Prophet: Bridge & Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  Revik did, pulling them out of an inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  We’d received them on the ferry boat, after they conducted the first scans of our light, and ID’d us, probably using something they had on file from SCARB or one of the other previous law enforcement agencies.

  From what Revik told me, places like this thrived on bribes and shared intel with corrupt law enforcement long before C2-77.

  I knew these invitation cards––or chips, really, since they were more like GPS trackers inside semi-organic cases––were the only way on or off the island. Whereas before this used to be a tiny, semi-autonomous corner of the People’s Republic of China, it was now an armed fortress with its own security, its own military, its own treaties and trade agreements.

  Really, it was its own country––if you could call the new powers rising in this post-apocalyptic world “countries” at all anymore.

  Revik squeezed my hand, warning me about my thoughts.

  I could barely feel his light at all now, despite how close we stood.

  I couldn’t feel the light of the human standing in front of me either, so seers on their security team must be shielding him, maybe even from behind the one-way windows of the small guard station I could see just past the protection grid.

  Looking around, I felt another flicker of fear.

  That time, I wasn’t even sure why.

  I got all the warnings from Revik, Balidor, Wreg, Chandre, and the others. I knew many who came to this island never left. I knew the Legion of Fire were gangsters, who didn’t even pretend to follow the Seer Codes. I knew they were slave traders, criminals, murderers, opportunists, and likely already allied with Shadow in various ways.

  Even so, I didn’t really believe my fear came from these Legion of Fire seers.

  Well, not on their own.

  The longer I stood there, staring around, the more I wondered if it was something else altogether I could feel––something that had a lot more to do with my very well-dressed mate standing next to me than it did with our current mission.

  2

  A DIFFERENT WORLD

  REVIK TOOK MY hand when we finally exited the security checkpoint, some twenty minutes later. He held me even closer that time, bringing me nearly flush against his side as we walked first down the stone path lined with tiki torches, then along a long, open-air corridor on the inside of the east wing of the hotel.

  I noticed he kept me on the shadowed building side, making sure he walked between me and the open area of the pool and distant balconies.

  Somehow, I doubted that was an accident.

  We made our way to the casino more or less leisurely, but in a straight line. We’d already been told––more than once––that our hosts were waiting for us. From the way the guards behaved, I doubted they’d be okay with us giving ourselves a tour.

  Still, I wasn’t blind. I couldn’t avoid looking around a little, even with Revik doing his best to hide me from view.

  The wealth on display bordered on obscene.

  Marble pillars separated our walkway from the largest swimming pool I’d ever seen, more like a lake than anything I’d ever come across in the States. Fire pits were strategically placed around the lit water, along with tiki torches, palm trees, lounges, tables, hot tubs, and the occasional standing bar.

  Residents and “guests” of the Legion of Fire lounged both in and out of the pool, floating naked or in expensive-looking swimwear, or fully dressed and perched on pristine, modern-looking furniture with silk cushions next to real wood tables. I glimpsed plates heaped with food and expensive-looking cocktail glasses with lit swizzle sticks and colorful umbrellas, garnished with chunks of pineapple and strawberries.

  Servants brought new drinks and plates and cleared away dirty ones while I watched, all of them wearing those spotless white gloves and bellhop uniforms.

  Most of the servants weren’t Chinese, I noticed.

  Most appeared to be of European descent, but I saw a few of African descent, and a number who might have been East Indian, Indonesian and/or Filipino.

  The women and men I saw lounging on that deck, with its colorful, butterfly-shaped lights and white-uniformed bellhops, its umbrellas and palm trees and flaming stone-basin torches, looked frozen in time. It was surreal, considering what I knew to be going on in mainland China, not far from where we stood.

  Almost all the guests on the loungers and in the pool looked Chinese.

  The women all wore thousands of dollars in jewels, whether they were fully dressed or clad only in g-string bikinis. Given that a lot of those bathing suits fell firmly into the “why bother?” category, the jewelry looked even more out of place––like they had so much of it, they’d forgotten what it was even supposed to be used for.

  European, high-heeled sandals criss-crossed over feet and ankles next to men’s tailored suits and Italian loafers. I saw bodies that pretty much screamed plastic surgery wrapped in designer dresses, silk and linen blouses, short skirts and gold bathing suits. The men rattled rocks glasses, flashing diamond cufflinks and Swiss watches. The women’s hair was colored and coiffed, and the men looked like they’d just gotten a professional shave and haircut from a barber. Expensive-looking sunglasses sat atop many of their heads, pulling back their hair artistically even though the sun had dropped behind the horizon hours before we left the ship.

  The air was warm here, humid even in the night, and the soothing bubble of hot tubs mixed with gentle laughter as they drank wine from thin-stemmed glasses and smoked dark-colored cigarettes with jewel-encrusted holders.

  If the whole scene wasn’t so over-the-top gauche, it might have felt like being at a high-end resort, or maybe an exclusive spa.

  Revik prodded my light, shifting my eyes to the upper balconies over the pool with its waterfalls and floating bars. Once I’d focused there, I saw more guards wearing red armbands over black uniform shirts. Compared to the gentle and lazy-seeming opulence of the people by the pool, they looked incongruously brutal.

  Macau wasn’t one of Shadow’s cities.

  There was no pretense of maintaining the previous human authorities or laws here. The Legion of Fire performed their own lockdown, after the fact.

  Their house, their rules, as Revik noted wryly during one of our planning sessions.

  Since Macau hadn’t been one of the cities whose water supply got directly targeted, they had a wider window than most to lock down their territory. That, combined with a fair bit of geographical privilege, allowed them to survive.

  The Legion of Fire performed their own purges, of course.

  That kind of thing didn’t even shock me any more. I understood it––even agreed with it, in principle––despite the heartlessness of how it was often done. The sad fact was, there might not be much of a human race left, if those purges hadn’t occurred. Every human metropolitan area in the world would have been obliterated by C2-77.

  Macau was owned by a single organized crime family now. To most people here, the Legion of Fire might be criminals, but they also looked a lot like saviors.

  Enclaves like this had begun popping up around the globe in the past six months, in addition to the quarantine cities designed by Shadow. Revik was one of the first to note that a large percentage of the newer enclaves grew out of locations where organized crime already had a strong presence. Other places, like Reykjavik, Bhutan and Helsinki, survived due to a certain amount of geographic privilege that made it easier to keep would-be disease carriers out.

  Some enclaves arose for different reasons, including a large and loyal seer population that helped keep the peace and lock out infected humans. Examples of the latter included London and the Forbidden City in Beijing.

  In every case, strong leadership seemed to be a requirement.

  “I hate this,” Revik muttered from beside me, squeezing my hand tighter.

  I sent him a pulse of reassurance.

  “I really hate it,” he said, ignoring my attempt to calm him. �
��It’s a fucked up plan, Allie. And it won’t work. They’d be stupid to think I’d ever go along with it.”

  I didn’t answer.

  I knew he hated the plan. He’d been extremely vocal about that fact, pretty much from the instant he hung up with the Legion of Fire leadership. The problem was, neither he nor anyone else had been able to think of a better one.

  I’d promised him I would go along with anything he came up with that worked equally well or better, but in the end, partly due to pressures around time and partly because of limited options in approaching a place like this, he reluctantly agreed to go along with this.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” I reminded him. “They proposed this, not me. I don’t know why you’re acting like this whole thing was something I cooked up, like I’d somehow want––”

  “You’re going along with it,” he growled softly. “You ordered me go along with it.”

  “You didn’t come up with anything better. Neither did Wreg. Or ‘Dori. Or Chan. We ran out of time. We’re stuck with this––with something we know they want.”

  His jaw firmed, jutting out his cheek.

  “I hate this,” he repeated after a few more steps.

  I only squeezed his fingers in response.

  As I did, we passed the last of the marble columns.

  I blinked at two more security guards in black uniforms and red armbands, standing on either side of twelve-foot-tall, gold-plated, double doors.

  Bowing to us unsmilingly, they grasped thick, dragon-shaped handles on either side and opened the doors in tandem, causing me to flinch against Revik’s side at the explosion of sound that shattered the quiet of the outside pool and marble-white deck area.

  Revik didn’t slow his steps.

  We walked into the casino’s lobby and past a twenty-foot-tall lucky cat statue surrounded by live, pink and white orchids and a coin-filled reflecting pool. A holographic scene floated around the statue made of pink and white clouds filled with more lucky cats floating up towards the roof of the casino, what had to be at least eight stories above.

  I fought to get my equilibrium in the new sights and sounds.

  Leaning into Revik slightly as we walked, I tilted my face up, taking in the dramatic height of the glass atrium and its curved dome stretching easily a hundred feet above. Blooming cherry trees lined the promenade inside, on either side of plush red carpets. Tropical birds winged through the indoor area and perched on branches––mostly parrots and macaws, but also love birds, cockatiels, peacocks, at least one bird of paradise.

  Fake waterfalls and rock gardens softened the sounds of the slot machines and drunken guests. Pagodas sat on islands in man-made ponds, decorated with velvet benches and visited by cocktail servers. Steeply curved bridges looped decoratively over a number of indoor streams. I saw at least one zen-style sand and rock garden, in addition to Chinese styles. Koi flashed in streams, giving me a brief pang for the House on the Hill hotel in New York.

  When I gazed up to other floors, I saw hints of different motifs.

  The floor directly above us had some kind of French or European theme. I saw a replica of the Eiffel Tower and holograms of balloons floating between balconies. The floor above that one, a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge spanned the width of the room, complete with holographic whales. The floor above that had a floating image of the Taj Mahal, and the one above that had a snowy peak that looked like Mount Everest.

  It looked more like an amusement park than a casino.

  On a lawn we passed, a real gold, black and gray hot air balloon perched, its red-lined basket decorated with gold tassels. I watched a couple climb in, grinning as they held hands, presumably to ride it up to the ceiling.

  Revik kept his poker face a lot better than I did.

  He walked us past shops and gaming tables, barely looking at the twenty foot screens and elaborate holograms that kept pulling my eyes. He focused on the people instead, scanning faces and probably the light of those we passed. When I followed his gaze, I realized most were gambling, not riding balloons or lounging at bars. Those not parked at a slot machine surrounded by virtual screens were throwing dice or hunched over cards.

  It was difficult for me to see the fun in it, honestly.

  Most of the gamblers looked either drunk or stressed, frowning at black-suited dealers with flat eyes. The dealers watched them back emotionlessly, humoring them with insincere smiles, but mostly looking vaguely predatory.

  Some of the men looked me over.

  I saw women and men pause on Revik, too.

  I tensed when I saw those eyes on us, wondering how long it would be before someone recognized us. I braced myself for the approaches we’d gotten in other places––seers and humans either cursing at us, accusing us of mass murder, or wanting our autographs or even pieces of our clothing or locks of our hair.

  Here, everyone was thankfully preoccupied.

  I was still staring around when Revik tugged me sideways, guiding me to walk in front of him. He pushed me gently into a recessed corridor behind a black curtain.

  I recognized it the instant we were inside. The carpeted, high-ceilinged corridor was the same one the guard at the dock showed us. It housed two sets of gold elevator doors and not much else.

  These were clearly the private, executive elevators.

  Security would be tight.

  Even as I thought it, four guards appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Two females and two males, they approached us directly, and after a few polite smiles and hand gestures, the two males frisked Revik and the two females frisked me.

  They were thorough.

  While they patted me down, I noticed we were being watched by two additional male guards, both wearing expensive suits. Both looked like professional heavyweight boxers. Noting the headsets they wore, I figured they were there to make sure we didn’t try to leave.

  I frowned at the thought, right as the two female security guards stepped back from me. They bowed again politely, their light exuding warmth.

  One started to make the respectful sign of the Bridge, but the other stopped her, slapping her fingers down before she could complete the motion.

  Only then did I realize they were seers.

  The one who stopped her companion from saluting me gave me an apologetic look, along with a seer eye-roll. Smiling, I waved it off, indicating that I understood.

  I did, too. Revik told me the Legion of Fire’s official stance on the Bridge and Sword was that we were a “children’s tale.” To them, intermediaries were just ordinary seers with a few genetic anomalies. Unlike Beijing and most seers and humans in mainland China, Macau maintained a rigidly anti-religious stance––ironic in a way, since they treated their own leaders like quasi-God Kings.

  As for me, I was totally good with that.

  Our faces had been plastered all over the feeds for months now. Years really––and that didn’t include our fan clubs, the conspiracy-theory sites obsessed with us, black market bounties, religious cults, and whatever else. For years now, the feed stations could bypass the ban on real-time imagery and show our real faces, since we were classified as terrorists by the World Court.

  Everywhere we went, all it took was one gushing fan, one paranoid Myther-type, one housewife with a crush on Revik––and we were mobbed.

  The female guard who appeared to be in charge made another apologetic gesture, still watching my face cautiously, as if trying to gauge my mood. I just looked at her, puzzled, until she indicated with another set of hand-gestures that I was to hold out my arm.

  Unthinkingly, I obeyed.

  Once I stretched out my arm, she carefully snapped a green-tinted metal bracelet on my left wrist. The ends immediately grew into one another.

  I flinched, feeling it do something to my light.

  I couldn’t pinpoint what at first.

  I could still feel Revik. I could feel the casino’s construct, traces of our mobile construct, the light of the seers patting down Revik, the female
seers in front of me. Clearly, it hadn’t blinded me, but it generated some kind of Barrier field.

  I retracted my arm, frowning down at the shimmering green band. It was warm against my skin, and had its own aura, like a living being.

  I glanced at Revik right as they snapped an identical bracelet on him.

  Then all four guards backed away, bowing.

  Sensing movement to my left, I glanced over to find one of the suited figures holding open an elevator door for us. His partner stood to the side, muscular hands clasped at his waist. I noted at least one bulge in the suit jacket that had to be a gun.

  sIt occurred to me suddenly that in all of that time, no one had actually spoken to us.

  Even the humans on the pier relied on hand-gestures.

  “They are being polite,” Revik murmured, leaning down to my ear. “The humans assume we don’t know Mandarin. The seers don’t speak to us due to our rank.” He smiled faintly, kissing my cheek. “They can’t acknowledge the specific forms of religious rank for us, so they treat us like higher-ranked seers within their own hierarchy.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, glancing down the dress as he spoke in another murmur.

  “…I thought Wreg was teaching you this stuff?”

  I clicked softly, but didn’t answer. Even so, I felt it when the sideways look I gave him brought a shiver of pain from his light.

  “Perv,” I accused softly. “Don’t think I don’t notice.”

  He laughed, wrapping an arm around my waist and steering me towards the elevator doors. I thought the guard would accompany us up, but once we walked inside, he merely hit the correct button, used a thumbprint scanner to clear us, and walked out.

  He stood there, hands clasped, as the doors closed.

  Then the car was moving, traveling up at what felt like a good clip.

  Exhaling, I turned to Revik, holding up my new bracelet.

  “Blocking device?” I said.

  He pointed up, indicating the elevators would be bugged.

  As if I needed to be told.

  It didn’t take me long to figure out what the bracelet did. As soon as I placed even the faintest whisper of my awareness on the structures I used for telekinesis, I winced at the hard shock that vibrated my light.