Allie's War Season Four (184 page)

I had to smack his hands off me a few times as he took the opportunity to caress my bare skin under the water while I was fighting to get all of the equipment off him. Fighting not to laugh, in nerves as much as anything, I shoved at his shoulder to get him to turn around, and wrangled the oxygen tank off him, too.

He tugged and struggled his way out of the wetsuit while I held his pack, and then he was only wearing shorts. And yeah, it was distracting, even with him wearing prosthetics so that I could barely make out the real outline of his face. The blond hair was a trip, and kept making me stare, even as I checked his body while he got out of the last of the wetsuit, making sure he hadn’t rubbed off any of the prosthetics covering scars and other identifying marks.

The prep team had done a good job.

His back looked so smooth and unblemished it didn’t look like his at all.

I wasn’t even wearing the ring he’d given me. I’d given it to Lily to wear for me, before she left with her grandparents.

Thinking about her brought a tightness to my throat, so I shoved her out of my mind, even as Revik clicked his own pack around him, motioning for me to follow as he swam deeper under the pier.

Surli and Stanley mapped this area extensively, mainly for surveillance, although we had a pretty good idea of the physical layout, too. Motion detectors and image captures of various kinds littered the length of the pier itself, but Surli and Stanley had been tasked with clearing out a portion of the upper deck in the previous few days so we could slip through.

By now, they should have a few others with them, too, including Dalejem, Chinja and several more seers from the Children of the Bridge camp.

I wasn’t super thrilled about that, but again, I got the logic. Dalejem knew Dubai. He and a few of the others from their camp had also been here relatively recently.

So yeah, I just had to suck it up.

We got to the far southwestern end of the complex a few minutes and a number of swims later, including a riskier one that took us out into open water again and across the bows of several docked ships. The route we took should have been in a line absent of any direct surveillance according to the specs we’d been given, but yeah, it was still unnerving.

We took as many precautions as we could, including staying deep enough that we couldn’t be seen from the pier itself. As a result, although we stopped in the shadow of one of the larger bows to catch our breath, huddled on the side facing away from the nearest docks, both of us were panting by the time we made it to the opposite pier.

At least we were under the right one that time.

I found the ladder a few minutes later, and we both caught hold of the metal rungs. Revik nudged me to go first, so I began climbing up as carefully and as quietly as I could, hoping no one would be in the section of dock directly above.

Luckily, another ship was being unloaded on that side, too, one that looked like it had docked not long before ours, so there was plenty of camouflage. When I poked my head above the edge of the pier, the closest dock workers I saw were busy unloading crates a few dozen yards away, and not looking in our direction.

We’d been told by Surli and Dalejem that a good chunk of this landing area existed as a regular, old-school, open-air drydock prior to Dubai becoming a quarantine city. As part of the so-called improvements undertaken by Shadow, they’d covered the dock to make the port more secure. They’d also expanded it to about five times the original size and cleared a swath of land behind it to function as a safety perimeter.

That perimeter included a fenced off swath of beach armed with organic binary electric grids and land mines. The dock was accessible only by a secure, high-speed train now.

And by ship, of course.

Of course, they’d also expanded the organic binary electric (OBE) grid more generally, both on the land and ocean sides, to keep out rising tides and the increasingly erratic weather, as well as foreign and domestic enemies and carriers of C2-77. According to Surli, they’d begun giant construction projects in the past few months to expand the size of the city even more, as well as to lift the foundations on older buildings to protect them from erosion due to the gradual effects of weather changes.

Even so, Dubai was as much a fabrication as a reality.

From what I’d been told, there was very little “real” environment left here at all anymore, at least that would lend itself to an inhabitable city. The water all came from purified and desalinated seawater, all crops grown came from underground fields of reconstructed soil and genetically-enhanced seeds designed to survive on simulated sunlight and drought-level irrigation. All of the lakes and lawns and golf courses were entirely man-made, of course, and would have dried to dust in days without the extensive atmosphere-adjustment fields, crazy amounts of watering by the desalination plants. Shaded concourses graced most of the man-made structures, misting water down on the land and people below, pretty much 24/7.

Really, it was more of an amusement park than a city.

Now, with Shadow at the helm, it was a fortress in many ways, as well.

We’d discussed at a few meetings why Shadow would primarily choose coastal and island cities as the focal points of his quarantine zones, given the amount of maintainance involved just to keep them viable. Revik believed the choice had been deliberate. He explained Shadow would prefer that, primarily because the residents of those cities would forever be dependent on whoever owned the infrastructure, which would give him more control.

The location of Dubai itself also had strategic and economic advantages, partly because there was little danger of encroachment from the land. Although it couldn’t be cut off as easily as the quarantine cities in Tibet and some of the other regions taken over by Shadow’s people, it still maintained a lot of geographic privilege, in terms of its impregnability.

And clearly they had the money to keep it going, no matter how stupid or wasteful it seemed to me.

From what Surli told us in the last transmission before we left the carrier, Dubai definitely didn’t lack for cheap labor, either. He said they were bringing them in by the boatload, mostly from India and other parts of Asia, but also from the West and Africa. With the increase in construction projects, those shipments had grown more frequent.

Of course, they put them all through rigorous screening and protocol processes long before they brought them here, to make sure none carried the disease. They put them through the same on this side, as well, from what Dalejem said.

I peered over the top of the ladder, spotting the surveillance camera as soon as I looked up.

I stared at it, frozen briefly, then realized the light was off.

It appeared to be dead, just like it was supposed to be.

Taking another breath, even as Revik’s fingers circled my ankle in a silent question, I began to move, distengangling my foot from his hold carefully so I wouldn’t accidentally kick him in the face. Once I got to the top, I walked deep into the nearest row of storage crates, to get out of view of the open stretch of pier.

Looking back to make sure Revik followed me, I unhooked the waterproof pack and set it on the ledge of the nearest container once I saw him. I unzipped the bag to get at my regular street clothes, along with a headset, jewelry and the small gun I planned to carry. I’d already pulled the wet tank top over my head by the time Revik had his own backpack off.

He was staring at my bare upper body when I glanced up.

I smacked him again, clicking softly.

“Come on, pervert,” I whispered. “Mind on the job, okay?”

He smiled faintly, but shrugged, then slid out of his shorts, turning me into a hypocrite when I paused long enough to stare at him.

“Mind on the job,” he said softly, mimicking my voice.

I laughed, quietly, but kicked off my own wet shorts.

I used the small but highly-absorbent towel I’d shoved in the bag just enough to get off most of the excess water. I tossed that on the edge of the metal crate when I finished, then reached into the bag for a black, camisole-style top. It’d just pulled it over my head and arranged it awkwardly over my still-damp body when Revik moved suddenly, his motions jerky enough to bring my eyes over to the opening on the other side of the storage crates.

Seeing who stood there, I stiffened, even before I saw him staring at Revik’s naked body. He seemed to feel some element of my anger though, and clenched his jaw, looking away.

Revik continued to stand in front of me, shielding my own mostly-naked body, as Dalejem approached where we stood. The long-haired seer still hadn’t spoken. I saw his eyes flicker down Revik a second time. Watching him stare at Revik’s bare ass and cock more heatedly that time, I jabbed my husband pointedly in the back with my fingers.

Jumping a little, Revik turned, glancing at me.

Watching me finish pulling up my underwear, he colored a little at my glare and turned swiftly to block his own body at least partly from view. Without looking at either of us, he tossed the towel he’d been using on the edge of the container and reached into his bag, pulling out a pair of boxers and tugging them on hastily. I continued to watch as he found a dark t-shirt and yanked that over his head and back, as well.

I pulled my hair into a ponytail once I had my skirt on, squeezed it out as hard as I could, then wound it up into a tighter bun at the back of my head, to make it less obvious that it was wet.

When I saw Dalejem watching Revik again, I almost said something that time.

Before I could open my mouth, the other seer stiffened, turning back to face the end of the aisle of storage crates.

I barely had time to comprehend what he was reacting to, when Dalejem moved, swiftly that time, and nearly soundlessly. I was still tugging a shirt over my head when he appeared by my side. I looked up at him right as his muscular arm wrapped firmly around my waist, his hand squeezing my side once he had hold of me.

“Go with this, Esteemed Bridge, I beg you,” he muttered.

I turned, intending to elbow him off...when a shout rose from the other end of the crates.

I froze.

Before Dalejem caught hold of me, I’d been finishing tugging the stretchy shirt around my back, a shirt that still left some of my midriff bare under the cami, and now I realized I still looked half-dressed, given my lack of shoes and the short skirt.

Revik’s pants were half undone, too, but he seemed to be on board with whatever Dalejem was doing. I saw him move deliberately to block us from view, right before Dalejem used the hand and arm out of sight behind Revik’s body to shove our bags deep into the cracks between the storage crates, presumably so they wouldn’t be seen.

Once he had, Dalejem grasped hold of me tighter, and dragged me with him towards the opening in the aisle between the crates, where three uniformed guards now stood, along with a man in local civilian clothes who scowled at us.

“What the fuck are you doing down there?” he said, speaking Arabic.

“Brother, brother...” Dalejem said, raising his hand and speaking lazily in Arabic, just as the other had done. “Do not get excited, brother... we were only testing out some of the merchandise... it is a small thing. And here she is back with you, safe and sound...”

I stiffened in surprise, then softened my light all at once, melting my body into Dalejem’s side. I felt his light react, even as I felt Revik’s spark from behind me.

Before I could wrap my head around that, Dalejem’s hand wrapped possessively around my rear end, making me jump a little, even as his light flared again. That time, I couldn’t help but react with a corresponding flush of pain off my own light. I felt Dalejem feeding more light into mine as soon as I opened enough to give him the opportunity, likely to mimick that we’d shared light recently––which in no way made it any less unnerving.

Revik liked that even less.

I felt a flush of real anger off him that time, but the fact that we shared a connection made it difficult to tell how visible that was to anyone else.

Either way, Dalejem didn’t withdraw his light, and I kept mine open, too, which caused me to react to what Dalejem was doing to me even more. I felt Revik fighting to control his light again, even as Dalejem’s arm squeezed me tighter against him.

The male seer leading the soldiers––for he was a seer, I could see now, from his dark blue eyes with their odd, white flecks, and his height as we approached him––stared at us from the opening between storage crates. I saw him sum up the situation, right before he frowned, placing his tanned hands on his hips. He wore a white robe, like something out of a movie about oil barons or sheiks.