Prophet: Bridge & Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  Vik’s team was still going over all of it, but we’d gotten a preliminary report.

  Apart from some stuff on emergency weather planning, sentient OBE fields, underground crop development, and shelters in different parts of the southwestern United States, most of it pertained to genetic experimentation.

  A lot of it involved attempts to build “living machinery” out of the genetic building blocks of humans, seers and animals. These weren’t the usual organic machines, where biotech was used to enhance dead metals and other materials. They weren’t even what Black Arrow called their more advanced “sentient machines.”

  The plans I saw pertained to actual, living organisms, more like genetically pre-programmed cybernetics. They could arguably be classified as whole new species.

  From what Revik said, that kind of thing had been going on for years, even though it was deeply illegal under the now-defunct World Court. Galaith had labs all over Asia working on similar projects, including the one where we’d found the original Barrier containment tank.

  Unsurprisingly, initial funding for the projects outlined in the White House safe also started under President Caine, a.k.a., Galaith.

  Vik also found a series of maps. Rather than depicting specific places in the human world, those maps showed coordinates somehow related to the Earth’s magnetic field. Vik didn’t know what they meant, but informed us he and his team was “working on it,” in terms of trying to find a connection with the genetic materials. They’d already determined most of the places marked on those maps were located near one of the Shadow Cities.

  We’d lost Ontari in that op. We nearly lost Loki and Jax.

  I had to hope to gaos something useful had come of it.

  Rolling to my side, I closed my eyes, trying to push back the sick feeling in my stomach as I stared into the dark.

  I was taking them to Dubai, based on another of my “hunches.” In the process, there was a good chance I’d get more of our people killed.

  I might get Revik killed.

  I might get Lily killed.

  Closing my eyes, I fought the fear out of my light.

  I wasn’t smart enough for this. My vision wasn’t good enough.

  Too many things could go wrong.

  Behind me, Revik shifted his body to follow the curve of mine, wrapped his arm tightly around me from behind, resting his face on my neck. He pulled me against him, his palm flat on the middle of my breastplate, as if to hold in my heart––but something about the softness of his light only made that pain worse.

  He trusted me. They all trusted me.

  I so wanted to believe that trust was warranted.

  42

  IMPOLITE

  “NOTHING?” DECLAN SAID, frowning. “We’ve had people on her for weeks now. Can’t she at least tell us something about this network of theirs?” He aimed his frown at Balidor. “What about you, Adhipan? I thought you were heading up that project?”

  Yarli’s eyes and frown swiveled to Balidor along with Declan’s. I saw her quirk an eyebrow at her boyfriend in the silence that followed, asking a question I strongly suspected I was glad I couldn’t hear.

  We were talking about Cass.

  It was a conversation I hadn’t been looking forward to, but one that needed to happen.

  No one on our team had managed to get any useable intel off Cass to help us with the Dubai op. No one had been able to get any useable intel off Cass at all, as far as I could tell, over the entire three or four months we’d held her in custody.

  Balidor and his team tried.

  Tarsi tried. Yumi and Neela tried. Loki tried. Even Varlan tried, interrogating her on at least four separate occasions with backup from ‘Dori in the booth. I considered going in there myself a few times, but Revik was dead set against it.

  Truthfully, I couldn’t stomach the idea, either.

  Anyway, from what Revik told us, the likelihood of Cass still knowing anything useful was slim at best. Menlim would have cut her out of the network the instant we took her hostage, likely hours before we managed to put her in the tank. Anything Cass knew would be changed so her intel was useless. The things they couldn’t change––like the structure of the network, the other beings acting as network pillars, whatever Terian had been trying to tell me about Revik––those things, Cass likely never knew in the first place.

  We discussed putting her on wires, but I vetoed it.

  We discussed doing something like what I’d done with Revik, where someone went in there and tried to get at the person underneath, using a Barrier tap. We talked about who that might be. Me. Jon. Revik. Chandre. Yumi. Balidor. I definitely got the sense neither Wreg nor Balidor’s girlfriend, Yarli, were too enthusiastic about using their romantic partners to that end, and not only because the process with Revik nearly killed me.

  Yarli, in particular, never stopped seeming pissed off by the whole conversation. I’m pretty sure she glared at Balidor the entire time Cass was being discussed.

  In the end, we had to table any decisions for now.

  “If she can’t help us with Dubai, I say we wait,” Chandre said, perhaps the most conciliatory of all of us. “We can determine what to do with her when we have some idea of whether we can reunite the Four.” She gave Yarli a brief glance, her lips pursed. “Until then, we leave her alone. Otherwise, we are simply being aggressive to be aggressive… with no clear goal.”

  “I agree,” Balidor said at once.

  Yarli folded her arms, scowling at him.

  A few more people chimed in, at different points around the table.

  I heard Revik’s voice add something, from across the table.

  I don’t think I realized how far I’d lost track of the meeting until everyone around the metal table turned suddenly, staring at me.

  Realizing they were all looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to speak, I leaned back in the metal chair where I sat cross-legged, shifting my ass on the hard seat.

  We were in the bullpen part of the CIC, and right about then, I missed the hotel in New York, with its leather upholstery and warm wooden tables.

  Giving another glance around at faces, I cleared my throat.

  “What?” I said. “Did you need something?”

  Balidor looked at me, then at Revik.

  Revik’s face remained neutral as he returned the Adhipan leader’s glance.

  I felt the distraction on Revik too, and tried not to meet his gaze, at least not for any amount of time. I knew he’d sat on the other side of the table for a reason, and for the most part, I appreciated it, but it still felt weird, me sitting at the head of the table with him sitting further down like that, both of us avoiding looking at each other.

  “Are we boring you, Esteemed Bridge?” Balidor asked mildly.

  I felt my face warm. I knew it was ‘Dori’s idea of a joke, so I didn’t take offense, but I couldn’t help feeling caught.

  “What was the question?” I said.

  “We wished to know if you’d had any luck removing the structures from Maygar’s light. You had said you were going to attempt to do it without tying him to you, and that if it worked, you might try a similar experiment with Cassandra.”

  I caught another scowl from Yarli, aimed pointedly at Balidor.

  Refusing to try and puzzle that whole thing out, I frowned.

  “No.” Remembering our last session in Maygar’s part of the tank, I felt my frustration rise. “I would have to do the same thing with Maygar as I did with Lily and Revik. Revik and I talked about it, and we think that’s too many lives interdependent on one another, at least right now.” I refolded my arms tighter. “Maygar acts as back-up. Outside the Dreng construct. I’ll look at Cass, too, but I don’t have a lot of hope it will be any different.”

  Balidor leaned back in his seat, frowning as the metal squeaked around the screws.

  His voice remained neutral as he spoke.

  “Understood. Do you want Maygar with Wreg’s team? At the northern end of t
he city? Or with me and Yumi, as part of the infiltration unit?”

  But my mind drifted elsewhere again.

  “Where are we with the construct over Dubai?” I said.

  Balidor glanced at Revik, lifting an eyebrow before he looked back at me.

  “We have been discussing that very thing. Most of the morning, Esteemed Bridge.”

  Frowning, I thought for a minute, tapping the metal tabletop absently with my fingers. “Did you discuss Feigran’s drawings? Whether anything there might give us a glimpse into the workings of the network as a whole?”

  Balidor shook his head, once, his expression openly puzzled now.

  He glanced at Revik, then at Tarsi, both of whom remained stone-faced.

  “No, Esteemed Bridge,” Balidor said, his voice subdued. “But I believe the Sword could answer these questions more thoroughly than I. He spent a great deal of time going over those materials and others related to Shadow’s Barrier network, while we were still encamped in San Francisco. Including the book Kali transcribed from her visions. The one you and your husband obtained when you stole the Displacement Lists.”

  I nodded, glancing at Revik.

  He met my gaze directly that time.

  Feeling a pulse of heat off him, I fought to keep my reaction off my face. I saw his eyes change in that pause, right before he shrugged. His face remained set in an infiltrator’s mask, despite what I felt on his light.

  “I would very much like to go over those materials with you, Esteemed Bridge,” he said, using his most polite voice. “Perhaps we could do that in a separate meeting?”

  I nodded, feeling my shoulders relax.

  “Okay,” I said. “Great. Thanks.”

  Everyone continued to look at me, as if waiting to see if I was finished. When they didn’t speak after a few more seconds, I waved a hand in their general direction.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Keep talking.”

  I felt puzzlement waft off a few of them, Balidor in particular, but I ignored it.

  I knew I was acting strange, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I knew some of it might be avoidance, especially with the discussion about Cass, but I also knew that wasn’t all of it. I would usually be leading a meeting like this.

  Was it Lily? Was it worry about her doing this to me?

  Was it Revik?

  Was it fears about the Dubai op? Was it all of the shit swimming through my light about what Terian told me, about Dubai, about the guy collecting List seers? Was this about my mother being here, watching me, her face as puzzled as everyone else’s? Dalejem was here too, but I’d studiously avoided looking at him. My father, Uye, who was still the hardest for me to avoid for some reason, sat on only a few seats down from me.

  More than any of that, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was missing something.

  Or the feeling of something bearing down on us out of the dark.

  Balidor made a few cryptic comments about Jon and Wreg “not being the only ones bonding right now,” so maybe that was part of it. They thought Revik and I were bonding, too, probably because of all the changes in our lights over the past year.

  Even now, I felt Balidor’s light on mine, less subtly than usual. I knew it was his job to keep an eye on me, so I didn’t take offense, but I found it distracting.

  After a few minutes more while they talked over weapons, I stood up.

  Again, I barely realized what I was doing until they all turned, staring at me.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” I said.

  Without bothering to gauge their reactions, I walked to the oval hatch and pulled it open with a jerk. I stepped over the raised lip of the doorway and entered the corridor.

  I’d walked nearly to the end of the first segment when Revik caught up to me.

  He didn’t say anything. He just caught hold of my upper arm, then continued to walk beside me, only now it felt like he was steering our direction, not me.

  “Are we having that meeting now?” I asked, a little amused.

  “Something like that,” he muttered.

  After a few more doors, he turned us down a secondary corridor.

  I didn’t realize where he was taking me until we stood in front of the locked door to our room. I recognized the security panel installed to the right of the door.

  Revik leaned closer for the retinal scanner, his thumb already pressed to the panel. When the light switched off, I heard a click and Revik had his hand on the door’s handle. He shoved the door open to drag me with him inside.

  I found myself staring at the windows first.

  Portals on a ship, not windows. View ports.

  They lined the bulkhead over our bed, and over the desk we’d moved upstairs from the tank. The bed wore a dark blue coverlet, thick despite the heated floors and walls. When we moved in for real, a group of seers headed by Maygar presented us with a “welcome home” present to congratulate us for moving out of the tank––a blue, white and gold mosaic of the sword and sun they hung on the cabin’s ceiling.

  The painting I’d made for him decorated one wall, too.

  The mountains of the Himalayas shone from between the thin and thick lines, along with the same words in Old Prexci Revik had tattooed on his arm. I’d imparted as much of him as I could into those lines, and in the profile of his face which slid into the contours of the mountains.

  In the background of that one lived another image of the sword and sun––a glowing starburst around it with just enough color to pop in the sky.

  Lily declared it “beautiful” when she saw it and Revik seemed to like it, too.

  He’d been the one to hang it on the wall, and I’d seen him staring at it a few times, a small smile on his face. He told me no one ever painted a picture of him before. I found that hard to believe, since I knew his first wife had been an artist, but when he said it, I believed him.

  Maybe his wife Elise didn’t paint people.

  I stared at the image of his profile there now, fighting a pain-shiver.

  Revik caught hold of me around the waist.

  He pressed me up against the nearest bulkhead, his mouth on mine, his fingers clenching in my hair. He threw his pain at me the instant I parted my lips, and after a few more minutes of that, he let out a groan, his hands on my belt, unhooking it roughly while I wound my fingers into his hair. He yanked my pants down over my hips, making me gasp.

  I tried to reach for his, but he wasn’t willing to wait.

  He stepped back from me just long enough to get his own pants undone, then he slammed me up against the wall again, kissing my mouth hard enough to bruise my lips, using so much of his light that I could scarcely breathe. My body melted against his as the pain in him worsened, sliding out of urgent into full-blown demand. I held on to him to stay upright when he wound his light into mine, making my knees buckle.

  “Fuck, Revik. What the hell––”

  “Shut up. Gods, Allie.”

  I let out a laugh, and he kissed me again.

  His hands slid under my shirt, pushing it up my body. Pressing me against the wall, he lowered his head, using his tongue, lips and teeth until my throat emitted a low sound. Gripping his hair tighter, I leaned most of my weight on the wall and on him.

  His hand slid between my legs, but he didn’t put his fingers inside me; he just held me there, using his light. By then my whole body hurt. I writhed against him, crying out.

  “Give me head,” he groaned, looking up at me.

  I fought to answer, but he slid up my body before I could, kissing my mouth, his light coiling brutally into mine. He forced himself to slow, despite the violence I felt in his light. Using structures in his aleimi, using light in his hands, tongue and lips, he slid into me deeper, pulling with a sensual, slow insistence that made me groan aloud.

  I tried to do as he’d asked, to slide down him, but he stopped me.

  He caught my wrists, holding them over my head. Once he had me trapped, I felt his light in mine, grasping structures in my
aleimi. As soon as he had ahold of my light for real, he let out a groan, a heavier one.

  I felt his pain worsen abruptly. He pressed into me into the bulkhead, his eyes closing longer than a blink when I couldn’t move.

  “Was I supposed to say no?” I said, still fighting to breathe. “Was I supposed to fight you? So you could make me do it?”

  He released my wrists.

  His hand gripped my hair and he kissed my mouth, slowing down, testing his hold on my light by releasing me with his fingers and body.

  When I couldn’t get free, I felt his pain abruptly spike.

  “Fuck,” he groaned.

  What do you want? I sent. What, baby?

  He only shook his head, leaning his face against mine.

  He didn’t want to show me, not even in my mind, but I felt his pain worsen as he thought about it outside of my reach. He pressed against me a few seconds later, harder than before, his skin warmer where it touched mine.

  “Gods,” he murmured.

  Revik––

  “Tell me if I go too far,” he said. “Tell me, Allie. Promise me you’ll tell me.”

  I nodded, letting out a gasp when his hands tightened on me. When he met my gaze, looking for an answer in my eyes, I nodded a second time, still fighting to breathe.

  Gripping me tightly around the waist, he pulled me flush to his body, then half-carried me to the bed. He had me down on it seconds later, and he lay on me, his pain worsening once he’d finished yanking the shirt over my head.

  They’ll know where we went, I reminded him, fighting to catch my breath, closing my eyes as he wound deeper into my light. I got an image of him hitting me, and my pain spiked. Feeling my reaction, he gripped me tighter, letting out a low gasp.

  We left in the middle of a strategy meeting, Revik.

  He pulled on me so hard I thought I was going to lose consciousness. When he paused, looking down at me, his clear eyes were tinted green and lit from within.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he said.

  Looking up at him, I fought to think, to control my light. I shook my head.

  No.

  “Are you sure?”

  Yes. My pain worsened. Yes… I’m sure. But do you really want them to find us like this? Or to watch us from the Barrier?