Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  From where they stood, the landmarks were clear. The Piggly-Wiggly sign was only a “Piggl—ig-y” but if you knew the store, which everyone in this part of the country did, it was clear. The factory had been a 4-story brick structure, and still had part of the old painted signage across the top, red “Winston”—presumably the cigarettes, before they had become “Winston-Salem”—on blistered, peeling white. The upended semi-trailer must have been hurled there by an explosion, it stood up, leaning only slightly to the right, embedded in a pile of rubble, a strange sort of monolith.

  Red eyeballed the run. It looked to be just about a quarter of a mile in total. A good warm-up for him, and he’d be able to see how good the kid was without killing him.

  “OK kid,” he said. “Quick trot to the bread van, stretch out and warm up on the way. Ready?”

  The kid grinned, and Red took off at a gentle jog.

  * * *

  As he hurtled over a collapsed brick wall, Red risked a look back at Pike. The kid certainly had some natural talent for this sort of thing. He obviously had no formal training, simply adapting to the jagged landscape as he followed Red’s lead, but he was naturally lithe and seemed to glide over the rougher patches of terrain. In that respect, he reminded Red of himself. That could be taken as either good or bad, Red supposed.

  Pike was certainly matching Red’s pace, he had to give him that much. Even after upping the difficulty, Pike had met each challenge without hesitation. Whatever holes Red dove through, whatever heights he had to spring to, walls to climb, or the occasional balanced sprints across uneven footing, Pike was right behind him, sporting a mad grin that seemed to split his face in two. He was obviously having a marvelous time, and was beginning to close in.

  Red dropped any pretense of flashy acrobatics, and opted for speed. He somersaulted over broken flooring and landed at full sprint, darting around upended machinery on the factory floor and made a dash for the collapsed side of the building. All that separated him and the last leg of the make-shift course were slippery floors and piles of rubble. He slid through the puddles, barreled over the debris, uncomfortable with the immediate sounds of splashing water and shifting rock behind him. Pike was right behind him.

  As he broke through the hole where a window had once been, Red went all out. The up-ended trailer, their impromptu finish-line, was just ahead. What had begun as a simple training exercise had somehow turned into a serious race. Someone had dropped the ball on this kid; they clearly hadn’t even tested him. He was good. Between the parkour-talent and the self-armoring power he should be out on the street with a team. Even if he couldn’t do squat offensively he could still protect the DCOs who (unlike Bella) really were uncomfortable with fighting. Pike had been at ECHO HQ for two weeks, plenty of time to give even a simple assessment of what he could do. For the rest of it, Red supposed the shrinks were taking care of his apparent mental issues. With Bella’s new interventionist therapy, recoveries from simple stuff were going really fast.…

  Was that where had Pike’s sudden attitude and confidence come from? The last time Red had seen him, he had seemed shy, very unsure of himself. Still, that didn’t explain how he had fallen through some very obvious cracks in the recruitment drive. No way this kid would have been overlooked by the trainers, something didn’t add up…

  “Right behind you, old man!” From just over Red’s shoulder, Pike’s laughter rang out strong and unfettered. Great, the kid wasn’t even winded. Red, on the other hand, was feeling a strong burn in his chest, legs and arms.

  Hell with it, Red thought and pushed himself further. He heard Pike fall behind as he drove his legs harder, and as he closed the distance to the trailer he was keenly aware of how fast his heart was racing…

  There was no warning. No hint that something was off. Just an enormous whump, a tumbling vortex of black smoke and red flame ascending from what had been the trailer, and a scorching pressure-wave hitting Red in mid-jump like a blast of wind straight out of hell. He was hurled back and landed unceremoniously on his side. He felt something tear in his back. That couldn’t be good.

  Looks like I’ll be seeing Bella again real soon…

  He propped himself up on his arm, and pondered that. He was thinking about how awkward it was going to be, forced into the same room with Bella, probably alone, and what he could possibly say to her that would sound even remotely sane. Sane? He just run into an explosion! The blast had left him staggered, deaf, and even his skin-based senses seemed dulled in the wake of the explosion. Why was he concerned with Bella? The absurdity of the situation began to crystallize in his thoughts, of a semi blowing up for no apparent reason just seconds before he was about to slap its side in victory, when he caught a glimpse of an entire squad of armored Krieger power-suits climb out of the smoking crater that remained.

  Christ, and we were worried about running into Rebs.

  “Pike!” Red shouted. “We’ve got hostiles!”

  Red felt Pike’s hands on him, helping him up. The boy was shouting something, but Red couldn’t make it out over the persistent ringing in his ears.

  “I can’t hear you!” Red shouted, pointing at his ears. “Big truck go kablooey! Red deaf now, not just dumb!”

  Pike rolled his eyes, and slowly shaped the words with his mouth.

  Brother…I…am…so…very…disappointed…in…you…

  Red stared at him, dumbfounded. He didn’t even have time to begin to parse what seemed to be an utter non-sequitur when Pike pressed something into his side.

  It felt like he’d been hit by lightning. His body convulsed, his mind blanked and he felt himself falling.

  * * *

  Vickie’s hand was burning.

  The pain jolted her out of a blissfully dreamless sleep, and for a moment she could not imagine what the hell was going on. She sat bolt upright, and looked dumbfounded at her hand. She unclenched it from around what felt like a red-hot coal and stared down…

  At the bit of Red’s claw that was lying in her open hand.…

  Jeezus…She recognized the magical tether. Emotional links did that, whether you liked it or not. Magic worked that way. Anything bad that happened to him was going to trigger some sort of alert to her, like this extremely primitive, extremely old sort of magic that caused direct pain to her if she was touching anything of his when he was in danger. Hell she would probably just know he was in trouble from now on.

  No point denying it now, I’ve got it bad for this jerk and it’s not going to go away by willing it to.

  “Computer: Command: open Overwatch voice command,” she said aloud, shaking her head to clear it. She heard the little double-beep on her embedded headset, then lurched out of bed. “Command: open Overwatch comm. Command: open comm Red Djinni.”

  She barreled through the door into living room, and bumbled through the one that led into the Overwatch room.

  “Red! Djinni! Acknowledge!” No answer. She fell into her chair and brought up the screens; typing in the command to Overwatch to locate Red on the map. Destruction corridor…the hell? What was he doing in that old factory in East Atlanta? OK, time to do something he kinda gave me permission for. She used her pad to sketch in a glyph and punched enter. That brought up the external mic on his side, over-riding the fact that he had turned it off. Now she could hear what was going on. She brought up his vitals.

  Crap, vitals not good, heart racing, breathing labored…no way can I fly a spy-ball across town in any kind of time. And this was way outside of where she had a pre-prepared magical “landing pad.” Absolutely zero chance of there being ATMs or security cams she could hijack.

  Was he wearing his eye? She drew a different glyph and punched enter. Nada. Whatever he’d been doing, he’d left the eye at home. Crap. Okay. “Red. Red. Please, Red. Make any kind of sound if you can hear me.” Should I try boosting the sound at the other end? The earpiece is buried under his skin…Okay, breathe, wait, boost the mic gain first. She keyed up a sound-recognition/voice recognition
program. She might get some clues out of that, even if the Djinni was unconscious.

  Dammit, Red Djinni. Why can’t anything ever be easy around you?

  * * *

  “…you will tell them this, and they will come. Now. Tell them their lives depend on it, because they do.”

  Red shook himself out of the fog, and as his eyes opened a crack he saw he was back inside the crumbling remains of the abandoned factory. He stared, puzzled, as one of the Kriegers saluted smartly to Pike and backed away. The boy shook his head and strolled over to Red.

  “You’re awake,” Pike said, grinning. “Very good, Red Djinni, I am so pleased. For a moment I was worried my little toy had seared you with a touch too much current. I thought I would have to entertain myself while these dummkopfs strive to stay on schedule. Our transport, it seems, is running late. But no matter! This will give us a chance to chat, you and I. You notice I say ‘chat,’ and not ‘get better acquainted,’ since I must say I feel I know you quite well already.”

  Red gave Pike a wary look as he motioned to rise, but stopped as he heard the shackles clink from his hands and feet. He looked down at them. They lacked any obvious locking mechanism, but he could feel a subtle electrical hum emanating from them.

  “Yes,” Pike nodded. “I am aware of your skills. Sehr flink. You will not find these locks so susceptible to picking.” He bent down and switched off the ECHO communicator around Red’s ear. “There, and now we are free to speak, without any unwanted interruptions.”

  “Right,” Red nodded. “I’m your Huckleberry. You know me, so I can skip my life story and you can get right to telling me what you want.”

  “Is it not obvious?” Pike asked, chuckling in an incongruously deep tone. “I have been waiting such a long time to meet you, mein Bruder. You cannot know what a thrill it is for me that we have finally come together, face to face. I simply have…chills…thinking of what our futures hold.”

  “Oho, a fan boy,” Red said, shifting uncomfortably. “You know, there are easier ways to get an autograph.” He grimaced as he tested the shackles, and hissed as they delivered small, measured shocks to his wrists and ankles. “Nice bling. You didn’t have to give me presents, you know.”

  “Careful!” Pike said. “Those were a warning. The current ramps up the more you struggle, and really, I have waited far too long to speak with you for you to simply…die. It would be an…enttauschung. An anti-climax.”

  “I know what the word means, onanist. I have to wonder though, where a redneck street punk from the south picked up so much German.”

  “Come now, Red,” Pike said, looking very disappointed. “You must have figured it out by now.”

  Red shrugged. “You hit me with an exploding semi and knocked me out with a taser. Forgive me if my brain is a bit scrambled, I feel like a brain-dead badger right now. And spare me the schadenfreude, okay? You’re holding all the cards here. Hell, right now, you’re even holding my hand. You obviously went to a lot of trouble to meet me, to get me out here alone. You even got Blacksnake to show.” He shook his head. “You got some connections there, kid.”

  “That was a case of misfortune, I’ll admit,” Pike said. “I didn’t anticipate Blacksnake’s interest when I enlisted myself with those unwissend Rebs. I speculated it was only a matter of time until an ECHO recruiting party would make their way to this corner of Atlanta, right in their own backyard.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Red muttered.

  “Imagine my annoyance when Blacksnake arrived first. Imagine my delight when it was you, of all people, leading the charge to my rescue.”

  “You had no intention of letting Blacksnake take you, did ya?”

  Pike’s smile vanished. “If not for your fortuitous intervention, I would have slaughtered them all. What a waste of time that would have been. I would have had to start all over.” The depraved and hungry smile returned. “Ah, but the good universe in its wisdom stepped in. It does that, you know. It provides for those in need.”

  “Tell me what you want, Pike,” Red repeated, making it clear that he was getting fed up with the run-around.

  “Really, Red Djinni! You have not figured it out? We are brothers, you and I.”

  “So you keep saying,” Red replied. It was getting hard to hold still; he wasn’t well-balanced, and there were sharp edges sticking into him. But every time he moved even a little, he got warning shocks from the shackles. And the crap-ton of dust in here was threatening to make him sneeze, which was going to make life uncomfortable as the shackles reacted. “I’m really going to have to go through the trouble of tracking down my dad one of these days, get a fix on what other mongrel blood I’m sharing.”

  “Oh, not by blood!” Pike exclaimed in disgust. “Truly you must see our bond transcends that!” He sighed. “Perhaps you are not as intelligent as I have observed you to be. And I was so sure, a shame. No matter. You will still give me what I desire.”

  “Something tells me it’s not the autograph.” Red wondered how long he could keep this maniac talking.

  “Given the realization of your stupidity, your curiosity will not, I fear, be sated. I have much to do, and you will simply have to live without the knowledge of why, exactly, you must die screaming.”

  “Well that’s just not going to cut it,” Red snarled. “I’m going to need a lot more if you’re going to get anything from me.”

  “Have I not made it clear? Unglaubliche schweinhund, verdammten arschloch, you really are an imbecile. I do not need for you to be willing, Djinni, I simply need for you to be breathing. On your feet, mein freund idiot, let us not tempt the fates anymore than we have to.”

  Pike motioned for Red to stand, and was rewarded with a scornful look.

  “Well, like my old uncle Sparky used to say, ‘pot, kettle, black, asshole.’” Red looked meaningfully down at his hands and feet. “I try and stand up and you’re going to have to carry me, hoss. I do any more, and you might as well leave my carcass here as fertilizer.”

  “Oh, of course!” Pike laughed. “You will excuse my carelessness, I’m sure. I am simply impatient, you see! Impatient to begin what promises to be a glorious future! I can decrease the output, if you wish, just enough for you to move…slowly. Or I can, if you prefer, simply knock you out. My men can lay you on a litter and carry you out on their shoulders. Like the funeral of Siegfried! Fitting, don’t you think?”

  “Just do it,” Red said, slowly lifting his arms and presenting his wrist shackles to Pike. “This place looks depressingly like Detroit on a bad day. If I’m going to have to listen to you, I want better scenery.”

  Pike played with his chin for a moment, like a villain in a B-movie. “Hmm. Make you walk, and watch you dance while you do so, yet suffer delays while you thrash, or watch my subhuman flunkies struggle to carry you? Decisions, decisions…”

  Red could feel Pike’s glee, his hunger, fueling his need to taunt his prey. It wasn’t enough that he had won. He reveled in his dominance, and his eyes bore into Red’s, excavating madly for as much misery as he could find. Red returned the maniac’s look with disdain.

  “Oh yeah,” Red nodded. “Look at you, big man. You got me all tied up, helpless, probably hoping I’ll do a little begging right now, huh?”

  “Oh would you?” Pike asked, his grin spreading even wider. “That would be so thoughtful!”

  “Please, please,” Red obliged, rolling his eyes. “I’ve got so much to live for. I’ve got kids…probably. I never learned to knit, and winter’s coming. My DVR is full of Community’s I haven’t watched yet, and I’ll be damned if I miss another Inspector Spacetime clip. And I still haven’t…”

  “Stop,” Pike interrupted, his eyes narrowing, his smile fading away. “You’re stalling. Why are you stalling?”

  “PUNCH IT, VIX!” Red shouted, and with a brilliant flash of light the shackles fell from his wrists and ankles.

  * * *

  She heard voices, but not close enough to make out what they were say
ing. Okay, screaming is going to get me nowhere, and someone might have meta-hearing and pick up on me screaming into his ear. She settled for a jittery, “Red. Red. Red. Say something. Red. Say something,” repeated ad infinitum, but with pauses for him to, well, actually respond.

  She froze when she finally heard a clear voice. It wasn’t Red’s, but a young man. Pike. Only…it had a faint accent that sure as hell wasn’t Southern. It wasn’t just the accent. Pike spoke with confidence, a smarmy drawl that drifted back and forth between disdain and respect. And German. She definitely heard German in there.

  She watched as one of Red’s communicators went offline, the standard issue one from ECHO. Pike, it seemed, did not want anyone listening in or pinpointing Red’s location. He obviously didn’t know about the secret Overwatch communicator or the throat mic, both buried under Red’s skin, since his arrogant voice was still coming in loud and clear.

  When Red did speak, it wasn’t to her. “Right, I’m your Huckleberry. You know me, so I can skip my life story and you can get right to telling me what you want.” They’d worked out a code a couple runs ago, half in jest, half in earnest. “You know, I’m a writer…and if I was writing this, it’d be about time for a kidnapping scene.” He laughed, but they both agreed that there was some justifiable paranoia here. “Huckleberry” meant he was starting code-speak and “life story” told her he was captured, a hostage or both.

  “Roger capture,” she breathed. “Running VR program to see if I can ID anyone.” She had a great voice recognition program, it worked on accents and speech patterns too. “I ID Kriegers obviously. What’s your status?”

  She listened carefully for the next code words while her programs ran, and was rewarded with the heavy crackle of feedback. She winced as the crackling subsided, and held her breath as Red spoke again.

  “Nice bling. You didn’t have to give me presents, you know.”

  Restraints, and given they knew it was the Djinni, probably shackles and cuffs. But what kind? If he could pick them, all she needed to do was make a distraction.