Allie's War Season Four

by JC Andrijeski

  That same woman half sat and half lay on the carpet between Stanley and Varlan’s feet. A collar circled her throat. Organic cuffs bound her wrists and ankles, but I doubted those would be much more than redundant for at least a few hours, too. Her brown eyes were closed, and I suspected they would be for awhile.

  She was the real reason the child in my arms looked afraid. She was the reason for the little girl tears, and the reason my child’s light remained closed to mine.

  I’d hit Cass pretty damned hard when I came through that door.

  Truthfully, I kind of thought I’d killed her.

  Well, in the beginning, anyway.

  Even now, so much light coiled and ran through my aleimic body, I felt strangely disconnected, almost floaty. Yet somehow, that weird clarity persisted, allowing me to think through all of that light, and to know exactly where I was, and what was happening, and how I got here, and what I’d done. I even knew exactly what needed to happen next...even if my own confidence on that score made me somewhat nervous, too.

  After all, I’d missed a lot, right? I mean, I’d been on, like, a serious sabbatical. Should I really be so sure of anything, given that I’d more or less been out of the picture for going on a half-year now? That struck me as pretty strange, if so.

  Across the room from me, Tarsi chuckled.

  I smiled back at her, then looked at Cass, and that smile turned back into a frown.

  I’m still not sure how it all went down, to be honest.

  I mean, I am. I know what happened.

  I was clear through all of it, so I could more-or-less document the facts, but I don’t know that I can say with much assurance that I was there for it, in the strictest sense. Well, I was there, but there was kind of a split awareness thing going on that’s harder to put into words, and that goes beyond any of the split-awareness type drills I did while working with Revik. I mean, I wasn’t there, and then I was only half there...and then I was really gone. Then, suddenly, I was back, only right now, in the beginning, I’m more like half there and moving again, only in a different way than before.

  This time, although I knew it was my body and everything, it all felt so weird...both strangely restrictive, yet a huge relief and familiar and kind of fun, too.

  Kind of like finding a favorite set of clothes you thought you’d never see again in a box in the back of a closet. You think they’re going to be trashed or no longer fit, but no, they fit just like you remembered, and they still feel good...maybe better, since you appreciate them more now. They also look more or less like you remembered, too, no major holes or rips or whatever else.

  I know, crappy analogy.

  I feel like I should understand this better, or explain it better, maybe.

  Tarsi told me a few things, but she didn’t need to tell me much.

  I knew the facts already, like I said.

  I couldn’t explain how I knew them, but I knew them, and I even understood that I was kind of in a high place, acting strange to all of them, but I didn’t bother trying to change that, either...at least not until we got my baby back and Revik and dealt with the immediate problems we were facing.

  So yeah, I knew the basics.

  I figured Tarsi and Chan would fill me in on the rest.

  We’d gone upstairs, bypassing the Tower’s main office complex to reach some of the high-end apartments sandwiched between those and the tech giants whose suites stood on the upper floors. Okay, so I got that part pretty well. Shadow set up some kind of funhouse bunker in the basement, and used that and our kid to lure Revik below ground. Got that part, too. Apparently, Shadow built everything up that way on purpose, making Revik and Balidor and the others believe that everything important was located or happening downstairs. They did that by covering the lower six or seven sub-basement floors in a few hundred different constructs, then littering the architecture with confusing traps and mazes and whatever else.

  Meanwhile, Tarsi knew our child would be upstairs.

  Well, she claimed that I knew it, and that I told her where to go. But really, that’s part of the less-clear part, and I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway.

  Either way, when we reached the correct apartment in that hallway on forty-two, I felt it. I felt it really strongly. I could feel Cass by then, too.

  Cass had our baby.

  She was up there, waiting for Menlim’s people to collect Revik alive downstairs. Then she would travel down, by elevator or whatever else, and join them on the lower floors.

  All of that made sense, really, too.

  They’d only put about five humans with Cass to guard the place, using the complete invisibility of their presence there as their primary defense. No constructs to speak of guarded the door, nothing but a basic link to the main construct downstairs, as well as the larger one over Manhattan proper. No one would believe anything important could be housed there, given the utter lack of defense. No one would even think to look for her on such an obscure floor, that wasn’t particularly near either the roof or the lobby or the basement exits.

  The baby herself (oh my gods, she is so adorable, every time I look at her I just see Revik and I just want to squeeze her and it is the most amazing and beautiful thing)...our child was inside, in an OBE-protected crib.

  Our daughter’s light was tied into the construct that Shadow built, not only over the Tower, but over Manhattan itself and I could feel Revik wrapped into that construct now, too...and Cass herself, and even Maygar, probably from when he’d been a captive in Shadow’s hideout in South America. Strangely, though, I didn’t feel Cass or Terian as pillars in that construct, only Maygar and the baby...and Revik significantly more than anyone else, probably due to the exponentially more developed structures he carried, and his far higher ‘actual’ scores for telekinesis.

  They’d used those structures somehow, as a link between the Barrier and the physical world, which makes sense, since Revik told me once that Elaerian constituted a link between the Barrier and the physical world already...that it was our purpose, really.

  So yeah, Revik was the hidden link, the one he and Wreg and Balidor had tried so hard to find. It all made sense. I knew it would infuriate Revik, but it all made sense.

  It could also wait, at least in terms of right now.

  The important part was that Menlim had Revik in the basement, and we were upstairs with the baby. The important part was having Cass neutralized now (thank goodness) and only Shadow and the others to deal with so we could get Revik and Maygar and Jon and Wreg and the rest of them out of here all in one piece before Balidor decided to blow up the building with us inside it. So yeah. Sigh.

  I’m kind of looping on this, aren’t I?

  Did I mention I feel pretty weird?

  It feels pretty weird to keep calling her ‘the baby,’ too. I’m not sure what else to call her yet, or even if I should be coming up with nicknames...without Revik, that is. Of course, I’ll definitely have to wait until I talk to Revik before coming up with any kind of ‘official’ name, but even a nickname feels weird, under the circumstances. Maybe I could call her ‘Mishka’ for now, like Varlan did when he first looked at her...or maybe ask Chandre what the word for ‘baby’ is in Arabic or Hindi...at least in Prexci?

  Ah, wait. I know that.

  Lilai’i is baby in Prexci.

  I remember Revik using that word when talking about Sikkim.

  He’d been upset, talking about all the lilai’i he’d seen, their poor skulls and bones broken and burned on the ground and how awful it had been. That had been our wedding night, and he’d been so devastated at what he’d done as that boy locked in the tower. We’d both been high as kites then, too, from Tarsi’s crazy wedding cakes, but Revik had been genuinely upset when he told me about it. He’d thought he was helping those children at the time, though...saving them, really.

  Saving them. Yes...setting them free.

  It had been an act of love, albeit a misguided one.

  So I’ll call her that for
now. Lilai’i. Or maybe just...Lilai. That shouldn’t bother him, not if it’s a purely temporary, expediency thing. I mean, it’s weird to call your own child ‘baby’ after a certain point, isn’t it? Although I guess I was doing that anyway, just in a different language. Still, it felt different. Or sounded different to me, anyway, in my head.

  So, Cass.

  Yeah, I hit her pretty hard.

  I don’t think I was angry or anything.

  Honestly, I might have been overcompensating. I remembered how she’d been telekinetic on that rooftop of the House on the Hill hotel, and yeah, I guess I just didn’t want to take any chances. So I pretty much knocked her out, and then, just to be safe, I broke most of the structures I could see over her head that she used for telekinesis.

  Tarsi seemed to think it was a good idea. And yeah, I was feeling pretty weird by then with all of the light, and then getting to pick up little Lilai by then, and calm her down because the only real mother she’d known by then was Cass so she was screaming at the top of her lungs and I was worried I’d just really traumatized her.

  Now Lilai stayed with me, though.

  She sat in my arms, looking at me pretty warily, but I can tell she’s not afraid, per se. There’s all kinds of ungodly crap in her light. It’s a real mess and even Tarsi says we’re going to have to use something Balidor’s been building to keep her shielded from the Dreng while we work to fix it. And yeah, while we escape. Because even if we knock out what’s left of their construct and everything over the hotel, I know who I’m dealing with now in Shadow.

  I know who he is––or, more accurately, what it is––and I know I won’t be able to kill him, at least not the way Revik and I talked about killing him before.

  The construct that lived over Manhattan twitched more than a little when we knocked Cass out, especially after Dante dismantled the OBE over baby Lilai’s crib...so I had to assume either Shadow is sending people up here to stop us taking the child, or he’s already on the run. Since between me and Tarsi, we’ve pretty much hacked that construct to shit (pardon my language, little Lilai) with the child out of the game, we need to assume they’ll try to take Revik.

  So yeah, I really need to get downstairs.

  “Bridge!”

  I snapped out, realizing I’d been in the Barrier only then.

  I turned to look at Tarsi, since it had been her who spoke. Adjusting Lilai on my hip, I gave the little girl a brief smile, and she smiled back at me, shyly, but she still looked mostly confused and wary. I could tell she hadn’t figured out if I was the bad guy yet, but that was okay. I mean, why wouldn’t she think I was pretty strange, given what I’d just done?

  “Bridge?” Tarsi said, her voice more subdued. “You with us, sister? We not done here yet...still have work to do. Yes? Or you wanting to leave your husband behind?” she added, her voice more caustic. “Tired of him, maybe?”

  I laughed, bouncing Lilai a little on my hip. “Not particularly, no,” I said, speaking the words with light. I blew that light in soft kisses aimed at Lilai. She blinked a little from the blown light, then sneezed, still looking at me with confusion in her pale eyes, gripping my shirt in her pudgy hands, her own aleimi still retracted and tense.

  “We await your command, Esteemed One,” Varlan said, his voice considerably more polite than Tarsi’s had been.

  “Okay, well.” I exhaled, looking at Cass. I knew what came next, maybe I was just gearing up to it. Even so, I spoke fast, without taking a lot of breaths.

  “Varlan, I want you, Stanley, Chan, and Dante with me.” I looked at the others. “Tarsi, Rig, Vikram, Yarli, Anale...take little Lilai to the rendezvous point. Take Cass with you, too...keep the collar on her.”

  Tarsi rolled her eyes. “You gonna tell us to remember to breathe, too, Esteemed Know-It-All?”

  I grinned at her, then motioned my head towards the door.

  “Get going,” I said. “Your escort’s waiting for you in the lobby.”

  “Escort?” Chandre muttered.

  I looked at her, blinked. Then I remembered I had forgotten to say that part out loud. “Yeah,” I said, bouncing Lilai again. “Maygar. Jon. Wreg. Neela. Loki, Pagoj...” I trailed, sending her the rest of the faces and names in a dense image to save time. “They’re heading for the lobby now. I told them you’d be coming. Loki’s team will go with you to the transport with Lilai. I might keep a few of the others with me.”

  I started to walk towards the door.

  “Wait...Bridge!” Chandre shook her braids when I turned, holding up one reddish-brown hand in a signal of confusion. “If they are already coming up, then where are we going?”

  I blinked at her, then looked at Varlan, then Anale, before looking back at Chandre.

  “We’re going to get Revik,” I said, frowning. “Weren’t you listening?”

  Chandre stared at me.

  Varlan, Stanley and Anale inexplicably laughed.

  I was still looking around at all of them, trying to decide if I got the joke, when Vikram came up behind me, clapping me on the back. I still stood there, holding Lilai in my arms, when they all seemed to approach me at once, throwing their arms around me. I grinned, unable to help it, as I was enveloped with warm limbs, feeling fingers pat my hair and my shoulder, squeezing my arms and back. When we came out of the impromptu group hug, everyone was grinning at me, and most of them had tears in their eyes, even Chandre, who continued to look at my face as if some part of her just couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  “Okay. Are we ready then?” I said. “We need to move fast now, okay?”

  I handed the child reluctantly to Anale, who looked delighted to be able to hold her.

  “Yes, Esteemed Bridge!” at least five voices said at once.

  Including Dante, who stood right by my ear.

  That time, when I laughed, all of them laughed with me...even Chandre. Even so, when I turned to look at the muscular infiltrator next, while we were already walking fast for the door and the hallway beyond, I could still see that pained, almost hurt look somewhere in the back of Chan’s dark red eyes as she stared at my face.

  She looked confused, wary, scared maybe.

  She looked at me almost like she couldn’t be sure if she trusted me.

  Seeing that denser look in Chandre’s eyes brought the first shiver of nervousness to my light as I thought about the others...Jon and Wreg and Balidor and the rest of them, and how they might react to seeing me, too.

  Most of all, though, I thought about Revik.

  25

  HUSH

  REVIK FELT SICK. Pain wracked his body, more than he could deal with.

  More than he could think past.

  Nothing felt real anymore. Nothing. He couldn’t decide anything about what he’d felt in those few minutes before they’d finally brought him down. He’d watched them locking cuffs on his wrists, numb, unable to think past the reality as it happened.

  He found himself fighting that feeling that he’d been tricked, that they’d been fucking with his head again, just to get him to lower his guard, to get him to stop fighting. He’d stupidly fallen for it...like he always fell for it. As always, Menlim honed in on his weak points with a laser-like precision, once he tired of screwing around with his charge.

  Revik was their pillar down here.

  The thought repeated in his mind.

  They’d been using him, just like they always used him. They hadn’t even bothered to drug him, or take him down physically. They’d gotten him to go down on his own, using his heart against him, his light, just like they’d always done.

  He felt broken...but he was angry, too.

  He was really fucking angry.

  He didn’t think, though, not really. He felt like he’d defaulted to where his mind went as a child, those secret compartments he built in those years where even Menlim couldn’t reach him. They barely constituted places of thought at all. Instead, he floated there, his mind doing sums, working through more complex probl
ems, counting ceiling tiles, flecks of dust, colors in the patterned carpet, anything to drown out those whispers in the background, the ones that lived and vibrated somewhere high up in the structures and threads of his telekinesis...although he hadn’t known it then.

  He hadn’t known those places were the very thing Menlim wanted, the same thing everyone wanted from him, craved from him, stole and cheated and robbed him of, pretty much since he’d been exposed to anyone outside his immediate family.

  It had always been that way, until Vash.

  It had been that way again, until Allie.

  He felt like his life consisted of a series of pits he dug himself out of, using his bare hands, his broken hands at times, his torn fingernails and skin ripped down to the bone.

  She’d promised she wouldn’t take his child from him.

  Had that been Cass talking again?

  Cass fucking with his head, trying to climb inside of him, to aid Menlim in his fucked up goals? He knew, by now, that Menlim had some idea that he could keep Revik alive without Allie, that he could bind Revik to the very fabric of the remaining Four here on Earth, use them to keep him at least physically alive through structures that had been built into the foundations of who he was. He knew that they’d kept him tied into them, into the construct, for that very reason, as soon as they decided to get rid of Allie.

  Revik knew a lot, really, now that he knew where he connected to them.

  Like the Head of some fucked up network, he could see all the way down and through, from the highest, most intimate part of his light, and he didn’t even know if they could see him doing it, given that the whole reason they’d chosen him for this role was that he had structures none of them shared, that none of them could even touch.

  Only Allie could touch him there.

  Only Allie...and Allie was gone.

  They’d done all of this...all of it...just so they could take her from him.

  They’d lured him to New York so they could take her from him.

  He could even feel, from that high up place, that they hoped he would bond with Cass and Terian well enough to forget about Allie entirely, begin to build a new life without her. They thought that the love of his child, love of Maygar, would be enough to cement him to the rest.