Allie's War Season Four (52 page)

He didn’t know if anything he said made sense.

Most of those words might have been her name, but he heard other things, too, from him and from the people standing around him. He heard Jon crying. He heard Neela, and Yumi...Wreg, Jax, Holo, Vikram, Chinja, Illeg. He heard Tenzi there, talking, but couldn’t comprehend his words, or even the language. Everything around him, even his own words, the things coming out of his mouth, felt completely disconnected from his mind, from the part of him that watched Balidor lay fingers on her throat, taking her pulse. Yumi did the same with Allie’s wrist on her other side, tears blurring the dark tattoo that covered half of Yumi’s oval face.

He couldn’t comprehend Balidor’s words when he next spoke, not at first. He didn’t need to comprehend them. He’d felt the change. He’d felt her go.

He’d felt her leave.

Cass was right. Whatever Allie had just done, it was deliberate.

Maybe not suicide, but damned close.

Revik could still feel those silver strands sparking in the further reaches of his light.

She’d kept him from being connected to them. She’d kept him out of all of it, really, made him a bystander. As much as he’d felt through her, she hadn’t wanted him along. She’d kept him out of that cold light, out of the construct, away from Shadow and Cass and Terian, even as she’d gone into all of those things herself...for what?

To leave him, maybe. Or, more likely, to try and kill Cass and Feigran and fail, like Revik tried to kill Menlim in South America and failed. Maybe she was just tired of being here, saw a faster and more efficient way out than the wires afforded.

None of those things sounded like his wife, but maybe he hadn’t known her as well as he’d thought. Maybe she wasn’t that different from him, after all.

He didn’t know what Allie had wanted, though, what she’d intended.

He didn’t know why she’d kept him alive, if she knew he’d only die anyway.

Revik couldn’t understand any of it. He didn’t even want to.

The screen had gone dark in the spaces between those moments. Revik didn’t know if Balidor, Garensche, Vikram and the rest of the tech team had done it, by cutting off Cass and Terian’s signal from the outside, or if Cass and Terian simply ended things once they got what they wanted. He didn’t even know for certain if Cass and Terian knew Allie was dead.

None of that meant anything to him anymore, either.

Nothing but his wife being dead on the floor mattered.

Nothing but the child he’d seen in that monitor mattered.

He knew, now, it would be a race. A race to get to them, to kill them and take his child back before Allie’s death killed him, too. He knew how long his own death would take. He knew exactly how long...from the last time he’d been cut off from her light, the last time her light had been severed from his behind the Barrier.

He knew exactly how long he had before the pain would grow unbearable.

He knew exactly how long before he wouldn’t be able to think clearly anymore.

He knew exactly how long before he started to lose control of his light. He even knew how long it would be before he couldn’t aim the telekinesis.

He wouldn’t wait that long, though, not for any of it.

He would leave tonight.

16

SAYING GOODBYE

REVIK HELD THE gun, willing his hand to still.

He didn’t quite manage to make it stop trembling, so he clenched his jaw again, maybe to compensate. It wouldn’t matter, he told himself.

He glanced around at the shelf filled with armaments, flashed briefly to when he’d last stood in front of a shelf like this with Allie, when they’d been getting ready to rob that bank and she kept touching him. He’d wanted to grab her that night, to pull her down to the floor, rip her clothes off right then and there, before they even left for the goddamned job. He’d known even then that he’d agreed to go with her partly because he’d take any excuse to be immersed in her light. She’d been driving him out of his mind for weeks anyway, hinting she wanted sex, half-seducing him without ever committing enough to give him a real excuse.

He shook his head angrily, fighting past the memory, fighting to see past the blur in his eyes, the light that wanted to blind him whenever he wavered in focus for even a few seconds. He snapped the magazine into the bottom of the gun, chambered a bullet, and clicked the trigger to enact the safety before he shoved it into a second holster under his arm.

Focus. He could do this.

He could fucking do this.

He glanced behind him, hearing a noise.

Wreg stood in the doorway. So did Jorag, Jon, Neela, Balidor.

Revik didn’t look at any one of them for more than a few seconds.

“You got the track?” he said.

His voice came out gruff, almost unrecognizable in his own ears.

“Yes.” Balidor stepped forward, his voice disturbed, low, borderline unstable. Revik blocked those things from his light, too, focusing only on the words. “...They’re in the north part of the city. Eastside. The building they call The Tower, near to––”

“Got it,” Revik said, pulling the image from the other’s mind.

At least they were still in New York.

He shoved a few more magazines into the pockets of his vest. The guns were just back-up, really. He knew if he had to resort to those, he’d really be on his last legs. Even so, habit brought him here first, maybe just to give him something to do while the others worked, getting him the intel he needed.

“You checked for reroutes?” Revik said.

“Yes, of course, Nenz.” Balidor hesitated, then gave an eloquent wave of one hand, even as his back straightened slightly. “...Cass didn’t appear to be hiding. It seems her initial words, about wanting to arrange a meeting of some kind, were more or less accurate.”

Revik nodded, once.

“Who do you want with you, Nenz?”

Wreg that time, speaking as quietly as Balidor had.

“...We thought we should armor up,” Wreg added, his voice holding a strange, faraway quality that Revik almost didn’t recognize. “...Whoever you want. The rest will work from here, on the construct, as well as Barrier defense. They don’t appear to have a lot of numbers, not at the Tower, itself...or much in the way of physical defense. A dozen or so guards below...another handful on the lower floors. One of those upgraded, sentient, AI OBE fields on the roof, another in the basement, cutting off sewer access...one at street level, too...”

Revik glanced over, and Wreg shrugged, one-handed. Next to him, Jon stood silently, his face cold and taut with lack of expression, as if frozen.

“...We think they’re banking on the construct for protection,” Wreg added, his voice still holding that foreign, distant note. “Like in South America. They don’t seem to think they need much else. We’re checking now to see if they have it attuned to you in some way, like before, when the telekinesis tripped it.”

“Where are we on cracking that?” Revik said. “Really cracking it?”

If his telekinesis ended up being useless, this would be a short trip, indeed.

“We can get you in,” Balidor said, speaking before Wreg. He cleared his throat, his voice quieter, but also denser somehow. “We were able to map quite a bit, Nenz, based on what...” He trailed, as if stumbling for words. “...the Esteemed Bridge,” he settled on finally. “What she illuminated for us, when she entered that construct...just now, when she attacked them, I mean. It was the best view we’ve gotten into one of their constructs yet...”

Revik turned at Balidor’s words, feeling his shoulders tense.

Looking over the line of faces, he suddenly saw Maygar there, looking paler than even Jon. Something in his son’s eyes reflected a little too closely the desolation Revik still felt seething in his own light, so he didn’t focus there long, either.

“Jon and Maygar, you’re with me.” Revik felt Wreg stiffen, and nodded in his direction. “Wreg, I’d like you to come, too. I’d prefer it if Yumi, Tenzi and Balidor stayed here to lead the construct team. I’d like Vik on communications here, too. I’d prefer Jorag driving...or Jax. Other than those I’ve named, I’d like to have Neela, Gar, Illeg, Torek, Deklan, Loki and Chinja, if that’s not objectionable to any of them. Other volunteers are welcome, but I’d like to keep it under thirty. Too many and it’ll just slow us down...and I doubt it will help us, anyway. If it comes to that, bring the flyers in from outside and burn the fucking place to the ground. That might still need to happen anyway.”

Revik scanned faces, his jaw hardening in the silence.

He didn’t need to say it. They already understood.

There was a good chance none of them were coming back from this trip.

If he couldn’t take Shadow and Cass out, he’d already given orders to Balidor to use the last contingency to take out their base in the event that he failed. That meant any building where they might be hiding, any ship they might be fleeing in, any submarine or land vehicle.

Anything.

Revik told Balidor to nuke them, if he had to.

For that reason, Revik deliberately phrased his personnel preferences as a request, not as an operational order. For this kind of run, he would take volunteers only, even in terms of Jon and Wreg. Seeing that understanding reflected in the eyes that met his, along with the answer that stood there, consistent across every face, Revik only nodded.

“Fine,” he said. He looked at Balidor directly. “Have transport ready, like we talked about. We might not need it, but it’d be nice to be prepared.”

“Of course, Illustrious Sword,” Balidor said, his voice holding an overt deference. “I will take care of it. As well as transport for your leadership team to the rendezvous.”

Revik grunted, flashing briefly to the two of them circling one another in the tank for some reason, when Balidor had threatened to kick the shit out of him...and Revik had told him he’d kill him the first chance he got. Pushing the thought out of his mind before he could follow the thread, or let himself remember exactly
why
he’d wanted so badly to hurt the other man, he turned away from the Adhipan leader.

Revik made his mind blank again, or as much as he could.

“Arm yourselves,” he said. Focusing back on the shelves, he made himself look at the guns lying there as he continued to speak in a toneless voice. “Say your goodbyes. Get whatever you need to bring with you. Take care of whatever you need to take care of before we go. I want everyone with me fitted with full combat tech.”

He picked up another Glock, opened and checked the chamber.

“...We leave in twenty,” he said, clicking it shut. “With or without you.”