“It wasn’t only me.”
“Thank… all of you, then,” Jon finished lamely.
Again, he found his mind overly focused on Wreg’s nearness, on his hands and light in his, on how close the other seer sat to him. Jon hadn’t let himself get this close to Wreg physically since he’d left New York, apart from when he’d had light sickness and had no choice. He hadn’t let himself be this open around him since then, either.
He wanted to apologize for what he’d said to Wreg when they last talked in San Francisco, even as another part of him wanted to push him away. He couldn’t decide which of those felt more right, or even which would be more fair to the other seer.
As he struggled to think through it, Wreg turned, looking at him.
Briefly, his dark eyes slid down Jon’s body.
“Just breathe,” the seer advised. “Don’t think about me, Jon. I came because your light was closed. The others thought I’d have the best chance of reaching you.”
Jon nodded, but felt his skin flush hotter. Of course. Infiltrators to the core. They would send Wreg because Wreg was best-situated to succeed. Practical. Efficient.
They were on operation time now, like Revik said.
As soon as the thought hit him, Jon realized he knew the real reason Wreg sat there, in the seat next to him. Revik ordered him here. Revik assessed the situation, decided to intervene, and assigned the seers he thought would have the best chance of success within the timeframe of his op. The whole scenario and how it had been handled was just so… Revik.
Jon even understood. They couldn’t be carrying him or Maygar or anyone else once they hit the ground.
Of course, none of that meant shit to Jon’s light.
Looking away from Wreg’s face, he felt the sickness in his chest worsen.
Unable to keep his eyes off Wreg entirely now, not with the continued proximity, he found himself looking at the man’s tattooed forearms instead, particularly the one attached to the hand that didn’t happen to be touching him. Wreg’s upper arms and chest, as well as his legs down to the heavy, combat-style boots, were covered in the same black, armored but stretchy material that Jon himself wore. Looking at Wreg in the skin-tight but dense fabric brought back memories Jon hadn’t let near his conscious mind in months––really, since they’d gotten to San Francisco.
Shifting in his seat, he cleared his throat, forcing his head to turn, away from Wreg, away from the last time he’d let himself look at the seer’s body.
He looked out the window, instead.
He remembered the sound of water rushing through the sewage tunnels, watching Revik getting punched by Ditrini before he––
“Jon,” Wreg said, his voice gentle.
Jon’s vision snapped back.
The sound of the water turned into the drone of the Chinook’s propellers, mixed with the denser thrum of the engines below the rear propeller.
He shook his head, but not at the other seer.
“What if I freak out down there?” he muttered, looking back out the window.
He aimed the words more at himself than Wreg.
“You won’t,” Wreg said, answering him anyway.
“How can you know that?”
Jon turned his head unthinkingly, facing the other seer.
As soon as he had, he found himself wishing that he hadn’t––pretty much the instant he met the stillness and depth of Wreg’s returning gaze. The feeling Jon saw in the other man’s eyes paralyzed him briefly. When his pain worsened in the pause, Wreg’s obsidian eyes flinched.
The Chinese seer’s skin flushed a little darker, but Wreg didn’t break their stare, or even change expression.
“You’ll be fine, brother,” Wreg assured him. “I promise you, you will. I know you better than you think…” Hesitating, he smiled faintly, but it didn’t touch his eyes, which remained cautious, even distant as he continued to massage Jon’s shoulder. “Trauma doesn’t equate to fear. Not exactly,” Wreg added. “We should have Yumi work with you more, when the opportunity presents itself, but it is too late for that on this run. It won’t matter, though, brother. It really won’t. Not once we land. Trust me on this.”
Jon nodded, feeling his throat tighten as he continued to look at Wreg’s face.
The seer had shaved that morning. He had a bruise on his neck, probably from some fight or another, but close enough to something Jon might have given him during sex, his chest clenched in an irrational wave of jealousy.
Wreg had lost weight since New York.
He’d cut his hair shorter, too, and wore it in a clip like the ones Jorag often wore.
Jon noticed Wreg’s cheeks looked thinner, that he had a smudge of dirt or grease on his jaw, just forward of his left ear, that his eyelashes were as long as he remembered. He smelled just like Jon remembered him smelling, too, a faint sheen of sweat overpowered by a sweeter musk that somehow reminded Jon of cut grass and trees, maybe because he could picture Wreg being from a place like that. He could almost see Wreg there, at the base of those mountains––
That time, it was Wreg who averted his gaze.
The older seer shrugged while Jon watched, mirroring the sentiment with one wave of his muscular hand. As he did it, he seemed to hesitate as to whether to remove the hand that still rested on Jon. After a brief tug of war, he left it there, if only briefly.
Jon didn’t really hear his words for a few seconds.
When he started listening again, Wreg was already midstream.
“…Being connected to Nenzi will help,” Wreg said, that distance back in his voice. “That son of a bitch is focused, I’ll give him that. He’s also a lot more connected to the two of you than maybe you realize. You may not always feel it, but it’s there. The rest of us can see it, and feel it…” He hesitated, as if pushing aside some other reaction, then shrugged. “Use that, Jon, if you need to. Don’t hesitate. Nenzi will pull you and Maygar along when it comes to the emotional end of things, if it really comes to that.”
Hesitating again, Wreg gave Jon another direct look.
“…But it won’t come to that, brother,” he said, voice firm. “You’ll be fine. Better than fine. You’ll do your job, like the rest of us.”
“How do you know that?” Jon asked again.
His voice came out stronger that time, more insistent. For some reason, it felt important to get a real answer out of Wreg, something he could hold on to, maybe.
Wreg only shrugged, though.
A few seconds later, he removed his hand, too.
For the first time Jon had let himself in months, he felt real, physical pain when the Chinese seer separated his light from his. Jon had to fight not to gasp as Wreg rose wordlessly to his feet, giving Jon a last, reassuring pat before he turned to go.
Jon only sat there, watching as Wreg moved with his usual grace towards his seat at the front of the cabin.
Wreg didn’t look back, not even once.
Feeling a stab of what might have been regret, guilt, even fear, Jon warred with himself, trying to decide if he should follow him, fighting with what he would even say. He wanted to thank him, at least, whether he’d come to him willingly or not. He wanted to thank him for helping him, but he couldn’t make up his mind how to do that, either.
Eventually, the moment passed.
Jon was left there on his own, struggling with his mind, with his light, with how he even felt. He watched Wreg the entire time he walked back to the front of the Chinook.
When Wreg lowered his weight fluidly to the seat next to Jax, Jon’s pain abruptly worsened.
24
BANG BANG
THE CHINOOK DESCENDED in a sharp, cleanly-vertical line.
It dropping so suddenly, Jon felt his heart jackknife in his throat.
He’d been looking out the window without seeing anything since Wreg left him alone, and now, panic filled his light as he watched their rapid descent. Pulling his attention off the river, he forced his eyes straight down, watching
the expanse of green grow larger below him.
Central Park.
They were landing in Central Park.
It was fitting somehow, but it also made everything suddenly feel a fuck of a lot more real.
The hole in the OBE sat right over the North Meadow, which Jon remembered as the place where a number of baseball diamonds used to live.
He doubted anyone played baseball here anymore.
Tall metal poles formed a jagged line all the way around the rim of the meadow. The rec center, or what had been the rec center, sported another fence around it, too.
Land and air vehicles parked in odd rows along the southern, western and eastern edges of the meadow, and Jon realized the poles formed a military enclosure fence. Someone was clearly protecting the door in the OBE field, which made sense.
Instead of baseball diamonds rimmed with grass lawns, Jon saw nothing but dirt, as if all the grass and sod had been ripped out of the ground.
It hit him suddenly that a lot of those vehicles appeared to be moving.
His eyes followed as more and more jeeps and armored cars rushed across the packed dirt towards the landing strip where the Chinook was currently aimed. They looked like ants riding dune buggies from their still-significant height, but Jon could see the longer protrusions on some of those vehicles, and knew they were weapons. He saw more doors opening in the dirt, and realized underground bunkers lived there, probably filled with even more weapons.
Jesus, it was a damned military base.
SCARB maybe. Maybe even Federal.
The Chinook continued to drop, engines and rotors whirring.
Jon could only watch their steady approach, staring down between his feet as more and more of those black, armored vehicles rushed to greet them.
The fuselage continued to drop.
“We’ve got a welcoming party,” a familiar voice said.
Jon jumped. His eyes jerked up to find Revik standing there, right beside him.
Revik’s words had come through strangely loud and clear, despite the whine of the engines and the deeper thud of the rotors. Jon touched his headpiece in rote, then noticed that Revik was only now fitting his over one ear.
The Elaerian continued to stand there, his posture deceptively casual as he leaned his forearms on two of the seats for balance once he had the headset in place, his legs slightly splayed where he stood in the middle of the aisle. Guns protruded from holsters on both sides of his ribs, as well as on his hips, and he wore full armor, on everything but his actual face.
Jon realized Revik was talking to all of them, not just him, despite how close he stood.
He was addressing the whole team, some thirty-five infiltrators.
That number seemed pitifully small to Jon suddenly, as he glanced between his feet at the hundreds massing on the meadow below.
A sharper ping hit his light, forcing Jon’s gaze up.
Revik wasn’t looking at him, though. His clear eyes continued to scan the group, holding an unnerving focus, just as Wreg had said.
“You know your roles,” the Elaerian said, looking around at each of them. “As for the welcoming party, we expected this. Don’t fucking panic. I’ll get us out of it. Just make sure you shield me, or this will be over in one hell of a hurry.”
He gave Jon a sharper look, as if assessing his mental state.
Those clear eyes flickered away, gazing around at the others.
“Two minutes,” Revik said, as he straightened. “Get in position.” He glanced at Jon, clicking his fingers. “Jon and Maygar. You’re with me.”
Before Jon could wrap his head around his words, every seer in the cabin began unbuckling seat belts and regaining their feet.
Jon did the same mechanically, holding the back of the seat in front of him as he stood up, checking his guns in rote, as well as the magazines he’d shoved into the pockets of his vest. He wouldn’t be carrying a rifle, unlike most of the others.
He glanced up in time to see Revik fitting an armored helmet around his head, right before he tossed one to Jon, who caught it as much in reflex as intention. Feeling another urging ping from Revik’s light, Jon moved faster, entering the aisle right behind where the seer stood, facing the back of the helicopter, where the hatch door would open once they landed.
Once he stood there, helmet in place and panting, Jon glanced behind him.
His eyes tracked through the cabin until he found Maygar’s. Revik’s son stood just behind him, with only Neela standing between the two of them.
Maygar met Jon’s gaze, his face absent its usual scowl. His dark chocolate eyes shone with a grim determination; he gave Jon an acknowledging nod without changing expression.
Something about that nod reminded Jon of everything they’d been training for over the past two weeks. Reassured by the look he saw there, he nodded back.
As he did, his head finally began to clear.
Maybe it was his connection to Maygar. Maybe it was both of their connections to Revik. Whatever it was didn’t really matter; Jon found himself remembering what he was doing here, why he’d come. His eyes scoured through faces, that time looking for Allie. She stood near where she’d been sitting before, in the very front of the Chinook, sandwiched between Balidor and Yumi. She returned Jon’s gaze.
Just like he’d done with Maygar, Jon found himself nodding.
She didn’t nod back.
Even so, Jon found himself reassured by what he saw there, as well.
Deliberately, for the first time since the four of them had been linked together, Jon reached his light more deeply into hers. As he did, something else hit him. Apart from when the four of them practiced the operational side of those links, he’d been avoiding Allie entirely, even more than Maygar and Revik.
Once he let that avoidance go, a deeper layer in his light began to relax.
His sense of purpose sharpened.
He ran over the bare bones of the light matrix they’d created as a unit, the instant he had all of his individual connections between the four of them re-mapped and tangible. He reached for the individual structures he needed in Allie’s light as soon as he had his bearings. He made sure he had a firm grip on every one of the relevant points of her light.
Only then, and only after he knew his way fluidly between Allie’s structures and the light source that would be channeled to him via Balidor––only then did Jon focus on building the shield.
That part happened so easily, he doubted his perceptions at first.
He sent the impulse to Allie, and almost before he’d finished imparting it, an egg-shaped oval of light erupted around Revik, like a dense but transparent blanket. That light swiftly strengthened, filling every angle and structure Revik carried around his aleimic form.
Seconds later, it densified more, filling with white-hot, fast-moving particles.
The shield began to expand, still focused mainly on Revik, but enveloping Maygar, Jon and the rest of them in gently flowing waves.
Jon let out a relieved exhale. It hit him that the shield protected all of them––but especially him, Revik, and Maygar––from the surrounding construct, in addition to hiding them from view of anyone who might be watching. Until then, he hadn’t noticed the metallic fog strangling his light, or how tense and manic it made him.
He waited, unmoving until he saw that white light cover every inch of Revik’s aleimi, especially those parts he used to operate the telekinesis.
Only then, when he felt reasonably sure the shield was as strong as it would get, did Jon ping Balidor, asking him to test what he could feel.
What seemed like only an instant later, both Balidor and Wreg gave him satisfied pings in return. Jon waited for them to check it a second time, and a third, which they did, pinging him the same affirmative notes with even shorter gaps than before.
Only then did Jon search for those same connecting points between himself and Maygar and Revik, structures he now knew better than his own. The four of them, with help from
Wreg, Yumi and Balidor, had determined the exact route for the strongest means of piggybacking those links after hours of mapping and remapping the different threads.
Now Jon retraced those steps with a sureness he hoped had a basis in reality and didn’t stem from deluded overconfidence, overcompensating for his panic of before.
Within a few more seconds, he felt like he’d done as much as he could.
Revik glanced back as Jon thought it, giving him a slight nod.
So he felt it, too. Good.
Still, Jon wouldn’t say he relaxed exactly.
The ground was only a dozen feet away now.
Cyclones of dust were forming under the fuselage, growing larger as they got kicked up higher from the propellers’ whirring blades. Jon could now see actual expressions on the faces of some of the soldiers looking up.
They watched the Chinook descend, rifles aimed skyward and tracking them down. Most of those men and women stood and crouched next to now much larger-looking armored jeeps and Humvees, parked in a ragged circle around their landing spot in the southwest corner of the meadow.
Swallowing, Jon jerked his eyes off them, too.
That part wasn’t his job.
Buckling the last few catches on the front of his vest, he checked all of his pockets again once he felt his light settle into the routes and connections he knew. He pulled out the Glock from his right-hand holster, checking the chamber of the gun in rote before he shoved it back in place, keeping his fingers near the handle for when the hatch door opened.
He reminded himself it was a double-tap, organic safety, one he’d already disengaged, so he’d be able to fire it coming out of the gate.
It was more of a reassurance thing, though, remembering that.
Jon honestly didn’t know yet if he’d be using it or not. He’d been told his guns existed mainly for emergencies, that he’d be covered in that regard by the other infiltrators.
If all went according to plan, he wouldn’t have to fire the Glock at all.
Really, they had no hope of winning a one-on-one shooting match with these people. That had never been any true part of the plan, and why would it be?
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