Allie's War Early Years

by JC Andrijeski

  “Fuck you very much,” that deeper voice said cheerfully.

  Revik fought to move, to turn over maybe.

  Maybe even to climb off the bouncing stretcher.

  Immediately, several voices shouted him down from where they held different sides of the organic metal frame.

  “Wait, brother! Wait!” came Dalejem’s voice, louder than the others. “We are nearly to the rendezvous... we will set you down there. Patience!”

  Revik froze, fighting to think. He stared up at the green-leafed canopy of the jungle, forcing himself to think, to make a decision. Then, realizing the words made sense, he did as they said, relaxing his muscles entirely into the stretchy material.

  Still, the reality of being carried was strange, to say the least.

  He continued to stare up, fighting to clear his mind, to think past the pounding of his head. Sunlight wafted through broad leaves, spinning lazily past green-mossed branches and ferns growing out of the trunks of trees. He glimpsed slices of blue, but most of the world was green––a soft, strangely still green that felt to be growing around him, despite the dense heat and wetness in the air. He saw faces a few times in those branches, too, a few of them definitely monkeys, but a number he couldn’t identify for certain.

  Sloths, maybe?

  He saw birds, too, winging between trunks. Some of them were so colorful he couldn’t help but follow them with his eyes, entranced with their beauty.

  “Maybe you are right, Jem,” one of the seers huffed under him. “He is a big softie, our Rook. He is looking at birds now, waxing philosophical while we carry his heavy ass...”

  Laughter broke out among the other seers nearby, even as Revik’s face warmed.

  Still, he couldn’t help but hear the relief in that laughter.

  “Of course we are relieved!” another familiar voice scolded, female that time. “Gaos, brother. We thought we’d killed you. You fell like a fucking corpse in that road. Then, after we finally managed to get you out of there, you fell again, and we thought you were dead for real. We thought your fucking brain had popped...”

  “That, or your aleimi finally decided we were nothing but a bunch of dugra d’ aros and fled...” another voice added cheerfully.

  “That, or you let your heavy ass drop, just to spite us,” another female muttered, more grumpily than the others, but still exuding flavors of that relief.

  Revik’s mind had cleared enough that he knew most of the voices now.

  The first female to speak had been Yumi, the last Mara.

  The one to tease him for looking at birds had been Poresh.

  They had all been teasing Garensche, the giant with the Nazi scar on his face.

  “You should be kissing brother Gar’s ass,” Mara muttered, huffing again from where she held her part of the stretcher. “He managed to fry part of the net they’d brought down on us, trying to pinpoint your location. He hacked their organic machines, got them to turn on their Rook owners, instead...”

  Revik thought about that, puzzled. “Really?” he said.

  More laughter erupted under him.

  “Brother Gar is a bit of a mystic with the machines,” Dalejem explained, his voice containing a smile. “It is quite beyond our comprehension, really. We have learned it is better just to let him do his thing and not try to understand what he does. None of us really wants to know what he promises them, to get them to do his bidding...”

  More chuckles rose from Dalejem’s words.

  Revik heard Garensche’s laugh among them, too.

  Clearly this was some kind of long-standing joke with them.

  Revik himself only nodded, still looking up at the looping vines and thick-fingered leaves that blocked and unblocked the sun above his eyes. He saw more palms than any other kind tree, even here, but gum trees littered his vision, too, along with a number he couldn’t identify. He found himself thinking they were higher than they had been, and still walking up a slight slope. He considered trying to use his light to determine more, then thought better of it.

  Remembering what he’d been doing right before he passed out, he pulled his light even tighter around his form.

  He wanted to ask, though. He wanted to ask badly enough that he bit his tongue as he looked up at the sunlight-banded trunks.

  “She is fine, brother,” Dalejem said, his voice more gentle than the rest.

  “Did she have her baby?” Revik said.

  “No.”

  “You are sure?” he blurted.

  Revik asked it before he could stop himself. Once he had, he felt their living lights flickering around him once more, more invasively that time. Most of those light probes felt good-natured still, but Revik felt the curiosity there, as well... and even amusement, at least from those who seemed to think they knew why he asked the question.

  Feeling his defensiveness worsen, Revik spoke again without thinking, breaking the silence when no one answered.

  “I felt something.”

  Yumi chuckled a little at that. “Well, clearly. Since it nearly killed you.”

  “No.” Revik shook his head, feeling his face warm more. “No, I mean I felt––”

  “We know what you felt,” she broke in, her voice gentle, like Dalejem’s that time. “It is true that she is close. Very close, perhaps. Balidor has already said that she instructed him to go deeper into the jungle for that reason.”

  “What?” Revik said, turning his head on the stretcher. “Why?”

  Yumi met his gaze when he turned, shrugging. The dark blue of her tattoo looked closer to green under the jungle canopy. “I do not know that, brother. Balidor might not even know that, not for certain. Clearly, she has her own reasons for wanting to be away from the vast majority of human and seer lights when this child is born.”

  Revik fought to think about that, too.

  Eventually he only nodded, unable to make sense of the threads of meaning there, either. He felt something, some whisper of understanding, but it wouldn’t stay with him, and he didn’t dare look closer than he had already.

  Kali was leading them into the jungle.

  Out of nowhere, a hard coil of pain wound through his light, bringing a sickness that made him writhe on the stretcher, biting his tongue to keep from making a sound. Even so, he exhaled a near-gasp once he could breathe at all.

  He’d already felt a few of the other seers react to the pain coming off him, sucking in breaths nearly at the same time. The wave hit them hard enough that their steps faltered around him... never in danger of dropping him, not that he could feel, but almost as if they fought stopping on the same note and regained motion in the same instant.

  “Shield your light, brother,” Yumi said next to him.

  Her voice was low that time, but clearly a command.

  Revik opened his eyes, and realized only then that he still had his head turned towards her.

  Meeting her gaze, he nodded, fighting back another swell that struggled in his chest.

  None of them spoke again until they reached the rendezvous point, just past the crest of the mountain.

  IT WAS NEARLY dark by the time they arrived, confusing Revik when he realized he must have been unconscious for most of the day while they traveled.

  He doubted they would have the luxury of staying in the new camp for long.

  Even so, they informed him he would need to get more sleep, and that he would be required to accept help in replenishing his light in the process.

  He wasn’t give the choice.

  When he climbed shakily up off the stretcher after they put him down on the ground, Yumi and Dalejem immediately had hold of him on two sides as he straightened.

  They stood there with him, supporting a percentage of his weight and most of his balance while four other seers swiftly erected more of those odd, hanging tent-structures in a matter of minutes, using the low branches from the nearby trees and an organic wire of a type Revik had never seen before. He watched, dazed, as that same wire sought out conn
ection points and weighting on six sides, then pulled the semi-organic tarp taut above the ground.

  Interior mats were already being inflated even as the last wires were secured and locked in place. Then Revik was informed that he’d be using the first of those tents, and that he had his choice of connectors to feed him light.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  He was too tired to hesitate, or to pretend he didn’t have a preference.

  “Dalejem,” he said.

  The other seer flinched a little, but didn’t speak, or protest with his light.

  He didn’t even change expression really, although Revik saw a frown touch the mouth of Mara, who looked over when Revik spoke.

  Dalejem either didn’t see that, or chose to ignore it, too.

  Instead, he grew abruptly businesslike.

  Without waiting, he gripped Revik’s arm tighter, taking what remained of his weight and balance away from Yumi and leading him straight into that first tent they’d erected. Once inside, Dalejem released him, and began unhooking the armored vest from around Revik’s chest with deft fingers. He had that and the gun holsters off him with an efficiency that only disoriented Revik more, although he made no move to stop him, but simply stood there and let the other male undress him, his arms more or less soft at his sides.

  When he finished, Dalejem ordered Revik to lie down.

  Revik didn’t argue with that, either.

  He barely paused long enough to pull the armored shirt over his head, and then only because he was so fucking hot... too hot to want the dense fabric next to his body, even with it getting dark outside. He felt more than saw Dalejem suck in a breath when the other male got a look at his back. Revik shoved that aside, too, pretending he hadn’t noticed.

  He was used to seers reacting that way to his scars.

  The truth was, very few seers had scars like him. He was used to the stares they evoked whenever he exposed that part of his skin to another seer for the first time. He was equally used to the questions he inevitably got about how and where he’d obtained the scars... questions he couldn’t have answered even if he wanted to.

  The truth was, he didn’t remember.

  He supposed that was part of what had been taken from him when he left the Rooks, too.

  They’d erased a lot of his memories in those early months, including ones he’d had before he joined the Org, which apparently happened at some point during World War II, according to Vash. Vash told him that the forfeiture of memories was part of the agreement the Seven made with Galaith when Revik defected.

  Revik hadn’t asked why that was, either.

  Hell. He knew why.

  Whatever their source, Revik supposed precisely how he’d gotten the scars didn’t really matter. It wasn’t likely to be a pleasant story, in any case.

  He’d learned to ignore both the stares and the questions over the years, but he wasn’t immune to them. Moreover, for the first time it occurred to him that it might be harder to evade those questions outside of the Rooks’ Pyramid than it had been inside it, at least with other seers.

  Luckily, most humans didn’t attach as much importance to how his back looked.

  They found the scars fascinating, sure, and still an anomaly, but scars weren’t as rare on human bodies as they were on seer bodies.

  Dalejem didn’t ask, though.

  He waited until Revik was down, then laid down next to him on the same mat, not touching him as he stretched out on his back next to where Revik lay sprawled on his stomach. Revik turned his head to avoid the awkwardness of having his face aimed towards the other male, but he still felt the other’s eyes on him, especially on the scars covering most of his back.

  He was thankful for the lack of questions.

  Even so, he could feel the seer wanting to ask. More than that, he felt sympathy there, a heavier weight of empathy that bled understanding between them, even though no part of the male’s skin touched Revik’s own. In some ways, that was worse... if only because Revik refused to give the other seer the answers he wanted.

  He couldn’t help feeling strangely guilty for that fact.

  Thinking about what Dalejem might see of him in the light exchange didn’t make him feel any better. Forcing that out of his mind, too, Revik did his best to blank out his thoughts entirely. He couldn’t refuse the light, so he just had to let it go.

  It wouldn’t make any difference at this point anyway, he told himself.

  He didn’t stay awake long enough to remember the connection being made.

  His dreams, once they came, were of him running through a different jungle, with steeper hills, more rocks, denser trees and harder plants... and with different Rooks chasing him. It felt like a memory, immediate, dark, filled with denser emotions he could almost taste. He fought to breathe, launching his body up a near-vertical hill... then stumbled, nearly face-planting into the peat and roots at the base of a heavy-trunked tree, sliding down the hill until he dug the toes of his boots into the soil and stone.

  He dragged himself back to his feet, bleeding from a gunshot wound, his arms, hands and neck littered with cuts and nicks from the trees and bushes as he ran.

  He’d lost his jacket somewhere.

  He was out of water, too.

  The dark forest that loomed around him behind his eyes, it never seemed to end. He had been running here for weeks, it seemed. Months.

  Maybe years.

  The same thoughts looped in his mind, through all of it.

  They wanted him dead.

  They all wanted him dead.

  He would be despised now.

  Not only by the Rooks chasing him, but by all of them, on both sides of that line.

  He would be despised.

  HE WOKE UP in pain, which shouldn’t have surprised him, either. He controlled it in reflex, even as he fought to bring his mind back on line, to ground himself in his body.

  He knew one thing almost at once.

  He didn’t wake up on his own.

  As he thought it, his eyes slid to the open flaps of the tent, and the silhouettes that stood there, blocking the light from what must be another organic heater.

  Yumi stood directly in the opening between the flaps, talking to Dalejem, who stood just inside, and wore full armor. Revik could feel two others waiting just outside the tent as well. Poresh and Mara, from what he could tell. It was pitch dark out there now, but he could feel tension in the construct of the camp, even beyond how Dalejem was dressed.

  They’d be on the move soon.

  Dalejem glanced over at him, even as he thought it.

  “Yes,” he said. “We have to move. As soon as you’re ready.”

  “Where?” Revik said, fighting a yawn, in spite of himself.

  “Balidor wants us to take up a flanking position behind them,” Dalejem said, still looking Revik over, as if assessing his condition. “A new group was sent by the Org... what looks like a professional extraction team. They took helicopters to a site only a few minutes ago, landing a few clicks from Balidor and his team. He expects to be under hard pursuit soon...”

  “What time is it?” Revik said.

  “Oh-five-thirty.”

  “What?” Revik’s eyes opened at that, even as adrenaline shot through his system. His internal clock hadn’t prepared him for that answer at all. It must have gotten broken along with half the structures in his aleimi. “How is that possible?”

  Dalejem didn’t answer.

  Yumi, on the other hand, let out a disbelieving snort, folding her muscular arms across her chest before she glanced at the seers on the other side of the flap.

  “You are very good at napping, Rook,” she said, quirking an eyebrow.

  Revik heard the teasing there, but still felt himself frown.

  Dalejem’s voice came across mainly as impatient, however. Revik couldn’t quite tell if that impatience was aimed at him or Yumi herself, however.

  “Balidor has been re-routing the flavor of your light for most of
the night,” Dalejem continued instead. “Mostly using key imprints from your aleimi that the Org seems to be targeting, and bouncing them through the other splinter’s construct. He did it give you time to recover, but they need us now. That group is gaining on them, given Kali’s condition.”

  Dalejem hesitated again, as if he wanted to say more, then looked to Yumi, as if she’d pinged his light, warning him silent.

  If she had, Revik felt none of it.

  Even so, he found himself frowning.

  “What?” he said. “Just fucking tell me. Jesus.”

  Yumi answered him that time. “Kali asked for you, pup. She seems to think they will need you soon.”

  “For what?” Revik said.

  He pulled himself up to a seated position, wincing even as he wrapped an arm around his chest. He fought back the pain even as he blinked up at her, realizing only then that he was still shirtless, and then, mostly from her eyes on him.

  “I do not know,” Yumi said, matter-of-fact. “But as you likely know by now, this Kali often knows things that most of us do not know. Therefore, brother Balidor does not usually bother to try and second-guess her.”

  Revik nodded, still fighting to wake up, but working at it more consciously now.

  He pulled his shirt off the mat when he saw it balled up on the side of the tent next to where he’d been sleeping. Untangling it clumsily, he yanked it over his head a moment later, trying to remember what he’d done with the armored vest.

  Then he remembered Dalejem had taken that off him.

  He glanced towards the door as he thought it, and saw his guns and vest sitting there in a neat pile. He couldn’t remember if Dalejem had done that at the time, or since.

  He didn’t look at the others as he pulled himself to his feet, pausing only long enough to assure himself he could keep his balance, then walking with more purpose towards the small pile of armor and weapons. He had just finished buckling the holster back around his waist, the vest open around his chest, when someone handed him a canteen of drinking water. He barely looked at the hand holding it before he took it, and drank down probably a third before it occurred to him to come up for air. When he handed it back, someone handed him food, too, a kind of plant-matter and protein-base wrap that often served as basic req out in the field.