Allie's War Season Three (95 page)

"Sure," Jon said. "Okay. Fine. But you need to tell them
something,
Al." He lowered his voice, glancing around the room. "They're
your
friends, right?"

I looked at Sasquatch and Frankie, and then glanced at Jaden and his girlfriend, Tina. Somehow, I'd always managed to avoid learning her name up until then, but I supposed I couldn't get away with calling her 'pouty lips' to her face now. Or one of the less-flattering names Cass came up with that night we'd gotten drunk after they let me out of jail.

"Yeah," I said with a sigh. I raised my voice, addressing all of the humans in the room, of which I now realized there were at least eleven or twelve. "Okay. Listen up. You probably all know already that most of your names showed up on a list of humans, right? A list of humans who are supposed to be important during the coming war?" At the silence my words produced, I added, "A list of humans that we're trying to protect...to keep from being killed by a bunch of other seers out of South America and China who don't want you to live that long...?"

They all stared at me blankly, their faces slack.

I noticed my friend, Angeline, was with them, too, sitting on the other side of Jaden and Tina, along with at least three other people I didn't know. One was a teenaged African-American girl wearing skinny jeans and a bright red T-shirt. One was a man in his mid-forties wearing a suit that looked like it had been slept in for about a week. The third woman looked like a thirty-something soccer mom, complete with mom hair and a designer hand bag.

"Yeah, okay." I looked back at Deklan. "What
do
they know?"

He glanced around at the ring of humans on the carpet and the couches, shrugging.

"They think we're terrorists, Esteemed Bridge," he said, matter-of-fact. "We told them you sent us to try to get them out of the city safe, to protect them, but only that one..." He pointed at Angeline. "...Seemed to believe us. They'd been hearing on the news that you'd been dead...or maybe worked for the Chinese. Oh..." Deklan added, almost as an afterthought. "...and they're probably traumatized. At least in shock. Two days ago, they saw a few thousand humans herded down the street and shot for being infected with the disease..."

"What?" I said, turning on him, feeling my stomach drop violently.

Revik stood beside me again before I could react fully, holding my shoulders in his hands. He directed his words at Deklan, though.

"Those bodies we saw? In the park?"

"Yes, boss," Poresh said, nodding. "Some of them. They've been dumping corpses from the medical centers there, too, so I don't know which you saw. We still don't know why they did it exactly. Someone in SCARB with an itchy trigger finger, maybe...? In any case, there seems to be a plan to eradicate the infection no matter what the number of casualties. They're not even waiting to see if people might develop an immunity. They brought them all here, maybe because they planned to create some kind of mass grave in the park...or maybe because they plan to burn the bodies once the disease starts to wind down inside the quarantine. We even wondered if the Lao Hu were behind it. But then the riots started in the Mission District, so they pulled the military out of this part of town. Since then, there've been fires in a different part of the city just about every night..." He glanced at me again. "The Wharf was the biggest one last night...as far as we could tell..."

"I thought the incubation period for the disease was, like, nonexistent," Jon said, glancing at Poresh. "How could they even identify the sick before they were on the verge of being dead?"

Poresh was too busy staring at Jon, though. I could feel his light reacting to what he felt on him, and not in an entirely neutral way. I gave Revik a look, but Revik was already on top of it. He pinged Poresh, enough to get him to back off...at least with his light.

"What happened to you?" Poresh said, looking my brother over more carefully.

"Never mind that," I said, my voice short. "Leave him alone, Pori." I looked back at Garensche. "Why did you say we shouldn't have come here? What do you know?"

Garensche pointed at Jaden, then at Angeline. "Those two. They're bait. That fucker in the Lao Hu got to them before we even reached the city. He's put trackers on both of them...and he's had his people watching this house from the Barrier ever since."

"Trackers?" Jon glanced at Jaden, who he'd never really liked, I remembered suddenly. "Why didn't you just remove them?"

Garensche looked at him, his dark eyes sober, and tired again.

"Because, young cousin," he said with an exhale. "...We can't. Not without killing them. They aren't ordinary trackers...he attached them to their spines, same mechanism as with sight-collars, only he set them up with explosives. They've also got Barrier tags attached, so the second we try to move them, they'll know. That's why we haven't moved, and why we didn't try to change the rendezvous point...it wouldn't have done any good. We finished going through the lists of those in the area last week..." Garensche glanced at me, then at Revik. "We figured you wouldn't want us to just shoot them. Their names are on the list."

As if realizing suddenly what he'd said, he gave me a slightly more apologetic look.

"...Honestly, we had half a mind to just leave them here," he confessed. "It's probably what we
would
have done, if we hadn't heard you lot were coming. We thought maybe we could try and come back for them later. Then we got the call about reinforcements, so we kept this place as the rendezvous, thinking maybe fresh minds might come up with something..."

I glanced up at Revik. "That's why they didn't bother tracking us," I said, quieter. "They knew we'd come here."

"So they might be on their way now," Revik muttered, looking at me.

"Maybe," I said. I could tell where his head was going, and I found myself rubbing his arm. "Maybe, Revik. But probably not. They'll wait to see what we'll do..." Quieter, I added, "It's too early to start rethinking our approach..."

He shook his head. "I don't want to leave you."

"You won't be," I told him, my voice a warning.

Frowning, I glanced around the room and found myself looking at Jaden again.

"Ditrini's betting I won't kill them," I said, my voice low as I thought aloud.

I didn't really think about the fact that I was staring at Jaden as I said it. Not until I saw him turn ghost white, even in the dim light.

Clicking impatiently under my breath, I looked up at Revik again.

"...That's what Surli meant," I added. "He said I had to do the thing Ditrini would count on me not doing...be willing to give up the thing that Ditrini was betting I wouldn't give up." Irritated, I clicked again, louder. "...I hate these stupid mind games. Terian was bad enough. Now we have to deal with another crazy, arrogant weirdo..."

When I glanced around the room again, I saw that all of the faces of the humans in the room looked pale now, with the exception of Jon's.

They all seemed to be training frozen stares on me, as well.

"Nice one, sis," Jon murmured, nudging me. "They all think you're going to murder them now...so, yeah. Thanks for that."

I rolled my eyes at him, but frowned at his words. He was right. I needed to snap out of my military mode long enough to reassure these people. Probably. The truth was, I didn't have a lot of bandwidth left to play nice. I could tell Revik was struggling right then, too, and he had to be my priority, given what came next. I also wasn't sure how much time we had, either, based on what Gar and Deklan were saying about Ditrini and his exploding trackers. Given all that, I honestly wasn't sure if I could afford to let myself think of them as my friends right then...especially when I had no idea if we could get them out of there alive.

I glanced around at the seers. "We need suggestions." I gave Revik a look, motioning at Garensche and the others. "...Can you fill them in? It's probably time to tell Yumi and Neela and Jorag everything, too. Right?" When he gestured a 'yes,' I kissed him, tugging on his fingers. "I need to do some damage control...is that okay?" I met his gaze, trying to assess how he was doing. "Don't freak out, okay? There's no need to change the plan. Not yet."

He gestured a 'yes,' but I saw him frown, right before his eyes flickered to Jaden.

On top of everything else, he was still struggling with his light. When I glanced over, Jaden seemed to be staring at him, too. From the look on his face, I guessed Revik approximated some kind of cartoon villain in his mind. When I walked over to the couch on that side of the room, they all flinched back, as if I was going to shoot every one of them on the spot.

Ignoring the flinch, and their exchanged looks and pale faces, I motioned for Sasquatch and Frankie to join us, too, along with Jon. Given their facial expressions, everyone's but Jon's, that is, I didn't try to sit next to them on the couch, but got down cross-legged on the floor.

"So," I said. "We seriously don't have a lot of time. But I needed you to hear this from me. We are going to try our damnedest to get you all out of here alive...I promise you that. Not to hold you hostage, but for your own safety. For the same reason, you might have to stay with us for awhile in New York..."

"Who the fuck
are
these guys?" Sasquatch burst out. "Stay with
who,
Allie? Like...this is the nonsense train. Total
non sequitor..."
He eyes were wide, almost agitated. "We need more info, chica! You can't leave us so dry on the fountain of knowing...it's all wrong..."

I hesitated, then sighed, gesturing at the other seers.

"They work with me. Well...for me, I guess. Sort of." I glanced at Jaden, then at Angeline, who still hadn't said anything.

I found myself looking at her more closely than the others. She seemed to be curled up into herself, like an animal stuffed into a den and ready to fight off predators. I tried to remember the last time I'd seen her, and couldn't. The memory that kept popping into my head was of her visiting me in jail, bringing me cookies decorated with tiny, icing, hack saws. I knew we'd hung out after that of course, and I remembered going swimming with her at the community pool, but it all seemed so long ago. Swallowing tightly, I gave her a reassuring look.

"Are all of you okay?" I said. "...No one's sick or hurt or anything?"

Jaden shook his head. He seemed to shake himself out of a trance in the process.

"Allie...why did you come here?" he said. "Is it really dangerous for you here, like that guy said?"

"Who cares?" Pouty lips muttered under her breath.

I sighed, glancing at her, Tina, whose face had gone bright red. Even so, her lips were pressed into a jagged line, her arms folded tightly under her ample breasts. Looking at her, I wondered if she was keeping relatively quiet out of fear that I might kill her.

Then I wondered if I should be discouraging that impression entirely.

"It's a long story," I said belatedly to Jaden, sighing again as I ran my fingers through my hair. "We..." I motioned back at Revik and the others. "...We had our own reasons for needing to come here, but we're also here to try and get you out."

"Are you a terrorist, Allie?" Angeline said, from her corner of the couch.

The question was direct. So direct, her voice made me jump. I thought briefly about how to answer, then, reluctantly, I nodded.

"Technically, I guess I am. My even being here, without a human owner or whatever, pretty much makes me a terrorist. But you guys already knew that...you've seen the feeds."

There was a silence where they all looked at one another, then at me. I found myself focusing on Frankie, then looking at Angeline again, who still appeared overly pale.

"Are you going to kill them?" Frankie said, as if noticing my stare. "Jaden and Angeline?"

I looked at Angeline first, hesitating, then at Jaden. Jaden barely noticed; he was staring at Revik again, this time seeming to be measuring him with his eyes, and looking over his body as much as his face. I don't think he even heard the question that Frankie asked me. I couldn't help looking at Jaden, too, since I hadn't seen him in four-plus years. He didn't look that different, really. A little less skinny than I remembered. He had sideburns now, which looked suitably arty and musician-like. I knew his band was doing well; I occasionally heard them on the alternative feed stations.

"That really is Syrimne, isn't it?" he muttered. "Like in the history books...as in World War I and raining clouds of death..." He gave a short laugh. "That's your boyfriend. Death guy."

"Yeah, it's him." My voice grew slightly terse. "He's my husband, not my boyfriend...but yeah." When Jaden gave me an incredulous look, I waved a dismissive hand. "Look. Don't freak out about it, okay? He's not as bad as the feeds make it sound...and again, we don't have time for any of that now..."