Bridge

by JC Andrijeski

  They welcomed it.

  They welcomed the return of Syrimne d’ Gaos with open arms.

  That same whispering construct strangled the entire island of Manhattan, including the House on the Hill hotel. They could not escape it anywhere on the island, but her nephew was walking to its source, like a fly crawling to the spider crouched on its web.

  Whatever her nephew faced on the other side of those organic-paned doors, inside the seventy story, park-side Tower building, it would be more than he could handle. It would be more than the shields maintained by Balidor and Jon could handle, too.

  Tarsi strongly suspected her nephew knew this.

  He just didn’t care.

  Tarsi even understood why he might not care, given everything.

  He’d gone there to kill his child, she suspected, as much as to kill the being, War, and Menlim, if he could find him. Her nephew had gone there to ensure his daughter wasn’t tortured as he had been as a child, or worse, turned into a willing pawn of the Dreng.

  Tarsi figured he probably expected to do that the hard way.

  Meaning, he expected to be overpowered. He expected he would be calling on Adhipan Balidor to blow up the building, once he’d verified the relevant parties were inside.

  Again, Tarsi understood his motivation.

  He was the Sword. The hard way came to him naturally.

  She didn’t judge him for it, not even in the abstract.

  Moreover, she couldn’t reasonably expect him to care about much of anything at this point, other than to protect what remained of his family.

  Yet someone had to.

  Someone had to care, and the Bridge had given that job to her. Clearly, the others didn’t know how to prioritize the course of the Displacement and the humans they’d been brought here to assist. Even her favorite pupil, Adhipan Balidor, couldn’t seem to stay on track for this, their final battle before the true beginnings of the final war.

  Maybe it wasn’t even their job to care about such things. Perhaps their role was to support her nephew in his, and to play out this little drama of Shadow’s and War’s.

  Maybe it really was her job. Maybe it was the real reason she wasn’t dead yet.

  After all, her name was on that list, too.

  First wave. Warrior. Rank 1.

  This had to be the first wave, Tarsi more or less figured.

  As much as such a thing could be figured by those who didn’t have the gift of true prescience, it made sense that this would be their opening run––their first real foray into this thing called the Third Displacement.

  She wasn’t a prescient, though, so that was still only a guess. She’d only met two true prescients, in the entire of her existence in this incarnation, and both in the last one hundred years. She thanked the gods, whenever she thought of it, she wasn’t one of them.

  She was here, though, not dead, not moved on to the places behind the Barrier.

  She was still part of this fight.

  Moreover, the Bridge gave her a job to do. Maybe from where the Bridge had been for the last few months, she’d seen all of this coming. Maybe that’s why she blew off the two of them, Tarsi and Vash, in hatching this crazy idea of hers.

  Tarsi found herself wishing she knew a prescient now.

  Of course, she did know one––technically.

  Last Tarsi knew, that person was far away, though, and she didn’t exactly have a means of reaching her easily, assuming she was even still alive. Her and her mate could have been killed in the chaos surrounding C2-77. Hell, they could have been killed decades ago, by a few dozen different causes. They’d been on the run most of their adult lives.

  Somehow, Tarsi doubted they were dead.

  Maybe that was wishful thinking, though.

  “First wave” was written by that person’s name on the Displacement List––but “first wave” was written by a lot of names who didn’t live to see the start of that historical event.

  Chaos still reigned in the physical realms, for good or bad. Nothing that could be, at least here, in the material, ever happened without struggle. Free will created a randomness that defied even the most rigid of paths, the most entrenched momentums––even those that spanned generations. Free will always trumped fate, no matter how certain that fate seemed.

  It had been years since Tarsi had spoken to her prescient friend.

  Years and years.

  Tarsi was prevented from speaking to her, for the same reasons she’d been prevented from speaking to any who held secrets they couldn’t afford to let fall in the wrong hands. She’d agreed to those restrictions, of course, but more than anything, she wished she could ask her friend’s opinion on the events unfolding now.

  If nothing else, she’d love to have a discussion with her sister about just who put the list of Displacement names in that safety deposit box.

  From the beginning, Tarsi had her doubts it was Menlim.

  Thinking about that now was nothing more than indulgence, though. Whatever role her elusive sister might play in the end game, right now Tarsi needed to focus on the job she’d been given by the Bridge before she died.

  Speaking of which, it was time.

  Standing up on legs that creaked, reminding her and irritating her about the frailties and limitations of physical bodies, she bent to pick up the mahogany cane her attendant in the Himalayas, Hannah, carved and presented to her at their last meeting.

  Knowing Tarsi had been about to go on a long trip, first to the Pamir and then to New York, to preside over the Bridge and Sword’s wedding ceremony, Hannah also wove a thick, midnight blue cape for her out of dyed sheep’s wool. The funny girl had been worried Tarsi would be cold in New York, after leaving the Himalayas.

  Clearly, she’d been watching too many movies on that feed player her husband got for their cabin in the valley.

  Smiling as she remembered Hannah, Tarsi used the cane to navigate her old body to the door of the room. She wondered idly if any of them would notice her leaving, and if so, if they would try to stop her.

  None did. They were too busy.

  Young people, she couldn’t help thinking with a shake of her head.

  Walking down the carpeted corridor to the elevators, Tarsi reached the business foyer by the double row of doors and hit the call button for up. Leaning on her varnished cane, she waited.

  It seemed to take an interminable time for the ping signaling the elevator car’s arrival. There was another oddly-lengthy delay before the doors to the car opened.

  Tarsi walked inside the mirrored box and squinted at numbers until she found the one she wanted. Pressing the button, she glanced up when a thumbprint security request lit up the panel above the numbers. She placed her thumb on the panel and after a pause where it scanned her fingerprint and DNA, it acknowledged her clearance.

  She retreated to the back of the car as it began to move, resting her rear end on the brass railing to take some of the weight off her swollen ankles.

  She should know better than to sit in a chair for so long. She should have been sitting cross-legged, on the floor. That way, her feet didn’t swell up, leaving her half-crippled the next time she needed to walk somewhere. Vash wasn’t around anymore to jab at her about being old, so she had to remember these things on her own.

  Thinking about him brought a smile to her lips, along with a paler regret.

  Not regret for him, of course. He got off easy. Her regret came of being stuck here in an old body without anyone to share being old with.

  Somewhere from the space behind the Barrier, she felt him laughing at her.

  That laughter came closer––so close, he might have been in the elevator car with her.

  Laugh it up, you old fool, she muttered, tapping her cane against the floor. When we come down next time, I’ll be younger than you. Then I’ll be the one to laugh. I’ll leave you and your old bones, find myself a nice, young stud.

  Vash only laughed harder.

  Perhaps we can come back
while they are still here? Vash sent, his light flickering with amusement. Let them be the old folks for a change? Then I can be the young stud for you.

  Tarsi smiled, rolling her eyes, seer-fashion.

  Always the optimist. That man was so optimistic it almost made him simple-minded.

  Vash laughed again, showering her in a faint, affectionate glow of warm light.

  Let me get through this incarnation first, she grumbled at him. Then we’ll talk about you whether I can tolerate you as an annoying youngster.

  Hurry up, then, he urged her. I’m bored up here.

  Liar, she chided him.

  Even so, he conceded shamelessly, still laughing. It would be more fun with you.

  Tarsi grunted, but another smile touched her lips.

  They always did have fun, the two of them.

  The elevator car slid to a stop. As the doors slowly began to open, they revealed another accent-lit foyer.

  This one looked decidedly different from the business lobby she’d left behind on the forty-third floor. Instead of transparent, organic-paned dividers with etched glass, a wallpapered wall adorned with an oil painting met her––the latter seer-done, most likely, since Tarsi recognized the image as a particular space from behind the Barrier.

  Only two corridors lived here, one on either side of that short foyer.

  Tarsi took the corridor on her left, navigating with her cane.

  After walking almost the length of that hallway, she stopped at a door on her left, which thankfully, the younger Adhipan had left unguarded.

  Like most seers of her rank, she didn’t need a key. Placing her hand on the wall panel next to where a key card would go, she concentrated for a few seconds before managing to convince the organic machine to open the latch for her, and disengage the DNA scanning protocols.

  A soft click told her when the AI in the machine complied.

  Thanking that fragment of life and presence from behind the Barrier, Tarsi pushed open the real wood door, glancing around at the quiet space.

  Floor lighting ignited as she walked in, marking a dim trail around the walls and under the large windows and sliding glass doors that led to an outside balcony. The lighting remained quiet; she didn’t use the voice command for the overhead lights. The fire in the grate had burned itself all the way down, but with the floor lighting, she had just enough illumination to find her way to the single bedroom in the four-room suite.

  She pushed open the bedroom door, and the floor lighting ignited in there, as well.

  When she caught sight of the body on the bed, Tarsi frowned.

  Something in the utter stillness of the scene caught in the back of her heart. The feeling there wasn’t quite regret––she’d stopped fearing death aeons ago, it seemed––but more an awareness of the complexities of physical incarnation, and how much they could hurt.

  It all seemed like a lot of bother to her.

  Maybe you’re just old, Vash smiled.

  You buzz off, you, she grumped at him. Can’t you see I’m working?

  I see no such thing, he sent humorously. Thus is my burden in being here, dear one.

  Maybe you’re not looking hard enough, Tarsi sent back, sharper.

  Perhaps, he conceded politely. But kindly permit me to suggest… you might wish to hurry things along a bit, if that is the case? I’m afraid this is not an ideal time for you to be engaging in philosophical ruminations of whatever kind, however astute.

  Whatever, she grumped back, using one of the Bridge’s expressions.

  Switching to a more dated seer gesture, she flicked her fingers at him in annoyance in the dimly lit room.

  Still, she had to concede his point.

  Walking to the bed, she didn’t hesitate, but sat down, dimpling the mattress. Gripping the thick handle of her cane in both hands, Tarsi focused on the Bridge’s body, letting her eyes fall out of focus as she scanned.

  She assessed its overall condition, as well as what she’d felt from the Barrier when the Bridge died, a few hours previous.

  Once she had the lay of the land, she clicked out, satisfied.

  It was exactly as the Bridge told her it would be.

  Tarsi hadn’t mentioned to the others that she’d been talking to the Bridge ever since Jon pulled her out of that coma––much less that she’d been talking to her frequently. In the same way, Tarsi hadn’t mentioned to Balidor or her nephew that she’d glimpsed the Bridge on her way out of this plane, or that they’d spoken at that time, as well. The Bridge hadn’t asked her outright to keep that information secret, not in so many words.

  But then, she hadn’t really needed to.

  Sighing a bit, Tarsi patted the child’s face. Down here, she was a child still, regardless of how she appeared on the other side.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Esteemed One,” she muttered into the silence of the dark bedroom.

  Above her, Vash chuckled, but Tarsi ignored that.

  Stilling her light, she focused her mind.

  She’d spent years honing that concentration, years building the structures she’d need to conduct such work, raising her actual sight rank first and then moving on to raise her potential, through much more difficult and painstaking years of work. Most of those years she spent alone, or only with occasional visits from kind souls like Hannah, and Hannah’s mother before her.

  Over the years, she’d lived many lives: warrior, wife, mother, sister, aunt, advisor, recluse, adept. Whatever her role, whatever her title, Tarsi worked quietly at the same task, to improve her light to the level it might one day be needed. As leader of the Adhipan––as the infiltrator of her time––she did that in the field.

  She did it in her home, with her family, her loves, her losses.

  Eventually, she retreated to caves. The outside trappings of her life changed, dramatically at times, but the work itself never did.

  It was a lonely life, but not always––and not as much as it appeared from the outside.

  Now, she harnessed those centuries of work.

  Her light grew utterly still. Then, it telescoped inward.

  Around her, the Barrier emerged in an explosion of stars. She watched those stars slide into white lines as she accelerated, receding inward and upward, going higher than most seers had ever seen, higher than her mind could work in its usual ways.

  She left behind the murkiness of this world. She left behind the construct of the Dreng.

  She left behind her nephew, and all the others she loved, including those she’d trained patiently over the years, some of whom resided in this very hotel. She knew if she didn’t pull this thing off, most of them would be dead before morning.

  It wasn’t her favorite means of motivating herself.

  Yet, that didn’t make it any less true.

  She continued to rise, going higher and higher, even as a small part of her remained below. That part hung around to keep the lights on and the machine running. As tempting as it was, she couldn’t afford to follow the Bridge altogether into that other plane, leaving two bodies lying lifeless on her nephew’s bed, instead of just one.

  The room fell into silence, or as close to silence as existed in such a complex, physical plane. Only her shallow breathing remained audible over the hum of the floor lights, and the moving components in the walls, and the gentle tick of the conditioned air piped in through vents in the floor.

  Near where her light lived by her physical body, Vash chuckled.

  Him, she ignored.

  37

  SECOND FRONT

  COME UP HERE, child, the voice said. I need you. Pronto.

  Dante looked around the room, confused.

  She stared at her monitor, and for a brief instant, she could have sworn she saw that old woman staring back at her, the one with the black hair and strange, unlined yet somehow ancient-looking face.

  She’d never actually talked to her before, but she’d seen her around, sure.

  Everyone said she was a relative
of the Sword.

  Not his mother, but maybe a great-aunt––or a distant cousin. Maybe even his grandmother, given how old she looked. Whatever the exact connection, it made sense they were blood relations; both had those same, eerie, colorless eyes, like white crystal.

  Dante only really looked into the Sword’s eyes once, while he’d been talking to her during one of their check-in communications from San Francisco. When she really focused on his irises, she found them both spooky and kind of beautiful. Instead of having veins and whatever else in the background, with him, she’d seen only a faint sheen of light.

  She glanced around the conference room, looking for the old woman to go with the reflection she’d seen on her monitor.

  She could have sworn she saw her sitting on a chair in the back, just a little while ago, although maybe that was longer ago than she realized.

  In any case, the woman wasn’t here now.

  Dante shook her head, doing another quick scan of the conference room with her eyes, feeling her lips pucker in puzzlement.

  She saw a bunch of sweaty-looking seers hovered over machines.

  The main power had gone down again. They’d been forced to turn off the circulated air so they could use the generators to power the machines they needed to run the op. The security team also needed the elevators running, which sucked power from the generators, as well. From all the bodies crammed into the room and the heat and water vapor coming off the organic machines, it was a swamp in here.

  Dante felt sweaty, too, and kind of gross. Her T-shirt stuck to her armpits and back; fresh sweat continued to run from her hairline down her face and neck.

  Ironically, another storm brewed outside those walls. If they could’ve opened the damned windows, it would cool off in here, quick.

  It would also get a hell of a lot wetter and louder and windier, though––probably more than the machines could take without shutting down.

  Dante looked back at her monitor, which showed a blueprint of Gossett Tower East, where the Sword had gone with Jon and a bunch of the other bigger badasses among the seers. She’d seen them on their way out the door; she’d been part of the group watching as they left out the lobby doors.