"Formal wear." He seemed to be scanning through memories. "...That party in Delhi."
I bit my lip, retracting my light.
I tried not to let my reaction show, but he must have felt some of it, because he glanced at me. After a pause, he went on, his voice casual once more.
"...Before that, probably not since I worked for British Intelligence." He smiled wanly when I glanced up. "Occasionally they'd trot me out for banquets, that kind of thing. Having a seer as one of their instructors for inter-species warfare was a big draw...supposedly tripled their international student count. I had to do the dog and pony show occasionally..."
"I remember," I said, smiling back.
"Do you, now?"
"Someone in the Seven told me."
It had been Maygar, actually, but I didn't really want to open that can of worms, either.
We were quiet for a few minutes, walking through the wide pipe. It was the first time he'd broken our pattern, by not asking me about my clothes. So maybe I had reason to worry about whatever was going on with him there, after all.
The thought barely had time to register when he held up a hand. I knew the hand signal from Wreg and the others, but I wondered if he knew he was using military hand signals with me, since I'd never actually learned them, from him or anyone else.
I stopped when he did it though, and not only my body. I stopped breathing, and stilled my light so that it didn't move, mimicking the cold space of the cavern. I felt it when his alertness began to wane.
"It's nothing," he said. "Maintenance. One floor up." Motioning towards a ladder built into the wall, he continued to scan, not looking at me as he said, softer, "Go on up, Allie. I need you to shield...but don't open the hatch until I say."
We'd talked about this, too.
Someone had to be in charge in any op. It made sense to both of us that it be him. I could tell the role made him uncomfortable in some ways, but only because it was me he was giving orders to. Otherwise, he probably would have assumed the leadership mantle without a second thought.
Or maybe I was confusing him with one of the other versions of him again.
I was climbing the ladder as I thought it, keeping my mind still as I expanded the range of my light shield beyond us and up to the floor above. The open space felt approximately how it had when we mapped it a few days earlier. If anything, it was even emptier.
"Clear?" he said.
I glanced down, realizing he was just below me on the ladder.
I nodded. When his expression didn't change, I reached for the lever to open the portal. It was locked of course, from the other side. But since we'd decided to go in just the two of us, we'd known we would both be using the telekinesis.
"Do you want me to do it?" he said, softer.
I shook my head. "Just cover us."
He was more accurate than me with the telekinesis...to put it mildly. I needed him to do the serious heavy-lifting in that area, which didn't include opening relatively basic organic locks.
It meant making sure no one shot either of us once I got the hatch open.
His fingers circled my ankle in reassurance, and it sent a shiver through my light. He took his hand away a second later, but I already had my aleimi refocused on the lock. This one was simple. Organic. Nothing like what we'd needed Revik's help with to get at that mainframe in Brazil. Hell, a regular seer could do it, by coaxing the lock to open on its own, rather than pushing it open forcefully with telekinesis...it would just take them longer.
I slid my light into the organics, coaxed them a little. I turned that into a nudge with the telekinesis...
I heard a sliding, grating sound, then the door felt heavier in my hand.
Glancing at Revik a last time, I waited for his nod, then pushed up on the metal. The round hatch door rose slowly and soundlessly on curved hinges. Once I had it standing upright, one edge leaning on the cement, I raised my head above the lip of the opening. I felt Revik's light wrap around mine protectively, that time with a pale density that was almost difficult to see through.
Even so, I got a pretty good look at the lower-level garage where we'd come up. Shared by the executives of the bank and the office building next door, the multistory garage lay directly under the street itself.
It was empty...of people, anyway. Even parked cars were few and far between. Some of those were probably being stored there, too, at least for the night.
Climbing up carefully, I continued to look around once I'd reached the top, only watching Revik peripherally as he joined me behind the painted wall near a row of executive slots. We were in one of the private parking areas, color-coded for the specific company that owned the bloc of spaces. I glanced around the cinderblock wall, noted the position of the elevators and next to them, a steel-plated door with a combination lock to the right of the door handle.
Revik stood behind me again, so I glanced at him. He laid a hand on my shoulder to pause me before I walked out in the open. I heard a cracking sound, like breaking glass, and something else...maybe plastic, or even metal. Peering around the corner, I saw the camera smoking where he'd fried it behind a one-way panel that looked otherwise invisible where it lay flush against the wall. He'd cracked the panel too, or I might not have seen it at all.
Touching me again in warning, Revik walked past me and out onto the sloped driveway leading up to the next level. I felt him scanning, right before he glanced around briefly, then motioned with his head for me to follow.
Exhaling a bit, I let go of the wall.
I joined him after he'd already reached the steel-plated door. His hand rested on the combination lock, so I didn't speak when I saw his eyes shift slightly out of focus.
I had to fight to keep my light away from his, though.
I still had some kind of issue with him and the telekinesis. Namely, that it massively turned me on whenever he did it. I found myself watching light course through veins in his aleimi, keeping my reactions firmly behind a shield, but unable to tear my attention off him completely. I didn't really understand my own reaction to what I saw, but not understanding it didn't temper its effect on me. When his sight began to slide through the mechanisms of the lock, I forced myself to look away, feeling the pain in my abdomen and chest worsen as his light unfurled.
Even so, it made me irritated with myself. No wonder Balidor didn't want the two of us working ops together. Point blank, he told me I wasn't reliable around Revik...nor him around me. He was worried we'd get each other killed.
Biting my lip, I tried to shove that from my mind, too.
It was too late to start worrying now. Besides, I really did want what we'd come for. I couldn't even articulate to myself exactly why I wanted it so badly...but I did. It felt important, vitally important, although I couldn't explain that either, not even to Revik. I'd barely slept the past week, between the dreams and planning for this job, and not all of my agitation stemmed from nerves. It felt like anticipation, nearly a compulsion...which was another thing that seemed to be happening a lot more lately.
Vash told me to trust those impulses, at least when I could.
He seemed to think they came from the Bridge nature in me, taking over from the regular, more ordinary person of Allie Taylor. He also seemed to think it was good that part of me was becoming more prominent...even, at times, dominant, compared to the rest of me.
Anyway, it was Balidor's own fault we were going in this way. If I'd thought I had a prayer of talking him or Wreg into coming with us based purely on my dreams and things Feigran had told me, I would have included the Adhipan and the ex-rebels in my plans, too.
But, watching Revik, I had to wonder if that was true, either.
I hadn't really wanted to include the others, if I was really being honest with myself.
Another click came from the mechanism in the door.
I felt that one more than heard it. Revik glanced at me, giving me a slight grin before he turned the handle. Seeing the look on my face, he paused, a
nd I realized he felt more in my light. For the barest instant, I saw him let it in, saw his expression soften.
I nudged his shoulder with my hand, harder than necessary.
"Cut it out," I whispered. "Not you, too."
He averted his eyes, but I saw color rise to his cheeks. Taking my wrist, he pulled me carefully through the doorway behind him. Then he stopped, and I felt his light roving up and down the stairs, taking in details systematically. I was close enough to him now that I felt him do it; he let me in when he noticed, wanting me to see everything, too, to make sure he didn't miss anything.
He found the camera on the next landing before I did, though.
"You do that one," he said, soft.
I felt my nerves jump a little. Thinking then, I nodded.
He hid behind the teaching thing sometimes. I knew it was partly to avoid dealing with me directly. That was fine with me; it allowed me to chill a little on my end, too. Focusing on the camera located where his light pointed, I gradually loosened my hold on the telekinesis. The more I learned about how to use it, the more I found that using it was less about trying to use it and more about letting it do what it wanted to do anyway. There was an art to relaxing my normal holding back...as well as aiming that force at something specific.
The main problem was not letting it go too far.
Even as I thought it, there was a loud cracking sound from the landing above, a miniature explosion. I winced, pulling back my light, even as I glanced up at Revik.
Clicking softly, he smiled, shaking his head.
"Too loud," he said, unnecessarily.
I didn't answer, but followed him when he began climbing the stairs. When we reached the landing with the camera, Revik pointed. The glass wasn't just cracked, like it had been when Revik broke that camera in the garage...it was gone completely. A pile of glass shards stood on the floor. The remaining glass had melted into rounded shapes around the camera, which itself had been melted into an unrecognizable lump of dark green metal with a cracked, black-scorched lens. It crouched flush against the back wall, looking like a giant had squeezed it inside thick fingers, popping it like a grape.
Revik snickered. Then he raised his wrist, snapping an image of the still-smoking remains with the image-capturing device built into his organic watch. When I smacked his arm, he laughed louder, although still lower than a whisper.
"Funny," I told him.
It was hard to be annoyed though. He was smiling too much.
"Laugh it up," I said, smiling back, even as I smacked him again. "Don't think I won't remember this, though...or that I won't start carrying around a camera of my own..."
"Shhh," he said. He covered my mouth with one hand, still fighting back laughter. "...Quiet, wife. We're working."
"Then work," I retorted, fighting not to react to the affectionate way he'd used the moniker. I pushed his hand off my mouth, motioning him up the stairs with an exaggerated flourish. "Make fun of me on your own time...you work for me tonight, remember?"
Giving an exaggerated version of the respectful salute to my formal title as the Bridge, he continued to smile at me, his clear eyes holding that glint of mischievous humor.
We walked up the next few flights of stairs before I found a second camera. It was also hidden behind a one-way segment of wall, disguised to be invisible to anyone relying only on their physical eyes. Revik motioned for me to take that one as well. When I sighed in exasperation, he nudged me playfully on the shoulder.
"You need the practice."
"Not in a field op, I don't!"
"It's low risk," he said. He nudged me again, his voice faintly coaxing. "I'll handle whatever we run into upstairs. Promise."
Sighing in defeat, I focused on the camera above. That time, the explosion was quieter.
Even so, Revik grinned at me when my eyes clicked back into focus.
"What?" I whispered. "It was better!"
Chuckling, he took my wrist in his fingers again, leading me upstairs. Even I had to admit, the second camera didn't look much better than the first one had. It was also on fire. But the glass had mostly melted that time, so less of it covered the floor.
Revik took a picture of that one, too.
"Really?" I said. "This is how you get your jollies, now?"
He started to answer, then looked up, his face suddenly stripped of humor. His eyes sharpened, growing concentrated as he scanned something he'd felt overhead. Before I could ask, his irises clicked back into focus.
"Come on," he said. His voice held a faint urgency now.
"Did they notice the feeds being out?"
He shook his head, once, still walking with me up the stairs, now taking two at a time. Both of us were moving faster now, and quieter, but I had to hurry to keep up with his longer strides.
"Motion detectors," he said, low.
"I thought you neutralized those before?"
"Not mechanical. Seer. Aleimic scans."
"The shield's not holding?"
"It is. They haven't felt us. But they felt the cameras go..." He glanced at me. "They'll probably think it's an electrical problem at first. Still, they'll send someone down to look..."
He glanced up the stairwell. I felt his light flicker over the next camera, right before it snuffed the mechanism out. He did it soundlessly, and when we reached that landing, I didn't even see a crack in the outside glass.
"Show off," I muttered.
He spared me a grin, but his eyes remained serious. Not quite worried, but definitely focused, and I could feel him in several different places now above our heads. I felt that charge in his aleimi, too...even through his fingers where he held me lightly with one hand.
We were close now. I felt it. I'd been counting floors, too, but the feeling created a kind of tremor through my light.
He stopped outside the correct door, and now he wanted me well behind him, and behind the wall, out of sight when he opened the door. He positioned me firmly on the stairs just above where he stood before his hand went to the locking mechanism to the right of the steel-plated panel. He glanced at me, his eyes sharp once more.
"They'll feel this," he reminded me. "Stay behind me, Allie."
"I will."
"Don't follow until I say it's all right."
"I won't."
"Promise me."
I'd been staring at the lock, ready to watch him open it, but his tone made me look up. That time, I saw a faint worry in his eyes. Before I could say anything, he leaned towards me, kissing me on the mouth. It was a brief kiss, but the first he'd given me in months...and a lot lay behind it. Enough that it stunned me temporarily, stopping my breath even as I clutched at him. He pulled away a heartbeat later, his hand still over the door lock, his body tense, his light sparking in strange arcs over his head.
"Promise me, Allie," he said, his voice firm, still holding a faint worry. "Promise you'll let me handle this...please."
I nodded, swallowing tautly at the look in his eyes. Woven into the worry was a love even I could feel.
"I promise."
"You'll do what I say?"
"I will," I said, trying to reassure him. "We agreed. You're in charge."
His face relaxed, but only a little. "We've agreed this before," he muttered.
I knew he worried about that part of me that could be a bit of a loose cannon, the part that Vash included in his definition of my 'Bridge nature.' Even as far back as the ship, Revik had seen that part of me do things that were more than a little risky...at times, seemingly without my actually deciding to do them, at least in the usual sense.
Whatever misgivings he had about me, however, he seemed to shove aside, even as I felt him make up his mind.
He focused back on the door.
It seemed like he only looked at it an instant before I felt his light shift.
He didn't wait that time...nor conduct scans to make sure the alarms disengaged, like we'd done below. We both knew they'd be engaged up here. No way existed to turn
the alarms off without alerting the whole building. Even so, time seemed to slow when I felt his light unfurl. I watched it filter through the mechanics of the lock, draw the combination out of the mechanism itself. Right before he finished, he looked at me a last time, his eyes the color of green glass.
Stay here, he sent, his thoughts openly warning.
His mind changed, emptied down to the bare minimum, business-only. It held nothing of what I'd felt in him seconds before. A sudden rush of fear hit my light. I pulled it back before he might feel it, but I could tell by looking at him that it wouldn't matter, not anymore. The cloak falling over him grew abruptly dense. Feeling the Revik I knew slip from my grasp, I felt a different thread of nerves as he disappeared behind it.
He was Syrimne again.
It occurred to me to wonder if maybe I was playing with fire, letting him come with me on this jaunt. It also occurred to me he'd nearly lost his soul using these same abilities, more than once. But it was too late to second-guess any of that, too.
I heard the click.
...Then the alarm exploded overhead.
2
MACHINE
A GUNSHOT EXPLODED through the doorway.
It echoed past him into the stairwell, louder than the alarm.
Revik dropped, firing before his knees finished bending. Both happened faster than my eyes could follow, but my light wrapped so tightly in his that I felt every movement, seemingly in a stretched space of time. I recognized the grid that fell down over his light, watched him use his aleimi to aim even as he squeezed off four or five rounds in quick succession.
It occurred to me I had crouched down, too, and that the gun from my thigh holster now lived in my hand. Revik's body swiveled. He squeezed off three more rounds in the opposite direction down the hallway outside the door.
A second guard had joined the first...both human, my mind told me belatedly.
The gunfire paused. If two seconds counts as a pause.
I breathed hard through it, still hunkered down a few feet from where Revik crouched. I remained so entwined in his energy I didn't dare move, either in or out of the Barrier. He glanced at me, and I felt the prod in my light. Before I could catch my breath, we left the doorway, entering the bank's upper-level office suite on the tenth floor.
Allie's War Season Three Page 3