“You’ve dealt with this before,” Dalejem said, his voice low.
I glanced at him, then returned my eyes to the buildings. Still walking, I shrugged, aiming the gun at windows on my side of the street.
“Sort of,” I conceded. Hesitating, I amended, “Well…no. Not like this. But the feeling, yeah. It’s familiar. Mostly from Revik.”
“Revik?” Dalejem’s voice sharpened.
Only a little, but I heard it.
I exhaled.
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Dalejem with a frown. “He was forced to spend a lot of time in that fucker’s mind.” I motioned at the storefronts vaguely with the hand holding the gun. My fingers tightened on the grip as I continued in a low murmur.
“He used Menlim as a strategic partner through pretty much all of World War I,” I said. “Revik knows all about how Menlim thinks. He talked about how insidious his manipulation tactics could be. All of the back ups and contingencies and hiding plans within plans…things even his own people didn’t know about. I picked up a lot from him…Revik, I mean. Even stuff he didn’t know he knew. Including what Menlim’s mind feels like…how it’s structured…”
Dalejem frowned, but only nodded.
He kept his reaction hidden in his light that time.
Even so, I found myself biting back a different pain that wanted to build in my light.
We didn’t speak again until we’d passed a few more blocks in that odd replica of rural town America. I still didn’t see any end to the street. The further we walked, the longer it seemed to stretch out in front of us. I saw a lot of alleys on either side, though.
I felt other streets, parallel and perpendicular to this one.
We paused briefly at a park on our right, complete with real grass under more of those sunlight-imitating bulbs. Only there I also felt artificial wind and full-grown trees had been planted in the park itself, along with a large play set over a bouncy material like rubber.
I saw a pond past the play set too, filled with toy motor boats. The whole scene stuck me as surreal in terms of details. I found myself thinking there would be ducks at some point, although maybe virtual ones so they didn’t make a mess.
Even as I thought it, Dalejem pointed at the screens behind the pond.
Following his fingers, I nodded as soon as my light identified what he’d seen.
Virtual capability…of course. Glancing up, I realized the entire ceiling was made of the same material. This whole area would probably be indistinguishable from the planet’s surface once all the bells and whistles got turned on.
Well, indistinguishable to a human.
Pain slid through me at the thought. That time it wasn’t separation pain. The idea of generations of kids growing up down here, cut off from real sun and wind, living inside Menlim’s rat cage, as Feigran called it, depressed the hell out of me. I fought with the anger that rose in my light…the utter calculation and yet total indifference of it.
It was entirely logical, even on paper.
But every single thing about it felt wrong, for reasons I couldn’t even fully articulate to myself. And they wouldn’t know any different. They’d grow up grateful to be alive at all. They’d probably grow up with some bullshit, quasi-religious mythology about how much they owed their benefactors for surviving an extinction-level event.
The thought put a bad taste in my mouth, even as I stared at the metal play set with its rubber bumpers on the bottom and artificial ground below.
Dalejem touched my arm.
When I looked over, he motioned with his head, his rifle raised.
I followed the direction of his gesture and saw the front of a pet store, painted with bright, colorful colors. Feeling the older seer push me lightly to see behind the walls there, I let out a low grunt.
Gaos. Talk about a little too on the nose.
Dalejem suggested with hand gestures that he go ahead of me this time. He tied his dark hair back once he’d said it, letting go of the rifle just long enough to pull his hair back into a thick ponytail. He tied it deftly with a leather thong to get it the rest of the way out of his face.
I found myself thinking that was for combat reasons, too.
I nodded to his question about who should go first.
Even so, when he began to walk towards the pet store, I ignited the bare edges of the telekinesis. I also stayed close, walking right behind where Feigran stayed attached to Dalejem by the organic lead.
Dalejem pushed through the glass front doors. A little bell jangled, like something out of a movie and I looked up, caught off guard.
Dalejem barely paused.
He walked soundlessly down the middle aisle towards the back end of the empty store, his booted tread nearly silent. He didn’t look much to either side, although I felt his light extend outward, still inside my shield but definitely in scouting mode. Like Balidor, he had that knack of doing it without leaving much of a footprint at all.
I knew it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference, though. Light touch or not, if this place was being watched, I strongly suspected we’d already been ID’d.
I didn’t let myself think about that for long.
I didn’t stop walking either…although I did look around more than Dalejem seemed to.
I noted the cages for bigger animals and aquariums for what might be smaller rodents or reptiles, in addition to the ones obviously meant for fish. It was unnerving that most of the store was already stocked…at least with everything that wouldn’t die or go bad. Boxes of animal toys and canned food lined the shelves and even hung from hooks, already on display. A lot of it was half-stocked, with boxes opened in aisles and half-unpacked. The fact that so much of it was ready to go––or would be in a night’s work by some industrious minimum wage worker––only worsened my unease.
I glanced at the time in my headset.
We’d already blown past the ten minutes.
I tried to feel how far ahead of us those aleimic signatures might be, but I could tell I wasn’t getting a fully accurate reading on distances, even now.
I kept my mouth shut as I watched Dalejem approach a metal door at the back of the store. It looked like a meat locker…or a walk-in cooler at restaurants where I’d worked back in San Francisco. Once more, I got the impression this whole place and everything in it was hiding in plain sight, which made my stomach clench all over again.
I could also feel what Dalejem had been talking about.
Someone was tugging us this way.
I was a lot less sure it was Menlim suddenly.
I could feel the pull on the bare edges of my aleimi. It struck me that the same pull might be why I hadn’t thought to check my timepiece until now.
“Is it locked?” I asked Dalejem.
He stopped in front of the door.
“No,” he said. His voice was openly puzzled. “Which is strange…yes?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, his green eyes reflecting the overhead lights. It didn’t really occur to me until then that this whole place was lit. Was it always so? Or had everything turned on for us when we opened that door from the stairwell?
“You can feel them, can’t you?” he said. “I’m right…that they’re through here?”
I nodded. “I feel them.”
“And they don’t even have a fucking bike lock on this thing?” he said, motioning towards the door. “Not even to keep them in…much less anyone out?”
I didn’t answer.
I felt my unease worsen.
“Afraid you wouldn’t come…” Feigran muttered in front of me. “Happy you’re here, very happy…happy with Feigran. Very happy with Feigran…give the dog a bone. Lots of times, over and over…make him beg…”
I felt a thick flush of heat off Feigran’s light and winced.
I really hoped that didn’t mean what I thought it meant.
“Who’s afraid, Feigran?” I asked, ignoring the rest of what he’d said.
I watched Dalejem pull
open the heavy metal door. I continued to keep my eyes on his broad back as he peered inside, likely using the infrared on his headset. Whatever he used, his light or virtual, he stared into that dark for a few seconds, his eyes sweeping the corners.
I looked at Feigran, realizing he’d never answered me.
“Who wants us to come?” I said, my voice sharper.
Feigran only shook his head though, clicking softly under his breath.
I spoke louder, mainly in an attempt to reach him. “Who, Feigran? Who wants us to come?”
“Surprise…” he muttered. “Wants a surprise.”
Dalejem grunted, giving me a level look. Frowning, I looked back at Feigran.
“I’m not a fan of surprises,” I told him. “Who is it, Feigran? Tell us.”
When the Elaerian didn’t answer, I made my voice warning.
“You don’t want to die, do you, brother?” I said.
He shook his head.
“Then tell me who it is,” I said.
But Feigran only shook his head again. He went back to muttering once he had, too low for me to hear the words. I couldn’t feel him in the Barrier anymore, either.
I sighed, even as Dalejem looked back at me, meeting my gaze.
“Are we going forward?” he said.
From his tone, I couldn’t tell if he was for or against the idea.
“Both,” he said. “Neither.”
At what must have been an annoyed look from me, he sighed, clicking.
“I admit to being intrigued,” he said, tilting his head. “Put it this way, if I was alone, I would go…and probably rationalize it as a need for intelligence.”
I snorted, smiling and clicking in spite of myself.
“…Which isn’t altogether untrue,” he mused, almost as if I hadn’t made a sound, despite the harder look he aimed at me. “As it is, I am not alone, Esteemed Bridge. Moreover, I have the highest ranked seer in existence with me…the one on whom the outcome of the Displacement itself may very well rest.”
Making a sideways slashing gesture with one hand when I rolled my eyes, he frowned.
“…As much as you like to pretend otherwise, you are irreplaceable, Esteemed Sister,” he said. “I suspect Balidor would have my head on a pike already if he knew where we were right now. Especially if he knew I’d let you come this far with nothing but me and that rambling idiot as companions…”
I snorted at that, too, but less humorously that time.
“You did notice I didn’t bring brother Balidor to Colorado with me?” I said drily.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, brother,” I said. “I also remember the primary condition you agreed to when I let you accompany me on this little jaunt. You agreed not to question me…and to follow orders. So far, I mostly hear a lot of old man Adhipan whingeing. I also hear a lot of questions. And, like you just pointed out, I could have invited Balidor if I’d wanted that…at least he’s earned that right with me.”
Exhaling in another series of clicks, Dalejem hardened his voice.
“Fine,” he said, motioning sharply for me to follow him. “If you are going to do this crazy thing…and force me to be your accomplice…we should do it fast.”
I nodded at that.
Finally, something we could agree on.
The cooler wasn’t a cooler but a passageway…which we’d already pretty much guessed.
It contained a false back that led down a staircase, so I guess that made it sort of a cooler, too. Or would have, if there’d been anything in it besides the three of us. And if it had been switched on.
As it was, the airless, over-warm cooler was the first place since the stairwell with no illumination whatsoever.
Dalejem found the back panel quickly with his infrared.
Opening it happened fast as well, since the hidden panel also had no lock.
Once Dalejem got that secondary panel to retract, he walked directly through in front of us, his rifle raised to shoulder-height.
I followed cautiously and after a short staircase and an even shorter passageway that we all had to duck to get through, we found ourselves in another tunnel, this one with a lower ceiling and narrow walls. Like the cooler, it wasn’t lit…which wasn’t a big deal because of our infrared settings on the headsets and the Barrier but still created an even more intense feeling of claustrophobia.
I wondered if we’d end up lost down here, trapped in some kind of underground maze.
Terian didn’t have a headset, but the dark didn’t seem to bother him. He continued muttering just like he had been, not slowing either his blurred speech or his shuffling footsteps.
I found myself thinking again that Revik would absolutely hate this.
I doubt we could have gotten him down that tunnel at all, to be honest…not without heavy sedation. Maybe not even then.
Shoving my annoyingly ever-present husband out of my thoughts yet again, I gritted my teeth, as if that might somehow help me to stop thinking about him.
Strangely, it worked. More or less.
I could feel the lights of those other beings stronger now.
I could also feel their pain. The majority of that pain didn’t feel new. It felt like it had been there for longer than most of those beings could remember, like it had bled out of them so long they’d almost ceased to notice.
Some of it felt new, though.
For some reason, the newer pain bothered me more.
Like had been true all over the complex, I felt those strange threads of organic material in the walls, clearly alive in some way but dormant…asleep. I didn’t try to figure out how it was possible this time, either, but took snapshots with my light and let it go, concentrating instead on the living beings I could feel on the other end of these angular but snaking passageways.
Sharp turns broke the lines of the tunnel probably every hundred or so feet, making it pretty much impossible to gauge the distance with anything but time.
We’d been in here too long.
An awareness of that fact lingered in my mind, too.
I found myself watching the timepiece compulsively inside my headset. Another twenty or so minutes passed as we navigated the featureless tunnel in the dark.
I felt the person on the other end pulling on me again.
Impatient now. He wanted us to hurry.
He…
I gripped my gun tighter, remembering it only then, even though I held it in both hands. I kept it pointed at the floor instead of straight ahead like Dalejem, but the fact that I’d almost forgotten it still gave me an idea of where my head was at. My throat went dry as we reached another corner in the tunnel.
Something told me this was the last one. We were close now…
He was close.
“He’s waiting for us,” I muttered. “Do you feel him, Dalejem?”
Dalejem flinched, then glanced at me.
“Yes,” he said, his voice neutral.
Somehow, amusement found me, even in that. “Is it okay for me to call you by your first name?” I said. “If that was too familiar, I apologize, brother. I heard the other infiltrators calling you Jem. If you prefer, I can––”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said at once, cutting me off. “It’s fine. Either is fine.”
He didn’t lower the rifle. Nor did he look at me.
I felt a lot more behind that than he was saying. Now was definitely not the time to get into it with him though, whatever the story there might be.
You probably don’t want to know the story anyway, my brain thought.
Even as I thought it, I realized my stupid brain was right. Whatever it was he’d reacted to just then, it had something to do with him and Revik.
I didn’t have much time to think about that, either. Thankfully.
Dalejem turned the next corner, following the square lines left. Within a few more steps, both of us faced a metal door. A strange dark red in color, the metal showed up shockingly bright in the infrared. It t
ook me a few seconds more to realize the organics in this door and panel weren’t dormant.
No, these ones were wide, wide awake.
Not only that, the door was thick. Crazy thick…like maybe four or five feet of solid organic, semi-organic and dead-metal material combined. My aleimi explored the different layers in curiosity, only able to see the functionality there in bits and pieces. Whatever lived on the other side of that door, the mechanisms in the door blinded me to it.
My suspicions had been right.
Feigran had been showing us what lived behind that red door. Jem and I wouldn’t have felt it on our own. Like he could with our tanks and collars, Feigran could see past that wall. He was helping me and Jem see past it, too.
I wondered if whatever or whoever stood on the other side might be able to see through that wall, as well.
“Sorry, sister…” Feigran muttered. “Sorry, sorry…”
Dalejem looked at him, frowning. “What are you sorry for now?”
I shook my head, dismissing both things with a slashing gesture. I knew what Feigran meant. He was apologizing for deceiving us. But it was too late now, and I didn’t see the point in explaining to Jem how our light had been manipulated.
We could talk about the particulars later.
For now, I wanted us out of here as soon as fucking possible.
“Is it locked?” I asked Dalejem.
My voice was low, nearly a whisper.
“Yes,” he whispered back, equally soft. “But the lock is strange…”
I slid my light into it, cautiously…
When suddenly I felt Feigran there, in my light. It happened so fast I barely knew he was there…then I was watching him do something inside my light, something I could barely feel at the higher levels of my aleimi.
Abruptly, I felt the mechanism in front of me shift…
Then the lock I’d just started to look at disengaged.
Flinching, I turned, staring at the other Elaerian in the dark.
He had already retracted his light. He huddled on the far side of the door, muttering in a slow stream under his breath as if nothing had happened.
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 27