by SM Reine
He continued staring at me as the voices got louder. I forced a smile, my nerves rising in spite of myself when it occurred to me he was probably reading my mind again.
I felt a faint whisper of anger on him.
Backing away, I shook my head, stepping away from the doorway.
“Sorry, I just...” I shook my head again. “Sorry.”
I had just let go of the door when his voice rose.
“Allie. Wait.”
I came to a stop, in surprise as much as anything.
He exhaled when I turned, running his fingers through his dark hair. For a moment he only stood there. Then he looked up, meeting my gaze.
“Do you play chess, Allie?” he said.
His voice was low, almost stiffly polite.
I continued to stare at him. “Chess?”
“Yes.” He motioned vaguely towards the marble bar, his accent thicker. “There is a board. We could play. Eat lunch.”
I hesitated, but only for another few heartbeats. “Yeah,” I said. “Great.”
“Are you hungry?” he said. “I could make us something.”
I thought of the sandwich in the other room, then pushed it from my mind.
“Sure,” I said. “Whatever you’re having.”
I just stood there as he poured a large can of soup into a pot. He put it on the burner and lit the flame, then walked to a cabinet on the other side of the kitchen. I remained by the door as he pulled out a wooden chessboard that folded with hinges on the side, the black and white pieces housed within. He opened up the box on the marble bar, and started to pull out the pieces when I took another breath, and walked up to where he stood.
“I can do that,” I said, feeling my cheeks warm. “You’re making food.”
He hesitated a bare instant, then put down the piece he was holding.
“Okay.”
He retreated to the stove while I set up the board. I toyed with asking him other things. Maybe something about the sight training with Ullysa, or the gun range trick he taught me, or more about me being the Bridge. Finally I settled on,
“You want to be black or white?”
When he looked over his shoulder, he surprised me with a faint humor in his eyes.
“You’re the Bridge,” he said. “You have to be white.”
“Really?” I said, smiling back. “Why is that?”
“The White One,” he said. “It is another name.” Seeing my puzzlement, he gestured vaguely, facing the stove. “You know. You mentioned horses. The Bridge is the white horseman.” He glanced back, bowing slightly.
“...Woman,” he amended. “Horsewoman.”
I smiled again, but the comment stayed with me as I sat there. I remembered something about that, actually, about each horse being a different color. White, red, black. Then there was the fourth one, the one I could never remember...
“Pale,” he spoke up from the stove.
I nodded again. “Yeah. Death, right?”
When he didn’t say anything, I just sat there, trying to relax as he finished warming the soup. Pouring the contents of the pot into two bowls, he pulled spoons from a drawer and walked everything over to the bar, setting one of each beside me.
“You want anything to drink, Allie?”
“No,” I said. “...Thanks. This is great.”
When he nodded, his face still, I hesitated, wanting to say more.
I picked up the bowl instead. I was a little relieved to see it was regular old crappy human soup, like I was used to. Blowing on a spoonful to cool it, he motioned towards the board, using his fingers that held the spoon.
“White moves first,” he said.
I swallowed my mouthful, nodding, then put down the bowl.
It crossed my mind that the chances were good that he would kick my ass in this, too, given that there had to be a sight component to chess, just like there was with everything else. Still, a smile rose to my lips as I focused on the board, hearing the soft chink of his spoon as he ate.
Pausing, I glanced around the kitchen. My eyes found one of the embroidered thankahs hanging on the wall, a golden buddha with peaceful eyes.
Under it, on a small shelf stood a lit candle.
It crossed my mind that he’d done that, too, after Mika and I left.
I’ve never been a Buddhist or anything, or even religious, but for some reason, that touched me, too.
I moved my first pawn. Watching Revik’s eyes narrow on the board, the bowl of soup balanced in his hand, I smiled again.
I didn’t let myself think too clearly about why.
14
VANCOUVER
He’d beaten me outside.
I stood in a doorway below the street, blinking against the tired rain of a Seattle afternoon. He threw a leg over the back of a motorcycle as I watched, and my nerves rose even more.
We were leaving.
Almost four weeks had gone by since I’d first woken up in bed with him.
Things were better with us now, yeah, but they still weren’t exactly normal. We were polite to one another. We played chess. In fact, we’d played at least a dozen games by then, although we still barely talked while we played. I hadn’t managed to beat him in a single game. In fact, I suspected playing me bored him in terms of the game itself, but he still offered whenever he saw me, maybe just because it was easier than us talking.
I suppose he did it mainly to try and ease things with us a little.
I’d begun to wonder if we were ever going to leave Seattle. But in monitoring the activity of the Rooks and SCARB and the Sweeps and whoever else, a group of seers somewhere in Asia finally decided it was time for Revik and I to push on. The main news channels still ran “special reports” that showcased images of the car chase up 101 north, along with scuba divers and scows dredging Lake Washington for the GTX and our bodies.
Revik didn’t appear on any of these.
I, on the other hand, was all over them. I’d been the one accused of killing cops and...more oddly...a doctor at San Francisco General. They named me openly as a seer terrorist and showed my true face on the feeds. The one picture I’d seen of Revik showed an avatar only, and called him a “potential accomplice” without using his name.
On the plus side, in not a single report about “Allie the terrorist” did I hear any mention of what happened in the diner, with Jon. If anyone knew or suspected I was telekinetic, they were keeping it really quiet.
Another thing in the plus column: my mother had been released.
Mika assured me that they had people watching her house, to make sure the Rooks left her alone now that she was free. I hadn’t heard anything directly about Jon yet, but Ullysa and Ivy seemed confident that he would come out of this unscathed, too.
Still, I never really relaxed.
It wasn’t all Revik, or even the never-ending physical discomfort since that morning when we woke up in bed together. I was an outsider here, and I knew it. Most of the time, I couldn’t forget it for more than a few seconds in a stretch.
More than that, they all seemed to take the Bridge thing a little too seriously. As a result, even when they saw me as a fellow seer, I wasn’t really one of them. I was something else, and I felt it in every word they said to me, every time I saw their faces grow more closed when I was around, even though Mika and a few of the others, including Ullysa, tried to befriend me.
I’d gotten a lot more on the Bridge thing, though, mostly from Revik, and mostly during our frequent, if one-sided, chess matches. It was one topic he seemed pretty comfortable talking about with me. Revik told me that the symbol of The Bridge was part of their Myth of Three, where they believed some kind of apocalypse happened for each of the humanoid races. Humans, who were nearing the point of their own apocalypse, would be given a group of beings to aid them through that transition, just like the other races had been.
The Bridge supposedly led that group of beings.
Thus the cracks about the four horsemen...which I think
Revik meant mostly as a joke, although it was hard to tell with him. I could tell there was some seriousness to his teasing, too. He would drop things, here and there, that let me know he believed in the whole Bridge thing as much as the others, even if he seemed to see me differently.
According to Revik, the human myths were pretty far from those of the seers, in terms of their meaning, but honestly, I wasn’t sure if that relieved me or not, since I didn’t really understand either.
I spent the vast majority of my time in Seattle in my room...that is, when I wasn’t practicing with the Baby Eagle, playing chess, or learning sight tricks with Ullysa. Alone, I found myself drawing mostly, or reading texts about seers that Ullysa translated to English for me via some software program she had on her headset.
Now I stood outside, feeling even more like the outsider.
Ullysa and her band of merry seer-hookers hadn’t been super-informative about the whole thing around me and Revik, but they had a lot to tell me about maneuvering in the world as a renegade seer. I had new passports, visas, local ident cards...even a forged birth certificate saying I was Yolanda Emily Paterson from Phoenix, Arizona, born a few months and four years before my actual birthday, which my mom made up anyway.
I wore prosthetics on my nose, cheeks and forehead, and contacts that turned my eyes brown, all of which were uncomfortable...and sunglasses. My hair had been cut to jaw length and dyed burgundy, thanks to Ivy and the African-looking seer, whose name turned out to be Yarli. Both of them quizzed me about Phoenix the whole time they did my hair and make-up, until they felt I knew enough to be able to pass.
They asked me what languages I spoke, which was none apart from English and kitchen Spanish, and what countries I’d been to, which was nowhere but Mexico as a kid.
Ivy, who was in charge of my paperwork, also asked Ullysa if we wanted to avoid “the usual places,” to which Ullysa said yes.
The usual places, I found out later, was a list of cities and countries in which the Rooks maintained a heavy presence. It included, among others, Romania, Switzerland, Syria, Argentina, Nigeria, Malaysia, South Africa, Guyana and Laos, and the cities of Orlando, Berlin, Bejing, Salt Lake, Tel Aviv, Helsinki, Portland, Nashville, São Paulo, Moscow, Dubai, Nassau, Zagreb, New York, Las Vegas, Barcelona and Akron, Ohio.
Not surprisingly, Washington D.C. also made the list.
Approaching the motorcycle warily, I stared at Revik’s back.
Giving me a bare glance, he motioned for me to get on behind him, so I stepped closer, then threw a leg over and eased onto the leather seat. My fingers touched his jacket for balance as he moved the bike upright. He clicked over the ignition, and I saw him wince as he stepped sharply down on the pedal.
He did it a few times before the motor caught.
“Are you okay?” I said.
It was a lame attempt at an entry point. I couldn’t be sure he’d even heard me over the revving engine. Picking up a dark blue helmet resting on the gas tank in front of him, he handed it to me.
“Revik,” I said, fighting exasperation a little. “Is this really the best way to do this? You were half dead a few weeks ago—”
“Put it on, Allie. Hold onto me.”
Feeling sick already, I tugged my hair out of my face before stuffing the padding over my head. Arranging my bangs so I could see, I fumbled with the straps under my chin.
I considered trying again with him, then gave up, realizing I’d have to focus at least half of my energy on not throwing up while riding with him anyway.
Finishing with the helmet, I slid my arms around him, gripping tighter as he shifted his weight back to center.
The nausea didn’t get worse. In fact, it was nowhere near as bad as I’d feared in gearing up for this. Realizing it must be something he was doing, I went into the Barrier slightly and stretched out my light towards his. Carefully, I felt over the edges of a curved glass-like surface around him...until he used some part of his aleimi to shove me off.
It wasn’t subtle.
I kept my light off his as best as I could after that.
I watched him slide a handgun into a holster in his boot, covering it with his pant leg.
Ullysa approached the bike, laying a hand on his arm.
“Be careful, Revi',” she said as he holstered another gun under his jacket. I knew she spoke aloud for my benefit. “My people will meet you at the airport, but you are alone until then.” She looked at me, pointed at the space between my eyes. “Do not go into the Barrier, sister. Do what Revi’ tells you...this is his job.”
I nodded, biting back annoyance at being spoken to like a child.
They’d been over this with me a hundred times.
Ullysa kissed Revik’s palm in goodbye before he started putting on gloves. I focused on the line of seers standing outside in robes and shawls, a thin veil of moisture on each face.
I recognized Yarli, the African-looking woman with the kind eyes, and Mika under her hood. Then I saw Kat walking towards the bike, wearing nothing but a gold kimono and bamboo clogs. I watched her light brown eyes slide over Revik. A swell of pain hit me; my fingers clenched the thick leather of his jacket. The woman only smiled wider, walking up to him and throwing her arms around his neck.
I barely had time to back away.
I slid to the rear of the long seat, not looking at them or at the line of seers watching as he returned Kat’s kiss. I felt pain waft off him as he fell into it, saw Kat press her body into his, her hand between his legs. Once I saw that much, I turned, staring at the brick of the alley wall until they finished. It seemed to take a long time.
Finally, Kat walked away, but not before she grinned over her shoulder at me.
“See you, cub. Thanks for the loan.”
I bit my lip. I felt Revik watching me, his light cautious. When he didn’t look away, I faced him directly.
“Don’t worry, Revi’,” I said bitingly. “...I’m sure they have plenty of whores in Canada, too.”
That time, there was no question as to whether he had heard. Something rose in his eyes, a kind of furious disbelief, but it disappeared as soon I saw it.
By the time I thought about it enough to regret speaking, he’d already shoved a helmet over his head and locked the strap.
Revving the motor a last time, he took his feet off the ground, forcing me to make a grab at his jacket to stay on the bike as he accelerated out of the alley.
I clung to his waist, feeling like my skull might vibrate out of my skin...or simply break apart like sandstone, leaving a pool of wet dust inside the helmet.
Resting my bulky head on his back, I watched the sun begin its descent into the water through a bug-speckled visor, feeling another rush of gratitude towards Ullysa for forcing the down jacket and scarf on me, in addition to the gloves.
Revik only stopped the bike once, and as angry as he might have been at me, I suspected it was for my benefit. After using the cement-block restroom and washing my face, I’d stood in the picnic area swinging my arms while he walked a wide circle on the grass, ignoring me studiously.
Normally, the ride to Vancouver took only three or so hours from Seattle. Because we took back roads for a border crossing further east, it took us closer to seven.
I raised my head as the bike slowed.
He came to a stop, placing his feet on the ground at the end of one of several lines of vehicles. RVs, trailers and cars started and stopped before a widened section of road bridged with glass booths.
Seeing the Canadian flag snapping overhead, I felt a jump in my stomach. Revik lifted his feet, hitting the gas to roll us forward when the line shifted another spot.
He glanced back at me for the first time since we’d left.
“If we encounter a problem,” he said through the helmet. “It will be here.”
I adjusted my arms around him. “How likely is that?”
“They won’t be watching from the physical.” He paused, thinking. “Well. It is unlikely. Canada is to
o obvious.”
“And if it isn’t too obvious?”
He continued to look at me. I couldn’t see any part of him through the tinted visor. He shrugged.
“So why can’t you use the Barrier?” I said.
“Because it is easy to watch multiple places in shifts from the Barrier,” he said. “There are not enough seers to go everywhere in person...not even for the Rooks...and it is wholly unnecessary. They will watch from the Barrier, circulate our pictures to humans...and wait for me to resurface. They know I cannot stay out of the Barrier forever.”
“Why not?”
“Because eventually I have to sleep,” he said.
I fell silent, watching cars inch forward. A little boy in a minivan gripped his hands into fists as he stared at me and Revik, turning them towards himself rhythmically, lips puckered as he made Vroom, Vroom noises.
“So how do you know they won’t be waiting for us here?” I said.
Revik sighed, staring up at the sky. “I don’t,” he said. “But there are advantages to Canada that made it worth the risk. I am registered through their branch of Seer Containment, what you call SCARB. I will come up green in a regular scan, at least until they revoke my status. Ullysa assured me they had not.”
“So what about me? They must have facial recognition software, right?” My panic rose. “And my implant—”
“Has been altered. We told you this, Allie.” Revik sighed. “We have people on the inside, too. The electronic security doesn’t worry me. It is easy to tamper with...and they told me which lines to use for the crossing. By the time they found us that way, it would already be too late.”
Stumped, I tried to incorporate this information into my more nameless fear. Before I could think of another question, it was our turn. Revik pulled the bike up to the booth.
A man wearing a black uniform stepped out from behind the glass.
He held out a hand.
“Passports.”