Allie's War Season Three

by JC Andrijeski

  Maybe like Revik did, too, when he saw Menlim in Argentina.

  My telekinesis snaked out.

  Totally out of control. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t aim anything, and I found myself overly conscious of Jon...of Cass herself. Something above my head crackled and burned. It hurt like hell when I let it go, but I aimed it at her anyway...and roughly in the direction of that line of black-clad soldiers.

  A cut blast of light left me...I fought to pull my aleimi together, to get all of the structures working roughly in the same direction again...at least until I couldn’t.

  Then pain hit me. Hard. Too hard to fight.

  Too hard to think through, or push away.

  The pain that came from letting my telekinesis muscle do its thing went from difficult to beyond what I could stand. The fist I used to normally hold the telekinesis back clenched inside that pain, and couldn’t let go.

  I let out a cry. I heard it somewhere...far away.

  I couldn’t see enough to know if I’d damaged myself or not, like Revik had done, but I felt drained, sick with it, even though I’d managed to remain on my feet.

  Then I just stood there, sparking like some kind of burnt-out transformer.

  I saw broken glass vessels by the landing pad for the giant, converted Sikorsky. I saw a crack in the windshield of the same, and five of the seven or so landing bulbs exploded into powdered glass. One of the soldiers had fallen to one knee, too, yelling where his gun had cracked in half, sending shrapnel into his chest. Another lay on the edge of the white target circle of the helipad, not moving at all.

  I tried again to loosen my hold on the telekinesis, but I couldn’t. I clenched my fists at my sides, trying, but I couldn’t see anything now; I could barely see Cass with my physical eyes.

  Crying out for Revik in the Barrier, I felt my attempts to reach him hit another series of walls. I tried again, screaming for him...

  Still, I saw it when she aimed the gun.

  Cass was smart, just like Cass had always been smart. She didn’t point the gun at Jon, or even at my head. She didn’t bother to make threats.

  She pointed it at me, right at my belly.

  It was enough to click my mind back into a sharper focus. My head cleared without thought, seemingly outside of my control.

  In a way it never would have for anything else.

  “I don’t care if the baby dies,” Cass said. “I really don’t, Allie.”

  Looking at her, I believed her.

  “What makes you think I do?” I said, clenching my jaw.

  Cass smiled, aiming the gun at my head only then. “Is this better?” she said.

  I felt my throat close, even as I fought again to gain control of my light, to loosen the grasp my aleimi had around the structures I needed for the telekinesis.

  I got it, though. She’d known, somehow, that a part of me would try to protect the baby. I wouldn’t be able to help myself. The thought closed my throat, although I couldn’t think about why, not then.

  “What about Revik?” was all I could think to say.

  I looked around at where I stood. I looked at the helicopter already powering up, at the row of guards wearing black armor with the insignia of Black Arrow on the front of their vests.

  “...I’ll skip the preliminaries and assume you don’t care about me, since you’ve got a gun aimed at my head,” I’d added a little bitterly. “But what about him? Do you really not care if Revik dies, too?”

  “Not really,” she’d said. “...Should I?”

  When Jon moved away from where he stood beside me, I’d watched him wordlessly.

  I’d seen the blank, unflinching nothingness in his face and eyes as he turned around, disappearing back through that organic-plated door, thumping mindlessly down the cement stairs on the other side. I’d listened to his footsteps, feeling each one as he placed his feet, pushing the emptiness I’d seen on his face out of my awareness, too, knowing only that he wasn’t safe, either, even if it seemed that Cass might be letting him go.

  I knew I was cut off from the main construct; I could feel it.

  I knew I was cut off from Revik, too; I could feel that even more.

  I had the telekinesis...in theory, at least...but I could feel the field around us now, as well. I recognized it from the dock where we’d landed the submarine.

  “What do you care about Cass?” I’d asked her. “Anything?”

  Her red painted lips had lifted in a thin smile, right before she shook her head.

  “Not so much,” she’d said. “Not anymore.”

  The Black Arrow goons had their guns on me by then, too. Looking around at all of them, it struck me that I might be out of options already. I considered trying again, knowing my only chance would be to get the telekinesis to work, even if it meant killing everyone on that roof. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to think about that, either.

  Even as I fought to loosen my hold on it again, Cass spoke up.

  “I wouldn’t try it, Allie,” she said, lowering the gun. Still smiling at me, she cocked her hip in that pose I remembered, and the wind caught her hair briefly, whipping it around her back, even within the field protection from the storm.

  “...Remember what happened to lover boy, in Argentina?” she said.

  Looking around overhead, as if it might help me see the field I could feel there, I fought with my aleimi, knowing it was futile even before I tried. I couldn’t see if she was telling the truth. I couldn’t see a damned thing, truthfully.

  Cass’s voice had turned openly impatient.

  “We have more people downstairs,” she said, pursing her lips. She motioned at me with the hand holding the gun, rolling her eyes, seer-fashion. “Do you really think I’d let you waltz up here, fully loaded, if I didn’t have a way to kill Revik on the lower floors?” she said.

  “You’re lying,” I said. My arms shook, but my voice came out steady. “You wouldn’t kill him. He saved your life. Why would you kill Revik?”

  Her smile grew. “But you don’t doubt I would kill you? Why is that, Esteemed Bridge? Guilty conscience much?”

  I just stared at her, unable to pull apart and put back together the parts of her that were so familiar, next to the parts of her I didn’t know at all. The woman in front of me was a complete stranger, yet so much of the Cass I knew shone through that I found myself hesitating, almost in spite of myself. I knew this was it, my only chance to get away.

  My mind went strangely to a self-defense class I took in college, and the teacher, who’d been a cheerful, if incredibly physically intimidating red-head with a few belts in boxing, judo, ninjitsu and whatever else.

  She’d said something that day I’d never forgotten.

  “Every predator has his favorite hunting ground,” she’d warned us with a stern finger pointed around the room, right before she went back to kneading her hands together, wrapped in boxer’s tape. “...And every predator has his favorite feeding ground. These are rarely, if ever, the same place. What you don’t ever want to have happen is for that predator to get you from their hunting ground to their feeding ground. Once they move you from point A to point B, your chances of ending up dead increase exponentially...”

  Staring at the helicopter behind Cass, I had no doubt that that was the gateway to Cass’s feeding ground. If I got in that thing, I was gone. Out of here.

  Revik’s face flashed in my mind at the thought, even as I looked back at Cass.

  “Don’t do this to him, please,” I’d begged her. “Please...”

  Cass had only given me a wry smile. “Always the little martyr when it comes to the ball and chain, aren’t we? Jesus, Al. That’s tired...even for you.”

  “Why?” I’d asked her, swallowing. “Why, Cass? Why would you want to hurt us?”

  My best friend, one of the few people in the world I would have gladly died for, before all this, laughed. The laugh held so much hatred I actually flinched, averting my gaze.

  I tried again to reach Re
vik through the connection we shared, but that time, I felt the utter blankness of the wall that stood there. I tried to crawl through it with my light, like a blind person on their knees in unfamiliar surroundings, but I couldn’t feel anything.

  I considered trying the telekinesis anyway...

  Cass raised the gun again, pointing it at my head.

  With her other hand, she shook her finger at me, that thin smile back on her lips.

  “I wouldn’t,” she warned again.

  “I’m dead if I go with you.”

  Cass shook her head. “No. Not dead. Scout’s honor.”

  Staring at her, I felt a wave of sickness so intense, I could barely stay upright. I choked on an attempt at words, overcome with feeling as I found myself seeing her again, remembering her from San Francisco, from when we were kids, from the last time I’d seen her.

  “Cass...gods. Please don’t take me to Shadow. Please don’t do this to me...to us.” My throat closed as I heard my own words, as the meaning behind them suddenly felt totally and inalterably real. “Please...I’m begging you. Don’t do this to Revik, if you don’t care about me. You know what that bastard did to him...” I fought to breathe, unable to see her as tears ran down my face. “I love you, Cass. I would never hurt you intentionally. Whatever you think I’ve done to you, please, let me make it right. Don’t do it this way...please...”

  When I could see her again, Cass only looked impatient.

  Even the anger had gone, leaving an emptiness that scared me more. The mirrored look I could see in her brown eyes told me I wasn’t reaching her.

  Worse, it made me wonder if there might be nothing left there to reach.

  “Cass...” I began, at a loss, but that time, she cut me off.

  “Get in the helicopter, O Holy of Holies...” Her voice grew as irritated as her eyes, still reflecting that absence back at me, a near void. “...If you really want to play the drama queen, we can do it en route. But I have to say, this isn’t as fun as when I thought you might actually put up a fight...” Checking a very expensive-looking watch, Cass had waved the gun back towards the military-plated bird. “Seriously. I’m bored. Five seconds. Then I flip a coin, and you get to pick heads or tails on whether I shoot your precious Sword first...or I practice giving you a home abortion right here...”

  Around that time, I got hit with a dart.

  Unfortunately, I’m not Revik.

  That thing had me down on one knee in about ten seconds.

  The drug must have reached my mind around the same time, because I remembered flinching back in panic when Cass approached, half-convinced she was about to do exactly what she’d just threatened to do, and cut whatever lived in my womb right out of me.

  But that had been a distraction too, it turned out.

  She had her Black Arrow guys strap me into the helicopter instead.

  Oh, and cuff me. And put a collar around my neck. I was crying again by the time the latter kicked in, crying and fighting the men as they dragged me across the deck. Seeing the look of pure disgust on Cass’s face when I cried and pleaded with her a second time probably bothered me more than anything ever had, in most of my life before then.

  It bothered me more than anything Ditrini had done to me...much less Terian. It hurt more than most of what Revik had done to me, too, as Syrimne or even in the tank.

  Cass waved a hand in front of my face, pulling my mind back to the present.

  I found I was facing out the window of the Sikorsky, looking down on a wash of buildings, water and land that made no sense to my eyes.

  “Wow, you look stoned,” Cass observed, folding her arms and pushing up her breasts. “I might have to try some of that stuff myself...” she added with a smile.

  My eyes shifted off her, looking back out the window over the city’s skyline.

  We were already over the water. As soon as my eyes focused on the view directly below the bird, I found myself struggling to breathe again, feeling sick in a way that I couldn’t think past, bad enough that if I hadn’t been locked in, I’m pretty sure I would have flung myself out the doorway, chains, collar and all. I fought against the restraints anyway, even knowing it was futile. Even knowing there was nothing I could do, that I was powerless to stop any of it.

  Whimpering, almost in spite of myself, I struggled harder, trying to get free.

  A giant wall of water was traveling towards the edges of the city from the direction of the Atlantic ocean.

  I watched it get closer, saw the fields around the island already failing as smaller waves crashed against their edges and splashed over the top.

  Then the water was receding backwards at an alarming rate, the levels sinking low enough that I could see fish flopping on the shores, sunken boats and ships exposed to the air while those tied to docks strained against their ropes and chains.

  I watched that wall of water heading straight for Manhattan, knowing Revik had been in the basement of the hotel the last I knew, and that there was absolutely nothing I could do.

  Gasping out a half-cry, I looked at Cass, still fighting to get free while the Black Arrow guards watched me warily. Cass only smiled though, leaning back in her cushioned seat as her eyes narrowed down at the same view.

  “Cool,” she said. “Just like a movie, right Allie?”

  I could only stare at her, unable to speak, unable to think anything in those seconds before my eyes returned to that wall of water heading directly towards pretty much everyone in the world I loved.

  WREG JOGGED ALONG the street, followed closely by Jorag, Neela, Loki, Jax, Illeg and Oli, all of whom held guns gripped tightly in their hands, safeties off.

  The street had gotten eerily quiet in the last ten or so minutes.

  Wreg could feel whatever it was vibrating his aleimi. He felt the danger just as clearly as the birds seemed to, when he looked up to see them passing overhead and between the buildings in dense flocks aimed North, as if some giant hawk chased them across the sky.

  He tried to feel Jon again, couldn’t.

  That sick feeling rose in his chest, but he came to a dead stop, holding up a hand for the others to halt with him.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  Looking at Jorag, he saw the taller man agree.

  When he glanced at Neela, he saw her breathing harder than normal, harder than the running would have caused. An animal-like fear lit up her eyes.

  “What do we do, boss?” she said, her voice strained.

  Touching his earpiece, Wreg keyed in the private channel to Balidor. The other seer picked up almost at once. Wreg didn’t bother with a greeting.

  “Get above ground,” he said. “...As high as you can. I think we’re about to get hit.”

  “Earthquake?” Balidor said, his light exuding confusion.

  “No,” Wreg said grimly. “Water. A big, damned shitload of water...”

  Balidor didn’t answer at first, but Wreg felt his light moving overhead as a part of him split off, giving commands to the other seers working with him underground.

  “What are you going to do, brother?” Balidor asked him.

  Wreg frowned, looking at the seers with him. He knew he couldn’t trust his own motives right now, not with Jon involved. He saw the answer in their faces, though, and in the hard looks in Loki and Illeg’s eyes as they returned his stare. After another handful of seconds, Wreg found himself relaxing slightly, just before his massive shoulders gave a shrug.

  His answer to the Adhipan seer came naturally that time.

  “I’m going to find Nenzi,” he said, blunt. “...just like I said I would.”

  REVIK GASPED, LEANING against the wall as Ditrini pulled the chain tight, tight enough to nearly black him out that time, right before he hit him again, harder, and in the throat.

  Revik choked, fighting to tighten muscles when the hard-muscled man hit him again, in the jaw, hard enough to briefly white out his vision. Ditrini hit him again when Revik raised his head, fighting to meet hi
s gaze. Before Revik could recover from that, the seer punched him in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him yet again, even as he struggled to turn his body to deflect part of the blow.

  Revik had it half in his mind to speak, to try and reason with the older seer again, but Jon spoke up before he did, and even before Maygar, who stood beside Jon now, breathing hard as he watched Ditrini lose control.

  “What the hell is this accomplishing?” Jon snapped, fear vibrating his voice. “Have you totally lost your mind? We’re all going to die down here. We have to get out of here...”

  His words seemed to force some out of Maygar, too.

  “Fucking psycho...” Maygar swore. He switched to Prexci, then to Mandarin, swearing more, and using more colorful words. “Suicidal prick...whatever you think of him, is it worth dying over? If you want to see Allie again, don’t kill him, for fuck’s sake!”

  Ditrini looked up, that manic glint back in his silver eyes.

  “Defending Dad now, are we?” Ditrini said, smiling at Maygar wanly.

  Maygar blinked at him, then frowned, looking at Revik.

  “Just don’t kill him,” he muttered again, still looking at Revik’s face, as if assessing the damage there already. “And don’t be stupid...Jon’s right. We’ll all die down here, if we don’t get above ground...”

  Ditrini laughed aloud, and that time, Maygar’s eyes turned openly wary.

  Silent, he just watched the older seer laugh, as if he was seeing him for the first time.

  Watching the younger seer’s face, it occurred to Revik that Maygar hadn’t interacted with Ditrini at all until now. While he’d obviously picked up on the fact that Ditrini had some ‘issue’ with Allie, he didn’t know what the infiltrator had done to her, either, not in terms of details.

  Ditrini looked back down at Revik.

  Sweat made a light sheen across his face from his however-many minutes of hitting him. His expression itself was unreadable, but Revik saw the light in those silver eyes, recognized the instability there, as well as the fury that shone beneath. He didn’t try to talk, but crouched there, doing his best to make his light submissive.