Revik didn’t seem to hear him at first. He raised a hand to his ear, without lowering his gun.
“Communications are out, too,” he said. “...I can’t raise the hotel.”
“What tower?” Jon repeated. “Revik?”
The Elaerian’s eyes swiveled to his.
Jon realized only then that they still glowed a faint green.
Revik’s voice turned into a growl. “The tower where they kept that boy locked up for ninety or so years, Jon,” he said. “The one where Shadow had Merenje posted as the guard. The one where I was chained to a wall in the dark for almost a century.”
Jon felt that pain in his gut worsen. He nodded, still watching the other seer, even as it occurred to him that at least part of that pain came from Revik himself.
“Are you going to be okay, man?” Jon said.
Revik gave him a harder look.
“It’s a valid question,” Wreg said from the other side, causing Revik to turn. When Jon looked at Wreg as well, he saw the Chinese seer measuring Revik with his eyes. “What can we do? Is there some way we can help to dispel this illusion for you, laoban?”
Revik gave a humorless laugh. “I don’t see how.”
“Will it get in the way?” Wreg persisted.
Revik looked back at Wreg, then around at the rest of them. Finally, his eyes paused on Jon once more, even as he frowned.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I’ll let you know if it is. Until then, all we can do is try to help one another out. They won’t go after me alone...” He gave Jon a more meaningful look. “...They’ll likely go after several of us at the same time. If not all of us.”
Wreg nodded. He reached out, gripping Jon’s shoulder in one hand.
“Keep the shield on him, brother,” Wreg said to Jon, still watching Revik’s face. “He’s right. This’ll only be the beginning of this shit...we’ll split our resources between the two of you, like before. It’ll give them more targets, at least.”
Jon nodded, even as he felt his headache start to worsen again. When he glanced at Revik next, Jon saw that harder look in the seer’s eyes had lessened.
“Thanks,” Revik said to Wreg. His eyes grew unreadable once more, even as they flickered down both ends of the torch-lit corridor. “Which direction, do you think?”
Wreg and the others exchanged looks.
Wreg looked back at Revik then, still holding Jon’s shoulder firmly in his hand.
“You can’t feel the walls, laoban?” he said. “The structure?”
Revik shook his head, once, clicking in irritation. “Not anymore. Last glimpse I got was in that chute.”
“What about Loki?” Chinja said, from Wreg’s other side.
Revik glanced at her, his eyes unreadable. “Same.”
After another seemingly long silence, Jax exhaled. Jon turned with the rest of them, watching Jax as he limped up to Neela’s other side. He limped past her then, aiming in the direction Jon had first faced when he picked himself up off the floor.
“Well,” Jax said. “We know what’s in the other direction, right? A wall? Chute up to the first sub-basement floor?”
“Right,” Neela said, her voice holding that odd humor again. “Assuming they haven’t manipulated the visuals already...so that we’re facing the exact opposite direction as we think we are, brother Jax. Or perhaps a new one entirely...”
Jax shrugged, but didn’t stop walking, holding his rifle out in front of him. “Well, we know which direction they want us to go, right? Does it make much sense to argue?”
The others exchanged looks.
Then, each conceding Jax’s point in their own way, either with a hand gesture, a shrug, or a more subtle expression, they all began to follow the limping seer down the same stretch of corridor, each gripping a different type of weapon in their hand.
“DI’LANLENTE O’KITRE-SO’H,” Balidor muttered. “Where are they? Can you find them, Vikram? I am getting nothing now...not on the transmitter, either...”
Vikram shook his head over the terminal where he worked. Seeing the frown on his face, Balidor gave him a second look, reading something on his light.
“What?” he said. “What is it?”
Vikram shook his head, letting his frown deepen before he glanced back at Balidor. “It’s not them. I’m getting another group...not the Sword’s. Approaching the Tower.”
“Are they part of the FEMA and SCARB groups?”
“No, sir. Neither.” Vikram shook his head then cocked it, his expression an odd mixture of frustration and puzzlement, even as he seemed to be using his light to decipher whatever he’d been looking at in virtual. “...No. It’s not them. I think...” He hesitated, then looked up at Balidor, his eyes bordering on apologetic. “...I think it’s that seer you were looking for.”
Balidor flinched. Then he walked over to Vikram’s screen, his mouth set in a harder line.
“Surli?” he said. “Is Tarsi with him?”
“I honestly cannot tell,” Vikram said, moving out of the way of the older seer, giving him access to the terminal. “But he is definitely not alone.”
Balidor leaned down. He stared at the virtual projection, which pulled the aleimic signatures out of the scans being conducted by the seers in their main infiltration unit. The program tracked those scans, compiled them, and converted them to images in the physical so their relation to the physical landmarks could be compared.
Balidor knew Nenzi would have no need of such a thing, being Elaerian.
Most seers, however, could not see the physical world with their aleimi. For them, such comparisons simplified things that would have been more difficult to extrapolate otherwise. The process also allowed for fast information sharing for location tracks, which tended to be more precise than imprint tracks, assuming the physical location of a target could be determined with sufficient accuracy.
Balidor squinted at the image he could see on the screen. He could see what Vikram meant. At least two other seers were with Surli, possibly more.
“There...” Balidor pointed at the screen.
Vikram’s eyes followed Balidor’s fingers.
“Human?” Vikram’s voice held an open relief. “Gods above. Then he brought Dante with him. He did not kill her.”
“It appears that way, brother...although it will be difficult to know for certain without a positive ID.” Balidor frowned. “Why, though?”
“Why?” Vikram let out a disbelieving noise, looking up at the Adhipan seer. “She is very good with the machines, laoban. Very, very good...better than most of my seers, despite her race and youth. She can cross most of the sight barriers, too. She does it differently, using that computer language of hers, but she can speak to the machines. It is like an instinctive knowing with her...a kind of sight I have never seen. Almost like...”
Vikram trailed, his complexion turning suddenly ashen.
Balidor realized he’d been about to say:
...Almost like Garensche.
Clapping the other man warmly on the shoulder, Balidor shook him gently before releasing him, trying to tug his light out of that darker place.
“I understand,” Balidor said, smiling when Vikram turned. “But if Surli is with Shadow, then why would he have need of an organic machines expert? Why take the girl? Do you think Shadow has some reason to want her? Alive, that is?”
Vikram’s frown returned at Balidor’s words, but he didn’t answer at first.
“Are we sure Surli is with Shadow?” he said finally.
Balidor stared down at him. Then he tensed, staring at the screen, even as the other’s words really penetrated. “No, brother, we are not...”
Before he could get any further on that train of thought, an excited voice broke into the comm system, blasting over all of their headsets.
“Breach!” Hondo cried out, from her upper-level security station. “We have a breach! I need immediate back-up! At least twenty infiltrators, along with––”
Her
voice abruptly cut off.
Balidor looked sharply at the second set of monitors, which were currently being overseen by Tenzi. He triggered the open channel in his headset in the same motion.
“Evacuate!” he said. “Start the evacuations now! Rendezvous as instructed...”
He heard a hollow click, right before his own headset went dead. Cursing in Prexci, then in Mandarin, he looked back at Vikram. “Come,” he said grimly. “Take whatever hand-holds you have. Wipe whatever we can’t bring. It is time.”
Vikram was already working, his fingers flying over the nearest control pad, right before he took two steps to his right to use an archaic keyboard to type in the lock-down sequence. Balidor saw the warning flash on the screen, even as the alarm erupted overhead, blaring through the corridors of the floor of Arc Enterprises...and every floor above and below the one where Balidor stood that still had functioning security systems.
Tenzi yelled from the other set of terminals, where he’d been performing similar and compatible actions to what Vikram had been doing on the other side.
“We’ve got a visual,” he said to Balidor. “At least fifteen identified.”
“Affiliation?” Balidor yelled back, staying out of the Barrier, just like Tenzi had done. “Do you know them, Tenzi?”
The other seer gestured a yes with sign language, even as he made a few more sharp motions with the same hand.
“Both?” Balidor said, once he understood. “Salinse’s people and the Lao Hu? Who’s leading them?”
“That female, Ute,” Tenzi yelled back. He grimaced, a colder anger rising to his dark eyes. “...And Ditrini, for the Lao Hu side. I just heard from Hondo on the dead radios upstairs. She’s confirmed.”
Balidor’s mouth hardened into a line. He walked to the lockers on the far side of the room, opening them without preamble. He was already going through the contents when the others seemed to realize what he was doing.
“‘Dori!” Vikram yelled. “We need you downstairs!”
“Go ahead,” Balidor yelled back. “I’ll meet you down there...”
“Adhipan!” Durel said, from the other side of Tenzi. “No! Come with us now! That piece of shit...he is not worth it!”
Balidor didn’t take his eyes off the row of guns racked in front of him.
Picking an M4 carbine out of the row of smaller assault rifles, he smiled humorlessly when he saw it was one of the rebel variants, meaning it had been significantly modified, probably under orders by the Sword himself. Part of that modification included an organically-enhanced grenade launcher, and a holographic optic with flip-down magnifier, along with a laser scope.
Sending a brief prayer of thanks to the Elaerian’s paranoia and thoroughness, Balidor flipped the gun sideways and hit the release for the thirty-round magazine, checking that it was full of organic armor-piercers before he slammed it back in. He grabbed four more of the same from the pile of 5.56mm rounds, shoving them in a small backpack he also found in the locker.
Thinking a few more seconds, he grabbed four more magazines, and shoved a handgun into his side holster, as well, along with another in his boot.
Grabbing more magazines to go with those, most of them 9mm, he filled the rest of the empty space with a flare gun, extra grenades, a flip knife, a harness and rope, as well as an extra gun in case he needed to lend it to someone else upstairs. He already wore a vest. Nenzi had all of them put on vests before he left, in case Shadow hit the hotel...another precaution for which Balidor now found himself more than a little grateful. When he turned around, Tenzi stood in his way, as did Holo and Durel. The latter two had both been rebels once.
“Sir,” Durel repeated, raising his voice above the siren. “Don’t.”
Balidor gave him a thin smile, even as he pulled on the backpack over his vest. He looped the leather strap attached to the M4 over his head as soon as he had, adjusting it so his hands were free around the backpack.
“I promised that fucker I’d see him dead,” Balidor said, making Tenzi flinch, right before his eyes widened. The surprise on the other man’s face almost made Balidor smile. “...I think I should keep my promise, don’t you, brothers?”
There was a pause while the other seers only looked at one another, where the only sound Balidor could hear was the siren exploding overhead. Then, after what seemed to be a communication of some kind, or maybe just an unspoken mutual agreement, they all looked back at Balidor. Holo was the first to grin at him.
“Understood, sir. We wouldn’t want to make a liar out of you,” he added.
“Indeed,” Balidor said, raising an eyebrow at the other three. “Start the evacuation. You heard the Sword...get as many of them to the airstrips as you possibly can.”
Vikram nodded, although his violet-colored eyes continued to look worried. He glanced back at the monitors, which now flashed the last few seconds of the warning prior to the drives and the network being purged. He looked back at Balidor.
“I’d like to look for her, sir...with your permission.”
Balidor felt his mouth tighten. “Dante?”
Vikram nodded. “If I could get a few of the others, could I––”
“I’ll go,” Tenzi interjected.
“I, as well,” Holo added, before Balidor could intervene.
Looking between the three of them, Balidor nodded, feeling something in his shoulders unclench. “How do you know I will not find the answer to that question upstairs?” he asked them, speaking loudly over the siren.
The three of them exchanged looks. Balidor saw them frown, and clicked to himself, probably inaudibly to the rest of them, given the volume of the alarms.
“Fine,” he said. “But only you, Vikram.” Balidor gave Tenzi and Holo hard looks. “I am sorry, but we need you here. You’re the only locals left who can help coordinate the evac for Deklan...I won’t leave that to Hondo and Fley to do on their own, especially since we don’t know Hondo’s status. Make sure Ullysa has what she needs...and the others. Use your contacts among the refugees. That has to be our priority.”
Balidor’s voice grew more warning.
“...And someone get a hold of Chandre. If Ditrini is here, I want to know why the hell she and Varlan didn’t warn us. I’d like to know if they’re in the city, as well.”
Holo nodded. “We’ll call in as soon as we hear anything.”
“Find Anale, too, sir,” Tenzi added, somewhat more awkwardly. “If you find the others, I mean. If they’re upstairs, with Ditrini, like you said...find Anale. Try to discern the truth about her before you do anything drastic, sir.” He flushed, his mouth firming briefly. “I don’t think she’s a traitor, sir...I just can’t believe it. I really can’t.”
Seeing the look on the other man’s face, Balidor nodded. He held up his fingers in the symbol of a promise, only thinking to hope afterwards that he didn’t end up regretting the promise, in the event it got him killed.
But he didn’t think about that for long, either.
Without trying to decide if he’d left anything unsaid, Balidor turned, walking rapidly towards the door to the corridor.
Once he’d left their makeshift control room, he broke into a jog.
He wove around the flow of seers from Arc Enterprise offices once he hit the main corridor, heading in the direction of the stairs even as most of the others made their way in the opposite direction, aiming their feet towards the elevators in the suite’s lobby. Balidor nodded to a few he recognized as he passed, almost smiling again when he saw a number of them step hurriedly aside, eyes widening when they saw him holding the M-4.
Balidor didn’t bother to explain to anyone what was going on. Arc Enterprise employees had been briefed on all of the contingencies, just like the seers and humans on the lists, as well as those in the refugee camps and their tattered band of cobbled together armies.
Anyway, they didn’t need the details.
Surely, they could surmise the overall gist.
Still jogging against the ti
de of suits and jeans and cloth and leather jackets aiming for the elevators, Balidor hung a sharp right at the appropriate branch of corridor and slid down a secondary hallway, a shortcut that led to where the private security staircase lived. He didn’t want to use the main stairwell unless he had to, meaning the regular stairs whose doors and landings were located by the elevators, installed in case of fire and whatever else. The security stairs went to all of the floors, including the roof, although Balidor would hit all of their own, meaning Adhipan, internal security measures along the way, too, unless those had been knocked out by the invaders already.
Reaching the door, he flipped up a small metal panel that had been designed to blend in with the wall, using a thumbnail switch and then a retinal scanner to gain access. Once the second panel opened to a DNA-encoded keyboard, Balidor punched through the code by memory and then stepped back, waiting for the lock to disengage.
He could only hope that whoever had come in via the roof didn’t know about the second set of stairs, which Wreg had arranged to sequester off from the others, with the help of Naldaran, the owner of the hotel, as well as Arc Enterprise engineers.
Even as he thought it, an audible click sounded even above the oscillating siren.
Balidor grabbed he door when it popped open a few inches, revealing an orange-lit corridor on the other side, about half the width of the main stairwell and with one-way organic panels on the two long windows that projected out from the building itself.
Balidor shut the door behind him sharply, then began to climb.
THEY’D ONLY BEEN walking for a few minutes––if that––but already, Jon could feel nerves and adrenaline twisting his insides so badly he walked strangely, even breathed strangely.
The corridor had grown darker in those few minutes, the shadows longer.
Jon knew they were close.
To what, he didn’t know, but he could feel the closeness, a near presence lurking somewhere just out of reach of his sight. He imagined he could feel Cass in that, but truthfully, he didn’t know that he did, really. He imagined he could feel Terian, too––not the Feigran version he’d spent so many afternoons keeping company in that cell in Nepal, or in the underground tank compound, or even in the upper floors of the House on the Hill hotel.
Allie's War Season Four Page 42