by SM Reine
Liego pities the boy. Eventually, that compassion becomes a deeper love.
The boy moves in with him and a man named Massani after no one claims him from the first set of wars. I watch Liego feed the four-year-old. I see him talk to an angry, confused adolescent, hold him as he cries at some disappointment or rejection.
I see Liego teach him in his private laboratory, ready him for exams, introduce him to a society that accepts him because of who Liego is.
Hatred wells up in me, mixed with a love that hurts more.
It is not my life, not my problem, but I take it personally. I take him personally. I crash through wall after wall, following the thread of that gaunt child.
He still exists...somewhere.
Haldren. His name is Haldren.
A recklessness lives in me. I decide I am tired of the slow way, the seer game of hide and seek, step by step, mapping and remapping of lines, all the cloak and dagger bullshit that I’ve tried my best to follow as Revik taught me. I don’t need to understand all the threads that tie me to this place and time. I am looking for the monster who killed my mother. I don’t care that he was once a child in some other version of Earth, except that it might help me find him now.
Dropping the pretense, I envision the child in the front of my mind.
I call to him.
I yell his name through the faceless shadows of a distant Pyramid, and most of the beings tied to that prison do not hear.
I think it is futile, that I am wasting my time, when...
I am with him.
Abruptly, I am there, at the top of all those chafing lines.
I float over the apex of the Pyramid.
Shocked by my success, I see him. He sits alone, in a structured room. Lines of silver and hard, metallic white stick to his head and heart.
The child is one of a thousand whispering masks.
He looks like a machine. The Pyramid has disappeared, I realize. It occurs to me that it disappeared because I am inside it. Haldren doesn’t move, doesn’t seem to see me at all. He rests inside a dream. A flat, pleasant emptiness.
Watching him exist in this state, I find I almost understand.
He is safe here. He is protected, in a way that the old man couldn’t protect him when he was alive. He is protected from feeling, from vulnerability, from caring about anything that might hurt him, or make him feel pain. He can sit in this empty space, untouchable, because the silver light ensures that he doesn’t have to feel any of it. He can give orders, and tell himself he is the cause of none of it. He can be the king of ghosts, of wasted machines.
He can kill my mom.
Or he can let it happen...and not care about that, either.
Anger flares my light.
A white arc leaves me, utterly different from the seething strands eclipsing Haldren on his metal throne. The flame sparks as it comes in contact with the Pyramid’s trembling strands. It finds one of the connecting points.
There is a strange silence.
Then a tangled, silver ball explodes.
I hear the crack below that single pearl of flame. Something totters, begins to fall. I hear voices scream, awakened from their collective dream. I watch that piece of the Pyramid tumble into a void-like abyss. Everything disappears below the connecting point I have broken. I watch lights disappear, erased from the network mind like branches cut from a dying plant...
Haldren disappears.
I fall. I fall for a long, long time...
Until I see only one face, one being.
A narrow, wasted mask looks at me, its eyes like poisoned urine. The face holds a dense knowing, a mirrored depth. The being smiles. I’m not looking at a person anymore. I am looking at one of the Rooks.
I see you, Bridge, it whispers.
I see where you are...
...and I sat up, gasping, batting at my head with my hands.
Just like that afternoon, I found myself lying on my back on the carpet, but instead of VR stars I see the low, white-painted ceiling of the stateroom.
My head hurts. There is sharp pain, but also a feeling of despair.
I realize I am still partway in the Barrier and dig my nails into my arm, trying to force myself the rest of the way out.
My eyes clicked back into focus.
The silver light clung to my head in some undefinable way, so I sparked outwards with my aleimi, trying to get it off me.
All I felt was amusement, laughter as the being left.
I was still sitting there, gasping, when a sharp knock rattled the cabin door. I turned to stare at it, fighting to regain my breath, fighting the fear that wanted to throw me back into the Barrier.
Revik wouldn’t knock.
“Allie?”
I recognized the Irish accent. Eliah.
“What the hell’s on in there, love?”
Only minutes had passed. Seconds, maybe.
White hands on green mirrors. Blood with water.
He was thirsty. So fucking thirsty. Everything hurt, and...
Pain whispered through my fingers. I held my head, biting my tongue as hard as I could to try and keep my light inside my body.
“Yeah,” I managed. “Okay. What do you want?”
I don’t remember saying he could come in, but the door opened. Eliah crossed the threshold into the room and stopped, looking around as if startled by a strange smell. Closing the door behind him, he studied me with cocked head.
“What’ve you been doing in here, love?”
I pulled myself shakily to my feet, wincing at the bruises from our earlier fight.
“Feeling sorry for myself,” I said, forcing a smile. My hands shook, so I clenched them at my sides, not meeting his gaze directly. “Why? Do you want to kick my ass again?”
He smiled wanly, but his eyes didn’t leave my face. “You all right?”
“I’m fine, Eli. What’s up?”
“Orders.” He hesitated, then glanced at the bed, as if he couldn’t help himself. “...To hear tell it, your other half will be out for awhile. I’m supposed to keep you company until he gets back. You know, keep you from being too bored...” Trailing, he watched me rub my temples. “Allie-bird? Seriously. You don’t look so good.”
I flinched a little at the nickname, but didn’t answer.
My mother had called me that.
Still casting around for something to keep me focused on the room, I tried to hold a normal expression as Eliah sat down on the bed. When the pause went on too long, I forced myself to look at him.
Unlike me, he’d changed out of the sparring gear.
I’d never really seen him in street clothes before, not apart from glimpses through the door when he guarded our stateroom. He had two different-colored eyes, one nearly black, the other blue, yet with his hair combed back and the blue sweater he wore, the combination worked well with his square jaw and salt-and-pepper hair. Sitting casually on the end of the bed, hands clasped between the knees of his dark-brown slacks, he looked like a cologne ad, or maybe a television spot for high-end coffee. What was it with these seers, that all of them were good-looking? The men all looked like GQ models.
Eliah had the air of a man who’d never bother with a midlife crisis. He’d be too busy scuba diving the Norwegian fjords or tackling K2.
He smiled faintly. “Cheers, love. Although the ‘midlife’ crack stings a bit.”
Hesitating, I decided the normal thing to do would be to sit. I let my weight sink into the plush armchair across from him.
“So what now?” I said. “You’re on babysitting duty, is that it?”
“I suppose so, yes.” He continued to study my eyes. “That all right with you, love?”
I shrugged, keeping my voice studiously casual. “Sure. Whatever. Not sure why it’s necessary, though. It’s not like this is the first time Revik’s gone on walkabout.”
Eliah flushed a little.
I couldn’t help but notice him glancing at the bed again.
“Yeah, w
ell.” He gestured vaguely. “I guess Chan was worried you might overreact this time. She doesn’t want anything happening. Not with a ship full of human witnesses.”
“Overreact?” I stared at him. “Meaning what, exactly?”
He gave me a shrewder look. “You know where he went, don’t you, love?”
I hesitated, wanting to ask, then didn’t.
“It’s none of my business,” I said after a pause. “If he wanted me to know where he was, he would have told me.” Averting my gaze, I busied myself examining a bruise on my arm. When the silence grew awkward, I bit my lip, then spoke up again. “You want to play chess or something? I need a shower, but then we could play. I could stand to eat, too. Have you had any dinner?”
“I want to ask you something, first,” he said.
I felt myself stiffen. “Okay.”
He smiled. “Don’t say yes too quick, love. It might offend you.”
I nodded, massaging my arm. “Seems to be my day for that kind of thing.”
He laughed. When I didn’t say anything more, he made a vague gesture towards my body.
“All right,” he said. “You and the walking corpse. What’s going on?”
I raised my eyes. “Excuse me?”
“I hear his first wife strayed. Is he feeling bitter...testing you, perhaps?”
There was a silence. I fought with how I might laugh off his words, or just avoid the question without it seeming too obvious or defensive.
Then I realized the silence had stretched too long already.
Regaining my feet, I made my way to the bathroom. Eliah got up to follow.
“Allie...wait.”
“It’s fine. I just really need a shower,” I said. “If you want to order food, go for it...or you can leave, honestly. Unless Chan says you really have to stay.”
“Allie...”
I shut the door on him, not quite in his face, but close enough that I felt him flinch through the wood. I had to ignore that too. I would have to think of some way to talk through what I’d just done, but for now, I just wanted to get my mind on straight again. As I tugged the stretchy tee I wore over my head, bending over the tub, I heard him lean against the door.
“...Didn’t want to ask it, love,” he said, his words slightly muffled. “...but I’ve been hearing things. You know. Small ship...even smaller construct.”
The echo of water splashing against the fiberglass tub drowned out his voice as I turned up the faucet. He spoke louder, but I still missed a few words.
“...Most of our females won’t touch him, truth be told. There’s rumors about what he did when working for those Rooks, some of it to women...”
“Eliah,” I called out. “I can’t hear you. Can it wait?”
He raised his voice. “I could see it, if you just wanted a roll. Hell, he sells it, so he’s got to be competent at least...”
Wishing I hadn’t heard that part, I bit my lip, but his voice again rose above the water.
“...But gods almighty beyond the Barrier, Alyson...how in the realms of hell did he talk you into marrying him? Was there coercion involved? Because, love, if so, you have grounds for severance. Even apart from what he’s done since...”
I’d been about to flip on the shower nozzle when I froze, hearing his words as they replayed in my mind. I just stood there for a few seconds more, half bent over, wearing only my underwear. I watched water flow out of the silver tap.
“Allie?” He paused. “You know he’s got no social status to speak of, right? Hell, I think he’s officially still in penance. You’ve basically elevated him about ten ranks, just by agreeing to the bastard...and I don’t see anything in it for you. Then he treats you like this...”
The linoleum blurred.
My mind pieced together words, fragments of conversations, references. I remembered the look on Ivy and Ullysa’s faces in the kitchen when I wouldn’t go to him that morning, his half-assed apology about Kat, the constant, oblique references to whatever happened between us that first night we spent in Seattle...
“You know it’s illegal for seers, right?” Eliah said.
“Illegal?” I repeated numbly.
“Infidelity. You need permission. I’m assuming you didn’t give him that?”
I stood there, unable to answer. Thinking about Jaden, my parole, the look on Kat’s face when she thought I’d offered her Revik...
Tugging my shirt back over my head, I turned off the water.
After standing by the door a second more, I opened it, and found myself meeting the serious eyes of Eliah, one blue and the other a near black. He started a bit, to find himself facing me so suddenly. For a moment we just looked at each other.
Then my jaw hardened, and I nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Order food. I have a few questions.”
For a moment, Eliah only looked at me.
Then he broke out in a grin.
I sat curled up in one of the round-backed chairs that passed for comfortable, a half-eaten plate of oysters on the counter next to me. I wasn’t hungry any more, but food and alcohol seemed to be the way to get Eliah to talk, just like it was with most humans.
Eliah himself sprawled on an identical chair to my left, drinking a beer as both of us faced out the balcony door to the sea.
I forced my attention back on the room, and on him.
Mechanically, I smiled at something he said.
“Really?” I said. “...What did you do then?”
He grinned, eyes glassy from alcohol. “I just picked myself up,” he said. “...Dusted myself off. Pretended I’d meant to stick my hand in that letter box.” He returned my grin, seeing me shake my head. “Those poor worms...”
I stiffened and he added apologetically,
“...Humans. We end up acting fairly idiotic around them sometimes, just to avoid the hassle of an exposure threat. It’s a real bitch to get your license back once it’s been yanked. And it’s one thing to move undetected by humans. When you’ve got the Sweeps on your arse, it’s a whole other story.”
He gestured around us, pointing to the television and the stocked bar.
“But hell...this is my home. Living in caves, chanting...not the life for me. I don’t much fancy being sold at auction to some rich dickhead, either. Clan tattoos get burned off, you know. Overambitious Sweeps who want a bit of extra cash and get bought off by the traders. Of course, being in the Guard protects me from most of that. Even the Sweeps won’t mess with the Seven too much. They don’t want to risk the Adhipan on their arses, either...
“...Thank Christ,” he added, leaning over the arm of the chair and swigging more of the beer. “But there’s the flip side of that, too. If I don’t make the effort to act a bit human-ish, the Sweeps would have me living out in the middle of Mongolia somewhere, milking oxen. Not much of an improvement, really.”
“The Sweeps?” I said, puzzled. “But they’re human, right?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’thir li’dare...that bastard Dags doesn’t tell you anything, does he? No. The Sweeps is part of the World Court, yeah, but they’re culled from the clans. They’re the police. Couldn’t rightly be human, could they?”
“You have your own police,” I repeated, a little dumbfounded.
In the human media, the Sweeps were always portrayed as a kind of global Homeland Security. They worked under SCARB, sure, or maybe adjacent to SCARB, tracking renegade seers, but it had never occurred to me they weren’t run by humans, or human themselves.
He flicked his fingers to the right and up, the gesture I recognized as “yes.”
“The Rooks have a heavy presence on the Sweeps, of course,” Eliah said. “They’re sort of a competing nation with the Seven, you could say...but it’s more a philosophical difference, really. The other nations tolerate them because whatever else they may be, the Rooks are good at concealment. Ironic really, as they were the first to advocate dominance over isolationism.”
He leaned back on his elbows.
/>
“Containment’s a real controversial issue with seers these days, love,” he added. “Before, humans were seen more like animals...” He gave me another apologetic glance. “Most of us didn’t even want to interact with them, truth be told. The world was bigger back then, and it was easy to talk about non-interference, live and let live, will of the gods an’ all that. Now humans fly everywhere, go everywhere, want to see everything. Even our most isolated clans are stuck having to deal with them in one form or another...and there’s interbreeding and mixed marriage and all kinds of nonsense on our side, too.”
He winked at me. “We’ve got nasty libidos, we seers.”
I rolled my eyes, but grinned slightly.
“Damn, that’s cute,” he said, leaning back over the arm of the chair. “Fuck. How can he keep his hands off you?”
Feeling myself stiffen, I receded back into the cushion, propping my arms on the rounded back of the chair. “Okay,” I said. “I’m just going to ask. Do you really believe all of this Bridge stuff? About me killing everyone, ending the world?”
He broke into a laugh, spilling his beer.
“Trust Dags to put a positive spin on it. What a morose bastard.”
“Eliah,” I said. “What do you think? Honestly. If it’s true, I think it must have something to do with the Rooks. I’ve been studying their network, but until today, I never really—”
“You’ve been what?”
Eliah raised his head, staring at me. The sharpness of his voice took me aback a little.
“Studying their network,” I repeated.. “I’m interested in how it works. The way the whole top part seems to shift—”
“The succession order?”
It was my turn to stare. When I glimpsed images in his mind however, watching the different pieces of the Pyramid move up and down, trading places with one another under the top spot at the apex of the Pyramid, I found myself nodding. It was oddly reassuring that the thing I’d been looking at had a name.