Finally he put out a hand and stopped the other man, his determination steeling itself. “Lock, hold up.”
Lochlan turned to him, eyes narrowed. “What?”
“We need to talk. About last night.”
Lochlan huffed out a laugh. “You honestly think we’ve got time for that right now?”
“I think we can make time. What the hell are we doing here, anyway? Aarons said, there’s probably no weaknesses.”
“There might be.” That familiar, petulant tone was creeping into Lochlan’s voice, the mode of speech that always made Adam want to punch him. “You don’t know either way.”
“Lock.” Adam rolled his eyes. “Could you be an adult for five minutes? Please?”
“Oh, fuck you, you fucking raya.” Lochlan spun away from him, throwing up his hands. “You know, I don’t get you. Not even a little. You reject them, you say you want to be with me, and I think maybe you’ve shed all that fucking bullshit they stuffed your mind with back when you were one of them. Then you pull this. She wouldn’t have cared.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m pretty fucking sure.” Lochlan faced him again, arms folded across his chest and his dark eyes even darker than usual. “I would— Do you have any idea what I’d give for you? At all? You didn’t know me before; what I was like. What it took to let go of that. Do you have any idea what you mean to me?” The anger was still there, but now it was being overridden by something else, something that sounded more like hurt than anything else, and Adam’s throat clenched.
“I have some idea,” he said softly. “Lock …” He pushed past Lochlan, closer to the fence. “You keep saying I’m one of you.”
“Well? Aren’t you?”
“Yes. And no.” Adam sighed again and closed his eyes. “Lock, I’m never going to be completely one of you. I can’t be. I’m not from your world, I haven’t gone through what you have. I’ll never know your whole history, everything that makes your people who you are. I want to, I wish I could—you were so kind to me … But I can’t. I’ll always be a little bit of an outsider. I’ll always be a tourist. No matter how much you love me, you can’t change that.”
He paused, chewing on his lower lip. Lochlan didn’t speak at all.
“All that ‘bullshit’ they stuffed my mind with? That might never go away. Not totally. I don’t see the world through your eyes, and you can’t see it through mine. You don’t know what it does to you, living your life in fear of who you are. That fear doesn’t simply leave you because you want it to.”
His voice died. When he felt Lochlan’s hand at the small of his back, he stiffened, but Lochlan didn’t remove his hand. “Chusile … Look, I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t think I could ever have this.” He pressed back, his shoulders against Lochlan’s chest. They were in full view of anyone, and he wanted, so much, to not care. “I thought I was always going to be alone.”
“Would you believe I did too?”
Adam turned, staring. “You were … You were never alone. You had friends, you had …” He didn’t entirely succeed in stifling a chuckle. “You had a parade of people marching into your bed. Some of them marched right over me.”
“And believe me, I had a lot of fun. But that wasn’t the same.” Lochlan laid a hand against Adam’s cheek. “It was … I don’t know. Maybe I was making up for something. Trying to, anyway. But you have to know … I’ve never felt like this before. About anyone. Not even …” A strange expression passed over his face. “Never mind.”
“No, what?”
“This is the weirdest fucking place to be having this conversation.”
“It was always going to be weird.” Adam gave him a crooked smile, and it all felt better. A little. “Weird is what we do.”
“I guess. Okay. If you must know …” He tipped his head back, exhaling. “I was in love with Kae. Once. I thought I was. Sort of.”
Adam barked his own surprised laugh. “Kae?”
Lochlan scowled. “If you’re going to laugh at me, I’m sorry I told you.”
“No, no, it’s just … Kae.”
“Yeah, and he’s beautiful. You’ve seen him; you’re really that shocked? We were best friends growing up. We understood each other. I knew him better than anyone. I was one of the first people he told when he decided that he had to … remake himself. Strip away everything that wasn’t him. I do love him. You know him. You know it would be easy … to feel that way.”
“I do know him,” Adam said softly. “Yeah. I do see how it would be, with how he is. He was … You remember how kind to me he was, when I came to Ashwina.” He gave Lochlan a faint smile. “Much kinder than you. Maybe I should have fallen for him.”
“If you’re not going to take this seriously …” Lochlan rolled his eyes, but his exasperation clearly wasn’t meant. “You know, then. He might be easy to fall in love with, but when he knew who he was … He told me I couldn’t be with him like that. Shut me down gently. But yeah, I carried a torch for a while. Lovelorn and sighing, that was me.” Lochlan’s mouth twisted, and there was a hint of fondness in it. “I needed to know someone that deeply in order to be with them that way. Or I thought I did.”
“You couldn’t have known me.” Adam shook his head. “I was so different from you. I still am.”
“Maybe not that different. I know it doesn’t make sense; why does that matter? Chusile, all I really want is to be with you. That’s why I’m here. Don’t question it. Don’t make me question it.”
“I’ll try,” Adam whispered. His throat was closing up again, his eyes prickling, but it wasn’t unpleasant. They were standing in the midst of shit and sickness and people with guns, but somehow he felt lighter than he had in days. “I can’t promise I’ll always get it right … But I promise I’ll try.”
Lochlan gazed at him for a long moment. For once, his face was difficult to read, and Adam felt something tug at his gut. Lochlan was always easy to read. The man couldn’t hide anything, didn’t ever try. And that didn’t seem like what he was doing now—his tone was all raw honesty, but his expression was shifting, difficult to pin down. It seemed more like …
It seemed more like he wasn’t sure of what he was feeling.
“That’s all I want,” Lochlan said at last. “That’s … Adam, that’s all.”
And there didn’t seem to be much more to say.
There were, as Aarons had predicted, no obvious weaknesses, and no blind spots that they could see. The fence was solid, in good repair, and the guard posts were placed at perfectly regular intervals, all of them occupied.
But there was something else.
They’d just finished their inspection, and Aarons had come into view down the fence, and Lochlan waved at him. Adam did the same, then turned his attention back to the fence again, past its links and coils of wire—and to the distant buildings on the other side.
Hangars. Ships parked beyond. The hangars weren’t especially large and neither were the transports, but potentially large enough. Enough to hold …
He halted, grabbed at Lochlan’s arm. “Look.”
Lochlan drew in a breath. “Chere, why didn’t we see them when we came in before?”
“I think that line of buildings was in the way. Or maybe we were just distracted. Whatever. Lock, those are big enough to …”
Lochlan stared at him for a moment. Then he shook his head vehemently. “Adam, you can’t. Stop it. Get that out of your head right fucking now.”
“No, it could work.” Adam’s heart was racing as he glanced back at the ships again. “We just have to figure out how to do it.”
“Do what?” Aarons stopped beside Lochlan, following his gaze. “Oh … Fucking hell, of course. They have ships, they have to. They need ways of getting up and down.”
“He doesn’t mean only us,” Lochlan said tersely. “Lost his fucking mind, if you ask me.”
Aarons arched a brow “So what does he—” Then his misshapen mouth dropped open.
“No. Absolutely fucking not.”
“I’m not leaving these people.” Now that the idea had come to him, he felt abruptly calmer. Determined, but coolly so. Suddenly everything was making sense. He had no idea how he would get to it, but he could see the endpoint. What he had been seeking for weeks. “You can’t ask me to do that.”
“I’m not asking anything. You’re leaving them.”
“I’m not.”
“Adam,” Lochlan said desperately, “They’re all sick. Did you see them, before? Some of them can’t even fucking walk. You’re going to break out, steal a ship, load them onto it, and run?”
“I don’t think one would do it. We’ll need at least two.”
“Adam.”
“I know they can’t walk. They will.” Adam smiled, and the smile felt a little hysterical in a quiet kind of way. Crazed. This idea was crazy, Lochlan was right.
But his entire life had been crazy for quite a while.
You must, Ixchel whispered into his ear. He sensed her, tossing a glance over his shoulder at the hangars with eyes that were whole and bright and saw everything. He was remembering the Arched Halls on the night he was Named, sinking into the roots of the universe, spinning madly through a chaos of possibility. Being on the Plain of Heaven, the agony and the death all around him, but along with it the sense that he had reached something, touched something, let part of it enter him. Only it had always been there, waiting for him to find it.
“On this ground, my beloved child, you may be an Aalim.”
When she had said that, he hadn’t understood. He had barely even marked it as significant. But what he had done … The Plain had allowed him to find power in his core, power for which he hadn’t been trained, hadn’t been bred. Power, according to the precepts of the Protectorate, that he shouldn’t have had.
Except perhaps that was what she had truly been showing him. He had it. He always had.
The gifts he had uncovered in himself weren’t confined to such a select few. They couldn’t be. Not if he had somehow used them.
“I’m going to get these people out. But first, I’m going to heal them.”
“I’m not demanding anything,” Sinder said patiently. “I’m asking, and I’m trying to ask nicely. I told you, we’re seeking Adam Yuga, and I’m guessing you’re aware of how high-priority a fugitive he is, so if you assist us, I can’t see how it wouldn’t be—”
“And I keep telling you,” said the woman on the comm screen, her perfectly coifed hair and her neutral expression nearly disguising her calculating eyes. She had been speaking placidly since she had answered the hail, and it was beginning to be infuriating. The fact that she resembled images he had seen of Melissa Cosaire wasn’t helping at all. It was, in fact, freaking him out a bit. “You’re not even authorized to be down here. I don’t care who you’re looking for. I could have your entire fleet commandeered merely for having seen what you’ve seen. I still might, if you push me.”
“If you would explain what it is we’re supposed to have seen—”
The woman laughed. “Are you serious? Then we really would have to take some extreme measures. This is all classified, Mr. Sinder. The facility, the planet, all of it. Highest code clearance only. If you don’t have that, you’re entitled to nothing from me. So take my advice, turn around right now and go. Somewhere. Else.”
Sinder sat back and closed his eyes briefly, watching the patterns dance on the inside of his lids. He was seated in his quarters, without even Alkor present, and he was bullshitting his way through this as best he could, but he was rapidly realizing that he was in over his head. They wouldn’t let his people land. They wouldn’t even let them into the airspace anymore. They were clearly Protectorate, but not any branch of the government or of the quasi-private UTCA security corps that he had ever encountered before. It wouldn’t be wise to assume he outranked them. Secrets like this were usually kept for powerful reasons.
And what were they guarding? What could be in that camp that they didn’t want him to see? They had claimed to be able to detect images being captured from orbit, and while Sinder had his doubts about the existence of such technology, he didn’t want to risk it. Not so long as he wasn’t sure what he was dealing with. His rank, if this went well, stood to improve a great deal. It would be wise to exercise a little caution.
“What if,” he said slowly, leaning forward. “What if I were to apply for clearance? Would you be able to cooperate with me then?”
The woman looked skeptical. “Able is one thing. You can’t merely give me your proof of clearance and expect to be able to waltz down here and do whatever you please. I have orders. I’d need orders that supersede those.”
“I can get those, too.” He carefully maintained his confidence; he had gotten where he was by assuming that he could get what he wanted and then finding a way to make it happen. He would. He had cause.
The woman shrugged. “You want to try; I guess I can’t stop you. But you’ll need to withdraw from orbit while you take care of that. I can’t have you hanging around here for the rest of whatever. If you come back here without that clearance, your entire fleet is mine for breakfast. And you’re in a brig. You get me?”
“Perfectly.” Sinder smiled, showing his teeth. Bitch. “I’ll return as soon as I can. Thank you very much for all your kind assistance.”
The woman gave him a sharp nod, and the screen went dark.
Sinder sat back, his head tipped up toward the ceiling, and stared at nothing at all. He should report in to his superiors anyway, but he hadn’t done so since Yuga and the others had escaped. His superiors didn’t need to know about that, because it was only a matter of hours before he had them all in hand again, except now there was the woman and the fucking camp and some kind of required clearance that he hadn’t known existed.
So he would have to tell them. But he knew Yuga had to be down there. He knew that he was. He knew it with everything in him, every fragment of instinct, with the part of him that could sense the weaving and pattern of the universe. That part was irrational. It was a step or two away from superstition. But it was also right, consistently.
It had developed early. He remembered playing with his friends, pretending to be the heroic explorers and bringers of civilization that made up Protectorate legend. Those more perfect than perfect, set up as a new standard for a new generation to meet. He had loved those heroes and the idea of striking out for a new world and carrying a new way of life with him to the benefit of all.
But there’d been something else. A secret fascination.
The Bideshi.
He hadn’t shared this with his friends. But by himself, he read what he could when his parents weren’t watching, about Bideshi superstitions, rituals, dark magic, and spells. The witches that they called their “Aalim” and obeyed as if they were gods. The way they could read the future in blood and gut, in murder and evil impulse.
Reprehensible. Dishonorable. Filthy.
But in all the stories, powerful.
What could he do with that power? Of course, he’d understood that the stories lied—young Isaac had been a good student and had absorbed every lesson at school with perfect comprehension. But in the midst of all that learning, the idea had come to him: what if the stories of that power weren’t completely lies? What if there was truth in it, however small, however mutilated? So it was that Isaac would sit on the balcony of his childhood home in the ancient city of Berlin, looking up at the stars and trying to read the future in their movements. Trying to know what the next day would bring. Killing rats, the occasional stray dog, cutting them open in the narrow alley behind the residential tower and sliding his fingers into their guts. Grasping at things he’d only half sensed, or perhaps had only wanted so badly to believe he could.
But he could sense them. There were things he predicted before they happened, positions that he could put himself in, to be noticed, to be at the right place at the right time, to catch the right person’s attention. Flashes
of intuition that were uncanny in their intensity and accuracy.
It wasn’t Bideshi magic. There was no future written in strings of gut, and the stars told him nothing. But he could still know.
Yuga.
He touched the comm, and called the bridge. “Captain.” He paused a moment, eyes open, his tongue pressing itself between the ridges of his teeth as he considered. “Let’s withdraw to the outer edges of the inner system. But stay ready. Make sure you have people who can fill landing parties on short notice. I need to make some calls.”
“How are you going to heal them?” Lochlan was puffing to keep up—it wasn’t weariness so much as his muscles protesting, but he could also tell that he was getting weaker, and that troubled him. Though at the moment, Adam troubled him far more. “You can’t do simple laying-on-of-hands. You’re not Ying. And remember, that was only ever a temporary thing. She couldn’t heal you in a way that would stick.”
“I’m not going to heal them the way she did.”
“How, then?” Lochlan slipped in the mud, almost fell, swore sharply and stumbled after Adam again. Aarons had peeled off a while ago, muttering something about waiting until certain people came to their senses. So now Lochlan was cursing himself, cursing his own damn stubbornness, his refusal to give up when giving up was clearly the smarter option.
He never could give up with Adam.
“Chusile … I’m not doubting you, I swear I’m not, but—”
Adam laughed but didn’t turn. “Yes, you are. That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“I told you last night: you need a plan.” Lochlan grabbed Adam’s arm and finally succeeded in tugging him to a halt, and though Adam twisted free, he didn’t immediately start off again. Lochlan fixed him with a pleading look and sent up a silent and very general prayer for strength and guidance. To Ixchel, maybe. It would be like her to eavesdrop. “I know you; you’re plunging yourself into this because you always do that. And don’t you dare start with me about how impulsive I am; this is not the same thing.”
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