I started to react to him sexually again, but managed to dull it, aided by the fact that I didn’t feel anything from him other than calm as he leaned into me.
Later, I would remember clouds. Giant clouds of light.
There is a valley between high mountains, a red and gold crevasse. It opens out to an ocean of gold, a perpetual dawn that covers the rolling waves with diamonds.
In this place, I am never alone.
My friends surround me, and the water caresses every worry from my mind. My mother swims in that light-filled ocean, open in a way I barely remember. She laughs like she did when my father was alive, splashing me with her hands. Her dark eyes shine with a soft calm, in a way they never did when—
I jerked, dropped back to my body.
The sound of the ship’s prow pushing through water greeted me, along with the motion of his breath under my cheek from where he held me tightly against his chest.
He was breathing harder; I felt him fighting to control it. Without pulling away, I turned my head to gaze at the ocean.
Here, the water stretches only into black nothingness and cold.
Then, out of nowhere, he speaks.
“Allie.” His voice is a low rumble against my ear. “Allie, I lied to you. I remember my parents. I remember when they died.”
It is a clumsy thing to say.
I feel his awkwardness as he looks for a way to re-express it, to give it meaning to me. Tears well in my eyes. He holds me tighter, and I feel his relief as some part of myself finally lets go.
I won’t see my mother again, except in nightmares.
In those dreams, as in life, I am always too late.
23
SCHOOL
REVIK STOOD BEFORE me, his height outlined in stars.
The night sky propelled me through its virtual folds, reconstructed in exacting miniature. I extended a hand to one of the fist-sized flames, feeling its warmth, wondering at the detail in the illusion. I knew from previous experiments that I could actually burn myself, if I grasped one of the tiny suns in my hand.
“Where do you get these toys?” I said wonderingly. “Jon would love this.”
Seer tech, he sent. “Are you ready?”
I nodded, gripping his shirt because it somehow helped with the illusion of flying.
Do not leave me, he warned. Not even a little, Allie.
I smiled, tugging on his shirt to get him to smile back. “We’re just looking this time, right? A little psychic tom-peepery?” Feeling him hesitate, I shooed him with my free hand. “I won’t leave you.” I crossed my heart, watched his eyes follow my fingers. “Promise.”
“In Prexci, Allie.”
Thinking briefly, I switched languages. “I vow it!”
He continued to look doubtful.
I had asked for this.
We’d been eating breakfast the morning after that night on the balcony. We were halfway through plates of eggs, toast and sausage when I reminded him of what he’d agreed to the night before. Instead of hesitating, or seeming reluctant in any way, he’d nodded at once, as if he’d been thinking about it already.
He asked me what I wanted to learn.
“Everything,” I said, taking a bite of toast.
He smiled. “I’m not sure I can accommodate that—”
“Tracking,” I said. “Can you teach me that?”
A light sparked in his eyes. “Yes.” He leaned closer to me. “Where do you want to start?”
“Who ordered the hit on my mom?”
His pale eyes had immediately flattened, returning to the dull cold of an infiltrator’s eyes. He leaned back in his chair.
I got up when he didn’t speak, found a pen in the drawer of the inbuilt cabinet under the wall screen as I grabbed a sheet of the ship’s stationary. Plopping the paper down on the table in front of him, I bent over where he sat, sketching an outline of the Pyramid from memory. I took a few minutes, delineating the nodes that I’d seen change places, marking tiers I’d seen, too.
Revik watched me draw, shifting slightly in his seat, his arms crossed.
I circled the man sitting on top.
“Him. He’s the guy, right? Who is that?”
Revik met my gaze from less than a foot away. I could tell he was grudgingly impressed, but I wasn’t sure by what. He’s the one who told me my pyramid paintings were accurate.
He must have heard me. Grunting a little, he wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin, fingering the glass of juice by his plate. He gave a short laugh.
“D’ gaos, Alyson.” His pale eyes flickered up. “The best trackers in the Adhipan can’t answer that question. If you want to learn how to track, start with something small, something you have a connection to. These things go in stages––”
“So you won’t help me?”
His eyes narrowed. “Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you. It’s just that I really think I—”
“Alyson!” He gave another short laugh. “No!”
“But how is it different from tracking anyone else?” I leaned my palms on the table, ignoring his uncomfortable look as his eyes flickered down my body. “Personal connection, right? Or a connection to something that’s connected to the target? How hard can that be? I felt that guy, Terian. I could probably still get a flavor of his light. And you two were friends, right? And aren’t there, like… a million Rooks? You must still be connected to a few of them.”
He stared at me, his eyes horrified, bemused––even a little wary.
Pushing me gently aside with one arm, he stood and picked up his plate, placing it on the room service tray, stacking it on mine with the covers.
“I’ll teach you tracking,” he said after another pause. “But you’re going to have to do it my way.” He glanced over his shoulder, surprising me by smiling. “As far as the ‘everything’ request, I have some ideas. How open are you?”
Open, as it happened.
Partly to distract both of us, and partly because he had too much time on his hands—Revik was Type-A with a capital “A,” I was learning—he made me his project.
He pushed me to learn not one, but several languages, mainly the seer tongue, Prexci, and Mandarin. He also wanted me to learn Russian, Hindi and Sanskrit, but apparently wasn’t enough of a masochist to start me on those until I’d made some headway with the other two.
He lectured me on seer history, politics, culture, mythology, biology, law––especially law, he was big on law.
He obtained recordings for when he might be absent or asleep, covering subjects like the entire Sark Codes, a sort of bible for his people. He outlined the evolution of legal controls on seers following the death of Syrimne, and let’s just say, Revik’s version differed substantially from what I’d learned in school. He explained how the Human Protection Act evolved to include mandatory registration, travel, employment and residency restrictions, forced implantation, sight slavery, collaring, and the evolution of Seer Containment, or SCARB, which initially grew out of a branch of the World Court.
He tested me, trying to gauge what I could do with my light. He didn’t pull any punches, either, pronouncing me worthless at blocking and not much better at reading, what he called “the basics.” He said my concentration had to improve about a hundredfold before I could do anything in the Barrier alone.
To teach me blocking, he’d taken to hitting out at me with his light when I wasn’t expecting it. A few times, he caught me off guard enough, and hit me hard enough, that I got a nosebleed, like he had in the car.
He also obtained permission to have Eliah, one of the Seven’s Guard, teach me mulei, the seer martial art. When I asked Revik why he couldn’t just teach me himself, he mumbled something about how he wasn’t allowed. I heard the word “penance” muttered somewhere in that speech, but he didn’t explain to me what it meant.
The Seven’s Guard kept regular passengers and crew out of our part of the ship, which meant seers performed all housekeeping and food
delivery. They stripped one of the larger rooms of furniture to make an exercise arena where Eliah could train me in sparring. The sparring itself was damned hard—seers had faster reflexes, better hearing and vision, more intolerance to pain because they could detach their light from their physical bodies, and they mixed sight skills in with their physical fighting. There were also totally different rules from the sparring I’d done with my brother, Jon, in his kung fu classes.
For one thing, seers fought dirty.
So basically, no matter how much I absorbed, I earned new bruises daily.
Revik taught me “normal” things, too.
Before I was fully awake that morning, he sat on the end of the bed, explaining semi-organic machines to me, and the basics on how they worked. Laying Barrier images over virtual, he also showed me the primary theoretical models or “breeds” of living machine. He explained how they arose from Barrier experiments by seers during that brief period of integration with humans in the early twentieth century, and how seers were banned from scientific research in the forties partly because a handful of renegade seers took to “persuading” the more intelligent organics to turn on their human masters.
He said Syrimne basically invented the wires, too, while experimenting with ways to both enhance and control seer powers using organics and semi-organics.
I’d never heard that version of history before, either.
Some of what Revik taught me was blatantly illegal.
Like how to break keypads and access locked computer networks, pulling passwords and bypassing firewalls with my sight. How to avoid racial tagging systems and blood monitors as well as closed-circuit cameras and other security surveillance. How and when to push humans into giving me things I needed. How to feel facial recognition software and other external scans with my aleimi, and how to fool a DNA, fingerprint or iris scanner into a false positive for human, or a false negative on an ID by my DNA, if I was wanted by SCARB or Interpol.
Other things he taught me were relatively benign.
Like how to greet strange seers and the rules on asking other seers for help. Legal loopholes such as when and how to claim clan status to avoid certain searches and seizures. Etiquette in seer temples and homes. How to act towards older seers, especially family members or any other category of seer to whom respect or deference was owed.
Revik informed me I would get a new identity and a clan tattoo once we made it to Asia. The Seven would likely reclassify a dead seer with my stats.
After that, yeah––Alyson May Taylor would cease to exist.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Revik further explained how I could claim proportional citizenship if they set me up with a human sponsor. Meaning, if I gave up some rights of movement and association, including sexual rights, depending on the contract, I would get limited citizenship rights proportionally related to the contractual agreements with whomever I worked.
“Your world is terrifying,” I told him.
“We didn’t make it so,” was his response. He paused then, thinking. “Well. Mostly.”
He went on to explain that contractual citizenship was just one way humans pressured seers to work for the military and in other quasi-legal occupations. Civilian contracts could only grant rudimentary rights. Those rights generally didn’t include travel or association beyond specified categories––“entertainment,” including prostitution, being one of those most easily granted.
The military offered, among other things, nearly unlimited freedom of movement when not on the job, coupled with moderate rights of association without the need to sell sex.
Not surprisingly, a big market for seer contracts also existed in organized crime syndicates. But, Revik noted wryly, the life spans of those seers tended to be shorter, and Rooks dominated that market almost exclusively. Even the mafia didn’t make a habit of killing seers indiscriminately, however; trained seers with high sight-ranks were far too valuable.
Seer mafias existed as well, according to Revik, mainly dealing in seer children and organic material, including blood.
I got flickers as he spoke, glimpses of Asian seers on donkeys, leading dirty, barefoot children with dark eyes across the snow, metal collars around their necks like those I’d seen on the prostitutes and other owned seers in San Francisco.
He’d also mentioned to me casually,
Even if you are able to legally change identity, you should know that Sark females like you are not legally sentient to other seers, either. If your race were made public by the Council, I would officially be your owner. And if I forbid it, you cannot consent.
We’d been eating on the balcony, and he paused at this, taking a bite of apple as he waved his hand vaguely.
It can be good for us, for they cannot lie and say you have consented where duress was involved. Providing you trust me with this, of course.
I’d stared at that particular mouthful, not sure where to begin.
“Not sentient?” I said. “As in lacks sentience?”
He’d shrugged. “It is a legal fiction, to require ownership.”
“But why females, exactly?” I’d said.
“Not females,” he said, looking at me. You misunderstand. These laws are to control seers with telekinetic powers.
That took me another few seconds to process. Even so, I had to admit it made sense, given the Syrimne thing.
Finally, I shrugged. “So I’m a different race now?”
Revik startled me, gesturing in the affirmative.
“Well,” he amended, glancing at my expression. “Not really. Your blood is somewhat different, but other seers have this genetic anomaly who are not telekinetic. You can reproduce with us. Well… as far as I know.”
He hesitated, looking up at me where I stood by the balcony. He seemed to pick up on the fact that I knew he wasn’t telling me something.
He added, Telekinesis is believed to be at least partly genetic. So with females it could potentially be passed to offspring. It makes you very valuable, Alyson, and in a way that is more real to those who may not care about your significance as the Bridge. It is unclear to me how superstitious some of the higher ranking Rooks are. Although it is believed that Galaith himself is quite religious.
“Galaith? That’s their leader, right?”
“Yes.” At my continued stare, his colorless eyes grew impatient. “You must have known they would have recorded what you did in the diner. You have no one to blame but yourself, Allie.”
But I’d been remembering something else. The bridge over Lake Washington––the way the guardrail seemed to fold into itself just before we hit. I had to assume at least some of the Rooks chasing us had seen me do that, too, if they’d been watching from the Barrier.
When I glanced at him next, Revik’s stare had grown irritated once more.
More than that, I got a flavor of angry puzzlement underneath.
“Allie,” he said. “You should not have done that. Not while they had access to your light. That was extremely foolish.”
“Excuse me,” I said, giving an outraged laugh. “I believe I saved your ass during that little screw up… Dehgoies.”
“Never do it again.” Anger grew more prominent in his eyes. “Not for me or anyone else. I mean it, Allie.”
Feeling my anger turn real, he clicked at me sharply.
Whatever story the human media gives, be sure that if the Rooks know you are telekinetic, then SCARB knows what you are, as well. Even if we change your identity to the humans, the seers will want assurances that you will remain docile. And some will want to breed you. Consensually, or not.
“Docile?” I said, barely containing my fury. “Breed me?”
Focusing back on his food, Revik shrugged, rearranging a cloth napkin on his lap as he looked out over the sunlit ocean.
“We’ll deal with it when we have to. You have protection for now. Vash will do his best. As will I.” He didn’t look up from where he was cutting a piece of meat.
Now we stood in a cluster of virtual stars, and he’d promised to take me somewhere.
In Revik-world, this was probably the closest to a date I’d get.
“Where first?” I said in Prexci.
“Balixe,” he said. “It is a seer city.”
Balixe means water in the seer tongue… my mind recited.
“Yes.” Surprise wafted off him. You know of it?
“Only by name,” I joked. At his flat look, I sighed, thinking loudly that I’d watched a history program on ancient seer culture in one of the vids he’d given me. In that particular program, it said Balixe housed the ruins of the last Elaerian city.
Revik nodded. “That is correct.”
“I know,” I said. I tugged on his shirt. “Can we go?”
He caught hold of my wrist.
I barely had time to take a breath when––
24
HISTORY
––I’M NOT BREATHING.
A horizon forms as I watch, framed by distant mountains, and I see currents, streams of swift-moving, velvet black light, a myriad of subtle colors that all convey dark. The currents flow like thinly spread liquid, level after level, hundreds of miles above and below where I am.
I love it here.
The sheer beauty of this place is staggering.
Dark clouds hang heavy in the distance, shot through with even more subtle frequencies of light. They make me long for a sunrise, for stronger beams of illumination in the churning aliveness of the night, just to see the colors.
Then I am looking at him, and I forget all the rest.
Geometrical patterns flow around Revik’s hyper-detailed form, sparking out in small, colorful arcs of current and light. I reach out, touching one of the shapes, and from his reaction, it isn’t dissimilar to poking him in the eye.
Rook (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #1): Bridge & Sword World Page 23