Loki had to wrestle with Jax to get him to let go of Ontari’s vest. He blew warmth at the younger seer’s light, even as he tugged at his fingers, trying to pry them off the fabric.
We can’t bring him, brother, he told the other man gently. We will do rituals for him...we will. But his body, it must stay here...
He’s on the List, Jax sent, his thoughts dazed.
It is too late, brother, Loki told him. The gods love your devotion, but it is too late.
“Our ride’s here,” Kalgi said, tapping him through the link. “Out on the road. Move it, Loks. We need you, brother...”
“Understood,” Loki sent. If there’s an opening, don’t wait for me...
Go fuck yourself, Kalgi sent angrily.
Loki barely heard her.
He knew Anale had most of the materials they had brought up with them from the safe. They had given Mika some of it, too, just to spread it out somewhat, and Jax had some in his vest pockets, as well.
Loki looked down at the younger seer’s face again, and realized he had not succeeded in reaching him. Without thinking, he drew back his fist, and punched the East Indian seer in the face with his good hand. When Jax continued to grip the front of Ontari’s vest, Loki ripped his fingers off the other man, not doing it gently that time.
When Jax fought him, Loki hit him again.
He contemplated drugging the other man, using the painkillers from his emergency kit, when Jax suddenly seemed to snap out of it. Not entirely...that vacant look never really left his eyes...but enough that he followed when Loki yanked him down into a crouch and ran with him for the North Portico doorway.
When they reached that entrance, Loki felt the helicopter as much as saw it, even as he saw the RPG rise up from one of the small, black-clad dots hunched against the west wall of the main residence and the West Wing.
Releasing Jax at once, Loki pinged Rex to take him, even as he raised his sidearm, aiming at the male human with the RPG cannon. He immediately felt the pain of a seer trying to get into his light, but he aimed the gun with his left hand and arm anyway, gasping as he tasted blood in the back of his throat from the Barrier hits.
He squeezed the trigger even as the seer went after him again.
The man holding the RPG crumpled.
“Go!” Loki shouted through the link. “Now! Everyone go!”
The team broke cover as Loki spoke.
They darted over the driveway and to the grass surrounding the fountain, only to split around the dried up and broken stone ornament. All of them ran for the single gap in the wrought iron fence that still mostly stood between the White House grounds and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Rex and Loki continued to drag Jax as Kalgi ran on the other side, covering them with her rifle, and Mika limped from some kind of hit in the leg.
Loki felt Balidor’s team there now, too, fighting the seers working alongside the SEALs, helping to push their aim off track enough to give them a window.
Even so, Loki felt the humans scrambling around the fallen SEAL with the RPG, fighting to untangle it from where he lay.
Loki felt fliers coming, too, mechanical security bots with armor piercing bullets and even grenades, depending on their size and capability.
But the window might just be big enough.
They were barely twenty yards from the Chinook, and Loki thought with some amazement that his team might actually get out of this alive.
Then, something hit him really hard in the head.
Everything around Loki went dark.
10
IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR
I FOUGHT MY way back to consciousness, beating back the fleeing flickers of dream.
I felt reluctance there...although if it was reluctance to leave those glimpses of light and dark, the heat of memory and loss around things that hadn’t happened yet...or reluctance to feel any of those things in the first place, I honestly couldn’t tell.
When I finally woke, consciousness came with a full-body jerk.
I don’t know if I felt something in those few seconds just prior to waking, either, in my light or with some part of my body, or if I woke up for some other reason.
All I do know is, when I jerked, I hurt my arm.
Squinting up at the ceiling in a rectangular, dim, greenish-tinted room, lit only around the baseboards with a faint, blue-green glow, I fought to focus my eyes. It occurred to me, as I did, that our new “quarters,” if you could call them that, stretched barely larger than the bathroom of our suite in New York.
That kind of thing didn’t bother me, but I wondered if it bothered Revik.
Given how he’d grown up, he’d always been significantly more poverty-conscious than me, in ways that sometimes baffled me until I untangled their sources.
I recognized the light, of course. I also knew it as organic and tied to sensors in the floor, as well as to the motion sensors that hovered over it.
So yeah, whatever brought those lights up, I hadn’t been the one to trigger them, not even by moving. Someone else must have done it. That, or Revik re-calibrated those same sensors to a different set of variables and criteria without my knowing it, probably in one of his bored, confined moments when he got stuck in here without enough to do.
That’s when I saw my arm.
Someone had cuffed my wrist to the wall.
I stared up at it, unmoving at first.
More cautiously, I tested the restraint a few times, tugging on the organic cuff, one end of which had been closed around an eyebolt someone had programmed directly into the organic wall. I only had one guess as to who that someone must have been. When the loop of green metal didn’t alter on its own, I tried a few passwords.
When that didn’t work, I tried hacking the organism itself, using my light.
Something shocked me.
Like...actually shocked my light.
It didn’t hurt a lot or anything, but it forced me out of that part of my light.
I stared up at the cuff, frowning, sure I must be mistaken, although the truth behind that was starting to pool somewhere in the back of my mind, too. That awareness raised conclusions I both doubted and began to winnow down in terms of what this was...what it had to be, given the extremely small number of people who could have done this to me.
I stared up at the eyebolt again, looking at it with my sight that time...meaning my aleimic sight, my seer sight, not just my eyes.
Again, I got shocked.
Muttering to myself, I finally said, fuck this, and tried to use the telekinesis.
The shock was stronger that time.
I lay there, panting, staring up at the damned thing. It still hadn’t really hurt, but I hadn’t been able to work the telekinesis through that shock, either.
Two more things occurred to me.
One, I was completely naked.
Two, I was alone in the smallish compartment of the larger tank where I’d fallen asleep. Time was pretty difficult to catalogue down here, given that there weren’t any windows...or much of anything, really, apart from four walls, the bed itself, a door, a table, a small couch...but it felt like at least a few hours had passed since I’d last been conscious.
He definitely wasn’t here.
It wasn’t the first time I’d woken up in here with him gone. It was, without a doubt, the first time I’d woken up in here chained to the wall, however.
Glancing around the small space he’d left me, my eyes settled on the metal table to my left. On it lay a headset earpiece––not mine––and what looked like a handwritten note. Even from where I lay, I found I recognized the precise, all-caps print. Twisting my body around, I stretched over to that side of the bed, my wrist still bolted to the wall, and scooped up the note with my free hand, snatching it up from where he had it propped up against the lamp.
It read, Getting breakfast. Wall monitor is up, if you’re bored.
Staring at the handwriting I now recognized even more clearly, even down to his quirky p’s and
b’s, which bordered on cursive, or maybe even calligraphy, I felt my disbelief turn into a more complex array of reactions, most of which lived and warred somewhere between involuntary amusement and half-hearted outrage.
Looking back over my shoulder, I yanked on the cuff a few more times, scanning it.
When I got too close to the mechanism again with my light, it shocked me.
I stretched back over to the small night table.
Scooping up the headset carefully with my fingers, I fitted it around the outside of my ear, flicking it on with a voice command and sending an impulse without waiting for it to queue up.
After what felt like a long pause, he picked up.
Even before he had, I realized I was having a pain reaction, too, and not a small one.
“Dehgoies,” he said.
I couldn’t feel his light, any more than I had been able to feel him the night before, when he was inside the tank and I was outside.
I still very clearly heard the humor in his voice, however.
“What the fuck is this?” I said. “...Husband?”
I heard his smile widen. “I’m getting us food.”
Pausing at my silence, he cleared his throat.
“We’re meeting to talk about Dubai at two,” he added. “I set it up with Balidor. I hope you don’t mind.”
I didn’t. He was nominally in charge of military functions anyway, and this definitely fell into extraction territory.
“What time is it now?” I said.
“Ten.”
“Is Jon going to be there?”
“Yes. They’ve got him patched up. He might be a little out of it, but Wreg assured me that he plans to attend.”
I sighed a bit, relaxing.
We’d only just gotten Jon back a few weeks ago. That op on Macau was the first one he’d been a part of since he and Wreg came out of hibernation, which seemed to take friggin’ forever, and in more ways than one. Even Balidor grumbled about it a few times, wanting Wreg’s ear for this or that, or even Jon’s once or twice. We’d carried on without them as best we could, but I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of losing Jon again so soon, no matter what the reason.
Balidor, Yumi, Tarsi and a few others had built Wreg and Jon their own space in the stern of the ship for the bonding itself, as far enough away from the rest of us as they could possibly get them without giving them their own ship. Balidor ordered the compartment built mainly in an attempt to give them some real privacy...but also to spare the rest of us, truthfully.
It helped, but it still hadn’t been ideal.
Yumi and ‘Dori even pulled me into the planning work a few times, mostly to assess the shielding, since Wreg and Jon would be incredibly open and vulnerable once the whole thing started...but also for more mundane things, like what Jon liked to eat, what he might want or need to feel comfortable while they were under all of that time, etc.
Balidor joked––or maybe warned––that the whole ship would feel it once they started, construct or no. Which had been true, to an extent, although Revik and I might have been shielded from the worst of it since we slept in the tank. Balidor told me that it made things a bit “weird” for everyone else for the duration, especially at night, when seers opened their light in sleep. Balidor also said he had his infiltration team do what they could to minimize that effect, so all in all, the compromise seemed to work.
Still, there was a reason why seers usually did that kind of thing in the middle of the woods, and not on board aircraft carriers crammed with a few thousand people and animals.
“How’s Lily?” I said.
I knew without asking he would have gone to see her, too.
“She’s fine,” he said, his voice holding more warmth that time. “Asked about you, of course, but I told her mommy’s lying in bed like a lazy slug...”
I burst out with a laugh. “You did not.”
“Okay. Maybe not,” he admitted.
“You have everyone calling her Lily now, you know,” I accused him softly. “I hope you know, you’ve de facto changed the name of our daughter. After you were the one who named her...” I added accusingly.
He only smiled through the link, clicking at me softly.
Truthfully, though, it was my fault, as much as his, and I knew it. I had everyone calling her “Lilai,” or “young child” in Prexci, after we’d rescued her out of the Tower. When Revik and I decided to make her name “Elyashi,” after his sister who died when he was young, somehow “Lilai” and “Elyashi” morphed into “Lily.” Only Balidor seemed to call her anything else, and that might have been old-fashioned stubbornness.
Balidor called her by her full name, Elyashi.
Thinking of that only reminded me about the other thing that was bothering me, though. Frowning, I stared without seeing at the wall that separated our tank from Lily’s.
“I want a date from him,” I said, my voice blunt. “A real one, this time.”
It didn’t occur to me until after I said it that I hadn’t included Revik on any of my thought process up until then. Or that he couldn’t read me, given the closed construct of the tank.
He seemed to follow my train of thought anyway.
“We’ll get one,” he assured me, his voice holding more warmth that time, along with a softer reassurance. “We can talk to ‘Dori about that today, if you want, wife.”
I nodded, but my frown only deepened.
Lily hadn’t been out of the tank once since she’d come on board the aircraft carrier. I knew she was climbing the walls in there. Further, she needed to play with other kids, and run around, and see things that weren’t just on screens...or even in VR. I hated having her locked up in there, like a prisoner. She was hardly ever alone, but that wasn’t exactly the same thing.
Hell, maybe she wanted to be alone.
Maybe she didn’t want a bunch of seers watching her every move, 24/7, like she was some precious artifact.
Maybe she just wanted to be a little girl.
When Revik didn’t go on after a few seconds, I forced my mind back to the present, again glancing at my wrist cuffed to the wall. I debated whether I wanted to get into it with him on the link, especially since there was a good chance I might be overheard by security. Pretty much everything went through security these days, I knew...although usually, yeah, they tried to give the personal conversations a bit more space.
“What were you dreaming about last night?” Revik said, pulling me out of my own head again. “You were restless.”
I paused in my thought processes, staring without seeing at the foot of the bed. “Dubai,” I said, half-surprised at my own answer. “I was dreaming about Dubai.”
I heard him smile. “I know,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Was I talking in my sleep again?”
The smile returned. “Yes.”
“But you’re not going to tell me what I said?”
Briefly, his voice turned more serious. “Not right now.”
There was another silence between us. That one felt more loaded.
“Was there anything else, wife?” Revik said innocently.
Shaking my head, I clicked at him softly. I let my voice get softer, too.
“We’re going to have words, you know. When you get back,” I said. “Unless you planned to just leave me here for the day while you wandered around the ship without me...teasing me long distance about dreams I may or may not have had...”
He chuckled openly at that.
Listening to him, I bit my lip, frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t feel his light, knowing at least part of my anger now stemmed from pain around that, too.
“Are you alone?” I asked finally.
“No.”
“Do they know you chained your wife to a wall?”
He clicked at me softly, but I could hear something in it that time, something I almost recognized, even though I couldn’t feel his light.
“I wanted to know where you were,” he said finally.
<
br /> “You wanted to know where I...” I trailed, again fighting between competing impulses for laughter and outrage. “You could have brought me with you, you freakin’ weirdo...!”
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” he said, his voice still innocent. “You were tired. You haven’t been sleeping enough.”
“What if the ship got attacked?”
“I can unlock you from here.”
That stumped me a little. “You can?”
He clicked at me, and I could almost hear him rolling his eyes.
And yeah, he was right. Of course he could. He was contingency guy. He would never have left me in here if he couldn’t.
“What if you got knocked out?” I said, still fighting annoyance.
“I have a check-in switch timed. It would unlock you automatically if I didn’t respond.”
“What if you died?” I retorted.
“Then you’re dead anyway, wife,” he said, smiling.
I bit my lip at that, fighting a curse. He seemed to pick up on that, too.
“I told you I wouldn’t be reasonable about this, Allie,” he reminded me.
“Reasonable?” I snorted. “Since when have you ever been reasonable about anything, Revik? Do you plan to come back here anytime soon, at least?”
“Of course.” I heard him smile again.
Feeling anger win out briefly over amusement, I let my voice grow sharper. “Are you seriously punishing me?” I said. “For what? The mission going south? Or more generally for being abducted and nearly killed last year?”
There was a silence.
“Nearly killed?” he queried innocently. “Did you just say nearly, wife?”
I bit my lip. Then, snorting a little, I exhaled, clicking at him. Before I could answer him directly, though, he continued in a more serious voice.
“...And no, wife. Not punishing,” he said. He seemed to think about my words for a few seconds more, then surprise touched his voice. “Punishing...no.”
“Then, what?” I said, exasperated. “Or is this just getting you off?”
He chuckled again, not answering at first. I almost felt him glancing around the room that time, even before he spoke.
Allie's War Season Four Page 80
