Prophet: Bridge & Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  Ullysa stopped in her tracks.

  She didn’t look away from me, though.

  “Do you want to be dead, sister?” Wreg snapped. “Is this a death wish you have?”

  I felt her wanting to talk to me still, but she listened to Wreg, reluctant. Or maybe she felt the same thing he did. Maybe she saw something in my face. I honestly don’t know.

  In any case, I felt what Wreg felt.

  On me. In my light.

  By then, I felt all of it.

  I looked at Ullysa herself, understanding more every second, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I remembered Kali looking at me on the beach, and the pain in my chest worsened. I remembered Dalejem staring at us, staring at me, the look in Uye’s blue eyes, his tears, Kali’s hurt expression, Lily leaning on Revik’s back and shoulder, watching him color a cartoon rabbit, Revik on the beach, squeezing my fingers until they hurt––

  “I am so sorry, sister,” Ullysa said, her voice a whisper.

  She was crying, but I couldn’t make sense of that, either.

  I have to go, I thought.

  I may have said it aloud, or only in my mind.

  However I said it, I repeated it, louder, until the words penetrated, impelling me to action.

  I have to go. I have to get out of here. Now.

  Somewhere in that, I moved.

  I turned away from all of them. I moved through the room soundlessly, aiming my feet for the nearest exit. I felt Jon’s light on me, that pain in him, coupled with a worry that was cloying now, that fought its way into panic. I felt Balidor on his way, nearly there.

  I felt Yumi, Wreg, Neela, Ullysa––

  I felt the seer with the green and violet eyes.

  I felt Tarsi. Kali.

  The one person I didn’t feel was Revik.

  All of them––all of us––were forced together now, bottled up in thick walls and one-way windows. They couldn’t get away from me, any more than I could get away from them.

  I kept walking anyway, looking for a way out.

  I didn’t know where I was going, but I wasn’t sure it mattered.

  I have a memory of standing on the deck in the cutting wind, but I don’t know if that memory was real or something I simply wanted. I think it was real. I remember feeling the wind and air go through me. I remember looking at the ocean, listening to the pounding of the engines through the wake––but at some point, someone came towards me there, too, and I left before they could reach me, feeling their light as it approached.

  I could tell I wasn’t acting right. I knew something was wrong with me.

  I couldn’t sleep. They said I couldn’t sleep.

  I needed to go somewhere to think.

  I needed to go somewhere where I didn’t have to feel their lights, where I didn’t have to feel their emotions pounding at me like the engines pounded the surf. I could feel myself being hunted by all of them, all of them wanting to pull me back inside, back into a cell where I could bang my hands on the walls and no one would hear me anymore.

  I don’t know how I ended up at the door I did.

  I don’t remember deciding to go there.

  I’m not even sure how I knew whose room it was.

  I knocked on the outside panel anyway, hitting it with my fist until someone opened up, and when I saw the person standing there, I felt an irrational flush of relief.

  “Allie!” Angeline stared at me in bewilderment, wearing fuzzy pajamas and a lime green T-shirt. The T-shirt had the symbol of a human band I vaguely remembered from San Francisco. “Allie, it’s the middle of the night. Are you okay?”

  I don’t know if I said anything to her.

  All I know is, at some point, I wasn’t standing in that green and gray hallway anymore. She pulled me inside, and shut the door behind me. For the first time since I’d seen Kali on that beach, things stopped spinning in the light and dark corners of my mind.

  For the first time, everything went still.

  36

  LEFT ALONE

  I HEARD THEM at the door.

  Hours had passed by then.

  It was daylight again.

  I sat in the back area of connected residence rooms, relieved beyond words that I didn’t have to be the one to talk to any of the people who had come there, looking for me. I didn’t have to answer the door. I could just sit there, on the couch, watching Sasquatch play first-person-shooter games on the wall monitor of the residence room they’d turned into a common space.

  Every now and then, someone would hand me a beer.

  Sometimes, they’d hand me something stronger than beer.

  I’m not sure what I told them exactly, in those first few hours.

  I still hadn’t slept, but I felt calmer now, if only because no one was bothering me. No one asked me anything. No one was trying to get me to do anything. No one wanted me to decide anything. No one needed me to solve their problems.

  Four bedrooms connected into the common space where I spent the night.

  The occupants living in those rooms came and went, along with those of the four rooms across the hall and a few others in this part of the human residency area. I should have known but didn’t until then, that my old friends from San Francisco now formed a social focal point for the younger crowd making up the human Displacement List.

  They were mini-celebrities among the human Listers, I discovered.

  Jaden lived in one of those four rooms.

  Being my ex-, a minor feed celebrity prior to C2-77, and now working for Dante, he was already high up on the food chain. Sasquatch and him shared a room. Angie and Frankie shared another.

  The humans were doubled up, like most of the seers, especially those not in sensitive positions. I knew some of the seers were four to a room, so this wasn’t unusual, but it still created a feeling of unreality, like being transported back to the dorms at San Francisco State.

  Every now and then, someone knocked on the door.

  I heard voices I recognized.

  Usually Angie answered, and when I shook my head after the first few times, she stopped asking me if I wanted to see them, and just told them to go away.

  I heard them tell her things, too.

  Don’t let her sleep. Not until she starts to act more coherent, Balidor said.

  She should get checked out by one of us before she sleeps. A seer, I mean… I heard someone else say, maybe Yumi.

  It’s a form of light shock, maybe connected to the events of the previous year…

  She’s not to be left alone. Make sure she gets enough water to drink. Keep her calm, and warm. Don’t let her fall asleep…

  Someone else said those things, maybe several someones. Male voices that time, maybe Balidor for one of them, Wreg for one, or Jon.

  I heard Jon again, not long after.

  His back hurt, as did the stab wound I’d ripped open. His light hurt, too, but I felt his frustration more than anything, his wanting to talk to me. I felt him mad at Revik, at Balidor, at Kali, at Ullysa. I felt him wanting to talk to me, but I told Angie not to let him in, either.

  Someone else came to the door, too––later, I mean.

  Hours later.

  That person didn’t say much, at least not where I could hear it.

  I didn’t hear his actual voice at all, not at first, but I felt his light.

  He stood there for a long time, and I felt him arguing with Angie, trying to get her to let him in. I felt him tell her that she wasn’t helping me, that none of them were helping me, whatever they thought, and whatever I told them. I felt him threaten to force his way in. I felt him say at least one of the seers had to see me, that they had to let at least one of the high-ranked seers in to check me out, to make sure I was all right.

  I felt him say it didn’t have to be him.

  Jaden heard or felt something, too, because he frowned, looking at me. He sat on a different couch in the same room, across from where I sat.

  Not long after, Jad
en went to the door.

  He slammed it in the end, and locked it, but before that, I heard voices raised. I heard Revik’s voice that time, loud, angrier than maybe I’d ever heard it, but I also felt his fear.

  I didn’t care. I closed my eyes through most of that, and willed him to go away.

  Eventually, he did.

  Truthfully, I was surprised none of them had forced their way in by now.

  I’d been expecting one of them to. I was relieved beyond words that they didn’t.

  Angie stayed with me most of that night, and Sasquatch, although he didn’t say much. Frankie sat on the floor and laughed and complained about men being jerks and told me I should let Revik stew until he figured out he couldn’t be such an asshole and get away with it. Jaden played video games with Sasquatch when Frankie wasn’t playing, and did things on a hand-held and talked to Dante on the comm about things to do with Displacement Lists.

  I felt him watching me through most of it, staring at me sometimes, aware of me even when he wasn’t looking at me with his eyes. I felt his attention on me, and after a while, I struggled to deal with that, too. Mostly, I fought to ignore it.

  The night passed slowly into day that way.

  Sasquatch handed me a blunt somewhere in that, and I smoked it, unthinking, then coughed because my lungs hated it––hated the smoke, hated the taste of it––and then I worried I might fall asleep.

  I didn’t fall asleep, though.

  A few more hours must have passed, another interval, another period of time on the clock where they freed Revik from his cage.

  He came back and pounded on the door again, but no one answered that time. I told them it wouldn’t do any good, that he could unlock it with his mind, which seemed to make all of them nervous, maybe even scared, but he didn’t open the door that way, either.

  I felt grief on him. I felt him trying to talk to me.

  I don’t think I was angry, even.

  I just wanted him to leave me alone.

  I wanted silence, and in this room, even with Frankie chatting mindlessly about the guy she had a crush on from down the hall and the explosions and music from the monitor as Sasquatch kept playing video games and the sound of Jaden talking to Dante on the comm––even with all that, it felt quiet in here, weirdly peaceful, maybe just with the mundanity of it all.

  I knew it wouldn’t last, this vacation from reality.

  After Revik went away the second time, though, he stayed away longer.

  Another night came. Then another day.

  Kali came by, somewhere in that, but I told them not to answer the door for her, either, and eventually, she went away, too.

  I still hadn’t slept, but I was getting more and more tired.

  “You should take a shower,” Frankie urged me.

  I looked at myself, realized I was wearing combat clothes from the beach, that I probably had sand inside my underwear and shirt and bra, and in my hair. I tried to think back on how long I’d been sitting there, drinking the occasional beer and eating food when someone handed me a bowl with rice and veggies in it.

  I was still thinking about it, when someone knocked on the door again, hard that time.

  I could feel him there. Something told me, this time, I wasn’t going to be able to just wish him away. I had my light shielded, just like I had pretty much since I’d gotten there, but I knew that wouldn’t help me, either.

  That time, he scarcely bothered with Angie at all when she answered the door.

  I heard him say something to her, something I couldn’t make out, then he raised his voice.

  “Alyson!” His voice came out harsh, close to a command, but I felt the grief there still. He put light in his voice, enough that I felt myself tense where I sat on the couch. “Alyson! Come out here. Now. Or I’m coming in there.”

  He didn’t have to tell me he meant it.

  I could feel he meant it.

  I saw Jaden frown, right before he started to regain his feet.

  That time, I got up before he did.

  They all froze when they saw me stand, staring at me. Even Sasquatch looked over, without pausing his game, so that his animated avatar got pummeled by the zombies he’d been fighting onscreen. I stared, weirdly fascinated when they began chewing on the avatar’s body parts. Then I blinked, looking back at the rest of them.

  I stood there, fighting for equilibrium.

  Eventually, I met Jaden’s gaze.

  “It’s okay. I should go.” I looked around at all of them.

  Frankie, where she sat next to Sasquatch on the couch, looking like a kid where she huddled next to his big form. Jaden, with his long hair and wiry frame from being on the ship and probably from working crazy hours with Dante and the rest of them. Angie, where she stood by the door, watching me with a worried expression on her face.

  “Thanks,” I said, not sure what else to say.

  “If he’s an asshole, come back,” Frankie said.

  She’d paused her player, and it stood in a strange waiting pose, swaying slightly as the game waited for her to return.

  “Seriously,” she said, her dark eyes mirroring the seriousness. “You can stay with us anytime, Allie. As long as you want.”

  Sasquatch nodded, his brown eyes holding sympathy as he looked at me.

  “Like, anytime, Allie-potali,” he said, gripping the game console in one hand as he frowned towards the door. “He seems like a dick, seriously,” he added, his voice lower. “A real steroid pounder. A push-em-around rottie fuckwad. You can come live with us.”

  I nodded, fighting to smile, and just nodded again.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Then, not sure what else to say, I turned and walked towards the door.

  I felt more or less like I’d landed back in my body, even if I didn’t exactly feel normal. I didn’t feel like I had in the cafeteria with Jon and Wreg, where I had no idea where I was, what I was doing, or even what was happening. I knew why I was leaving, who I was, who was at the door, even if I struggled to make myself feel about any of it.

  Even the thought of dealing with Revik right then made me feel sick.

  I was really fucking tired, though.

  My whole body hurt as I walked across the common space to the door. When I saw Revik standing there, the look on his face felt like a punch to mine. I didn’t stare long enough to decide what the expression meant.

  I looked at Angeline, instead, and fought with words.

  “Thanks, Angie,” I said finally.

  She threw her arms around me, wrapping them around my shoulders and back.

  She held me like that for a few seconds, rubbing my back, as if giving me strength through the sheer force of her will. It touched me, enough to break through some of the fog that strangled my light. When she let go, I found myself clutching her arms, even though the embrace had already stretched longer than a normal goodbye.

  It took me a few seconds longer to release her.

  She looked at Revik then, frowning, eyes cold.

  “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?” she said.

  When I turned, Revik wasn’t looking at her, though. He was looking at me.

  His pale eyes studied mine––cautious, sad, openly worried, afraid. I felt his light skirt around mine with careful touches, as if trying to read me without getting too close.

  I couldn’t hold his gaze that time, either.

  “Come back anytime,” Angie said, louder. It still felt like she was talking to Revik, not me. “Come by anytime you want, Allie. You can stay as long as you want, too.”

  Revik gave her a hard look.

  I felt anger on him, even as his fingers closed around my arm. He tugged at me gently, trying to coax me out of that doorway, and when I glanced back over my shoulder, I felt as much as saw the real source of his anger. Jaden stood there, his blue eyes cold, staring at Revik.

  He stared at where Revik held my arm, his face a pale mask.

  “Yeah, Allie.” J
aden raised his voice, speaking louder than Angie. “You can come live with us if you want. Just say the word. We have room. Fuck. We’ll make room, even if it means sharing beds. You can be sure of that.”

  I felt another hard pulse of fury off Revik, even as he enveloped me in a cloak of his light, pulling me closer to him.

  That time, the gesture felt overtly protective.

  Before I could think about why that might be, we’d started walking.

  Or really, Revik started walking, and I followed him.

  We were at least twenty or so steps down the hall and away from that door, when the door closed behind us. I felt Angie there again, briefly, indecision in her light.

  She thought she’d given me to an abuser. She’d let my husband come and collect me, and she couldn’t decide if she’d done the right thing.

  I wished I could tell her it would be all right.

  I knew how that would sound, though.

  I don’t remember telling them anything, truthfully, about why I was there, but I could guess how I must have looked, showing up at their door. They knew Revik as Syrimne d’Gaos––a killer. They knew him as someone who would probably hurt his wife, since he’d killed so many other people. Violent people had a tendency to be, well––violent.

  Jon might have said something to them.

  Hell, I might have. I wished I could remember. I had no idea what I’d said to them, when I first got there, or even in the few hours after that.

  I remembered Angie at the door, yelling at someone not long after I arrived––someone who, in my slightly less foggy state, now sounded a lot like Jon in my memory.

  But of course Jon would have come here. Revik would have asked him to come. Balidor might have asked him to try and talk to me, too. They would have sent Jon first, because Jon knew Angie and the others.

  Angie hadn’t let Jon in either, though.

  Thinking about that, I felt a sudden flood of warmth for my old friends, for their attempts to shield me from the harm they saw. They’d done their best to keep me safe, if only by giving me veto power over anyone wanting to enter the sanctuary they’d given me.