Rook

by JC Andrijeski

  We will show you, the blue-skinned woman purrs. We will show you such wondrous things, Sister. You will understand so much of what has been hidden from you. The world will never be so small to you again as it is at this moment.

  I close my eyes.

  I can see what she offers me. It is clear. It is without pain, without ambiguity or aloneness. I would have a purpose. My life would mean something...something other than pain and death to those I loved.

  It is such a relief to give in, to just let it all go. The sickness and pain I felt just minutes before is already gone.

  The woman is right.

  Nothing could ever be the same again. Nothing.

  ALLIE! REVIK SCREAMED her name into the Barrier. ALLIE!

  He shoved at the space where she’d been, trying to force his way through. He tried again, fighting a rising panic. He knew what had her, recognized the flavor of the metallic strands that forced him away from her light, taking her away from him. He didn’t understand how yet, or who, but that didn’t matter, either, not now.

  He slammed against that wall, using all of his light.

  The wall started to give.

  Then something rose up. A sharp pain hit him over his right eye. He fought back, tightening his shields, when something bigger lashed at his light. The dark shape threw him sideways, knocking him out of the smaller construct, knocking him out of his body, too, enough that he lost himself...

  When his vision cleared, he’d come to a stop in the corridor, fingers splayed on one of the wallpapered walls.

  He wiped his nose, stared at the blood on his fingers.

  He didn’t let himself think. He began to run.

  Dread pooled in his stomach as he pushed his legs to move him faster down the hall, fighting to build momentum, to cross the distance between himself and her, even as he threw part of his mind ahead of himself, and back into the construct.

  It would take him at least ten minutes to get to the atrium, even at top speed.

  Too long.

  He scanned options.

  He tried their cabin. It was empty; he got the equivalent of Barrier static. No Chan. No Eliah. No guard. How the hell had she gotten out of the room, much less out the secured corridors on the seventh deck? Someone must have noticed she was gone by now. And who had her? A unit of the Rooks? Ship’s security? A lone infiltrator looking for the bounty on her...or worse, to sell her?

  Had facial recognition software picked her up, or something else?

  He tried a general channel, Guard security.

  Nothing. He slid more of himself back into his body, where he ran towards the bow of the ship, fighting to think.

  His head hurt. Something dark clung to it, and to his right arm. The hole over his eye was the most serious. He attended to that first, reweaving his light, but the something there fought to hold on, hiding in parts of him he didn’t access as often. He’d lost where she was. He continued to search, but his shields were up now, in hunting mode, which slowed him down. Still, if they broke too much of his structure, he’d be useless to her.

  How in the gods’ names had she gotten to this side of the ship?

  His adrenaline spiked as his mind put the pieces together.

  They were under attack. This was coordinated. He was being hunted, and it had to be by the same people who had her. He felt them searching for weaknesses in his shields almost openly, trying to penetrate his mind even as they distracted him from making his way towards her.

  They must have been in place.

  They saw their chance, with him and Allie separated...maybe they even coordinated her escape from the seventh deck, knowing she’d be more willing to leave, if...

  He cut off the thought. Blaming himself wasn’t going to help her, either.

  Whoever they were, there were a lot of them. They’d likely been in place for some time, which meant they’d been on the ship, waiting for an opening.

  He’d given them one.

  He recalled one of his reference memories, a detailed map of the ship, found an aberration in the Barrier that matched what he’d last felt from her. Hitting another shield around where he expected her to be, he searched for openings, making his light resonate with hers.

  He remembered how she’d felt when she finally agreed to meet him...how his light had responded. His throat clutched and he shoved it off angrily. He had to concentrate. He was fucking losing it...

  “Dehgoies Revik.”

  He landed the rest of the way into his body, coming to a dead stop.

  Four men stood a dozen yards before him, dressed in long coats.

  Revik scanned in reflex. Seers. Well-shielded. He didn’t recognize any of them, so they probably operated mainly out of Asia. Hand guns, infrared, tissue extractors, some kind of propulsion device, grenades, flares, a shotgun...

  Something stung his throat. He reached up, jerked a sharp point from the side of his neck. He stared at the thumbnail vial for a beat of his heart, scanning the clear liquid. His chest clenched. The dart trembled from his fingers even as he felt one of the seers lock on him with an extractor. He leapt for the opposite wall.

  It all happened within seconds of his first scan...but he was still too slow.

  The glass tube slammed him midair.

  Knocked sideways, he missed his mark and crashed into the wall short of the alcove he’d been aiming for. He landed in a heap and pulled in his limbs, fought to drag himself back to his feet when the cord pulled, making him lose his balance.

  They still had him. The cord left a hole in his jacket on the right side. He grabbed the braided metal with his bare hands, scanning the glass vial embedded at least a thumb-length into his flesh, right through his jacket. The cord went taut. The teeth closed. Before he could let go, the vial slid out of him in one quick pull, the braided metal ripping skin off his hands as it went.

  Revik screamed, clutching his abdomen. Blood poured out between his fingers, soaking his pants and jacket. He mashed his hand over the hole. Fighting shock, he picked himself up, stumbled backwards.

  That time, he practically dove into the Barrier.

  Everything grew crystal clear. Ripping the Glock out of its holster, he fired, blindly, running in the opposite direction. The first shot cut a dark hole in the wall, but did what he intended, forcing them behind cover. He switched to his mind, knowing it would be overheard, no longer caring. He sent up a high, sharp blast of alarm.

  His warning cry slammed against something before it reached the main construct walls. He watched it dissipate, useless. Looking around in the physical, his eyes lit on a pull mechanism for a fire alarm. He caught it in the hand holding the gun and yanked it down. Immediately, a shrieking bell went off.

  Doors opened on several sides.

  Dehgoies? Eliah’s thoughts rose, as if coming through smoky glass. Where are you? Can you hear me?

  Eli...have you got her? Revik blinked back pain, clutching his side. His mind shifted sideways. It threw off his balance, forced him into the forward part of his consciousness.

  Gods, the drug. He’d forgotten about the dart.

  Eliah...someone’s trying to leave with her. The truth hit him again, bringing a near panic. Look for boats, anything big enough to land a helicopter. They’ll want her off the ship as soon as possible...

  Brother, calm yourself...where are you?

  Find her, goddamn it! Start with the atrium. Last I saw, they had her there.

  Where are you? I’ll send someone...

  No. I’ll come to you. He stared at the blood soaking his jacket, realizing the truth. ...Eli. Please...I can’t get to her. You have to do this. Please. Please...

  Deghoies—

  He kicked the other seer out of his mind. The hunters were regrouping.

  Limping backwards in a half-jog, he held up the Glock, mashing his other hand into his side. He scanned behind him, looking for doors. He had to stop the bleeding, or he’d be even more useless. If it meant draining humans from the Barrier like a fucki
ng ridvak, he would get the light he needed to do it. He thought about Allie again and it got him moving, propelling his legs faster.

  He’d asked her for a divorce.

  He’d asked her for a divorce and let her see him with someone else.

  If he had to kill everything between here and the outside decks, he wouldn’t let that be the last thing he’d said to her.

  I AM OVERCOME by wonder, lost in it.

  The complexity of light astounds me, and makes me realize how little of the Barrier I truly saw before, even when I used Revik’s eyes. I never would have seen this on my own. Not for years...if ever. I realize, too, how abstract it all seemed to me before now, how dreamlike the Barrier and everything in it appeared to me.

  Now, for the first time, I see its power.

  I had never known the visions inside this space could be so sharp, so utterly dense, so filled with information and functionality. I saw only glimpses inside the woman’s vision...and yet, those creations she showed me made the construct-shields I’d seen at Ullysa’s and on the ship seem like child’s play, like crude forts constructed of children’s blocks.

  The art alone I could create with this...gods.

  It blows my mind, to think how much more even my meager sketches would contain. Yet art itself seems so trivial here. It strikes me that I have a responsibility in seeing this, to use what I know, to change things somehow. To make them better...somehow.

  I rise above the crowded causeway.

  I ignore bodies and faces entirely now, tracing maps of every connection, every interaction and intention and pattern...

  They are so lost. The people I see, they blunder around and into one another, blaming each other for the endless collisions. There is no direction, no purpose, no awareness, no understanding of what drives them. Anything can fill that vacuum.

  Anything.

  A voice purrs from beside me, You begin to see the problem. Can you guess the solution, Esteemed Bridge?

  I find myself back with the female seer, frowning, but not at her.

  Meeting her wise, sharp eyes, I lean my flesh and blood hands on a painted guardrail while I try to answer her question.

  I was always a bad student, though. I don’t know why everyone wants to school me...using teacher’s tricks that never seem to work on me, or do anything but close me down. I don’t want leading, trick questions. I want solutions. If they don’t exist, then I want to know why, and where to go next. I want to know what has already been tried, what works and what doesn’t. I don’t see this as a mental exercise. I have zero interest in feeling clever.

  There are fucking lives at stake here.

  So I ignore her question, rising higher into the complicated light, examining the patterns I’ve already found from different angles. When I focus on a particular aspect of the world-Barrier interface, it amplifies, then rotates into different angles.

  It’s like I have access to a hundred different minds at the same time.

  Not a hundred minds, the female next to me purrs. Thousands. When you are with us, you have access to every aleimic body in our network, Alyson. Every ability, every piece of knowledge, every skill-set held by every seer who has chosen to align with us...

  I try to understand.

  Irrationally, I want to free all people, everywhere, even though I can see along with the woman that they would simply use that freedom to destroy themselves. I am still thinking about this, watching them...when I am distracted by something going on in another part of the Barrier.

  With it, I feel fear...a taste of violence.

  I focus there.

  Yes, the woman purrs. You know this being. You know him well by now, yes?

  I do know him. I know who he is...even under all of those shields. I touch his light through the wall, and the recognition strengthens.

  The woman’s perfect lips curve to a smile.

  The Seven went to a lot of trouble to hide him. Even from himself. But they cannot hide him from you. Not from you, Esteemed Bridge...

  “Revik.” I smile in recognition, remembering only fleetingly that I had been angry with him once, that something wrong had happened between us, what felt like a million years ago now. Whatever it was, it doesn’t seem important now.

  A beat later I frown, though, scanning his aleimi.

  What’s wrong with him?

  He is under attack. Those seers will kill him, if you do not help him.

  What? I look up at her, alarmed. Kill him? Why? Where is he?

  The images around me waver, lose focus. I pull back, returning to the complicated light strands that weave overhead, and everything grows easier. I see him again, this time as if he were right in front of me. I stare at him, fighting to understand.

  Then my stomach drops. Pain expands over my heart.

  He’s been shot! I have to go to him...now! Please!

  You are the Bridge, Alyson. You can help him from here. Do you not see?

  I struggle with fear, a fevered helplessness as I watch him run down a distant corridor, leaving footprints of blood. I believe her now. He is outnumbered, injured, bleeding from multiple wounds, losing light and structure.

  He could die. He really could die.

  I see what the woman shows me, too. His light is broken somehow, ensnared by a thousand crisscrossing strands, holding him in place with a hundred tiny walls. His attackers are not doing this to him. The walls I see are old...they strangle his light, cutting him off from whole parts of himself, leaving pieces of his aleimi dark from lack of use.

  I see the imprint of the Seven on those walls.

  A soft memory flickers, dies.

  Who did this to him? My heart hurts more, and my head. Vash? Did Vash do this?

  The female’s bright eyes remain motionless.

  Why? Tears sting my own. Why would they do this?

  They fear him, she says simply. That fear will kill him now, if you do not intervene, Esteemed Bridge. Help him, Alyson. Set him free. He is not one of the lost ones. He needs only to remember who he truly is...

  But I am already looking at the structure encasing him, using the myriad eyes of the Barrier seers who surround me. Focusing on where those dense walls meet, I touch him with my light, trying to soften the intersection.

  I feel Revik react. I feel his fear.

  I send reassurance, and when he realizes who it is, he lets me in.

  His relief is palpable, his warmth overwhelming as he floods my light. Affection comes with his presence, longing...for a moment it is all I can see. He wants to know where I am, how I am, but I am focused on keeping him alive, so I extract myself, looking for how I can help him. I zero in on the part of the structure that holds all the rest in place...

  ...and crack it easily with my light.

  The walls around him begin to dissolve.

  Very good, Alyson.

  I barely hear her. Smiling, I watch Revik’s light shift. Inexplicably, tears come, blurring everything I can see outside the Barrier.

  Gods, he is so beautiful.

  He rises as I watch, his light flooding structures I’ve never seen in him, twisting around his head, around his whole body, expanding in high, white flames. His whole being flares, shaking the Barrier, trembling the nonphysical space with a burst of light.

  Without knowing I am doing it, I rise with him.

  For a breath at the top, we are together, really together.

  I break free of the finely-woven silver light the woman has shared with me, and instantly I feel lighter; a pressure evaporates from around my heart. From this height, the metallic strands that seemed so fascinating and dense now look fake. More than fake...they look clouded, dirty, rigid and small. I see the rotating Pyramid below my feet, with thousands of beings chained to its immovable lines. Leeched of light, they dance like frail puppets made of wire.

  I am still staring at it all in bewilderment when Revik falters.

  Something jerks at him, hard, pulling him down, bringing me with him. I fight b
ack...fight to stay above the smoke and silver clouds. My own light recovers and I try to catch his, grappling with him in the Barrier’s waves. I can’t hold him. His light curls sideways. As it does, a dark mass lights up around his head, turning that portion of his aleimi solid black.

  He falls inside the Pyramid and disappears.

  NO! I scream. REVIK!

  Around me, humans mill in the casino. No one looks up at my screams. No one hears me as they hang over tables, drinking foul-looking cocktails with colored umbrellas and fruit dipped in formaldehyde. They all look dead to me, like corpses going through the motions of life. I scream again, and the image ripples like a pool after someone throws in a stone.

  NO! REVIK! COME BACK! REVIK...!

  I can’t feel him anymore. I look for him, like a diver feeling blind through pitch dark water, looking for something they can no longer see, but my hands and light come up with nothing.

  No one. He is gone.

  He will adjust.

  I turn, sweating, gripping something in my hands.

  He will live now, Alyson. You have saved his life.

  I feel the silvery light creep back around mine, pulling me into its complicated strands. I am still above it, but only just. From where I am, those metallic clouds look like filth. Mirrors and death, stolen power...a lie that coats the Barrier like an oil slick. I focus on the woman’s opaque eyes, and they no longer look wise. They look dead to me. Cold.

  My vision clicks into focus.

  ...and I found myself staring at Ivy.

  Ivy. The same girl who bandaged Revik’s shoulder in Seattle, who I laughed with while she dyed my hair, who arranged for all of my IDs and passports along with Yarli. But instead of the young, happy person I remembered, Ivy looked gaunt to me now, her head too large, her skin too thin, making her appear skull-like. Her platinum-blond hair stuck up on her head, making her look more like a goblin than an elf.

  She smiled at me, her eyes studying my face as she touched my arm.

  Sister. Do not be afraid. Do not doubt that we are your friends.

  I looked around at the physical world.

  The casino, the crowds, none of that had been real, either. I stood on a deserted piece of the ship’s top deck, buffeted by a cutting wind. My hair whipped my cheeks as I looked up, where a rock face cut the sky, dark and still as it passed the port side of the ship.