“Can you feel them?” I asked, my voice quieter. “Or are they already out of range?”
“I feel a shield,” he said, after a pause. “It’s probably them.”
I nodded at the snapshot he sent me.
“They’ve already gone down a few floors,” I muttered. “Elevator?”
“Probably.”
Pulling off one of the jewels on my necklace, I sent an impulse to it, transforming the organic material into an earpiece. I handed a second jewel to Revik even as I fitted the first one into my ear with my free hand.
“I still wish I had a gun,” I grumbled.
Revik chuckled, sending me a pulse of warmth. “I’m a bad influence on you,” he said.
I switched the comm to the frequency Balidor gave me before we left. I didn’t bother with a greeting when I heard him pick up.
“Did I piss you off or something, ‘Dor?” I said, using the subvocals. “Or did you really just let the head of your military arm shoot at us? With a cannon?”
Balidor chuckled. “Is he my head then, Esteemed Bridge? You might want to tell him that, if so...preferrably when I’m not around.”
In the background, I heard automatic gunfire.
“Everything cool on your end?” I asked.
“If that was an inquiry after my health, we are all very good here, Esteemed Bridge, thank you for asking.” He added, “Have you spoken to Jon?”
I shook my head. “No. Are they okay? Him and Maygar?” I glanced at Revik. “They know who Maygar is, ‘Dor. Revik felt it on that dugra-te di aros, Dulgar...”
Balidor hesitated, and I felt his light hedging slightly.
“We have people heading their way...” he began.
As if feeling my tension ratchet up, Balidor continued without changing tone.
“...He is fine, sister...and well-fortified already. He has most of our best infiltrators with him...including Jorag, Chinja and Hondo.” He hesitated again. “Frankly, we are more worried about there being agents here, and what they might do when Jon starts approaching numbers on the Displacement Lists. I would prefer if he had more backup for that contingency...to protect the humans, in particular...” Pausing, he added, “Where are you and your husband right now, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“In a hidden passageway, northeast corner of the terrace you hit.”
“Erm....why, exactly, Esteemed Bridge?” he said politely.
I rolled my eyes, clicking. “We need Dulgar. We need to know who he sold those seers to. It looks like he sold all of them, ‘Dori. Revik thinks they’re headed to the Middle East...”
“So probably Dubai,” Balidor mused.
I heard another cluster of automatic weapon fire.
“All right,” he said. “I see your logic. But come to the casino when you are finished, if you don’t mind...I will do my utmost to meet you there before the clock runs down on our Elaerian brother being out of his cage...”
Glancing at Revik, I gave him an apologetic eye-roll. “Understood,” I said. Remembering the bracelet then, I frowned. “Oh, and, FYI...they could also have more contacts in Hong Kong than Dulgar was saying. Which maybe connects to the Dubai thing, too. Either way, we need to intercept them before they get there. We’re not ready to breach a Shadow city.”
Feeling a sharper pulse of agreement from Revik, I glanced at him, relaxing a little in spite of myself. I felt Balidor conceding to my words, too, on the other end.
“Then you think this was a ruse on their part?” he said finally. “That they may have some agreement in place with Shadow already?”
“I think it’s possible...” I began.
We need to hurry up, Allie, Revik sent to me, pinging me with his light.
Feeling the clock ticking down in his aleimi, along with his worry about our daughter, I nodded, giving Revik a grim look.
“Look,” I said to Balidor. “We have to go...but we’ll try to do this fast. In the meantime, help Jon and Maygar...and for the gods’ sakes...don’t let them either of them be taken hostage. They must know that Elaerian can reproduce with other seers. Maygar’s probably a target.”
Revik sent me another hard pulse of agreement, that one containing worry.
I fought a smile, realizing he was worried about his son. A few years ago, he would have reacted to the thought of Maygar being in danger very differently.
“...We’ll get there as soon as we can,” I finished.
Revik pushed harder at my light.
“Okay, signing off,” I said, clicking off the comm even as I said it.
I focused my light back on Revik’s right as he stopped in front of a blank section of wall. The wall was featureless, totally without any kind of markings or indentations or symbols, but as I watched Revik run his hands over the outside, I realized I could see what he saw. The outlines were faint, but grew more visible the longer I scanned.
“Elevator?” I said.
Revik nodded. He walked to a specific section of that wall then, and placed his hand flatly against the surface, right about at waist-height.
Surprising both of us, the panel let out a low tone at once.
No additional security. Just the weird invisible elevator in the wall.
The two of us stood there, watching as a number appeared, not far from the ceiling. Below that number, the faint outline of double doors appeared, too. I watched as the number went from a blue four to a blue three then a blue two and a blue one...
“Sub-basement?” I asked him.
Revik glanced at me. “Maybe a key code inside?”
I frowned, glancing up and down the empty corridor, squinting against the flashing orange lights. “Or maybe not. They don’t seem to have expected most people to get this far...” I looked back at Revik. “Did you check out the organics?”
Revik’s eyes showed a flicker of surprise, coupled with understanding as he looked at the doors. In the same instant, I realized what had surprised him. Despite the morphing material, I didn’t feel any organics there. It was some kind of synthetic, sure, but wholly dead metal.
Revik touched it wonderingly with one hand.
“Seer-proof...” he muttered.
I smirked. “Just not ‘us’-proof.”
Revik only smiled, still scanning the mechanism.
But I understood now. That elevator, being made of dead metal, would be totally invisible to an ordinary seer. Normal seers couldn’t see purely material objects from the Barrier. Even an organic emitted a rudimentary life force. Dead-metal, like this, didn’t.
But Revik and I were different.
“They still might have a passcode inside, wife,” he reminded me.
I nodded, still watching the numbers, which were now shining a light orange color from the wall, and going up instead of down.
Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-one...
Revik took my arm, pulling me to one side of the doors, and out of direct view of whatever might be inside when they opened. I followed him without protest. It had occurred to me, too, that the elevator might not be empty when it reached us.
Even as I thought it, Revik shifted his weight on his feet, staring up at the changing numbers. I could feel him charging up the telekinesis again.
Twenty-six, Twenty-seven, Twenty-eight...
“I can feel seven,” he muttered.
I nodded to that, too, seeing the snapshot through his light.
“Now I bet you wish we had a gun...” I muttered.
He smiled next to me, but his eyes never left the numbers.
Thirty-one, Thirty-two...
The ping went off, and I tensed, even as Revik’s light snaked out. I felt all seven of them fall simultaneously to the carpeted floor of the elevator, even as the doors opened.
“Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” I remarked.
Revik shrugged. “Different shielding.” He motioned towards the ceiling vaguely with his fingers. “Once I knew I could knock them out, I decided to wait. I thought it might buy us some t
ime. You know...in case they have cameras.”
I grabbed his arm when he started to walk around to the opening in the elevator doors.
“Be careful!” I said.
He looked at me, directly that time. Before I could say anything else, he leaned closer, kissing me on the mouth. He sent a dense heat with the kiss, enough to catch my breath. Then he turned, still holding my wrist as he peered around the doors.
He sent me a reassuring ping a half-second later.
Come on, he sent. We don’t have much time.
I nodded to his words. I could feel that, too.
Dulgar and his people were on the move again.
Following Revik onto the elevator car, I only grimaced a little as I stepped around the bodies of the seven seer and human guards who decorated the elevator car floor. I had to work a bit to find room to stand with the high heels, even as Revik leaned over the interior panel, punching in the blue button for sub-basement five, at the very bottom.
Once he had, Revik smiled at me again.
“We have guns now,” he observed, motioning to the bodies of the fallen guards, and the automatic rifles and sidearms they carried.
I snorted, unable to help it.
Releasing my wrist, he crouched down, flipping open the suit jacket of one of the fallen guards. I watched as he unsnapped a side holster and pulled out a handgun, what looked like a modified M1911, with at least some organic components. He handed it wordlessly to me, even as he opened the jacket of another of them, pulling out a gun for himself.
I hesitated, looking at one of the automatic rifles...then let it go. I didn’t want anything that bulky, either. Those damned things had a hell of a kick, and I was still doing all of this in six-inch heels. I watched Revik check the magazine then the chamber on the Berretta M9 he’d procured for himself.
“Local, do you think?” Revik inquired, snapping the magazine back in.
I shrugged. “Looks like they ripped off a military supply station.”
Revik grunted a laugh, then rose gracefully back to his feet.
Both of us watched the numbers as they continued to grow smaller.
5
THE WRONG PLACE
JON FROWNED, STRUGGLING to find words as he looked at the blank-eyed row of humans standing in front of him.
Well, not blank-eyed...not exactly.
It was more like they looked at him like he was a potential serial killer.
It probably didn’t help that Chinja was standing next to him with her weird gold eyes, or that all of the seers with the exception of Jon and Maygar themselves, who came in here earlier and wore civilian clothes, wore full body armor. Now all of them, with the exception of Jon, also carried automatic weapons. Most of those were menacing-looking black and dark-green rifles loaded up on previously-illegal organics.
Well, and really, technically, those organics were probably currently illegal, too. But Jon doubted anyone bothered to enforce those bans outside of Shadow-run cities.
Inside those cities, he’d heard gun bans were strictly enforced. As in, no one was allowed to have guns outside of military and law enforcement. Whatever the rhetoric, and whatever Jon’s previous views on the benefits of gun control, he knew the motives for those particular laws weren’t exactly about peace, love and good will towards men.
Anyway, Jon could tell, mostly by catching stray thoughts, that at least two of the humans standing before him knew his face.
Both of those who did recognize him envisioned him with a giant, neon-yellow “terrorist” stamp under his portrait, presumably from official feed broadcasts. Jon knew the likely source of that came from Shadow, too, via hysterical news reports by the remaining human stations, most of which were also controlled by Shadow these days.
“Look,” Jon said, clearing his throat.
He felt an amused whisper of light from Chinja, and even from Vikram.
“...I know this is a lot to take in,” he said, motioning vaguely with one hand. “But there are people out there...seers and humans...who will try to kill you. Now, that is. Now that we’ve ID’d you as belonging to this list I was telling you about.”
The group just stood there, blinking under the yellowish casino lights. Hesitating when a young-looking, maybe early-to-mid-twenties black woman frowned at him overtly, glancing at her companion, an Asian man who was probably Chinese from Hong Kong, or one of the other nearby states, Jon took another breath.
“We didn’t mean to put you in danger...” he began.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Maygar burst out.
Before Jon could turn around, he felt the light around him shift abruptly.
Then, in what felt like a single heartbeat, all of the humans standing in front of him went completely blank-faced. Their pupils retracted to pin-pricks in the same set of seconds, even as their jaws appeared to loosen in their faces. Pretty soon, they just swayed there on their feet, blinking, their faces uniformly slack, their expressions serene.
Jon stared at them, one by one, in disbelief.
Then he whirled on the muscular seer. Maygar met his gaze unapologetically, wearing a fitted, dark-gray suit.
“What did you just do?” Jon snapped. Realizing, mid-sentence, what a dumb question that was, he switched tracks, feeling his face flush hotter. “Jesus. What the hell is the matter with you, Maygar? Are you mentally damaged in some way?”
Maygar gave him an equally incredulous stare. “What’s the matter with me?” he said, gesturing sharply at the slow-blinking, slack-jawed humans with one hand. “Gods, Jon...that was about twenty minutes overdue!”
Next to him, Jax let out a snort, covering his mouth.
Clicking loudly, Maygar pitched his voice upward, mocking and imitating Jon’s voice with an exaggerated lilt. “Um, yeah, okay...see, we’re, like, terrorists, you know? And like, this disease? The one that killed everyone you ever loved and destroyed your entire civilization? Yeah. That one. Well, I know you think we used it to kill all the humans...but you know, we didn’t. Even though all of the human news stations say we did. They’re just, you know...lying. We’re really the good guys, I swear. But we’re going to kidnap you now, okay? How are you all feeling about that...? Is that good for you? Do you have any questions?”
Next to him, Chinja burst out in an involuntary laugh, too.
Even Yumi cracked a smile, although she covered it with one hand, giving Jon an apologetic look and a hand wave.
“Fuck you,” Jon said, looking back at Maygar. “They have a right to know something, before we––
“Why, in the name of the gods?” Maygar said, throwing up his hands. His arm knocked into the gun he wore, which looked strangely compatible with the aforementioned suit. “What difference does it make? You’re just going to make their brains explode!”
“We can’t just kidnap them.”
“But that’s exactly what we’re doing!” Maygar snapped. “No amount of sugar-coating will change that! We know it will save their lives, but do not expect them to understand that...not now, and certainly not here. It is far better to bring them on the ship, to explain things to them there. It will give them other humans to talk to, people they will trust far more easily than any of us. People who might just convince them we are not the ogres they have heard...”
“Says who?” Jon said. “Do I answer to you now? Because if so, I didn’t get the memo...”
“Says my dad,” Maygar growled. “And you know it!”
There was a silence.
Mostly because Jon was briefly shocked wordless.
He couldn’t believe Maygar just called Revik “dad.”
Clicking softly, Jon scowled then, looking at the humans swaying on their feet in that small section of carpet, then at the small ring of seers who stood to either side of him and Maygar. Jorag gave him a questioning look then. Reading the request in his light, Jon gestured an affirmative, even if he scowled as he did it.
Immediately, Jorag and a bunch of the other seers moved forward. W
ithin seconds, they were leading the humans towards the exit nearest to the outside pier, assigning at least one seer to each human to make sure they made it safely to the dock and the waiting boats.
Jon gritted his teeth as he watched them go.
At a base level, he knew Maygar was right, but he didn’t have to like it.
“We could treat them like people,” he muttered. “Not like assets. Not all the time.”
“Oh, grow up!” Maygar snapped. “This is a military operation! Gaos you are a youngster.”
Jon stared at him incredulously. “I’m like...a year younger than you, dickhead. In seer age, that’s like, I don’t know...a month!”
Yumi gave Maygar a wry smile. “He’s got you there, baby Syrimne...”
Maygar scowled at Yumi, then deliberately blew past her actual words. Looking at Jon, he put his hands on his hips, clicking under his breath.
“How many more are here from this dugra a’kitre list of yours?” he said then, his voice gruff. When Jon didn’t answer right away, Maygar gave a light shove to his shoulder, motioning the same question with one hand. “...Brother? What are we doing here? Are we finished? Or do we go upstairs now?”
“Oh, I’m brother now?” Jon grumbled. “Not worm-boy?”
“Just answer the damned question!”
The truth was, Jon was already trying to answer Maygar’s question.
He looked out over the casino itself, which had already been mostly evacuated by the breach alarms. Blackjack tables stood with cards spread messily over the green felt. The slot machines stood silent under the high lights, looking strangely dead without anyone standing in front of them. Only a wall-height monitor continued to emit sound in periodic bursts, mostly showing off various tourist attractions in the resort and the surrounding city.
Jon found himself wondering where all of the people had gone, but could only feel the answer to that question in strange pulses through the mobile construct they all shared. He knew Allie supposedly knocked out the mafia’s primary construct, which might be making it harder to feel what was going on inside the building, too.
He felt a lot of the humans had retreated to their private rooms inside the resort, however.
Allie's War Season Four Page 69