The Defector

by J. C. Andrijeski

  He jerked it free, but not without some embarrassment.

  She smiled, clapping him on the back in a friendly way.

  “Of course, youngster,” she smirked. “You can stay hidden? Until we need you to, I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “Because you are very loud,” she added, motioning around at the trees. “I am worried you will get shot out here, and Balidor made me promise I would not leave you out here, with a bullet in your brain. Even if you annoyed me greatly.”

  Revik let out a low snort, in spite of himself.

  Even so, the comment about his “loudness” got to him a little, maybe because he knew it was true, even with Dalejem’s help earlier. Or maybe he’d just spent too many hours standing out in these fucking trees, waiting to get shot at for a traitor, by one side or the other.

  “Tell him it was an accident,” he suggested, his voice flat. “You mistook me for one of them.”

  Yumi grinned at him.

  She didn’t answer him aloud, however.

  Instead, once the mobile construct finished formulating around the two of them and the rest of the splinter team, she spoke directly into Revik’s mind.

  I checked with Balidor on this, and he approved your plan, brother Dehgoies, she sent, giving him a more appraising look, one that contained a lingering friendliness.

  He doesn’t want you getting too close though, brother, she added in warning. He’s stipulated that we let them have a bare taste of your light and then immediately go. We are to loop to the north and east for at least thirty clicks before pausing to assess their response, and the status of our own teams. From there, we will determine when and how to rejoin the others… assuming we are not still in open flight.

  Won’t they be gone by then? Revik sent, puzzled. Balidor and the main extraction team? They have an airlift coming, I would assume?

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. Why do you ask?

  What you just said, he returned at once. Why would we need to determine how to rejoin them? Why not simply have the exit transport meet us wherever we are?

  She rolled her eyes, clicking at him with a touch more irritation.

  It’s a little early to concern yourself with our own extraction, brother Dehgoies, she sent. Focus on what we are doing now. It is quite dangerous… in case you were unaware. As I said, I’d prefer if you didn’t get shot.

  Revik frowned. He could feel there was something they weren’t telling him.

  Why are they going north at all? he sent, still thinking. Why not just head back for the airstrip in Manaus? If we manage to get the Org units to follow us, they could possibly take the river to circumvent the Sweeps, or––

  You don’t need to know any of that yet, she sent, her thoughts abruptly warning. Without slowing her pace, she gave him a look. And before you have another of your paranoia attacks, brother Revik… none of us traveling with you knows. We are following orders. All I know for certain is that we aren’t going back through Manaus.

  But why not? Revik felt a kind of frustration building in his chest, and realized it was probably fear, and not for himself. Surely Balidor must know how risky it is, to go deeper into the jungle? The next town with a decent airport might be Bogotá, for fuck’s sake. The Org will have transport helicopters out here soon, assuming they don’t already. They can drop right down among us. With Kali that pregnant, we won’t be able to keep a lead in any case, even if they only come after us on foot––

  Brother, Dalejem sent softly. Calm yourself.

  Revik turned, frowning at Dalejem where he walked behind them.

  Dalejem only met his gaze, his own unapologetic.

  Eventually, Revik looked away.

  When he glanced back at Yumi, she rolled her eyes at him, but strangely, her thoughts grew more patient, not less.

  Jem is right. Do not worry about this now, little brother, she sent reassuringly. I promise you, we’ll tell you the details when we can. In any case, I assure you that brother Balidor is not foolhardy. He is anything but a risk-taker by nature… so he must have good reason for deciding the course he has. I trust him. I suggest you try to do the same.

  She gave him a faint smile before adding,

  Focus, okay? Your responsibility is to your part of the plan. That is standard military procedure, na? Even for the Rooks?

  After a pause, Revik nodded, reluctant.

  Yumi clicked at him again, in amusement that time.

  You are too used to being in charge yourself, maybe? she suggested coyly.

  He gave her a harder look.

  She laughed, as silently as before.

  Relax, brother, she sent, her voice coaxing, threaded through with warmth. Balidor says their on-site infiltrators, whatever their ranks, will have imprints of your aleimic signature in their files, both Barrier and electronic. You will not need to be recognized by individual seers, if that is the case. He said that further, given who you are, they might even have those records flagged with some kind of high-priority status…?

  She glanced at him.

  “Is that true?” she said aloud.

  Revik nodded, once. “Probably. Yes.”

  Nodding back, the same decisive way he had, she resumed speaking inside his head.

  In that case, it is much simpler for us, she sent.

  She exuded another pulse of warmth in his direction.

  While that warmth was obviously meant to reassure him, Revik tasted her own emotion in it. That emotion felt very much like relief.

  This is very good, she sent, as if to confirm what he’d felt. We do not have to risk you very much. Or ourselves, for that matter, she added, winking at him and smiling in the blueish glow of her wrist-band. We will simply find a place in their construct, brother, where they have no guards or patrols nearby. This should not be difficult, since they have deployed a relatively small percentage of their people to watch over the remaining prisoners while they focused on pursuit of Balidor and your friend, Kali. The vast bulk of their military back-up was already sent after the extraction team. So we will put you in their range only just. Then we will go… and assume their security measures can handle the rest.

  And if they don’t? Revik grumbled.

  Yumi shrugged.

  If they do not divert an adequate number of their team towards us, we will revisit our strategy. Perhaps we shall even attack them directly… from behind, of course, and likely with support from the other splinter group.

  She gave him another small smile.

  They will likely know what we are doing, of course, she added, quirking an eyebrow. I doubt they would believe you so sloppy as to cross that perimeter line by accident.

  Revik glanced up, frowning, hearing the compliment woven into her words.

  She didn’t bother to return his look.

  Instead, she shrugged with one tattooed hand.

  But we must assume you will be sufficiently tantalizing bait, brother, she added with a smile. Regardless of why they believe you to be here. Hopefully you will be more tantalizing than whatever they think they are following in brother Balidor and sister Kali… although Balidor plans to support our distraction with Barrier illusions and a few tricks of his own.

  Revik nodded, thinking.

  He was still trying to walk more quietly, but without Dalejem’s direct help, he knew he was only having minimal success. Even so, he found himself relaxing somewhat as he turned over some of the meanings behind Yumi’s words.

  Her logic made sense.

  Balidor’s logic made sense.

  The instant Revik’s light hit the Org construct, alarms would ring all the way to the top of the Pyramid hierarchy.

  Once his ID got confirmed, it would change the status of this extraction, and fast.

  It was a calculated risk, and not only for him. Based on that, he couldn’t help but be relieved at Yumi’s and Balidor’s determination not to push on that too much. In and out. Let the Org feel him, and bolt. If the tactic lifted only some of the p
ressure off Balidor’s team, it would be worth the risk.

  When he glanced over again, Yumi smiled at him.

  Perhaps you are not so dumb after all, Rook, she sent softly, where none of the others would hear it. I am thinking now that you will be very useful to us, brother.

  Revik suppressed a low surge of anger, a real one that time, biting his tongue.

  He found himself thinking about her words, even as doubt nagged at him. Who really wanted him here? Was it really Kali? Or someone else?

  Someone inside the Pyramid, maybe?

  Why had the Rooks taken Kali in the first place?

  Balidor hinted more than once he didn’t believe Galaith to be behind this, but Revik had trouble believing it––even with who Balidor was. To Revik’s knowledge, there was no one besides Galaith who could pull something like this off. Who else could control the Sweeps? Who else could use Guoreum as their own private dark site?

  It still felt like the question no one wanted to answer.

  Yet it was the only real question around any of them being here at all.

  Revik glanced at Yumi, conscious suddenly of the silence between them, and she winked at him, laughing silently yet again.

  Don’t be angry with my teasing, brother. I’m just testing your reflexes, which is a part of my job here, too. I need to know you can reign in your emotions, if need be. We can’t have you freaking out in the field, can we?

  Freaking out? He gave her a disbelieving look. Is that a serious concern?

  She shrugged, clearly indifferent to his anger.

  As I said, brother Balidor is a cautious man, she sent.

  If that were true, he would have left me in the Pamir, Revik retorted. As I wanted. And requested. Repeatedly.

  She only smiled wider, nudging him with a muscular, tattooed arm.

  From what brother Jem tells me, you’re a bit paranoid, Rook, she said, still smiling. A bit hypersensitive, too. Of course, he finds it all quite charming… but he’s a big softie, our Jem. He’s also prone to taking in strays. Of all shapes and sizes.

  Revik didn’t answer those words, either.

  Still, they irritated him.

  Maybe because he could feel her trying to nudge his mind overtly that time, to get him to see something, or understand something, perhaps… something he either didn’t want or didn’t need to see or understand any more clearly than he already did.

  Or maybe she was just jabbing at his emotions again.

  Testing his reflexes, as she’d said.

  He didn’t try very hard to untangle it, whatever it was, mainly because the only real possibilities had run through his mind already.

  Besides, Dalejem already drew a line in the sand where Revik was concerned––a line Revik probably hadn’t needed pointed out to him explicitly, either, but one that hadn’t left a lot of room for ambiguity.

  Revik’s thoughts grew even more irritated when he remembered Dalejem and Mara outside of his sleeping tent that night, talking about him where they must have known he would feel it.

  For some reason, something either in his thoughts or his expression made Yumi laugh again, harder that time, but still almost soundlessly.

  Before Revik could give her an appropriate glare in response, she shut off the light glowing at her wrist.

  The action left them in total darkness.

  It also effectively ended their conversation.

  Ten

  Guoreum

  “Are you ready, little brother?” Yumi said.

  She kept her voice low, despite the distance between them.

  He glanced back at her, at all of them where they stood in an uneven line, broken by the dense jungle trees.

  He saw rifles raised, hands by triggers, and a darker humor invaded his light, where he had a sudden image of them opening fire on him, rather than covering him.

  Nice try, little brother, Yumi murmured in his mind. You won’t get out of this that easy.

  Remembering Dalejem saying something similar to him the day before, Revik smiled grimly, in spite of himself.

  I am ready, he told her, equally quiet.

  Then go, she sent. Just be careful, brother. This is not the time to hurry… or to act the hero. And if you feel anything that worries you, get out. At once. We will feed your light to their sentries some other way, if Balidor decides it is still needed.

  Revik nodded to that, too.

  There wasn’t much left to say.

  He paused a few seconds more, crouched behind the last lines of jungle trees and undergrowth, in the shadow of the same as he gazed over the grounds of Guoreum.

  It was the closest he’d been to anything of the Rooks since he defected.

  His eyes scanned the uneven landscape, most of which had been cleared almost entirely of jungle. He fought to keep his heart rate down, to do as Yumi said, and exercise caution––to neither rush nor unduly hesitate.

  He couldn’t afford to try and get this over with, any more than he could afford to drag his feet in some unconscious effort to avoid doing it altogether.

  He worked to ground himself in the physical instead, and to calm himself, using breathing techniques the monks taught him.

  As he did, he continued to map his environment.

  The clear-cut around the edges of Guoreum left a scar of black earth and uneven trunks, broken by rutted roads for military-style vehicles around the perimeter of the metal fence.

  Inside that fenced area, Revik saw clumps of trees here and there, most of them in the distance, and most situated near cement block barracks and other structures––structures that likely housed the guards and the CIC.

  Those trees were probably left as shade for the camp’s employees.

  Uneven clumps of grass also bordered segments of the road. The nearest of those ruts passed only a few meters in front of where Revik currently hid.

  Trees survived inside the fenced enclosure as well, which Revik could only see because they stood on a rise that led down a gentle hill making up much of the open pasture in this segment of camp.

  Behind him, the jungle clung around him as if in spite.

  Or fear, maybe, that it would face the ax and tractors next.

  Revik didn’t see any guards in the area in front of him, or on the stretch of road along either side of the fence as far as he could see. He heard no vehicles nearby either, only a distant hum of a combustion engine, which could have been a generator for the camp itself.

  Further away, he caught snippets of what might have been the speaker system to the main camp grounds, calling out some instruction or another to the inmates or guards.

  He couldn’t make out the words.

  Even so, just that small glimmer of prison life reminded him.

  It brought back a rush of images and feeling, a reality of this camp and others like it, of places he’d been, places he’d helped to build, places where he’d walked alongside those guards and told them what to do. It evoked even less pleasant memories that were more personal to him, such as questioning traitors under the Rooks.

  Even before that, really. It brought back flickers of memory and feeling from his time with the Nazis. Smells. He could fucking smell it all again, the burning towns surrounded by mud-rutted and snow-covered fields. Stretches of winter and freezing cold, dead peasants and German troops huddled in rags. He remembered months of this: Russia and the Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Belarus––

  But he didn’t want to think about that, either.

  Sweat broke out over his body, somewhere in all of this.

  He wanted to blame the heat, but it wasn’t that hot yet, not with dawn’s light still inching slowly and gradually over the field. Staring down the dirt road, Revik bit the inside of his cheek, fighting to keep his aleimi in check, his emotions in line.

  He did that mostly by trying his damnedest to blank out his mind altogether.

  He was just outside the perimeter fence.

  Less than ten meters.

  The construct began
before that, though. The construct was maybe half that far away.

  He could feel the seething Barrier light, even as some part of him tried to ignore it, at least in terms of its familiarity. Those flavors lingered the loudest, though… flavors he could feel some part of him wanting to resonate with, to immerse himself in, even from here. It was like the buzzing hum of a radio, playing just at the edges of his awareness, sometimes quieter, sometimes louder. His ears strained for it, strained to pick out the exact melody, the exact voice, even as other parts of him were repulsed by the neediness in that part of his light.

  He was like a fucking junkie, watching someone do a drug deal from across the street.

  Biting down on his jaw, he fought to redirect his obsessive thoughts back to the physical aspects of where he was.

  He stared first at the fence, just for a place to focus his light.

  It was clearly electric from the insulators he could see jutting out at regular intervals along its length on the outside, and the grounding pole poking just above the earth on the inside of the rutted road. The top part of the fence was also covered in razor wire.

  His attention shifted next to image captures, which seemed to live on every fence post he could see, down the entire length of road. They sat atop narrow poles, small and insect-like, with a bubbled eye a good ten meters above the ground, significantly clearing the loops of razor wire and electrified fence.

  He knew when he moved forward, even just a few meters, that camera would pick up his outline. The construct alarm would likely go off even before that.

  He hadn’t seen any more offensive weapons in the fencing mechanism, but given the green-tinted shine of the fence posts, betraying their organic components, he couldn’t rule it out. If nothing else, that green glow told him that anyone attempting to cross that fence from either side would likely get more than just a shock.

  It was probably tied to their collaring and implant system, as well.

  Glancing up at the harder gray of the dead-metal razor wire and the heavy bars that hung on thick chain links, he couldn’t help but see those as almost redundant.

  Whoever they held here would never get that far. Not on their own.