Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  “Really? Are you sure that was me?”

  He laughed. “You think it spontaneously exploded? Right when you were concentrating on lifting that thing?” He motioned vaguely at the table, still smiling.

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  He grinned. “Definitely.”

  “Okay,” I said, sitting up on my knees. “That’s it, almighty Syrimne. You are enjoying getting to order me around again way too much. Are you sure you’re the only telekinetic seer here who can teach me this stuff?”

  “Just stay away from the walls, Allie,” he said, smiling.

  As if realizing what he was saying then, he glanced around us. His smile faltered, replaced by a vague glimmer of unease.

  “Come to think of it,” he said. “There might be gas piped through here. Maybe we should practice outside.”

  “Chicken,” I said.

  He laughed. “You want to blow me up?”

  “Why not? You’re Syrimne, right? Can’t you just throw up one of those super-shields or something? That way, you’re practicing, too.”

  Giving me a thoughtful look, he shrugged. “All right. When you put it that way. Sure. Why don’t you aim for the walls, then? With your track record, it might actually keep us safe.”

  Jumping to my feet, I smacked his arm. Seeing him smile, I realized I’d given him exactly the reaction he’d wanted. Pulling me against him, he kissed me, leaning us against the wall. After we’d done that awhile, I separated us and leaned back a little, glancing through the window at the heavy, dark clouds forming over the mountains.

  “Where should we go?” I said, rubbing his stomach. “For the telekinesis, I mean,” I said, smiling, feeling his body react. “It looks like we’ll get dumped on if we’re out in the open for very long.”

  “What do you want to do?” he said. “Are you tired of this?”

  “No. Not tired of it, exactly.”

  He kissed my neck. “Not tired of it… exactly. What does that mean?”

  “I just feel kind of useless, I guess,” I admitted.

  I glanced up, shrugging at the question in his eyes.

  “I haven’t been this idle for this long in…” I thought for a minute. “…Well, ever. Definitely not in the last year or so. Not like I mind,” I added, seeing him frown. “I’m learning a lot, and it’s been great. But I think I’m a little restless.”

  “It’s not like school?” he said, smiling. “College, maybe?”

  “I worked my way through school, remember?” At his smile, I smiled back. “Maybe it’s the Calvinist upbringing, but even school on its own still feels like vacation in a way. I’m not doing anything for anyone else.”

  “You’re doing a lot for me,” he said.

  Hearing the seriousness in his voice, I hesitated, meeting his gaze.

  Seeing his eyes on mine, I smiled, tugging at his belt. I felt another ripple of pain on him. “You know what I mean. I know you do. You’re even more Type A than I am. And I know you sneak off to work when you think I’m sleeping.”

  When I glanced up at him, his expression shifted back to thoughtful.

  I saw his eyes running over my face, holding a scrutiny that made my heart pound a little, despite the affection I glimpsed behind his gaze. I smiled, trying to break his concentration, but his eyes remained serious. He looked like he was trying to decide something.

  “What?” I caressed his arm. “What’s going on?”

  “I have an idea. If you’re open to it, Allie.”

  “What kind of idea?”

  “I’d like you to come with me.” Taking my hand, he kissed my fingers. “I want you to see something I’m working on. Please, Allie.”

  Feeling my heart rate go up a little, I nodded. “Okay. Sure.”

  I was still watching his face, trying to decide what I was seeing, when he tugged on my hand again, this time to lead me with him out of the room.

  I followed a little warily.

  We still hadn’t talked much in terms of ideology, religion, politics, military tactics, the Rebellion, the Seven––or anything, really, to do with the war or his role as Syrimne.

  In front of me, it had only come up once, at least directly.

  Revik had been asked to give a live statement to a live seer feed broadcast, followed by a Q&A from a group of seer reporters. The subject had been his thoughts on the recent move by the Seven to ally with the Chinese. The feed, while officially black market according to the World Court and SCARB, was widely listened to by seers around the world, so it startled me a little that they’d come directly to him.

  He’d politely declined, but I’d wondered at the time if that had been for my benefit, or more to do with what neither of us had referenced directly since the night he’d confronted me.

  I picked things up, of course, here and there––mainly from his followers.

  Wreg hated Balidor to the point of mind-blackening rage. He hated him almost more than Revik himself did, and still seemed personally affronted that Revik hadn’t killed him when he had the chance in Beijing. As far as I could tell, it was the only serious disagreement Wreg seemed to have with Revik about much of anything.

  I got glimmers of the reasons behind this.

  Some of it had to do with the fact that I’d cheated on his friend with the Adhipan leader, which Revik must have eventually told him. I also caught impressions that indicated Wreg had been the one to sit with Revik after I’d been shot. He’d spent weeks watching helplessly as Revik started to die, as he screamed out in pain, lost control of the telekinesis.

  I got glimmers of Revik lying on a bed, sweating and pale, looking as thin as he had after he’d first gotten free of Terian––and then I stopped looking.

  I knew Wreg would try to kill Balidor himself if he ever got within range. I also got flashes that if he ever happened upon even a sliver of opportunity, he would prefer to do it slow.

  Yet, he’d never seemed angry at me about it for some reason.

  A few of his commanders seemed to resent me, especially the female ones, but I got the sense it was less of a sexual rivalry thing and more because they didn’t trust me. Wreg wasn’t the only one who knew Balidor and I had been involved––news traveled fast inside the construct. A few wondered outright if I was a spy for the Seven, or even the Lao Hu. I’d also caught a few wondering if someone older and more world-wise than me was using me, and using my marriage to infiltrate Revik’s operation.

  They also thought Revik was naïve about me.

  A few thought I led him around by the dick, and they didn’t like that much, either.

  I’d given myself the luxury of not thinking about any of it, though––not the Rebellion or their ideologies, or who thought I was a bitch for cheating on the boss. I remained kind of willfully in denial as he taught me telekinesis and mulei, or we spent time swimming, hiking, eating, giving each other massages, having a lot of sex, and basically acting as though we were on a really long vacation together.

  I’d also given myself the luxury of assuming the six-month ban on ops was still in effect. Despite his midnight disappearances and the times he pulled away to do work on the virtual network, I didn’t really think he had full-fledged operations going on under my nose.

  Now, though, following him as he took me down to the lower levels, nearer to the areas where Garensche first brought me on our tours of the military command center, I found myself wondering.

  I’d always had a tendency to underestimate the amount of crap he could have going on the side with us.

  He talked more now, sure, but he still had that obsessive side; I saw glimmers of it all the time, even with the thing with Feigran, about which he still only told me the bare minimum.

  Once we got out of the residential and recreational areas of the complex, the level of activity jumped exponentially. It made me wonder how much he’d steered me away from those parts of the compound in the past, as well.

  Walking with him along one of the high catwalks dividing th
e largest of the docking bays, I marveled again at the miniature city they’d created here, on the western edges of China. Actually, I still didn’t know where we were, not exactly, but I suspected not overly far from Kasmir, since I’d heard that and Pakistan referenced more than once, along with Tajikistan and Afghanistan, all in contexts that made them sound not too far off.

  So really, we couldn’t be too far from the Pamir itself.

  In looking around, I also couldn’t help but wonder about funding.

  Revik heard that, which made me wonder how long he’d been listening.

  “Funding’s not an issue, Allie,” he said, sliding an arm around my waist. Turning, he pulled me closer to him, pausing on the catwalk. “We’ve got all we need for now.”

  “I gathered that.” I let my eyes follow his down to the hangar. “All this…” I shook my head. “And you handing out Euros like you’ve got a hole in your pocket. The Revik I remember was a bit more… cautious. With funds.”

  “Stingy, you mean?”

  “No.” I shook my head, smiling at him. “Not stingy.”

  “Cheap?” he said, smiling back.

  “Just, you know. Cautious.”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged, gripping the metal railing with one hand, still holding me with the other. “I think you’re being generous.” He met my gaze, eyes serious. “But Allie, it was never really about the money. It was about being able to walk away.”

  “Walk away?” I said.

  He nodded. “I never liked being vulnerable to having to do work I’d rather not do. I always wanted to be able to say no. Without ending up in a work camp somewhere.”

  I studied his face, thinking.

  “Jon called you a hoarder,” I said. “He meant it in a nice way. Affectionately, I mean.” Wrapping an arm around his waist, I massaged his chest. “He said you were one of those people who stuffed money in their mattress, in case the banks failed one day.”

  “You don’t know the half of it, love,” he said, chuckling. “Jon’s a smart man, I’ve always said so. I’ve got bank accounts squirreled away all over the damned place. Hard currency, too, along with a few other things. I was going to show you all that, one of these days, but it’s never seemed like a good time.” He hesitated, gauging my eyes. His arm tightened around me once more, pulling me against him. “I changed my will, Allie. I know it’s a little ridiculous, given that we’re bonded… but I don’t have any other family, apart from Tarsi.”

  He kissed my face, sliding his fingers into my hair.

  Before I could swallow all of what he’d said, he spoke again.

  “Your name should be on my accounts, too,” he said. “We’ll take care of that sometime this week. I don’t want you ever to be stuck somewhere without funding. You shouldn’t be dependent on me for that, Allie.”

  I looked up at him, more than a little dumbstruck.

  He smiled again, seeing my surprised expression. Pulling me tighter against him, he kissed my mouth, wrapping his hand into my hair.

  “I don’t mean to hide things from you,” he said, softer. He kissed me again, pulling on my light. “Ask me anything. I’ll tell you. Promise.”

  I nodded, caressing his belly again through his shirt. I was struggling more lately, not to get too emotional with him. I had no idea what that was about, but I could feel it affected him. Even as I thought it, he kissed me again, drawing my light achingly into his. The kiss grew more sensual, until I found myself melting up against him, my hands under his shirt.

  He pulled away a moment later, leading me along the catwalk with him. He brought me to an elevator at the end of the mesh platform.

  I fought to catch my breath, following along after him.

  I saw so much of the boy in him at times; it still threw me when I remembered they were the same person. Some of the changes were subtle, like him wanting to impress me with things he’d been more closed about before.

  Some of it reminded me of how he’d been during our honeymoon at the cabin. Talkative, younger-seeming––nearly affection-starved. Even at the cabin, though, I didn’t remember that playfulness in him being so prominent, or the desire to share so much of himself. I knew some of it likely stemmed from being stuck in that cave for so long.

  Yet, even that felt like a part of who he was now.

  It didn’t unnerve me any more, or even seem foreign to him.

  I found myself thinking about his words, too, incorporating them into what I knew about him. It hadn’t really occurred to me before, to think about his issues with money. Now I remembered him telling me on the ship that being broke meant the same as being a slave, especially for a seer.

  Given what I’d learned in the time since, that statement made a lot more sense to me.

  SCARB seemed to run mainly on bribes and who you knew. Whether you got picked up and detained depended heavily on who you knew––or, conversely, who your owners were.

  In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was just plain dangerous to be broke and a seer. You could end up in a work camp, sold to the mob, a whorehouse, or a major corporation. All it took was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, without the funds or connections to buy your way out.

  As we waited for the elevator to reach us from below, I found myself thinking about this more globally, in terms of seers’ relationship to a lot of the crap work they had to do. The system practically forced them to play along, to work for militaries and prostitution rings and conduct corporate espionage on long-term contracts––when, really, they might otherwise just live a more day-to-day existence, off the odd sight gig, or even fetish trick of one kind or another.

  With what we could do, and the demand for sight skills in the human world, we should never have to have regular jobs. We should all have been free agents.

  I saw him smiling at me when I looked up.

  Before I could ask, he kissed me, harder that time. Before I could catch my breath, he kissed me again, pulling me against him.

  “I love you,” he murmured. “Gods. I love you so much.”

  Pain shocked my heart, stopping my breath. My fingers tightened on his arms.

  He kissed me again, slower, tugging on my light to get me to merge into him. I felt his own pain worsen, sharpening when I made a sound against his mouth. When we parted that time, I met his gaze, feeling another surge of emotion that caught me off guard.

  I looked away, fighting the part of me that was nearly in tears.

  The elevator car arrived, letting off a low ping as it came to a stop on our floor.

  He smiled at me, kissing my throat.

  “Come on,” he coaxed, when I started to caress his back. “I still want to show you something.”

  He pulled open the metal cage around the elevator doors, one-handed, without letting go of me. Tugging on my hand for me to follow him inside, he kissed me the whole way down as the elevator sank us deeper into the rock. Leaning against me, he pinned me against the mesh wall at the back of the carriage, caressing me through my clothes until I’d pretty much forgotten what we were doing there by the time we reached the bottom.

  When the elevator stopped, he opened the gate, leading me down a few more corridors, until we entered another two-storied room, this one filled almost entirely with organic consoles.

  Displayed on the main screen, I saw what appeared to be blueprints of some kind, to a skyscraper, something with at least forty stories.

  I squinted up at the plans, then glanced over at the seers working over three dimensional displays of the same building. Several seemed to be running simulations in the virtual network.

  More than one stiffened when Revik walked in, pausing to rise to their feet and salute him before he waved their formality away. I saw a few looking at me, too. One, a handsome, Middle Eastern-looking male infiltrator named Loki, frowned a near scowl in my direction.

  I’d seen him around before, in the dining area and hanging around the mulei rings, and knew he was one of the ones who thought
I might be a spy. Clearly he wasn’t about to challenge Revik on it, but he didn’t hide his disapproval very well, either. He swiveled in his seat after another beat, putting headphones on as he focused back on simulations.

  “Again,” I heard him say to someone on the other end.

  Leaning closer to Revik’s ear, I murmured, “Is this the big board?”

  “Which big board?” he whispered back, laughing.

  “You know,” I said. “The big board?”

  Clicking at me in mock reproach, he smiled, gesturing towards the main screen and the building plans I’d noticed as we walked in. I realized now, they looked familiar to me somehow. I found myself clicking through images in my light’s memory.

  “We’re going there,” he said.

  “We?” I said, frowning. “Who, we?”

  “Me and a few squads. In a week. Maybe two.”

  Seeing what was likely a crestfallen look on my face, he pulled me closer, kissing me, despite the presence of the other seers in the room.

  “I want you to come with us, Allie,” he said, quieter.

  “Me? Why?”

  “I promised you six months.”

  “Of no ops,” I said, tugging at his jacket. “I remember. It’s only been two, Revik. If that.”

  “Seven weeks,” he said. “But who’s counting.” He kissed me again, using more of his light. Pulling away, he added, “I promised six months of no ops, Allie. Or only those ops which had means and targets of which you approved in advance.”

  “Ah.” I smiled at him. “You think I’ll approve of this.”

  “I do,” he said, holding me tighter. “Care to wager on it?”

  “What do I get if I win?” I said.

  Tightening his light around us, he sent me a very explicit set of winnings. I clutched him by the end, curling an arm around him under his jacket.

  “I see,” I said seriously. “And what will you be getting, if I lose?”

  He smiled. “I already told you. I want you to come with me, Allie.”

  “Means, too?” I clarified.

  “Means. And targets,” he said.

  I relaxed a little, in spite of myself. He seemed confident.