There was another silence.
I couldn’t feel anything on the other side of those walls, of course.
Even so, I definitely got the impression that Balidor had others there with him now, that they were consulting amongst themselves.
Then another voice rose, one that made me wince.
“What does the Illustrious Sword think?” Kali said.
I looked at Revik. He returned my stare, his mouth set in a hard line.
Then he smiled, shaking his head and clicking softly.
“I will do whatever the Esteemed Bridge thinks is best,” he said, raising his voice as he faced the speaker. His words turned more brusque, more military. “If you want my opinion apart from that, I’m afraid I don’t have one... not in relation to the specific procedure she’s proposing. Truthfully, I can’t see what she’s seeing. Therefore, I don’t know exactly what that procedure entails, although I understand the theory. In any case, when it comes to that, I will defer wholly to her judgment.”
Pausing with a shrug, he added, his voice and expression darkening somewhat, “I agree with her that Dubai is significantly more risky with me connected to Shadow’s construct.” He gave me a harder look. “I think if that were the case, I would have to bow out of the ground op, and provide support from outside the construct. Which means my wife would be doing the same.” He paused again, letting his voice grow harder, too. “For, if any of you, including the Esteemed Bridge herself, thinks I’m letting her go in there without me, you’re going to be very disappointed. I’m quite sure my wife knows this, but it bears repeating. I’m quite willing to go to extreme lengths to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
Hearing the open threat in his words, I smiled faintly, clicking at him.
“Such a bully,” I murmured, tugging on Lily’s hair. “Isn’t he, baby? Big, bad wolf.”
Lily giggled, leaning her head and back into my chest as she looked at Revik. He lifted an eyebrow, but his eyes didn’t move, not even when he looked at her.
Exhaling, I spoke to Revik directly next, looking only at him.
“You’re okay with her light being interdependent with ours?” I said to him, quieter, even though I knew the speakers would pick it up. “Even with Dubai coming up?”
Revik’s expression grew more thoughtful.
I saw him look at Lily again, his clear eyes conflicted. Then he shook his head, but not in a no, at least not to my question.
“Versus her being dependent on Shadow?” Smiling humorlessly, he sat up on the couch, weaving his fingers together where he held them between his knees, his arms balanced on his thighs. “Yes. I’m okay with it, wife. Especially if Kali says Lily’s not safe on the ship. If you really think you can pull it off, then I say do it.”
The silence on the line deepened once more.
Then Kali spoke again.
“Are you going to try it in there, first?” she said.
I realized she was speaking to me. Thinking, I looked around the four walls of the tank, and then nodded, more decisively than I felt.
“Yes. I think in here is better.” I hesitated, then looked at Revik again, feeling a sharper flicker of nerves when I saw him watching me. “If anything seems to be going wrong, I’m going to have to stop, of course,” I added, louder, that worry leaking into my voice. “We’ll have to reassess options from there. There’s some chance we’ll have to rush Lily out of the tank, if I can’t rebuild the structures that Shadow removed using my own light.”
“Do you want us to join you in there? Tarsi and me?” Balidor said through the speakers. “Or Kali? Any of us?”
I shook my head. “No. I think fewer lights in here is better.”
Revik made a low, humorous sound.
When I glanced at him, he smiled, too.
I want you watching, I sent to him, still holding his gaze. More than any of them. I’m going to try with Lily first, so you can see what I’m doing.
He smiled faintly, giving me a sharp of course gesture with one hand.
Unfortunately, I caught the nuance there, too, which was something along the lines of: assuming I can see jack shit, since I have no idea what you’re talking about, wife.
As usual, Revik was a lot more expressive with his body than his actual words.
“You said something about the Four,” Revik said then, still watching me with those clear, intent eyes. “What did that mean?”
“We can talk about that later,” I said, shaking my head. “I would need to be out of here to look at that. It’s just an idea at this point.”
“But you think they can help with this?” he said, pressing slightly with his voice. “Having all four of us in one place again?”
Hesitating, I gave a nod.
“In what way?”
“Revik,” I said, holding Lily tighter. I sighed. “I think I can do enough to get you and Lily free of the immediate problem with the Dreng. But you’ll both be light dependent on me. Like... really light dependent. I’m not sure what the actual effects of that might be.” Hesitating, I clicked softly. “I think with Terian and Cass, we might be able to do more.”
“What kind of more?” Revik said.
Giving in, I gestured in a seer’s shrug. “Like real independence. For Lily, anyway.” I gave him a faint smile. “You might be stuck with me, baby. Sorry.”
He just looked at me for a moment.
Then I saw him let that go, too. I knew I wasn’t off the hook in terms of explaining; the conversation felt postponed, but definitely not off the docket.
Even as I thought it, Revik nodded slowly. Then, looking up at me, he hesitated again. Once more, I saw that conflict flare in his eyes.
“Allie, don’t take this the wrong way, but how do you know you can do any of this? I’m not asking for me, but for Lily. Did you see this in a dream, too? You seemed to know what you wanted to do before we even came in here. Or is it from what...” He trailed, coloring a little as he glanced at the wall speaker. He looked back at me. “...Is it something to do with last night? With why your light is different?”
I blinked, a little stumped.
Looking down at Lily in my arms, I felt a corresponding flicker of doubt. It was there and gone, and once it began to dissipate, that warmer certainty continued to pulse.
“I have no idea,” I said truthfully. “Does that matter to you? Do you want me not to do it?”
Funnily enough, my answer didn’t freak him out. It might have freaked me out, if someone said that to me under the circumstances. But instead, it seemed to stump him.
Then it made him laugh.
Clicking at me, he shook his head, still smiling. “No. It doesn’t matter. We seem to be running on prophet’s fumes these days, anyway, love.”
I thought about his words and frowned.
As usual, he’d noticed something that had been bothering me, although I hadn’t yet put a name to it, or even noticed it consciously. It didn’t seem to bother him, though. Well, not like it bothered me... maybe because he was more on the outside, looking in. Or maybe because he didn’t have the baggage I did, around dreaming of nuclear attacks on Asia and not trusting my biological mother who never even bothered to let me know she existed until a week ago.
Even weirder, in looking at him, I could tell that my words had reassured him somehow.
I was still studying the expression on his face when he leaned back on the couch, resting his head on the back cushion.
Watching my face, he motioned towards me expressively with his hands.
“Hurry up, wife. I have big plans for tonight.” That smile still ghosted his lips as he quirked an eyebrow at me, his expression deadpan. “By my calculation you owe me a birthday present. Several, in fact. I fully intend to collect.”
I couldn’t help laughing at that.
And yeah, I was pretty sure he didn’t mean the painting.
22
BULLSHIT
I WRAPPED MYSELF around him, even in sleep, even when I woke up too
hot, confused about where I was, pieces of my limbs numb from the awkward way I lay on them and around him.
He did the same to me, which both reassured me and made it worse.
We had been talking for a lot of the night... not only having sex. I think the talking part was my fault, although he had a lot of questions, too.
We had a lot of sex.
I’d finally asked him, point blank, about Dalejem. Not only about what he’d said around needing to get out some of those feelings with Ullysa. Not even about what had come up when he’d been with her. I also asked him why things still felt weird around the two of them.
Or, I don’t know––unresolved, maybe.
Revik, as had been his tendency since everything went down between us that night, had been honest. Maybe too honest.
He told me he’d been in love with Dalejem. He told me he loved him still.
When I reacted to that, he only clicked at me, telling me I’d misunderstood.
“You know what I mean,” he’d said, a little exasperated.
“Not really, no,” I said.
“I mean, when you love someone... when you really love them... then you always kind of love them,” he said, that impatience still audible in his voice. He switched to Prexci, the seer language. “There’ve only been three people I felt that way about... romantically, I mean. Dalejem was one of them. My first wife was another. You are the third, Allie. And I have known you for the longest... and have loved you for the longest... and by far the most intensely and in ways that I feel the most deeply. Do not pretend you don’t understand that about me! Saying I love Dalejem does not make him a threat to you... or to what we have.”
I’d nodded, not saying anything at first.
“You loved Jaden,” he said, his voice harder.
I gave him a look, but only acknowledged his words with a gesture, not elaborating.
I didn’t want him to shut down again, not now that we were finally really talking. Anyway, I knew what he meant. I even agreed with him about love, about how it never really went away... but I didn’t like it very much, truthfully.
That only made him snort, right before he rolled, naked, to his back.
“Says the woman who just spent two nights with her ex-,” he’d muttered under his breath.
I frowned. But I really didn’t want to argue about Jaden, so I didn’t answer.
When the silence continued, Revik switched back to English, his voice exasperated enough that his German accent worsened.
“He is not a threat to you, Allie,” Revik said. “I love him, yes. But it is more of a warmth I feel for him now, a nostalgia. I do not know him anymore. I do not want to sleep with him. Even if I did want to sleep with him, I would never again do anything to threaten my life with you and Lily. I would think that would be crystal clear, too.”
When I didn’t say anything, he exhaled, looking up at the ceiling.
“It was a different kind of love, anyway,” he said. “One I needed at that point in my life. I do not need that now. And if I did, I would get even more of that with you. I already do. I have since we first became involved.”
“What do you mean?” I’d said, looking at him through the half-light.
Clicking softly, Revik threw up a hand before he let it fall to the mattress.
Even so, I could feel him thinking, trying to answer my question.
“He accepted me,” he said, speaking Prexci again. “He was probably the first seer I met, apart from Vash, who didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought. He saw past the ex-Rook thing. It was sexual, yes... but the lack of judgment around my past, the refusing to cave to dogma around Code and the old families... that made me fall in love with him.”
Still thinking, he frowned up at the ceiling, his eyes narrow.
“More than that. It was like, I don’t know... permission. To learn my own mind and light, apart from what others told me to be. I needed that, too.”
Turning his head, he met my gaze, his clear eyes reflecting light.
“He was also kind-hearted,” he said, his voice faintly accusing. “He was compassionate towards me. You’d like him, Allie, if you gave him half a chance and didn’t insist on seeing him as a threat. I don’t understand that, Allie... I really don’t. How could you see anyone as a threat with me? Especially now?”
Resettling his head on the pillow, he stared back up at the ceiling.
“I was only seeing him for a few weeks before Kali took him,” he grumbled, switching back to English. “I was a totally different person back then, anyway.”
I nodded to that, too.
I understood. I really did.
But I was still struggling with it, truthfully.
I knew that fear lingering around him and Dalejem wasn’t rational. But then, his lingering fear around me and Jaden wasn’t rational, either. The truth was, we’d never been all that rational with one another, not when it came to that kind of thing.
I could tell he wasn’t hiding anything from me, though.
It didn’t even feel like he was hiding anything from me unintentionally. I could feel my fear as fear-only, but I still couldn’t entirely shake it. I didn’t know if that was a light thing, something from my past, a lingering distrust from problems we’d had before, or if it was just the “normal” hyper-possessiveness and paranoia that most seers had to struggle with when it came to their partners.
Either way, I’d lain back on the bed, like him, and tried to let it go.
It felt so different, being in here those first few nights––meaning, in a bedroom outside of the tank. When we’d left the tank that first time, after I’d broken all of those structures I found in Lily and Revik, tying them to the Dreng, everyone had been holding their breath, not only me.
And not only Revik, who was more afraid for Lily than he tried to show.
He held her hand so hard she kept wincing and complaining, and of course his fear and doubt brought up the same in me, until I started questioning myself all over again, wondering if I’d just killed them both... or consigned them to live the rest of their lives locked up in a cage.
Then we were all just standing there, in the security station, holding hands.
Balidor stood there too, along with Wreg, Jon, Tarsi, Yumi, Neela, Varlan, Kali and Uye. I avoided Kali’s eyes, but I saw her smiling, and saw tears on her face before I managed to look away. I saw Uye wiping his cheeks, too.
Balidor more looked wary, as did Tarsi.
Jon looked worried.
Wreg just beamed at me, his dark eyes dancing with light.
He gave Revik an equally expressive scowl, showing he still hadn’t forgiven him fully for whatever he thought had happened between us.
Most of the others looked weirded out by me again. Like maybe I’d gone back to being the Bridge more than Allie in their eyes, despite how hard I’d tried to get them past that b.s. over the last few months.
Despite Revik’s expressed wishes earlier in our quadrant of the tank, we didn’t get much time alone that day, either. Instead we spent most of it having our light poked and prodded by every seer on the infiltration team, along with Kali, Uye, Wreg, Loki and a number of others with high sight ranks on the military side.
Balidor warned us that none of us three could risk going into one of the tanks without the other two. He confirmed that I had replaced entire structures in Lily’s light with my own, and that I was doing the same for Revik, only to a more extensive degree, since it involved structures that existed much higher up in his light.
I knew they had a good chunk of the infiltration team looking at Menlim’s network too, waiting for a reaction to what I’d done.
But that reaction never came.
Truthfully, the silence worried me more. In any case, I knew we were operating on borrowed time. We needed a more permanent solution.
I hadn’t pushed the point overly in our planning sessions yet, but I increasingly believed that permanent solution required Terian.
After assessing me and Revik and Lily’s light, the infiltration team unanimously decided to move forward with the Dubai op. I had no idea if I’d made the op safer or more dangerous by what I’d done, but it was decided the risk was acceptable given the possibility of acquiring so many List seers and humans. I wanted to believe I’d made the op safer, of course, but as I listened to the infiltration team voice their various opinions around the table, I realized none of us really had any idea what the effect would be.
Either way, they had little choice but to clear us for living outside the tank.
They moved Revik and me to the flag cabin, not far from the CIC.
In here, we remained connected to the wider construct, if still somewhat separate via the private construct Balidor’s people provided. I could feel whispers of other minds past those construct walls, especially from the CIC itself, but it was still pretty quiet.
The private construct had already been here, of course, even though no one had been using it. The flag cabin had always been intended for Revik and me, although this past week constituted the first time we’d actually slept in it.
Next door to us, a smaller cabin belonged to Lily now, too. It was connected to this one via a door between bulkheads, but lived inside its own construct. Even with the separate constructs, I could feel her all the time now, which made me smile whenever I focused her way––even though Revik and I had to shield from her too, especially at night.
That thread to her never got broken.
In the short term, at least, my experiment in the tank had worked.
Being upstairs was definitely “noisier” though––in the Barrier sense, I mean. Only a few corridors down from us, the CIC––“Combat Information Center,” Balidor informed me when we first came on board––lived and breathed military strategy, infiltration and defense, twenty-four hours a day. The CIC connected via a narrow corridor to a longer, more open space, what had originally been a bullpen of cubicle-type offices before Balidor’s construction team tore them down to create a larger conference room.
Allie's War Season Four Page 109