Allie's War Season Four (79 page)

“She’s
teasing
you, sister,” Stanley said, clicking at Chandre softly. “According to Vikram, it is her favorite pastime with the techs...”

“We might have to train that hobby out of her,” Chandre muttered darkly.

That time, Stanley and Vikram both laughed, and Chandre was forced to admit defeat when she saw the kid grinning at her once more.

When Chandre motioned her sharply towards the door that time, however, Dante strolled through, giving Chandre a last smile before she focused back on the monitor still clutched in one hand. She walked through the doorway of the building without looking up from that monitor again, following the direction of the jerked motion of Chandre’s fingers. Surli went in next, then Damon, as soon as Chandre motioned for him to release the door, too. Chandre took Dante’s place by the door, standing guard as Yarli followed.

Chandre exchanged a quick look with Stanley then, who came in last, bringing Vikram in with him.

You really think he’s clean?
Chandre sent quietly.

Stanley gave her a brief look, then nodded, once.
I do, sister. He seemed genuinely worried about the girl. It seems that brother Jon made Dante his responsibility. He assumed her a captive...or dead, as he said.

Chandre exhaled, still feeling a few extra nerves tremble under her skin.
All right. Let him go once we get inside...but keep an eye on him. Did he track us through the girl?

Yes,
Stanley sent, promptly enough that he must have asked the question of Vikram himself.
He hacked her implant. When he let me read him, I saw that he didn’t tell the others he had such an implant on her. He seemed quite genuinely relieved to find Anale with us, too, and to find you in charge of our operation on the ground. He is confused, yes...but likely no more than the rest of us.
Stanley glanced back at her, flashing a white smile in the dark.
I think he had expected the worst, coming here...although he told Balidor where he was going.

Chandre frowned again, trying to think.

Do you know what the hell she is up to?
Chandre asked the dark-skinned seer, motioning towards the inside of the Tower.
The old woman. Tarsi?

No, sister,
Stanley replied. His trademark humor grew more prevalent in his thoughts.
But she certainly seems to know, so I’m willing to risk it. Or are you questioning her loyalty, too...?

Chandre didn’t bother to answer that.

Nodding, to herself that time and not in answer to his question, she found her mind drifting elsewhere again.

Any news on Balidor?
she sent to him next, frowning.
Ditrini?

Only what I picked up off Vikram, sister,
Stanley replied at once.
Nothing is changed from what I told you before. Yarli continues to monitor their construct when she can. She has a personal interest, as you may know.

Chandre nodded to that, too, feeling her jaw clench slightly.

They are still evacuating then?
she sent.

Yes, sister.

Did they know we are listening in?

No,
Stanley said. Pausing, he made a ‘more-or-less’ gesture with one hand.
I do not think so...not unless they suspect other eavesdroppers and are encrypting their communications even within their own construct, which is always a possibility. According to Yarli, that is unlikely. She is using a back-door frequency given to her by Balidor personally.

And what has she heard?
Chandre sent again, releasing the door behind her as she spoke.

The door began to close, leaving the hallway even darker than before.

They still think Ditrini took the Bridge,
Stanley sent.
They think he and Ute have kidnapped Tarsi and the girl, Dante...and stolen the Bridge’s body. They think Anale might have been turned and is working as an agent of Shadow.

Chandre frowned, glancing ahead at the tall, female seer who walked light-footed but protectively alongside Rig, who still held the body of the Bridge. Anale walked soundlessly, a gun in her hand, a gun she aimed down the dark corridor leading to the lobby.

They were inside the building’s back foyer now.

Still frowning, Chandre continued to walk down the same hallway. Once the door clicked shut completely behind them, the hallway fell into pitch darkness. Within a few more steps, they reached the edge of the front foyer, where the ceiling opened up, and Chandre found herself standing in a dimly lit alcove, just behind the building’s main security station.

Through the open wall in front of them, Chandre saw soldiers in military uniforms, holding much bigger guns than the ones they carried.

Not many soldiers, though, she noted, and the tanks had apparently moved on...perhaps to join the others by the hotel. Chandre watched as Anale ventured carefully into the main lobby, sticking to the shadows by the wall and holding her gun out in an openly ready position. She left Rig, the Bridge, Tarsi and Varlan standing just behind and to the left of the security desk, and under full cover from those soldiers stationed out in front of the Tower.

Chandre blinked into the dim lighting of the high-ceilinged main lobby, and then down at floors covered with expensive and real-looking stone tile.

In front of her, just visible past the L-shaped bend in the corridor, Chandre could see two rows of elevators, in full view of the security station.

But that wasn’t what caught her eye.

“What the
dugra a’ kitre
happened here?” she muttered.

Copying Anale, she raised her sidearm to shoulder level, pushing Tarsi deeper into the alcove behind the security station before signaling Varlan to stay with her. The older seer nodded, his violet eyes shining faintly in the dim light through the shattered transparent wall that had once faced the park. Chandre felt her whole body tense when the sound of engines and machinery grew audible on the street outside. She could tell by the sound that whatever they were, they were still a few blocks away, but moving closer, and at a relatively fast clip.

She looked back at the floor of the lobby, trying to think.

Dead bodies lay just in front of the security desk, too.

In death, Chandre couldn’t tell at first if they were human or seer. Finally she noted that a few of the taller bodies lying nearby wore slightly different uniforms from the other dead bodies on the stone floor. She pegged those taller corpses as belonging to seers, and once she noted the difference in uniform, identification of race grew easier.

Almost three dozen bodies spread across the room as a whole, or so she estimated from her cursory scan. Only about a quarter of those were seer.

She knew she was stalling though. She had to think faster.

Chandre watched Rig walk gingerly around a few more bodies that lay collapsed along the wall, still holding the Bridge carefully in his arms. She motioned for him to stay still, then did another visual sweep of the room, before frowning at the jacked open elevator shafts. She looked behind her then, for the doorway to the stairs. That door had bullet holes in it as well, and the handle looked misshapen, as if it had been melted into some perverse shape.

Looking down the next corridor, Chandre saw what might have been a second security staircase. That one’s door remained ajar. A dead body propped it open in that state, the body crammed sideways into the opening and covered in enhanced Kevlar. Chandre saw more bodies by one of the elevator shafts, along with at least one gun that appeared to have exploded, leaving black scorch marks and broken tile.

She caught Dante’s face then and winced, seeing how pale the kid had gotten as she stared around at all of the blood and death. The greenish glow of the monitor she held made her look ghostly in the dark, and even paler than she’d looked outside. Chandre saw her full-lipped mouth firm, a sickly expression on her face before she looked away from the nearest of the fallen bodies. Chandre followed where the kid’s eyes had been staring, seeing the bullet hole in the female’s head that had exploded out the back of her skull.

“Which way, old woman?” Chandre said, swiveling her gaze to Tarsi. She used the link, switching to subvocals to remain silent. “Up or down?”

The woman seemed to think for a moment.

Up,
she motioned in sign language.

Chandre frowned. From the open elevator shafts, it sure as hell looked like the Sword and the others had gone down. And that’s where the construct seemed to be the most intense, from everything Varlan and Yarli told them outside.

“You sure about that?” she said.

Up,
Tarsi repeated with gestures, no doubt in her expression.
I am sure, little sister.

Chandre couldn’t help snorting at that.

“All right,” she said through the link. Chandre realized with a vague kind of defeat that she’d already decided to follow the old woman, whatever fool place it led them. She motioned at Anale, then at Varlan. “Stairs. That one.” She motioned for the second staircase she’d found, the one with the body propped in the opening. “The other one’s blocked. Some kind of fire happened down there.” Seeing the blank look on Anale’s face, she frowned. “Now. We don’t have much time. Same order as before, sister, if you please.”

Anale’s expression cleared. She nodded from where she stood by the edge of that shattered entryway. She touched her ear then, igniting the headset, even as she switched to subvocals.

“We’ve got maybe a minute before they next group gets here,” she told Chandre.

“Same affiliation as before?” Chandre asked.

“No.” Anale shook her head. “Looks like that bunch went to the hotel, just like we thought. This is more SCARB...less FEMA and federal military. This lot might be going to the hotel too...or trying to cut off retreat and evac.”

Chandre saw the female’s gold eyes glance around the silent foyer.

“...This place looks dead to me,” she said. “Like the fight’s over.”

“Or moved elsewhere, perhaps?” Varlan suggested, also on the link.

Chandre didn’t answer, but felt her jaw harden. “My order stands. The elevators are out of the question, the main staircase is blocked, and we can’t stay here. They’ll scan the lobby as they pass. They’d be stupid not to, if they have people inside.”

Anale nodded. That time, she picked her way rapidly across the room, reaching the door to that secondary stairwell, even as Stanley and Damon finished lifting the body silently out of the opening where it had been stuck while Vikram held the door. Chandre watched them carry it to the wall on the side of the security desk, laying it just as soundlessly next to a body short enough to be human, although it wore one of the uniforms Chandre ID’d as seer.

Then again, maybe the uniform meant something else.

And maybe it didn’t really matter at this point, anyway.

Sending up a brief prayer for the souls around her, Chandre motioned towards Anale a second time, using hand signals to indicate she should light the way.

“After you,” Chandre said through the link.

Giving her a curt nod, Anale did as Chandre asked, still holding her gun out in front of her. She paused long enough to touch her headset. Once she was out of the view of the street outside, and therefore the uniformed soldiers, she activated a second switch, bringing up the sharp, blue-tinted light embedded in the right shoulder of her armored vest. The light illuminated the staircase and another body that lay there, which Anale stepped over after barely a glance. Chandre watched as the female seer began to creep quietly up towards the first landing.

She waited for gunfire, for any sound that indicated they might have company, but heard nothing. Well, nothing but the occasional chirp of a radio on one of the soldiers out front, and what sounded like a tank approaching on the streets outside.

Glancing around at the walls, Chandre noted that the Sword had already destroyed the main surveillance system. She couldn’t feel any others, nor could she pick them up on her portable frequency scanner.

“All right,” she said, exhaling a little into the link. “Everyone else.” She gave Dante a pointed look. “Keep the light from that monitor out of sight of the street, girl. In fact, turn it off until we’ve got the doors closed behind us.”

That time, Dante didn’t argue. She dimmed her hand-held at once.

Glancing at Rig next, Chandre told him, “Let us know when you need one of us to take the Bridge, brother. Don’t let yourself get overtired...we will all take a turn, if necessary.”