Allie's War Season Two

by JC Andrijeski

“No, man.”

  “You want to fuck with me? Play with my head a little?”

  Jon smiled, shaking his head. “No, man. You know who’d win that little contest anyway. Collar or no.”

  “Did Balidor send you?”

  “No.”

  The seer’s gaze darkened. Jon flinched a little at the hatred he saw there.

  “Did Allie?”

  “No, again.” Jon said. “Jesus, man...Vash is right. You’re like a broken record.”

  “What the fuck do you want?” The Elaerian’s eyes shimmered with a pulse of anger. “I don’t want to talk to you, Jon...”

  “Sure you do.”

  “You can go back to that bitch and tell her she can damned well come herself...”

  “She’d like to. They won’t let her...not until you chill out a little bit.”

  Revik laughed again. For the first time, though, Jon saw pain in his eyes.

  He hesitated, trying to decide if he should try to follow it.

  “Yeah,” Revik said. “Right.”

  Jon waited to see if he’d say more. He didn’t.

  Finally, Jon took a breath and walked the final steps to reach the edge of the line drawn on the floor...the same line that Dorje warned him emphatically that he must not, for any reason, cross. He lowered his weight once he had, sitting on the floor across from the chained seer, propping his upper body up with his arms.

  For a long moment, Revik didn’t look at him directly, although Jon caught a few glances at his face. Revik couldn’t scan him, which Jon supposed was a good thing, all in all, but it also likely was making him even more paranoid. He looked for that instability Balidor and Vash warned him about. He saw glimpses of it, but nothing like what he’d expected. No frothing at the mouth, no death threats or even irrationality.

  He did see a lot of emotion though.

  Anger fought its way across the seer’s features in erratic bursts. Some of these brought near waves of heat...an electrical-type charge Jon could almost feel.

  He waited to see if it would pass, if the other would talk to him.

  But Revik just sat there. After a few minutes of silence between them, Jon realized he recognized that expression, too...from their time together as Terian’s captive. Only Jon had become the interrogator now. Revik was waiting him out, hoping to elicit a reaction maybe, or maybe just convince him to give up.

  Jon could see why the other seers thought maybe he wanted to be hit. On a certain level, maybe it was easier for Revik to resist pain than attempts at conversation. It was clean, too. Simple. So easy to know who the real enemies are.

  Jon exhaled, letting his gaze rest on the other’s face.

  “Well,” he conceded, using a seer gesture with one hand. “...They might have given up on you chilling out by now. They might just wait until they’ve finished with all the security protocols. Before they let Allie near you, I mean.”

  When Revik glanced up, Jon shrugged, smiling a little.

  “...They’re realists, you know?” he said. “Infiltrators.”

  Revik frowned, but didn’t answer. His eyes looked bored now.

  But Jon had caught the other look there, too. Her name still got his attention. That was probably good to know.

  He didn’t know if it was necessarily a good thing in general, however.

  As he sat there, watching him, Jon saw the anger in Revik’s eyes flare again. For the first time, he also glimpsed what Dorje and Vash and Balidor had mentioned. A kind of disjointed, hard jerking pulled across his expression. Whatever it was, it seemed to throw him off-balance, leaving the emotions there intense but confused. Anger mixed with a kind of animal cunning briefly, only to be replaced by fear. Whatever lived in his clear, almost colorless eyes, it seemed to remain only long enough to be replaced by something else.

  If Jon hadn’t known better, he would have sworn the seer had been drugged.

  The version of Revik he’d met in Delhi, the one the Dreng commanded, had been a prick in many ways, and definitely on the crazy side...but there hadn’t been any confusion in his light, or any sense that his different personality components weren’t all working, more or less, in the same direction.

  Jon honestly couldn’t decide if the change was an improvement or not.

  Finally, Revik seemed to exhale.

  His light stabilized somewhere, and his broad shoulders gradually relaxed.

  Jon almost smiled when he heard him clicking softly, nearly under his breath.

  “Do you have a cigarette, Jon?” he said. “A hiri?”

  Pulling the pack he’d brought with him out of his pocket, Jon put one of the thin, dark, seer cigarettes to his lips. Jon himself didn’t smoke. In fact he’d never smoked, in any of the human or seer variants. But he knew his friend. He bought the pack off one of the infiltrators on his way to the tank, knowing it might come in handy. Lighting the hiri he held in his lips with the single match he’d brought, he took a mouthful of the honey-tasting smoke to ensure the end would stay lit, coughed it out, then tossed the thin-papered weed towards the seer.

  “Don’t let it go out,” he said, wheezing a little, holding his hand up for a final cough. “I’ve got more hiri...only one match...”

  He was still waving smoke away from his face as Revik leaned forward, picking the stick off the floor delicately from between his cuffed ankles, and putting it to his mouth. He took a long inhale, leaning his head against the wall behind him.

  After a few seconds where he held the smoke in his lungs, he opened his eyes, exhaling it out through his lips.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Hiri smoke smelled a lot less reprehensible than human cigarette smoke, but Jon found himself shaking his head a little anyway.

  “You seers and your long lives,” he said. “Makes you cocky.”

  “You think so?” Revik said, his voice a faint smile.

  “You think you’ll live forever.”

  Revik grunted a little, but Jon heard the humor in that, too.

  For the first time, emotion reached Jon himself. For the first time, he saw his friend chained to a wall, looking depressed, a collar around his neck.

  “How are you, man?” He managed a smile.

  Revik’s expression grew cold. He took another long drag off the hiri, his eyes narrow as he exhaled smoke in Jon’s direction. Ashing it on the floor of the cell as Jon waved the cloud away, Revik paused another beat before glancing up.

  “I’m great, Jon. How are you?”

  “Revik. I mean it...are you all right?” Jon hesitated. “I heard...well, they said you’re not eating.”

  “If I wasn’t eating, I’d be dead, Jon.”

  “You look thin, man...you’ve lost weight.”

  “Some exercise wouldn’t hurt.” Revik held up the cuffs, smiling a little, but that predatory glint was back. “Want to help me out, Sporto?”

  Jon swallowed a little. Terian had called him that, while they were imprisoned.

  “I’d love to, man,” he said sincerely. “But I can’t trust you right now. You know that. You wouldn’t trust me either...under the circumstances.”

  “Yeah.” Revik lowered the cuffs. His eyes held that same hard shine. “I guess not.”

  “Revik, man.” Jon swallowed. He continued studying his eyes, his voice cautious. “They said you’re having a hard time. That being in here is rough on you. Cut off from the Dreng...” He shrugged a little, faintly apologetic. “They made it sound like you’ve been going through withdrawals...like DTs. Like you can’t really function right on your own.”

  “Did they?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  Revik continued to study Jon’s face, his eyes predatory behind a thinner sheen of disinterest.

  “Why are you here, Jon?”

  “I’m worried about you, man. I wanted to talk to you...before they...” Jon hesitated again, gesturing vaguely. “You know. Before they do their thing.”

  “No, Jon,” he said, taking another dr
ag of hiri. “I don’t know. Before they do what?”

  Jon shrugged. “Before they start, I guess. On you.” At the other’s continued empty stare, Jon gestured towards him a little lamely. “...You know what I mean. You know more about that stuff than I do, Revik. I’m just a dumb worm, remember?”

  “Before they start what, Jon?”

  Jon just looked at him, perplexed. Propping his arms on his knees, he continued to study the Elaerian’s angular face.

  “Why do you think you’re here, man?” he said.

  Seeing those clear eyes turn cold, Jon cut him off before he could speak.

  “...You know what I mean,” he said. “Why do you think you’re really here?”

  For an instant, the disinterested look returned to the seer’s face.

  “You mean, besides the fact that my wife is a whore?”

  “Revik...” Jon clicked at him softly, almost without knowing he did it. “...Don’t even try it, man. I’m not Balidor.”

  “Is he watching us? Now?”

  “No, man.”

  “Who’s over there?”

  “Dorje.”

  “Ah.” Revik smiled. His eyes flashed with understanding. “Dorje. Sweet, sweet, little Dorje...” He turned towards the microphone embedded in the organic walls, speaking louder, and not to Jon. “Did you like your blow job, Dorje, my brother? I hope it was good...I hope it was really good...I am jealous, my brother...jealous...”

  Jon shook his head, smiling faintly in spite of himself.

  “Nice, man. Classy.”

  “Do you have another one in you, Jon?” Revik reached for his belt, his eyes clinical when he raised them in Jon’s direction. Briefly, his hand rested on his crotch. “Somehow I don’t think the missus will oblige...and it’s starting to hurt...”

  Jon shook his head again, but his smile faded even as he felt his cheeks flush.

  Still, he managed to keep his voice casual.

  “Don’t get me in trouble with my man, cousin Syrimne,” he said lightly. “I’m in the shithouse as it is, for talking my way into here...”

  “Talking?” Revik’s hand remained on his belt, but he raised an eyebrow, taking another drag of the hiri as he leaned against the wall. He kept his legs somewhat splayed, and Jon couldn’t help but notice he had an erection. “Is that the slang the kids are using these days? How are your conversation skills, Jon? Must be decent, if he let you in here...” At Jon’s averted gaze, Revik lowered his voice, letting it turn cajoling.

  “I’ve been told I’m a really good talker, myself,” he said. “What do you say? I won’t hurt you, Jon. Promise. Not unless you want me to...”

  “Whatever.” Jon felt himself getting impatient. Realizing the seer was pulling a number on him, collared or not, he shook it off, meeting the other’s gaze. “Don’t you want to talk to me, man? Not even a little? Or would you rather sit in here all day, alone, chained to a wall, dreaming of eating Balidor’s intestines or whatever?” His mouth hardened to a line before he added, gesturing towards the seer’s crotch. “...Or playing at petty acts of revenge towards Allie, like pretending to seduce me...?”

  Revik glanced up at him, and for an instant, Jon saw his friend in his eyes.

  “What are they going to do to me, Jon?”

  Jon sighed. “She’s trying to help you, man.”

  “Really? Is that what this is about?”

  “That’s all this whole thing has ever been about. You must know that...somewhere in your fucked up, paranoid head...”

  “Really?” Revik said. “So my wife’s trying to help me? What a relief.”

  The kaleidoscope returned. Jon watched the seer’s face warily, seeing the confused anger flash more intensely behind that cold gaze, eclipsing the grief he’d seen there, along with a heavier emotion that looked almost like futility. Revik shook his head, and the light behind his eyes seemed to change channels once more.

  A humorless smile came to his lips.

  “Now that you mention it, I think you’re right, Jon,” he said. “I’m sure that’s what this is about. Riding that Adhipan’s cock...getting all my people killed. Putting a collar on me and chaining me in a cage...it’s all been such a tremendous help to me, Jon...”

  “She hates you being in here.”

  “...So much she’s probably blowing that fucker right now,” Revik said.

  “You know that’s not what’s happening.” Seeing the Elaerian’s flat look, Jon amended, “Well, you should. You would know, if you weren’t bat-shit crazy...”

  “Fuck you.”

  “We already covered that. I believe the answer was no.”

  Instead of smiling, Revik narrowed his gaze, his eyes hard. “She slept with him. She admitted it to me, Jon. Hell...I felt it on her. I felt him inside her. She liked it...”

  Jon flinched a little, feeling that grief on him again.

  “I’m sorry, man. I really am.”

  “Sorry doesn’t mean shit, Jon. She betrayed me. Lied to me...”

  “Yeah.” Jon nodded, his jaw hardening. “She did a lot of things to get you out of there. She probably would have slept with a lot more people, if that’s what it took...your whole damned regiment, if need be...” Seeing something flicker in the other’s eyes, he hesitated. “Jesus, Revik. Are you telling me you don’t get that she risked her life, pretty much every day...for months...to get you out of there? And, oh yeah, didn’t you do something similar once? Like sleep with a whole room full of people to get her away from Terian in D.C.?”

  He shook his head angrily, his eyes cold.

  “Don’t tell yourself it’s not the same, Revik. It is.”

  “She lied to me.”

  “Yeah,” Jon said, nodding emphatically. “Yeah, man...she lied to you. That’s what you do when you’re trying to talk a crazy person out of crazy land...you lie to them, pretend you’re crazy, too. Otherwise, you’re one of THEM, you know?”

  Revik gave him an irritated look, taking another drag of the hiri. “That’s not funny, Jon.”

  “And weirdly, here I am, not laughing.”

  Revik’s eyes grew flint-like. His voice sharpened.

  “What are they going to do to me, Jon?”

  Jon hesitated, watching the pale eyes of the seer. The man shackled in front of him still seemed to be shifting in and out of moods, in and out of flashes of anger, but for the first time, Jon saw real fear join the whispers of other emotions clouding that still gaze.

  “Is she going to split me again?” Revik said, blunt. “Is she going to bury me down in a fucking hole again, Jon?”

  Jon’s brow cleared.

  “No, man,” he said, gently. “No, she won’t do that. A few of the others talked about trying something similar, but she said no. She was dead against it, Revik.”

  “You’re sure about that? You wouldn’t lie to me, Jon?”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, man. Not about this.”

  There was a silence.

  In it, Jon watched the male seer stare at the floor, the hiri burning down between his fingers. It occurred to him that the other man was breathing harder, having some kind of reaction that didn’t show on his face, or in his eyes. Jon watched his shoulders gradually relax. It didn’t diminish the more unreadable wariness of his face, but it seemed to coincide with a heavy, if almost invisible, exhale. As if a weight of...something...had just lifted off him.

  A few seconds more passed.

  Then Jon saw him nod, seemingly to himself.

  Looking up, he clicked his fingers at Jon then, gesturing that he wanted another hiri.

  Jon threw him one from the full pack in his pocket. He watched Revik light it off the end of the first one he’d given him, as soon as he’d plucked it off the floor.

  “Then...what?” Revik said, his voice business-like. He finished lighting the hiri and exhaled smoke. “What will they do?”

  “I don’t know the details, man.”

  “You know something...or you wouldn’t be here.” />
  Jon shook his head, but raised his hands in a gesture of defeat.

  “I know she’s going to try and undo it. That’s all I know. Honestly.”

  “Undo it?” Revik stared at him. “Undo what?”

  As he looked at Jon, the human found himself briefly caught there, in that stare. Revik’s clear eyes showed a near openness, despite the confusion they held, that odd profusion of emotion and thought. In it, Jon was startled to see an almost childlike vulnerability. He wondered at first if it was a ruse of some kind, but looking at his eyes, he decided it wasn’t.

  It struck him again how afraid some part of Revik had been of that cave.

  “Undo what, Jon?”

  “Whatever they did to you, man.”

  Jon’s voice grew gentle again.

  “...They don’t want to hurt you, Revik. She doesn’t want to hurt you.”

  Revik stared at him, but didn’t answer.

  Looking at that young, open expression on the Elaerian’s face, Jon had an urge to touch him suddenly, strong enough that he shifted in his seat, clenching his hands. Feeling overcame him in the same instant, a sharp wave of compassion strong enough to reach his voice.

  “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Revik. Not if I can help it.”

  He cleared his throat, gesturing vaguely towards him.

  “...All I know is, she wants to help you undo whatever they did to your mind. She and Vash are working on some kind of plan to help you break free of them. For good.”

  There was another silence.

  For a moment, Jon saw his friend in those eyes again.

  Then the fragments shifted. Jon watched the openness vanish under a collection of darker masks, buried until it was hard to remember what it had looked like.

  The new Revik shook his head, clicking in a humor that wasn’t really humor. Jon saw that hard, metallic light in his eyes, dimming the softer light they’d held only a second before.

  “That’s bullshit, Jon. Propaganda.”

  “Propaganda?” Jon still stared at the other’s face in disbelief. “Propaganda for what?”

  “You’re believing the Seven’s lies. Just like she is.” His eyes hardened briefly. “It’s bullshit. Conformist crap. They want you to believe their way is the only way, Jon.”

  “Who does?”