Allie's War Season One (158 page)

I focused on an image of my face, which reared up in VR.

“…Called only ‘the Bridge’ by seer religious fanatics, Taylor has been known to incite violence and other forms of fanaticism in the seer religious community since her true race was discovered last year. Masquerading as a human prior to her discovery, Alyson acted as a sleeper agent in San Francisco, where her identity is now believed to have been protected for over twenty-five years by her adoptive human parents and brother, as well as a number of her friends, now believed to be sympathizers to the seer cause...”

Donna put on her serious face as the cameras zoomed in on her enhanced avatar. I noticed it shaved a good ten years off her real age, as well as giving her a nose job and fuller lips than the woman I’d met in person.

“…The question everyone is asking is, is Alyson truly telekinetic? Is the real reason the seers are protecting her so that they can use her as a weapon against the entire human race? It is a question that might force some tough decisions in the military leaders tonight, especially given the history of the last known telekinetic seer…”

Hearing the blades of helicopters, I looked up once I realized the sound wasn’t coming from the broadcast. Tearing the headset off my ears, I watched a small formation of military helicopters skim the grounds, passing from the north to the south side of the main building in a diagonal line.

Ducking out of sight in the shadows, I turned to Ullysa, hesitating before looking back at the White House itself.

I thought about the feeds, the number of marines and Sweeps headed our way. They might have visually enhanced the number to put on a good show, but somehow, I doubted that the reality would be far behind.

I handed the headset back to Tobias. It wouldn’t help me, not anymore.

“You three go ahead,” I said. I kept my voice low, looking between Ullysa and Tobias. “I’ll find him. I know the layout. It’ll be faster if I go alone.”

“Allie, no!” Ullysa said. “That is crazy!”

“I can’t leave him here!” I said in a loud whisper. “Do you understand? I can’t do it! So either shut up, or
help me,
goddamn it...”

The three of them just looked at me.

Then Tobias gestured in affirmative, glancing at the other two.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll come.”

I looked at Kat. Briefly, I thought about protesting her inclusion. She jutted her chin, and I could see on her face that she fully expected me to leave her behind.

But fuck it. Maybe she’d go down in the firefight.

She surprised me, grinning. “That’s the spirit, Bridge.”

“You’d better stay out of my line of sight,” I warned.

I expected this to piss her off, but instead she surprised me again, grinning wider.

She said, “You sound just like him, you know that?”

I pretended to ignore that, too, but it made my heart hurt anyway.

We made our way through the garden, heading for the rounded portico of the South entrance. We crouched in the shadow of trees, outside the ring of illumination created by the lights ablaze on the lower floors. We hadn’t yet gotten up to make our way back to the East Entrance when the planes came roaring back. Before I could let out a sound, Tobias grabbed me around the middle, pulling me back, deeper into the grounds, sheltering me with his body.

I struggled, fighting his hold. Fear slid to the forward part of my light; I knew what was coming, I could feel it.

“They’re going to bomb it!” he said in my ear.

The scream of the falling bombs slowly built in sound until I couldn’t hear anything else, not even my own anguished yell. Tobias was right; they weren’t just going to hit the grounds, or even the surrounding areas.

It wasn’t the four of us I was yelling for, though.

The unreality of what was happening got overshadowed by my terror about what it meant for me.

They were bombing the White House. And he was inside.

TERIAN FELT IT again.

Something in his light seemed to phase out.

Then it came back, as if on its own. He found himself staring up at the ceiling, as if he might see the construct through the very walls.

Even as he thought it, the sound came again.

Impact concussion...some kind of explosion, and it sounded like it came from directly overhead. The lights flickered again, going from the orange of the emergency lights back to the white lights of the corridor...then back again.

It mirrored the strange phasing occurring in his aleimi.

The white lights rose slowly, until the room appeared ordinary once more.

Terian blinked, adjusting his eyes to the sudden brightness. He wasn’t really worried about the walls caving in, not down here.

It had been the easiest thing in the world to turn the power off downstairs, then to convince the humans they were under attack, that they needed to evacuate the capital buildings at once due to the threat of terrorist seers.

Who knew he’d actually be right, and in so short a time.

Revi’ really hadn’t been screwing around, in his attempt to get Alyson back. Blinded by emotion or not, he’d coordinated this operation more like a military maneuver than his usual one-man frontal.

Terian could only suppose he’d had help, and help on a seemingly significant scale. He should have remembered his old partner wouldn’t be the only seer deeply motivated to liberate their precious Bridge.

Even so, from all appearances, Revi’ appeared to be holding more of a grudge than usual.

The entire cabinet, along with Wellington himself and Xarethe, had been disappeared almost two hours ago, along with a handful of aides. Everyone else had been sent home, some with police escorts or even Sweeps. Once the perimeter breach had been confirmed, the entire grounds were evacuated of staff.

Thanks to Terian also, Travers and his little entourage hadn’t been able to be found, of course, and their vehicles were moved to avoid suspicion. Now they were listed officially as “hostages” of the seer terrorist army.

Terian had been looking to replace Travers almost from the moment he’d taken the official oath. He’d let that little charade of his go on for months, knowing it might come in handy one of these days, to get the little toad to resign, if nothing else. It certainly had proven useful in the end, however.

Wellington’s team went out through the upper basement, taking a set of bulletproof SUV limousines to a safe location on the other side of town. The bunker-like facility, housed under another fifteen feet of solid concrete, reinforced steel, the gaze of a few dozen of their best seers...and, of course, a small nuclear arsenal at their immediate disposal...remained virtually impregnable.

He didn’t have long to wait now. He could feel it.

Whatever else, he knew a few bombs wouldn’t discourage his old friend, not if he were feeling motivated...which Terian had no doubt he was by now.

He heard the beep through his implants when the elevator hit the bottom floor, smiled when he saw the stats of the car’s occupant. Lighting a hiri, he leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the old-growth redwood table and crossing his ankles.

Ashing on the White House floor, even in the technically nonexistent underground compartments, gave him a perverse sort of thrill, even now.

He waited until he felt him heading in his direction. Then he sent out a ping with his light, letting him know exactly where he was.

He was still leaning back in his chair, a drink in hand, when Dehgoies walked into the room, gun held out in front of him. He entered slowly, checking the corners, moving from a combat crouch. He still limped, of course, his leg not fully healed from the gunshot wound a few weeks back, but his essential grace remained intact. His face appeared focused, emotionless, but Terian found himself smiling anyway. He held out his arms half in surrender, half in affection.

He knew the look in those eyes again.

For the first time in over fifty years, he could see his friend.

“You killed the boy?” he said.

He heard the triumph in his own voice.

Dehgoies didn’t answer, but Terian grinned anyway, holding his arms wider.

“Don’t shoot, pardner,” he said. “I surrender.”

Revik shifted the aim of the gun.

He fired before Terian could blink.

The force of the shot caught Terian off-guard, particularly from such a small gun. It knocked his leg off the table, making him question the wisdom of propping his legs in the first place. It nearly threw him out of the chair.

He gasped, gripping his thigh, staring at the blood squeezing between his fingers. The Elaerian had hit him in the leg...the same leg and the same place Terian had ordered his men to shoot him a few weeks back.

Despite the force of the shot, the bullet remained in his flesh.

“You want to fuck with me right now?” Revik said. “Really? That seems like a good idea to you?”

 
“Wait!” Terian held up his other hand. “Dehgoies...my friend. Calm yourself, please. I can explain...”

“You can explain.” The light eyes turned predatory, threaded with a violence that stood on the surface. “You can explain stealing my wife. Beating her…
raping
her. Explain that to me, Terry...I dare you...”

“I knew who you were,” the Scandinavian said. He spoke quickly, before the Elaerian could shoot again. “Don’t you see? I knew. I was trying to
help
you, Dehgoies. I knew you wouldn’t get there on your own...”

Revik pointed the gun at his face.

“Gee,” he said. “Thanks, Terry.”

“I suspected the truth...not long after I found the boy.” Terian held his hand higher, a plea for peace. “It was subtle at first...but there was just too much of
you
in him...too many freakish, Dehgoies-like similarities to count. I found some of the blood of the original Syrimne, which helped...”

Seeing that the other seer was listening to him at least, he lowered his hand, long enough to take another fast drink of scotch.

“...Then I realized why
I
knew him so well...what had happened to the Revi’ I once knew.” He pursed his lips. “You know...my best friend? The one those fucking Seven assholes murdered to ‘save his soul?’ When Galaith and Vash made their little pact...hell, they already
had
the boy. They’d created him and locked him in that mountain. They’d buried fucking
Syrimne
in that dungeon, a being who did nothing but fight for our people. What kind of gratitude is that?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Revik said.

But Terian saw it in his face.

He was listening. At least some of this was sinking in.

He shrugged with his free hand, his eyes flat.

“So they had the boy already,” he repeated. “I guess they figured, why not use him to bury my friend, Revi’ the Rook, as well? So they put you there, too. They left
you
there, in that little rat-boy body...to rot, I guess.”

Revik rearranged his hand on the gun. “A little far-fetched, Terry.”

“Is it? Do you know it’s impossible to truly destroy a memory, Revi’? That there is no way to wipe a mind of its past? Oh, you can do it temporarily of course…through trauma, drugs, even suggestion. But you can’t
really
get rid of it.” He took another drink of alcohol. “…The only way to be sure, Revi’…the only way to be
really really sure,
is to cut the offending part of the aleimi out. To put it somewhere else.” He paused.