Allie's War Season Four (122 page)

THEY ENDED UP using the elevator to go back up, too.

Loki decided on the tunnel initially, thinking it would be safer for the team’s exit. Yumi agreed. Something made Loki change his mind, though...some tightness in the higher areas of his light, which felt clear for the first time since he’d left the Chinook, maybe because adrenaline had finally penetrated the issues he’d suffered around the female human.

In any case, Loki had the team reverse direction, before they’d even accessed the tunnel.

He already had Anale and Mika jacking open the elevator doors, when Yumi pinged him via the link.

“Do not use the underground exit, brother. Repeat. Do not use the underground tunnel. Acknowledge receipt.”

“Acknowledged,” Loki said. “Can you tell me anything?”

“Reception party. We’re working on getting you more intel now...they have seers with them, so we’re working to crack the mobile construct they’re using.”

“What about elevator access?”

“Secondary team is approaching from the south and west. Advise leaving through the East Wing or the North Portico...”

“Government?”

“We think so, yes. But you understand they might not only be that?”

“Copy, and understood.” He glanced at the others, knowing they hadn’t heard him through the sub-vocals. “They have seers,” he told them through the link.

He felt Ontari, Holo and Rex all look at him.

Mika and Jax already had the doors mostly open.

Loki’s light stayed out of that part of the Barrier, even as he glanced at where Mika activated the power source on the semi-organic. The tool moved smoothly, almost like a living thing, forcing the heavy doors back open with a metallic screech.

They didn’t wait.

Loki’s team filed into the elevator even as Holo slipped quickly through the open doors and knelt down by the open panel on the inside. By the time Loki entered and moved to the back, Mika was already re-opening the secondary security panel while Holo worked quickly to reattach the power source via the squid appendages hanging out of panel in front, directly under the round buttons to the upper floors. The squids sparked with their own aleimic light as Anale and Holo spoke to them.

When the physical lights of the elevator flickered, then rose suddenly, Loki and the others raised hands in reflex, squinting and blinking up at the light.

Within seconds, the elevators began to move.

“Status?” Loki said through the link, talking to the carrier again.

Rex, Jax, Ontari, Illeg and Kalgi already had their weapons up, and faced the doors as the car rose through the sub-basement levels.

Yumi’s voice came through distant again, probably due to interference from all of the organics inside the elevator shaft and car.

“Four minutes before they breach the South Portico,” she said, her voice flickering in and out of his ear. “We count thirty infantry, dressed as SWAT. They could be police, but Balidor says they have a military imprint. He’s guessing Navy SEALs, from the aleimic signatures.”

Loki frowned, glancing at Rex.

Rex shrugged, smiling at him a little.

Loki had opened the channel so the others would hear Yumi that time, mainly to save time. When he saw the harder look in Rex’s eyes, he was strangely reassured. A lot of seers had a tendency to underestimate human-run military units. Loki knew from personal experience that it wasn’t always a wise attitude to take.

“Engage or avoid?” Loki asked Yumi. “Or are we too late for that?”

“They’ve got seers,” Yumi repeated. “At least four. You won’t be able to push them, Loki. Balidor advises avoid. We can see you now...you should have about a thirty second window to get to the North Portico if your elevator doesn’t malfunction. We can shield your trail for that long, we think. They’re already trying to hack the illusions we’ve put up around you, so they know enough to know you’re there. Balidor thinks it will take them at least three more minutes to make real progress...which might be enough. We’re in touch with Preela already...she’s standing by. She can’t come in too soon, so if we get cut off, she’ll wait for visual confirmation. They have RPGs, so she’s on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue...”

Next to him, Kalgi swore softly in Prexci.

Loki gave her a scarce glance.

“Understood,” he told Yumi. “Taking recommendation in full. If you talk to Preela, tell her we’ll be at the North Portico in approximately...” He looked at the clock inside his headset display, which he’d synched to the estimate for reaching the ground, based on the speed of the elevator going down with minor adjustments for gravity. “...Two minutes.”

“Will do,” Yumi said. “Take care, brother.”

Loki felt as much as heard the mental muttering sliding around the minds and lips of the group. He didn’t bother to answer Yumi, but motioned Mika to cut the security protocols entirely, now that they no longer had to worry about the alarms. She did, and all of them winced, feeling the silent alarm as a surge in energy through the organics, even as the elevator car briefly shuddered. It didn’t stop, though, which had been Loki’s only fear.

Now it would not stop them at the top floor and scan them, either, prior to opening the doors.

When they reached the ground level, Loki motioned for Anale to leave the power source attached. When the doors began to open, four of his people had already squeezed through and into the corridor near the kitchen before those doors finished disappearing into the walls.

Loki felt the difference in the nearby Barrier space at once.

He motioned for Anale to take the lead.

They began to jog down the center hall, single file, keeping against the walls and moving almost soundlessly as they aimed for the North Hall, only a few doors down. They turned into that opening at Loki’s soft prompt, then all of them were more or less running for the North Portico entrance, still moving quiet, and with Kalgi taking up the rear like before, with Loki not far from her.

Loki worried briefly that the entrance itself might pose a problem, but the bullet-proof glass doors to the North Portico entrance had already been blown out in some previous skirmish. The opening stood as a ragged, gaping maw, only slightly lighter than the shadowed interior, since the sun had already started to fall towards the horizon while they were below ground. Loki now glimpsed a pre-sunset sky tinged with pinks and oranges, even as sunlight itself continued to slant sideways over the lawns and driveway and Pennsylvania Avenue to the west.

Loki watched Anale and Rex disappear through that opening first, then felt a ping when they let him know they didn’t see or feel anyone waiting for them.

He touched his headset again, briefly. “Okay, Preela. Now would be good.”

“Roger that.”

She might have said more after that, but before she could get it out, gunfire erupted from the west, directly in front of where Loki stood.

Loki found himself shifting directions quickly, right before something pummeled into his shoulder, knocking him to his back. Next to him, he saw Kalgi fall, too, even as Mika dove behind cover in front of him, firing past the opening where the glass doors had once stood.

“Fuck,” Kalgi said next to him.

She was up again, and dragging him, even as Loki fought to regain his feet. She brought him around to the east side of the doorway, behind where Mika continued to fire. Loki gasped, got to his feet, and followed her, glimpsing through the opening where Rex and Anale were firing back at whoever was coming towards them from the west. Loki could see Kalgi’s free hand pressed against the middle of her chest, holding it as if in pain, but he didn’t see any blood. He assumed that, whatever her injury, it hadn’t penetrated her bullet-proof jacket or vest.

Looking down at his own shoulder, he realized he hadn’t gotten off so lucky.

“They’re packing organics,” he said through the link. “Armor piercing. Don’t assume the vests will hold.”

He felt the acknowledgment from Anale and Rex, then from Mika, Illeg, Holo and Kalgi. Raising his own rifle, Loki realized he couldn’t quite brace it with his injured arm, and slid it up against his hip instead, handling it with his right arm instead, which was awkward, since he usually used his left.

He could still shoot, but not well.

Even as he thought it, he realized he hadn’t heard anything or felt anything from Jax or Ontari since the engagement started. He turned, scanning lightly with his eyes and aleimi, looking for them as Kalgi fired through the opening with Mika and Illeg, who had joined them. Holo had already disappeared through the opening to reinforce Anale and Rex behind the stone walls leading to the steps.

Loki finally found Jax behind where he and Kalgi crouched, and near the main staircase in the foyer. Jax was trying to drag Ontari, who was probably twice his weight.

Loki touched Kalgi faintly with his light.

“I’m going back,” he told her.

Glancing over her shoulder, Kalgi frowned, as if about to protest. Seeing Jax then, she seemed to change her mind and nodded, seeing where Loki’s light pointed out Ontari’s weight. Being wounded, Loki figured it should be him.

He would not be much good to them on the line like this, anyway.

Kalgi let out a snort, raising an eyebrow at him.
I’d still take you on a bad day over most on a good one, brother,
she sent.

Loki smiled at her faintly, surprised at the warm words, then turned around, staying low as he approached Jax. When he reached the seer’s side to help him with Ontari, however, he froze, staring down at Ontari’s face. It was completely blown off. Loki knelt at once, checking the male seer’s pulse. He was dead. His light had shifted already.

When Loki looked up at Jax, he saw that the light in the seer’s violet eyes had receded to that other place once more.

Jax was gone, too.

Shell-shocked, as the old timers used to call it.

Loki had to wrestle with Jax to get him to let go of Ontari’s vest. He blew warmth at the younger seer’s light, even as he tugged at his fingers, trying to pry them off the fabric.

We can’t bring him, brother,
he told the other man gently.
We will do rituals for him...we will. But his body, it must stay here...

He’s on the List,
Jax sent, his thoughts dazed.

It is too late, brother,
Loki told him.
The gods love your devotion, but it is too late.

“Our ride’s here,” Kalgi said, tapping him through the link. “Out on the road. Move it, Loks. We need you, brother...”

“Understood,” Loki sent.
If there’s an opening, don’t wait for me...

Go fuck yourself,
Kalgi sent angrily.

Loki barely heard her.

He knew Anale had most of the materials they had brought up with them from the safe. They had given Mika some of it, too, just to spread it out somewhat, and Jax had some in his vest pockets, as well.

Loki looked down at the younger seer’s face again, and realized he had not succeeded in reaching him. Without thinking, he drew back his fist, and punched the East Indian seer in the face with his good hand. When Jax continued to grip the front of Ontari’s vest, Loki ripped his fingers off the other man, not doing it gently that time.

When Jax fought him, Loki hit him again.

He contemplated drugging the other man, using the painkillers from his emergency kit, when Jax suddenly seemed to snap out of it. Not entirely...that vacant look never really left his eyes...but enough that he followed when Loki yanked him down into a crouch and ran with him for the North Portico doorway.

When they reached that entrance, Loki felt the helicopter as much as saw it, even as he saw the RPG rise up from one of the small, black-clad dots hunched against the west wall of the main residence and the West Wing.

Releasing Jax at once, Loki pinged Rex to take him, even as he raised his sidearm, aiming at the male human with the RPG cannon. He immediately felt the pain of a seer trying to get into his light, but he aimed the gun with his left hand and arm anyway, gasping as he tasted blood in the back of his throat from the Barrier hits.

He squeezed the trigger even as the seer went after him again.

The man holding the RPG crumpled.

“Go!” Loki shouted through the link. “Now! Everyone go!”