Allie's War Season Four

by JC Andrijeski

  Maygar’s body had grown more and more to resemble Revik’s, however, Jon noticed, even though he still stood a good four inches shorter than his father and wore a much more compact frame. Something lived in the shape of his face that reminded Jon of Revik, too, particularly around the cheekbones and forehead, and to a lesser extent in the shape of his jaw. His mouth was markedly different...full where Revik’s was distinctly narrow...and Maygar’s face still appeared significantly wider than Revik’s angular features...but their noses were similar in shape, and they had similarities around the eyes, as well.

  Realizing suddenly that Maygar was watching him stare, and now frowning at him in some irritation, Jon flinched. He saw Maygar’s dark eyes flicker down Jon’s own body in the pause, and when Maygar glanced up next, Jon gave the male seer a kind of half-assed smile.

  Snorting openly, Maygar rolled his eyes.

  Really, Jon couldn’t blame him.

  “Sorry, brother,” he murmured.

  “You’re not my fucking brother...” Maygar shot back, his voice equally low.

  Irritated in spite of himself, Jon held up a dismissive hand, averting his eyes. “Yeah. Well. Technically, I’m your uncle-in-law, dickhead.”

  “Technically, you’re a worm.”

  “Not exactly...” Jon muttered.

  “...You’re a worm to me,” Maygar said coldly. “And to the rest of us, too, or you wouldn’t have gotten your ‘sister’ fucking killed.”

  Jon felt the words like a punch to the face.

  No one had said that to him. Not to his face. None of the other seers had so much as mentioned to Jon his role in how Allie had been taken by Shadow and Cass. The closest had been Revik himself, in one of his drunker, darker moments...and even he had bitten back his words, walking out of the room when he couldn’t seem to control his own mind.

  Jon could only look at Maygar for a moment, feeling sick to his stomach.

  “They should have killed you on the spot,” Maygar added, his voice dangerously low. “He should have killed you. He probably would have, too, if your name wasn’t on that fucking list...”

  At that, Revik looked over from where he stood next to Allie.

  “Shut up, Maygar. Now.” He gave Jon a hard look, too. “And you. Eyes to yourself. We’re starting in two minutes...get your head in the game, or else.”

  Jon nodded, feeling his face warm.

  Looking away, he happened to catch a look from Wreg, who stood on the other side of the room with Yumi and Gar. Seeing the darker thread of anger there, nearly on the surface, Jon felt a flood of disbelief pervade his light when he realized what the look meant. Wreg had seen him staring at Maygar, too. Jon almost couldn’t let himself believe how Wreg had interpreted that stare, but he could feel it, almost on the surface of Wreg’s light.

  Jesus Christ. Wreg thought he’d been checking Maygar out.

  Feeling his face go from warm to hot when it occurred to him that Maygar might have taken his stare the same way, Jon winced, clicking under his own breath. As he did it, a warm hand fell on his shoulder and he jumped, turning his head.

  Jorag smiled down at him, giving him a sympathetic look.

  “We don’t want you dead, brother,” Jorag said.

  Jon let out a surprised grunt. “Yeah. Okay. Great.”

  “I mean it,” Jorag said, sending him a harder pulse of warmth, even as he opened his light, making sure Jon could feel that he meant it. Squeezing his shoulder tighter, he leaned by Jon’s ear. “As for your other problem,” he added softly, nudging Jon’s mind towards Wreg. “Well, you’ve got our sympathy there, too...believe me, little brother.”

  Jon shook his head, clicking softly, but somehow, Jorag’s words managed to amuse him.

  “Fucked if you do, brother,” Jorag added, still by his ear. “...No matter what you do, right now. And don’t think the rest of us don’t know it...” Grinning, Jorag patted him again. “Poor bastard. You didn’t pick an easy one, brother.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “Do you? Do you know I’m risking my life right now, then?” Jorag grinned.

  Jon couldn’t help it. He let out a surprised half-laugh, even as he gave Jorag an over-the-shoulder grin. “All of you seers are just a bunch of mental cases, aren’t you?”

  “That we are, little brother,” Jorag added, sending him another pulse, that one holding a pale breath of cheerfulness. “...And damned fine-looking ones, too, the lot of us.”

  Jon let out another snort and Jorag winked at him, giving him a last pat before he moved off, aiming his feet in the direction of the door.

  Jon watched the seer leave, feeling an almost irrational wave of affection for the other man, who’d taken it upon himself lately to try and keep morale up, given the fact that Revik had hardly been in a mental state to take that role. Jon knew that Revik himself got pissed off at Jorag on occasion, mostly for his being a little too focused on Allie, and seeming a little too interested in her body at times, too. Jon had seen the thing with Jorag and Allie firsthand, so he understood Revik’s complaint, and even sympathized.

  He couldn’t help liking the other man, regardless.

  Thinking about the last time Jon had seen Jorag staring at Allie, in that armored truck on their way into the quarantine zone in San Francisco, Jon felt his chest clench again before he shook it off. As he did, he caught another dark look from Wreg.

  The ex-rebel didn’t stare at Jon long that time, but Jon saw the hardening of the other man’s jaw, felt the pulse of anger leave Wreg’s light. Feeling more of that emotion seething behind the dense shield around Wreg’s aleimi, Jon fought a wave of frustration that made him want to leave the room entirely.

  Jorag really hadn’t been kidding. Wreg hadn’t liked their interaction much, either.

  Seeing the continued tension in Wreg’s Chinese features, even through the other emotions clouding the room, Jon felt the last remnants of his brief levity with Jorag dissipate.

  In their place, that darker feeling returned, the background noise in Jon’s mind that had scarcely left since they’d arrived in San Francisco. The only good thing about that was that it made it easier not to care.

  About any of it.

  “All right,” Revik said, glancing over at Jon and Maygar, his clear eyes narrow. “You’d better sit down. We’re ready to start.”

  JON HADN’T KNOWN what to expect... not really.

  He knew his role would be nonexistent, in terms of mechanics. His light constituted one of three ‘hubs’ that would be used to stabilize and connect to Allie’s light. Really, he would pretty much be sitting there while other seers made those connections happen. Maygar would be doing essentially the same, even though the thought was, they’d connect him at several different levels then they would connect Jon himself.

  Revik, who already had a light-bond to Allie, would be connected more specifically––meaning, structure to structure––primarily at the level of the telekinesis.

  Maygar would be connected to Allie at the telekinetic level, as well, although most of the connections with Maygar would occur through Revik himself.

  Jon would be connected at lower structures than the other two, the thought being that it would help stabilize the connections between the four of them overall, and also potentially strengthen Allie’s ability to connect to all of them down here, as well as to her own structures.

  There had been a few exceptions.

  Balidor had noticed resonances at several structural points that they considered ‘higher-level’ between Jon and Allie, too. It was unclear to Jon what those structures consisted of exactly, but he recognized the feel of them when Balidor highlighted them in Jon’s light. The predominant theory among the infiltrators seemed to be that these were structures Allie worked on in Jon specifically over the years, consciously or not.

  All four of them would be connected to one another, as well...which meant not only Maygar to Allie, but Maygar to Revik and Jon, as well. Then the loop would be tig
htened between them. Jon could understand why the idea made Revik uneasy, and Wreg, too, although the latter had been hiding it marginally better. A few months ago, Revik hadn’t even wanted Maygar alone in a room with his wife, much less connected to her light structurally.

  Revik might still be convinced Maygar was fixated on Allie.

  Given everything they faced, Revik clearly felt backed into a corner, too. Part of that included letting Maygar form a half-light-bond with his wife...something a lot more intimate than talking over a table in an interrogation cell in the House on the Hill hotel in Manhattan.

  Jon couldn’t help feeling Revik’s hostility to the process, though.

  He couldn’t help feeling Wreg’s dislike of the development, too.

  Unfortunately, Jon couldn’t help but understand Wreg’s feelings on the subject, even more clearly than he understood Revik’s. Even now, Jon found himself understanding more behind Wreg’s hostility to him staring at Maygar than he’d let himself at the time.

  There was nothing Jon could do about that either, though. Not now.

  Adjusting his rear in the Victorian chair, he grimaced from the hard padding. The room must have been a sitting room of some kind, once upon a time. Now, Jon just thought of it as the Victorian room with the orange, uncomfortable furniture and the robin’s egg blue carpet on the hardwood floor.

  They’d decided not to use the jump chairs for this, partly because they were keeping this whole development under the radar of most of the seers living and working in the house. Revik brought in a good chunk of the inner circle seers, but that was it.

  Anyway, from what Revik told Jon, the jump room wasn’t necessary for this. They’d strapped Allie down because of how unpredictable she’d grown of late, and to keep her in the room once they started. Jon strongly suspected they’d mainly done it to free up Revik, though, and give him the space to concentrate on the task at hand.

  Even so, Revik remained beside her, pulling up the chair where he sat so that it stood just next to her padded bench. He held her hand, resting it at a slightly awkward angle at the edge of that same bench where she lay.

  Balidor took the lead on the connection end, with Jorag, Wreg, Yumi and Chinja in support positions from the other room. Balidor designed a new construct to aid the connections, a sort of ‘construct within a construct,’ which Jon was beginning to realize they did a lot, and often without him even noticing, or noticing that he’d been moving between the different spaces within the main constructs, whether here or in the hotel in New York.

  Balidor, Wreg, Yumi and Revik handled all the prep work over the past half-day, so Jon didn’t have much to do but wait for it to happen.

  Therefore, when he closed his eyes at Balidor’s signal, resting his head against the hard cushion of the Victorian-style chair, he barely had time to wonder what to expect...

  When he plunges into an unfamiliar space.

  Like time always does in the Barrier, it just...stops.

  ...Stops.

  That odd, no-time replaces it...the utter lack of linear that Jon should be accustomed to by now, but that still manages to surprise him, each and every time.

  He feels Wreg briefly. He hears the grandfather clock ticking by the wall, the rustle of clothing as Maygar shifts on the other end of the couch, a half-dozen feet from Jon’s slouched body. Then, he just...

  Falls.

  THE SPACE IS utterly black.

  Not black like in that horror house where Jon found Allie.

  Just empty. Vacant.

  No markers exist, nothing familiar. Nothing touches Jon’s mind enough to give his thoughts something around which to wrap themselves, to create pictures of meaning.

  The space is just black.

  Then...slowly...like gently inhaled breaths...presence creeps into Jon’s awareness. Sensation weaves into their slow approach, feeling so fleeting Jon can scarcely identify it. Eventually, Jon feels the others there, too.

  Balidor. Wreg. Glimmers of Yumi.

  He feels Revik, then. Once Jon feels the Elaerian, he realizes that pieces of Revik’s mind form the backdrop for all the rest. The longer Jon notices this, the more he feels Revik’s light, growing stronger and stronger...more intense than any of the others.

  He is surprised at first, at how familiar the other seer feels. He feels Allie in that somehow. He feels shimmers of who he was, meaning Jon himself, what feels like a million years ago now, back in San Francisco before any of this happened. Back when Jon still taught Kung Fu in the Outer Richmond district of San Francisco. Back when he still dated Trey. Back when their mother was still alive. Back when Allie and Cass...

  But that fades, too.

  Jon doesn’t know if he pushes it back, if it leaves on its own, or if Revik recoils from the immediacy of Jon’s memory...but it is gone.

  Echoes leave vague murmurings of Revik’s presence. That light interweaves with his, attached with pale strands that Jon still almost recognizes. Jon realizes with some shock that he feels Revik in Allie’s light, that he felt it, even way back when...even when she was with Jaden, even when they were kids. He sees that stain of Revik in her, mutating over her in light-colored sparks, subtle touches he’s never seen before, or, more accurately, never noticed as being anything apart from Allie herself. All through his life, Jon incorporated Revik’s being so seamlessly into his feelings for Allie herself, he only now sees how he’s had a relationship with Revik for years without even knowing it...

  He feels Maygar then.

  Pain cripples him briefly, as soon as the other man’s presence grows visible. Jon feels the pain worsen, a struggle in light.

  That is Revik, too.

  Revik is fighting Maygar’s light...fighting Jon’s light, too...struggling to resist connections as they wrap around the four of them...around Allie.

  Gods. He doesn’t want them so near Allie.

  Jon feels that sickness worsen, watching the Elaerian fight. Revik fights without rationality, without seeming to be able to stop himself...

  Jon feels Maygar fighting to separate himself from Revik, too.

  Jon feels the pull there, too, however...on both sides, which perhaps should be surprising but somehow isn’t. Suddenly, sharply, Jon feels Wreg somewhere in that, and for the first time, fear really hits him, the sense of the constriction of those morphing lines, the different pieces of them weaving together...

  Gods. The connection is strong, almost terrifying in its intensity.

  Briefly, Jon feels Balidor, trying to reassure them...he feels Jorag, too...Wreg...

  The struggle intensifies briefly, but grows even more silent.

  He can feel Wreg begging him, asking him not to do this...

  Jon feels points of light, tiny starbursts as the connections hit one another like live wires. He feels structures in Revik’s light that he’s never even seen before, things that he didn’t pick up on, even instinctively, in the light of the other male. He watches new structures form out of the dark as pieces of them weave together, forming new things out of the joining with each of them, new structures with colors that wrap around and into one another...

  He feels Allie there, and something in that cuts his breath...

  It is pain he feels, with Revik, first, and strongest.

  That pain worsens, grows unbearable.

  Allie’s presence remains the weakest, but now Jon can feel her, too, and relief wars with his own pain at having missed her, at still not being able to touch her. He feels something similar on Maygar, only it is more charged, more directed. He feels Revik reacting to Maygar’s connection with his wife’s light, a sharp keening of rage, or powerlessness, of love and protectiveness that borders on out and out terror...

  Jon tries to focus on Allie.

  He watches as Balidor weaves threads of Jon’s own light into hers. He can almost see her now, but she is still indistinct...more like a ghost or shadow than a real person. Only there because his feelings make a shape for her out of that darkness.


  Jon also understands why they did so much of this in the dark.

  It has to be the dark...it is too intimate, too cripplingly intense for them to look at one another while it happens. No matter what they tell themselves about why they are doing it, Jon realizes there will be ripple effects, maybe big ones, maybe ones that none of them can control from being so wrapped into one another.

  Even as he thinks it, he feels another sharp stab of pain from Revik’s light.

  He is so fucking sad. Gods. Jon didn’t think it possible for a person to be that sad. The grief overwhelms him, even as it feels familiar, too crushing and immediate for words. Jon has been swimming inside that grief inside the construct for weeks, but it only hits him now how intense and twisted and irrational it is.

  Jon feels part of his chest closing, constricting under his fingers and through his light as the connections strengthen, as those structures are pulled taut. The pale threads weave deeper into who he is, who all of them are...holding the four of them together as those same strands grow more and more complex, more intricate, more infused with color and meaning and memory...encompassing the very fabrics of who they are...

  ...Who they were.

  Already, it starts to create something new.

  Something that wasn’t there before.

  As those same threads start to lock in place around Jon’s light, like tiny diamonds filled with live current, Jon feels another wash of that deeper fear. He tells himself he knows why he is doing this. He tells himself that what they are doing is necessary, that he agreed to this, that he agreed to do whatever it took to help Revik.

  But none of this, none of the self-talk really helps.

  Jon understands now, that he will be forever changed by this.

  In those last seconds in that dark space, surrounded by seers working patiently over the four of them, Jon feels Wreg, like a dark-gold star in the distance. The other seer radiates heat, dense feeling and presence, and for a long, terrifying moment, Jon really sees him.

  In that instant, knowing overwhelms him, fills him with a longing that wants to rip apart his mind. The feeling worsens, turns to desperation, anguish that breaks something harder open in Jon’s chest. It occurs to him that same set of seconds that his brief glimpse of Wreg’s light in all of that dark...it feels almost like a goodbye.