Allie's War Season Four (61 page)

Without fanfare, the entire building, all seventy-five stories, went dark.

It didn’t occur to Jon until a few more seconds passed that Revik had done that, too.

Jon felt Jorag’s fingers tighten on his arm again, felt wonder from him and the other seers, even as Jon continued to focus on maintaining the shield around Revik. He noticed that Wreg, Neela, Loki, Illeg, Torek, Chinja and Jax had stepped back from Revik, too, literally and figuratively giving the Elaerian space. Not out of fear of him...it felt more like they instinctively gave him the space to work. Revik worked even now, Jon realized, even as the Dreng’s construct rippled around them in a stuttered, disjointed attempt to recover.

Revik’s mind didn’t swerve from that unnerving focus; if anything that sharpness grew more pronounced as he trained it on aspects of the building and the surrounding Barrier space that Jon himself couldn’t see.

A bleak attempt at humor managed to insert itself into Jon’s mind.

Well, that was something.

They’d managed to snap Revik out of his fugue state.

19

PAINT IT BLACK

JON FOUND HIMSELF following warily behind Revik, a gun gripped now in both hands.

Revik walked straight through the now-shattered wall, entering the lobby of the Tower, his irises the only light Jon could see. The Elaerian barely seemed to notice the rest of them now, unless he needed something.

Even as he thought it, Jon saw him click his fingers, motioning sharply to get them to step back from a camera embedded in one wall, right before it exploded, showering sparks and a flaring, yellow-white fire. That fire erupted quickly then died down.

Jon flinched with the others, but didn’t lower the gun. His main focus remained on the shield, even as he broke into a trot to keep up with Revik.

Guns went off a few times, mostly from Wreg and Jorag, who’d taken forward positions and picked off the few guards who’d appeared on the lobby-level floor.

The elevators were all down of course.

Jon wondered about the cameras...then figured Revik knew what he was doing as he continued to melt and rip them apart as he passed. Maybe they had some kind of battery inside, or a separate power source Revik hadn’t yet figured out how to disable.

Jon heard a series of sub-vocals in his headset, but most of it didn’t pertain to him, and more created a kind of background noise as he watched Jorag drop another guard who came out of door marked ‘STAIRS’ behind the security station. That time, Jorag used a knife, maybe because he was too pissed off to want to shoot him. Either way, it was over quick, and the tall seer left the body by the desk that stood between two long banks of elevators.

Jon found himself listening to the back and forth in the headset again.

“...Security teams are deploying, sir,” Vikram sent. “I see mostly organic rifles, but a number of grenade launchers and at least one flame unit, probably napalm or one of the chemical variants. At least twenty, sir, coming up the stairs...”

“...Looks like you disabled the gas lines,” Balidor added through the same channel. “We can see a lot more now that the main grid is down. That Barrier snapshot you sent us just got converted over...we have two of the engineers from Arc going over it now...”

“...At least two armored vehicles approaching from the northern part of the city,” Torek said in his English accent, from a different part of the hotel. “Deklan and four of the other infiltrators here tell me they recognize the base as mostly SCARB, non-New York, so World Court branch, moved here in the last few months. He said to expect anti-aircraft. Tanks, maybe...”

Jon began filtering words out once more, catching fragments of other communications between the seers on the ground and those back at the hotel, but keeping his mind focused on Revik’s. As a result, he fell a half-step behind some of the back and forth. He was still wondering if they’d take the stairs, when Revik glanced at Wreg.

“You feel it?” he said, blunt.

Wreg nodded. “Twenty more,” he said. “They’ve got teams at six different levels below ground now,” he added. “Tick-tock, boss. They might be supplying an exit for the others.”

Revik nodded, once.

Jon felt glimmers of what they meant. He saw seers and humans in combat uniforms, filling several stairwells and the landings of the floors Wreg had pointed out from behind the shield. More than what Balidor had indicated from their preliminary reports. Jon felt Revik flash the same snapshot to Balidor, along with a brief impulse to the group.

I’m taking out the mains. There are structural supports down there. Watch the floor...

They’ll be impassable...
Jax pointed out.

That’s the idea,
Revik sent, giving him a sharp look. His eyes shifted to Loki, then to Wreg.
Two teams...Loki, keep the split. I want Wreg with me.

Jon noticed Wreg didn’t need to be told.

The Chinese-looking seer already started jogging towards the nearest bank of elevators, whistling and gesturing sharply for Chinja and Neela to join him as he broke into a run to reach the row of silver-colored doors. Loki took Illeg and Torek to another set of elevator doors, two down from the one where Wreg and Chinja worked. Jon overheard them talking inside their own, small construct that time, but only in passing.

Start on number four,
Wreg said to Chinja, indicating towards one of the elevators.
Any with cars stuck on the upper floors...

Shouldn’t we go for those with lower-level cars?
Illeg sent. She didn’t slow her strides to Loki’s side. She grabbed hold of the opposite door from what Loki held, jamming her fingers into the crack between doors as he managed to separate them.
...What if they get the power up again? Easy way to knock us back out, to come down on our heads...

Wreg shook his head, even though the other seer couldn’t see him.
We don’t have time to fuck with getting around a car. We’re going all the way to the bottom, sister...

Understood,
she sent at once.
We’ll do the same.

She hadn’t stopped working in all that time, Jon noticed.

Jon listened to them with part of his mind, watching as Jax joined Wreg with some kind of crow-bar type tool, even as Torek did the same with Loki and Illeg. Jax jammed that same tool into the opening they created while Neela, Pagoj and Raddi covered both teams with rifles. Jon saw Neela’s eyes had gone as hard as glass now, too, and felt the anger on her, along with pulses of Garensche’s light. The two of them had been friends, Jon knew.

He swallowed, fighting back the revulsion he felt around already thinking of the giant seer in the past tense.

Jon continued to hold his own Glock up, covering Revik from as many sides as he could with Jorag while the others worked.

It struck him again, how chaotic this was, yet weirdly synchronized. Normally, Revik planned everything down to the most minute detail. This op was pretty much happening on the fly, with plans being made in real time, as it unfolded.

He couldn’t quite wrap his head around what Revik himself was doing...not until the tiled floor began to shake under his feet, nearly throwing him into Revik’s back. The low, deep-feeling concussions grew more intense, not less, as the seconds passed. They started coming closer together, too, leaving shorter gaps between shakes. One of the more violent ones knocked framed art off the wall behind the security desk, and set off a distant fire alarm.

After another, long-feeling pause, an even heavier rumble shook the tile under Jon’s feet.

Louder than the others, it shook the walls, hard, blurring Jon’s vision.

For the first time, he lost his balance for real, falling into a potted tree. He let go of the gun with one hand to steady himself on the wall beside one of the elevators, still aiming the Glock in the direction of the security station as smoke began streaming from under the stairway access door. Jon could feel the screams now.

Well, he assumed he could feel them and not hear them, since the seers and humans he could see looked far away to him, trapped inside that concrete set of landings.

Revik had taken the time to melt the door locks on all of relevant floors, too. Most of those floors seemed to be under them still.

“Fuckers,” Jon heard Jorag mutter under his breath from his other side. “Serves them right. Hope they rot in the filth of the Dreng when they reach the other side...”

Revik gave him a swift, borderline censoring look.

He didn’t speak, though.

With his glowing eyes, Revik looked ghost-like, almost unreal.

He still throbbed with excess light; the Dreng hadn’t yet managed to find or cut off his source, whatever it was.

Jon saw more smoke start to pour through the cracks around the staircase door and shifted his eyes nervously around the giant, three-story lobby. Even if Revik succeeded in cutting off the other teams, Jon hoped Wreg and the others were almost done. Something was coming. He could feel it all over his light.

They’d already broken themselves back into the two teams, like Revik instructed. Jon felt himself being assigned to the first of those, along with Revik, Wreg, Jorag, Maygar, Jax, Neela and Chinja. The second team, led by Loki, included Torek, Illeg, Mika, Poresh, Garend, Raddi and Pagoj, along with Oli, who’d insisted on coming with them as well.

Jon watched the second team as they continued to jack open the doors, and wondered if he’d ever see them again, once they reached the bottom.

Both Wreg and Loki had their respective elevator doors locked open now. With the help of the others in their teams, they began attaching heavy metal hooks to the side of the walls, embedding them there with what looked and sounded like a high-powered nail gun.

“Structure’s holding...” Balidor reported through the link. “We count sixty dead...a number got through on sub-five. They’re looking for a way around now...”

“Have they breached any of the elevators?” Wreg asked on the same link, peering down through the opening he’d created in the doors, his gun held out in front of him, pointed into the darkness. “We’re using shafts four and six for descent...that’s counting from the stairwell, south side of the building...”

“So far, no elevators jacked,” Balidor said at once. “We’re not seeing any secondary power sources attached to those, either. We’ll keep an eye out for any movement in either direction, but we have reason to believe they can see you, even if they haven’t penetrated the shield. Look for flyers, if you can, but I wouldn’t tarry there long...”

Tarry, Jon thought.

Every now and then Balidor still sounded like he came from a different historical period, maybe a different continent. Then again, he did. On both counts.

“What’s the progress of the group on the street?” Revik said. “The tanks you mentioned?”

“Twenty minutes out,” Tenzi answered.

“Any news on Surli?” Revik said. “Tarsi?”

A brief pause sent the links into silence.

“No,” Balidor said then. “We’ve got Ullysa working on that. Argo’s with her.”

“Understood,” Revik said. “Let me know when you’ve got more on the construct below the sixth sub-basement level. And any exits. I need progress on that...before we walk into it blind. If they slip out of here, and out of range of our nukes, it’ll all be for nothing...”

“Of course, sir,” Vikram said. “Right now, we can’t see past––”

“Two minutes,” Revik said, cutting them off. “We’re leaving now. If we lose contact down there, I want you to start the evacuation...” Revik’s eyes swiveled to the pried open elevator doors. “Where are you with it Wreg? Loki? Are you making me a liar?”