Allie's War Season Three

by JC Andrijeski

  In fact, Wreg had barely left his side, which Jon found alternately baffling, touching, unnerving and annoying. Wreg was a little big to be underfoot, and now he'd insisted on accompanying Jon in Dorje and Tenzi's place, while Jon attempted to approach the first of the humans on the list.

  The first one he'd been able to locate as still living in New York, anyway.

  Jon was a little nervous about talking to some fifteen-year-old kid who was already likely to think he was crazy, with the massive, barbarian-looking seer standing behind him and glowering. If the kid didn't end up running to the police, they'd be lucky.

  Still, it felt better to have a job, no matter how nuts.

  "Dante," Wreg said thoughtfully, as he returned with the drinks.

  The one he handed Jon looked like some kind of espresso drink, which Jon found himself accepting in relief.

  "Yeah," Jon said, immediately sipping the coffee. As soon as he had, it struck him that it was a double cappuccino with cinnamon and no foam. Basically his favorite coffee-type drink. Having seers around was certainly handy at times...he didn't have to voice a lot of things, much less repeat himself over and over. Although, as Jon didn't remember ever having ordered coffee around Wreg, or even having thought about his favorite coffee drink around the seer before, he had to wonder how Wreg pulled it off him.

  If Wreg heard any of that, he kept it off his face.

  "Dante, like the poet?" he grunted. "Isn't that a boy's name?"

  Jon shrugged. "I don't think that kind of thing matters much anymore, Wreg."

  The seer shrugged, but his eyes held some skepticism.

  Jon refrained from giving him crap about being an old man, like he might have with Revik...but still, it was strange to think that Wreg probably had a few hundred years on his sister's husband. Even Dorje was older than Revik.

  At the thought, and in the present tense, Jon froze briefly, the coffee at his lips.

  Blinking, he pushed the thought back, and its reaction, forcing himself to focus back on the names. As he did, he felt Wreg tense slightly beside him. Once more, he felt the seer's light around his, almost like a physical sensation.

  "All right," Jon said, sighing a little, maybe in a feeble attempt to break the tension woven into the silence. He folded up the papers constituting the six hundred and forty-eight person list of human names, and shoved it in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. "I guess we'd better go. Did you still want Holo to come?"

  "Your sister and Nenz...they haven't contacted you?"

  Glancing at him, Jon shrugged. "She was downstairs for a few hours yesterday, but she went back up pretty quick. I haven't seen Revik at all...but unless they're back in hibernation, I figure he's probably in the basement with the infiltrators, right?"

  Wreg shrugged, holding his own cup of coffee, Jon realized. He'd gotten them in to-go cups, too, so he must have had leaving on his mind also.

  Either that, or he'd heard Jon thinking about it.

  "It's your show, brother," Wreg said, not hiding that he'd heard him that time. "We go whenever you want."

  Jon looked at his watch, frowning. "What are the chances this kid will be home at nine a.m., on a Saturday?" Shrugging, he answered his own question. "Better than average, I guess. She is only fifteen..."

  Wreg dismissed this with a wave, tapping at his headset. "She's not at home...but I've got her current location. I had Jax look her up. He was able to get enough on her stats to conduct a Barrier track. She had a criminal arrest record with SCARB, so we even have an image..."

  "You found her?" Jon said, blown away in spite of himself. "On the streets?"

  "With an image?" Wreg snorted. "That's child's play, brother. Even you should be able to do a simple track using realtime images. That's the easiest way to find anyone...and not tricky at all when your target's human, unless they're under protection." Seeing Jon's skeptical look, Wreg smiled. "You don't think so, eh? I may need to make you throw up a few more times, brother..."

  Jon ignored that last part, although he felt his mouth harden into a grimace.

  "Okay," he said. "So where are we going, then?"

  Wreg touched his earpiece again, his eyes blurring as he listened, and probably looked at whatever Jax showed him via the VR link.

  "Times Square," Wreg said after a pause. "And according to Jax, we'd better hurry..."

  "Why?" Jon said, alarmed.

  "She's doing something illegal. We can't risk SCARB catching on before we've pulled her..." Wreg gave Jon a level look, quirking his lips in a smile. "I think I know how we're going to fish for your trout though, Jon...this might be a lot easier than we were thinking it would be."

  Seeing the gleam in Wreg's eyes, Jon didn't really feel all that reassured.

  LESS THAN AN hour later, Jon found himself crouched in an alleyway next to Wreg.

  Well, behind Wreg, more accurately. The seer instructed Jon to remain out of sight until they could find the girl and set up a Barrier net to make sure she couldn't escape in the crowd.

  Wreg and Jax both seemed to think this Dante girl was a major flight risk...which Jon supposed made sense, given that they also thought she was currently in the middle of doing serious crime. Like, SCARB jurisdiction-type crime, which was pretty heavy for your average high-schooler. In fact, it probably meant hacking organic machines.

  Jon found himself rereading the entry on her stats again as he thought it.

  ...Daniella Anita Vasquez (Dante). Female. Born: June 5, 2000. Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York, USA. Rank 1 (tech). Position: First wave - Second. Race: Human...

  "Tech," he muttered again. "Well, I suppose that will come in handy...I would have thought one of the military ones would be Rank 1, too..."

  "Are you talking to me, brother?" Wreg asked.

  "I don't know," Jon said, exhaling in a faint hiss. "Myself, I guess."

  "Well do it quieter..." Wreg said, glancing back. "We have her."

  "Where?" Jon said, craning his neck to see over the taller seer's shoulder.

  "Quiet!" Wreg said, waving him off with one hand.

  The seer's broad back was covered in a thinly armored shirt that clung to his upper body, somehow making him look twice his usual size, like he was wearing some kind of superhero costume. His dark pants were more standard issue for the Adhipan and the rebels since they got to New York...designed to blend in as street wear, but also lightly armored enough that they could withstand a bullet from most conventional firearms...meaning anything with a non-organic projectile. Either way, trying to look around Wreg right then without stepping out from behind him was pretty much a lost cause.

  "There," Wreg said, a few seconds later. He flattened his back slightly to the wall, pointing out into the stream of pedestrians walking along the Avenue of the Americas in the middle of Times Square. "...Do you see her? With the dark blue hood..."

  Jon's eyes scanned clothes, because it was faster than scanning faces. He found several dark blue hoods, then felt the nudge from Wreg's mind, showing him the right one. She was smaller than he'd expected, and so curvy she bordered on pudgy, although given her age it probably could be called baby fat as much as anything. Her long brown hair hung out of part of her hood, naturally curly and streaked with red and green and blue. He couldn't see her ident tats, but he saw her touching her earpiece, and the tell-tale lip movements told him she was using subvocal commands on the network.

  "What is she doing?"

  Wreg chuckled. He nudged Jon's mind again, bringing his eyes to a bright blue form busy talking to passers-by, scanning their ID chips and barcodes and offering them insurance packages and deals involving vacation giveaways.

  "She's ripping off her fellow humans," Wreg said, filling in the gaps with another of those face-splitting grins. "She's got a link to the scanner...she's using the company's software to gather the info, then rerouting it to another server and storage facility..."

  "Are you reading her?" Jon said.

  Wreg gestured in an impatient ki
nd of affirmative, even as his eyes blurred again, his expression growing more distracted.

  "We have to move..." he said after another pause.

  "Why?"

  "The bank's security has picked up the delay in the info transfer...they'll start triangulating any minute..." He shook his head, chuckling again. "Cocky little shit..."

  Jon couldn't help but hear the note of admiration in the seer's voice.

  Great, they'd found a new criminal for the rebels to embrace, one endorsed by those magic pieces of paper from the organic chip. They'd probably have her hacking into Black Arrow databases by the end of the week...or maybe knocking off a few more banks.

  Wreg glanced at him, that glint back in his eyes, but he didn't bother to answer Jon's, admittedly loud, thoughts.

  "Are we moving?" Jon grumbled. "I thought we had to grab her?"

  "Jax is doing it. He's closest. He saw an opening..."

  Even as he spoke, an explosion rocked the street in front of them.

  Jon hit the deck instinctively...his reflexes moving him a lot faster than they would have even when he'd been at peak condition as an instructor for that kung fu school he'd practically lived in before he'd been yanked out of San Francisco.

  Even so, Wreg's were faster.

  The muscular seer yanked Jon down by the arm before Jon made it halfway down on his own. The force of his pull brought the pavement up like a stone wall...and might have broken Jon's jaw, but somehow Wreg managed to get his arm under Jon's face and neck to break the worst of his fall. Jon found himself lying flat on the cement, struggling to breathe with the weight of the seer half over his as debris rained down around them.

  Before Jon could react, even to tell Wreg to get off him, the seer leapt to his feet, speaking loudly into his headset in a mish-mash of that older-style Prexci and Mandarin. Jon caught bits and pieces, mostly from the Prexci end.

  "...girl was confirmed target. Did they get her?" Another string in Mandarin that Jon couldn't follow. "Grab her, then! Grab her now! Before they..." Wreg trailed, once more listening to something going on either in the Barrier or in his headset. "...He's got her," he affirmed, giving Jon a direct look. "Are you all right? Brother?" His voice sharpened when Jon didn't answer immediately. "...Brother, are you injured?"

  "No. No, I'm good..." Jon was still pulling himself to his feet, brushing off his jeans and coughing in the smoke and dust that filled the air. In front of him, screams made it difficult to hear. "What the hell was that?"

  Wreg didn't answer though...not Jon's actual words, that is. Half in the Barrier and half out, he spoke to Jon, but more in the cadence of a report.

  "She had a lucky break...shielding armor of some kind...illegal of course, Black Arrow. She's injured, but seems to be all right..." He gave Jon a grim look, his dark eyes holding a fire that Jon had never seen in them before, but that made the seer look dangerous in a way that reminded Jon of what Wreg had been, and how many times war had been a part of his everyday life. "...They targeted her...her, specifically, as soon as they knew that we were after her." His black eyes hardened on Jon's. "...Someone knows what we're doing. They may not have the actual names, Jon, but I bet they know where we got them...and that we're recruiting. We have to assume they're going to be taking out those on the list as soon as we go near them..."

  "Where is she now?" Jon said, waving a hand in front of his face, still coughing. "She's all right, you said?"

  "Her friend is seriously injured. She had someone else there with her, that she was working with, I guess...no," Wreg paused, listening in his headset again. "...Make that two someone's. She had a remote partner...the tap came from someone from Black Arrow, but they think maybe the tap came from a kid, too...so maybe the kid of the guy who actually works for them. Either way, that trail's already going cold. I've got another team deployed out there...Jorag will take care of it. Jax is going to bring her back to the hotel...she can walk, so that's good. Holo will make sure they aren't being followed..."

  "What, she's coming with us?"

  Balidor gave him a look like he thought Jon had brain damage.

  "Jon, for fuck's sake...they just tried to kill her!"

  "I know, but won't they follow..."

  "We'll handle it. We know they're watching us now, at least. I've got Balidor generating a shield from the hotel." He grabbed Jon's arm, yanking him backwards down the alley. "I have to get you out of here, brother...now." He sounded angry at himself. "Fuck. You shouldn't be in the field. Not now...Fucking stupid. Adhipan is already chewing me out..."

  But Jon barely heard this part. "Dante...are they kidnapping her?"

  "They're pushing her, Jon," the seer said, his voice still distracted as he steered Jon rapidly down the brick alleyway. Debris covered the ground, but nothing like what Jon had glimpsed through the smoke in Times Square. It looked like whatever it had been, it ripped a hole in the pavement the size of a miniature crater.

  "Laser," Wreg said, his voice a half-grunt. "They targeted her from a damned satellite station...minimizes damage in a close, urban setting." Glancing at Jon, his dark eyes held another glimmer of that worry, right before he spoke into his headset, using Mandarin.

  That time, Jon practically felt the construct clamp tighter around him.

  He felt a whisper of Balidor that time, too...along with Revik, and even Allie. It felt like being crammed inside a coat closet with all of his friends, all of them facing him and breathing on him simultaneously. To call it claustrophobic was an understatement, especially when he could feel all of their worry aimed at him, too...especially Allie's. He could almost see her glaring at him from one of the hotel rooms, her lips moving as her hands gestured in anger at him for even being there in the first place.

  When he turned his attention back to Wreg, he realized the seer was talking into his headset again.

  "...Fighting the push? Drug her, damn it. Just get her off the street..."

  "What?" Jon said. "We're drugging her, now?"

  "...They have to move fast," Wreg snapped, barely sparing him a glance. "...did you think we would invite her along for tea with her little school chums...take a polite no when she declined? Jesus. For a leader you're pretty damned pansy-ass sometimes, Jon..."

  Jon felt his jaw harden involuntarily.

  He knew it was ridiculous. Worse, it was completely high school. But Jon had been called that exact same thing enough times growing up that it still hit a few buttons hidden somewhere deep in his psyche. He was still fuming and trying to shove it out of the forefront of his mind when Wreg glanced at him, lifting an eyebrow as he appraised Jon's expression.

  "You'll need to learn to control that," he said seriously. "You've got a couple of hot spots in your light like that, Jon..." Still looking at him thoughtfully, he added, "You know, you should talk to Yumi, see if she can help you. Adhipan or no, she's been really good at working with my team on things like that. I have to admit, it was a good suggestion, when Balidor brought that up...he could tell some of the ex-rebels were vulnerable to taps and other infiltration hits due to their past experiences at work camps and whatever else. He basically made those sessions mandatory, even for me..."

  But Jon was still chewing over the more basic meaning behind Wreg's words.

  "You're training me?" Jon said, feeling his jaw harden. "Out here? When we just almost got killed?"

  "Out here, in there...everywhere, Jon," Wreg growled. "...Everywhere, you got me? There is no time off...not until you learn." Seeing Jon about to speak, Wreg cut him off, his voice still cutting. "...Did you not notice that your name has the word 'command' next to it, my brother? How long do you think we can wait before we make you operational? You think this can be a leisurely thing, like a few adult-learning classes you take after work for fun...but Nenz was fucking serious when he said we had to step it up with you. He was pretty pissed off at Adhipan for doing so little with you already, if you want the truth. He said your sister's the only one who's done anything with your light at all
in the past two years..."

  Jon found himself staring at the seer in some bewilderment.

  The fact that Wreg, Balidor, Allie and Revik had been talking seriously about this, kind of blew his mind. He'd taken Wreg's comments to that effect in the past with a grain of salt, more as teasing than as any kind of real strategy discussion...especially one where Revik might actually get pissed off if it wasn't going the way he wanted.

  Jon also found himself stuck briefly on a totally irrelevant question. How the hell would Wreg know anything about adult adjunct learning classes?

  As soon as he thought it, Wreg burst into a laugh.

  "Gods, Jon," he said, clicking at him. "I'm going to have to do it...as much as you'll probably hate me for it, it has to be done. You've been asking for it all week..."

  "What?" Jon said, alarmed. "What do you have to do?"

  But the seer only grunted, pivoting on one heel towards the lighter opening in the alley, still heading east, away from Times Square. Wreg walked out into the crowd at the end of the litter-strewn alleyway without slowing his strides, moving in that strangely graceful gait he used to cross any distance longer than a few yards. Jon hurried after him, in spite of himself, annoyed when he ended up bumping into people in that same crowd that Wreg navigated so effortlessly, despite his enormous size.

  Seeing the smirk on the older seer's face, Jon felt the tension worsen in his neck and shoulders. He hated the fact that the seer was getting to him even as he tried to imagine what Wreg might be threatening him with this time.

  "More barfing?" he said, catching up enough to speak without raising his voice.

  "That's up to you, I guess...and to him."

  "Him?" Jon said. "Him who?"

  Wreg only clicked at him, laughing a little.

  "Wreg," Jon said, letting anger creep into his voice. "What are you going to do? Seriously. I'm sick of this cagey crap. Can you just answer a question straight for once?"