“...I have agreed to take up this mantle, for however long I am able to be helpful in this role...and I hope that the one thing I bring is an understanding of humanity from the inside.” I swallowed.
“...You are my people, even if I am not yours.”
Feeling rose in me as I saw my adoptive brother, Jon, smiling at me from the front row, his eyes holding an open pride.
“I do not share the opinion of some of my race,” I said. “...Who feel that war is the only language that humans understand...”
Another mind whispered by mine again, but I brushed it aside.
“I hope you will help me,” I added. “...In proving them wrong.”
For a long moment after I spoke, there was silence.
Then a scattering of applause made its way disjointedly around the room. I tried not to notice it came from less than half of those present. Or that to call it polite would be, well...polite.
Again, his humor rose.
I tried to push him out of my light, but not before he spoke in my mind.
It’s not you, love, he sent, soft, apologetic. Pretty words...well spoken. I almost believed you.
He let me feel the sincerity behind this. It startled me a little...right before his light warmed, sliding deeper into mine.
But wife, he sent, softer. ...they can’t hear you.
I ignored that, too...and the sharp look I caught from Balidor when I glanced in his direction. His eyes asked a question I refused to answer.
It wouldn’t have made any difference. I didn’t know where he was.
I turned my attention back to the human audience.
Their patience had begun to ebb. They wanted to get to the question and answer period. I’d expected that, too; in fact, it was how I’d lured them there.
“All right,” I said, resigned. “Who’s first...?”
Hands shot up in the air, seemingly all at once.
I DID MY best. Pieces stood out in my mind after, as I caught my breath behind the heavy curtain of the stage, flanked by four members of the Adhipan and a young female seer who acted as some kind of retainer I suppose.
Balidor’s paranoia hadn’t abated from the incident on the stairs, so I knew they’d probably be hovering over me the rest of the night. I still felt a little reassured when I saw Garensche, a cheerful giant the size of a house. He was the largest seer I’d ever seen in real life, apart from those mutant albino seers called Wvercians who came from China.
Garensche patted me on the shoulder as soon as I stood close enough and told me it went about as well as could be expected.
And anyway, he reminded me, it was only the first try.
The questions had been predictable, of course.
I pointed to the person behind the first hand I focused on.
“You. Yes, Kevin, is it?”
The man acted like I hadn’t spoken.
“Is it true Syrimne is alive?” he said. “That he’s your husband?”
I’d expected this, of course...so already had some idea of how to answer. Still, it wasn’t an auspicious beginning that they didn’t bother to throw in even one semi-polite question first.
Or even acknowledge that I’d spoken, for that matter.
Sighing internally, I tried to keep it off my face.
“He is alive, yes.”
“Is he your husband?”
I glanced at Vash, though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t.
I felt the other presence there, too, even before he spoke.
Careful, love...
“No,” I said, my jaw hardening. “Not anymore. We’re separated.”
I felt the presence react, sliding into and sparking around my light...right before he whispered away from me.
“So you are hunting him, then?” the human persisted. “You’re trying to kill him like the others?”
I swallowed, looking at the swath of faces around me, seeing the fear in them, the change in the seers who stood around me, as the atmosphere in the room instantly grew more charged.
“Am I trying to kill him? As in me, myself?” I said. “No.”
“Shouldn’t you be?” asked another human pointedly, a female.
To that, I could only sigh, looking at Balidor. The Adhipan leader only raised an eyebrow, his eyes mirroring the human’s question.
Gritting my teeth, I turned, facing the rows of humans.
“Look,” I said. “Whatever you might think, I’m not qualified for that kind of operation...even if I desired such a thing.”
“Do you desire his death?”
“I don’t desire anyone’s death,” I said, short.
“But he’s responsible, isn’t he, for the destruction of the White House?” another woman persisted. “For killing hundreds in a seer attack on the capitol city of the United States? Don’t you feel it’s your duty, as a seer—”
“To what?” I said. “Kill one of my own kind? No, I don’t.”
I bit my lip, forcing my light to calm down.
I should have been ready for this. I was ready for this, or so I’d thought. But he was there, listening. And it was like they’d all gotten together and decided to sequence their questions around Revik so that I couldn’t escape a single one.
“...And anyway,” I said, subduing my voice. “That’s not confirmed. That he was behind the attack on D.C., I mean. I was there, and I can tell you...things got pretty confused. I saw a lot of humans with guns, as well as seers. I saw planes that I couldn’t identify. Which is my point about this needing to come from both sides, this push to end the fighting before—”
“But isn’t it true,” a fourth human said, before I could redirect. “...that he’s called upon seers...all seers, including those who ostensibly follow the peaceful path of the Seven...to rise up against humans as a race? To destroy the legitimacy of the World Court and SCARB, dismantle the current system of regulation over seer powers and overthrow human governments...? Isn’t he advocating,” the man said, louder, touching his earpiece. “...Overtly advocating...the use of violence to obtain these ends? To do whatever it takes to...and I quote...‘remind worms that we aren’t the same seers they cowed into submission all those years ago’...?”
I exhaled my held breath.
Leaning my forearms on the podium, I just stared at the reporter for a moment. Then, using words I knew even then that I’d likely regret, I shrugged.
“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “But probably.”
“Probably?” the reporter said, incredulous.
“Yeah,” I said. “That sounds like him.”
Things pretty much degenerated from there.
2
DANCE
THE QUESTION AND answer period seemed to go on for hours, but according to ‘Dori and Vash, it ended after about twenty minutes.
Afterwards, I gave myself time to catch up with what I’d just done...to try and gauge the worst of the fallout as best as I could.
Letting my mind regurgitate some of the choice phrases out of the several rounds of increasingly aggressive questions, I leaned against a cement support beam and groaned, eyes closed.
“Let it go, Bridge Alyson...” Garensche advised.
“I may not be able to.”
“It is over now,” he said. “You are the leader. They see that. They are yelling at you...but it is because you are the leader. That was your job tonight. Nothing more.”
I nodded, trying to let his words sink in...or at least keep the frown off my lips. I almost asked him about the other thing, too, then let the question fall in somewhere with my replay of the word riot earlier.
He answered it anyway.
“Yes, I heard,” he said. “We all heard...he wanted us to hear.”
I nodded. “So it was a threat, then.”
“No.” He smiled. “I would not say that...not to you, anyway.”
I fought the impulse to fidget with my hair, knowing I would only make a mess of the elaborate and meticulously-placed curls that Cass and
the other girl whose name I couldn’t remember had sprayed, arranged and pinned up on my head with a number of jeweled fasteners.
When I glanced up, I saw Garensche looking at my hair too.
Seeing me catch his appraising look, he smiled.
“Do not worry, ilya,” he said, using an affectionate term I still hadn’t figured out the meaning of, or even from which language it originated. “We are looking for him...but I do not think he is here. Everything is on feeds, and he can feel you, through the bond. He does not need to be here. He is not so stupid...”
I exhaled, a sharp laugh. “Yeah. Not stupid.”
“So no worries, then,” the giant smiled.
“No worries. Okay.”
I looked up at the clock on the wall, avoiding Balidor’s stare from a dozen feet away. I met Chandre’s though, saw her looking at me warily from under the other set of eaves. I knew she was worried about me, but she was also angry I had come. I also wondered what she thought of the whole issue with Revik, given everything.
I knew she’d been along for the op in D.C.
We hadn’t talked about it, but it formed a wedge between us that I still just couldn’t seem to get past. On some level, I knew it was irrational...but I couldn’t get past the vision of her in a room with him and a bunch of other infiltrators, planning how they were going to use my husband as bait by having him fuck a room full of seers and humans, just so the boy would bring me to him.
I just couldn’t let it go. I’m funny that way.
At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have forgiven her by now, if things had turned out differently in the end.
Still, at least Jon had tried to talk him out of it.
When I glanced back at Garensche, I caught him staring again, too, this time looking me over in the green dress. I felt a glimmer of arousal off him, but nothing major.
I didn’t take it personally.
Seers had a tendency to be tactless, anyway...and crude about sex. Most of the time, it meant nothing. If Garensche really wanted sex with me, he’d just ask.
That was the other thing about seers...they were direct, for the most part.
Besides, I knew the only reason I was getting more male attention than usual these days was purely from the pain thing. Like all seers, I sent out a kind of energetic pulse when forced to go without sex for too long. Marriage, instead of making this better, amplified the problem...making it exponentially worse. The logic being, I supposed, that spouses tended to miss one another a lot more than single seers missed sex with strangers...or even friends.
Therefore, given my situation with Revik, I was likely broadcasting vibes that acted like porno catnip on your average seer with an even semi-healthy libido.
Pretty hard to take any attention that came of that personally.
“So what now?” I said. “...Do I mingle?”
Garensche glanced up, shrugged.
“Some mingle, yes. ‘Dori thinks it’s okay. We’ve sealed the perimeter, the construct is good...and the seers here, the hotel ones, they all check out.”
I nodded. That time I kept my thoughts to myself behind a tighter shield.
“Where’s Dorje?” I said. “Cass?”
Garensche motioned with a thick hand towards the curtain, indicating the ballroom on the other side. I could still hear the rise and fall of voices like an ocean current, but I purposefully didn’t listen with either my light or my ears. Music now accompanied the voices at least.
I didn’t need to know what they were saying, not yet. I could watch the feeds tomorrow, if I was really feeling like a masochist.
“Okay,” I said. I gestured towards the opening in the curtain, giving Garensche the polite form, as if our roles were reversed.
“...Lead the way.”
A grin split his face, stretching his full lips, making his teeth appear even longer and whiter than they were. His hazel eyes shone out over high cheekbones, light only because his skin was so dark. He might have been handsome once, if it weren’t for the thick scar that now ran from his ear through one dark eyebrow. Now he looked like a pirate.
I’d teased him and Cass that they looked like they’d been cell mates.
I could tease Cass about that kind of thing now. She’d grown as crude as the majority of infiltrators in her banter, and seemed to wear the facial scar she’d received during her captivity with Terian with a certain perverse pride. Less than a year ago, she’d flinched whenever anyone even looked at it, so I couldn’t help but see this as an improvement. Even so, the ease with which she’d fallen in with some elements of the seer community still made me uncomfortable.
Just like in the human world, her taste in men still left a lot to be desired.
The thought made me laugh a little, in spite of myself.
Look at me, throwing stones.
Still, she’d changed so much in the past year it was difficult to even remember what she’d been like in San Francisco...where we’d known each other since diapers. Cass and Jon and I had been best friends before all of this started, when I still thought I was human and seers were a mysterious Other.
I followed Garensche out to the main floor, and immediately regretted it.
I’ve never been crazy about how much I stand out in a crowd. I’d been what Jon affectionately termed a “weirdo-magnet” for most of my life, since I was a kid, really. But the truth was, I confused people...and in some odd way, I stood out. The weirdos took it as a sign from God. Other, more normal humans, assumed there was something about me that needed to be catalogued, if only so that it could be dismissed. In any case, I’d always gotten a lot more attention than I asked for, and a lot of it not overly positive.
Standing beside the enormous seer mitigated my nerves around that only slightly. I watched trays of champagne float by, tempted, then decided getting drunk wasn’t a luxury I could afford, either.
The room had transformed in my absence.
Seers and humans working for the hotel cleared away or pushed back the table rounds. The floor’s carpet and dance floor had been revealed, and the ornate stage looked more like something from Paris without the podium and the bright white lights.
Surprisingly, most of the press seemed to have stuck around, along with the leaders. They had received strict instructions about not approaching me to seek quotes or attempt interviews at any time other than the designated question and answer periods...or through Hallaf, who I’d recruited to act as a sort of quasi-official press secretary. Even so, a number of them lurked nearby, and from the look in their eyes, I could tell a few of them at least were trying to think of ways around the ban that wouldn’t get them thrown out.
I recognized several of the state leaders, as well.
The room had touches of Delhi, despite the Western feel of the crowd...or touches of India, I should say. Servants dressed in white walked around carrying trays, and the buffet table dishes consisted of so many colors that it looked like abstract art. The table itself stood beside a pair of giant glass sculptures that rose like crystal waterfalls, halfway to the high ceilings. Dominating the further end of the room, a wall fountain stretched up several stories as well. A black, glinting, stone carving made up its centerpiece, depicting Vishnu and several of his serving maids under the water.
Below it, a long bar took up the lower section of the room, where the remainder of the reporters stretched out in an uneven line, many of them looking vaguely uncomfortable in their tuxes.
Picking up a smattering of their thoughts and words through the construct, I frowned, suddenly wanting nothing more than for the night to be over.
The next time a tray slid by, I lifted a champagne flute off one side, taking a sip before glancing up at Garensche.
“Just one,” I muttered, to his faint smile.
Even as I did, I caught the eye of a woman reporter who was staring at me unapologetically. I stiffened, realizing I knew her.
Donna. Her name was Donna.
The last tim
e I’d seen her in the flesh, I’d been sitting on a couch in the Oval Office, a collar around my neck and wearing a ridiculously revealing sundress. Covered in bruises, I’d had to sit there with Terian’s arm around me while she asked questions about my sex life and wanted me to expound on the joys of being an international terrorist.
She’d then proceeded to flirt with Terian while she pressed me about my relationship with my husband...knowing full well that Terian was likely raping me behind closed doors.
Looking at her now, I felt my jaw harden painfully.
“Would you like to dance, Bridge Alyson?”
I started. Turning, I saw Garensche watching me narrowly.
“She’s not worth it,” he breathed, softer.
He held out an arm, smiling, the warning still in his eyes.
“Dance with me, Bridge.” He smiled again. “...If that dress wasn’t made for dancing, I don’t know what it was made for.” He cleared his throat, raising an eyebrow, then gave a pointed glance to my cleavage. “...Although I’m open to suggestions,” he said, grinning a little.
Pausing as I was about to take another sip of the champagne, I gave him a disbelieving look, then laughed.
“Subtle,” I said. “You seers have a pretty loose definition of the word ‘deference,’ don’t you?”
“Oh, I’ll most certainly defer to you, Bridge Alyson.” He smiled, holding out his arm more insistently. “Come on. You can dance, can’t you?”
“Sure,” I said. “What the hell. Give them something to talk about. Something besides the speech that went over like a ton of rocks, I mean...”
“You think a dancing Bridge will amuse them?”
“My actual dancing might,” I said, shrugging as I let him lead me out to the darker linoleum floor.
But I could dance okay.
It was something mom and I used to do, back when I was trying anything to keep her sober after dad’s death. I took her to ballroom dancing at the Y for about a year, and both of us got pretty good at it. My mom had been surprisingly graceful...well, to me, her daughter. I don’t suppose it was all that surprising, really. She’d been a ballet dancer when she’d been young.
Allie's War Season Two Page 2