Besides, Revik wasn’t exactly running on all four cylinders at the moment.
He found Chandre in a corner, poring over a detailed electronic schematic of the White House and its grounds. Glancing around at the other seers sitting and standing around the room, Jon sidled up beside her, talking low.
“Someone needs to talk to him,” he said. “He’s totally fucking losing it, Chan. I mean whacko losing it...”
He glanced over his shoulder, focusing on Kat, the Russian seer, who was staring at him narrowly from across the room. Turning back to Chan, he watched the dark-skinned, red-eyed infiltrator glance up from the maps, a frown on her sculpted lips. She pushed her braids out of her face, her expression unmoving as she went back to studying the detailed lines.
Jon said softly, “Do you know what he’s planning to do? To get in there, I mean...to get that kid to come to him. Have you heard his idea?”
Chan didn’t answer at first, her eyes still focused on the maps.
“Chan!” Jon said. “Did you hear me?”
After a pause, she lifted her eyes, giving him a level stare.
“Did it occur to you, young cousin,” she said, her voice a hard whisper. “...That his wife is likely being raped by Terian and the boy in turns, as we speak?”
Jon hesitated at this, feeling his anger deflate.
“Yeah,” he said. “It did, actually.”
“Did it, now?” Chan said. “Well, do you think that maybe it occurred to Dehgoies as well...and that perhaps he isn’t willing to wait for a better, more squeaky-clean plan to get inside and help her?” Her reddish irises turned to glass, their gaze pointing inward. “The time for soft approach is over, Jon. They fucking stole the Bridge. They own her now. There is no negotiation. No legal means of taking her out. There is this, or there is outright war. The humans—”
“Humans didn’t do this, Chan! Terian did this...one of yours!”
“They are letting it happen!” she burst out. “They are enjoying this, Jon! You saw that bitch on the news! They are treating her like a zoo animal. Terian’s probably loaning her out to every worm with a hard on...or did you think she got those bruises playing chess with the boy?”
Jon pressed his lips together. For a moment, he had no response.
It occurred to him then, that the words she’d just spoken didn’t feel like they came from Chandre alone. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever hearing Chandre use the word ‘bitch’ before. Once he got that much, another understanding reached him. He glanced up and around them reflexively, as if it might help him see the construct with his physical eyes. Being human, he forgot what it was like for seers, with their minds often entwined like a single organism.
“You can hear him,” he said. “...Revik, I mean.”
She gave him another flat look. “Lay off him, Jon. He’s holding it together reasonably well under the circumstances…”
“Sure he is.”
“He’s fine, Jon.”
“He wakes up crying every night! He’s fucking drunk, Chan...or haven’t you been paying attention?”
She waved this off dismissively. “You don’t understand.”
“What?” Jon felt his anger rise. “Let me guess, because I’m human?”
“He’ll get us inside! His plan is good, Jon...better than what any of us came up with when we ran scenarios on the plane. It may even work...”
“And if he goes back to how he was?” Jon said in a fierce whisper. “You know...when he was a Rook. Do you think Allie will thank him for that...or thank us for standing by and letting it happen?”
When Chandre turned back to the map, clicking her tongue, Jon caught her arm with his good hand, forcing her to turn.
“Come on, Chan! I’m not the only one who’s noticed...I’ve watched him threaten at least four people today alone with either torture or death and I don’t think in any way he was bluffing...” When she clicked at him, rolling her eyes dismissively again, he clutched her tighter. “He flat-out doesn’t care about how many he kills, human or seer. He’s planning on killing people, Chan. Not as unavoidable collateral damage...but as part of his strategy! Does that sound like the Revik you know? He doesn’t care if he starts a war—”
“Code won’t save us in this, Jon!” she said, her voice warning. “Were you watching the news with the rest of us when Seertown was bombed into rubble? How many deaths do you suppose they worked into the game plan for that little operation?” Her jaw hardened again, even as she gestured shortly with one hand, flipping her braids back with a jerk of her head.
“…He had her dressed up like a fucking whore. His whore. Terian is laughing at us, Jon! He deserves whatever he gets from Dehgoies and I’ll do whatever I can to see to it that he receives it...”
Jerking her arm out of his grasp, she closed up the map, giving him another hard look before walking back towards the staging room.
Jon just looked after her.
There was no point chasing her down. She couldn’t hear him.
Chan was like the rest of them now. The longer they stayed with that group of tattooed seers from the mountains, the more angry and anti-human they all got. Jon glanced around himself again, wondering if that came from Revik too. It hadn’t escaped his attention that his friend had a streak of racism a mile wide at times. Allie grumbled about it...even Yerin mentioned it once.
Lately, it had been worse.
There was something wrong. Jon knew it had something to do with the rebel seers and their creepy leader, Salinse. Revik seemed to know it too; he just didn’t care.
Knowing him, this was his idea of a compromise.
There was something unnerving about the fact that this whole army of strangers just handed over operations to Revik, no questions asked. No matter who his wife was, or what had happened to her, it just felt off to Jon. All of them, even that monster Wreg, who seemed to hate Revik less the more he turned into a complete bastard, did whatever Revik told them without question.
Sitting down on one of the plush chairs that probably would have stains all over it if he shone a black light on it, Jon closed his eyes, trying to calm the worry twisting his gut. Something about the look on Revik’s face...
Whatever Chan said, Revik wasn’t handling this well at all.
Jon hadn’t given himself much time to think about what Allie might be going through; he just couldn’t go there, not yet. Still, it scared him, seeing Revik like that. He knew he was projecting, at least to a degree...that part of him thought that if he couldn’t do anything for his sister, he could at least keep her husband from self-destructing while he tried to save her life. He’d even considered trying to contact Vash...or Balidor. But Revik already made it pretty clear he didn’t want to talk to either of them, at least not until this thing was finished.
He wished like hell that Cass were there.
Cass had an odd knack of getting under Revik’s defenses. She’d always been like that, with everyone...even Allie. Revik would listen to her. He might yell at her too, but he’d hear her out at least.
But Jon had no idea where Cass was...and anyway, she’d been acting pretty damned weird the last time he saw her, too.
BALIDOR PAUSED ON the rocky trail, hands on his hips.
He gazed up the side of the nearly sheer cliff, to where Cass and the mountainous Wvercian edged along a hairline path hugging the striated stone wall. Veins of red and black twisted through the gray rock, making it look almost like cut flesh. Despite the altitude and the fact of her human biology, Cass seemed to be able to walk for hours without showing any sign of stopping.
Balidor was beginning to wonder how he’d let himself get talked into this.
When Dehgoies refused his help, he should have joined his brothers and sisters, escorting refugees back to the Pamir and to Vash.
“Cass!” he shouted up. “Are you all right?”
“Yep,” she called back, somewhere between talking loud and shouting. “I think we’re pretty close now...this looks exa
ctly like the drawing in the book. Baguen thinks so too...”
“Do you have any idea of the odds against that?” Balidor said in some exasperation. “And anyway, that book could be a decoy, Cass, or—”
“No,” Cass shouted back. “This is right.”
Balidor noticed the Wvercian didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
But then, it was pretty clear he was following Cass like some kind of human prophet, maybe because of her relationship to the Bridge. Balidor still didn’t know his name, although she called him some form of “Baguen” which Balidor suspected was a pidgin word in Wvercian she’d misheard.
They’d been hiking for days, with only the provisions carried by the three of them and the equipment Balidor had on him when he'd left Seertown with the Rebels, including his gun.
He’d managed to hunt on two of those days. Water hadn’t been an issue, so far at least, but he grew increasingly uncomfortable with his diminishing ammunition stores and anxious about what they were doing exactly. Cass seemed determined that this was the best way to help Dehgoies and the Bridge, but his faith in her was beginning to falter, given everything.
Whatever she intended to accomplish, he couldn’t get a read on it with his sight. For him, that was more faith than his rational mind could allow.
Yet, he had to admit, for the first time in several decades, if not centuries...he couldn’t say there was anything directly pressing for him to be doing.
Seertown was deserted. The Adhipan had scattered. Those who hadn’t gone after Dehgoies and the Bridge were leading caravans of refugees to the Pamir, Sikkim or Ladakh to assemble to determine their losses. Some of those groups would be en route for weeks, if not months. Balidor could be helping them, of course, but again...his presence wasn’t strictly needed.
The government was in shambles, but Balidor himself couldn’t do much about that, either. He’d heard directly from the remnants of the Seven right before he, Cass and the Wvercian left that dugout in Southwestern China. The vast majority of the news was bad. Yerin had been killed by the Americans...or possibly the rebels. The Americans still denied their involvement, and the Rebels maintained they’d only appeared following the assault, but in Yerin’s case, the end result remained the same.
Vash was in mourning for his son, and not involved in the work of rebuilding, at least not yet. Likely as a result of his absence, and that of the Bridge, the Council had effectively gone on hiatus. Balidor didn’t yet want to think about what they would do if that hiatus ended up being permanent.
Balidor received a list of the dead.
He could keep it all in his aleimi because he was a seer. He could have recited it, for the same reason, but there was no need. He knew many of those behind the names personally, but beyond that, the sheer numbers were devastating.
If not the end, Balidor knew he might be seeing the beginning of the end of his race.
He should have gone with Dehgoies.
He knew why Dehgoies didn’t want him along; that had been clear when he made his excuses, even before he hooked into that network of Dreng filth just because it might save him a few days in recovering his mate.
Vash had warned him that Revik retained some attachment issues still. When Balidor asked what Vash thought about the Adhipan recruiting the ex-Rook, it had been Vash’s only misgiving. He’d spent too much of his life alone, Vash said. He retained a vulnerability in that lack, and would until his mate had helped him heal it.
So Balidor should have gone with him to America, but he hadn’t, and now they might have a problem greater than the Bridge being owned by a lunatic like Terian. If Dehgoies turned again, with his relationship to the Bridge, he became a serious liability. In fact, they might have to find a way to kill him without harming her...or worse, killing them both to prevent the harm they could inflict together, which far outweighed her ability to help the humans in the coming Displacement.
He didn’t know what to do about that right then, either, however.
Chances were, the issue couldn’t even be addressed until Allie was out of Terian’s custody, and as much as Balidor hated to admit it, Dehgoies, dark or light, was their best chance to accomplish that without getting her killed. She couldn’t be allowed to stay with the boy, no matter what occurred. A dark Dehgoies, daunting though that prospect was, they could handle...it was nothing compared to a Syrimne-in-training with the Bridge at his side.
So Balidor continued to follow Cass and her Wvercian giant, all the while trying to decide how long he could continue his stalling tactic before he turned and walked the long road back to Dharamsala or Delhi for a plane to North America.
He was approaching his limit, he’d decided that morning.
He was still staring up at Cass, watching her feel along the face of the sheer, ribboned rock wall, when her arm seemed to disappear.
Balidor blinked, looking again.
Her arm still appeared to end at the elbow, the rest stuck inside the smooth, featureless stone. He saw a grin break out over her face, distorting the thick scar that bisected her countenance. She flipped back her dyed, dark-red hair.
Then, seemingly in front of his very eyes, she disappeared.
“Hey!” Balidor yelled up the cliff in Prexci. “Baguen! What happened?”
The giant grunted, looking down at him. He touched the rock wall where Cass had been, seconds before. Balidor saw his fingers disappear. Then, while he watched, the Wvercian disappeared too.
Balidor shouted up again. “Cass! Goddamn it!”
Neither of them answered.
Frustrated, and now a little afraid, he vaulted up the path to reach the ledge.
He slid his body and feet along the narrow edge. Fumbling to keep a good grip on the wall, he made his way to the sheer drop where the two of them had been standing. He lost his footing a few times, spraying gravel with his organic-tipped boots in his haste to reach the last point he’d seen her on the path. It was hardly a path at all, really. Instead, it looked more like a trail for goats, a narrow, pebbled ledge with only intermittent foot-holds.
How Cass managed to get up here in the first place...
He paused, concentrating as he reached the place in the cliff wall where the two of them disappeared. He felt over the rock with his fingers, looking for openings, any place where the sediment gave. Taking a breath, he pressed harder, focusing on the area where he could still feel the imprints of her hands.
...And suddenly, he found himself inside the mountain.
There was no warning, no transition. If he didn’t know better, Balidor would have thought he was absorbed by the rock itself.
Or perhaps teleported.
Blinking to adjust his eyes, he glanced briefly at the rock wall behind him.
But he’d examine that later. He needed to find Cass.
He stretched out his light, looking around the cave in which he found himself. Instead of being entirely dark, it was dimly lit with phosphorescence on the walls, a living paste. He touched it briefly with his gloved fingers, inhaling the wet, rotted smell before making a face and moving deeper into the cave.
“Cass?” he said. He kept his voice low.
Using his light, he followed the traces of her aleimi deeper into the cave. Reaching what he thought had been the end, he realized it as merely a bend in a longer corridor. He followed the curve of rock. He had barely walked ten paces when he found himself faced with another dead end. This one appeared to be made of solid volcanic glass, a deep black in color. It looked like a flat, black mirror.
“D’gaos,” he muttered. “Where is that human?”
Extending his light, he realized there was a larger space on the other side of the rock, and reached out with a hand. He felt over the surface, until again…
He found himself someplace else.
For a moment he could only stand there, blinking in the sharp increase in illumination. Glancing around, he focused on the wall of organic machines, staring at them in a kind of disbelief before Ca
ss’ voice jerked him back to the present.
“Hey, ‘Dori.”
Balidor turned, found himself staring into the elfin face of Cass.
She motioned him over impatiently, her hands hovering over what appeared to be the main console for at least a portion of the organic machines.
“Do you recognize any of these controls?” she asked, pointing at the array of keys. “I can’t read the language...”
Approaching warily, Balidor stared down at the console, then around at the larger bank of machinery. The row of organics slid deeper into the rock walls than he’d first realized.
“Where the fuck is this?” he said in his broken English.
Cass looked up, grinning. Her eyes shone with a light he hadn’t seen in them in all the months he’d known her. There was an easy joy there, a kind of happy sense of triumph that reassured him somehow.
“See that?” she said, pointing to a monitor.
Balidor followed her finger, staring at the VR projection. His brow furrowed as he tried to make out the image on the screen, to make sense of it.
“What is it?” he said finally.
“Space,” she said, laughing. “Can you believe it?”
“Space?” He looked at her blankly. “Who is in space?”
Her grin widened, filled with so much joy Balidor couldn’t help but smile back, bewildered by the depth of emotion there.
“Feigran is,” she said. “...But we’re going to bring him home.”
26
BROKEN
I SAT CRUMPLED in the corner of the cell. I couldn’t move.
My mind displayed flat static. I worried I’d been broken. That I’d never work right again. I fingered parts of myself, but couldn’t quite bring myself to look. I couldn’t move. I really couldn’t move…
I knew I was being punished...had been punished...would be again soon.
Threats blurred in my mind with memories of physical pain. I couldn’t see very well. I waited for him...I waited for...
Allie's War Season One Page 91