Range

by JA Huss

  It's a hard call and that privately makes me smile as the men are pulled apart. They continue to circle each other, like they are on the verge of another attack.

  "Gideon? I need you."

  He pulls his glowing red eyes away from Tier and tracks his gaze first to Lucan, and then to me, breathing hard. "Sure thing, Snowbird." He bumps into Tier as they pass one another and grabs my hand and leads me out in to the hallway. We walk past my room and make our way back out into the dark cavernous market tunnel. I stop on the edge, a slight panic rolling down my body like a shiver on a cold night.

  "Night vision, Juncs. Use it now, OK?"

  I nod. Of course, yeah, I have night vision. He leads me over to another tunnel and I follow him to a small apartment and we go inside. He finds the lights and the place becomes illuminated.

  "Where are we?"

  He grins and pulls me down on the sagging couch with him and drapes his arm around my shoulder to tug me towards his chest. "My place. I lived here for a few months while I was waiting for you to come home. Like it?"

  I look around the little craphole of an apartment, filled with second-hand furniture and old food wrappers, and laugh as I picture his luxurious penthouse on the private Sargassum atoll. "Actually, Gid, this makes me feel so much better about you, I can't even explain it."

  He lets out a little breath of air that might've been intended as a laugh. "Yeah, it's more me, really. I never minded living here, and it reminds me"—he stops for a minute and pulls me even closer into his chest if that's possible—"of the waiting. You know? That time when all I could think about is you coming home and how I'd look at you on that first moment. And how you'd look at me. I dreamed about it endlessly, Junco." He stops for a few seconds and then repeats it at a whisper, "Endlessly."

  "And then I came out of Selia's place all moody and sour and I bet you were asking yourself what the fuck you ever saw in me, huh?"

  He laughs for real this time. "Hell, you were such a little shit that day. Threatening to cut a hole in the security door if they took your guns. Crazy little Snowbird. But no, Juncs, that was the best day of my life." He pauses for a few seconds. "Until Lucan came back with you a few weeks ago, that is."

  I know. I saw him turn away when I woke up, he turned away to hide his weakness from me when he broke down. I feel him like we are one. Almost like Isten when he was alive and we were twined, but deeper. Like he and I are the same person.

  His words pull me from my daydream. "Junco, we gotta get our plan together now, OK? You up for some strategy?"

  "Sera said—"

  "No," he says, cupping a hand over my mouth. "No. You don't tell me anything, you understand? Nothing."

  I stare up at him and squint my eyes. "Why?" I say, but it comes out totally muffled because his hand is still clasped against my face. He removes it and draws in a deep breath.

  "We've always had our secrets, right? I had my camp jobs, you had yours, and every once in a while, we did them together."

  Yes, this is pretty much how it went. I nod.

  "It still works that way, Junco. I have my job, you have your job, and we'll meet in the middle eventually, but I can't interfere with your destiny and you can't interfere with mine. Do you understand?"

  "No!" I say, shaking my head. "I'm tired of being alone. I have no secrets, Gideon! I don't want to—"

  His hand stops my words again. "No secrets?" He huffs out a chuckle. "Really? I have two words for you, Junco. John Hando."

  Oops. I turn away.

  "John Hando was not someone I'd ever let you spend time with, let alone fall in love with."

  Nothing from me.

  "Or Aren."

  Silence.

  "Or any of the others you had at cadets."

  "Well, shit. I guess they're not so secret then, are they?"

  He shrugs. "I never knew back then. I only found out about that Hando guy a few days ago. The Texican Mafia, Junco? Really?"

  "I didn't love them like you, ya know."

  His body softens against me. "And I never loved mine like you either, Snowbird."

  I look up, shocked. Gideon with lovers? I cannot even picture it in my head.

  "I try my best to never picture you like that either, Junco." He laughs. "But when you have that Angel of Death constantly walking around, talking about you like he's got a claim on a horse, I want to keep you for myself, just to piss him off."

  "How do you love me, Gideon?"

  "It's hard sometimes, that's for sure, Junco. You test me to no end."

  "No, I mean, how? How do you love me? Like a sister?"

  "A sister?" The words come out like he can't even comprehend what they mean. "No, not a sister, Junco. A sister doesn't even come close."

  "Then what? I mean, what am I to you, Gideon? I don't understand us. What are we?"

  "I have no idea, I really don't." He pushes me away a little so he can look down at my face. I stare back at him.

  So much love. There is so much love there I have no words.

  "It's not like a sister, Junco, but not like a lover either. I don't dream of sleeping with you if that's what you're asking."

  "No, I never thought that, but Selia was talking about us—"

  "Yeah, well, Selia has tried to set me up with every stupid friend she's made since Ashur dropped her off on Earth. Keeps her busy I guess, that matchmaking."

  "She's weird, isn't she?"

  "She's good though. She's almost the whole reason why that plan to get the Siblings back even worked, ya know?"

  "No, I didn't know that."

  "Yeah, she's the one who talked your mother and father into working together again. They were both up in the Northern Territories before Selia came, but they were not friendly, let alone allies. Selia talked them up with so much family bullshit they gave in and pooled their resources."

  "Huh, she really is a matchmaker. She wants us to be together and I have to be honest, Gideon, the thought of spending the rest of my life wrapped up in your arms makes all the worry drain right out of me."

  I feel his chest tighten a little and I instantly know he's holding back his emotion. I turn and gather my feet underneath me, so I can sit up and watch his face. "What?"

  "There are no words, Junco. No words exist to describe what you are to me or what you mean to me. I love you, you know that, right?"

  The tears well up in my eyes too and then we are both on the verge of crying. "I know, Gid. I would never have made it without you. I will always do what you say, just tell me what to do, Gideon. Just tell me what to do and I'll comply."

  He scoops my face into his hands and plants a kiss on my forehead. "I will tell you and I want you to do exactly as I say, Snowbird. You must listen very carefully to every word or else—"

  His words drop off then and I try to wait patiently but I can't. "Or else what?"

  "Or else we'll lose. Do you hear what I'm saying? You must follow my orders now, Junco. Even if they seem—" He stops again, and again I wait. "Even if they seem wrong. Because we have only two options if we want to come out of this intact. We can either believe in Lucan and Tier and have you make that choice."

  He says the word like it tastes bad or something. He sneers it. "Or?" I prod.

  "Or fight them. You could fight them. The High Order? They have a weakness, Junco. I see them—in my dreams. Been dreaming those fuckers since I was a little kid, way before Matthew and Dale and James and your father talked me into embracing sanity so I could keep you tied to me. And I pushed them down for a while, ya know? But Inanna did the unsanctioned Archer morph on me too. Those years I was missing? She did all kinds of things to me and that brought it all back. I've been dreaming about killing the High Order every single night since I was seventeen. Every single night for more than ten years."

  Kill the High Order? "Wait, what? We can kill them? What are they?"

  He breathes out and pauses for several seconds. "Angels, Junco. They're Angels. Not like Tier or Ashur avians. But honest-to
-fucking-God Biblical Angels." He looks over at me and shakes his head. "And there's nothing good about them, Junco. Not one fucking thing. They are evil, they kill, they rape, and tear limbs off children. I've seen it, what they did in the past, back when they were on Earth, before Lucan took control and chased them off. They will destroy this planet, destroy Lucan. Which personally, I could care less about, except he's been the only thing keeping Earth from total annihilation since then."

  That did not explain anything. "Lucan really is God?"

  Gid laughs. "I'm not sure I'd go that far, but he's been protecting this system since ancient times. Being forbidden to set foot on Earth was his punishment—"

  "Punishment for what, though, Gid? I don't get it."

  "For killing off the early pre-humans and engineering a new race of people using special genetics."

  "Ho-leee shit. How the hell did he get away with that?"

  I watch the grin creep up the side of Gid's face in profile. He lets out a breath before he speaks the words. "He engineered a virus, a virus that corrupted the High Order genetics and they simply had the good sense to leave. The only problem was—"

  "It corrupted the avian genetics too, didn't it? Lucan caused that degradation of the code, didn't he?"

  Gid nods. "It corrupted him too, Junco. This Satan thing he has going on when he's here on Earth is how it manifests. He's growing weaker."

  "Like dying?"

  Gideon just shrugs. "Maybe, or maybe he's just changing into something else, something we really don't want to see. I mean, if what he becomes when he's here is so great, why did he avoid it for thousands of years?"

  Very good question. I have no answer.

  "Why did he stay, Gid?"

  "He felt compelled to set it right. For you, Junco. I warned him, told him I'd take care of it and call for him when Sera figured out where they had you. And really, we got that info pretty quick, a few weeks maybe. But Inanna had you in the tank and you couldn't be pulled out. Even Lucan conceded this point, you couldn't be pulled out or it would've done… terrible things to you."

  They knew. All that time, they knew. How horrible to know. "Did Tier know?" It hurts to ask this actually, because if he did—and everyone knew when I was able to be pulled out—then why wasn't he waiting for me? "Why didn't he come get me? Why Lucan?"

  Gideon doesn't answer, just shrugs and continues on about Lucan. "Lucan spent that whole time on Earth hunting down and killing everyone he could find who might have had contact with you, back in camp and stuff, you know."

  I think about this, about the secrets that still exist about that camp. About my newly acquired memories, about Gideon's part in everything. About Tier abandoning me here on Earth while Lucan punished people.

  About one last thing I need to set straight.

  "What's in Vegas?"

  His body stiffens next to me and I wait for it.

  "Bad stuff, Junco. You really don't want to know."

  We sit in the silence of the abandoned compound apartment for a while. His breathing matching mine automatically, his heartbeat so familiar to me it feels like an extension of my own.

  "I need to know, Gideon."

  He lifts my chin up with his fingertip and stares into my eyes. They dart from one to the other, an uneasiness in his expression.

  "I need to know, Gid. If you know, then just tell me."

  He considers this for a few moments and then turns away with a sigh. "I have an idea."

  "I have an idea as well. But that's not good enough. And if they have those things, then we need to destroy them, Gideon."

  He simply nods. "I wish we had our SEAR knives, Junco. We need to get them back."

  Finally! Something I can do to make him happy. I disentangle myself from his embrace and stand up, reaching under my shirt as I study his face. He's not sure, I can tell, but then the faint sound of a SEAR knife being pulled from a body dock reaches his ears and his expression changes from confusion to astonishment as I withdraw the weapon and the loop of plasma bursts forth as a small yellow dagger.

  His laugh bursts through the silence of the decrepit apartment, echoing off the walls. "Where?"

  "I had it made." I power it back down and then fish through my lime-green purse until I find the little black case. I hand it over to him and wait.

  "Junco," he breathes. "Is this—"

  "I had one made for you too. My senior year of cadets, after you went missing in the summer. I did all these unsanctioned jobs with Hando down in Texas and James gave me the order papers for our SEARS and—"

  "James?"

  "Yeah, he helped me do all of it, Gid. All of it."

  He opens the case and peers down at his weapon, astonished. "It's… onyx?"

  "Onyx. Just like the original."

  He grabs it from the case and slips his hand under his shirt, then stops to look at me. "You have no idea how long it's been."

  I love him so much I could kiss him right now. "I do know, Gid. I remember it all now."

  He cocks his head at me. "All of it?"

  I just nod.

  His face falls a little at that revelation and it makes my stomach turn. Not all of it, it says. He slips the little black wand into his dock and we wait, holding our breath, until we feel the slight jolt as the SEAR is charged.

  He removes the weapon with the respect it deserves and he powers it up. The loop of plasma is dialed way down to a small blue pocket knife.

  "Is it coded?"

  I grab the case and set up the test, pricking his finger for some blood and waiting for the reaction to start. Or not.

  Not.

  He just stares at it, almost in awe. Like he's never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.

  "But mine's not coded for me. My morph fucked up my genetics, I think. I had this made after your Archer morph, so it's still good."

  Gid's expression changes immediately. "You cannot use it then, Junco. No way. Hand it over, right now."

  I shake my head. "Fuck that, Gid. I'm never, ever giving up my SEAR again. I felt—"

  "Empty without it?"

  "Yeah," I breathe. "Empty without it."

  "Well, fuck. You know what this means, right?"

  I nod and let out a wild laugh as I bounce on the couch next to him. He holds his SEAR up so it can't cut me, laughing, but I ignore the danger. "Today is a very good day to get them back, Gideon! A very good day to get them back!"

  "I think," he says and then pauses to stare lovingly at his SEAR knife before turning his bright blue eyes up to me, "that we are the scariest motherfucking apexers on the face of this planet."

  I couldn't agree more.

  "OK, now listen carefully, Snowbird." He retracts the SEAR blade and docks it, takes a moment to sigh with… relief? Or maybe contentment? Then pulls out a sheet of thick paper, unfolds it, and smooths it out flat over his leg using his fingertips. He touches the corner and it lights up with patterns.

  "Wow, that's pretty cool. What is it?"

  "Synthetic vellum, it's just a tablet you can fold and stick in your pocket."

  "I've never seen that before, where'd you get it?"

  He smiles, a devious, all-knowing, I'll-never-tell smile. "Someplace special, is all."

  "Why not just use a comm?"

  He winks at me and I giggle. Gideon. Winking.

  "This," he says, waving it slightly, "has the processing power of an AI."

  "Why do we need that? We have Sera." And HOUSE, I don't add.

  "Fuck Sera. I don't trust her."

  OK. I keep my mouth shut, he said to keep my secrets, so I will.

  His fingers deftly maneuver across the surface. Icons appear, then some text. A few voice commands from Gid and finally a holographic map bursts forth and begins to rotate in the center of his lap.

  "This"—he points—"is the plan, little sparrow. Are you ready?"

  "Just tell me what to do, Gid."

  He breathes out, like he's letting go of a lifetime of disappointment an
d waiting, like there is nothing more powerful than those words I just spoke, like we are about to embark on our greatest journey ever.

  Like we are one.

  I look up at him. My Gideon is awesome. I see who and what he is in that moment. He is my Alpha and Omega, my First and Last, my Beginning and my End. I see all that and more in the letting out of one small breath. In the heat of his body that he lets me borrow. In his unwavering march towards vengeance, justice, and retribution for what they did to me. To us.

  He is my everything.

  And then he begins to talk.

  Gideon is my saving grace. Because no matter what we do, we are righteous as long as we do it together.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Irin is in the main tunnel screaming obscenities at Gid and me. We can hear her before we even make it out of the small hallways that house Gid's apartment.

  He leans down in the dark and kisses me on the head. "I better get back to Tier before he goes insane from my insubordination. He's not very adaptable, that guy. I have no idea what you see in him."

  "What's with you two anyway? I mean, I know you never liked each other, but shit, Gid. Brawling? That serves no purpose."

  He squeezes my shoulder as I study his face, lit up by my internal night vision. "I said I'd help him, but it's a fucking favor, Junco. I'm not his goddamn warrior, I'm not his fucking Five, I'm nothing to him. So next time you talk to him you tell him I'm only here because of you." He pauses for a moment to reconsider. "And your parents. But that's it. I'll deliver Tukker to his assigned spot so he can raise his djed, but after that our plan is the only thing that counts."

  Our plan. So much stress and worry leaves me just thinking about it. So much. "He thinks he'll be short a team member? That's why he's pissed?"

  Gid actually guffaws at this. "Short a team member? Shit, Junco, he's got fifteen million warriors en route to Earth as we speak."

  "What? Why the hell did Lucan order that?"

  "Lucan's not in control anymore. I keep forgetting that you don't understand what's happened since Inanna took you. Tier's in charge. Lucan gave up his position when he stayed back here to find you. He's out. Rikan took over as the legal heir, but Tier took over as the one that holds power and directs the Aves warriors." He stops for a moment to consider this. "I'm not sure they're all on the same page anymore, better be careful."