The Defector

by J. C. Andrijeski

  It was Kali, giving birth.

  It was markers in her light… markers in her child’s light.

  He could see Vash and Galaith standing in a Barrier field of some kind. Galaith wore an avatar, like he always did, but Vash looked the same as he did in real life, in his physical body, his long face smiling sadly as he nodded to Galaith’s words.

  They shook on that thing, whatever it was.

  I was not the one to take her, Galaith told Revik softly before he left. Know that, brother Revik. And know that you are missed greatly here. Whatever you tell yourself, whatever your new friends tell you, you are missed painfully, my friend… and you are loved…

  Revik fought back another stab of pain, struggling to extract himself.

  That time, they let him.

  All the hands and arms around him in that space finally let him go.

  The Adhipan shield wove back around his light, blocking out those silver strands.

  Revik felt worry there, apology, fear for him––

  He felt Vash, Tarsi, Balidor, Yumi, Dalejem––

  But he couldn’t let them in either, not at first.

  He couldn’t stand to have any of them there, inside his light, or anywhere near him.

  He slammed his own shield down hard over his light, inside the shield of the Adhipan. He pushed all of them out almost without meaning to do it, or maybe just without being able to help himself from desperately needing the space.

  It felt like he couldn’t bear to have any light touching him but his own.

  He even forced out Balidor, who stood right next to him now, practically touching him with his body, surrounding him with clear, fast-moving light. Revik didn’t try to move away physically from the Adhipan seer; he just stood there, breathing in and out, forcing emotion out with every breath, forcing out pain, thought, memory, his feeble attempts to understand.

  All of it.

  He closed his heart.

  Gaos. Some childlike part of him didn’t want to feel anything, ever again.

  When Revik’s eyes finally cleared, he found himself looking at Terian.

  He couldn’t tell by looking at the auburn-haired seer, just how much Terian had seen.

  Right then, Revik didn’t really care.

  He wanted out of there. Now.

  Before he could voice that desire aloud, Terian spoke, his voice cold.

  “And how was it, Revi’?” he said. “Did you show daddy your favorite bitch? Does he still love you, after all this time?”

  Revik snapped back at him, speaking without thought.

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself, Terry?” he growled.

  His voice shook. His hands were shaking too.

  Still, he’d meant his words to Terian sarcastically. Despite that fact, he saw his ex-partner’s eyes shift the instant after he’d spoken them. Watching Terian’s face, Revik realized the Rook was doing exactly as he’d suggested.

  He was asking Galaith.

  Revik just stood there, glancing around at the rest of the Org agents, watching as they stared back at him, their hands and fingers rearranging themselves around different parts of the weapons they held.

  Eventually, Terian clicked out.

  Once he had, anger flared back into those amber-colored irises.

  “So. You got what you wanted,” Terian said. “How nice for you, Revi’. Galaith says we are to let you and your friends go.”

  His words had a strange distance to them.

  Something about what he heard and felt there caused Revik to stare at him warily.

  “…Galaith didn’t say, however, that we couldn’t extract a toll before you go, Revi’.”

  Terian stepped closer to where Revik stood, gliding in that deceptively casual way of his. Revik felt his body tense. Some less-conscious part of him picked up on the threat. That part sent up a flare to the rest of him, warning him.

  It was the rest of Revik, the more conscious part, that was caught off guard. That part was still off-balance and shaking from having Galaith so intimately in his light.

  That part let Terian get too close.

  That part didn’t see the knife.

  That part only felt it, when the sharp edge of the blade suddenly pressed to his throat.

  Balidor’s light flared in alarm…

  …but Revik froze, staring into Terian’s face.

  He felt his breath stop and clench in his chest.

  Instinct made him freeze.

  He was too late, his mind told him. He couldn’t push him off. He couldn’t block him, or fight him. He wouldn’t get out that way. That way was closed.

  Revik knew how good Terian was with that knife.

  He’d watched him with it––watched him use it and practice with it and play with it. He’d trained with him, sparred with him, honed techniques and new moves with him. Revik knew how fast he was. Cutting instruments had always been Terry’s favorite toys.

  He liked blood. The more, the better.

  He even liked it during sex.

  Forcing the image out of his mind, Revik kept his whole focus on the other seer, still struggling to keep from doing something stupid, something that would definitely get him killed. He could feel the blade pushing in his breath. He knew he could cut himself, just by swallowing wrong, by moving even a millimeter in the wrong direction.

  Even so, the main emotion that slid into Revik’s mind and light was anger.

  Terian seemed to see it.

  Or feel it, maybe.

  Moreover, Revik’s anger seemed to please him.

  Terian smiled, angling the knife closer. “Maybe I want to extract a toll from you, Revi’,” he said, his voice softer. “…before you go.”

  Revik glanced quickly around the clearing, reminding himself of the locations of all of the Org infiltrators.

  He felt Balidor beside him once more, closer than before.

  Furious.

  Adhipan leader Balidor was fucking furious.

  Revik had no idea if it was at him, for letting Terian get that close, or at Balidor himself, for not seeing it coming, or at Terian for being a whack-job sociopath with a vendetta and a knife. Balidor may even have been angry with Galaith, for going back on their deal… or for having so little control over his people.

  Revik could have told him not to waste his time.

  Even Galaith didn’t have much luck controlling Terian.

  Don’t give him a reason to kill you, Balidor whispered in Revik’s mind.

  Under different circumstances, Revik might have laughed.

  Balidor’s light remained calm on the surface, a reminder for Revik to stay the same. Even so, Revik could feel the fury seething through the other’s aleimi.

  …Give us a minute, Balidor sent, his light still reassuring. Vash is talking to Galaith.

  Revik fought back his own anger, forcing stillness into his aleimi.

  He understood what Balidor was asking him.

  He wanted Revik to buy time.

  Feeling his jaw clench, Revik returned his focus back to Terian.

  “Don’t do this, Terry,” he said.

  He didn’t want to move his throat, so his voice came out soft.

  “…You kill me, and the Org and the Seven break treaty,” he said, still in that near-murmur. “The Seven might be peaceful at base, but they won’t stand for that. You know it. So does Galaith…”

  Remembering Kali’s people, the ones her mate had called out to the jungle as reinforcements, Revik added,

  “…You know what’s behind me in those hills. They’ll hunt you down like a rabid dog, Terry, just to make the point. And just like that, you and me are dead, and this cold war of ours… this relative truce… it all turns hot overnight. And then our people don’t have a chance in hell, Terry. None of us do. We won’t have to wait for the humans to kill us. We’ll do it to ourselves.”

  Terian lips curved in a wry smile.

  “Still the politician, aren’t you, Revi’?”

  �
��You know I’m right.”

  Revik didn’t add that he knew Terian cared more about the fate of the seer race than he usually let on. Most in the Org did.

  It was part of their ideology, twisted though it was.

  “Do I?” Terian said coldly. “So why am I so confused by all of this, old friend?” He pressed the blade tighter to Revik’s throat and Revik flinched, closing his eyes longer than a blink.

  “What are you confused about, Terry?” he said, his voice still low.

  “You, Revi’,” Terian said. “I’m confused about you, old friend. Why are you doing this? Why would you work for them? What’s in it for you, Revi’? Really?”

  Revik felt his jaw clench.

  “She’s an intermediary, Terry,” he said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know––”

  Terian let out an angry laugh, pressing harder on the knife.

  “You can’t kill her.” Revik raised his voice, even as he felt Balidor send a cautioning pulse his way. “You sure as fuck can’t kill her child. You know what it might mean––”

  When Terian jabbed the blade deeper against his throat, cutting him that time, Revik let out a gasp. Anger swam through his light, along with more than one kind of pain.

  “...Gods damn it, Terry!” he snapped. “Grow up! This isn’t about me. Or us. And it isn’t about her and me. There is no her and me. She’s married, remember? Like you said, she’s having another seer’s child. She and I… I’ve never touched her, Terry.”

  When Terian let out another angry laugh, Revik felt his anger worsen.

  “…and if you think she’s the real reason I left, you don’t know me at all!” His voice lowered to a harder growl. “I didn’t want to fucking be there anymore, Terry! I didn’t want any of it. I hadn’t been happy for years. I hated everything about what we were doing, how much worse we were making the world. Which you would have known, if you knew me even half as well as you like to pretend. Just let it go, for fuck’s sake! It’s over!”

  But Terian only shook his head.

  “No, brother,” he said. “No, no, no… it’s not over. It will never be over, because I can’t just let you live a lie. I can’t. You wouldn’t let me, if our positions were reversed––”

  “Live a lie?” Revik growled.

  He snorted, letting Terian hear his contempt.

  He remembered all of those months in the caves, the memories they forced him to relive, all of those scenes, over and over again––how much he fucking hated himself, through all of it.

  The more those images flashed behind his eyes, the more he didn’t care if the other male did cut his throat.

  Fuck it. Good riddance.

  No! a voice snapped in his mind. No, goddamn it! Don’t go there! I mean it!

  Realizing it was Dalejem, Revik felt his fury worsen.

  But he didn’t care what Dalejem or any of them heard about him anymore.

  He didn’t care what they saw about his past under the Rooks or at any other time.

  They knew what he was. Who was he kidding?

  “Jesus, Terry,” he snapped, aiming his fury at the Rook. “What the fuck do you think I did under Galaith for all those years? You’re so convinced that was the ‘real’ me, and this is some illusion… that I’ve been brainwashed or tricked or somehow got lost between Vietnam and India. You really think I’ve been snowed by the Seven? By the Adhipan? By fucking Kali, who only ever tried to help me? Who’s never been anything but a friend to me?”

  He tensed, jaw tightening, when Terian pressed the blade harder against his skin, but he didn’t let it shut him up.

  “She’s having a child right now, Terry,” he said. “Right now, as we speak. A child all of us should be trying to protect, not sell into slavery. Or use in some kind of juvenile pissing match with me.”

  He trailed when he saw the delight rise back to Terian’s eyes.

  Why the fuck was he bothering with this? Why was he even trying to reach him? Because he was trying to reach him, on some level, at least. He might have started off trying to stall, to distract Terian for the Adhipan, but he’d practically forgotten that in the time since.

  He was trying to talk to Terian.

  He was actually trying to talk to him.

  Terian couldn’t even hear him.

  And did he need to confess his sins to the Adhipan?

  Fuck them, too.

  Fuck all of them.

  Clicking under his breath, Revik stared down at Terian, feeling real pity for him, maybe for the first time.

  Revik himself might be a fucking mess, but at least he was starting to see the truth about who and what he really was. Unlike Terry, he was no longer deluded into thinking he was the hero of this particular movie. He no longer believed he’d be proven right by history, by time, by faceless masses of seers and humans, by some higher power.

  He no longer waited for the ticker-tape parades, for the statues erected of his likeness, for those who spat on him to apologize and tell him they’d been wrong.

  He was just another cog in the machine.

  He was just another stupid asshole who got deluded into fighting for the wrong side.

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe it was the reverse, Terry?” Revik said. “That maybe you’re the one living the lie? That I’m the one who finally woke up?”

  “No,” Terian said, pressing into him deeper again with the knife. “No, it didn’t, Revi’.”

  Revik held up his hands, moving more in instinct than conscious thought. He slid his throat and head back in the same motion, moving as much of both out of the way as he could without taking more than a half-step back.

  Terian made up the half-step with a full one.

  Revik felt warmth pooling at the neck of his armored shirt. His throat was bleeding steadily now. Maybe he really was going to die out here.

  He honestly didn’t know if he cared anymore.

  “Put the fucking knife down, Terry,” he said, his voice cold.

  “I want my toll, first.”

  “Your toll?” Revik glared at him, barely masking the contempt in his voice. He was done with this. He was tempted to tell the other seer to shit or get off the pot, but he knew Terian would likely slit his throat the instant he said it.

  “…What toll, Terry?” he said instead.

  Terian smiled, sidling closer to where Revik stood.

  “I want you to let Quay here suck your cock before you go.” Those amber eyes glinted, holding a mad light Revik remembered. “I want to watch you come, brother.”

  His words managed to catch Revik off-guard.

  Revik felt them like a punch.

  That time, maybe to the solar plexus.

  He barely had time to think before Terian was forcing him back, towards the side of the clearing, angling his body and the knife to keep Balidor behind Revik. Revik matched his steps, again moving more in instinct than thought, gasping a little as the warmth increased at his throat. He hadn’t hit the artery yet, but Revik knew that was intentional, too.

  Terian knew where all of the arteries lived.

  He studied anatomy obsessively when Revik knew him. Genetics, too.

  Revik pushed those flickers of memory out of his light, as well.

  As he did, Terian spoke again.

  “I think hanging around the Seven hasn’t done much for your sex life, Revi’,” he said, still matching micro-movements with Revik, keeping the knife pressed firmly against his throat. “…Really, I think I should probably make you give head to everyone out here, my friend. Including your kneeler brothers and sisters… since I’d hate for you to get too out of practice. That being said, I’ll be satisfied just to watch you come in brother Quay’s mouth. Or you can blow me right here. Your choice.”

  Revik felt his light react, and Terian pressed the knife deeper, making him gasp.

  More blood ran down his neck, pooling at the base of his throat.

  “Just once, brother,” Terian coaxed. “What could be the harm?”
/>
  “You’ve lost your fucking mind,” Revik snapped. “Jesus, Terry. What the hell is the matter with you?”

  “What is the matter with me?” Terian said.

  Something in the other male’s light shifted, slamming Revik with enough emotion that it overpowered the shield the Adhipan held over his light. Terian’s aleimi swam into Revik’s, blinding him with pain, not all of it his.

  Terian’s voice grew hoarse.

  “I miss my friend, Revi’,” he said. “I miss my goddamned friend. My friend who left without a word, who fucking betrayed me without ever giving me a chance to make things right between us. Is that really so hard to understand? Is it? All I’m asking is for a little token of his esteem before he leaves me again. Is it really so much to ask, Revi’?”

  Revik felt his pain worsen.

  He fought to extract himself from the other male’s light, from the pain that lived there.

  In desperation, he looked for Balidor, trying to find his light, but Terian jerked the knife forward once more, cutting him again, deeper that time––deep enough to increase the blood flow, a lot maybe, enough to scare Revik for real.

  He let out a panicked sound, jerking his head reflexively back from the knife, but again, Terian’s fingers and feet followed him, until the front of Terian’s body pressed up against his.

  “Don’t look at him!” Terian said angrily, staring up at Revik’s face. “Don’t look at your new master for guidance, Revi’. Look at me. Only at me.”

  Revik turned his head, gazing deliberately down at the other male.

  Studying his eyes briefly, Terian smiled.

  “That’s better,” he said, exhaling with a kind of satisfaction. “We can be reasonable about this, after all. Come now, Revi’. Just do as I ask. I’m sure none of these fine new friends of yours would mind. Hell, I’m sure they’d appreciate seeing your talents showcased. Maybe they’ll want a turn on you themselves when you’re done.”

  Terian motioned to the Adhipan seers standing behind him with his free hand, without taking his eyes off Revik’s face.

  “Are you really willing to risk bloodshed over such a small thing? Would you deny me even that, brother, after all our years of friendship?”

  There was a silence while Revik fought to think past the other’s light.