ALLIE’S WAR
An Urban Fantasy
Episode 1
by
JC Andrijeski
Copyright © 2014 by JC Andrijeski
Published by White Sun Press
Cover Art 2014 by JC Andrijeski
Ebook Edition, License Notes
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Synopsis for Rook: Allie’s War Episodes 1-4
Like most humans, Allie spent her life distancing herself from Seers, a race of human-like beings discovered on Earth in the early 1900s. Then she catches her boyfriend in the arms of a hot band groupie, and Allie goes from San Francisco artist slacker to the girl wearing the GPS anklet.
That’s the least of her problems, though, compared to the shock of discovering who—and what—she really is.
Dedicated to Maya, Samantha, Naomi, Keeley and Allie and all of the other lights that came to build us a better world.
“The meaning of events is the supreme meaning, that is not in events, and not in the soul, but is the God standing between events and the soul, the mediator of life, the way, the bridge and the going across.”
~ Carl Jung, The Red Book, Liber Novus
Prologue
MISTAKE
“Put it down!” A voice yelled. “On the ground! Right now!”
I blinked in confusion, staring at the bottle in my hand. The jagged end of broken glass looked like something out of a cartoon, or an old gangster movie.
Blood ran down the inside of my arm, not all of it mine. My muscles locked, bunched up with adrenaline.
Someone must have called the police. The young guy in front of me didn’t have his gun out, but his hand held the holster menacingly, and his uniform brought a flush of panic, starting somewhere in my lower belly.
The other fire that had burned there—irrationally bright only seconds before—abruptly sobered. Without taking so much as a breath, I dropped the broken bottle, holding up my hands in a gesture of surrender.
I’ve never been a tough chick. I’d never done anything remotely like this before...but I knew enough to know that my combat boots, smudged make-up and punky, bleached-calico hair weren’t winning me any points with the men in blue. I looked around at the swath of cleared space around the bar.
“Hands up!” the cop yelled.
“They’re up!” I said.
He walked up, grabbing one of my wrists. He spun me around so I faced the bar. I felt cool metal hit my wrist as my chest thudded into the lacquered wood.
“You have any weapons?” the young policeman asked. He cuffed me, then patted me down. “Don’t fucking move!” he yelled, when I turned to look at him.
“No weapons!” I was shouting I realized, scared out of my wits.
All the while, my mind churned useless facts. People got shot doing stupid shit like this. More cops got shot in domestic disputes than during any other kind of call, which likely explained why the young cop’s hands shook as he cuffed me.
My eyes swept the oddly bright space until they lit on the person who had inspired all this drama, and that flame of irrational feeling ripped once more through my chest cavity, making it difficult to breathe, to think straight.
Jaden, my now ex-boyfriend, stood like a store mannequin, his eyes as wide as saucers in a pale face. He gripped the upper arm of his date, a voluptuous girl in a red vinyl dress, as if to steady himself. I looked at her, and the rage came back, intense enough to scare me. Breathing harder, I leaned against the wood, closing my eyes, trying to crush my own chest.
Feeling ripped through my center, animal-like—almost painful.
In my defense, I’d only heard about them that night, and the fact that their affair started three months earlier, while I’d been blissfully happy, thinking Jaden and I were mutually in love. According to his bass player, she’d started hanging out with them after shows, eventually winning him over with flattery, pouty lips and enormous tits.
She was babbling something to him and her friends now, half-hysterical, her arm bleeding profusely from where I’d slashed at her with the bottle, her red-painted lips another dark wound on her face.
I stared at them both, thinking, this can’t be real. It can’t be. This isn’t me.
But it was.
1
MR. MONOCHROME
So yeah, I got arrested that September, and it pretty much changed everything.
Forever and ever...in my life, at least.
Why did it change everything, you might be wondering?
Well, not for the reasons you’re probably thinking.
Okay, yeah, it was really humiliating. I got thrown in jail for two nights. The cops treated me like some kind of PCP-smoking weirdo and wouldn’t let me call my mom for twenty-four hours. My mom flipped out. My brother Jon really flipped out. My friends all flipped out. I got a psych eval, as mandated by the state of California for all new violent offenders with no previous criminal records. I got a blood test...again. I had to pee in a jar.
Then, after all of that, I had to do community service. I couldn’t leave town. Worse, I had to check in with the authorities, and yes, wear a shiny new GPS bracelet that was even more awkward to explain when I finally got back to my job at Lucky Cat diner.
Who thankfully, by some miracle, hadn’t fired me.
None of that was the real issue, either, though.
The real problem, as they explained to me much, much later in time, was that I made myself visible. That little freak-out of mine with Jaden and the broken bottle and the bimbo band groupie was like sending up a great, big, noisy flare, one that got all the wrong people looking in my direction.
Why is that, you might be wondering?
Well, it’s simple. See, what I did was only crazy if you’re human.
If you’re not human, I was later to discover, it’s pretty much run-of-the-mill normal.
I tried not to fidget as I stared around the courthouse room.
I should be used to being in this place. I wasn’t. Nor did I really want to be.
I hoped I wouldn’t be called last. That desk jockey I spoke to promised me he’d try to get me put at the top of the list, but I was pretty sure he’d just been angling for my number. I still needed to stop by my mom's place before work, and the clock was ticking.
Just as I was starting to wonder if I should call my manager, Tom, and give him a head’s up that I’d be late again, the court clerk appeared in the narrow doorway on the other side of the low wall, wearing a portable monitor. He cleared his throat, and the sound echoed in the featureless room, a bland, institutional-looking space clearly designed to make us feel like rats in a cage, or maybe just numbers instead of names. The four off-white walls were broken only in a few places, by that pony wall that served almost like a balcony, and a one-way window above the two sets of double-doors at the back of the room.
A row of scuffed up wooden benches held most of us waiting on the clerk, with a few extra people perched on cheap-looking folding chairs that stood against the walls to the right and the left of me. The off-white linoleum had stains I didn’t want to know about.
I watched as the court clerk unfurled the monitor from around his wrist and spread it out on the podium-like table in front of him. He squinted at it for a few seconds, then drew on it
with a finger, probably going through the list of our names.
Meaning, the ex-convicts’ names. Meaning people like me.
The thought still boggled my mind.
The clerk looked up at all of us a few seconds later. He squinted at us, too.
I wondered if he needed eye surgery, or if it was some kind of facial tic.
Finally, he motioned at me.
“Verify identification,” he said, indicating the small podium that stood across from him.
I walked up to that same podium, feeling suddenly like I should have dressed better for this. It was just a monthly check-in to make sure I hadn’t run off, or found some way to put my GPS tracker on my dog. I’d done six or seven of these already, but this time, I was nervous for some reason. I’d never seen this guy before, so maybe that was it. The last guy was more laid back.
He was also quicker about it, jamming through the list without a lot of bureaucratic grandstanding. When this new guy made another pointed gesture towards the microphone, I cleared my throat.
“Alyson May Taylor,” I said.
"You go by Alyson?"
I cleared my throat again. "Allie."
“Place of residence?”
“2119 Fillmore Street, San Francisco.”
“Race cat?”
I held up my arm, showing him the “H” tattoo on my inner arm.
“Speak into the microphone, please.”
“Human,” I said.
“Birth parents?”
I hesitated. “Unknown.”
The man’s eyebrows went up, changing the shape of his thick face. The elongated skin pushed up the short bangs framing his square cheeks, confirming he’d had some kind of cosmetic surgery to tighten his skin. It struck me that he looked a bit like a cartoon pig.
“I’m adopted,” I clarified.
“No registered birth family?” the man said. He leaned closer, staring at me with an open, and somewhat morbid-seeming curiosity.
“No, sir. I was found.”
“Found?”
“Yes, sir. Under a bridge.” A little flustered, I amended, “...Overpass. Registered as a ward of the state, January 13, 1984. Status transferred August 19, 1984. Adopted. Carl and Mia Taylor. Birth parents unknown.” I hesitated after my usual litany, feeling every eye in the room on me now. “My blood’s been verified. About a hundred times now, sir...”
The clerk continued to frown at me.
I glanced around at all the other house-arrest criminals, like me, who sat on the scuffed benches or on metal chairs in the white, featureless room. Some of them were probably coming down off more deadly forms of domestic violence charges, statutory rape, petty larceny, drug dealing, assault, identity theft...God knew what else.
But I’m the freak, because of something I had no control over. Something that happened before I’d worn diapers. Well, that and the occasional homicidal freakout regarding cheating boyfriends...apparently that was a thing of mine now, too.
The thought made me feel tired.
My grandmother warned me once that nothing in life is ever secure. No matter how stable, boring or predictable the different components of your life may seem...everything can be gone with a single bad decision. In my case, it was a very bad decision.
One I still couldn't quite believe I'd made.
Now, not only had I lost my boyfriend of six years, in about the most permanent way I could have managed it, I'd made myself into a violent criminal.
I wasn't the only one in shock at what I'd done. My brother still couldn't believe it. He didn't come out and say anything––well, at least not now that he’d finished giving me the third degree and going through my apartment looking for drugs––but I could still see it in his face. He just couldn't believe I'd done something that, well...crazy.
My mom, as per usual, was pretty much in denial. She fluctuated between blaming the alcohol (I hadn't been drunk) and saying everyone just kind of lost their shit now and then, that I should just learn from it and not do it again.
Yeah, great advice, mom.
The thing is, I’d been pretty sure me and Jaden would get married at some point, have kids, do the whole domestic thing...so when I found out I’d been replaced by the newer, sluttier model, I didn’t take it very well.
I kind of went nuts, I guess.
Looking back on it now, it felt almost like I’d become a different person. A person I didn't like very much, truthfully.
Now I had a tracker on me. One of those GPS numbers I had to wear on my wrist, and occasionally explain to customers at the diner where I worked. According to the State of California, I wasn’t going anywhere for awhile.
Which was too bad, really. After everything died down and I faced the fact that I was on my own again, I wanted nothing more than to leave town...take a nice long sabbatical.
But the man at the podium was talking again, so I forced my mind back to him.
“They weren’t able to track down birth parents?” the clerk persisted. “Through DNA records? Through medical records? Those were all international by then, weren’t they?”
“No, sir,” I said. “And yes, sir...they were.” When the clerk continued to stare at me, I felt my face flush. “Is this strictly relevant?” I said. “I’m going to be late for work.”
“Place of employment?”
I felt my jaw tighten.
To avoid glaring at this pompous jerk maybe, and just escalating things, I glanced around at the other people waiting with me in the courtroom instead.
A big, biker-looking guy covered in tattoos winked at me, folding massive arms across his leather-clad chest. The big guys always liked me for some reason. Maybe because I’m smallish for my age.
Then I saw the other guy.
Starting a little when I saw his pale eyes on mine, I stared back at him briefly, then forced my gaze back to the front of the room. He looked the same as he always looked.
Tall, even sitting down. Strangely silent. Focused. Weird eyes.
Those were the first words that popped into my head, anyway.
Jon and I had dubbed him Mr. Monochrome. With his black hair, pale skin, light eyes of some indeterminate color, the nickname seemed almost funny to us at the time. He even wore a black jacket, as if the contrast of his skin and hair wasn't quite enough.
I took another breath, just as the clerk’s voice sharpened.
“Place of employment?” he repeated.
“Lucky Cat,” I said. “It’s a diner on Divisadero.”
“Other sources of income?”
“Freelance.” At the clerk’s quizzical look, I explained, “I’m an artist. I do tattoo designs for Fang’s on Geary. Also Gorilla Joint, up on Haight...”
The clerk didn’t seem to be listening, though. His eyes had gone almost blank in the pause, like he was listening to a faraway tune. I watched his face, fighting another flush of irritation. Was he just messing with me? Or did he have a VR implant?
Now that I knew Mr. Mono was there, I just wanted to get out the hell out.
At least now I had a real excuse to spring for a cab.
The tall, dark-haired Mr. Monochrome had been following me for weeks. I first noticed him hanging around not long after I got out of jail, and first got the GPS locked onto my wrist. Maybe he was into chicks with anger management issues, Jon and I joked. Or maybe he was just hoping I'd go postal on someone else, and he'd have front row seats.
Either way, Jon was right; I really needed to report him.
The problem was, he hadn’t really done anything yet. Nothing but stare at me, and I didn’t want the cops to think I was paranoid, on top of everything else. I wanted to be able to give them something more concrete. Something other than, “Well, you see, a lot of weird people seem to like to follow me around, officers.”
Even as I thought it, the court's clerk nodded, marking something on the portable monitor with his thick index finger. At least he finally seemed to have gotten over his interest in my weird parentage. P
eering down at my records, his eyes looked almost bored now. Or at the very least, preoccupied as he perused the relevant lines.
“Okay. Eight more months on your sentence,” he said, motioning for me that I could leave the podium. “Same time next month, Taylor.”
He crooked his finger at the biker on the bench next to me.
“You, Daniels...front and center. Verify identification.”
I walked back to my end of the bench and gathered up my shoulder bag and my jacket, still feeling stares on me from some of the other people in the room. The one I felt the most was the hardest to ignore. I glanced in the direction of Mr. Mono again, even as I shouldered on my jacket, tugging my hair out of the collar as I turned.
But he wasn't there anymore.
The chair where I'd seen him, only seconds before, was empty; the door still swung silently on its hinges, but Mr. Mono was definitely gone.
Riding down Divisadero Street towards my mom’s, I leaned against the cab’s window as it paused at a red light.
I’d been spacing out, not really paying attention to anything outside, when I realized that I was staring at someone.
She stared back at me, her sharp, blue eyes eyes openly hostile. Framed with stiff, dyed braids that came off her head like a white and orange headdress, her heart-shaped faced had an almost unreal beauty to it, even beyond the heavy layer of foundation and eye make-up she wore. I read the name of the fetish bar on the marquee behind her, and realized abruptly what she must be. I’d heard about the place opening up, but hadn’t been by to see it like everyone else.
It just felt weird to me, I guess. Gawking at them, like they were animals.
The woman’s opaque blue eyes drank me in without apology or fear. Her hands rested on her hips over a white, lace bodysuit.
I receded into the cab’s seat so I would be less visible.
I caught the cabbie watching me in the rearview mirror and blushed.
Allie's War, An Urban Fantasy: Episode 1 Page 1