Trickster

by J. C. Andrijeski

  The Kingdom of Sikkim, Northern India

  March 13, 1979

  The group of collared seers stood at the fence, gripping the chains in pale hands.

  Two were cuffed, I noticed, in addition to the collars. Dead metal, but likely tied to the same impulse-triggers as the collars.

  Flight risks.

  Either that, or they were being punished for something.

  The one in front, the black-haired, Chinese-looking monster with all of the religious tats, was talking in a low voice to the seer standing directly on the other side of the fence. The muscular seer had strange eyes, I noticed. Coal-black in color, they shone so dark the pupils were nearly swallowed in equally black, yet somehow light-filled irises.

  Whoever the prisoners were talking to, he wasn’t wearing a guard’s uniform.

  In fact, unless I was hallucinating, he wasn’t even wearing a jacket.

  I could only see part of his face from the side, but something about that slice of profile had a strangely fox-like angularity to it.

  I studied the large, light-colored eye I could glimpse, and the reddish hair that hung down from the male’s head, dusted with snow as it curled past his ears and down the back of his neck where he had it wound into a male seer’s hair clip at the base of his skull.

  He stood huddled by the fence, his long, deathly-white arms clasped around his own chest. I didn’t see him shivering, though. He merely stood there, gazing through the holes in the chain-link wall at the muscular seer with those raptor-like, black eyes.

  As I watched, the strange, inappropriately-dressed male seemed to be nodding very intently to something the seer prisoner was saying to him.

  Even from the side, his face appeared rapt with attention, those large, amber-colored eyes focused unwaveringly on the male who reached for him, clasping his arm through the chain-link fence as though he was a life-preserver, some kind of savior.

  Or maybe just a sympathetic ear.

  I looked at the tattoos on that hand and frowned.

  From what I could see of the interaction, I couldn’t tell if the two males even knew one another. Obviously, the prisoners inside wanted to communicate something to the male with the auburn hair, but I couldn’t get any sense if he even understood them, much less if he was truly “with” them, in the sense of being an ally.

  I couldn’t risk that he might be there to help them, though.

  Perhaps they were rebels.

  Perhaps the man on the outside had come as a messenger, to bring back their words to some military force outside the camp perimeter.

  If so, he was very strangely dressed.

  He wasn’t even armed. He couldn’t be armed, not in that get-up, at least not with anything that remotely construed a threat to us or any of the camp guards. He might have been able to carry a knife or shiv somewhere on his person, but that was pretty much it.

  I held up a hand to my own people, pinging them not to do anything drastic, at least not yet. Whoever the seer was, he didn’t look like much of a flight risk; I told Orcai and Paulo to keep looking for the source of the shield.

  “Actually, we think we found it,” Orcai said in the subvocals, his voice almost apologetic. “We think it might be… well, him, sir.”

  “Him?” I frowned. “You mean the half-naked one? The man outside?”

  “Yes. He seems to be the only source, too, boss,” Paulo added.

  My frown deepened.

  Still gripping my rifle in one hand where it rested on the swivel-harness attached to my belt, I walked forward, using my light cautiously to scan the outer edges of the aleimi of our half-undressed mystery male who somehow wandered outside the perimeter fences, collarless, in the middle of a damned blizzard.

  As soon as I tasted his light, however…

  I froze.

  My own aleimi jerked back in shock.

  For a long-feeling beat, I just stood there, confused, breathing harder.

  Then I was fighting for breath, struggling to get it into my lungs. After a moment where it felt like I’d fallen into some kind of void, I reached my light out a second time.

  I lost myself there, staring up at structures I recognized.

  I’d mapped those structures before.

  I’d seen those structures before.

  But only on one seer.

  I’d only ever seen anything like them on one seer.

  Varlan’s voice rose, a memory, but oddly clear in my ears.

  I am told he even shows signs of being a true prescient, my light whispered. I am not immune to the pull there, either, brother, I assure you––

  “Sir?” Cat said from my other side. “We could hit him with a stunner––”

  I held up a hand, signaling no.

  I was still standing there, fighting to regain my composure, fighting to even focus my eyes, when a voice rose in my headset.

  That time, the voice cut through all protocols. It echoed, strangely loud, and I could tell from the frequency that all of my people could also hear it.

  “Agent Quay. We have you on visual,” the seer from Central said.

  I jumped.

  Then, just as fast, I felt my jaw harden.

  Still, I didn’t hesitate.

  “Copy, Central,” I said in reply.

  “You have acquired a high value target who has been under pursuit by security forces. Do not kill him.” The voice grew openly warning. “He is a resident of the labs at the camps. Please return him to that location as soon as possible. Alive,” the voice repeated. “Please confirm understanding.”

  I fought to answer that time, couldn’t.

  “This is a high-value target,” the voice repeated. “You have a no-kill order. Repeat. This is a no-kill scenario. Bring him in alive. Confirm receipt, agent.”

  Again, I found myself unable to speak.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes off the seer huddled by the outside of the fence.

  “Did you read me, agent?” Central said into my headset. “Do not kill the male you have in your sights. He’s a valuable asset. Disregard any erratic behavior other than to render him safe to himself and others. He is currently suffering from an illness that will display as a form of mental instability. It is unlikely he will attack you, but if he does, just subdue him, and bring him in. Again, please confirm.”

  I nodded.

  Nodding again, I forced myself to send a ping of acknowledgment.

  “Understood,” I said. “Copy. No-kill order. Subdue and return to base.”

  “Good.” The female voice sounded openly relieved. “Thank you, Agent Quay. He shouldn’t cause you any trouble. He’s not generally violent.”

  I nodded, but didn’t answer her in words. I found myself wondering who I was talking to, but I didn’t ask that, either.

  I knew we were being watched.

  I knew it, and even after I heard the click in my ear, and the line went dead, I knew we were still being watched.

  Why? Did they really think I might kill him?

  I was still fighting to think past the shock to my light, to wrap my mind around the instructions I’d been given…

  …when the male seer standing at the fence turned, staring directly at me.

  I felt something in my chest abruptly relax.

  I didn’t know that face.

  I’d never seen it before.

  The longer I stared, the more my calm grew. I didn’t know the body. I didn’t know the face. I recognized none of it. I would have sworn I’d never seen the male before in my life.

  As soon as the thought penetrated, I felt like I could breathe again.

  Once I was breathing, and thinking, and looking at that stranger’s face, I felt foolish.

  How could I have reacted in such a way to him? In a simple glance, I would have known I did not know him. I’d known that while staring at him even from a distance, but somehow, my light got confused, feeling those complex structures in his light.

  Obviously, it was possible more than one seer
would have structures of that nature.

  Clearly, more than one seer did have structures of that nature.

  Now, with reality staring me in the face, I felt more embarrassment than anything. The relief I’d felt when I first saw his features remained palpable as well.

  Well… at first.

  As I continued to stare at that narrow, lupine face, and he continued to stare at me, confusion flickered back around my aleimi.

  I definitely did not know the exact dimensions of that face.

  I knew the smile that lit up those fox-like features, however. I knew the amber-colored eyes staring out of his skull, and not only for their color.

  I could see him behind them.

  Somehow.

  Moreover, even if I didn’t know the body’s proportions, I knew the strangely sensual slant with which the seer held it, the way his light coiled into and around his form, almost as if reminding himself that he existed. The way he tasted my own light, I knew, too. He flickered around me in darting, strangely sparking touches, each tendril filled with an intensity that made me flinch, even as it drew me nearer to him.

  Of course, there were differences.

  The charge there, in that light, had lessened some.

  The colors had dimmed slightly as a result, leaving the touches more probing than overtly compelling, more persuasive than demanding. That odd, off-kilter, veering-out-of-control feeling had diminished, too––that up and down charge that seemed to pull everyone in his vicinity like a vortex, or a magnet, perhaps––into his every mood and fluctuation.

  That light, though…

  Gods, his light.

  His light made it nearly impossible for me to breathe.

  I felt my aleimi react to it more and more, sparking out in near-violent flushes of heat. Some part of me drank it in, like water to one dying of thirst.

  I wanted that light so much.

  Staring at that alien face, it struck me how deeply I’d been lying to myself. For months I’d been lying to myself. Ever since Manaus I’d been lying to myself.

  I missed that light.

  I missed it so badly I’d scarcely slept since the last night I’d spent with him.

  My mind drifted there now, as if that magnetic light drew me backwards in time still.

  I must have left far more of my body behind than I realized, for when the male seer spoke to me, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  That was before I’d even made sense of what he said.

  “Revi’!” the seer cried out. “Revi’! You are here!”

  Nothing but sheer delight lived in that voice, in those amber eyes.

  That delight stabbed at me, as much as the unnervingly familiar cadence.

  It was everything about him I remembered:

  The accent I’d never pinpointed. The lilting, educated tone, so strange on a soldier, that veered between wit, sarcasm, childishness, and academia, depending on his mood. The odd word in seer patois. The way he spoke knowledgeably on everything from organics to genetics to multi-dimensional military strategy, suggesting years of formal training––old-school, Pamir-type training, the type I associated with seers four times his age.

  The almost transparent emotionality.

  Hearing so much of him in this voice shocked me.

  It more than shocked me.

  Everything about it reverberated somewhere deep down in my light, drying the spit in my mouth, rendering me mute.

  “Revi’, my friend!” the male called out. “Gods, brother! I am so glad you are here!”

  I stared at him, hearing my blood rush in my ears.

  The seer began to walk towards me, wading through the thickening snow.

  I let my arm with the organic shield fall to the side of my body, where the bottom edge pressed against my uniformed thigh. Before the male had reached me, I retracted that shield altogether, triggering its withdrawal back into my sleeve-band, using my headset.

  The seers standing just behind me reacted to that act with aleimic quivers of alarm.

  I felt my pod looking at one another, asking silently what was going on, but I found I couldn’t look away from the seer walking towards me, not even to reassure them.

  The other male didn’t seem to notice any of this.

  He didn’t notice the others of my pod.

  He didn’t notice the retraction of my shield.

  He looked only at my face.

  He walked right up to me, arms wrapped around a narrow but muscular-looking chest, wiry in build, like a Muy Thai fighter. The features were strange––seer-like, but he could have passed for human, possibly a middle-eastern human, even with the auburn hair and his paler skin.

  He wore what looked like medical scrubs and an oversized undershirt, like pajamas. His feet were bare, crusted with mud and what looked like blood.

  He didn’t seem to notice any of that, though.

  The agents to either side of me, who happened to be Cat and Paulo, raised their rifles, aiming them at the new male’s head.

  “Do not fire,” I warned them. “You heard Central.”

  Cat and Paulo kept their guns up, unfazed.

  “It is a precaution, sir,” Cat said.

  I didn’t argue, but I also couldn’t shake my disquiet around the guns being there, or where they were aimed.

  The strange seer didn’t care.

  He walked right up to me, stopping a few feet from where I stood, that grin splitting his face. The sheer joy and affection in his expression hit me like a shard of ice to the chest.

  “Revi’,” the other male said.

  He unfolded his arms, leaning closer and clasping my left bicep with his fingers.

  The guards flanking me stiffened, but that time, I sent a sharp, warning pulse for them to stay back. When they didn’t move, I strengthened that impulse, telling them to fall back.

  Lowering their rifles, they finally did as I asked, albeit reluctantly.

  It took me a few seconds more to focus on the man gripping my uniform jacket.

  “Revi’,” the seer said, smiling up at me. “Revi’… you’re just in time.”

  With his free hand, which was almost blue in the cold, the shorter male seer gestured eloquently towards the seers who stood on the other side of the fence behind him.

  My eyes followed the gesture, even as I frowned.

  The six seers were now staring with unveiled hostility at our black, SCARB military uniforms and weapons. The one in front, the Chinese-looking one with the black eyes and the religious tattoos, stared especially hard at me.

  At the same time, they seemed confused by the strange male’s actions.

  Their eyes shimmered with that confusion in the reflected blue light of the electric prods Jaela and Ringu held, but strangely, the terrorist seers didn’t withdraw. They seemed almost to be waiting to see what the half-clothed male might do.

  Maybe they were waiting to see if he might still be on their side.

  I paused long enough to note the seer who felt like their leader at this closer distance, the one with the black eyes. I filed the face away in rote, but then the seer holding my arm was speaking to me again, jerking my eyes off that small crowd.

  “Revi’,” the fox-faced seer said. “I need your help, brother.” His voice dropped, growing conspiratorial. At the same time, he smiled up at me, his eyes shining with light. “These fine brothers of ours, they’re in need of our assistance, brother. They want me to help free them, Revi’, and I’m not quite sure how to go about it.”

  I stared at the angular, fox-like features, at a loss.

  It felt now as if that ice shard had gotten lodged somewhere in my throat.

  “Can you help me, Revi’?” the male said, gazing up at me. “You’re always so good with these sorts of things, and I seem to have misplaced my tools.”

  The seer let go of me, looking down at his body quizzically. He touched his ribs and chest over the thin, cotton shirt, as if expecting to find some sort of equipment hanging there. Wh
en he finished inspecting and feeling over his upper body, he held out his arms one by one, as if noticing his own clothing for the first time.

  He frowned at his bare arms, then at his bare feet as I watched.

  A flicker of some denser confusion shone out of those amber eyes.

  His full mouth puckered in a frown as the silence ticked by in seconds.

  I swallowed, fighting to speak.

  When I finally did, it came out in nearly a whisper.

  “Terian?” I said. “Gods, brother. Is that you?”

  The male looked up at me, his amber eyes suddenly wary.

  He stared at my face, his mouth curled in a subtly expressive frown. His eyes held a blankness that occasionally phased into that denser amalgam of emotion, flickering over and past the silence, too quickly for me to follow.

  I found I was holding the other man’s shoulder now.

  I fought to breathe, and realized tears had filled my eyes. I could scarcely see because of them.

  “Terian… brother.” I swallowed, trying to see the other man in those alien features. “Is it really you? How?” I choked on the word. “How is this possible?”

  Terian blinked.

  Behind that gaze, something clicked forward, then back.

  I saw it, like a recording being spun backwards on a cassette tape, right before it started up again, once it hit the correct prompt.

  “You’re not Revi’,” the seer said. His frown deepened. “What have you done with him?”

  I shook my head, still fighting to breathe.

  “He’s not here,” I said, as gently as I could. “He’s not here. Don’t you remember? He’s gone. He’s not with us anymore.”

  Terian’s frown deepened.

  Then a kind of horror shifted past his gaze, some denser pain.

  I watched as one of those bare hands clenched into a fist, pressing against the narrow chest. He seemed to be grasping for something with his mind, and I gripped the male’s shoulder tighter.

  “Brother,” I managed. “We should bring you back inside. You will die of cold out here, brother. You must come with me––”

  “No.” Terian shook his head, vehement. “No. No, no, no. Don’t bring me back. I don’t want to go back. Not again. Please.”

  He pulled away, but I tightened my fingers.