Allie's War Season Three

by JC Andrijeski

  I watched him yank it down until it settled on his shoulders.

  "...Anyway," I said. "The point is, they'll blame me, not you. Besides...it is my fault. Do you really think I'd let you take the fall, when it was my idea?"

  "Do you?" he said, his voice casual.

  "Do I what?" I said, bewildered.

  "Think you're taking advantage?" He smiled faintly, but I saw the thread of seriousness in his clear eyes.

  I snorted, folding my arms in front of the armored vest.

  "Please," I said. "Like I could, even if I wanted."

  His eyes flinched a little. I saw him thinking then. His mouth firmed before I could decide what, then he shrugged, his voice casual again.

  "Allie," he said, glancing at me without really meeting my eyes. "I'd jump off a building right now if you asked me to...you must know that."

  I stared at him. His voice held the same lightness as before, but I felt something else behind his words. Whatever that something was, it ran through my body like an electrical current. My gloved hands tightened, the leather pressuring my fingers where it crinkled.

  "You'd better be kidding," I said.

  He shook his head slightly, but not really in a 'no.' Clicking a little, he buttoned up his coat, still not looking at me.

  "Figure of speech."

  "For who, exactly?"

  "Allie." He gave me a harder look. "You know what I mean."

  I fell silent, biting my lip. Then, before I could second-guess it, I walked up to him, sliding my arms around his waist.

  He stiffened, but didn't pull away. Instead he stood there, not quite enduring it, but clearly struggling to decide what to do...or maybe just how to react. I pretended not to notice.

  "Why?" I said. I tugged at him gently with my arms and felt him stiffen more. "Is this guilt? Because I thought we talked about that..."

  He wouldn't meet my gaze in the mirror. When I tugged on him again, gripping the fabric of his jacket, he frowned, shaking his head.

  "It's not guilt, Allie," he said.

  "Then what is it?" I said.

  "It's not guilt." He glanced down at me, meeting my gaze, but not for very long. "Call it gratitude, if you need to call it something."

  I frowned. When his expression didn't move, I averted my eyes, still gripping his coat in one hand. I got ready to let him go, when he caught hold of my wrist.

  "Allie." His voice held the barest trace of pain that time, enough that I felt it in my knees. When I looked up, swallowing, he met my gaze. "You know this isn't rejection. You have to know that...we've talked about that, too."

  I nodded, my own face neutral.

  "Yeah. I know." I made my voice neutral, too. "Has Vash told you anything more about that? About us?"

  Revik shrugged, releasing me to adjust his coat collar with one hand. I could feel him flinching away from my touch, but he still didn't pull away, not exactly. He didn't relax into me either, though. I watched his face as he looked down, his eyes back on the small arms shelf.

  "What more is there to say?" he said.

  "You said he wants us to wait..."

  "He wants me to wait, Allie."

  He emphasized the word enough that I looked up at his face again in the mirror. I couldn't read his expression though, and he wouldn't return my direct gaze.

  "...He doesn't think I can handle it," Revik added. He shrugged, his hand once more on the shelf, maybe to get it away from me. "...Maybe he's right."

  I let go of him, and felt him exhale. He tried to hide it, but I felt a small pulse of relief whisper off his light, too. He didn't look over at me, though.

  "Do you?" I said.

  He glanced at me that time, his eyes puzzled.

  "Tonight," I said. "Did I talk you into this unfairly? Because it seemed like you wanted to come...I wasn't trying to use feminine wiles or anything. I thought I was pretty blunt when I asked you. I wasn't hiding anything." I frowned, folding my arms, fighting with my own mind, trying to decide if I was telling the whole truth. "...Is that what you meant about walking off a roof? I really do hope you were kidding about that, by the way..."

  He gave me a half-smile. "I just knew you'd go without me."

  "Funny," I said.

  He shrugged, but I saw the look in his eyes relax slightly. After another pause, he shook his head. I was relieved to see him smiling again.

  "No," he said. "I wanted to come, Allie." He looked around the small space of the storage room, his eyes avoiding mine. "I'm tired of feeling like an invalid. I've never been good at forced vacations." Glancing at me again, he held my gaze that time.

  "...I wanted to come, Allie."

  Smiling back, I pulled on my own jacket, also buttoning up the front.

  "Good," I said. Nodding once, I made my voice business-like. "...Are you done? Should we go now, before someone thinks to look for one of us?"

  He nodded, giving a last glance at the shelf before he stuffed a few more hand-held grenades into the pocket of his coat, passing three more to me with his other hand.

  "I'm ready," he said.

  HONESTLY, I’M NOT sure how I would have done it, if he hadn't been with me.

  Probably some combination of pushing people and using the telekinesis...which is essentially what we did, but he diverted me a few times from the obvious approaches, bringing up things that likely wouldn't have occurred to me. Also, he was a lot better with the telekinesis. And really, however-much my infiltration skills might have improved from my months of training under the Lao Hu, I couldn't hold a candle to him in that area, either. There was no possible way I could catch up with over eighty years of infiltration experience in less than a year, Wreg and Balidor's comments to the contrary.

  Even so, I provided most of the intel.

  It was my deal, after all...I figured I should be stuck with the legwork. He asked me for one or two things I hadn't thought to dig up on my own, but mostly, he was pretty satisfied.

  Of course, he thought I was kidding when I first approached him.

  "You want me to help you rob a bank." His clear eyes focused on mine, holding an attempt at humor, as if he pretty much knew I wasn't kidding but kind of hoped he was wrong. I knew I'd surprised him, because he was looking at me directly, something he hadn't done at all since I'd asked to speak with him privately and invited him to my room.

  "Why, Allie?" he said, sounding at a loss when I didn't smile.

  That part was more complicated to explain.

  I'd been having dreams again. I didn't really want to tell Balidor or Vash about them, not yet, but they started up pretty much as soon as I left the construct of the Lao Hu in China. I had the first one while dozing on that plane, lying in Revik's arms not long after we'd taken off from that private airstrip outside of Beijing. I'd woken with a jerk and a start, violently enough to wake him, too, but I hadn't told him anything then.

  When I broached the bank thing with him, though, I had to tell him something.

  He listened without interrupting me, his clear eyes betraying nothing. When I finished and fell silent, waiting for him to respond, he didn't at first. I could tell he was using his light, not really to scan me, but maybe to read the currents around my own aleimi, to try and decide where the dreams were coming from, maybe.

  I just waited. It was his way not to speak until he knew what he wanted to say. In that regard, Jon was right...he was like the old Revik again. The one I'd married the first time.

  A few minutes later, I felt his light withdraw. He shivered in the same instant, but he blocked most of that from me, too. I was still waiting when he sighed, clicking to himself.

  "You think it's that important?" he said finally. "To risk doing this, I mean?" He glanced at me, his eyes and voice serious. "Balidor will never approve it, Allie...which means it's just you and me. It'll go public. There's no way to avoid that, no matter what kind of construct you use. That's one of the major banks...not just here, but in Europe and South America, too. Chances are, they'll be ab
le to trace it back to us...unless you plan to go in blind. Or not use the telekinesis. In which case, we should probably hire someone..."

  His voice grew thoughtful, even as he gazed into the fire without seeming to see it.

  "A human maybe...?" he said, his eyes still distant.

  I kept the smile off my face, but felt my shoulders relax at his words.

  He was already planning it with me. He just hadn't admitted it to himself yet.

  We just kind of continued from there. He never actually agreed to come along. He just continued to not say no...and he continued to ask me for more information, until eventually we'd picked a night to go. Then a time. Then we were getting ready to leave, under the lobby of the hotel where Balidor and Wreg had already started to collect a pretty impressive cache of supplies, most of them of the weapon, fuel and ammunition variety. The Hotel already had an impressive surplus of its own. They had some pretty big water tanks down there, along with medicine stores for both humans and seers...and food. A hell of a lot of food. Which told me that the owners of the House on the Hill Hotel were just as paranoid as the majority of infiltrators I knew, including my husband.

  Things had been heating up with China and the United States again.

  The fact that Revik and a large number of free seers had just effectively 'stolen' me from the Lao Hu, kidnapping their leader in the bargain, albeit temporarily, didn't help relations between the two countries much. While free, Western-based seers were rarely associated directly with particular countries, especially seers like Revik and me, who were wanted by SCARB and the World Court, there was a lot of speculation that I'd been relocated and disappeared into the mainland United States to avoid capture by the Chinese.

  Which, essentially, I had been.

  We'd just done it by landing in the middle of New York City, instead of me being shuttled to the outskirts of Nowheresville, Montana, like most of the feeds speculated.

  The New York thing had been Balidor's idea.

  "Is it your turn?" Revik asked, glancing at me.

  We were walking now, along 22nd Street, heading east. Revik had just turned into the alley we'd mapped out a few days earlier. I followed him as he made his way past the lit windows into the darker shadows between two brick buildings.

  We were approximately seven blocks away from the bank itself. We'd already disabled the one camera that kept watch over the part of 22nd where we now stood. No one would assume that single, dead camera was important...not until the job was well and done.

  Maybe not even then.

  "Yours," I reminded him, following as he used a penlight to look down the alley. I felt him using his sight an instant later.

  He was lookout. I was supposed to find the entrance.

  Seconds later, I'd located it with my eyes, and we were upon it in another few steps.

  Walking around the manhole cover, I slid briefly into the Barrier, checking it against where we'd decided to enter. Once I'd confirmed we were in the right place, I crouched down, pulling at one of the holes in the round, metal cover with my fingers. His knees bent while I fought to get my hand under the sharp edge.

  "Watch your fingers," he said gruffly, right before he began lifting on the other side.

  Together, we raised the lid off its resting place flush with the pavement.

  "Music," he said.

  As he spoke, he rolled the lid away from me, easing it to the asphalt carefully, probably to minimize sound. He dropped it once it was an inch or so off the ground, brushing off his hands as he glanced down the length of the alley. Peering into the blackness of the opening, I thought about his question as I scanned.

  "It's changed a lot," I admitted, clicking out of the Barrier. "Do you mean now? Or before you came for me in San Francisco?"

  "Both," he said.

  I thought for a minute, while he conducted his own scan, even as he watched both ends of the alley with another part of his light. When he clicked out, nodding once, both of us straightened from our crouches. I answered him as he motioned politely towards the opening in the ground, indicating I should go first.

  "...Before," I said. "I was kind all over the place. Knew too many musicians, I guess..."

  Revik flinched. He didn't look at me, but I felt my face warm. I hadn't really meant my ex, Jaden, when I said it, but I should have known his brain would go there. Instead of trying to qualify my comment, I talked over it.

  "...You won't have heard of most of them," I said, flushing more. "Weird performancy stuff mostly. My mom got me into classical as a kid. I liked some regular stuff, too. Mostly what my friends listened to, I guess. Borrowed Luck, The Dead Squirrel Brigade, The Upsells, you know..." At his blank look, I shrugged. "...Or maybe you don't. I liked some of the harder stuff, too, local bands, whatever. I was kind of all over the place, like I said..."

  He grunted, but I felt his light relax. "And now?"

  I hesitated, my face warming as I realized where a good chunk of my tastes came from now. "I like that seer band, the one you and Wreg are always listening to..."

  "Aureilis?"

  "Yeah. And the other one..."

  He thought for a minute. "The Middle End."

  "Yeah." Seeing him motion towards the manhole opening a second time with one hand, I placed my foot securely on the first rung of the ladder. "...I've also been listening to more of the newer human music," I added, maybe to not seem like too much of a sponge off him and the other ex-rebels. "Not the pop stuff so much, but I like that band Exit North..."

  He nodded, and I saw another faint smile touch his lips.

  We'd started this game not long after we got to New York.

  It had been my idea originally, I think...an easy, non-confrontational way of trying to get to know one another again, without a lot of pressure to dive in too deep with the hard topics before either of us were up to it. We'd both been through so many changes in the past year, it seemed better to start simple. Anyway, he could remember more now...and I'd gone through my own changes while living with the Lao Hu.

  If nothing else, I'd really thought I was on my own, for good that time. That changed things for me, in ways I was only starting to understand.

  "What about you?" I said.

  I'd started climbing down the ladder, but he clicked his fingers at me to get my attention. When I paused, glancing up, he reached down to ignite the organic torch I wore around my neck. Then he motioned for me to keep going, grabbing the manhole cover to drag it closer as he positioned his foot on the ladder to follow. He began climbing down after me once I'd gone far enough, pulling the cover with him to close it behind us.

  Once he had it over the opening, the only light remaining was from those loops of organic circling our necks. Their glow was penetrating, if not overly bright, illuminating both sides of the concrete tunnel, as well as the floor and ceiling with a sickly bluish glow.

  I thought by then that he'd forgotten my question, or maybe hadn't heard it. So when he answered, I started a little in surprise, glancing back just as he jumped down from the last few rungs of the ladder. He walked quietly, seemingly oblivious to the few inches of water in the bottom of the tall pipe.

  "You already know the seer bands," he said.

  "Any human stuff?" I glanced at him again as he caught up to my side.

  "What time period?"

  I smiled, clicking softly under my breath. "Yeah, I forgot you've seen a few more musical trends come and go."

  "I liked Wagner," he said, after another pause.

  "The Nazi guy?"

  He shrugged, giving me a sideways look as he drew up beside me. "Dylan. The Stones."

  I laughed a little. I couldn't help it. "Anything else?"

  "Depends on what you mean. Sparring music...I like a lot of the same groups as you."

  I nodded, thinking about this. "You want to go see a band sometime?"

  There was a silence. Then he surprised me, reaching out to touch my hair. His gloved hand barely lingered in a brief caress before
he dropped it to my shoulder, squeezing gently before pulling it away.

  "Sure. I'd like that."

  His voice was casual, but I couldn't help sneaking a look at him anyway. He was focused down the tunnel, his eyes narrowed slightly in the low light.

  "Your turn," he said, nudging me with his shoulder as we walked.

  I thought for a minute. "Clothing."

  "For me?" He glanced at me, his eyes flickering down my body, but only briefly.

  "Yeah," I said.

  I would have rather asked him the other, actually, as it had been bothering me, pretty much since we'd left China. But I decided that could wait for another time, too. I wasn't dumb enough to think asking him what kind of clothes he liked me in wasn't going to be a charged subject, at least right now. That conversation would have to happen on a day when we could afford to be a lot more distracted...rather than just a little distracted, like now. We only had a few more blocks to go before we reached the office building that housed the bank.

  "What occasion?" he said.

  "Do you like dressing up?" I said.

  He thought about this. "Formal?"

  "Yeah."

  "Human?"

  I nodded, smiling. "I did mean human. Is there formal-wear for seers?"

  "Traditional, sure. I didn't figure you meant that, though...it's a lot of robes and colorful scarves. There are hats...and a lot of jewelry for the men..."

  Catching glimpses of what he meant through his light, I chuckled.

  We were rounding a curve in the pipe. He had his hand on the handle of one of his guns now. I did too, the one in the holster on my right thigh. I felt a bit like an old-school gunslinger, but when he'd tested me on drawing and shooting accurately, I'd done better with that holster than any of the others...a lot better, actually. Glancing around at the mildewed cement, I remembered the location of the curve from the blueprints we'd pulled from the city records. I was still scanning the space with my light when he spoke up again, pulling my attention off the aleimi of what had probably been a cluster of rats traveling down a smaller tributary off the main pipe.

  "...Sure," he said, his voice casual. "I like dressing up. Not all the time...but yes."

  "When's the last time you did it?" I said, still looking around with my light.