Rook

by JC Andrijeski

  He raised his head to stare at the President, and the expression on his face took Caine aback. A lot more of Terian lived inside that single body now, Caine realized. A lot more.

  Caine’s infiltrators had been busy.

  Turning from Caine, Ethan addressed the others, his brown eyes flashing amber in the reflected light.

  “I have ordered the Secret Service to arrest President Caine.” He gasped, forcing out words. “I’ve asked for him to be detained...”

  The Secretary of State laughed nervously.

  “What charge?”

  Galaith turned. Rogers had spoken, his Chief of Staff.

  “Attempted murder,” Ethan said. Wincing in pain, he clutched his side. “Conspiring with enemies of the United States.” His eyes flickered up like spotlights, meeting Caine’s. “I’ll probably know of a few more things he’s done by the end of the day...he’s mentally unhinged.”

  Caine shook his head in bewilderment. “What possible benefit can you see from this, Ethan?”

  The question meant more than anyone at the table could possibly know.

  Taking a step towards the door, Caine snapped his fingers at the porter standing at the back of the room. “What in god’s name are you waiting for?” he snapped at the man. “Call for medical help. Now! The Vice President’s obviously been hurt!”

  Caine walked towards Ethan, thinking he would just use the Barrier to knock him out...

  Ethan backed away with another short laugh.

  Before Caine could reach the door, Jarvesch, the Secretary of Defense, got to her feet and inserted herself between them. She approached Ethan’s bent form, touching his shoulder even as a kitchen staffer wheeled in their breakfast on a pushcart stacked with silver trays and crystal juice containers. Caine heard the porter ask for the White House physician over the central speaker as the wheels of the cart squeaked jerkily across the floor.

  The kitchen staffer brought everything to the long cabinet nearest Caine and began unloading trays laboriously.

  The secret service agent by the door clicked his fingers to get the staffer’s attention, frowning when the man didn’t turn.

  Caine only noticed this peripherally.

  Tensing, he watched Jarvesch take Ethan’s arm, looking into his face. Then she cried out, opening his coat.

  “He’s been shot!” She turned to the rest of the room. “He’s been shot several times! God, Ethan! What happened?”

  The kitchen staffer stood stock still, gaping, holding a towel in one hand and the handle of the cart in the other. He stared at the Vice President along with the others.

  Then he turned, facing President Caine.

  Before anyone could move, before Caine glanced at him really, the staffer raised the towel and squeezed off three rounds in rapid succession.

  Caine turned towards the sound, but too late. The slowed-down vision of the Barrier allowed him to witness the last shot, almost as an abstraction.

  It didn’t allow him to get out of the way.

  Smoke came from the gun’s end, the hand jerked, and then...

  Panicked yells fill the bunker.

  Caine is somehow on the floor.

  He fights to breathe, but he’s got a frog in his throat. He tries to clear it, chokes. He hears them, hears the shots echo in his ears well after the fact, but really all he sees is the towel, the blank look on the man’s face, the strange clarity in his eyes.

  Caine stares at the ceiling, wonders that he felt no warning from the Barrier. He breathes in labored inhales and stuck exhales, breathing as if through water. He hears a struggle, the breaking of glass, but that’s far away, too. He wonders how anyone could have gotten past his security, that of the Pyramid more than that of the human compound, although that’s not inconsiderable either.

  Then he remembers.

  Something was wrong. Something happened to the Pyramid.

  Liego disappeared, and then...

  Ethan is there. Ethan kneels heavily, still clutching his own side. Ethan Wellington, Harvard graduate and decorated soldier, is an entity almost separate of Terian in Caine’s mind. Their wives are best friends. Their kids go to the same school. They vacation together, stood up at each other’s weddings. As Ethan crouches next to him, Galaith and Caine bleed over as well; for an instant, he believes his friend is there to help him.

  Then he sees the gleam in Ethan’s eyes, the yellow glow behind brown irises, threads of those other fragments woven into the stable facade of his friend from Massachusetts.

  The Pyramid shudders in those eyes...and the threads cross.

  Caine feels grief. Fewer bodies exist in which Terian can hide. Fragments of his aleimi crystallized into darker stains weave in with the rest, looking through the same amber irises. Caine knows insanity lives there. He feels responsible.

  Ethan leans closer. Anyone watching would see a concerned colleague reassuring his mortally-wounded friend.

  “We may indeed prove to be the inferior race,” he breathes to Caine. “...But at least we can shoot straight.”

  Gazing up at the antique lamps hanging over the war room table, Galaith chuckles, in spite of himself.

  Then, emotion overcomes him, bringing tears to his eyes.

  “Feigran,” he chokes through fluid. “Forgive me.”

  He can no longer see the Bunker. Lying on the grass, he gazes up a dense clouds. He is surprised when an opening presents itself there, where for the barest instant, he sees the flames of a blue-white sun. But the sun does not brighten his eyes for very long.

  Through that same gap, a glint of asteroids beckon, cold but beautiful. Below, in a room filled with humans, the body Galaith used in this very long lifetime finally gives out.

  As it does, the Thousand roll over, claiming him for their own.

  I FEEL HALDREN expel his last breath. A flurry of lines and pulleys unravel as he does, leaving with what remains of him. I watch the Dreng gather up those fragments, pulling him into the cold, flaming center of their silver clouds, claiming him as one of their own. I watch his aleimi...or soul, or whatever is left of him now...as they take it away, disappear him into those dense, metallic strands.

  I am shocked by a sharp flicker of grief.

  But I cannot dwell on that for long, either.

  His absence leaves a hole at the top of the Pyramid. The structure loses its silver sheen as the cold of the Dreng’s light evaporates. They disappear like inhaled smoke from the physical world, leaving an oddly full silence.

  I send up a flare.

  I don’t have long to wait. Vash and his seers: Yerin, Jalar, Mutkar, Fley, Maya, Itru, Tarsi, Samantha, Inde, Argo, Jet, Anale, Keeley, Maygar, Naomi, Hondo, Dorje, Tan, Inge, Derek, Ullysa, Mika, Chinja, Alex, Garensche, Tenzi, Cohen...they all come. They come separately and together, along with countless lights I don’t know, faces I’ve never seen in outside.

  Late to the party, Revik joins us, too.

  He is battered, beaten up, but he is there.

  They greet me and one another, lights interwoven, combining and recombining in new patterns. I flash the plan, the plan they created, and we unite in concert...a single vision.

  Human lights shine with us, too...Jon, Cass, Jaden, Sasquatch, Frankie, Angeline, Sarah, Nick, the man at the toll booth on the way into Canada, the couple who paused at the door of the diner because they were worried Revik would hurt me. The people on the Royal Faire cruise ship. My mom and dad. My uncle Stefan.

  Feeling them all there together brings a wash of hope, a sudden laugh.

  And then, in a flash, we disperse.

  “NO!” TERIAN SCREAMS.

  He watches the receding cloud of the Dreng, realizes the danger too late. He feels the shift below his feet, and struggles to counteract, to weave himself into the void above.

  “NO! NO! NO!”

  Out of nowhere, seers surround him.

  These aren’t the seers of the Rooks. These wield a sharp, white, painful light, one that burns everything in its path, e
verything it touches, ripping through strands and connections that hang dead and lifeless, temporarily inert without the Dreng.

  And not just seers...he feels humans among his attackers.

  The Pyramid fights to reform, to pull him up and out, to align him with the top spot, but the murderers intervene, again and again, ripping apart threads each time they touch his light, killing or disconnecting more and more of his drones.

  He feels her. She laughs at the carnage...laughs.

  His hatred rises, a crushing need to kill, even as the last whispers of light connecting him to the Dreng’s clouds snap and fray.

  The Pyramid teeters.

  Pieces unlock, above and below. Terian hears it, as the cracks build momentum, as the fissures move from segment to segment, tearing through dark, quiet structures, one by one. More and more of them fall, breaking apart like compressed ash, until he can only stand there and watch, unable to believe what he is witnessing.

  Thrown clear, Rooks scatter like so many rik-jum cards, ripped from their moorings like birds thrown from straw nests. Light from the feeding grounds disperses, dumping power from the Pyramid’s base. The seers of the Rooks begin to panic.

  Those still hooked into the network begin feeding off one another, killing one another for light. Terian watches in horror as more pieces fall, crushing panicking seers, tearing abilities and knowledge from the communal pools. Lifetimes’ worth of accumulated structures crumble to dust, no longer able to hold to the shared mind of the Pyramid, useless without it. Terian’s own structures begin to flicker, too, then to crack, dimming more as the pools unravel.

  He feels it as a drop in power so severe that at first he thinks he is dying.

  Then, it gets worse. He feels the Pyramid detach.

  It breaks away, Headless.

  Terian feels her again. She laughs happily above that whispering dark, and he hates her for the sheer joy he feels in her light.

  He screams into the reaches of the Barrier, calling the Dreng back.

  But it is too late. The gap between the silvery clouds and the creation stretches too long.

  The Dreng are nowhere to be found.

  I SPIN THROUGH a weave of multicolored light, laughing without knowing why, tears flowing down my light face. I have never been so happy. Light dismantles the Pyramid while I watch, tearing it off from its broken moorings.

  Souls disperse like leaves freed by a warm breeze.

  I feel humans on different continents blink, come awake.

  Even in their pain, their innocence brings up so much feeling I laugh again, unable to help myself, with no other way to express it. Light pours from the Barrier itself, a cleansing torrent that blasts away the dusty, broken remnants of the Dreng.

  The lynchpin pulled, I have only to watch.

  It is the break in the clouds...sunrise without annihilation.

  Then, I feel something else.

  Allie, he says. It’s time to go. We’re in danger...

  I open my eyes, fighting to see through the light...

  ...AND FOUND MYSELF lying on something hard that jutted into my back. I was in a dust-filled space, colored only by light from a small, square window with rose-tinted glass.

  I looked around, trying to get my bearings.

  Revik’s long body lay next to mine. A low boom trembled the floor beneath my back. It brought down dust, and the sound of coughing around me, some male and some female. I saw a broken lamp swinging from the ceiling above, and realized I lay in a stairwell.

  Voices grew audible above me.

  I heard Maygar first. “Well, we can’t stay here!”

  “You heard what Eddard said,” Jon said. “The next floor is completely blocked! We’ll have to...” Jon held a gun when his eyes swiveled to my face and widened. He nearly dropped the gun. “Allie...jesus! You’re awake!”

  I looked over at Revik, whose chest rose and fell as he lay on his side on the same wooden steps as me. His eyelids flickered, enough that I hoped he’d come back half-conscious. I fought to sit up, to force myself upright, when I got hit with a sudden rush of dizziness.

  Before I could fall, arms slid around my waist, catching me.

  I glanced up, surprised to see Maygar.

  “You’re back,” he muttered. He held me against his shoulder. Plaster drifted down from the ceiling as the building shook, dusting his hair. Maygar looked up as another booming sound rattled the windows.

  “Is Cass okay?” I asked. “Where’s Cass?”

  Her voice rose, shaky. “I’m here.” I saw her gripping her own shoulder, leaning against the stair’s handrail as she peered down at me. “What are we going to do?”

  Maygar’s voice shifted into the tone of a military report. His words were directed at me, I realized, as if I was in charge.

  “They’re blowing up entrances and exits...presumably in case we try to take control of their people,” he said. “I’ve counted at least twenty inside. I can’t feel any below the ground level, but it’s only a matter of time. They’ve got seers with them, and the elevators are all down, as well as everything in the building fitted with organics. They’ve got trank guns too, and gas.”

  Maygar grunted, motioning his head towards Revik.

  “Rook-boy taught them well,” he added sourly. “Eddard still hopes to get us out through the underground tunnel. He thinks it’s not on any of the plans, but they may have collapsed it by now. They could gas us at any minute. These two...” He nodded at Jon and Cass. “...Made us carry you both. It slowed us down too much.”

  I smiled at him, shaking my head. “You want me to feel sorry for you because my friends wouldn’t leave me behind to die?”

  His eyes flickered, once. “I wouldn’t have left you,” he said.

  “Allie!” Cass said. “We have to get out of here!”

  I looked at Revik. Remembering Terian’s scream of rage, I clutched his arm, sliding into his light to see how he was. He was weak as hell, but most of his aleimi had returned to his body. The pressure built behind my eyes as I felt Terian searching for us both.

  Cass was right. We didn’t have much time.

  “Get him up.” I clicked my fingers in Maygar’s face. “Now, Maygar! And wake him up more...he’s still in the Barrier. Give him some of your light!”

  Maygar let go of me and crouched over Revik.

  After shaking him once, he slapped his face, harder than absolutely necessary, I thought, but it seemed to do the trick. Once Revik’s eyes were open, Maygar grabbed his other arm, grunting as he hoisted him upright. He slid a shoulder under the taller seer’s arm, motioning for Jon to help him by supporting his other side.

  Then I saw Maygar’s expression turn puzzled. He looked back at me.

  “Something’s different. It feels like chaos. Like—”

  “I know.” I studied his eyes, startled by his seeming unawareness of what had occurred. He didn’t seem to remember what we’d done to the Pyramid at all. “We have a window,” I told him, keeping my explanation short. “From the Rooks, at least. I don’t know for how long. And I don’t know exactly how it’ll affect them.”

  “What about the barricades?” Jon said.

  “And those soldiers on the stairs?” Cass said.

  I looked around at all of them, hesitating. “Yeah. Okay. Maygar and I are going to need your help. You’re going to get tired. If it gets too bad, tell us, okay? We’ll lay off.”

  “Allie?” Cass said. “Lay off what?”

  I met her eyes. “We’re going to be draining you. Taking your light...as soon as things start,” I said. “I’ll take as much as you can possibly spare. Don’t ask me to stop unless you’re desperate. The main thing is going to be speed. Once we get closer to their humans, I’ll switch to draining them.” I looked up the stairs at Eddard. “Those charges Revik mentioned wouldn’t hurt either. The more we can distract them, the easier it will be to knock them out before they start firing...”

  I trailed when Eddard held up a black bag. H
e shook it, to show me it was empty, then lifted some kind of hand-held remote device.

  Getting the gist, I nodded, glancing around at the others.

  I considered saying something else. Something encouraging, maybe, something inspiring or leader-like. But seeing the glazed looks I got in return, it struck me that we didn’t have time for that, either. I motioned for Maygar and Jon to follow with Revik, even as another booming sound brought dust sifting through the floor above.

  Already, I can barely see for the light in my eyes.

  “Stay behind us,” I hear myself say to the humans.

  I feel Revik react, reaching for me, but only just.

  THE FIRST EXPLOSION rocked the whole of the penthouse apartment, raining debris down on the crowd of onlookers standing in the street below. Windows shattered, car alarms went off as chunks of metal, plaster, paper, fabric, bits of wood furniture and wainscoting along with broken appliances, powdered glass and paint showered onto the street alongside the pieces of helicopter and smashed up cars that had been moved to the side to help reinforce roadblocks.

  Detective of Home Office Security for England, Ronald Clement, spilled his coffee over the front of his shirt when the windows blew, ducking down behind a military van.

  He touched his earpiece, but his eyes found his partner, Detective Henry George, first.

  “What in God’s name was that?” he shouted. “I thought we had them trapped in the stairwell?”

  Henry pointed to the penthouse, as if the smoke billowing out the top floor windows was explanation enough.

  Clement tapped his headset pointedly. He felt the other detective click over, and immediately began to speak. “Henry? What happened?”

  “Dunno. Where’s the head Yank? That’s their people, right?”

  Another explosion blew out a set of windows on the penthouse floor.

  Clement ducked, then watched in disbelief as furniture rained down, including what looked like a four foot head from a Buddha statue. It caved in the front of a police car as it landed, crushing windshield and bonnet neatly into the asphalt.