. Yeah, I think Travis was in on this somehow, considering the convo he and Cross had that Wren overheard earlier in the book.
Wren thinks about how she would never have betrayed Lyddie and how mad she is that Lyddie betrayed her, and then about Tana, who hasn't spoken to her in weeks. She finally seems to start to grasp that her friendships with other Mods might be valuable than her friendships with the members of the military unit meant to kill Mods.
Finally, Cross arrives.
“Travis has declared war on all known Mods.”Cross tells Wren she's been sentenced to death, then asks her to link with Adrienne so they can get her out of prison.
My stomach drops. “What?”
“This attack on our base won’t go unpunished, not if Travis has anything to say about it. Every Mod we know of is being rounded up and sent to labor camps for the time being, slave and loyalist. He says he’ll decide whether to let them live on a case-by-case basis.”
“But they’ve been loyal to you all these years,” I protest.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re either a prisoner or you’re dead.”
“What about me? Am I a prisoner or am I dead?”
“Where the hell have you been?”Oh, god. I can guess how Wren is going to react to this, but for the record, this could all have been avoided if she hadn't made the stupid decision to prove her love for Cross by having her bloodmark healed. Or, again, if she had just fucking locked her bathroom door. It's not the Uprising's fault she's an idiot who blew her cover!
“Waiting for my ability to open a path to return. Where are you?”
“I’m in the stockade. One of my fellows turned me in. You need to get me out of here.”
“We can’t.” She still sounds tired. “The wards are on lockdown. Airspace is being monitored, so we can’t risk sending an aircraft. We’ll be going dark for a while.”
Adrienne tells Wren that she's spoken on her behalf to the Authority, the council that governs the Uprising, and that Wren will be allowed at their secret base if she can escape the stockade on her own. But they can't get her out, so she's on her own unless she can make it through the Blacklands and to the base under her own power.
Naturally, no one can get through the Blacklands on foot except Wren, who grew up there. I don't buy this at all, by the way, if the Blacklands can be survived by one guy with a small child they ought to be teeming with people hiding from the government.
Wren tells Cross that the Uprising won't rescue her, but she might have a way to rescue herself. Well, that's pretty rare in this book, so I hope so, Wren. I hope so.
Chapter end.
This book is clearly trying to set up the Uprising as evil and hasn't even done a good job. But we know they're evil, because they're ruled by the Authority and because they refuse to risk everything to rescue Wren. Because remember: when people are nice to Wren they are good, and when they are mean to Wren they are bad.
