I didn’t look at him that time, just released his arm and walked directly to the end of the pier, where Jorag was already pulling the small motorboat against the wooden dock with his hands. Seeing me approach, he grinned at me from the dark, looking over my legs in the short dress as I approached him across the platform.
I didn’t walk away from Balidor as a screw you or anything. I just didn’t see the point of arguing with him, at least not then. So, yeah, I did the seer thing and walked away.
With seers, generally that was less of an aggressive move and more often meant that the person was just done talking, at least for the time being.
The thing is, though, he was wrong.
Balidor thought the problem was that I didn’t understand how they saw me. But I did understand. I understood just fine. I just didn’t happen to like it very much.
Increasingly, I also didn’t agree with it.
I just hadn’t decided exactly what I intended to do about that fact.
I WATCHED THE seer approach me through the dark, the wind whipping my untied hair around my face and shoulders. I felt her before I saw her, but I still fought with what I was going to do when she actually reached me.
Sighing even as I thought about it, I kicked my feet over the air past the railing. I already had a pretty good idea of why she was coming, even before I saw what she held in her hand. Smiling at me faintly in the dark, she stretched that same hand out to me with a bow.
“Comm for you, Esteemed Sister,” she said, her voice just audible above the wind.
Nodding, I smiled back at her, taking the headset from her with a “thank you” in seer sign language. I fitted it into my ear even as she turned around to walk away.
Leaning my forearms back on the railing, I activated the headset once it was in place.
He didn’t wait for me to speak.
“Where are you?” he said.
I heard the emotion in his voice and hesitated. Letting my eyes focus out over the dark water and the white curl of wake, I shrugged, leaning my chin on the cold metal.
“I’m out on the deck.”
Silence.
When I didn’t go on, he lowered his voice.
“You’re on the deck? In that dress?”
I smiled a little, clicking under my breath in spite of myself. Looking down at my boot-clad legs, I kicked my feet out over the water again, shrugging. “I have a jacket. I borrowed one of the Navy ones from a tower guard. You know, the down ones. It’s like wearing a sleeping bag.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, his voice a touch colder.
I’d known that, even without being able to feel his light, but I felt my jaw harden a little anyway. Even so, I couldn’t really think of what to say.
“Are you avoiding me?” he said. “Seriously?”
Exhaling in some frustration that time, I shook my head, but not really in a no. “I thought I should chill out a little,” I said after a pause. “Honestly, I figured you’d prefer that. I’m not avoiding you. There’s a difference.”
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, his voice holding more heat that time. “I would have gone in to see Lily for the two hours, if I’d known you weren’t coming down...you could have told me you weren’t coming.”
“I didn’t know. Honest. It was sort of a last-minute decision...”
I trailed, not sure what else to say.
He didn’t answer.
I couldn’t see him; he hadn’t switched on the avatar, much less the more-sophisticated VR program, probably because both ate up unnecessary bandwidth. I also couldn’t feel him, because he was in the tank, so I was completely cut off from his light. Vikram and his team of hacker-comp-geeks figured out how to link the comm through numerous reroutes into the tank via some magical interface Dante apparently pulled out of her ass, or I wouldn’t be able to talk to him at all while he was in there. Even so, I could tell I’d hurt his feelings.
I sighed again.
I knew he was stuck in there now, too, and that to some degree I was taking advantage of that fact. Two hours, minimum, like he said. Another security measure, and another way in which he had to live by the clock, just to keep Shadow from aiming a few satellite-guided missiles in our general direction.
I checked the timepiece via the headset’s VR and saw it had only been about forty minutes since he’d gotten back here, maybe fifty, depending on when he took off in the boat. He couldn’t go anywhere for at least another hour.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Come down here!” he said.
“Revik...”
“Please,” he said, subduing his voice. “Please, come down here. If you want to yell at me, then yell at me...I’d prefer that to this.”
“I don’t want to yell at you.”
“Then what? You’re obviously pissed off.”
I thought about that for a minute, too. Was I pissed off? Somehow, that didn’t feel like a good description for the emotion running through my light. Or it didn’t feel like very much of it, anyway, especially not anymore, since I’d come out here to sit. It took me a few more seconds to identify what it was, and then my frown deepened.
“I’m not pissed off,” I said.
“Then what, Allie?” When I didn’t answer him right away, he exhaled, sounding overtly frustrated. For a long moment, I could almost feel him dialing back his own reactions. The next time he spoke, his voice was carefully neutral.
“I’m still wearing the suit,” he said.
It took a few seconds for his words to penetrate.
Then I laughed.
“You are?”
“Yes.”
“And why is that, husband?”
I felt a smile in his words. “Why do you think? I was hoping you would take it off me.”
I laughed again. “You are impossible.”
“You’re really not mad at me?”
I shook my head, clicking a little. “Not really, no.”
“Then what? Why are you avoiding me?” His voice came out cajoling that time. I knew from his tone that if I could feel it, he’d be pulling on my light with his, too.
Behind that, I could almost feel him thinking, though. Or maybe I just knew him well enough by then that I could hear it in his voice, the endless multi-tasking he seemed to do out of habit, especially when something was bothering him.
“Are you jealous?” he said then.
He sounded openly surprised.
So surprised, I couldn’t help laughing again.
“This surprises you?” I said, my voice more teasing that time.
“Yes,” he said. The surprise lingered in his voice, even as I could hear that thoughtfulness there again, too. “I don’t think I’ve seen you jealous before,” he said.
I burst out in a real laugh that time.
“What? Are you joking?” I said. “I was jealous two hours ago.” At his silence, I reminded him, “Those girls in the pool...?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Um...Kat?” I said, feeling my jaw harden. “Shall I go on?”
“No,” he said. “Please don’t.” He clicked at me, louder that time. “Those times were different,” he said then, his voice gruff. “I’d actually done something. Or said something stupid. You’ve never gotten jealous of someone from my past before.” He paused, then amended his words. “Well. Not like this.”
I fought to see the distinction he was seeing, then gave up, shrugging it off.
“So you admit it,” I said, my voice faintly accusing.
“Admit what?” he said. “What wasn’t I admitting?”
“That you were involved with that guy. Dalejem.”
“Yes!” Revik said, his voice holding surprise again. “Yes, I was involved with him. It was over thirty years ago, Allie...and that didn’t strike me as a particularly big secret at this point. By the gods, if you hadn’t figured it out before you walked up on us, I knew you had once I saw you standing there. Why? Did he deny it or so
mething?”
“He said I should ask you,” I said.
I was frowning again, though, fighting to think through the open admission from Revik.
Granted, he was more open in general these days when I asked him about his life, providing I knew enough to ask, of course, but it still threw me off balance a little, maybe because I’d expected more of that weird caginess from the dock.
“So...what?” I said. “You were going to talk to me about it, then? When I went downstairs?”
“Of course!” he said, still sounding surprised. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know!” I said, throwing up my hands. “You and ‘Dori were both acting really fucking weird out there, you know? And, well, you’ve never even mentioned him before, Revik.” Thinking about that, I said, “...You’ve never mentioned any guy before.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?” he said. “That he’s male?”
“Not exactly...it’s just. I don’t know. It surprised me.”
Silence fell over the line again.
I looked out over the water, wishing suddenly that I could feel his light. The wind was getting colder, too. I found myself thinking that maybe I should just go down there. Before, it had seemed like the mature thing to do, to walk it off, spend some time thinking and pulling apart what was really bugging me, whether it was even real...preferably before I started yelling at Revik for no reason. Now I found myself looking at it from Revik’s point of view, and it looked a lot less mature and a lot more like avoiding, like he said.
But the truth was, I was calmer now, from sitting out here.
The ocean did calm me, and it somehow made me remember myself a little, too.
Hell, even Balidor suggested I “get some air” before going downstairs to talk to Revik. If it hadn’t been for him prodding me to take some alone-time, I probably would have stalled in one of the common rooms, or maybe in the CIC, going over intel.
I probably wouldn’t have thought to come out here, alone, in the freezing cold, even if the view was a lot better and the silence golden after all of the planning sessions of the past few weeks. But being alone, looking at the ocean, felt right to me, pretty much as soon as Balidor suggested it. It seemed less like keeping busy to avoid thinking versus purposefully taking time out to figure out what was going on with me.
Even apart from the op tonight, and the weirdness with Balidor and Revik and Dalejem and his “Children of the Bridge” crap...I’d had a lot on my mind.
The dreams were getting worse again, too.
“Come down here!” Revik burst out, his German accent thicker again. “Jesus, Alyson. This is driving me fucking crazy. Why are we talking about this like this? On a comm...where I can’t even feel your light?” He paused. “Do you really want to look at the ocean right now?”
Clicking a little, I shook my head, smiling in spite of myself.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do!” he said. “What are you afraid of? Do you think I’m going to say something awful to you on purpose...try to hurt your feelings? Come down here!” he said. “Be jealous around me...where I can reassure you!”
I laughed again. “Reassure me, huh?” I snorted, still smiling as I shook my head. “Why does that suddenly sound not very...reassuring?”
“Don’t be a chicken,” he said. I heard his accent strengthen again, even as his words grew more cajoling. “Come down here. I want to see my wife jealous. Wearing that fucking dress I’ve been wanting to rip off her body all night...”
“Revik,” I sighed. “You really are impossible. You know that?”
“I’m hanging up,” he said, his voice a warning. “Come down here. I mean it.”
I felt myself giving in, even before I nodded, shivering a little against the cold.
“Okay,” I began. “Just...”
But the line had already gone dead.
8
A PROBLEM OF LIGHT
“WE’VE BEEN RE-ROUTED,” Loki said.
Hefting his automatic rifle, an Israeli TAR-21, or Tavor, briefly on his shoulder as he adjusted his headset, he glanced over at Illeg, then at Jax, who stood on Illeg’s other side. Both of them crouched next to a brick wall, part of an alleyway lined with trash pretty much from one end to the other. Most of that trash had been picked over already, so consisted of a mishmash of broken glass, soggy paper, twisted metal, plastic, piss-soaked cardboard...and the remains of what had probably been food, now too rotten for even the truly desperate to eat, piled up against the base of the taller of the two brick buildings.
Loki could smell denser, rotting smells, too, and knew not all of that had been food. Whenever the wind changed, blowing north between the buildings, that rotting smell got exponentially worse.
Even most of the human remains got eaten by something, however.
Loki preferred to think most of those scavengers were dogs.
They were in what used to be the borough of Brooklyn in New York, not far from where it transformed into Queens. Now, those lines and names were next to meaningless.
New lines snaked around these buildings, half of which were already falling down, some from human hands tearing them apart, brick by brick...even more of them from waterline issues from the encroaching river and sea that spilled over the dykes and bulwarks that partly shielded Long Island. Those same dykes and energy fields had mostly been built to protect the wealthier island of Manhattan, but these parts used to have their high-income enclaves, too, and some of those had exerted the influence necessary to have shielding put around more than just the nearby international airport.
Loki knew that most of those fields had failed in the previous however-many months, too.
This whole area would be a saltwater swamp in not too long a time, if the weather continued going the way it was. The storms had worsened over the past few weeks as winter got its stride, exacerbating the problems with the land, as well as the divisions between those who ran these streets and those who simply survived them.
All in all, Loki would be very happy to leave this part of the world behind.
“Boss wants us to go to D.C. before we head back,” Loki said, finishing his thought as he glanced up and down the shadowed alley at the other seven seers on his team. His eyes avoided the single human who now accompanied them, too. “...Make our way to a new rendezvous,” he said. “South of here. There are things he wishes us to check before we leave land.”
“Boss?” Jax muttered. “Which one?”
His words came out half-humorous, a borderline joke, but Loki answered him unsmilingly.
“The Sword,” he said simply.
“What is in D.C.?” Illeg said, from Loki’s other side.
She jerked up her own rifle, copying Loki’s pose, only with an Belgian-made F2000. The gun had been modified, of course, like most of the guns they wore, mainly via organic components, but Loki had noted a few other toys on Illeg’s particular gun of choice, as well, including a higher-grade scope than what came standard.
“I haven’t looked at the encrypted files yet, sister,” Loki said, giving her a direct look, as he had with Jax. “...But Oli said the boss wants us to look for information on C2-77, as well as any other government disaster contingency planning we might find. There’s a bunker under the White House. He wants us to check there, since we’re so close. I was told that the Bridge was dreaming about it...among other things related to that storage area. From what Oli told me, she has concerns that something might be coming out of the remnants of the government here. Meaning the former United States...” he clarified.
There was a silence as his words sank in.
Then Illeg swore under her breath in Prexci.
“Oli’s broadcasting that shit over our military channel?” she said. “Maybe you need to give Oli a bit of a lesson on comm etiquette where the Bridge and Sword are concerned, brother...” Illeg added, her voice angrier still. “She must know those fuckers listen for any intel with her name attached. Especially o
ut here....and not only the humans wishing to blame her for C2-77. Prescient dreams? That fucker Shadow will eat that shit up, if he is listening!”
Loki gave her a grim look, but only nodded, once, seer-fashion.
“Agreed, sister,” he said.
He didn’t add that he’d already pinged Balidor with a text version of more or less that same thought.
Illeg must have caught some whisper of that on his light, because Loki saw her relax slightly, even as she gave him a satisfied nod. Her mouth still looked thinner than usual, Loki noted, but they’d all had a lot of reasons to be on edge out here.
Then again, maybe he’d been looking at female mouths a little too often, lately.
Even as Loki thought it, he found his eyes dropping down to his rifle, ensuring that it hadn’t gotten too gunked up in the raid. He knew that was just more distraction, too; he’d checked its workings scarcely five minutes earlier, when they first crouched here after Loki ordered them to halt, mainly to give his team a breather, but also to answer the ping from Oli.
Neither Oli nor Illeg were the females pulling at his light now, however.
Nor were either of them the reason he was having trouble concentrating.
Instead, it was the human woman who stood behind Illeg, who now crouched next to Holo, a wary look on her tanned face. Her closeness to the other male seer sent a ripple of near hostility through Loki’s light, forcing him to pull his light away from hers, even as he let himself notice he had let it creep back towards her in the first place.
He forced his mind off how they’d found her.
More than that, he fought not to think about what she’d looked like in that dank, filthy place, that room of stained mattresses and wires, that smelled of sex and sour sweat, mold from the monsoon rains, rotted food…and yes, sex. Even in that filthy, depressing den, his desire to fuck had flared high enough to nearly make his knees weak.
Even just a brief look at her now brought that denser pain back in a faint pulse.
He shouldn’t be thinking like this.
Allie's War Season Four Page 74