Maybe I believed them these days, more than I admitted to myself.
Not just Revik, but...
...All of them. Maybe I really thought of myself as the Bridge now, more than I thought of myself as Allie Taylor.
I could almost feel that part of me now. I could feel it wanting to call the shots.
And once I admitted that much, I knew it wasn’t Allie who wouldn’t kill her.
It was the Bridge who wanted her alive.
That same Bridge part of me, the part of me that Vash always exhorted me to trust, to pay attention to, even when what it wanted or demanded made absolutely no sense––that part of me wanted Cass alive. And whatever its reasoning, I distinctly got the feeling that sentimentality had absolutely nothing to do with it.
“I’m repeating the order,” I told Revik. “Don’t make me repeat it again.”
I noticed the emotion in my voice was gone that time.
It was just...gone.
Revik must have heard that, too. When he glared up at the camera that time, the fury in his eyes abruptly turned colder. He turned, though, lowering the gun even as Raddi finally spun the locks open on the door. It occurred to me only then that he’d evaded my order until now, presumably to give Revik time to finish the job.
When I glanced at Balidor, I saw caution in the middle-aged seer’s eyes.
He reverted to a more relaxed stance as I watched, his face and gray eyes nearly blank as he combed a hand through his chestnut-colored hair. I could feel nerves on him though, even as my eyes slid past him, focusing briefly on Wreg, and then on Jon. It wasn’t until then, seeing the reflection in their more expressive eyes, that I realized my own irises were glowing.
“We’re done in here,” I told them. I looked once, sharply, at Raddi. “I want him relieved,” I told Wreg. “...And demoted. He’s not to work this station again.”
I saw Jon flinch, right before he glanced at Raddi, too.
Wreg only nodded, though, raising his hand in the respectful sign of the Bridge.
“As you command, Esteemed Sister,” he said.
I felt my jaw harden when I felt the ripple of his words throughout the room.
I know it sounds weird, but it hadn’t occurred to me until that exact moment what had just happened. I’d just pulled rank.
I’d just quelled what could be called a mini-rebellion, too.
A rebellion led by my own husband.
Even as I thought it, Revik exited through the open door. He only stood there, staring at me, his eyes still holding that colder anger as he refused to lower his gaze. I saw Raddi turning the wheel to shut the locks on the heavy door in my peripheral vision, caught the flavor of anger in Raddi’s light at what I’d just said to Wreg.
My attention never really wavered from Revik, though.
Motioning with my head towards the corridor leading to the tank compartment we shared, I spoke almost before I knew I meant to, still using the voice of the Bridge, not so much the one of Allie, his wife.
“You’re confined to quarters,” I told him. “That’s an order, too.”
There was a silence.
That time, it settled over the entire security station.
I didn’t look at the others, but I felt their reaction, almost like an inhaled breath. The person I felt the strongest was Jon, and not only because of the connection we still shared. Shock expanded off his light in a cloud, along with what might have been fear.
I didn’t look at him, though, or at any of them. I keep my eyes solely on Revik.
I saw Revik’s eyes flicker in what might have been surprise after I spoke, but that look was gone so fast I can’t truthfully say I even saw it...although I may have felt it shiver through his light before it dissipated. Surprise certainly wasn’t the look his expression settled into by the time I could make sense of the emotion in his eyes, or put a name to it.
I found myself flashing to a conversation we’d had in another hangar once, back in the rebel base in those mountains. It was probably the last time I saw something similar to that exact look in his eyes. I watched as he weighed me as an opponent, not as his wife. The look there bordered on detached in those few seconds...borderline clinical...but I felt the emotional undercurrent to it, too, even as it grew increasingly distant from his actual appraisal.
In some ways, that look scared me more now, and not only because I could see the man I loved in it fully this time. The Dreng didn’t color the way he saw me. Nor did Salinse, nor Menlim, nor anyone else. He knew me in that stare, and I watched as he stripped away the emotion from his thoughts, replacing all of it with logic, with a strategic distance hovering alone on the surface of his clear eyes.
I felt my jaw harden as I returned that look.
I didn’t avert my gaze, however.
Eventually, he did.
He bowed to me in the same handful of seconds, lowering his head deliberately and making the sign of the Bridge with one hand. He executed the salute flawlessly, without a whisper of sarcasm or rebellion...or even irony inherent in the gesture...but I didn’t miss the flavor that wafted off his light, nor did any of the seers in that station.
Every one of them backed hastily from his path, the instant he began walking towards the door to our shared cell. They moved hurriedly, in a near-panic...and that time, I felt the fear on all of them, not only on Jon. I clamped down my own whisper of nerves as I watched him go, using the stronger currents of anger to tamp them down where he wouldn’t feel them.
Oh, we’d be having words all right.
Indeed we would.
But I had a few other things I needed to take care of, first.
I DIDN’T FACE the rest of them until the door had been cycled shut behind my husband’s retreating form.
When I did, I refused to flinch under their collective stares.
I could see Jon and Wreg...and even Balidor...looking at the door of the tank with their jaws nearly hanging, but none of them made so much as a sound when they shifted their gazes back to me. The seers who remained in the security station stared at me, too.
Realizing I wouldn’t be able to talk to them here, even if I wasn’t getting death stares from Raddi and Oli from the doorway of the security station, I looked at Balidor, feeling my expression harden when I caught him looking at me, too, an open worry in his chiseled features, a worry even more prominently reflected in his light gray eyes.
“Is there a place we can talk?” I said. I looked at Wreg and Jon, then back at Balidor and Chandre. “You four. I want to talk to you. Now.”
All four of them seemed to shift uncomfortably, exchanging looks that infuriated me, if only because I could so easily read behind them.
They thought I was acting irrationally.
They were expecting some kind of blow-out fight between Revik and me that might set the ship on fire, and they didn’t want to be in the middle of it. They assumed whatever I wanted to talk about would involve me asking for their help in controlling Revik, or putting Revik in restraints in some way, or even trying to get them “on my side” in whatever confrontation between us they expected to follow. While I couldn’t entirely discount their fears that Revik and I might blow up the ship, the rest of their assumptions infuriated me.
Truthfully, they infuriated me a lot more than Revik had, and more than Raddi had, even, when he’d openly defied me in front of the others.
“Now,” I said. “That wasn’t a request.”
That time, Balidor nodded. A single nod, seer-fashion, he followed it with the sign of the Bridge raised to the side of his face as he lowered his head. The old school way of saluting me, just like what Revik had done.
Shoving aside my impatience with their heavy-handed efforts to appease me or whatever, I simply waited as Wreg leaned over the console, typing in a security code and murmuring to Neela in Prexci that we’d be using one of the interrogation rooms for a meeting.
Wreg glanced up at me then, his dark eyes deferential. “I have a few things I s
hould take care of here, first, Esteemed Bridge...”
Feeling the gist of what he meant, I nodded, gesturing expansively with one hand.
“Do it. We’ll wait.”
Wreg nodded, then leaned over Neela a second time.
I caught him sending more to her via the links, mainly about changing security codes on all of the cells and informing Yumi to come down and oversee the shift change following Raddi’s dismissal from guard duty. I also saw him give the order to reinforce the security on all four cells, particularly Lily’s, given both Revik’s request and mine. I also felt Wreg tell them that they needed a new security chief to replace Raddi, and heard him suggest Chinja for that role...but I didn’t get too close to those whispered communications in the back of their minds, either, other than to note that they were taking place.
I wanted those things done, so I was okay with waiting for them to be completed.
What I wasn’t okay with were the constant looks from Jon and Balidor as they conferred silently between one another about which one of them should try to reason with me once we were all alone together in the interrogation cell.
They thought I’d lost it. Balidor also thought I was needlessly provoking Revik...maybe even that I was wrong and he was right.
I didn’t want to talk to them about that, either.
So when the interrogation cell got opened in the back, I simply walked around the security console to the corridor behind it, brushing past Oli and Torek until they got quickly out of my way. Both of them bowed, despite the grumbling I could still feel emanating off of Oli’s mind, much less the louder protests coming off of Raddi’s light.
I could feel Raddi’s conflict, too, his anger now mixed with what bordered on shame.
He was a Myther, after all. And while he may not yet regret his decision to give Revik time to kill Cass, I could feel his shame that he’d defied me.
I liked Raddi, overall.
But I couldn’t let him get away with that shit, and I knew it.
Revik would have done a lot worse. Hell, if they got all hypocritical on me for being a hard ass when people were openly defying orders I’d given, then I had a few words I’d share with the rest of them, too.
When I passed Torek, his light felt more torn.
Torek and I had always gotten along reasonably well, and while he clearly had no desire to get in the middle of any issues between Revik and me, I could tell he felt conflicted that he hadn’t tried to do more. Revik had been his friend for decades, as they’d lived near one another in London while Revik worked for the British. Torek had joined the rebels solely because Revik asked him, although he had religious leanings too, from what Revik told me. He just wasn’t very vocal about them, viewing religion as more of a private affair.
I liked Torek, too.
Giving him a nod as I passed, I walked through the opening in the organic metal wall that stood behind the security station.
The opening promptly split into two, low-ceilinged corridors. One led into the row of security and interrogation cells to the right, the other towards the armory and equipment storage on the left. I aimed my feet for the main interrogation cell on the right, feeling Balidor following behind me now, and getting the number of the door we were to use off him as I walked. Jon and Wreg both continued to feel worried, as did Chandre, even as they followed Balidor through that dimly-lit opening and into the row of doors leading into smaller, less Barrier-contained cells.
I jerked open the door of the room in question and walked in, making my way to the other side of the room before I turned and waited for them to filter in after me.
The room was basic, plain.
Really, it looked like a conference room from one of my crap temp jobs back in San Francisco after college, only with more expensive equipment.
A semi-organic, brushed-metal conference table filled most of the space, ten feet long with two screens embedded on either end of its oval length. Sixteen plain, metal chairs with low seat backs stood around it, so yeah, those were nothing like the faux-leather monstrosities used by most corporations back home. A third monitor, one that stretched nearly the length of the conference table, had also been embedded in the wall, which told me the room probably had full VR capability, too.
I knew they used that kind of thing for interrogations, as well.
After I watched Balidor close the door behind all of us, I used my headset to switch off the normal surveillance feeds in the room. Without waiting for any of the other four to sit, move closer to me, open their mouths, or do anything really, I basically rounded on them, cutting them off before they could even start.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t want to hear it...not from any of you. Not one fucking word about me, about Revik...or about what I just did.”
They all stood on the opposite side of the table from where I stood, open mouthed.
They all fell silent in their minds as soon as I spoke, too, but their reactions weren’t uniform. Wreg and Balidor looked vaguely surprised, Chan I couldn’t read at all, and I saw Jon frown, his expression holding its normal, well...expressiveness. Jon actually looked pissed, I realized. It also occurred to me that he’d fully intended to chew me out for how I’d just treated Revik, especially since I’d done it in front of other people.
“I know what I did,” I said, aiming my words at Jon. “Believe me, I know. And believe me, I’m going to hear about it.” Feeling a pulse of pain shiver through my light, I gritted my teeth. “We’re not here for that. I want to talk to you about something else.”
The silence grew deeper, even as I caught another series of exchanged looks between a few of them, especially between Jon and Wreg.
I saw similar but different looks flow between Wreg and Balidor, though.
“Seriously,” I said. “I don’t want to hear a fucking word about Revik. I’m going to deal with that, all right? I want to talk to you about yesterday. About the Children of the Bridge. And by that, I don’t in any way mean whatever personal relationship you might have knowledge of between Revik and the representative of that group we met last night.”
They all looked at me again.
That time, the surprise was unmistakable. Jon looked particularly startled, especially in relation to the last thing I said.
“What?” Jon said. “What does Revik have to do with that?” He looked at Wreg, then Balidor, as if waiting for them to clarify.
“He has absolutely nothing to do with it,” I said, my voice an open warning that time. “Like I just said.”
Jon shut his mouth, but his expression, if anything, grew more bewildered.
Then Wreg cleared his throat, making the sign of the Bridge with his hand.
“Cut the formality crap,” I snapped. “...Jesus. Just talk, Wreg.”
Jon jumped a little, then frowned, looking between me and Wreg. I thought for a minute, he might have something to say about how I’d just talked to his husband, too, but Wreg laid a hand on Jon’s arm as if to calm him, addressing his words directly to me.
“Perhaps I simply do not wish to be demoted, too, princess?” Wreg said, his voice holding a faint humor above the edge. “There seems to be a lot of that going around today...so you’ll forgive me for being a little cautious...”
When I didn’t answer, he bowed again. I couldn’t help noticing that when he finished, he kept his head slightly lower than usual. Giving me a cautious smile, he watched my eyes, his own obsidian orbs holding a wariness on the surface.
“What is it about this group do you wish to discuss, Esteemed Bridge?” he said, his voice still openly careful.
I looked directly at Balidor, who was the only one who didn’t look all that confused.
Instead, he watched me warily, a harder set to his jaw.
I knew by looking at him that he now understood exactly why I’d chosen this particular group to have this conversation. I fully intended to gang up on him, and I could see him realizing that even as he measured my eyes.
“Bali
dor knows them,” I said, my words direct. Placing a hand on my hip, I motioned towards him with the other. “I know he won’t like this. But I’m looking for some transparency, brothers and sisters. Balidor knew the seer that Jon ran into last night. His name is Dalejem. And he used to be Ahdipan, under Balidor, before he was recruited to the Children of the Bridge.”
Letting my words sink in for a few beats, I continued to stare at Balidor.
“I was told that any further information on that group, and who runs it, was strictly need-to-know,” I added. “Further, I was told that I was not a part of that privileged group, for security reasons. I intend to ask my husband some of these questions, as well, since he, too, had prior knowledge of this group...but I thought I might start that discussion here.”
The silence in the room deepened.
Chandre, Wreg and Jon were all looking at Balidor now, though.
In particular, I noted the angry scowl on Wreg’s face.
“I can see from your faces that none of you are deemed in this ‘need to know’ group, either,” I said, looking back at Balidor. “And while I understand that you likely have good reason for your silence, brother Balidor...as you always have good reasons for the decisions you make for your intermediaries...I admit, my patience is below zero with the secrets and factional bullshit going on in my leadership team. Secrets about Revik’s light, and his ties to Menlim’s construct...” I added, again giving Balidor a hard look. “...And secrets about a group that I do not even know if I should count as my enemy or a friend.”
Feeling my jaw harden more, I dropped the formality all at once.
“How the fuck am I supposed to operate like this?” I said, slamming a palm on the organic table. “Seriously?” I said, glaring at Balidor. “How am I supposed to make tactical decisions? My own fucking team doesn’t trust me with sensitive information!”
Allie's War Season Four Page 90