Allie's War Season Four (107 page)

“Fuck you,” Jon said, looking back at Maygar. “They have a right to know something, before we––

“Why
, in the name of the gods?” Maygar said, throwing up his hands. His arm knocked into the gun he wore, which looked strangely compatible with the aforementioned suit. “What difference does it make? You’re just going to make their brains explode!”

“We can’t just kidnap them.”

“But that’s exactly what we’re doing!” Maygar snapped. “No amount of sugar-coating will change that!
We
know it will save their lives, but do not expect them to understand that...not now, and certainly not here. It is far better to bring them on the ship, to explain things to them there. It will give them other humans to talk to, people they will trust far more easily than any of us. People who might just convince them we are not the ogres they have heard...”

“Says who?” Jon said. “Do I answer to
you
now? Because if so, I didn’t get the memo...”

“Says my dad,” Maygar growled. “And you know it!”

There was a silence.

Mostly because Jon was briefly shocked wordless.

He couldn’t believe Maygar just called Revik “dad.”

Clicking softly, Jon scowled then, looking at the humans swaying on their feet in that small section of carpet, then at the small ring of seers who stood to either side of him and Maygar. Jorag gave him a questioning look then. Reading the request in his light, Jon gestured an affirmative, even if he scowled as he did it.

Immediately, Jorag and a bunch of the other seers moved forward. Within seconds, they were leading the humans towards the exit nearest to the outside pier, assigning at least one seer to each human to make sure they made it safely to the dock and the waiting boats.

Jon gritted his teeth as he watched them go.

At a base level, he knew Maygar was right, but he didn’t have to like it.

“We could treat them like
people,”
he muttered. “Not like assets. Not all the time.”

“Oh, grow up!” Maygar snapped. “This is a military operation!
Gaos
you are a youngster.”

Jon stared at him incredulously. “I’m like...a
year
younger than you, dickhead. In seer age, that’s like, I don’t know...a month!”

Yumi gave Maygar a wry smile. “He’s got you there, baby Syrimne...”

Maygar scowled at Yumi, then deliberately blew past her actual words. Looking at Jon, he put his hands on his hips, clicking under his breath.

“How many more are here from this
dugra a’kitre
list of yours?” he said then, his voice gruff. When Jon didn’t answer right away, Maygar gave a light shove to his shoulder, motioning the same question with one hand. “...Brother? What are we doing here? Are we finished? Or do we go upstairs now?”

“Oh, I’m
brother
now?” Jon grumbled. “Not worm-boy?”

“Just answer the damned question!”

The truth was, Jon was already trying to answer Maygar’s question.

He looked out over the casino itself, which had already been mostly evacuated by the breach alarms. Blackjack tables stood with cards spread messily over the green felt. The slot machines stood silent under the high lights, looking strangely dead without anyone standing in front of them. Only a wall-height monitor continued to emit sound in periodic bursts, mostly showing off various tourist attractions in the resort and the surrounding city.

Jon found himself wondering where all of the people had gone, but could only feel the answer to that question in strange pulses through the mobile construct they all shared. He knew Allie supposedly knocked out the mafia’s primary construct, which might be making it harder to feel what was going on inside the building, too.

He felt a lot of the humans had retreated to their private rooms inside the resort, however.

Some had hopped boats for Hong Kong already, too.

Jon knew Shadow would feel Revik over here before any of those boats reached their destination, however. Whenever Revik left the tank, they always had a countdown running in the background, waiting for Shadow to find him.

That countdown seemed to limit his outings to two hours.

Well, almost three, if he was pushing it, but the Adhipan and Wreg’s security forces capped his outings at a hard, two-hour limit.

Which didn’t help Jon at all, in terms of knowing the location of the rest of the List humans staying at the casino. After feeling for Wreg briefly with his light, he worried again about the security of the construct and gave up, touching his fingers to the comm, instead. He hit through to the correct frequency in rote, then turned his back on Maygar and the others, walking a few feet away from where they stood. He stopped under an overhang between gaming tables, where he could see signs leading into some kind of bar or lounge.

He glanced down that darkened corridor as he waited, glimpsing a false front beyond that segmented wall, what looked like a strangely-proportioned replica of the front of the Taj Mahol. Written in neon script over that same set of double doors was the word: “Kolkata.”

Jon let out a low snort.

He didn’t know geography all
that
well in this part of the world, but he knew the Taj Mahal for damned sure wasn’t in Kolkata. He supposed most of the gamblers visiting Macau didn’t much care about that detail, though.

He started to worry when the pause lengthened before anyone picked up.

He felt a flush hit his aleimi then, right as another voice rose in his ear.

“You should use your light,” Wreg said at once.

“I know.”

“You’re supposed to practice...Adhipan has the construct up now.”

“Hey, bossy guy...I know. You’re Allie’s teacher. Not mine.”

“Even so. The boss is going to chew me out, if you don’t get better at this shit,
ilyo...”

“I know, I know. I’m being...distracted,” Jon said, using the subvocals as he glanced at Maygar. At Wreg’s understanding chuckle, Jon flushed again. “Have the others checked in? We’ve got four more here. 221, 110, 42 and 180, if I’m reading the light signatures correctly. Jorag and the others are bringing them out to the ferry now...”

“Confirmed. And yes, those are the right signatures,” Wreg assured him. “There are three more, according to Adhipan’s people. We’ve got two located in upper-level rooms. The third is in a cantina or something...some kind of bar. Not far from you, actually.”

He sent Jon a snapshot with his light. Receiving it, Jon nodded, staring again into that darkened corridor past the segmented wall. Looking at the torches flickering on either side of the double doors leading into that fake Taj Mahal, Jon nodded grimly.

“Okay, got it,” he said.

He could feel a few humans inside there now. So more than just their target.

It didn’t feel like enough to be a problem, though.

Wreg’s voice shifted, growing more serious. “But say, listen...let Jorag, Yumi and the others get those, Jon. We just got the word from Adhipan. You’re being pulled. He wants you and Maygar out of there.”

“What?” Jon frowned, looking away from the double doors. “What did we do?”

“You didn’t do anything, brother. These Legion of Fire fucks got Maygar nailed on the facial-rec. They know he’s Nenzi’s son. So the two of you get the one in the bar, since you’re right there...but don’t go upstairs. The boss wants you pulled.”

“Which ‘boss’ would that be?” Jon muttered, glancing at Maygar again.

Maygar scowled back at him, obviously wondering who he was talking to.

“I only talked to Adhipan,” Wreg said, smiling through the line. “But he’d just talked to Nenz and your sister, so it probably came from one of them.”

Jon nodded, still frowning in Maygar’s direction. “Okay.”

“Everything okay down there?”

“Yes. What about you?” Jon felt his mouth harden slightly. “It took you awhile to answer...”

“I’m fine, brother,” Wreg assured him. “Just coordinating logistics for Adhipan. I swear he gave me this job just to annoy me...”

Jon felt himself relax. “Okay, got it. And we’re coming in.” Smiling a little then, he clicked under his breath. “But can I have the others knock him out, before he gets on the boat?” Jon said, using the regular vocals that time and aiming his words directly at Maygar. “Or does he have to openly
resist
the order, first?”

Wreg laughed on the other end of the line.

Maygar gave him a vaguely confused but irritated look. “What the fuck are you talking about? Who is that?”

Ignoring him, Jon sighed again.

“Be careful,
ilyo,”
Wreg said then. “From what Adhipan says, this Dulgar wants little telekinetic seers of his own. If he thinks he can’t do this through your sister, he really might go after Maygar. So protect that obnoxious fuck, if you can. And tell him if he doesn’t behave, I’ll kick his ass myself when you get back here.”

Jon nodded. Signing off, he exhaled, fighting the part of him that wanted to worry about Wreg. After the barest hesitation, he walked back to stand by the others.

“We have to go,” he told Maygar.

“What?” Maygar’s eyes narrowed. “All of us?”

“No. You and me.” Jon looked at Yumi. “Balidor wants you and Jorag to take over.” Hesitating, Jon motioned with his head back towards the bar, then, making a split-second decision. “Oh, and there’s one more list human in that ‘Kolkata’ place over there. Maygar and I will bring them out. Then we’re heading back to the boat.”

Maygar frowned, but only nodded.

When Jon turned, aiming his feet for the twin torches guarding the eight-foot-high, garishly ornate, double, black and gold doors, Maygar adjusted the automatic rifle strap around his shoulder, and followed.

“YEAH, WE’VE GOT him,” I said. I turned my head, frowning over at where Revik had Dulgar against the wall. “Not like it’s done us much good...” I added a little bitterly.

I glanced at the clock embedded in the wall, and frowned again.

We were running out of time.

These days, it felt like everything we did revolved around that damned clock.

I couldn’t feel Shadow anywhere near us yet, but then, I never could. Not until he was here. It was like radio silence...than bam. Out of nowhere, he’d be after Revik’s light. Then we’d have to turn every infiltrator we had towards protective detail, and it still wasn’t always enough. The last time he got through, Revik was down for days.

More than that, we knew he’d be coming for us in the physical shortly after, too.

This time, we were too close to Hong Kong to have much of a window. We couldn’t play with the clock at all on this one, and we knew it. Even if we hadn’t known it already, Balidor had been hounding us on that fact for days.

I still wished I knew what the precise time thing was all about.

Something about that struck me as sinister, too...or maybe just bizarre. But heck, these days we were all running on a lot of guesswork when it came to certain things, which made all of us nervous. Revik joked that it just meant I was becoming more of an infiltrator.

Infiltrators tended to avoid and dislike “guesses.”

“Alyson?” Balidor said on the other end of the line. “What does that mean?”

I glanced around at the curved stone tunnel, grimacing a bit at the smell, which more than hinted at sewage, even though the water itself looked more-or-less clear. Seeing another guard carefully rounding the corner, walking along a ledge that rimmed the canal on our side, I refocused my light, briefly forgetting that Balidor had asked me a question. The guard was clearly trying to sneak up on Revik, who had his back to him.