Bridge

by JC Andrijeski

  Whatever the seating arrangement meant, it clearly didn’t involve a lot of socializing. No one spoke at all as the Chinook rose above the level of the buildings dotting the shores of Queens. The silence remained as the nose of the helicopter tilted forward, and they began cruising rapidly south to reach Manhattan from the lower tip, so more or less across from Staten Island. Jon didn’t know the exact reasons for that approach, but he’d overheard Jorag, one of their acting pilots, talking about needing room for the climb up over the front of the OBE field that protected Manhattan itself.

  The cabin remained silent as they flew over Brooklyn, apart from the engines thrumming loudly in the background, penetrating Jon’s skin with their rhythmic pulses.

  He watched birds fly beneath the helicopter’s fuselage, skimming over the surface of the water of Gravesend Bay, right before those waters met with the Upper Bay and then turned back into the Hudson River. He saw no boats. No ferries, freighters or even one-man canoes stood out on the water. He glimpsed a few docked ships rusting at harbors, but that was it.

  He didn’t see any other planes in the sky, either, not even news helicopters or military jets.

  Hell, he didn’t see so much as a kite, or a kid’s balloon.

  The buildings they’d skimmed past over Brooklyn mostly looked like burned-out husks. A handful remained standing and more or less intact, but fires raged outside their doors, and Jon had seen walls built from broken cars and dumpsters to keep people out. Razor wire and glass dotted the edges of many of those same enclaves to reinforce the point.

  He could only imagine what must be going on down there, now that enough time had passed for real food shortages to emerge, as well as shortages in a lot of other post-apocalyptic essentials, including power, water, weapons, ammunition, medicine… to name a few.

  The sky looked relatively clear now, and the shorelines relatively stable, but Jon couldn’t help wondering how much of the boroughs flooded when the storms rolled in, even after the first big tsunami that knocked out most of the containment fields.

  The shorelines still looked further in and the rivers wider than Jon remembered.

  He knew a good chunk of the island had probably been underwater at various points in the last six months. It was likely some areas had been made permanently uninhabitable as a result, even apart from the mess of having no law enforcement, no ambulances, no hospitals, no fire trucks, no help––in essence, nothing to keep people from devolving into animals, either out of fear, sport or desperation.

  Once they’d made a circle around Staten Island, the Chinook began to climb.

  The helicopter climbed for what felt like a long time, gradually at first, then more and more steeply as they got closer to the jagged skyline of Manhattan.

  Within minutes, they reached an area of sky high above the downtown buildings.

  Reflected in the VR panels, steel and metal structures pointed up towards Jon’s feet. Even at their current altitude, they looked huge.

  Jon’s light sparked and reacted to the nearness of the city, touching the bare, coiling edges of the organic binary electric or “OBE” field that encased the sky over Manhattan. He scanned for signs of life, for any movement at all in the streets and buildings below.

  They were too high for him to see anything with much certainty.

  He strained his eyes by staring anyway, frustrated by his blindness, by his complete inability to see what might be waiting for them on the other side.

  He felt something else down there, too, and realized he could feel the bare edges of the city’s construct. Allie had talked about that, back when they reached New York the last time. No one else besides Revik had even been able to feel it, not even Balidor.

  Jon had to assume he could only feel it now because of his connection to Revik and Allie. Even so, he couldn’t help wondering if that construct had grown and strengthened in the months since they’d last been here.

  Revik assured them, albeit in a distracted kind of way, that he and Balidor had mapped every inch of the deadly OBE field.

  Right at that particular moment, Jon found that only mildly reassuring.

  A hell of a lot of specific logistical issues remained murky to him, though. He’d seen hints of various tactical pieces being worked on, back in San Francisco, but Jon honestly wasn’t sure if those glimpses reassured him more than worried him.

  Like when he wandered into the medical lab, only to find Revik cut up and covered in his own blood.

  Jon had gone in there looking for a bandage for a wrist injury he’d sustained while sparring. He’d seen Neela standing a few feet away from the door as he walked up, but hadn’t thought much of that, either. It certainly never occurred to him that she might be guarding that door. She’d been talking on her headset as he sauntered past––only to find Revik in said condition and being stitched up by one of the seer medical techs.

  Jon just stood there, slack-jawed, seeing Revik wince as the two of them spoke in low voices, blood all over Revik’s arm and part of his bare chest. The tech continued talking as Jon walked in, saying something about how they would “try it again” the next day––when Revik glanced up sharply and saw Jon standing there.

  The female tech blanched.

  Then Revik barked at Jon, jerking him out of his trance by asking whether or not there had been a guard stationed outside the door, and if so, who the fuck it was.

  When Jon just stood there, stammering, Revik yelled for Neela, probably plucking her image directly from Jon’s mind. When the lithe seer appeared in the doorway, looking flustered and vaguely horrified, Revik ordered her coldly to escort Jon out.

  Jon let her, not uttering a word.

  He also didn’t tell anyone else what he’d seen.

  Then again, none of them talked about that kind of thing––not if they’d been employed by the team in San Francisco for even a few days. Jon quickly learned those were the unforgivable rules, when working for Revik.

  Keep your own part of the plan to your damned self.

  Keep your thoughts on the plan to your damned self.

  Keep anything you overhear, see or suspect might be in other parts of the plan to your damned self.

  Everything––fucking everything––is need to know. No exceptions.

  Of course, Jon had seen that side of Revik before.

  Maybe he hadn’t seen such an extreme version of this Revik, but the basic principles remained the same. Revik, more than Balidor or Wreg or Allie or any of the other military seers, believed in information restriction down to the most microscopic of levels, particularly in the lead-up to a major op.

  Breaking that rule was the fastest way to get kicked off the team.

  Jon glanced at Revik at the thought, seeing the harder look etched into the male seer’s eyes as he stared down at Manhattan. Jon could only see his profile, but it was enough to get him to back off, long before he got close to his light.

  He’d noticed all three of them tended to keep their distance since the linking––probably because if they didn’t, the flood of information quickly grew disconcertingly dense and intimate, to the point where even recognizing oneself in the tangled mess of their light grew difficult if not impossible. Luckily, they were also getting better at shielding from one another, probably because they had Revik to draw on for that, as well.

  Even so, more than enough still got through.

  Jon forced his eyes back to the buildings.

  The last time he’d entered Manhattan, they’d arrived in the middle of a storm.

  Visibility had been pretty much shit. Because of that, Jon hadn’t seen much. Most of what he did see, he got via security cameras, and later, from the remaining news feeds they could access from the hotel.

  That storm went on for weeks––pretty much up until the day they left.

  Jon remembered glimpsing human adults and even kids running down Fifth Avenue on those security feeds, trying to evade vigilante groups or the police, particularly after the curfew
sirens went off. He’d seen pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails, but most relied on cruder weapons––tire irons, pipes, bricks, baseball bats, even the occasional cricket bat or golf club.

  He’d also seen a few actual swords, and at least one compound bow with metal arrows.

  By then, most of those in the civilian population had been stripped of guns, much less anything more sophisticated. Security fliers, the robotic eyes and ears of the police, which could clock in at around 300 mph and were built to be around the size of a softball––although Jon had seen much bigger ones, too––came equipped with sensors, face-rec, implant readers and inbuilt weaponry. Due to their small size, they could take image captures from almost anywhere, and they could log your ID without you even knowing it.

  Fliers could also pick out anything with complex combustion elements.

  Since confiscations often entailed a one-way ticket to Staten Island and probable death by C2-77, most civilians dumped their weapons rather than risk being caught with them.

  By then, a lot of people probably started running out of ammunition anyway.

  Looking down over the city, Jon felt his heart beating faster.

  He remembered the last time he’d looked down over this city from a helicopter.

  He’d been in cuffs, collared, shoved in between men and women in NYPD uniforms and chained to his seat. He could do nothing but watch as the water rushed in over the rivers and bays and towards the buildings of the southern skyline. He’d watched it come, knowing Wreg probably wouldn’t be able to get out of the way, knowing he had no way to warn him without his headset and with the collar around his neck.

  He’d felt Wreg underground, less than an hour before.

  Wreg… gods.

  He’d thought Wreg was going to die.

  He’d never felt so helpless in his life. His mind fought to shut down whenever he tried to think about Wreg himself. The pain had been so intense, so overwhelming, he hadn’t been able to feel anything outside of it.

  Worse, it had all been his fault.

  All of it had been his fault.

  At the time, he’d thought they were all dead. He thought he was dead, Revik was dead. He thought Balidor would die––Chandre, Jorag, Neela, Chinja, Yumi, Jax, Holo. Some had died, he knew now, but at the time, he thought no one would get out alive.

  Allie. Allie had already been gone.

  Wreg. Gods, he’d been so sure Wreg was dead.

  When he could see again, he was gripping the armrests of his seat, staring down at the view below the fuselage without seeing any of it. He fought to focus, to see the view through the transparent hull as the Chinook continuously cycled new images before his eyes.

  He stared at the river and the buildings that abutted it, trying to focus.

  The sun was out. The sky was clear. The storm was over.

  It wasn’t that day. That day had ended.

  The thought repeated, but still meant nothing. They’d already lost. They’d lost a whole civilization, a whole way of life. They’d lost most of the people they loved.

  They’d lost her.

  Out of no where, he found himself back in that sewer tunnel under the ladder, the sound of water rushing in his ears, Ditrini’s boots on the floor of the tunnel.

  He remembered being pulled up, hanging from that crane, feeling like he was already dead. Flashes hit at him, images from that dark, running with the light held behind Maygar’s back, watching it bob in front of him as he fought not to trip in the water and debris in the bottom of the pipe. He remembered the ground rumbling under his feet, being thrown into the pipe walls, Revik shouting for them to hurry.

  He could feel Maygar, Revik––Allie.

  Shit, he was scared.

  He was shaking, he was so scared.

  Not only because he could feel the OBE.

  He could feel Cass down there, waiting for them.

  Through Cass, he felt Shadow––Feigran, who was Terian again. Terian, who’d raped him, cut off a third of his hand just because he felt like it. He remembered the smell of the sewer tunnels, that rotted, cloying scent, laced with blood. Revik’s blood. He watched as the guards held the torches, watched Ditrini hit Revik, again and again.

  He saw himself on the roof, standing there while guns pointed at his sister.

  He’d just stood there.

  He’d just fucking stood there, and let them take her. He remembered Cass’s smile, the cruel twist in her full mouth as she thanked Jon for delivering her.

  The images toyed with him, fucked with him, teased his mind in spirals.

  Most of them faded, until all that remained was the jerk and jump of that yisso torch in the crumbling sewer tunnels, gripped in Maygar’s muscular hands. Fighting not to trip in the water, the rumbling of the earth and the sound of the rivers and ocean filling his ears. Watching bodies get slammed into buildings. Seeing cars spin into one another and street lamps, slamming through glass lobbies as the waves hit, washing away people like ants.

  His mind stopped, stuttered, cycling endlessly back––to Maygar and Revik in the sewer tunnels, the torch bobbing in front of him, the thick smell of blood. Feeling sick as he realized what he’d done, feeling hands grip him by a metal collar, the ground moving under his feet.

  Revik on his knees, staring up at Ditrini as if he already knew Allie was dead, as if he’d already made up his mind to join her there––

  A heavy hand landed on Jon’s shoulder.

  Jon jumped, jerking violently in his seat.

  The seatbelt stopped him, bringing a momentary panic. His mind fought with the eyes looking into his, the face directly in front of him. He’d been sitting alone in his two-seat row, in the window seat, but now someone sat next to him. That person fought to come into focus, to force Jon back to the present––

  He found himself looking into the black eyes of Wreg.

  He was close. Too close.

  “Breathe, brother,” the muscular seer said softly. “Breathe.”

  Wreg spoke in a low, cajoling voice, too low for anyone sitting in one of the nearby rows to hear. He massaged Jon’s shoulder with gentle but insistent fingers, pushing warmth through his hands, and into his voice when he next spoke.

  “Breathe, little brother,” he said. “Just breathe. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  “I’m all right––” Jon began.

  “You’re not,” Wreg countered, sharp. “Look at me, brother. Right now.”

  Until then, Jon hadn’t realized he’d looked away.

  Reluctantly, he turned.

  He met Wreg’s gaze. Once he had, something in his chest started to loosen.

  He continued to look into the seer’s dark eyes, forcing himself to breathe as the other breathed, to blink as the other blinked. He let Wreg talk him through breathing, not fighting him, or trying to think outside that one thing. As he did, Jon fought to let go of the tension that turned his muscles to a single clenched fist.

  He didn’t know which part to try and relax first.

  “Don’t try,” Wreg advised. “Just breathe. It will let go.”

  Jon nodded, doing what the other said, not questioning it.

  After a few more seconds, he felt almost normal again.

  Well, not normal. But normal enough to be embarrassed.

  “I’m okay,” Jon said again.

  His voice came out calmer, but still with a tremble.

  Somehow, hearing the frailty of the person behind that voice, Jon could only wince, feeling something akin to shame, as stupid as he knew that was. Even then, he didn’t try to push the seer away. His words sounded apologetic when he spoke next.

  “Really, Wreg. I’m okay now. Thanks.”

  “Just give it a few more minutes,” Wreg said.

  His voice had gotten gruff, though, and he wasn’t looking at Jon directly anymore. He spoke like one would to calm an animal, his voice holding a distant kind of compassion. Yet he didn’t remove his hand from Jon’s shoulder, or stop sending the war
mth of his light through his massaging fingers.

  “You’ve been traumatized…” Wreg began.

  Jon opened his mouth, but Wreg spoke before he could.

  “…All three of you were traumatized in those sewers,” he added. He seemed about to go on, then stopped, giving a low snort. “Well, you and Maygar, anyway. I think Nenz is operating somewhere in his own orbit these days.”

  He gave Jon a wry smile, although it seemed to come with a bit more effort than usual. He managed to hold Jon’s gaze, to really be looking at him again, when he continued.

  “To be fair, I think traumas hit our fearless commander differently,” Wreg said. “Especially now. He’s thinking about his wife. And his child. The events of those hours hit him differently, because of those things. They put him in a different kind of danger.”

  Before he’d thought about the other’s words fully, Jon let out his own forced-sounding snort. Still thinking, he nodded to Wreg’s assessment.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  His voice sounded shaky.

  He exhaled, then tried to pull more air into his lungs.

  “Yeah,” he said again, rubbing the back of his neck.

  He didn’t bump Wreg’s arm, though, or try to move out from under his fingers.

  For his own part, Wreg didn’t try to put more distance between them, or pull them closer. Jon could feel his light reacting to the nearness of the other male, mostly by opening more than he’d felt comfortable letting his light open for weeks. As Jon opened, the pain that had murmured in the background since he first got to San Francisco surged briefly back into his awareness.

  “Maygar,” Jon blurted. He shifted under Wreg’s touch, in spite of himself. He didn’t move away from him, though. If anything, he moved closer, even as he turned his head, scanning the other seats in the cabin. “Maygar,” he repeated. “Is he––”

  “Chinja’s with him,” Wreg reassured him, his eyes following Jon’s towards the other seats. “We saw both of you start to affect one another. We should have foreseen this. Before we got this close, I mean.”

  “It’s all right,” Jon managed. “I didn’t think…” He stammered again, trying to convey the emotion stuck in his chest. “Thank you,” he repeated. “Thanks, Wreg.”