Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle

by Mercedes Lackey

  Red winced. “You’re a freakin’ gofer? Don’t you think that’s a little beneath you?”

  Pike shook his head. “Oh, I don’t mind. I’ve got plenty of energy, and it’s either this or running laps on the field to keep in shape. I get to be useful this way. Besides, I’ve gotten to see a lot of the campus while I’m doing it. I’ve only ever been here once, and I didn’t get to see nearly enough.”

  “One of those Echo guided tours or something?”

  “Yeah, something like that.” Pike grinned. “I was really rushed through it too. Guess a lot was happening that day. Anyway, here, I’m supposed to bring you this.” He reached into his courier satchel, and brought out a small box. He handed it to Red.

  “New comm unit,” Red grunted, as he opened the package and held up his new earpiece.

  “Yeah,” Pike nodded. “They said you broke your last one.”

  “Yup,” Red said. “Parting gift from that tussle with Christian.”

  “Who?”

  Red gave Pike a look. “The guy who was trying to buy you.”

  “Oh,” Pike said, embarrassed. “I, uh, wanted to thank you for that. For helping me out, that day. I really didn’t want to go with those guys, but my friends—”

  The Djinni’s eyebrows furrowed. “Look, Pike, I’m going to guess here that you haven’t had a lot of close buds in your life, but do I really need to spell out for you what shitty friends they were if they were trying to sell you?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Pike nodded, if a little foolishly. “So, yeah, I guess I just wanted to say, uh, thanks.”

  Red gave him a pitying look, and nodded. “Don’t worry about it.”

  There was an awkward pause. Pike looked around. “You’re pretty good on the parker stuff, right?”

  “Parkour.”

  “Uh . . . right. I don’t suppose . . . could you, I mean . . . if I got someone to train me . . . maybe I could get on a team instead of running errands.” Pike tried to look hopeful without looking like a puppy. “They said they don’t have enough trainers, but you can train people, right? And you can shoot too; I remember you were shooting that night. I can prob’ly figure out making my armor work by myself okay, but until I can get a trainer . . .” He let his voice trail off.

  Red looked pained. “Look, kid, I’ll be straight with you. I’m not exactly in my right mind today. Normally, I would have sent you back to HQ with a swift kick in the ass. The only reason you’ve lasted this long is that I’m going through some severely retarded drama right now, of epically high school proportions, and it’s got me a little preoccupied. Severely retarded. We’re talking Betty-loves-Archie-level drama, sparkly vampires versus topless werewolves; hell, I’ll bet I could draw parallels to the first season of Gossip Girl if I tried hard enough.”

  Pike increased the hopefulness in his gaze a notch, and debated which tack to take next. The “my parents kicked me out because I was a freak” angle? The “everybody just says ‘go away kid’ and won’t let me try” ploy? The Djinni would probably respect that.

  “Look,” he said, looking as determined as he could. “I want to do stuff. I know there’s ways I can help. But they won’t even let me try. Maybe I’m just a kid, but am I gonna be worse at this stuff than some of the ex-alkies and druggies they’ve dragged in?”

  “Wish it were that simple, Pike. I’m on a bit of a short leash right now, and if you don’t mind, I’m not really up to ruffling feathers with the higher-ups just so you can stretch your legs.”

  Pike gave him a discouraged look, then grinned slyly.

  “What if it wasn’t on the record? I just wanna run, man! Stretch my legs and get out there! There’s nothing in the rules about you runnin’ with me, is there?”

  Red considered that. “What did you have in mind?”

  Pike gestured around him. “How many times you’ve been over this course? You must know it cold. Don’t you want to try tackling something different? Something that’ll get your blood pumping?”

  Red looked around, and nodded with a sigh. “Might be nice. Been feeling a bit caged up lately, probably why I’ve been volunteering for so many recruitment runs. You know a good spot?”

  Pike’s grin grew wider. “Boy, do I ever!”

  * * *

  Red blinked as he took in his surroundings. This destruction corridor still looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. There were even fires burning here and there—no flames, but thin threads of smoke rising from the rubble. Unlike other parts of the city, no one had even tried to reclaim this area. It must have been pretty much toast after the Invasion, stripped by scavengers, so there was nothing really worth even squatters trying to take. Things had to be pretty grim when even homeless squatters didn’t live here. Eventually the bulldozers would move in, but right now the area wasn’t close enough to downtown for anyone to put a priority on cleaning it out. With higher-value real estate waiting to be cleared, it would be a while before anything lived here but rats, cats and roaches.

  And the occasional roving band of Rebs.

  Would they count as roaches?

  “This isn’t quite what I had in mind,” Red said.

  “Oh come on!” Pike spread his arms wide, obviously enamored with the view. “How does this not fit the bill? Treacherous terrain, multileveled, and yeah, just a hint of danger from my old pals!”

  Red chuckled. The kid had a point. The buildings here hadn’t been taller than four stories and a lot of them had been warehouse or old industrial buildings, but that meant they were all the better in their wrecked state for parkour. Add in the crushed and abandoned cars and trucks . . .

  Come to think of it, coming out here was a better idea than working a course he already knew well enough to run in his sleep. He’d have to be sharp here. He couldn’t afford to let his attention lapse if he was going to do it at any speed. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? His estimation of the kid rose by a hair.

  Already he felt more energized by the challenge. “So, kid, you have a start and finish line? Or you just want to follow me and see if you can keep up?”

  Pike shrugged. “A start and finish, I guess. Start at that burnt-out bread truck, waypoints being at the Piggly-Wiggly sign, the bent-over cell tower, the old Winston factory, and the semitrailer up there that’s on end, see it? That’ll be the end. You lead; I’ll try and keep up.”

  From where they stood, the landmarks were clear. The Piggly-Wiggly sign was only a PIGGL IG Y but if you knew the store, which everyone in this part of the country did, it was clear. The factory had been a four-story brick structure, and still had part of the old painted signage across the top, red WINSTON—presumably the cigarettes, before they had become “Winston-Salem”—on blistered, peeling white. The upended semitrailer must have been hurled there by an explosion; it stood up, leaning only slightly to the right, embedded in a pile of rubble, a strange sort of monolith.

  Red eyeballed the run. It looked to be just about a quarter of a mile in total. A good warm-up for him, and he’d be able to see how good the kid was without killing him.

  “Okay, kid,” he said. “Quick trot to the bread van, stretch out and warm up on the way. Ready?”

  The kid grinned, and Red took off at a gentle jog.

  * * *

  As he hurtled over a collapsed brick wall, Red risked a look back at Pike. The kid certainly had some natural talent for this sort of thing. He obviously had no formal training, simply adapting to the jagged landscape as he followed Red’s lead, but he was naturally lithe and seemed to glide over the rougher patches of terrain. In that respect, he reminded Red of himself. That could be taken as either good or bad, Red supposed.

  Pike was certainly matching Red’s pace, he had to give him that much. Even after upping the difficulty, Pike had met each challenge without hesitation. Whatever holes Red dove through, whatever heights he had to spring to, walls to climb, or the occasional balanced sprints across uneven footing, Pike was right behind him, sporting a mad grin
that seemed to split his face in two. He was obviously having a marvelous time, and was beginning to close in.

  Red dropped any pretense of flashy acrobatics, and opted for speed. He somersaulted over broken flooring and landed at full sprint, darting around upended machinery on the factory floor and made a dash for the collapsed side of the building. All that separated him and the last leg of the makeshift course were slippery floors and piles of rubble. He slid through the puddles, barreled over the debris, uncomfortable with the immediate sounds of splashing water and shifting rock behind him. Pike was right behind him.

  As he broke through the hole where a window had once been, Red went all out. The upended trailer, their impromptu finish line, was just ahead. What had begun as a simple training exercise had somehow turned into a serious race. Someone had dropped the ball on this kid; they clearly hadn’t even tested him. He was good. Between the parkour talent and the self-armoring power, he should be out on the street with a team. Even if he couldn’t do squat offensively, he could still protect the DCOs who (unlike Bella) really were uncomfortable with fighting. Pike had been at Echo HQ for two weeks, plenty of time to give even a simple assessment of what he could do. For the rest of it, Red supposed the shrinks were taking care of his apparent mental issues. With Bella’s new interventionist therapy, recoveries from simple stuff were going really fast. . . .

  Was that where Pike’s sudden attitude and confidence had come from? The last time Red had seen him, he had seemed shy, very unsure of himself. Still, that didn’t explain how he had fallen through some very obvious cracks in the recruitment drive. No way this kid would have been overlooked by the trainers. Something didn’t add up . . .

  “Right behind you, old man!” From just over Red’s shoulder, Pike’s laughter rang out strong and unfettered. Great, the kid wasn’t even winded. Red, on the other hand, was feeling a strong burn in his chest, legs and arms.

  Hell with it, Red thought and pushed himself further. He heard Pike fall behind as he drove his legs harder, and as he closed the distance to the trailer he was keenly aware of how fast his heart was racing . . .

  There was no warning. No hint that something was off. Just an enormous whump, a tumbling vortex of black smoke and red flame ascending from what had been the trailer, and a scorching pressure wave hitting Red in mid jump like a blast of wind straight out of hell. He was hurled back and landed unceremoniously on his side. He felt something tear in his back. That couldn’t be good.

  Looks like I’ll be seeing Bella again real soon . . .

  He propped himself up on his arm, and pondered that. He was thinking about how awkward it was going to be, forced into the same room with Bella, probably alone, and what he could possibly say to her that would sound even remotely sane. Sane? He had just run into an explosion! The blast had left him staggered, deaf, and even his skin-based senses seemed dulled in the wake of the explosion. Why was he concerned with Bella? The absurdity of the situation began to crystallize in his thoughts, of a semi blowing up for no apparent reason just seconds before he was about to slap its side in victory, when he caught a glimpse of an entire squad of armored Krieger powersuits climb out of the smoking crater that remained.

  Christ, and we were worried about running into Rebs.

  “Pike!” Red shouted. “We’ve got hostiles!”

  Red felt Pike’s hands on him, helping him up. The boy was shouting something, but Red couldn’t make it out over the persistent ringing in his ears.

  “I can’t hear you!” Red shouted, pointing at his ears. “Big truck go kablooey! Red deaf now, not just dumb!”

  Pike rolled his eyes, and slowly shaped the words with his mouth.

  Brother . . . I . . . am . . . so . . . very . . . disappointed . . . in . . . you . . .

  Red stared at him, dumbfounded. He didn’t even have time to begin to parse what seemed to be an utter non sequitur when Pike pressed something into his side.

  It felt like he’d been hit by lightning. His body convulsed, his mind blanked and he felt himself falling.

  * * *

  Vickie’s hand was burning.

  The pain jolted her out of a blissfully dreamless sleep, and for a moment she could not imagine what the hell was going on. She sat bolt upright, and looked dumbfounded at her hand. She unclenched it from around what felt like a red-hot coal and stared down . . .

  At the bit of Red’s claw that was lying in her open hand . . .

  Jeezus . . . She recognized the magical tether. Emotional links did that, whether you liked it or not. Magic worked that way. Anything bad that happened to him was going to trigger some sort of alert to her, like this extremely primitive, extremely old sort of magic that caused direct pain to her if she was touching anything of his when he was in danger. Hell, she would probably just know he was in trouble from now on.

  No point denying it now, I’ve got it bad for this jerk and it’s not going to go away by willing it to.

  “Computer: Command: open Overwatch voice command,” she said aloud, shaking her head to clear it. She heard the little double beep on her embedded headset, then lurched out of bed. “Command: open Overwatch comm. Command: open comm Red Djinni.”

  She barreled through the door into the living room, and bumbled through the one that led into the Overwatch room.

  “Red! Djinni! Acknowledge!” No answer. She fell into her chair and brought up the screens, typing in the command to Overwatch to locate Red on the map. Destruction corridor . . . the hell? What was he doing in that old factory in East Atlanta? Okay, time to do something he kinda gave me permission for. She used her pad to sketch in a glyph and punched enter. That brought up the external mic on his side, overriding the fact that he had turned it off. Now she could hear what was going on. She brought up his vitals.

  Crap, vitals not good, heart racing, breathing labored . . . no way can I fly a spy-ball across town in any kind of time. And this was way outside of where she had a preprepared magical “landing pad.” Absolutely zero chance of there being ATMs or security cams she could hijack.

  Was he wearing his eye? She drew a different glyph and punched enter. Nada. Whatever he’d been doing, he’d left the eye at home. Crap. Okay. “Red. Red. Please, Red. Make any kind of sound if you can hear me.” Should I try boosting the sound at the other end? The earpiece is buried under his skin . . . Okay, breathe, wait, boost the mic gain first. She keyed up a sound recognition/voice recognition program. She might get some clues out of that, even if the Djinni was unconscious.

  Dammit, Red Djinni. Why can’t anything ever be easy around you?

  * * *

  “. . . you will tell them this, and they will come. Now. Tell them their lives depend on it, because they do.”

  Red shook himself out of the fog, and as his eyes opened a crack he saw he was back inside the crumbling remains of the abandoned factory. He stared, puzzled, as one of the Kriegers saluted smartly to Pike and backed away. The boy shook his head and strolled over to Red.

  “You’re awake,” Pike said, grinning. “Very good, Red Djinni, I am so pleased. For a moment I was worried my little toy had seared you with a touch too much current. I thought I would have to entertain myself while these dummkopfs strive to stay on schedule. Our transport, it seems, is running late. But no matter! This will give us a chance to chat, you and I. You notice I say ‘chat,’ and not ‘get better acquainted,’ since I must say I feel I know you quite well already.”

  Red gave Pike a wary look as he motioned to rise, but stopped as he heard the shackles clink from his hands and feet. He looked down at them. They lacked any obvious locking mechanism, but he could feel a subtle electrical hum emanating from them.

  “Yes,” Pike nodded. “I am aware of your skills. Sehr flink. You will not find these locks so susceptible to picking.” He bent down and switched off the Echo communicator around Red’s ear. “There, and now we are free to speak, without any unwanted interruptions.”

  “Right,” Red nodded. “I’m your Huckleberry. You
know me, so I can skip my life story and you can get right to telling me what you want.”

  “Is it not obvious?” Pike asked, chuckling in an incongruously deep tone. “I have been waiting such a long time to meet you, mein Bruder. You cannot know what a thrill it is for me that we have finally come together, face to face. I simply have . . . chills . . . thinking of what our futures hold.”

  “Oho, a fanboy,” Red said, shifting uncomfortably. “You know, there are easier ways to get an autograph.” He grimaced as he tested the shackles, and hissed as they delivered small, measured shocks to his wrists and ankles. “Nice bling. You didn’t have to give me presents, you know.”

  “Careful!” Pike said. “Those were a warning. The current ramps up the more you struggle, and really, I have waited far too long to speak with you for you to simply . . . die. It would be an . . . enttäuschung. An anticlimax.”

  “I know what the word means, onanist. I have to wonder though, where a redneck street punk from the south picked up so much German.”

  “Come now, Red,” Pike said, looking very disappointed. “You must have figured it out by now.”

  Red shrugged. “You hit me with an exploding semi and knocked me out with a taser. Forgive me if my brain is a bit scrambled, I feel like a brain-dead badger right now. And spare me the schadenfreude, okay? You’re holding all the cards here. Hell, right now, you’re even holding my hand. You obviously went to a lot of trouble to meet me, to get me out here alone. You even got Blacksnake to show.” He shook his head. “You got some connections there, kid.”

  “That was a case of misfortune, I’ll admit,” Pike said. “I didn’t anticipate Blacksnake’s interest when I enlisted myself with those unwissend Rebs. I speculated it was only a matter of time until an Echo recruiting party would make their way to this corner of Atlanta, right in their own backyard.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Red muttered.

  “Imagine my annoyance when Blacksnake arrived first. Imagine my delight when it was you, of all people, leading the charge to my rescue.”