Shield (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #2): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  He gestured vaguely. “States,” he said, his voice thick.

  He glanced sideways, seeing Chandre approach from behind Jon.

  He focused on her deliberately, fighting to regain his composure. It was easier facing her fierce eyes, the infiltrator’s mask she wore like a skin. When he looked back at the others, he immediately wished he hadn’t. Jon looked like someone had punched him in the face. When Revik didn’t say anything more, the human blurted,

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Chandre’s voice rose. “So am I.”

  Revik turned, looking at Chandre.

  Balidor must have told her. He was about to tell them no, that they damned well were not coming with him, when Cass spoke up from his other side, drawing his eyes.

  “We’ll stay here,” she said.

  She looped her arm through Balidor’s companionably, clutching his sleeve. The Adhipan leader looked faintly surprised, but didn’t step away, or try to disentangle himself from Cass's hold.

  Her expression had focus, and her eyes held less of that devastated look he saw in Jon’s.

  “I have a job for big Adhipan man here,” she said. “We’ll help you from here, Revik. Just get Allie back.”

  Revik looked around at all of them, but could barely see them anymore. He couldn’t feel anything as he looked at them, couldn’t comprehend what he saw on their faces. He could feel his light closing to theirs, but didn’t care anymore.

  He only wanted them away from him. Out of his way.

  “Fine,” he said.

  Without another word, he walked.

  He moved through and past them, heading in the direction he’d last seen Wreg. As he made his way down the middle of a corridor between rows of fighter planes, he tried to pull his mind back on track, to get out of the spiral that started as soon as he laid eyes on the four of them.

  Limping, he focused again on his leg, then on the rest of it.

  He now knew where Terian had taken her.

  They’d gotten word right as he was taking his leave of Salinse. Getting inside wouldn’t be easy. Getting inside in a way that Terian wouldn’t anticipate would be even harder.

  Terry would be waiting for him; he’d made that clear.

  Revik approached Wreg. He waited for the older seer to look up, then cleared his throat, measuring the opaque black eyes.

  “Salinse spoke to you?” he said.

  Wreg gestured affirmative, bowing with one hand.

  Neither motion appeared to be sarcastic, nor did he display any lingering anger. Instead he appeared ready, listening and respectful.

  It was as if that morning had never happened.

  One thing about this group, Revik thought wryly––they respected the chain of command.

  Truthfully, he had missed that a little.

  “You now have full access to the construct, sir,” Wreg said, again with no trace of disrespect, or even undue coldness. “I took the liberty of beginning preliminary equipment assemble and tactical planning for entry into US airspace. I gather from Father Salinse that you want to leave quickly. I did not wish to wait until you were able to free yourself to ask for what is obvious.”

  Revik nodded. “I appreciate that.” He let the other seer feel he meant it. “Have you selected the team?” he said.

  Wreg gestured affirmative. “Only first cut, of course.” He motioned towards the uniformed group milling across from the refugee area. “They’re awaiting your inspection. We have about eighty infiltrators in total, so you have some latitude to choose who you wish.”

  “Eighty?” Revik was mildly thrown by this. “That many?”

  Wreg gestured affirmative.

  He added, “Backgrounds, sight ranks, specialized skills all live in the secure side of the construct. I’ll await the final list from you before conducting the preliminary briefings.”

  “What do I need in the way of keys, for relevant intel?”

  Wreg flashed a set of symbols at him in the space. They were complex, and multi-dimensional enough that Revik found himself giving a short nod of approval.

  “Thanks.”

  He was about to plug into them, when he felt a soft ping from his other side.

  He turned, meeting Balidor’s gray eyes.

  They had followed him. Great.

  Balidor’s eyes met his, holding a warning almost on the surface.

  Careful, brother, he sent, barely a whisper.

  Balidor’s mind nudged his, indicating towards the light of the construct.

  Revik followed with his mind’s eye to where the Adhipan leader indicated.

  For what felt like a long pause… he hesitated.

  He scanned the silver strands writhing there, wound into the structure of the construct itself. Existing within a construct––as Revik was now, simply by being in Salinse’s stronghold––wasn’t the same as using a construct. To access the locked portions and manipulate the layered light as a tool, he would need to open himself, to resonate with the overall design.

  He would need to become one with it, in a sense.

  Scanning the properties of the silver strands making up the construct’s meta-structure, he understood exactly what Balidor’s warning meant.

  The light of the Dreng lived here.

  It flowed thick inside the construct, as it had in Salinse’s light, almost as thick as what he remembered from the Pyramid. Whatever Salinse’s claims that Terian carried the only direct line to the Dreng following the Pyramid’s collapse, he hadn’t been fully honest. Their power lived here, too. It came through with a slightly different flavor. It was more subtle, too, as though their light reached the construct through a broader filter.

  The Dreng’s fingerprints remained irrefutable.

  Staring up at that light, he found himself seeing Allie standing before him in the dirt yard. Terian’s hand clenched on her throat as she balanced on her toes. She’d been naked, covered in bruises, many of them from him. She’d yelled at him, even with Terian holding her collar… telling him not to worry about her.

  Seeing her there, so close to him, so real despite the distance between them, broke everything down on top of him.

  His heart hurt, more than anything in him had hurt in his life.

  He’d told Terian once, he’d turn if he had to.

  Somewhere in that instant’s hesitation, he realized his mind had been made up before he’d really contemplated the question.

  “Brother Revik!” Balidor said aloud.

  Revik didn’t turn, but his jaw hardened.

  Brushing the Adhipan leader out of his light, he took the keys Wreg offered him, angry now. Without looking at any of them, he let the silver strands resonate with his aleimi, ignoring the alarm he felt off Balidor… and the tremor that ran through him at how easily that particular frequency still sat in parts of his own structure.

  Within seconds, he found himself flexing their weight, reacquainting himself with the added structure, with the multiplication of his light against that of whatever held the reigns at the other end.

  For an instant, he stood perfectly still, gazing down from a vantage he hadn’t glimpsed in about forty years.

  It was like he was meant to be there.

  It was like coming home.

  36

  OWNED

  I COULDN’T SEE. Flashes erupted in my eyes, blinding me.

  I felt a vague gratitude that I had on clothes, even though I knew it helped only marginally here. The crush of bodies pushed up against where I tried to walk, sandwiched between guards, holding cuffed hands in front of my face.

  People touched me wherever they could, and they weren’t particularly gentle about it. I heard clothing rip, felt their fingers caressing bare skin. I knew all this, in some part of my mind, but continued to stare straight ahead, my jaw clenched to keep my face still.

  I’d become one of those people on the feeds––the ones who bolstered sales of tabloids along with the viewership of the main networks. The ones with s
creaming headlines over their pictures, who always managed to look stoned at the instant the recorders captured the still image of their real, non-avatar faces.

  In my case, they’d be right.

  Before the helicopter touched down, Terian slammed another syringe-full of something into my neck.

  It worked on me nearly instantaneously, making me thick-tongued even before he’d finished unlocking the straps that held me in the restraint chair at the back of the military transport. When he helped me out of the sliding door, I half-fell, lurching sideways until he clamped an arm around my waist, jerking me upright.

  I’m sure I looked drunk, or sufficiently wanton even for the mass feeds.

  There’d be no avatars for my image, of course.

  I was a terrorist; they could show my real face with impunity. Even dead people had more rights to conceal their true appearance than I did. I’d never maintain anonymity in the seer or human world ever again.

  Not like I ever had, come to think of it.

  These images would be current, though. The one the feeds had been broadcasting since my mom died had been from high school and college. My hair had been the wrong length, the wrong color, even the wrong texture. My face looked different now. It was more angular, thinner. My cheekbones stood out more.

  According to Jon, my eyes had even changed color.

  Oh, and I was taller.

  The Scandinavian Terian remained by my side as we parted the crush of reporters waiting by the White House helipad. He kept an arm firmly around me as the guards led me across the White House lawn and into the famous building.

  No one noticed the boy as he trailed along behind us.

  “COULD YOU SPEAK up?” the sharp voice said.

  I held up my cuffed hands, spreading my fingers and blinking against the ultra-bright lights. Terian caught hold of the chain and pulled my hands back to my lap. With an effort, I focused on the reporter.

  “Excuse me?”

  “How do you account for yourself?” the blond woman said. Her organic headset pulsed with a bright blue light, which told me that anything I said would be heard, even if I whispered––likely by millions of people.

  Account for myself? I wondered. Does she expect me to answer that?

  Even on drugs, the setting was ludicrous.

  Paisley couches faced one another, a polished maple coffee table in the middle. A bone china tea set sat on the table, along with a silver tray of cucumber and hummus sandwiches. Terian and I sat on a love seat in the Oval Office, set strategically between the two couches, the table right in front of us.

  The Oval Office’s most famous occupant wasn’t in attendance.

  The Scandinavian fingered the collar at my neck absently as he posed––serious, pensive, handsome––for the cameras running steadily in the background.

  “I’m not sure what you mean…” I began, glancing at him.

  The woman raised her voice and spoke more slowly, as if supposing I was deaf, or maybe mentally deficient in some way.

  “Do you consider yourself a terrorist?” she said.

  I imagined the swell of dramatic music in the background at her daring question of the bloodthirsty seer, followed by a close-up on her determined, righteous face. I didn’t smile, but a more cynical side of me wanted to.

  Terian coached me prior to the interview, however. He warned me that seeming amused in any way would, at best, make me appear arrogant.

  At worst, bat-shit crazy.

  I knew who she was, of course. I’d grown up seeing people like her on the flatscreen at my apartment in San Francisco. I even watched the feeds from time to time in India. She was one of those journalists who had the reputation of asking the poignant questions, of getting to the truth. I didn’t know anyone on the ground who really believed that, though, not even when I lived in San Francisco.

  The news feeds were nothing but theater and propaganda most of the time.

  This woman, in particular, always grated on my nerves.

  She had the voice of one of those yappy dogs, and a face that had been reconstructed so many times she looked like a wax doll. During a period where I drank heavily, after Jaden cheated on me with this horrible groupie, I occasionally used this woman’s channel on the feeds as an alarm clock. Her voice was one of the few sounds I’d get out of bed just to shut off, no matter how hung-over I was.

  Even before I knew I was a seer, I knew the feeds were full of shit. So did all of my human friends. I just didn’t realize the extent of it.

  My mom told me it hadn’t always been that way.

  “Did you hear me?” the yappy dog said, her voice sharper. “Are you a terrorist, Alyson? Or does that question make you uncomfortable?”

  I glanced at Terian.

  He sat casually in his dark suit, still caressing my neck absently with his fingers. I knew that was deliberate, too. The body he wore looked like a posable male sex doll. He was almost absurdly handsome, and so white, he had to be human.

  Or so the feeds would think.

  I fought the urge to yank up the front of the low-cut sundress they’d shoved me into, crossing my legs compulsively in spite of myself, although I knew that probably only sexualized my appearance more. Sandals covered my feet, ribbons winding up my bare legs.

  Terian probably would have put me into a VR-paneled, topless club dress if he could have gotten away with it.

  According to the Press Secretary and others from the Department of Defense, they needed me to look harmless, though.

  They needed me to seem as frail and feminine as possible.

  I wondered how well my bruises were showing up on the national feeds.

  I cleared my throat.

  “No,” I said. “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m just not exactly sure what you mean.”

  “What I mean?” She snorted in open derision. “I mean… you blew up a ship, Alyson. How do you feel about killing all of those innocent people?”

  “Errr… no,” I said. “I didn’t blow up a ship.”

  I looked out the glass doors behind her, staring longingly at the green lawns and gardens. I wiped my face with cuffed hands, then instantly regretted it, realizing I’d just highlighted them for the camera a second time.

  “Look,” I said. “That was all a big mistake. I thought you knew that. I thought you proved Caine was behind what happened there?”

  The woman gave the camera a knowing look. “Sure. Of course. Because we all know humans have access to supernatural powers.”

  “You have access to C-4,” I said, blunt.

  The woman gave me a narrow look, as if the cocker spaniel suddenly began speaking English. I saw the Press Secretary behind the cameraman, waving his arms to Terian. When Terian glanced up, the human began making “cut it off” gestures by running his finger across his neck.

  “I think what Alyson means, is,” the Scandinavian Terian said smoothly, waving the man off absently with his fingers. “There are other ways that accident could have occurred, Donna.”

  “Are you saying the Pentagon believes her story?” the woman snorted.

  Looking at the Aryan Sex Doll, Donna was nearly panting.

  Terian shrugged, smiling faintly. It was a human shrug.

  “We are looking into it,” he said. “Let’s just say, we have reviewed her testimony in detail, and we are not yet ready to dismiss the evidence it has uncovered. Clearly, another explanation might exist for what occurred.”

  The woman gave him a seductive smile, then me a thoughtful look. As if reading my thoughts from earlier, she leaned towards me, laying her arms on her lap and clasping her fingers.

  “But aren’t you dating one of the terrorists, Alyson?” She smiled.

  I could tell it was meant to be a conspiratorial smile. Like we were just two girls chatting, maybe. With a few million people watching.

  “You know which one I mean,” she said coyly. “He’s been a national obsession since the attacks last year…”

  In the V
R space behind her, a picture of Revik appeared.

  It morphed into more pictures as the woman talked, showing various angles, and even one of the two of us together, in Vancouver, BC. Text overlay the images, addresses in the virtual network, images of the burning ship along the Alaskan coast, a blueprint of Revik’s apartment in London next to a realtime image of the outside of the building as Revik’s old manservant blew it up.

  “Whole feed channels are devoted to the two of you,” the woman said, her voice still sickeningly coy. “You’re practically the Bonnie and Clyde of the seer world. Surely, you were aware that a certain, immature segment of the human world finds the two of you fascinating?”

  I exhaled. “Not really, no.”

  I had known though, once.

  I forgot about all of that, mostly because when it started, Jon and Cass had been missing, my mother murdered and I’d thought Revik was dead. I hadn’t given a damn about much of anything back then.

  The woman’s words seemed to mirror my own mind.

  “Of course it’s easy to romanticize someone who’s dead, isn’t it, Alyson? It’s a little harder when you’re alive and a mass killer.”

  At my silence, she gave Terian a questioning look, then cleared her throat.

  “So are you still dating him, Alyson? Or have you moved on since then?”

  I felt my chest clench as I stared at the morphing images.

  “Dating?” I heard myself say. “No.”

  “You aren’t still sexually involved with this seer?” she said, skeptical.

  I hesitated. “Well…”

  “So for seers, maybe this doesn’t constitute dating,” the woman said smugly, crossing her thin legs under the short skirt of the business suit she wore. “But for humans, this implies some kind of relationship, Alyson. Living amongst us all those years, surely, you were aware of that…?”

  “He’s my husband,” I blurted.

  I felt Terian’s smile, but when I glanced over, his face remained still, his eyes showing a faint concern as he studied my face. Quite the specimen of deep-thinking male. If he wasn’t so completely out of his head insane, it might be funny.

  The woman’s voice made me turn.