Allie's War Season Four (190 page)

“And your name is?” the sheik pressed.

“You may call me Calyn.”

The male seer’s eyes turned shrewd once more, even as he scanned Revik’s aleimi a second time, more deliberately but still a bare touch. Revik saw a quick, more calculating assessment go through those dark eyes, right before he smiled more genuinely at Revik.

“Of course, my brothers, of course... I realize the delicacy of these things,” he said, holding out a hand in a respectful gesture. “Does your employer normally work through another trader?” he said politely. “Or am I merely to be chastised for my lack of observation? For I confess, I do not recognize either of you from these markets...”

“Yes,” Revik said simply, making it clear with his light that he had no intention of offering further information. “He normally works with another. Is that a problem?”

“Not at all, not at all,” the man assured him, holding up the same hand in another sign of peace. “You simply have me quite consumed with curiosity now, I confess...”

“Did you dispose of the real merchandise before we got here?” Revik cut in, his voice holding an edge that time. He threaded through a faint air of impatience, even condescension, sending the message that he was used to people reacting to him, and particularly to his employer’s name, in this way.

“...My employer will be most displeased, if that is the case,” he added. “He wished in particular for us to buy this Lao Hu consort for him. He was quite intrigued with the Barrier imprints we supplied him... as well as the specific flavor of her light, and expressed this sentiment quite openly. He also wished to purchase several other... items,” Revik said, biting down deliberately on the word, as if he found it distasteful. “...From your stock. Things that do not appear to be here any longer, either. Nor are there replacement items available that are of a high enough quality for what my employer requires.”

Revik saw a flicker of denser interest in those dark eyes now.

“Do you have higher quality merchandise, or not?” Revik said.

The man’s smile grew more obsequious. “He is aware, surely, that the prices for these items have gone up?” the man said politely. “In these trying times of scarcity, we all must––”

“He is very aware of that, brother,” Revik cut in. “Price is not... his primary concern.”

The male seer broke out in a much more genuine-seeming smile.

“Of course, of course... and I apologize for asking,” the seer sheik said, his voice sickly sweet once more. “It is just strange to me, that this employer of yours is so well informed in some respects... yet was not told of the presale for our more...
unusual
items.”

“He was not,” Revik confirmed. “...Informed of this. He has only recently relocated to Dubai, after many years of living in New York. This is my fault, I confess, for not doing better research before coming to my first sale in this part of the world.” Revik grimaced again, delicately, as if trying to keep it off his face. “They did such things... differently... in New York.”

He found himself hoping this asshole didn’t know anything about the markets in New York, because Revik certainly didn’t.

Understanding flooded the seer’s light at Revik’s words, however.

Along with that, some of the surface wariness dissipated.

“Ah! Well, that explains it, of course,” the seer smiled. “I had wondered.” He clicked under his breath, an overdone affect of sympathy. “It is a terrible tragedy, what happened to that once great city. So deeply horrible...”

“It’s an epic poem,” Revik said, his voice short in Arabic. “Brother, are the items in question still available? For I must answer to someone other than you, and he will not be happy that I missed this presale on his behalf, if it means he has lost his chance at the merchandise he so desired. Telling him that you sympathize about the loss of his previous home in New York will not appease him, I’m afraid... although I’m sure he appreciates the sentiment.”

“The female is gone,” the sheik said at once, smiling in apology. “Regrettable, but as you said, she was quite alluring. She was the very first item sold in our presale.”

“Who?” Revik said. “Who bought her?”

“You wish to buy her from him?” the sheik said, his eyebrows lifting.

“I feel quite certain that my employer will wish to make him an offer, yes. One he will doubtless want to consider.”

The sheik’s smile widened, even as a glint came to his dark eyes.

Revik could almost taste the greed he saw reflected there.

“He is a very wealthy client, as well, of course,” the sheik trader mused aloud, as if considering Revik’s words very carefully. “...and he, too, prides himself as a collector.” The man tapped his lips with a forefinger. “Still, he is not a man of sentiment in any way... and he, like all of our race, can be quite sympathetic to rational and well-funded appeals.”

He smiled at Revik, wide enough to show teeth.

Revik didn’t return it, or change expression.

Unable to get a response from him, the sheik shrugged with one hand, seer-style.

“For a small commission, I could
perhaps
facilitate such a thing,” he said carefully. “The buyer in question owns a club in Deira that is quite popular. He even mentioned to me during the sale that he thought your Lao Hu friend would fit in quite nicely there...” He gave Revik another smile, that one slightly more predatory. “No promises that he will be willing to part with her, of course, but I
can,
perhaps, provide an introduction there this evening, if you so desire...?”

Revik glanced at Dalejem, giving him a stare that made the other male flinch.

Revik didn’t linger on it, though.

He looked back at the male seer in the white robe.

“I do desire it,” he said, inclining his head, politely. “Set it up.”

29

DOPPELGÄNGER

SOMETHING ABOUT THIS whole situation felt irritatingly familiar.

Of course, it would help if I wasn’t vaguely worried about my spouse going homicidal any minute and blowing all of our cover, and likely getting himself shot down in the street for his trouble. Or the fact that an op that took us six weeks to plan got thrown completely off-playbook before we’d even breached the city limits.

Dubai itself was interesting, of course.

I’d never been here before. Then again, I didn’t really do a lot of traveling on my waitressing salary back when I lived in San Francisco, certainly not to places like this, which were expensive and exotic even before half the world had been wiped out.

So I was curious, sure.

Whoever this mystery guy was who bought me, he lived in the Burj Khalifa, probably the most iconic building in the whole city, even if it was no longer the tallest in the world.

It was iconic for a reason, I discovered.

I found my eyes returning there, again and again, looking up at it through the transparent dome of the covered walkway as we approached its glass-doored lobby. The high glass spire looked like an elongated pyramid, foreign and strangely timeless in the simplicity of its design, yet also evoking something high-tech and futuristic with all of that glass and steel and the carefully designed gardens that wrapped around its base.

Even beyond the Burj Kalifa itself, the landscape surrounding us proved difficult to ignore. I also couldn’t help finding it all weirdly impressive, despite the cloying heaviness of the construct and the fact that I knew slave-labor built and maintained most of what I could see.

Buildings appeared to float on a man-made body of water to our left, connected to the shore by small walkways surrounded by elaborate fountains. Some had white, ionic columns like something out of ancient Greece, while others I saw were almost hyper-modern, with egg-like, etched-glass domes that shone white and lapis-lazuli blue in the sun, glinting with crystals that might have been worked into the material purely to reflect sunlight.

The people appeared to be a mixture of local and cosmopolitan, too.

I saw what might be human or seer males walking around in more of those sheik outfits, most either blindingly white or pitch black. I also saw their female counterparts in burqas or some other variation of coverings made of elaborate veils. The people in that style of dress walked right alongside people of both sexes in modern, Western-style clothes, some of which were pretty danged revealing.

Palm trees lined the covered walkway where we strolled, along with more stone and metal sculptures, rows of fountains, and a moving sidewalk that cruised past us going both directions. The walkways carried yet more people, all of whom looked pretty relaxed.

But maybe having a limitless pool of slave labor and daily manicures did a lot to really chill a person out, even in the midst of a deadly pandemic and global apocalypse.

I was glad we were walking, not taking the moving sidewalks, even with the ridiculous clothes and even more ridiculous shoes I’d been forced to wear. I strode down that pristine sidewalk in what had to be six-inch heels that coiled around my ankles and up my calf, wearing a beaded dress that showed off more of my body than it hid.

Oh, and the collar, of course... can’t forget that. I’d really been jonesing for a few more hours in one of those fucking things.

On the plus side, it didn’t seem to touch to the parts of me I used for telekinesis, so I was pretty sure I still had options. I couldn’t test that assessment, not here or anywhere inside the construct... not until I absolutely needed it, anyway... but it was comforting to know they hadn’t planned for telekinetic seers. It also meant they likely had no idea who I was.

The beaded thing I wore, the fuck-me shoes and a different collar had been put on me in that underground room below the main auction hall.

At the time, I’d stood close enough to the open staircase that led up to the main auction area that I could hear bids being called out from the stage. I could tell we were in a basement below the main basement, but I definitely got the sense there were a lot of people up there, so the space must have been a lot bigger than where they held me.

I couldn’t help wondering if Revik was up there.

I pictured him standing in that audience, looking for me with a stressed out expression on his face and his arms folded as he glared at everyone else. I obviously couldn’t check with my light, but the image was disconcertingly clear.

I guessed I wouldn’t be allowed up there long enough to check for him with my eyes.

Unfortunately, I was right about that, too.

We should have expected there might be something like this... a presale, I mean. Hell, Revik told me about this kind of thing before, from back when work camps doubled as wholesale retailers to high-end customers. The richest of those customers often got first pick of the merchandise before it was offered to mid-range customers and below. Back then, that mainly meant major corporations, with a few excessively wealthy individuals thrown in, along with organized crime, oil and water barons and whoever else.

Come to think of it, these were probably a lot of the same people.

It struck me as both sad and funny that the “mid-range” clients tended to be things like, oh, say... human governments. The World Court. Big but not insanely big corporations. The low end of the scale consisted of everyone else. Wealthy law enforcement departments, prostitution rings, low-level corporate espionage. Run of the mill billionnaires.

No one else made it to the table at all.

But there would always be preferred buyers, apparently.

The uber-rich never liked mingling with the rest of the cattle... even if those cattle were people only slightly less uber-rich. It made sense to me that they would still stratify themselves, even when there was only a slave class beneath all of them.