What sounded like gunshots...
“What the hell?” he said, still keeping his speaking silent, using the emphasis in the transmitter itself. “Deklan!”
“Here, boss.”
Balidor said, “What in the gods is happening? Are they rioting?”
“Damn near,” Tenzi said, breaking into Deklan’s link. “We’ve got troops on the street now, Adhipan Balidor. FEMA and SCARB mostly...but there’s a number that look like regular army. They’ve got a fucking tank...pardon my language...”
Balidor stiffened. “Same group as went after Nenzi?”
“Possibly. We have word that the military continues to seal off the Tower, too, so it can’t be all of them. I imagine some of this is from what the Sword did to the airfield today. They’ve known we were here for awhile...it’s been live and let live until now...”
“Can you get them out?” Balidor said, glancing at the door. His nerves twanged from his nearness to the Lao Hu infiltrator. He could almost feel the bastard, although he knew that was in his head, too. Gripping the M-4 more tightly in his hands, he fought to listen to Deklan and Tenzi as they answered him.
“We think so, sir––”
“We’ve had to re-work the contingency,” Tenzi cut in. “...Since the roof’s out of the question and now the street. We’ve got transport ready to pick us up at a secondary rendezvous point––”
“We’re having to take the refugees and the listers downstairs,” Deklan added. “No one wants to go below because of the flooding, but I don’t see as we’ve got much choice––”
“Can you get them out that way?” Balidor cut in, feeling his muscles tense as he fought to follow the two seers as they spoke quickly over all of that other noise.
“We think so, yes,” Tenzi said.
“It is still flooded?” Balidor clarified. “Will you make them go through the water?”
“Yes,” Deklan broke in. “...To both.” His voice held a kind of wry humor. “We have boats, if you can believe it, sir. Small ones, but we think it will be faster. We have to hurry, though. We’re still getting weather warnings from south of the coast. The tunnel could flood completely.”
“If an earthquake hits––” Balidor began, but Tenzi broke in before he could finish.
“––Then we’re royally fucked, sir,” the Tibetan seer said. “...If you’ll pardon my saying. But it’s the lesser of the risks right now, boss. Given that they’ve got another tank coming to join the first one upstairs. They’ve got missiles on them. Real ones...”
Balidor nodded, feeling his jaw clench.
Still thinking, he pulled a multipurpose tool off his belt, then turned it over, flipping the small, powered screwdriver appendage from the body of the device. He reached up, making sure the gun hung behind his back as he began using the tool to carefully and quietly unscrew the slatted cover off the ventilation duct. He kept the headset on the subvocal setting.
“Any news for me?” he asked again, not pausing in his work. “...About the roof?”
“We have estimated numbers, sir,” Deklan said. “Can’t guarantee anything, of course––”
“Just give me what you have.”
“Two dozen,” Tenzi said.
Balidor frowned. “Did you get in touch with Chandre?”
“She and her team have been diverted, sir.”
“Diverted?” Balidor’s focus snapped off the screwdriver and the grate at the other’s words. He paused to think, then continued as soundlessly as before. He concentrated briefly on restraining his light before he spoke next, feeling the muscles in his arms and hands clench.
“What in the name of the ancestors does that mean?” he said, a beat later.
Deklan answered, “She wouldn’t say, sir...couldn’t, maybe.”
“Is she in the city?”
“Yes, sir,” Tenzi said at once. “We did affirm that much.”
“Has she been in touch with Dehgoies?” Balidor said.
Silence fell over the transmitter. Well, not silence, but neither Deklan nor Tenzi spoke to Balidor for a number of seconds. Balidor heard shouting and screaming in the background during that pause, echoing in a hollow-sounding space. His mind classified the acoustics as belonging to another stairwell, or possibly an underground tunnel.
“We don’t know that,” Tenzi said then, cautious.
Balidor could hear the other man’s voice jarring slightly as he walked.
Staircase, then, his mind catalogued.
“...Not for certain,” Deklan added, also slightly out of breath. “We’re guessing Chan hasn’t been in touch with him, sir...”
“But she’s been talking to someone in our group,” Tenzi broke in. “We’re trying to pinpoint who now. It’s possible she’s been tapped by Ditrini and his pals...”
Balidor nodded, firming his mouth.
“Yarli?” he said, hearing the tension in his own voice, even through the subvocals. “Is she with them still? Do you know?”
Balidor heard Tenzi exhale, as if he’d made a short jump, then landed on something wet with a soft splash of his boots. The younger seer’s voice turned more openly reassuring.
“We haven’t heard otherwise, sir,” he said. “We’re assuming it’s still the same group we sent after Ditrini initially. Chan, Varlan, Stanley, Yarli, Rig, Damon. Chan hadn’t lost anyone, as far as we know. Varlan’s been training them to stay out of Ditrini’s light, I guess...”
Balidor nodded again, more to himself that time.
He finished with the last screw and pulled it carefully out of the hole, holding the metal cover in one hand. Pocketing the screws to keep them from making noise, he reached up with his newly freed hand, grasping the cover in his fingers before he began to pull it...carefully...off the opening to the air duct passage. He removed it completely a few seconds later and brought it slowly and soundlessly to the floor.
He straightened, giving a last glance at the metal door leading out to the roof.
“Well,” he said, exhaling soundlessly. “Keep me informed, would you?”
“Of course, sir.”
Tenzi ventured, “Are you still going up there, sir?”
“I’m still going up,” Balidor confirmed.
He looked up at the opening he’d created in the wall, his hands on his hips. Measuring the opening with his eyes, he pulled the M-4 down from where he’d had it slung around his chest before turning it over in his hands. He checked the scope briefly, right before re-checking the magazine, as well as the bullets already in the chamber, making sure it wouldn’t jam. Then he re-looped the leather strap around his neck and shoulder.
“...I shouldn’t be long,” he added through the subvocal. “But don’t wait for me. I’ll meet you downstairs when I’ve finished here...”
Neither of the two answered before Balidor terminated the connection.
Reaching up, he tested his grip on the edges of the opening in the wall. Once he was sure he had it, he began pulling himself up, landing softly on his stomach and chest before he began sliding achingly slowly through the organic-rimmed opening.
He knew where he was going. He had the blueprints of the hotel memorized, too.
Inching down the tunnel, he breathed silently, controlling the airflow in and out of his lungs down to the millimeter it might dent the tunnel under him. Sliding down carefully on his palms and torso, he cranked up the sound-dulling setting on his boots, vest and armored pants via the headset, even as he held his light tightly around his body.
A few minutes later, he reached another vent.
This one aimed outwards, pulling fresh air in from the protected area of the roof. Balidor knew the same duct in which he now lay fed into the air scrubbers above the first hotel floor, and the filters below that, prior to the air reaching any of the suites or rooms. Shifting carefully to his side, Balidor pulled the gun back around him, careful not to let it touch any of the walls.
Still lying on his side, he positioned his body, wedging his knees
against the side of the vent and resting the gun against his shoulder and his hand, above where he’d propped his elbow on the floor of the duct.
Only then did he aim the gun through the narrow opening in the wall.
Arranging his body in tiny increments, Balidor settled himself in to wait.
THE WAIT FELT interminable.
Even so, Balidor knew only a few minutes had passed.
Given what he could feel going on downstairs, those seconds stretched into a thrumming clock in his head, beating a drum that lessened his chances for survival––and, more importantly, for success––with every passing beat.
He thought of Yarli briefly, but pushed her from his mind, too.
They both knew, especially after those cakes at the Bridge and Sword’s wedding, that things could go either way for them in this fight, once it really got started.
He was still fighting to clear his mind of her, and his memory of her light, when he realized suddenly that he could hear them.
Ditrini popped into his physical sight abruptly, without warning.
Balidor nearly flinched at the other man’s nearness on the other side of the vent, but managed not to react beyond the small shield he’d erected for himself, primarily by keeping his light deathly still, and thus invisible to any seer operating within the Barrier. Staring through the metal slats to the visible portion of the roof, Balidor found himself lining up his sights on the silver-eyed seer’s head...when, just as abruptly, another seer moved into the space between Balidor and his main target.
After barely a second, Balidor realized he recognized her, too.
It was the female rebel, Ute.
Balidor had only seen her once before, over a year ago now. She’d been in the crowd in Hong Kong during the initial ‘demonstration’ of Shadow’s human-killing disease, C2-77. She’d fired at Balidor’s head, narrowly missing him. Ironically, she’d come close to hitting Cass, too, whom Balidor had been protecting at the time.
Trying to, anyway.
Fighting back and forth for a few seconds as he tried to decide if he should risk taking her out first, Balidor decided to wait.
He wanted Ditrini.
He knew part of his reasons for that decision lay in irrationality. He hated the other seer, and feared him, more because of his psychopathic personality than his sight ranking, although both things weighed in the balance. Balidor rationalized his choice by telling himself that Ute remained a more or less unknown quantity, whereas Ditrini was known.
He needed Ditrini out of the picture, first.
Gripping the gun tighter, he kept it aimed at where he could see the top of Ditrini’s head, although Balidor’s lower angle meant that Ute managed to cover the larger seer’s form almost entirely with hers. Balidor had no clear shot, not without hitting her, which had no guarantee of hitting him, since she would inevitably divert the bullet. Balidor lay there, perfectly still, when their voices rose, presumably because they’d switched back from speaking in their minds to speaking old Prexci aloud.
“They’ve made us,” Ditrini said, his voice overtly hostile. “They fucking made us. That’s why they’re not coming up...”
“We need to crack the fields, find a way inside,” Ute said. Her voice caught in the wind, but Balidor heard the impatience in her tone. “They’ll have the Bridge on a lower floor...”
Balidor flinched, then frowned.
Suddenly he was listening with all of his might, forgetting about firing for the moment.
“We need to move before they can finish the evacuation,” Ute added, her voice still carrying that forced patience. “They’ll be gone if we don’t go soon, Ditrini. We can’t afford to stay up here any longer...clearly, their plans have changed!”
“And you are certain that the Sword has left the hotel?”
“Yes,” Ute said, her voice leaking impatience more openly that time. “I am sure. We heard from Salinse that the Sword entered the Tower over an hour ago. There’s no possible way he could be back here...Salinse said that they’d more or less neutralized him for now.”
“For now?” Ditrini queried. “They did not kill them, then?”
“No,” Ute said, her voice harder. “Why would they kill him?”
Ditrini didn’t seem to be listening to her, though. Balidor saw the barest hint of his profile as the male seer turned to the side, a faint puckering of his mouth that must have been a frown.
“Would he have brought her body with him, I wonder?” Ditrini said. “Did your Salinse say anything about the Sword having the Bridge’s body, too?”
“No! Gods!” Ute snapped, openly angry that time. “Why would they tell us to collect it, if they had the damned thing already? And why in the gods would he do that?” she added, her voice even angrier. “Why would anyone bring a corpse on a military op? Do you think the boss is so stupid? Or simply that he is as fucking crazy as you are, tiger man?”
From the position of his arms, Ditrini had put his hands on his hips.
Balidor didn’t get the sense that Ute’s words troubled him particularly, however.
“The boss?” the Lao Hu seer sneered. His voice held humor, despite the underlying edge of contempt. “Are you sure you know who it is you are working for, sister Ute?”
“He should be the boss,” Ute snapped. “He would be the boss still, if it wasn’t for that crazy bitch he married. Maybe with her gone, he’ll come to his damned senses...”
“No, my dear,” Ditrini said. He clicked at her softly, his voice holding a more genuine humor. “No, sister...no. He will not come to his senses, I’m afraid. He will be dead.”
“Maybe,” she shot back. “Salinse seemed less sure.”
“Did he, now?” Ditrini mused, his hands still on his hips. “He, like so many other arrogant despots over the years, believes he can break the bond, without establishing any connection prior to the mate’s death?”
“Salinse isn’t the one doing it,” Ute muttered. “It’s that other one. Shadow.”
“And how does he plan to do this, precisely?” Ditrini said, his voice dangerously soft. “Does he really believe it? Or is this just more mythological ranting from our mysterious man in black? More of his mystical prophesying about our glorious end of days...?”
“He claims he can do it because the Sword is one of the Four,” Ute said. “...He says that as long as the rest of the Four lives, he won’t die. He claims that being one of the Four makes him exempt from the life bond.”
“Yet, our Illustrious Sword almost died before, did he not? When he was separated from his mate? Or is our glorious prophet unaware of this detail...?”
Ute frowned.
Balidor saw her profile in full, and tightened his grip on the gun, when he realized it gave him a view of half of the male Lao Hu seer’s face. He backed down when the female turned back in Ditrini’s direction, once more blocking Balidor’s line of sight to the male seer, even as she folded her arms, widening her stance as she faced him.
“He did almost die,” Ute acknowledged. She made a vague gesture with one hand, but Balidor could practically see the conflict in her light, and her body. “I do not know how they plan to do it, old man. Perhaps it is different now, with War activated...or for some other reason. I only know that Salinse seemed sure it could be done...and that it had to do with the other two members of the Four.”
“You are hoping he is right?” Ditrini said, his voice silky once more.
“Of course I’m hoping he’s right!” she retorted. “As should any loyalist to the race!”
“Loyal, yes.” The older seer smiled; Balidor could hear it in his voice. “Yes...I imagine you would like to be very loyal to our brother, the Illustrious Sword.” The Lao Hu seer’s smile turned mocking, right before he let out a low chuckle. “...I imagine you would like to crawl to him on your hands and knees...am I right, sister Ute? Perhaps you hope to be there when your master explains to the Sword his options vis a vis the female seers who once more fall under his command. A
fter all, you stuck by him, did you not, sister Ute? Retained your loyalty to him, even after he betrayed you, in favor of his worm-loving wife...?”
Balidor saw the woman’s ears turn red.
He imagined her face must be the same color, even before he saw her gloved fingers tighten around her ribs where they wrapped her upper body. She shifted her weight on her feet, tilting her chin up defiantly at the other seer.
“What of it?” she said. “Did you not wish for the same, once upon a time? With his wife?”
The Lao Hu seer gave a low chuckle, laying a hand on the female’s shoulder.
“I did, yes,” Ditrini acknowledged. “I very much did, my young sister...and still do, if only it were possible. I wish it more than I can express to you in words...” That low chuckle returned, crawling up Balidor’s spine. “...At least, not without making you blush even harder, my beautiful sister.” His voice changed, turning bitter, despite that more dramatic-sounding sorrow Balidor could hear. “...I have my own reasons for wanting to see the Sword again. But I’m afraid that ‘loyalty’ has very little to do with it for me. I, too, would enjoy seeing him beg, but perhaps not quite in the manner you envision, my lovely sister...”
Balidor felt his jaw harden more.
Still, all he could hear in the man’s voice was crazy. Bat-shit crazy, as Allie would have said, with a capital ‘B’ and ‘S’ and ‘C.’ Worse, the self-pity that lived in his words, the complete and total self-absorption behind them, brought a kind of heat to Balidor’s chest.
Even as he thought it, Ditrini let out a long-suffering sigh.
“I cannot describe to you the regret I feel at my precious girl’s passing,” he said to Ute, gripping her shoulder tighter. “My life is bereft without her. I do not yet know what I will do. Although...I confess I look forward to meeting her beautiful daughter. I have seen her image already, and it filled my heart with such joy, to see my precious girl in that lovely, innocent face...”
Balidor felt his teeth clench, even as nausea touched his gut.
He remembering the Lao Hu seer’s words about Allie, the visuals he’d subjected all of them to when they had him under interrogation. He’d gone out of his way to sexualize the Bridge in the most degrading ways possible, and he’d done it with that same, sickly tone in his voice.
Allie's War Season Four Page 49
