The man looked up and I flinched, in spite of myself. He wore those dark goggles I'd only ever seen on military types, made of that shimmering green metal that was illegal for commercial use. I never saw anyone but military with goggles that looked like that.
Jon pulled me back, out of the way, even as I was taking him in.
A crowd began to form around the downed seer.
I fought Jon’s tugging fingers, still in shock that the soldier had attacked the woman, unable to believe it was because of me. I didn’t know for sure that she was a prostitute, but I guessed she must be. From what I knew, most of the seers in the US were prostitutes. Apparently prostitution was one of the only legal categories for businesses to import them for semi-permanent status. Jon, on one of his conspiracy rants, told me he thought it was all just a pretext to import seers to North America so they could do espionage and military work for the government and multinational corporations.
Jon thought everything essentially came back to that, though. For me, personally, the idea of keeping them around for sex seemed like the simpler explanation. We'd already passed at least four seer fetish clubs and we hadn't even gone through the sex district yet.
But what she was didn't really matter to me right then. Seeing a woman who looked about my age being hit with a military-grade cattle prod because I was spacing out and bumped into her on the street was more than my brain could compute.
“Hey,” I said to the military guy. I held up a hand, smiling, trying diplomacy. “It was my fault, okay? I wasn’t watching where I was going... really. You don't need to discipline her. I'm not hurt at all... and she really didn't do anything wrong.”
“We saw what happened, ma’am,” the man said grimly.
“Then get your fucking boot off her neck!” I snapped, losing my cool.
Jon tugged harder on my arm. When I glanced at him, he shook his head at me warningly. Then he looked pointedly at the other two men who had joined the military guy.
By then, the crowd had grown. We were in the area where all the horse carriages gathered by the park, looking for fares, so the sidewalk was crowded anyway with sidewalk painters and knick knack kiosks and the horses eating mash and tolerating children rubbing their sticky hands on them. Some of the tourist crowd got pushed partway out into the road when they stopped to gawk at the downed seer, causing taxis to honk, and other cars to slow down.
I glanced around at the ring of people staring down at the sidewalk.
“Seriously,” I said, to anyone and no one. “She didn’t do anything!”
None of the other pedestrians seemed to want to acknowledge my outrage, or even meet my gaze. Behind me, Jon was still trying to pull me out of range of that black cattle prod.
I looked at the other two people who had joined military guy, standing over the downed seer. None of the three looked like NYPD. They could have been company security, plainclothes police... even SCARB, the branch of the World Court that maintained the racial laws across all borders. There was no way to tell, not by their clothing.
Whoever they worked for, they were a mismatched bunch.
The first guy I’d seen wore what looked like a uniform, with dark armored plating and a headset that looked like it had to be military issue. He still held that electric prod, which also looked military issue, and wore at least two visible guns in holsters strapped around his person, armored gloves, and those goggles of that overly-shiny, green metal.
In contrast, the second guy looked like any regular street punk, with a dark t-shirt, worn jeans and a motorcycle jacket. I saw a gun handle sticking out of his jacket though, and he held a second gun in his hands, what looked like some kind of custom-made automatic with more of that green metal woven into the barrel. If it wasn't for the high-grade military gun, he could have been a plainclothes cop, except he really didn't look like one. I only knew he was with the other two because he held the modified handgun on the seer, and I saw the guy in the military uniform say something to him while he ground his boot into that woman's face.
The third man, who looked to be in charge, wore an expensive-looking black business suit and dress shirt with a brick red tie covered in small yellow flowers. His sandy-blond hair had been pulled back in an elegant ponytail, making the thick features of his face even more severe when his fleshy lips frowned. From the wrinkles, I pegged him at maybe early fifties.
Whoever they were, they didn’t seem too concerned about having an audience.
The guy in uniform held the seer’s face flush with the sidewalk, so that she seemed to be having trouble breathing. All I could see was her profile now, and her hands held out in surrender. Although she otherwise looked human, I probably would have pegged her as a seer from those shockingly purple eyes, even without the collar.
“Whoever you think I am, I am not she!” the seer said in heavily-accented English. “I did not do anything! I am legal... as are my actions! I have done nothing wrong!”
“You icebloods never do anything wrong, do you?” the man with his foot on his neck sneered. “You’re fucking model citizens, every one of you... isn’t that right?”
“She didn’t do anything!” I yelled.
"Allie, shut up!" Jon hissed.
The man in the suit was the only one who turned.
He smiled at me faintly, his eyes had that flat, unseeing quality that's always freaked me out. One of those, 'the lights are on, but no one's home' looks... or maybe that the thing steering the ship wasn’t actually the man whose face I was looking at.
Unconsciously, I took a step backwards, deeper into the crowd.
“We appreciate your compassion, ma’am,” the man called out to me cordially.
His voice had a slight drawl to it, like he came from one of the Southern states but hadn't lived there in awhile. I couldn't have said which state, though. Also, his tone made me think he more found my defense of the seer amusing than that he ‘appreciated’ it really.
“...As it happens," he went on politely. "We are requiring the presence of this person for questioning, ma'am... so you running into her was only a happy accident for us.”
Behind me, Cass flinched when the young punk guy with the modified gun kicked the downed seer in the ribs. The seer wore so few clothes, it was like watching someone kick a naked woman. Grabbing my arm, Cass clutched it tightly. From her face, I could tell she didn't know what to do either.
“Please!” the seer pleaded, gasping. “Please! I did not do anything! I am legal... I have papers! I can show you!”
“Papers, iceblood?” the punky one asked. “And where did you get those?”
Unlike ponytail guy, his accent sounded Russian to me.
“Please!" the seer cried, holding up her hands. "Please! Listen to the girl... it was only an accident! I am legal! You can call my owner... she will vouch for me!” She gasped again when the military-looking man kicked her in the kidney area again.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “Just call her owner, okay? Stop hurting her!”
Looking up at me, the military man kicked her again, that time in the face.
I looked away, I couldn't help it.
I felt Jon tense behind me, too. He muttered something, but I didn’t catch what he said.
Now even he wasn't sure what to do.
I was afraid if I said anything more, that jackass with the cattle prod would only hurt her again, so I looked around us instead. I was looking for a cop, I guess, as unlikely as that was for me under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, I found one.
He was watching the whole scene, not a care in the world on his face.
Great. New York’s finest.
I couldn’t believe they would just beat a seer on the street like this. The whole thing felt surreal, like something from the dark ages. I looked around at the seer’s captors again, trying to memorize their faces. Maybe there was some way to turn them in? Get them on police brutality? I wished I had that illegal imaging device I’d gotten from Jon for my birthday. I would have
risked trying to film them if I could, even though it was no joke, being caught with any kind of image-capturing device without a permit.
Maybe I could draw them, once we got back to the hotel room. I looked at each face in turn, trying to memorize every detail of their appearance.
The guy in the suit was looking down at the seer on the sidewalk, as if trying to make up his mind about something. When the other two looked at him, he nodded once.
“Bring her,” he said. “She’s perfect.”
The soldier with the cattle prod said something to the seer in a language I’d never heard, punctuated by what sounded like clicks. When the seer shook her head adamantly, her eyes wide, the man in the armor switched to English.
“We can do this the hard way,” he warned the seer. “Is that what you want?”
“I, I don’t understand...” the seer on the ground said.
Her accent seemed to worsen, and I winced at the fear I heard in her voice. She sounded almost Asian, but not Thai, like Cass' dad or her uncles, which was about the only Asian accent I knew well enough to definitively cross off the list. She seemed to be in shock, speaking words even as she looked up at the three men, trying to make sense of them.
“...I was sent on an errand by my mistress," she stammered. "I never deviated from her stated request. If I do not return within a reasonable timeframe, she will be concerned for me. I am not regularly outside of our dwelling...”
The man kicked the woman again. The seer cried out, holding her hands higher, in a kind of supplication that felt almost formal.
“I swear it! I do not know what you want from me!”
“Don’t give me that shit,” the man with the electric rod said. "We know exactly what you are to your 'mistress,' ice blood... and we know why she doesn't let you out of doors...”
Soldier guy nodded to the man in the expensive-looking suit, who handed the punky-looking Russian a set of handcuffs. The Russian bent over her back, forcing her wrists behind her and cinching them tightly enough that the seer whimpered.
All of us in the crowd just stood there. No one intervened.
Including us.
Including the cop, who was now speaking into his shoulder radio.
“Is this legal?” I asked Jon. “How can they do this, on the street like this?”
Jon only shrugged, but his eyes glimmered with anger.
He hated anybody who picked on the little guy. Even if the little guy happened to have super-human powers and stood a few good inches taller than him, on average. I was still trying to decide if I should say something, or maybe try talking to the cop, when the one in the suit looked over at us suddenly. His eyes met mine once more.
“You be careful now, honey.” He smiled.
I didn’t like his smile. I didn't like him calling me honey, either.
“...We’re here to protect you, you know,” he added, still smiling.
I couldn’t think of a reply that wouldn't get me arrested, but my mind was churning. Were these guys legit? Or were they stealing seers, maybe to resell on the black market? It might explain why the cop just stood there, if he was in on the take. Would they really do that in broad daylight, though? Right in front of the main entrance to Central Park? Were people really that apathetic, that they could get away with that, without anyone calling it in?
Before I could say anything to Cass or Jon, the man in the suit turned to his companions, making an odd series of hand gestures.
Then all three of them were looking at me.
It occurred to me that maybe yelling at these guys wasn't all that smart. That maybe the reason no one kicked up a fuss was because they knew better. And maybe the reason these jerks were so cocky was that usually no one kicked up a fuss.
Like I was kicking up a fuss. Right now.
Even as I thought it, another man loomed in front of me.
He was tall... tall enough to block the sun, and to confuse me momentarily. I barely got a look at his face before he was holding out his arms, his voice a command.
“Go,” he said. “Leave here. Right now.”
He had an accent too, but it sounded more German to me than Asian.
When I didn’t move, he loomed nearer.
“Get out of here!” he snapped. “This is a crime scene. You cannot be here!”
I stared past the man’s arms to the seer on the ground, wincing when I saw the black-clad soldier kick her again, right before they hauled her, bruised and now bleeding, up to her feet. The skirt barely seemed to cover her at all now, and her nylons were torn. I saw cuts on her knees where she’d dropped on the pavement. For the first time in my life, I felt a surge of genuine, honest-to-God anger about the way no one gave a shit about seers.
No matter if this was “legitimate” or not, no matter what that seer did, no one deserved to be publicly beaten like that. Like she was a dog. Or less than a dog, really, since there'd probably be a riot if anyone publicly beat their dog in any American city outside of Texas.
But the guy in the suit was still looking at me, and now Jon was tugging on my arm, pulling me backwards, away from the taller man who still stood directly in front of us.
He seemed determined to block our view of the seer, especially mine.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jon said. “Come on. That guy’s a cop, Al.”
“A cop?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you see the badge?”
Shaking my head, I hesitated a last moment, still looking at the downed seer. Then I gave up, nodding. There wasn’t anything I could do for her. Not here anyway.
“Yeah, okay,” I muttered, still angry.
I let myself be pulled out of the circle of people. Grabbing hold of my arm, Jon steered both me and Cass into the greenery of the park and away from the scene, which was now attracting an even larger crowd, as the half-naked seer stood on display before the group, her collar plainly visible, as well as that chain-like decoration.
Before I turned away entirely, I caught the eyes of the man standing there, the one who’d blocked us from the three men beating on the seer. The one Jon called a cop.
Looking at him, though, I had my doubts. Jon’s cop radar was usually pretty good, but I wasn’t getting cop when I looked at this guy. Not exactly, anyway.
He was still staring at us, watching us leave.
No, I thought suddenly. He wasn’t watching us. He was watching me.
The look on his face was almost an open warning.
For the first time, I really took him in, looking him over so I would remember him, too. He was tall... really tall... and borderline pale, although his forearms seemed to be darker than his face. He had high cheekbones and unevenly cut black hair that managed to work with his angular face. His eyes were lighter than I would have expected with his features, but I couldn’t make out the precise color, not from where we stood. Nor could I pinpoint any particular ethnicity. He looked almost like he could be Eurasian, but I couldn't be sure of that, either. He didn’t wear a collar. I know, because I checked, if only because of his height, which was tall enough to make me think seer, especially given what was going on.
He seemed to wear the standard ID tats, too, so definitely human.
Whoever he was, he stood perfectly still as he watched us go.
He was kind of cute, I thought, out of nowhere. Well, not cute exactly. Or handsome really, either. But something about him made me notice him in that way. He had a nice body, but I kind of doubted it was that... or just that, anyway. I was more of a face than a body girl. He was definitely on the lean side, but athletic. It suited his narrow face.
He might have worked for, or with, the other three. Maybe he was on the take, too. Still, the tall guy’s clothes struck me as a bit odd, even for a plainclothes cop. The jacket he wore looked too expensive, as did the black pants he wore underneath. His narrow mouth pursed in a frown as he glanced at the cuffed seer, who was babbling now, begging the men to let her go.
He didn’t seem to like what was ha
ppening any more than I did.
The fact that he didn’t approve made me like him a little more than the other three, but only a little. Given his clothing, I couldn’t help wondering if he worked for the man in the expensive black suit. It made me not like him very much, if he did.
As soon as I thought it, the black-haired man was staring at me again.
The look there was close to puzzlement.
About what, though, I had no idea.
FOUR
WE GOT BACK to the club around five o’clock, a good five hours before Jaden’s band would be going onstage, and a good three before they’d open the doors to the ticket-holders, some of whom were already queued up outside the club.
We got a few dirty looks for being able to go inside, mixed with curiosity, of course, about who we might be.
Jaden’s band wasn’t back yet from the photos and whatever else, so Jon and Cass and I ordered a few plates of bar food from one of the kitchen guys, and settled in to wait in the mostly deserted bar.
Once we’d padded our stomachs a bit, Cass got me going on the shots.
I know that’s no excuse really, for how drunk I got by the end of that night, but it started off as some serious girl-to-girl commiseration. I knew she was more bummed about Jack bailing on her than she wanted to admit, and she probably figured I needed it for the inevitable night of screaming groupies I would soon have to face. If nothing else, I needed to forget about pouty lips, at least for a little while.
So when Cass proposed we get good and proper, down and dirty drunk, for the first time in months, I felt duty bound to go there with her.
Or that’s what I told myself, anyway.
We'd talked about what to do about that seer a few times that day, while we were walking around the park and various museums. Jon thought it was some kind of bagging raid by Sweepers; he was convinced the people we’d seen had been SCARB, including the tall guy with the black hair, who Jon claimed showed him some kind of badge. When I mentioned stealing seers for resale, Jon was skeptical. Like me, he thought it was pretty ballsy to pull something like that in broad daylight. He also doubted the cops were on the payroll so much as seer capture and reclamation was outside their jurisdiction.
Allie's War Early Years Page 3