The Defector

by J. C. Andrijeski

  Like most young seers, he’d heroized them.

  Also like most young seers, he had fantasized more than once about being invited into that elite cadre––being marked as one of the chosen.

  He never had been, of course.

  Balidor himself had been a quasi-mythological figure, even back when Revik was a child. Revik had been hearing myth-like rumors of Adhipan Balidor for as long as he could remember. It was said, by those who believed he existed at all, that Balidor was the greatest infiltrator alive––perhaps even of the past several generations. It was said that his sight skills matched those of the Council Seers, and far surpassed them in any area utilizing a military or infiltration skill.

  Balidor was a living legend, and not only because very few could claim to have met him or even seen him in the flesh.

  Many believed it had been Adhipan Balidor who brought down the infamous Syrimne d’Gaos––history’s only known telekinetic seer––during World War I, before Syrimne could more or less wipe out the human race.

  Revik still entertained a few fleeting doubts that this human-looking seer could really be the famed Balidor, but as he watched him work and studied his light surreptitiously––or what he pretended was surreptitious, since the occasional puzzled and/or humorous look aimed his way by Balidor himself told him otherwise––Revik’s doubt began to fade.

  He felt no duplicitousness on any of these seers.

  Even those who did not trust him, or did not like him because of what he was, did not hide those sentiments from him. They were open about it.

  Further, Revik felt a frequency of light on Balidor similar to what he felt on Vash. Maybe because of that, he found it increasingly difficult to distrust him.

  It rang of truth, somehow.

  Truth, clarity, love… maybe even “reality” in the broader, philosophical sense.

  At any rate, that light didn’t seem to be hiding anything from him, particularly not in terms of intent, or who and what they were.

  For the same reasons, when Balidor named Revik as his responsibility, Revik hadn’t taken those as idle words. The Adhipan not only followed Code, they considered themselves the protectors of that Code, its champions.

  They did not lie. Not even in half-truths.

  Moreover, they did not work against the free will of any being. It was one of the most basic tenets of Code, one that required absolute transparency.

  So, if Balidor was who he said he was, he would protect Revik, at least out here.

  Revik hadn’t yet asked if he would be returned to the caves of the Pamir once Kali’s need for him had ended, but he assumed he would be. He therefore took Balidor’s promise to mean that he would do everything in his power to return Revik to the monks in one piece, so that Revik could complete the terms of his penance.

  Which could also mean that Revik was a prisoner here, when all was said and done.

  He forgot all of that, of course, as he walked off the plane in São Paulo.

  He even forgot Kali, who he’d been trying desperately to not think about since they’d first told him of her kidnapping––and her mate, who’d already threatened to kill him if he managed to fuck this up––and her unborn child.

  Instead, he found himself once more struggling just to exist in the world.

  He was also forced to face the fact that he really hadn’t existed in the world, not on his own, not in years… possibly even decades.

  He wasn’t really doing it now, either.

  He’d gone from being dependent on the Rooks, to dependent on the monks.

  Now, he was dependent on brother Balidor and his famed Adhipan.

  Within minutes, Revik found himself fighting not to…

  Well, fight.

  Hands pulled at him, tugging at his clothes.

  He’d left the airport following close behind Balidor and Dalejem, tracking the positions of the other infiltrators as they left the enclosed area of customs.

  Once the second set of glass doors opened them out onto the curb and into the tropical sunlight and dense, humid air, Revik let out an involuntary gasp.

  Wet heat clung to his mouth and nose, sucking at his lungs, making it hard to breathe. He broke out in a sweat, seemingly over his entire body; shock hit his system as he realized again how few changes in his environment he’d had to endure over the previous few years.

  The weather reminded him of Vietnam, which didn’t exactly calm him down.

  Worse than that, he felt exposed.

  He felt exposed even before a group of touts spotted their group and surrounded them, offering him hotels, women, tours, food and stolen watches. They invaded his physical boundaries and his aleimi before Revik had come close to regaining his equilibrium––hell, before he’d managed to adjust his eyes to the bright sunlight.

  Fighting to control his reactions, he glanced around at the seers he’d left the plane with, and saw them all standing at the curb a few yards away, watching in some amusement as he alone among them seemed unable… or perhaps unwilling… to manage the crowd of humans, all of whom seemed to want something from him.

  Unlike in Kabul, they weren’t helping him this time.

  Even Dalejem wasn’t helping him; he stood with the others.

  The Adhipan infiltrators were using this as an acclimation moment for him.

  They were deliberately letting him handle it.

  Revik’s mind could see the logic in that, in forcing him to adjust, but the realization made him panic at first. He hadn’t fully realized how much he’d been resting on all of them until they ripped those training wheels out from under him.

  He found himself in an island of humans, fighting to talk himself down, to not overreact, even as he shoved a pair of mirrored sunglasses clumsily over his eyes to minimize the chances someone might ID him as a seer.

  “Dehgoies!” a female voice called out mockingly. “Do you intend to let them strip you naked? Or do you plan to join the rest of us at some point…?”

  She sent him a snapshot as she said it.

  Revik felt the meaning behind it, even as his skin warmed with more than just the heated air.

  The Adhipan seers had thrown up a shield to protect him, despite his panic.

  In that same cluster of packed images and meanings, Revik realized they were all waiting for him to use his sight to push the local humans away.

  In that same cluster of packed information, Mara sent him more information and direction regarding the Adhipan Infiltrator’s Code.

  She explained that since the humans had approached him, it didn’t break Code for him to push them with his light. It also didn’t break code for him to paint illusions so the humans could not recognize him as seer––especially if such an illusion was important to the wider goals of the Adhipan charter, which required them to operate in secret, including among humans.

  All of this fell under the category of self-defense, Mara informed him.

  Like the rest of Balidor’s team, he was allowed to do whatever he had to do to make his way through the city unmolested, as long as he used the minimum amount of persuasion, force, or illusion required to reach his goals.

  Revik felt his light cringe with embarrassment, even as he sent a ping of acknowledgment back at the female infiltrator.

  It had been a long time since he’d been forced to learn infiltration 101.

  At the same time, he appreciated them being clear about the rules––even if he was embarrassed that he needed that clarity, as if he were a Sark child, with no sense of inbuilt morality of his own.

  The truth was, the Rooks didn’t really have rules, not when it came to that kind of thing. Revik could not remember the last time he’d operated as an infiltrator in a way that required him to factor in anything approximating an ethical code.

  The monks had rules, of course.

  They were not infiltrators, though. Their rules had been different.

  Simpler, in most ways, but eminently impractical for operating in the human w
orld.

  Exhaling as he tried to push aside his embarrassment, Revik sent a gentle push out into the crowd with his aleimi, carefully turning the humans’ minds away from him.

  He has no money. He is useless to us… he sent softly.

  He knew it was all right.

  The Adhipan seers all but told him to do it, but something about impinging on their free will, even in this tiny way, still felt wrong to him.

  Maybe he really had spent too much time with those monks.

  Dalejem, who still stood watching him with the rest of the Adhipan seers, let out a ringing laugh, clearly hearing him.

  Revik gave him a hard look, in spite of himself.

  You are quite amusing, you know, Dalejem sent, his clear voice warm with humor in Revik’s mind. You castigate yourself for having no moral compass… then in the next second feel guilty for even the tiniest push of a human mind. You probably wince at killing insects too, na? It is adorable, truth be told. But I cannot help but wonder… is this really the infamous and deadly Rook, Dehgoies Revik? The one we were all warned about? The one we were told to fear?

  Revik scowled at him a little.

  He could feel no ill will in the other’s words, so couldn’t feel any real anger at him, but his skin warmed in embarrassment anyway.

  And you blush, Dalejem noted, bemused. You are a puzzle, little brother. A genuine enigma.

  Revik didn’t look at him that time.

  Anyway, by then, he had completed his push.

  The human eyes in front of him glazed.

  They slowly began to back away from him, almost as a group.

  A man took his hand off Revik’s arm, giving him an irritated look before shaking his head and walking back towards the glass doors, looking for a tourist with more to offer, and money to spend. The human female who had been closet to him in those few seconds backed away last, caressing Revik’s thigh through his pants as her fingers left him.

  Revik bit down on his tongue, hard.

  Humor rippled the Barrier around him as he did it, and that time, Revik felt something closer to shame.

  Fighting not to let it turn into anger, he shut his light down altogether.

  Then someone had hold of his arm.

  Before he could stop himself, Revik glanced over, meeting pale green eyes, a wide smile on a shockingly handsome face.

  “Do not worry, brother,” Dalejem said to him in English, smiling at him. “They are giving you shit. It is hazing, brother. They sent those humans at you, to see what you would do.”

  Revik felt his embarrassment turn into a more smoldering irritation.

  Dalejem nudged him playfully with his shoulder.

  “Do not be angry, brother,” he said, grinning wider. “It was not done in spite. Quite the opposite. It means most of them have decided they like you.”

  Revik rolled his eyes at that, snorting in spite of himself.

  “They will not leave you behind,” Dalejem added, tilting his head for Revik to follow. “But we had better go.”

  There is nothing to be embarrassed about, brother, Dalejem added in his mind, softer. He squeezed his arm. Truly. We are all surprised at how well you are doing with this… and impressed. Brother Balidor, especially. Personally, I think he is quite proud, as he is the one who really pushed to bring you along for this when Kali requested you. You are probably not surprised to learn a number of us tried to talk him out of it.

  Revik frowned at him, wondering why the hell Dalejem felt the need to tell him that.

  They have changed their minds since, Dalejem added, gripping him tighter. That was more or less my point, Revik.

  Revik didn’t open his light, but he felt that tension in his chest relax slightly.

  He averted his eyes from Dalejem’s intent stare, following the tug of those fingers and that light, fighting to ignore the fact that he’d gotten hard from the human’s caress, and that Dalejem having his hands on him wasn’t exactly helping.

  He knew the others had probably noticed his reaction already.

  He knew Dalejem must have, as well.

  Clearly, the other male didn’t care.

  By the time Revik reached the curb, four SUVs had pulled up with tinted windows.

  Modified, Revik guessed, likely bullet-proof and mine-proof organics on the sides and covering the lower chassis.

  Dalejem smiled at him again. “That tactical thing of yours,” he commented, clicking softly. “It never leaves you. Does it, brother? It’s like a nonstop commentary running in the background, from what I can tell… no matter what you are doing.”

  Revik blinked at him, surprised.

  He didn’t answer, but found himself thinking about the other’s words.

  Just how many of his thoughts could these Adhipan infiltrators hear, anyway?

  He let Dalejem lead him into the last of those SUVs. He closed his light even more when he found Mara in there, now grinning at him with a smug triumph in her eyes.

  “Enjoy yourself, pup?” she asked as he took his seat.

  When he glanced at her, he saw her staring pointedly at his crotch.

  He covered it with one arm, almost before he knew he meant to.

  He realized his mistake when she laughed in delight, causing a few of the seers sitting around her in the cramped space to chuckle, too.

  “Don’t be ashamed,” she said, smirking when he glanced up. “From what I can tell, you have nothing to be embarrassed of down there, brother.”

  “Leave him alone, Mara,” Dalejem said. “Now.”

  For the first time, Revik heard a harder note in the male’s words.

  He didn’t know if he resented it or felt grateful.

  Deciding not to entertain either thing, he wiped the last of the thoughts from his mind, staring out the tinted windows with no expression on his face, his light as closed as he could manage, considering who he was with.

  He might not be as good at hiding his light as any of them, but he could still keep himself from thinking well enough to not give them too much ammunition.

  At the thought, he felt a pulse of warmth hit his chest, strong enough and heated enough that he looked over in spite of himself. That time, when he met Dalejem’s gaze––for it had to be Dalejem, since he was the only one here who didn’t seem to hate him entirely––Revik couldn’t help but wince at the pity he saw in those green eyes.

  Biting his tongue, he looked back towards the tinted windows.

  He wasn’t here for them, he reminded himself.

  He was here for Kali.

  He was here because he owed Kali.

  As he turned over the thought in the more bitter corners of his mind, however, he wondered if he might be lying to himself about that, too.

  Seven

  I Cannot Ask

  “What are we doing out here?” Revik said.

  The other male didn’t answer him at first.

  Instead, he continued to push past branches, vines, and trunks in the jungle, a heavy, black, canvas bag wrapped cross-wise around his back.

  Revik followed him, matching the other’s long strides without thought.

  Even so, he felt a denser kind of pain hardening in his chest.

  He could feel that the other seers were trying with him now. They’d laid off on some of the teasing he’d gotten when they first landed in São Paulo, but he couldn’t help but notice their eyes on him. They watched him more than they watched one another, and while he saw curiosity in some of those stares, not only hostility, the added scrutiny couldn’t help but make him paranoid, if only because he couldn’t read them at all.

  They didn’t seem to mind that, either, as far as he could tell.

  Meaning, the power imbalance between him and the rest of them.

  Anyway, Revik strongly suspected their more subdued air around him had more to do with Balidor chewing them all out than any change of heart, regardless of Dalejem’s attempts to reassure him.

  Still, the seer in front of him was maybe the on
ly one Revik grudgingly trusted, apart from Balidor himself.

  “Just come with me, brother,” Dalejem said, glancing over his shoulder at him. “I’m not bringing you out here to shoot you, I promise.”

  “Then what is this?”

  Revik heard the wariness in his own voice. He flinched when he did, but since he couldn’t hide the sentiment from his light, he supposed it didn’t matter.

  Clearly hearing that suspicion as well, Dalejem came to a stop, exhaling in amused exasperation, his hands on his hips as he turned to face Revik directly.

  “Are you always this paranoid, brother?” he said.

  Revik thought about that.

  Stopping when Dalejem did, he wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of one hand.

  “Yes,” he said after a pause.

  Dalejem laughed aloud, shaking his head.

  The long, brown and black hair he wore wound into a seer’s hair clip had come down in pieces since they’d left the camp. Revik found himself looking at where it stuck to the male’s neck, even as the other clicked at him in mock-reproach.

  “It is a wonder they call the Org a ‘Brotherhood,’” he said.

  Revik thought about that, feeling the truth behind his words.

  He’d noticed a number of those little ironies with the Org, now that he was outside the Pyramid’s construct and could see them more clearly. Before he could come up with a reply, however, Dalejem had turned back towards the trees, hitching the heavy canvas bag higher up on his back and sliding a machete out of his belt with a scraping sound.

  Revik eyed it warily until Dalejem swung it to clear their path, hacking at vines and broad leaves that disguised the game trail they were following.

  “A hint, brother,” Revik said. “Some indication.”

  Dalejem laughed, shaking his head.

  He didn’t turn, or stop swinging the machete.

  “I wanted to bring you somewhere we wouldn’t be overheard,” the green-eyed seer said after a pause. “No one else was offering, but we were all wondering, so I volunteered.”