Bridge

by JC Andrijeski

  Jon tried, of course.

  He knew he hadn’t been the only one to try.

  He’d seen Wreg try, and Balidor.

  He’d seen Jorag try, and even Garensche––and Chandre, while she’d still been here.

  He’d heard from others that Tarsi called from New York occasionally, primarily to corner her nephew. Tarsi might be the only person alive Revik stopped long enough to even pretend to listen to. He still had that old-school, respect-for-elders thing, enough that he apparently couldn’t bring himself to blow his biological aunt off altogether.

  Even so, it was pretty clear from where Jon stood that Revik had no intention of opening up in a real way to any of them, Tarsi included.

  Jon had even seen Yumi hanging around him a few times, attempting to find an entry, although truthfully, she’d only managed to get near him on those few occasions when Revik had been visibly drunk.

  Jon strongly suspected Balidor put Yumi up to it, in any case.

  The last time Jon witnessed one of those attempts was at the downstairs bar at the black house on Hayes Street. The seers always seemed to find a bar, Jon noticed, no matter how dire or unlikely the circumstances. This time, it came in the form of a rec room they’d converted in the basement of one of the houses serving as a quasi-seer hotel.

  Jon remembered Allie liking the house, back when she lived on Fillmore.

  Maybe Revik even knew that, since he’d been the one to pick the place.

  However the location was chosen, a handful of seers––mainly refugees from San Francisco that Wreg’s people had collected over the past few months––took it upon themselves to remake it into an off-hours hangout. Between them, they somehow found enough remaining liquor stores and bars around their part of the city to keep the place more or less stocked.

  Now that Wreg had procured a number of armored vehicles, employing Arc Enterprises engineers to retrofit them to run on some combination of organic-component solar and a combustion engine fed by seawater, supplies were easier to collect.

  Jon never ceased to be amazed at what seers knew how to do, or had no qualms about figuring out how to do on the fly, when it came to adjusting to circumstances that would have left most humans hungry, cold and unable to adapt.

  Then again, seers had lived at the fringes of human society for over a hundred years. Maybe scarcity didn’t panic them as much in general, because of that.

  Even Revik could be coaxed to the bar now and then.

  The bar provided one of the few opportunities to get near him when he wasn’t actively working––although truthfully, Jon had his doubts about the not-working part, even there. Revik rarely spoke to anyone at the bar either, and could often be seen sitting alone, sketching on napkins when he wasn’t staring off into space, a concentrated look in his pale eyes.

  Most of the seers and humans left him alone.

  They walked around him instinctively, maybe––or maybe out of that sense of hierarchy that all military seers seemed to share.

  Occasionally, though, someone would approach him.

  One of those people had been Yumi.

  Jon watched her do it. He found himself weirdly fascinated to see her try, even as her approach caused him to tense involuntarily.

  As it turned out, he needn’t have bothered with either reaction.

  Without even looking at her, Revik shoved the pad of paper he’d been writing on into the inside pocket of his jacket. He then grasped the neck of the bottle he’d been pouring drinks from at the bar, recapped it, and walked straight for the front door, his half-filled glass caught between two fingers of the same hand. He didn’t even bother to explain his actions with a semi-vague hand gesture, much less actual words.

  He hadn’t looked angry.

  Mostly, to Jon anyway, he just looked sort of blank.

  Maybe blank verging on puzzled, as if Yumi and the rest of them constituted game pieces to be moved around while he worked––a semi-irritating feed station he hadn’t quite figured out how to turn off when he didn’t need one of them specifically.

  From his face, Jon got the impression Revik hadn’t even considered whether his actions might be rude. He’d been borderline unsteady on his feet, but his focus on the door never wavered. He left without seeming to notice any of the eyes turning to watch him go.

  Jon ran into Revik later that night, too, purely by accident.

  He’d opted to walk through the park at around one that morning, and saw Revik only when he passed within a few feet of where he stood. His brother-in-law had just been standing there, his back leaned against a tree, staring up at the sky. Jon hadn’t really understood the expression on the seer’s face, but he’d understood the tears.

  He considered approaching him that time, too.

  When Revik lifted the bottle, however, drinking as he continued to look up at the stars, Jon thought better of it.

  Revik could be unpredictable when drunk, Jon knew.

  Well, if he got drunk enough, he could be. That had been true even before Cass tortured and nearly killed his wife, wiping out most of her mind with the wires or whatever it was Cass had done to Allie exactly.

  Cass, who used to be Allie’s best friend.

  Cass, who’d been Jon’s friend, too… and Revik’s, for that matter.

  From what Jorag told Jon, Revik’s telekinesis started working again pretty much the same day they found Allie’s body. Whatever Balidor might believe, Jorag and some of the other, more myth-oriented seers, seemed to treat Revik’s sudden “recovery” as a nearly apocalyptic (or perhaps more apocalyptic) sign from the gods.

  They viewed him as the wrath of the Sword incarnate these days, handling him, and his somewhat overly-taciturn moods, with a kind of reverence.

  Revik the man barely existed to most of them now.

  It bothered Jon, but he didn’t know what he could do about that, either.

  Anyway, after Revik’s little visit of the night before, Jon felt even more wary of approaching his brother-in-law than usual.

  Jon also knew that, despite the occasional appearances at the bar and Revik showing up at Jon’s door barely able to stand, Revik likely only drank when he got desperate.

  Meaning, he drank when he was already on the verge of losing control.

  Jon had seen Revik sober far more often than not in the past few months, perhaps as sober as Jon had ever seen him, for any extended period of time, so he knew getting drunk wasn’t Revik’s primary coping mechanism these days.

  Probably, he didn’t want alcohol interfering with his work.

  That also meant that, when he went for the bottle, it was because the other coping mechanisms had already broken down.

  Really, from what Jon could tell, Revik didn’t seem to want to waste time on his own mental state at all, not even to numb things, as he had in D.C.

  Knowing Revik, he brought the telekinesis back through the sheer power of his own will. He’d also likely been honing those skills a lot more than Jon had been privy to, meaning more than solely during his sessions with Maygar. Jon found it a lot more likely Revik spent his “free time,” such that it was, on things like that, as well as in the ring and running and whatever else––not nursing a bottle with Wreg and the other infiltrators.

  Then again, Jon probably wouldn’t know, even if he was. Jon hadn’t exactly been going out of his way to hang around Wreg, either.

  He knew it was hurting the other seer.

  Jon couldn’t seem to do anything about that, either, though.

  Anyway, most of what bothered Jon now had nothing to do with Wreg, not even indirectly. Revik’s visit of the night before, as weirdly sexual as it had been, wasn’t really about sex, either. Revik hadn’t just seemed desperate that night. He seemed like he’d lost his mind entirely, like he didn’t know who he was anymore.

  Jon knew exactly what lay behind his brother-in-law’s request.

  He’d been looking for Allie. It always came back to Allie for Revik… always. It was always
Revik looking for some way, any way, to connect with his wife, no matter how remote, no matter what that connection entailed.

  Jon blamed himself for that, too.

  He got the irrationality of it, in a sense. He knew a shrink would probably have a field day with him, explaining patiently how this was all just some wank-fest coping mechanism on Jon’s part to displace feelings of helplessness or whatever else about what Cass had done to him, using him to get to his own sister.

  Truthfully, Jon didn’t give a shit.

  He wasn’t in the mood to spank his emotional monkey on that score, or even to ask Yumi to help him “sort out his issues,” as she did for a lot of the seers. He didn’t much give a shit whether the feeling had “merit” or not, or what he might be displacing.

  He’d handed Allie to Cass.

  Even just the thought of going Psych 101 on that made him angry.

  He knew the truth. He’d been the weak link.

  Cass knew it, too.

  Now Revik, Wreg and the rest of the seers also knew what he was.

  Sure, they claimed they’d gotten all of that out of Jon’s light now. They’d spent weeks––months now––teaching him shielding, how to access the shields in the construct, how to feel foreign lights interfering with his. He still took two hours of private lessons from Balidor every day to improve his ability to shield and spot leaks.

  Jon worked hard, making sure he learned all of it.

  But all of it was after the fact.

  Nothing he did now changed what happened to Allie because of him.

  Jon didn’t know if anyone, Revik included, could ever make it right, in terms of Allie herself. Truthfully, when it came to Jon’s role in the whole thing, that felt irrelevant, too. Even if Allie woke up tomorrow, he doubted his feelings about what he’d done would change very much. At the end of the day, he had to try, at least.

  He had to at least try to balance the scales, however inadequately.

  That meant, Revik owned his ass.

  That meant doing pretty much anything Revik told him to do, without question, hesitation or complaint––and sure as hell without giving Revik shit for his emotional state.

  Really, the only times Jon had even spoken to Wreg in the past few weeks had been during infiltration training. He hadn’t wanted Wreg for that, either, knowing it wouldn’t do either of them any favors, but somehow, Balidor kept finding things Wreg could teach him better than Balidor could himself.

  Balidor seemed to know Jon didn’t want it. Jon even wondered if Balidor was attempting to force the two of them together on purpose, maybe to help them resolve their issues.

  What Balidor didn’t seem to realize was, as far as Jon was concerned, there was nothing to resolve. This wasn’t Wreg’s fault.

  Jon wasn’t angry at Wreg at all.

  He didn’t blame the other man for anything. There wasn’t anything to explain.

  At base, this wasn’t even Wreg’s problem.

  Jon asked Balidor to keep him out of important discussions, too––anything that might jeopardize what Revik had planned. After a few months, Balidor told him how ridiculous that was. He told Jon his shielding abilities rivaled those of some of his top infiltrators now, partly due to structures Allie influenced in his light as they’d grown up together.

  Balidor showed him those things. He explained how the openings Shadow and Cass exploited in Jon before no longer existed in his light––

  Jon didn’t much care.

  He would never be Cass’s way in to Revik, Allie, or any of the others, ever again, even if he had to put a gun in his mouth.

  When Jon glanced over that time, Revik was looking at him.

  The seer’s angular face hadn’t moved.

  “Sit,” Revik told him.

  Jon realized only then that he was just standing there.

  Feeling his face warm, he slid down onto the second recliner, easing his weight into the worn, dark-red leather. He pushed at the arms to recline it backwards manually, only then noticing the two seers standing on the other end of the chair, waiting for him.

  They began working over him, as soon as he’d reclined.

  Ignoring them, Jon turned his head, choosing instead to watch Loki and Gar go through the motions of checking Revik’s stats. Both frowned down at portable monitors, recorders that would monitor Revik’s brainwaves and aleimi while he was in the Barrier.

  Jon watched them check Revik’s transmitter, too, as well as what Jon recognized as an “emergency-terminate” charge, essentially an electrode that could shock the user hard enough for their base, survival instincts to kick in, jerking them out of the Barrier.

  They would use that only if Revik ran into something he couldn’t handle.

  Like if he and Jon got jumped by a few dozen of Shadow’s infiltrators, for example.

  Feeling that sick feeling in his gut worsen, Jon looked away from Revik’s face when he saw those clear eyes slide back in his direction.

  “Jon,” Revik said, his voice quiet. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  Jon flinched.

  He felt his face grow hot, without being able to do a damned thing about it. Taking a breath, he forced himself to relax, clicking softly. Shaking his head, he glanced at the other man, only to quickly avert his eyes.

  “Forget it. Nothing happened.”

  There was a silence. Seers continued to work over Jon, tugging at straps and placing electrodes on him. All of them pretended not to notice when Revik spoke again.

  “Did you tell Wreg?” he said, his voice as flat as before.

  Feeling his face heat more, Jon shook his head. “No.”

  Pretending he hadn’t noticed the other seers listening, Jon resettled his head on the cushioned headrest, staring up at the ceiling. Jorag continued attaching electrodes to his temples and chest, opening the front of his shirt as he and Illeg felt over his skin. Noticing the inscrutable looks that had come over both seers’ faces at Revik’s words, Jon frowned, glancing around the rest of the room.

  Thank the gods, he didn’t see Wreg anywhere.

  Jorag chuckled, patting him affectionately on the shoulder.

  “Boss isn’t stupid, little brother,” Jorag told him softly, leaning down by Jon’s ear.

  Jon didn’t answer, but felt his jaw harden more.

  Illeg and Jorag finished wrapping the same type of organic bands around him that Loki and Gar had already put around Revik. Jon winced at the touch of the slick and cold skins. Like with most organics, they felt like they should be wet, but were dry to the touch, like the skin of an amphibian, or some breeds of snake. A jolt of a different kind of pain expanded over Jon’s light when hands continued to feel over his body.

  That time, it caught him off-guard.

  Jon gritted his teeth, trying to pull it back, even as Jorag and Illeg hesitated, glancing at one another, their fingers hovering over his bare chest and abdomen.

  When Jon wouldn’t look at either of them, they continued their work.

  In those same few seconds, Jon felt a harder pulse of anger.

  Turning his head, he looked over his shoulder.

  Wreg stood there now, his obsidian eyes as hard and dense as their color implied. He looked away at Jon’s frown, but his massive shoulders didn’t relax. His expression continued to look so warlike, Jon almost didn’t recognize the man he knew underneath. Enough pain and anger stood out on those handsome features, Jon couldn’t look at him for very long, either.

  He didn’t miss the cold look Wreg aimed at Jorag, though.

  Gods, Jon couldn’t help thinking. Jorag better be right.

  It occurred to him in the same breath that both Revik and Jorag spoke aloud so Wreg wouldn’t overhear them in the Barrier construct they all shared.

  Focusing deliberately back on the plaster-covered ceiling, Jon bit the inside of his cheek as he fought to distract himself, to think about something, anything else.

  His eyes fell on iron sconces holding white candles, likely
recreations of designs popular back at the turn of the previous century. He knew most of the houses on the Square had been refurbished at some point in the 1990’s to restore them to their original condition, part of some campaign by the politicos to increase property values.

  Mostly, all it did was change the demographics of the city.

  “You know what you’re doing here,” Revik said, jerking Jon’s mind back to the present.

  He turned, stiffening when he realized Revik’s words were directed at him.

  They didn’t sound much like a question, which was also the norm for his brother-in-law lately. Everything that came out of Revik’s mouth phrased itself like a demand, like anything but an unequivocal “yes” simply wasn’t acceptable.

  Jon hoped he did. Know, that is.

  “Yes,” he said, meeting that colorless gaze.

  “Follow my lead,” Revik said.

  Jon nodded, realizing only then that Revik didn’t really want him along for this, either.

  It didn’t occur to him why until a few moments later.

  By then, Illeg and Jorag had finished checking his vitals, and were giving the thumbs up to Balidor and Yumi, who sat in the control room on the other side of the organic-paned window.

  By then, it was already too late.

  7

  THE GOLDEN OCEAN

  JON HADN’T BEEN on any combat-type jumps.

  Meaning, he hadn’t been tasked with any Barrier jumps that had a specific target, one with actual stakes attached––not stakes he cared about, anyway.

  He’d done a few spying, remote-viewing type things.

  He’d even been brought along on a few trips to look for Cass and Terian, paired with members of Yumi and Balidor’s infiltration units.

  Mostly, he’d been there to provide resonance, not to actually do anything. He’d been paired with Jorag for the first few of those, Balidor himself for the last one. They’d tapped his aleimi with his consent, using his childhood memories of Cass to try and track her. Balidor also attempted to utilize Jon’s connection to Terian/Feigran, who Jon had spent more time with than most of the other seers, apart from Revik himself.