Rook

by JC Andrijeski

  We don’t have much time.

  I stared up at him, feeling a cold wash of fear when I realized I’d heard his words from inside my mind, not with my ears. His mouth hadn’t moved.

  Allie! I know you can hear me! You have to come with me. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a cage? Wearing a collar? That man who just left here. He knows what you are.

  More fear coursed up my spine.

  What I am? What the hell was he talking about?

  Allie! They can’t hear me! Only you can...what does that tell you?

  Cass ran up at the same moment. “Allie! What is going on?”

  The black-haired man looked at her. As he did, his concentration on me and Jon seemed to break. Jon’s eyes cleared in the same instant. He stepped forward once they had, as if remembering where he was.

  His mouth hardened into a line as he grabbed ahold of my wrist.

  “Al...get away from this guy! Right now.”

  Confusion twisted my stomach in knots. I tried to think through the fear I saw in Jon’s eyes, the worry I saw on Cass’s face...but the black-haired man’s words resonated somewhere in my mind, and I knew suddenly, that I believed him. Without understand at all what he was talking about, I believed him that I was in danger.

  I couldn’t stay here.

  Memories swam forward, worsening that ache in my gut.

  They’d tested my blood a few hundred times when I was a kid. It always came up human. Always. They’d only done it so many times because of how I’d been found, my parents assured me, and the fact that they couldn’t trace my biological parents, despite the record-keeping processes now in place. An unregistered baby found under an overpass in the middle of a major city like San Francisco had been big news...they had to be sure, my mom explained. It had been suspicious that they couldn’t trace my parents through my DNA. All people were registered at birth now––human and seer. Pretty much everyone had a DNA record on file.

  So they had to check, my mom said. They had to be sure.

  But my blood was human. They verified it, re-verified it. There was no question what I was.

  I was 100% human being.

  The doubt lingered. I remembered feeling my father’s fear...

  I couldn’t go there again. I couldn’t.

  When Jon yanked on my arm, I didn’t think.

  A part of me reached out, seemingly on its own. It happened so fast there was no thought behind it, nothing that made sense. It felt more like a reflex than anything I did consciously. A folding sensation started somewhere deep inside my mind...as if a part of me collapsed like a telescope, pulling me along with it.

  I exhaled it out, flexing a muscle I didn’t know I had...

  ...and then Jon was all the way across the room.

  I couldn’t remember raising a hand, any part of me––and the black-haired man hadn’t moved from where he stood by my side.

  Anyway, if it had been something like that, something physical, Jon himself wouldn’t have been caught so completely by surprise. Jon was a trained fighter––a fourth degree black belt in Choy Li Fut. Fighting was his job; he’d been a senior instructor at a kung fu school in the Richmond District for years, training people in self-defense and for the ring.

  I saw a soft flash of light. I saw Jon’s eyes widen.

  Then, he was just gone.

  When that force hit him, he released my arm.

  He tried to grasp at me the instant he had, but despite his super-fast martial arts reflexes, he missed his grip. His fingers splayed, groping first for a bar stool, then the counter. He careened backwards as if he’d been thrown bodily by a much larger man.

  He slammed into a series of shelves covered in clean water glasses. Over ten feet from where I stood...from where he’d started...he fell to the rubber mat, taking half the shelves’ contents with him.

  The sound was deafening. Everyone in the diner looked up.

  Tom, the manager, emerged from the back room. He looked between me and Jon, stunned, then back at the mess covering the back area behind the counter.

  Jon scrambled to get up, impressively fast, but water glasses continued to fall. Over the sound of breaking glass and people rising to their feet, I realized everyone in the diner was staring at me now, too.

  I didn't take my eyes off Jon.

  He was bleeding. One arm and his face were nicked with cuts.

  I tried to understand how he’d gotten there. I tried to make sense of it.

  Had I done that? Had I just hurt my brother?

  I stopped then, staring at myself in the mirror over the bar.

  My eyes...

  What the hell is wrong with my eyes?

  They glowed at me in the mirror’s reflection, like pale green fireflies.

  Out of nowhere, I found myself remembering my Uncle Stefan. The memory crystallized starkly in my mind, if only for a single beat of my heart. We’d been visiting his farm, touring the pig barn. I’d been maybe seven years old. No one in the family ever talked about what happened that day...not once, at any point afterwards. Even now, my memories struck me as strangely surreal, like they might have happened to someone else.

  I remembered standing there with Uncle Stefan, his rough hands on my shoulders. I’d been crying. My father had been trying to reassure me.

  Uncle Stefan wasn’t a bad man. He was a rough man, a practical man and a life-long farmer...but he wasn’t a bad man. He’d just finished telling me what they did to the runt baby pigs. I’d been all excited to see those babies, having recently read Charlotte’s Web.

  Then Uncle Stefan told me what they did to them.

  I couldn’t believe it was real. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a story...they really did that, killed something for being small.

  The next thing I knew, Uncle Stefan was screaming, pinned against the wall of the barn. He’d been a big man, around six-two, over two hundred pounds, most of it muscle.

  I forced the image from my mind, feeling sick.

  When I glanced up, my anxiety turned into full-blown terror.

  The black-haired man was staring at me, shock written all over his face.

  I saw that shining reflection of seething green light in his glass-like irises, and realized that came from me, too. That otherworldly light wasn’t his––it shimmered back at me from my own eyes. Like in my dreams, my eyes were glowing.

  They were really fucking glowing.

  Glow eye...

  At the same instant, I knew.

  Maybe I'd always known. Maybe my parents had known, too.

  Clearly, this black-haired guy knew what I was. At any rate, he'd known I could hear his thoughts inside my head. Not a whole lot of humans who could do that. I looked up at his pale, colorless eyes, maybe even for help. But the shock on his face was as prominent as anyone else’s in the bar. More so, maybe.

  For a long moment, no one in the diner made a sound.

  Then the last glass fell and shattered on the tile floor at the edge of the rubber mat.

  The black-haired man spoke, his words thickly accented.

  “Dul-ententre d’gaos!” he burst out. “You’re a fucking manipulator!”

  I barely understood his words.

  For my brain, enough was enough.

  Everything around me grayed...then went totally dark.

  4

  ROOK

  I AM. NO thoughts cloud me.

  The stories that run silently in the background, all the time...about my life, my dreams, my problems, what it all means...they are all vaporized, gone.

  I am. It is enough.

  Time is not. Not here, anyway. I live in spaces between time increments, outside time which spins like a glass ball, a matrix clockwork toy whirling dutifully overhead.

  The walls of buildings glow like oddly invasive lines, showing me where to direct each foot.

  He pulls me along the street. I feel fear through his fingers.

  Am I dead? I wonder.

  No, is all he says.<
br />
  I follow the insistent tug of his hand. I occupy myself by feeling my legs as they are jerked and released like a puppet’s wooden limbs.

  The streets are full of glowing beings. Most are white and gray clouds with blurred outlines. They have no features, no faces. Above their heads, thin sparking threads rise up.

  Humans, he explains. That is what they look like from here.

  From where? I wonder.

  He doesn’t answer me.

  I look at him then, see his precisely structured light body and chiseled features, perfectly reproduced inside the rose-tinted blackness. He is so different from the blurry cloud-like people it is hard to see the similarities.

  Seer, he tells me. I am a seer, Allie. We look different from the Barrier.

  Thinking about this, I lift a hand and stumble, still trying to keep up with his long legs. Rather than seeing my fingers and palm as a puff of indeterminate smoke, I am like him, made of crisscrossing white and gold lines and fire-colored light.

  That light weaves into complex patterns under my gauzy skin. I turn my hand over in wonder, see veins and light structured as bone.

  Am I not human? I ask.

  My companion is silent.

  Hey, I say to him. What am I...?

  Later, he says. We don’t have time for Seer 101 right now, Allie.

  We are approaching another one of those sky people, a being of bright gold light, like the man holding my hand. I feel my companion tense. The new being with the chiseled face and body grows nearer with every step. Unlike us, he does not walk, but sits.

  The negative clicks to positive...

  ...and a homeless man blinked back at me from the sidewalk, a broken cardboard box over his legs. A puppy lay curled at his feet, white with chocolate spots. A gray beard covered the lower half of his face above a tie-dyed shirt and dirty jeans.

  Understanding reaches me, a kind of panic.

  They are everywhere, I think. They look just like us...

  ...then I am back in the place of no time.

  There, the homeless man’s eyes glow as pale white stars, reflecting a quiet joy. I feel my companion’s relief as he looks at this man. He shows me, in another flash of layered and complicated thought, the proper means of greeting the other in this place.

  The other person...

  Seer, my friend whispers.

  I flinch from the word.

  But the old man is smiling. He bows to me and to the man I am with...and I smile.

  The homeless man smiles back, exuding warmth

  We are all everything, beautiful sister, he tells me. All the time.

  I AM SOMEWHERE else now.

  He pulls me across an endless sea of green grass. He won’t let me slow. I want only to enjoy the feel of animals and plants, watch clouds whisper around the faint auras of trees...

  ...when suddenly, the image righted itself.

  The night sky flattened, turning back to the one I’d always known.

  Auras evaporated like smoke from everything around me.

  Once they had, I shivered, suddenly freezing cold.

  I found myself walking in my waitressing uniform––a thin white blouse and short black miniskirt––without a jacket. I was with the man with the black hair, who held my hand. We were making our way along the edge of a long line of trees overlooking a sloped pasture. I was still looking down that hill when I saw dark forms with shaggy humps, black horns and low, twitching tails. Something clicked, and in that same moment, I knew where we were.

  We were in Golden Gate Park. Just outside the buffalo paddock.

  We were walking in the direction of the ocean.

  Fighting fear, I wracked my brain for how I’d gotten here.

  I glanced up at the trees, then towards the road.

  I stumbled when I stared for too long, fought to regain my footing when the man holding me didn’t slow his pace. He gripped my hand like iron.

  “Hey,” I managed. I tried to pull back my arm and hand, but he only gripped me tighter, exuding impatience as he dragged me along. “Hey...wait. Stop!”

  He didn’t slow his steps.

  I found myself trying to get close to him the other way, reaching towards him almost unconsciously...and a rush of nausea hit me, hard enough to make me stumble again. The man glanced back in the same instant, his pale eyes glinting in the light of the moon.

  That strange nausea worsened.

  My mind sifted backwards, explaining the facts to me belatedly.

  He was a seer. He was a seer, and he wasn’t wearing one of those collars.

  Allie...calm down, he sent.

  “Let me go!” I yanked on my hand again, fighting panic. “I’ll call SCARB!”

  His reaction shocked me.

  He laughed.

  It had been a childish threat, spoken in desperation. Even so, his laughter startled me. I found myself following him again in spite of myself, still struggling to see his face in the dark, to remember what he looked like. There was too much light; I couldn’t see past it.

  When he looked back, I saw my eyes reflected in his, glowing a pale green. He frowned, staring at me a few seconds longer, then looked away.

  You’ll need to learn to control that, he sent.

  I held up my hand. It was back to normal, in the physical sense...but a sickly, green light now illuminated the lines of my palm, like from a headset or a handheld computer. I realized the light had to be coming from me, from my eyes.

  The information wouldn’t wholly compute.

  “You’ll need to learn to control that,” he said, speaking aloud that time.

  His physical voice shocked me. It was deep. It also carried an accent, but not one I would’ve expected. It was Germanic-sounding, European.

  He gestured briefly towards my face, still walking fast.

  “Can you...stop doing that, Esteemed Bridge?” He continued pulling me along with him deeper into the trees, his voice strangely polite. “At some point, you must have learned to control it. See if you can now,” he suggested. “While we walk.”

  “Who are you?” My voice shook. “What have you done to me?”

  That time, he barely spared me a glance.

  Still, I could have sworn I felt something like impatience coming off him again, wafting over me like a scent. On the surface, he only inclined his head, still walking fast as he gestured towards me with his free hand. The way he did it struck me as formal, perhaps even conveying respect, but he did it hurriedly.

  Dehgoies. The word landed directly in my mind. Revik.

  I could only struggle after him, fighting to think as I strove to keep up with his long legs.

  Deh-go-ies, he repeated, slower. Re-vik.

  “What is that?” I said. “A name?”

  “I will answer whatever you ask...”

  His physical voice shocked me again. Glancing back at me as if he felt my flinch, he tugged harder on my arm, leading me deeper into the trees.

  “...But not now, Esteemed Bridge,” he finished belatedly.

  “Where are we going?” I tried to piece together what happened in the diner. “Why do you keep calling me that? Where are you taking me?”

  “Please be quiet.” He held a finger to his lips. “Please.”

  “No,” I snapped. “I need you to stop! I need you to stop right now!”

  He halted at once, so quickly I ran into him.

  He didn’t release my arm, but turned, meeting my gaze. His eyes looked cold, glass-like in the dim light. He stared down at me warily, as if trying to assess what I might do.

  I need to get us a car, he explained. We have to leave the city, Allie...now. Before they set up blockades.

  “Blockades?”

  He made an irritated-sounding clicking noise with his tongue, one that sounded oddly familiar to me.

  You don’t remember any of it? he sent. What you did in that diner? He gestured towards my face with his free hand. Every intelligence group and law enforcement branch in San Fra
ncisco will be after you once that surveillance feed hits the wires. How can you be surprised by the urgency I am feeling? Now? Given what you did?

  I stared up at him.

  In desperation, I flipped over the arm connected to the wrist he held, showing him the barcode on my inner arm. I pointed out the “H” designation from among my collection of tats.

  “I’m human. Hu-man. Get it?”

  He held up his own arm, showing me his racial-cat tattoo. I lowered mine, staring at the “H” on his pale skin in disbelief.

  “I’m not,” he said, his voice cold.

  Looking away at my silence, his eyes scanned the pitch black trees.

  Can we go now?

  “Where are you taking me?”

  We must leave the city, he repeated, as if talking to a rather stupid child. The Rooks are here... His mouth firmed to a frown. ...Terian. He worries me more than your human police. Or even SCARB, although I’m sure he will come in that guise, as well.

  Seeing my bewildered look, he let out a sharp exhale, clicking again.

  Rooks, he repeated. Other seers. I will explain later. His thoughts grew as impatient as his voice. Can we go? Are you done asking me questions I could answer better en route, Esteemed Bridge? Or would you prefer to spend your life in a cage?

  “Why do you keep calling me—”

  I don’t have time for you to have an emotional reaction right now! he sent, his thoughts cutting into mine. Are you going to pretend you didn’t cause a fucking scene at that restaurant? That your eyes aren’t glowing...

  He motioned towards my face.

  ...Even now? As we speak?

  When I didn’t answer, he clicked at me more loudly. Pulling on my arm, not roughly but purely out of a desire to move me forward, he switched back to his physical voice as he started walking.

  “You are at risk, Esteemed Bridge. You understand that this is serious?”

  “Wait!” I felt the first real flickering of fear. “I’m not going anywhere with you! Besides, I can’t. I’ve got this GPS thing, and...”

  Stopping dead, he reversed direction before I could regain my balance. He stepped towards me and I stumbled backwards, trying to get out of his way. Standing less than a foot away, he stared down at me.

  Listen to me, sister, he sent. Hear this, for it is the last time I will say it.