Allie's War Season Four (104 page)

WHEN THE FIRST rounds went off, I ducked, moving without thought.

When I next looked up, I was halfway under the table, and Revik was crouched next to me, gripping ahold of my wrist.

Are they shooting at us?
I asked him, a little panicked.

He shook his head, once.
No, they’re a little distracted at the moment.

He already had the cutting tool jammed around the organic bracelet on his wrist.

I stared down, watching as he squeezed the handles, severing it in one cut. He let out a light gasp as the blades killed the living thing inside the organic.

Then, shaking it off, he gave me a faint smile. Sending an impulse, he reconfigured the tool back into my green-stone necklace, and motioned for me to lean closer. Once I had, he started hooking the clasps so that it rested back on my neck.

Nicely done, wife...
he said, kissing my cheek as he finished with the necklace.
You’re definitely getting a cookie when we’re back at home...
His eyes glanced down at me in the dress, even as pain slid back through his light.
Maybe a whole box of them, actually...

I let out a low laugh, at least partly from nerves. My light darted around the room, taking in the layout of the seers, including the three females I’d been standing next to a few seconds ago. Most of them felt terrified to me, so definitely not sleeper assassins or anything.

Still, I could feel it. We didn’t have much time.

How much longer?
I asked Revik, even as I thought it.

Before Menlim starts tracking me?
Revik glanced at the old-fashioned watch he wore, the one they let through because it wasn’t organic.
About fifty minutes.

I frowned, then flinched when another shell hit the front of the terrace. It sent in a dense cloud of black smoke, knocking pieces of plaster and wood off the ceiling.

Those guys know we’re in here, right?
I sent.
They’re still getting the GPS signal?

Revik grinned again, his clear eyes holding a faint glint.
One can only hope.

I clicked at him, laughing.
That’s not reassuring, husband.

You know Wreg. He likes big noises.

Another cloud of smoke and white dust flew into the back area of the lounge, even as I lowered my head. I closed my eyes, coughing, feeling Revik’s light form into a shield and slide over both of us briefly. I watched the debris and powder alter course and flow up over and around us as he did it, like air and dust flowing over a glass windshield.

I felt worry on Revik briefly, him looking with his light...

“Fuck.” He cursed aloud a second time, in Prexci.
He’s moved them, Allie. The list seers. I don’t see their signatures in any of the ones he was planning on showing us...

Is Shadow behind it?

I felt Revik looking again, probably reading Dulgar and his people.

No. I don’t think so...but I can’t tell for sure. I don’t want to get too close to that construct in Hong Kong...

Then don’t. Don’t, baby...
I pooled warmth in his chest, pulling his light nearer to mine.
Where is he taking them? Revik? Can you feel where they are right now?

Revik shook his head, exhaling a bit. He continued to look, then a sharper pulse of heat left his light.
I think they’ve already left the island, Allie. I don’t see them anywhere, not among any of the stock. He’s sold them.

Could he have hidden them here somewhere? Dulgar?

Revik shook his head, but not exactly in a no that time.
I don’t think so. I felt some details of the exchange. The transport. They’ve been sold...I’m trying to get a name, but they’re pretty heavily shielded.

My jaw clenched as I fought to think through this.

Twenty-six list seers, and we traced them all here.

We couldn’t let them go. We just couldn’t.

Where’s Dulgar?
I sent.
Right now?
I looked through the darkness, trying to find his form by the fireplace.
Is he still here?

He’s on the move,
Revik sent, tensing.
He’s rabbiting, Allie. His guards are moving him right now. Back door...

Where? Where are they taking him?

Smoke filled the space of the lounge, making it difficult to see. Not like it had been easy to see before, with the dim lighting of the fireplaces and not much else, but now the visibility cut to basically zero, at least with my eyes. The reflecting pool was covered in ash, obscured by smoke and falling debris. I could barely see the flames of the fireplace anymore, meaning the one that stood only a few yards from us, at the end of the black-glass table.

I was already stretching out my light, doing my best to ignore the screams as they broke out among the seers and humans on the terrace, when...

My aleimi felt something.

A jarring, off-note in our immediate Barrier space.

It was faint, but I jerked my head around without thought.

Squinting through the smoke, I extended my light in a tighter arc, straight into the corner wall behind the fireplace. My light hit a dense shield, military-grade, but once I was looking in the right direction, I glimpsed a Barrier shape I almost recognized.

My mind formed gold eyes, gold threads on the sleeves of a black jacket...oily smile. Dulgar, and at least three of those bulked-up guards, who continued to pull him deeper into the corner. My light slid higher, looking at them from above, versus trying to penetrate that dense shield directly. Immediately, a view of the scene snapped into focus.

Dulgar, both arms held by security goons, was being hustled and dragged towards an organic panel embedded in that same segment of wall. Flashing the image at Revik, I grabbed hold of his shoulder, using it to climb rapidly to my feet.

“There!” I shouted, still half-deaf from the explosions. “They have some kind of escape hatch in the wall...”

“Allie, wait––”

But I was already launching my body after them, feeling more than seeing as a small panel popped open, sliding sideways in the wall. I could see it by then, too...with my eyes, I mean. Light poured out of the wall’s opening, illuminating dust fragments and smoke, giving that end of the floor a spooky, rock-concert feel. The hole itself was smaller than a regular door, but still bigger than I would have expected, maybe five feet tall and three wide.

Briefly, I saw Dulgar himself as he looked back at me, outlined in the illumination that poured out of the wall’s opening. Half of him was in shadow from being backlit, but his eyes caught the light, and glimpsing the gold irises, I knew for certain it was him.

The guards and Dulgar were already disappearing inside when Revik caught up with me. He tried to grab hold of my arm, to stop me.

“Allie!” he shouted. “Wait! We don’t know where that goes!”

“We can’t wait!” I snapped. “He knows who the buyer is! He knows where they’re going!”

“But Jon is downstairs...”

I hesitated, then motioned towards the terrace, switching to my mind.
You stay then, if you think they need backup. Balidor can finish here...you help Jon get the ones working the casino floor and the rooms.
Feeling Revik’s light heat up, I clutched his arm.
I got this. Promise. I’ve got access to the telekinesis again. I don’t need to fight his people...just get close enough to Dulgar to question him. Find out who he sold them to, and––

“No! No fucking way!” Revik caught hold of me for real that time when I started to move, then abruptly gave in, moving with me towards the wall.

I felt frustration ripple his light, but also agreement.

You’re right,
he sent.
We need him. I’m coming with you,
he added shortly.

I started to shake my head.
I’ve got the necklace––

“No.” He shook his head, adamant.
No fucking way. No separations...you promised me, Alyson. And anyway, Jon doesn’t need me. He has Maygar.

I started to say something to that, too, then didn’t, shutting my mouth.

Revik wasn’t about to compromise on this particular point, and really, I didn’t want him to. I agreed with him. He still held my wrist when we reached the organic wall, but released me when we both saw the panel door closing frictionlessly on invisible tracks. Jumping forward, I fought to grab hold of it with my hands...

...only to have it slide inexorably under my fingers.

It shut without me even slowing it down.

I cursed in Prexci, then turned.

Revik was already by the wall where the guards had been, prying open the panel with his fingers. Watching him yank down on a dead-metal plate to expose the squid-like tendrils of the organic circuits, I walked over to join him, staying behind the alcove to be out of the range of random gunfire, since the smoke made visibility pretty much shit, anyway.

Cover me?
he sent softly.

I nodded, throwing a denser shield over his aleimic form.

Watching him squint into the dim light exuded by the living organics, I grabbed hold of the necklace I wore, and yanked it off my neck. Once I had, I put my light into the organic strands, commanding them to reconfigure. Within seconds, they formed the shape of another tool, this one for manipulating filiament strands and equipped with a penlight.

Here, baby,
I told him, handing it over.
Use this.

He took it from me with a pulse of gratitude, then went back to working over the panel. Tossing the piece of metal he’d removed to the floor, he activated the light on the tool, peering in on the squid-like strands.

Fuck,
he muttered in my head.
I was never good at doing it this way.

Feeling him thinking about Garensche, I winced, remembering the big seer and how he died. I’d appreciated Gar while he’d been alive...big perverted weirdo that he was...but now that he was gone, I realized just what a genius he’d been with the machines. I realized that, in part, because there was a bunch of stuff we just couldn’t do now, or couldn’t do quickly, not with him gone. The only one who even came close was Dante, and she was human, so some of the Barrier stuff just went over her head.

Then don’t,
I urged him.
It’ll probably be faster to just talk to the damned thing, anyway. It’s what Gar would have done...

Nodding, Revik plunged his hand in the open panel, grimacing a little as he wrapped his bare fingers around the hanging organic strands. I clutched his arm, hearing the mind of the AI through Revik’s light––or cybernetic organism, really. I felt Revik was trying to reason with the thing, trying to coax it into seeing him as one of the Legion of Fire. I felt him telling the AI that its masters were in danger, that we wanted inside to help them.

The AI appeared to be skeptical.

Still listening to their strange conversation, I split my focus to keep an eye on our position, even as I densified the shield I was using to hide Revik’s Barrier work. With the smoke and the screaming and increasing automatic weapon fire, I couldn’t make out much, and I was hesitant to go into the Barrier any more than necessary. I knew their infiltrators would be looking for us by now. I didn’t want to risk some smarter-than-most seer putting two and two together when they saw us hovering over that organic panel.

So far, it seemed like they’d been a little too distracted with the anti-aircraft guns and the breach on the roof to give a damn about what we were doing. In the few glimpses I got of the room, mostly I saw people with soot and dust-smeared faces crouched behind white couches. Most of them looked scared out of their wits.

Next to me, Revik cursed.

Fucking thing is encrypted. Keeps asking me for my DNA password.

Can you get past it?
I sent.

I’m trying...

My eyes slid to the other end of the room, where the gunfire was getting closer. Black-clad soldiers of the Legion of Fire were definitely firing back at someone now. The anti-aircraft gun had quieted, too, so Balidor’s people must have reached the terrace.

Even as I thought it, I wondered where we might get a gun.

No, Allie,
Revik sent, obviously hearing my thoughts.
Stay here. I don’t want you wandering around looking for guns...