They’d been gone for over two hours.
Revik could taste sunrise in his light.
He couldn’t yet see any shift in the colors of the night sky, but the sun would be coming up soon. His internal clock told him they were less than an hour from sunrise now.
They were cutting things close if they wanted to get through that security grid before it got light out. At this point, they were cutting things damned close.
Then again, dark or light––it didn’t matter that much with seers.
The thought had just left his light when something shifted.
The change was fast, soundless.
Alarms.
The tremors hit Revik’s light through Balidor first. Then the actual shockwave expanded over him, hitting into his aleimi from a nearer source.
Before he’d regained his equilibrium, or even made sense of what he’d felt––
Dalejem appeared in front of him, like a ghost from between the trees.
The seer’s sudden appearance from between the walking palms, his face pale and sheened with sweat, nearly gave Revik a heart attack. He hadn’t felt his approach in any way. He hadn’t expected it at all, and the knowledge hit him, hard, how vulnerable he was out here, even as Dalejem walked directly up to him.
The dark-haired seer with his hair clipped back, covered in body armor, carrying a heavy, semi-organic gun, walked right up to him. He spoke aloud once he was close enough, not in Revik’s mind. He used a low whisper, presumably to avoid being heard in the Barrier.
“Come with me, brother,” he said. “Now. Balidor is bringing her out.”
He had ahold of Revik’s arm before Revik had recovered from any part of this.
Revik nearly fought the other male before he abruptly brought his light back under control. Biting his tongue, he forced himself to relax, to do as the other said.
By the time Dalejem released him, he’d almost succeeded.
He forced his mind back into that well-worn track in his mind––the part of him that knew how to follow orders, clicking back into military mode and walking as fast and as silently as he could after the other seer.
Dalejem himself moved without making any sound at all.
Revik had never seen anyone pass through complex terrain, in the dark, so silently; Dalejem was like a spirit passing through the jungle, moving so quickly Revik had to increase the lengths of his strides just to keep up and not lose him in the trees.
He tried his damnedest to follow as quietly, too, and winced when he heard the sounds made by his feet or body, rubbing against branches or stepping on pieces of the jungle floor that made noise.
Dalejem slid his light deeper into Revik’s after he snapped a particularly loud branch under his boots. Without a whisper of rebuke, the older seer began showing him with his light how to navigate the undergrowth more quietly.
Embarrassed as he was, Revik took the instruction, and gladly.
Within a few minutes more, both of them were making scarcely any sound at all as they walked through the trees.
Revik’s mind continued to churn, even as he followed the prodding of Dalejem’s light.
Why had they sent Dalejem ahead to get him?
Was it to keep him away from Kali’s light?
“In part, brother,” Dalejem said, his voice low, like before. “They also want protection on several sides, and to split our parties. Balidor tripped the alarms on the way out. As a result, we were forced to improvise. It made sense to pull you into the first splinter.”
“How?” Revik said, his voice as soft as the other’s. “With the alarm?”
“A trigger they missed,” Dalejem said, shrugging.
Revik didn’t answer.
He wasn’t surprised, though.
Balidor intimated more than once on the flight to São Paulo that his team hadn’t been allotted adequate time to prepare for this op, given their need to pull Revik and their efforts to get Kali’s mate out of solitary.
And the pregnancy, of course.
That added a layer of complicated urgency to everything connected to this mission, in addition to upping the ante on time constraints for going live.
Unsurprisingly, they’d cut corners on planning time, and likely on double-checking all of their intel on the camp. This whole venture had a somewhat “spontaneous” feel to it that exhilarated Revik in a strange way, even as it worsened his nerves.
Dalejem’s teeth shone white in the darkness in front of him.
“You like this kind of work, yes?” the other said. “I have felt this on you.”
Revik didn’t answer.
Partly because the question annoyed him for some reason, but also because speaking unnecessarily out here didn’t strike him as a particularly good idea.
Ahead of him, he heard Dalejem chuckle.
“You really are a soldier, aren’t you?” the other man teased, his voice quiet, only audible because the jungle was quieter. “A highly paranoid one, yes, but a soldier nonetheless. At least they didn’t lie to me about that part of your make-up.”
Revik didn’t answer, but he frowned a little.
He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to know what the other meant about lies he had heard about him, or what Dalejem now thought might be true about him instead.
Revik could feel the other seer pulling on him lightly to ask, however––and while the warmth there mainly confused him, Revik felt himself reacting to it in a less closed way, as well.
Some part of him wanted to ask.
But yeah, he didn’t.
They met up with the rest of their splinter group less than twenty minutes later.
Once there, Revik was surprised, and not particularly pleased, to see Mara among the others assigned to his group.
Others included the giant, half-Wvercian-looking seer Revik with the scar on his face who’d given him a drink the night before.
Revik now knew the big seer as Garensche, or “Gar.”
Garensche was the only one who smiled at him, raising a thick hand in greeting. The five others, three males and two females, didn’t look at him with hostility, but they didn’t exude a lot of warmth, either.
Mostly, they ignored him.
“Balidor was shot,” the first one said to Dalejem as soon as they emerged in the clearing. She went on, her accented voice neutral. “They got out cleanly, however… and otherwise in one piece. The primary target is unharmed. So is her mate. They have ten in the main extraction team now. Plus, ours and another splinter flanking them to the west. They currently are located about five clicks west of us here, maybe half a click north.”
Dalejem nodded, making a short salute as he bowed.
Revik looked at her, studying her face in the half light.
Clearly, this seer was in charge of their smaller group.
She had a distinctive look about her, so he remembered noticing her before, when she’d been part of the planning sessions with Balidor and the rest.
Her name was Yumi.
She had a beautiful but borderline savage face, one that belonged to almost the caricature of a hunter. Something about her made her look imminently dangerous––whether it was the high, sharp cheekbones, the intensity of her dark eyes, the muscles of her shoulders and arms, or the unusual and very traditional-looking tattoo pattern that covered most of her face.
That tattoo, dark blue and made of symbols he mostly knew from religious texts, was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. He wondered where she’d gotten it.
It would definitely make it difficult to blend in with humans––but then, that may not have been a possibility with this seer in the first place.
Despite her severity, the intense markings, and the fact that she utterly ignored him, he couldn’t help noticing she was attractive. That feral beauty of hers drew at his eyes, causing him to stare until he made himself stop.
His light found her light interesting, as well.
Possibly more than interesting, if he were being h
onest with himself… and if he had any intention of letting himself go there… which he did not.
Certainly not during a live op.
She was tall, nearly as tall as him.
He didn’t know that from now; he knew it from before, when he’d watched her surreptitiously during planning sessions with Balidor back at the camp.
Currently, she hunched over a holographic map that covered the floor of the small clearing. Revik’s eyes followed hers to the topographical depictions, noting the three clusters of living lights that made up the main extraction team under Balidor, plus the two splinter groups more or less flanking them, including the one to which Revik now belonged.
The map was fascinating to look at, and reminded him of similar toys he’d used while working for the Rooks. Its level of detail included the cluster of trees in which they now stood, and even the strange, glowing violet light exuded by the map itself, filling a six-by-six square of the clearing floor.
The prominence of that light unnerved Revik a little.
Apparently, these Adhipan infiltrators didn’t care that it might get picked up by Org sensors as well, whether the device generating the map had organic shielding or not––not to mention the fact that the map could be seen physically if one of the Org teams got close enough. All it would take is one agent spotting the illumination through the leaves and trunks; the flickering images would inevitably pull eyes and light.
The seer with the tattooed face gave him a withering look.
“We know where the enemy is, brother,” she said.
She highlighted the relevant area of the map, pinging Revik a little harder than necessary to look at the associated segments.
“…A little faith, if you would please. And perhaps some small amount of respect for the training we received under brother Balidor.”
Revik felt his face warm.
He knew the sky was too dark for them to notice.
Probably.
“Is he all right?” he said. “Balidor.”
“Of course,” Yumi replied, dismissive. “They are slowed mainly by the target’s condition, not by brother Balidor’s. He assures us it is a flesh wound only. Still, he has assessed that they need help in getting a safe distance. We are to loop around behind them… if possible, divert the team of Rook scum following them.”
Revik felt the jab directed at him from her emphasized words.
He only nodded.
Still staring at the map, he turned over what she’d actually said.
“Do you approve, pup?” she said scathingly, her dark eyes lifting to his.
He nodded again, pretending he didn’t hear the sarcasm.
Hesitating, he almost didn’t say it, then did.
“Well,” he said, cautious. “There is one thing, if you’ll pardon my thoughts on this. Since we’re so close to the perimeter, we have an easy diversion available to us… assuming I am hearing you correctly, and our current priority is to gift brother Balidor time.”
Revik swallowed, nodding towards the holographic map.
“If you allow me to cross that security line… long enough for them to ID me, I mean… they’ll follow us. I can pretty much guarantee it.” He met her gaze. “It would buy Balidor minutes, at least… possibly a great deal more than that, if we can convince camp security the extraction targets are with me.”
He glanced at Dalejem, then back at Yumi.
“You must realize you are a myth to them,” he said, when neither spoke. “They won’t think Adhipan… not until Central gets involved, and even then, it won’t be the first place their minds go. They definitely won’t be looking for brother Balidor. They’ll think bounty. The Rynak. Private security team out of Asia. Desperate family members––family members with enough cash to hire mercs. If they feel me out here, they’ll assume I’m running with a private outfit now. They’ll also assume I’m the highest ranked, and probably leading my own teams. It wouldn’t be hard to convince them Kali was with me.”
All eight sets of eyes had turned, and were staring at him now.
They glowed strangely in the light of the holographic map.
Revik could feel the aleimi of each seer darting around him, measuring him openly in the silence after he spoke. He felt wariness there, but also no small amount of surprise.
“You would be willing to do that?” Yumi said, after a beat.
Some of the acid had dropped from her tone.
Revik barely hesitated before nodding again.
He glanced around at the rest of them, feeling his shoulders tense, even as he bounced a little on his heels, almost without noticing he did it.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” He gestured expansively with one hand. “There must be a reason. By now, you all know it’s not for my sight skills.”
That actually brought a smile to her face, and a true relaxing of her expression.
A few of the others chuckled, too, including the giant seer, Garensche.
Revik saw Dalejem frown, though, even as the green-eyed seer turned, giving Yumi an irritated look. Yumi gestured at him, using some symbol Revik didn’t know, something that must be specific to the Adhipan.
Then she faced Revik himself.
Still smiling, she straightened to her full height, then motioned around at the rest of the team.
“Do you know all of us, brother?” she said politely. “By name, I mean? Are you familiar with each of our lights? We will need to remain close to you, if you are really crazy enough to do this thing you are offering. You should be able to tell us apart… na?”
Revik looked around at faces. “I think so. By name, that is.”
“You think?” Yumi quirked an eyebrow. Her voice remained friendly, even as she motioned around the circle. “Show me, brother.”
Revik exhaled a little, then pointed.
“Gar, Poresh, Mara, Dalejem.” He paused, pointing at Yumi’s own face, looking directly at her. “Yumi.” He shifted his gaze to her right. “Ontari. Vikram. And you are Dalai, right?”
The shorter female with the dark brown hair nodded, giving him a smile, too.
“Very good,” Yumi said approvingly. “Now we will talk about the how, yes?” She glanced at her watch, an organic-component band that looked like it might have holographic capabilities of its own. “We do not have much time. Can you improvise, pup? For that matter, can you follow instruction, outside the Pyramid of your former masters?”
The words held less bite that time.
They may have even held a measure of sympathy.
Somehow, Revik felt the sting of them a lot more, though.
“I can manage,” he said, stripping emotion from his words.
She measured him again with her eyes, then nodded, once, an infiltrator’s nod.
“Good,” she said. “Stay by me,” she added, her voice all-business now.
She clicked off the map, leaving the clearing in relative darkness, although the band around her wrist continued to emit a blueish glow of light that illuminated her face and a small ring around her, which included Dalejem, Poresh and Ontari.
“We will talk, you and I,” Yumi said, still speaking to Revik. “As we make our way back behind Balidor, and closer to the perimeter fence.”
She was already moving fast, and Revik found himself loping to catch up with her long legs and strides. She walked past him and into the trees, without slowing or looking back, heading more or less due south.
He felt the other seers close in on the two of them from all sides once he walked more or less alongside her. A few seconds later, he realized he’d been inserted into a mobile construct, too, almost without him realizing they had done it.
Mobile constructs of this type were advanced Barrier tech, Revik knew––Barrier tech he was only vaguely familiar with outside the confines of the Rooks’ Pyramid. Meaning, he knew how it worked within the Org network; outside of that context, he understood the mechanics only a small amount, and possibly not at all.
The Rooks utilized a
very specific, non-physical anchor via Galaith and the beings he worked with to ground mobile constructs. Given the lack of integrity of those beings, it was a method the Seven and Adhipan would not (and possibly could not) replicate.
Revik had no idea how the Adhipan accomplished a similar effect outside of those spaces. He knew the Barrier connections that the Adhipan utilized were very different than what he’d been trained on under Galaith. They differed in functionality, in form, and––more importantly, perhaps––in terms of their interface with the material world.
In simple terms, the beings utilized by the Adhipan were far less entangled in the physical world than the beings the Rooks used. The Rooks used the Dreng for such things, parasitic beings who operated close to Earth.
Vash and the Seven, and presumably the Adhipan––did not.
Therefore, Vash and the Seven, and presumably the Adhipan, didn’t generate Barrier constructs the way the Rooks did in general, much less out in the field. Revik knew that such non-stationary constructs were possible in theory outside of the Pyramid. He’d simply never been a part of one himself.
Tactical nets of various kinds, sure––but not an actual mobile field construct.
He tried to get a feel for this one as he walked.
He surmised, from his knowledge of directed shielding and how it connected with constructs of this kind, that the mobile was likely not strong enough for all of them to sleep inside it without risk of a Barrier attack.
Therefore, they must still use sentries for longer ground ops, just like Revik had under the Seven, with a few seers guarding the rest and rotating for sleep.
Limitations aside, the construct he felt around him now was dense enough and multilayered enough to catch his breath.
He felt Balidor in those strands. Moreover, the longer they walked, the more tightly it wrapped into and around his aleimi, like threads in a heavy cloth.
As he struggled to adjust to it, and to the feel of being inside it, he found Yumi looking at him, and realized he’d kept pace with her, in spite of the distraction.
“Are you all right, pup?” she said.
“Can we dispense with the ‘pup’?” he grumbled at her, sliding past another set of gum tree branches and catching his sleeve on one as he did.
The Defector Page 9
