No way could this female seer pass.
Brooks suspected no amount of contact lenses, prosthetics, Miss Manners classes or clothing choices would make her look human.
A laugh burst out, a male voice.
Brooks jumped, her eyes shifting to the right of the seer with the braids.
The giant male seer standing there snorted again in humor, nudging the red-eyed seer affectionately with his arm.
“Ain’t that the truth,” he said in much less accented English. He winked at Brooks, smiling in a friendly way as he slung his arm over the red-eyed seer’s shoulders. “And you haven’t even seen sister Chandre eat, cousin…it is a sight to behold. Truly.”
The blond seer next to him snorted.
The red-eyed one gave him a death stare, but Talei snickered, too.
Brooks fought a smile, not sure if she should risk pissing off the red-eyed seer, even if it all appeared to be all in good fun. She’d been told seer culture involved a lot of what her British friends called “taking the piss” out of one another, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready to test that with someone who looked like they could break her neck with their bare hands.
The seers chuckled at that too, which didn’t exactly put Brooks at ease.
Talei’s voice turned business-like.
“She is coming now,” the Thai-looking seer said.
Brooks followed the direction of her eyes, turning to see what looked like a high-end SUV driving fast––damned fast to the naked eye––down a dirt road on the opposite side of the asphalt service road where Brooks herself had been driven in.
“She’s requesting a private audience,” the East Indian one said next. Her dark red eyes met Brooks’ when she turned. “Is that acceptable to you, sir?”
Brooks flinched at the “sir” coming from the muscular seer, then hid a smile.
“Sure,” she said, muttering, “…It’s not like she couldn’t kill me just as easily from a hundred yards away.”
If the seers heard her sarcastic addendum, they didn’t respond.
Brooks wondered again if agreeing to this had been a huge mistake.
There was a decent chance that Alyson “The Bridge” Taylor might actually break her neck if Brooks didn’t say the right things in their little talk.
Or maybe push Brooks into doing something a lot worse.
Then again, Talei could have killed Brooks in her own bedroom in that underground bunker in NORAD, if that’s all they wanted. They could have pushed her from there, too––“infiltrated” her, as seers called it––without leaving the confines of the compound.
Really, that would have been a lot more effective, operationally-speaking. No one in the human team need ever have known she’d been compromised.
Well, not until it was too late.
Those two thoughts were a big part of how and why Brooks rationalized the enormous risk she’d taken in coming out here. She knew that’s all it was though––a rationalization. The truth was, she was following the most reckless kind of hunch imaginable.
The other truth was, she was desperate.
She could feel that desperation.
She also felt her entire administration, herself included, barreling towards war with what remained of China, seemingly faster than she could slow it down. Brooks felt herself being pushed towards that outcome as if by some inexorable force…like gravity.
When Talei showed up and offered her the first semi-rational explanation for why that might be, Brooks jumped on it. If Alyson the Bridge had a solution to this problem that didn’t involve Brooks killing a few billion people in Asia and creating a radiation cloud a few hundred miles in circumference…she was all ears.
She reminded herself of that as she folded her arms, watching the SUV skid to a stop.
The tires kicked up a cloud of dust as the wheels locked, right at the edge of the clearing where the field started.
The vehicle hadn’t even powered down when a female-shaped person in combat gear slid out of the passenger seat, saying something in the seer language to the muscular male seer driving. Whoever he was, he scowled at her, raising his voice as if they were arguing.
Brooks lifted her hand against the dust, shielding her eyes.
She squinted at the male through the tinted windshield, watching him continue to speak rapidly to who had to be the Bridge.
He was handsome, she couldn’t help noticing.
Shockingly so, if truth be told. He appeared to be in his mid- to late-thirties, with long black hair wound into an elaborate-looking ponytail, shockingly light eyes, high cheekbones, dark skin, a firm jaw. Even in the bulky combat vest, Brooks couldn’t help noticing a muscular body, and he had a mouth as perfect-looking as that of the red-eyed seer, although it evoked a different reaction out of Brooks seeing it on a male.
What was it with these damned seers? Half of them looked like actors or models.
She wondered if he could be the famed Syrimne.
“No,” Talei said from next to her, making that odd clicking sound with her tongue and teeth. “No, our brother the Sword is not here, cousin. That is her bodyguard. His name is Dalejem.”
Brooks felt herself startle a little.
Her bodyguard? And he was talking to her like that?
Pressing her lips together, Brooks folded her arms tighter around the hooded ski jacket she wore over her suit, watching the two of them throw words back and forth. Rather than cooling, the exchange appeared to grow more heated the longer it went on.
The Bridge slammed the door then, appearing to have had enough.
No expression lived on her face as she began walking rapidly towards them with purposeful strides. Brooks saw her famous green eyes scan through faces before stopping on hers.
As for Brooks herself, she couldn’t tear her eyes off the other woman.
This looked like Alyson Taylor…the famed sleeper agent that Brooks had been briefed on again and again, and whose face she’d seen over and over on the feeds…but also not.
Brooks swore she had to be taller.
She looked significantly more muscular too, although she remained on the thin side of that, particularly compared to the East Indian seer standing behind her as well as some of the female seers Brooks had on her White House security team.
Perhaps because of her recent assessment of the hot male bodyguard, Brooks couldn’t help noticing that Taylor’s looks were model-striking too, if in a way that leaned much further towards the “exotic” than Brooks would have guessed from the public feed photos. High cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes stood out on a tanned face above that athletic but obviously well-curved body and long legs.
What struck Brooks the most however was that despite her human upbringing, Alyson Taylor looked a lot closer to the East Indian seer in terms of her foreignness than Brooks would have expected. Much more than a seer like Talei, for example, who easily could be mistaken for human in the right clothes and contact lenses. That foreignness shone out of Alyson Taylor’s light green eyes and the intensity of her stare almost like a living force.
It made Brooks nervous without any conscious awareness of why.
She was limping, Brooks realized.
Wearing full combat gear, she had an automatic rifle slung around her back. Her dark brown hair was down, but it looked like it had fallen down recently and some of it remained tangled in some kind of tie or thong. Both Alyson and the male seer now climbing out of the powered down SUV looked emotionally spent, and more than a little beat up.
He, additionally, looked angry.
Taylor herself had a recent bruise on one cheek. Blood still trickled from her hairline on one side. She also had bruised knuckles, Brooks noticed, and one of her armored pant legs looked like it had been ripped off part of her thigh.
The rip had burns around it. Like she’d been shot.
She looked like she was holding and moving her body strangely, too, like something might be wrong with that same leg, or maybe her ribs.
> Even as Brooks thought it, she heard the seers behind her reacting to their leader’s appearance, gasping and murmuring and speaking aloud. The red-eyed seer, Chandre, stepped forward first, making that clicking sound and gesturing fluidly with her hands.
“Not now,” Alyson growled, giving her a silencing look.
“Where is Feigran?” Talei asked in English.
Alyson gave her an even colder stare.
Then, making a fluid motion with one hand, she made a downward slashing gesture at the end. The gesture meant nothing to Brooks, but clearly she was in the minority.
More gasps erupted around her. The seers behind her erupted in chatter, all speaking different languages and seemingly at once. Most of them still seemed to be aiming their words at Alyson Taylor, however.
Brooks got the impression they forgot all about her in those few seconds.
“What the fuck does that mean?” a brunette demanded. Unlike the others, she didn’t even pretend deference; her voice was openly angry. “Gone? How can he be fucking gone? Where is he?” Stepping forward, she aimed her next words at the male seer now walking abreast with the Bridge. “Jem? What the fuck is this shit? Where have you two been?”
“Not now, Mara,” the male growled.
“Not now?” she said. “If someone has him, we have to go after them!”
The male bodyguard scowled, then glanced at Alyson.
“She’s got a point,” he muttered in English. “We could send scouts, at least…”
Alyson gave him an incredulous look.
“Absolutely not.” She glared at the male seer, even though he probably stood seven inches taller than her and had to be two or three times her weight. “Are you kidding me right now, Jem? How long do you think they’d last? Or are you thinking I have infiltrators to spare right now, that I can throw them away on a fucking suicide mission?”
Brooks flinched at the language in spite of herself.
The male seer’s expression altered slightly. He looked about to argue, then frowned, as if rethinking what he’d been about to say.
He looked at the hazel-eyed seer he’d called Mara.
“She’s right,” he said, blunt.
“Jem!”
“Not now, sister,” he snapped, motioning toward Brooks. “We have a guest…or had you forgotten that? Along with your manners?”
“Manners?” Mara snorted. “You were just yelling at her yourself! What, do you think part of your role involves taking the place of her husband, Jem?”
The male seer’s gaze jerked sideways. He glared at the brunette with the stunning hazel eyes, his sculpted mouth set as his expression grew murderous.
“Lower your fucking head!” he snapped. “We’re having an operational disagreement…which is totally within the bounds of propriety and you know it. If you think for one second that is an excuse for you to continue to treat the Esteemed Bridge without even a modicum of fucking respect, you’re sadly mistaken, sister. I’ll re-teach you the protocols myself, if you find yourself needing a refresher…”
That time, Brooks saw the Bridge give the male an annoyed look.
She didn’t speak though.
Brooks also saw the female seer, Mara, back down.
The rest of them fell silent, and now Alyson was looking at Brooks. She walked directly up to her and thrust out a hand once she was close enough, her expression still taut. Before Brooks could decide how to react, they were already shaking hands.
“I apologize, sir,” she said, her voice surprisingly sincere. Warm, too. “As you’ve probably surmised, we had some unexpected trouble today…” She shrugged, her eyes still studying Brooks’. “That’s no excuse, of course. Despite our lack of manners, know you are welcome here…very much so. More than I can adequately express, truthfully. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the risk you’ve taken in speaking with me at all.”
Clear, unwavering gaze.
Simple but strong handshake. No bullshit.
Polite but not subservient. Not arrogant, either.
A woman who had nothing whatsoever to prove.
Brooks decided she already liked her a little. Maybe more than a little.
“It’s no problem,” she said, releasing the Bridge’s hand with a smile. “It may surprise you to know this…but I’ve had a few days like that myself lately.”
Blinking at her words, Alyson Taylor seemed to hear them suddenly.
Then she shocked the hell out of Brooks.
She laughed.
It was a real laugh; it reached her eyes and then her body as her shoulders abruptly relaxed. She laughed again, even as she seemed to be trying to suppress it. That time, the laugh dissolved into a giggle at the end, containing even more warmth than her smile and managing to surprise Brooks again if only because for the first time she looked fully human.
She also looked surprisingly young.
“Yeah,” the seer said, wiping what might have been a mirth-induced tear from her cheek. She grinned at Brooks as she clasped her arm. “I’ll bet.”
That time, Brooks couldn’t help it. She laughed, too.
Still smiling, she found her eyes drifting down, resting on the torn place on the Bridge’s combat pants. Once they had, the humor on her lips faded.
Inside that ripped cloth was a violent red mark, obviously recently new.
Alyson Taylor hadn’t been shot. It looked more like she’d been burned…or really, branded. It took Brooks a few seconds longer to make out the brand’s shape, what the design there actually depicted.
It was a dragon, she realized.
A dragon coiled around the sun.
I found myself shaking my head, clicking at her sharply before I remembered who I was talking to.
If someone had told me, even a few years ago, that I’d be having a heart to heart with the President of the United States in an abandoned farmhouse just outside of Colorado Springs, I would have laughed at them.
Or thought they were nuts, more likely.
Subduing my voice and my light, I cautioned her, “Respectfully, sir…I don’t think that’s a good idea. It won’t be enough.”
Brooks barely hid her exasperation. “Then what do you suggest?”
I sighed, forcing myself to think before I answered too quickly.
So far, I liked Brooks. I liked her a lot, actually, which I hadn’t really expected, at least not so soon. I’d gotten a good feeling about her, seeing her on the feeds…but then, I’d gotten a good feeling from Wellington, too, and he turned out to be a Terian body.
Granted, he’d been one of the saner versions of Terian I’d ever come across, but still.
Hesitating, I shrugged, human-fashion.
“I think you need to let us clean house for you,” I said. “We’ve already ID’d Novak as a plant of this Shadow we’ve been telling you about. There will be others…” Seeing her frown, I shook my head, clicking. “I think you should let us help you with this…and then I think you need to get out of here, with whoever and whatever you can. Whatever you feel is salvageable, both in terms of people and resources.”
I hardened my voice a little.
“…Respectfully, I also think you need to let us act on this now, sir,” I said. “Before they start doing a bit of housecleaning of their own. And before they begin relocating people into that facility under the airport. I think it would be an absolute miracle if they don’t have a seer assigned to you already. The fact that you made it out here at all actually shows that you have more loyal people within your current regime than maybe you realize. Including a fair few seers, I would guess.”
Hesitating, I met her gaze, wincing a little at the expression there.
“We can’t wait,” I cautioned her. “Not after what I saw today. Not now that we know what Shadow’s people have built under that airport. Not with another telekinetic on his way to––”
“You want me to abandon my damned presidency?” she broke in, outraged.
I held up a hand. “No. Well�
��no. Not really. But I’d like you to acknowledge it’s been infiltrated and rebuild it to a degree. That doesn’t have to mean abandoning it.”
“With zero resources?” She threw up a hand, letting out a humorless laugh. “Are you really thinking my presidency can just be ‘carried’ out of here? Maybe on the backs of a few of my cabinet members? And we will take all of that…where, exactly?”
Her black, curly hair, streaked lightly with gray had fallen most of the way out of the soft bun she’d knotted it into. She’d used two emerald green chopsticks to hold it together before, which I couldn’t help but find funny. She’d obviously been a knockout when she was young and was still a stunner at what must be her late-fifties, but normally on the feeds I saw her as more distant and unapproachable-looking than I did now. She looked softer with the messed up hair and more human than I’d ever seen her look in speeches, but there was nothing soft in her voice or her dark brown eyes when she glared up at me.
“You presume a lot, Esteemed Bridge,” she said. “A hell of a lot.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive,” I said, as patiently as I could. Exasperation leaked into my voice. “Seriously. Why would I bother with any of this, if I wasn’t trying to help you? You know we could have just infiltrated the whole compound by now, right? That I could have ordered my people to go forward with eliminating Shadow agents without asking you a damned thing? I realize it’s risky for you to meet with me like this…but it’s damned risky for us, too.”
She frowned, looking at me, her arms folded near the Formica table.
Something about her expression told me that thought had occurred to her.
I was making a very concerted effort not to read her more than absolutely necessary, so I didn’t touch her light to confirm that impression.
Her fingers picked at the cracked metal rim of the green-patterned table.
The farmhouse looked like it had been decorated sometime circa 1954. Checked and faded cloths hung in the windows as makeshift curtains, what might have once been cheap hand towels. The clapboard cabinets had been painted white that had since faded to gray; the paint had worn away to wood in a lot of places. The floor had been white once too, I guessed, a thin linoleum now scored with black marks and ripped around the edges. Water from broken windows and what must have been at least one roof leak had damaged just about everything.
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 31