Allie's War Season One (85 page)

Seconds later, those same feet pounded on the street.

The man lying on me was half-crushing me; all I could think was that I wanted him off.

Instantly, the pressure on me lessoned...which told me one thing at least. He was a seer. I could still feel his heart beating through my back.

Glancing up, I met his gaze, startled by the nearness of his gray eyes.

“Thanks,” I said.

Returning my appraisal, he smiled. “Of course, Esteemed Bridge.”

A FEW HOURS later, I slid through an opening in the cloth drape hanging over the door. I entered a wide room with a bamboo ceiling. A wall-sized painting of the blue sun and sword met me, below which stood a wooden alter covered in candles. A number of gold tapestries framed in intricately embroidered blue and orange thread hung on either side. Beyond the altar, a window opened out on the Himalayas, which still looked like something from a painting to me.

I saw Vash first, seated cross-legged under the stone fireplace to the other side of the altar. He smiled when he saw me.

His smooth-faced, monk-like students didn’t.

Cass and Jon had beaten me there, as had Chandre. All three of them sat against the far wall. I saw the seer who had wrestled me to the floor of the poolroom. He watched me cross the room. Curiosity shone in his gray eyes.

I’d asked who he was, of course, before I got there. I’d been surprised at the answer, and not only because I’d actually heard of him. His name was Balidor, and I’d first heard his name from Revik, on the ship we took between Vancouver and Russia.

Balidor was the senior infiltrator of the Adhipan—a mysterious and elite cadre of infiltrators loyal to the Seven. The Adhipan were legendary, kind of like the Jedi of the seers, although Revik would have said holy warriors, maybe. They normally operated in secret, based out of a stronghold somewhere in the Pamir.

Revik had talked them up quite a bit, during our training sessions. He mentioned this man in particular, making him out as a kind of seer superhero.

His name was Balidor only. No clan name. Everyone in the Adhipan gave up their clan affiliation when they joined. Their clan became the Adhipan.

According to Dorje and Yerin, Balidor had only just come to Seertown, but his people had been protecting me secretly for weeks. Now he crouched before Vash on one knee, a hand raised in mid-gesture.

I had interrupted something.

Not at all, Most Esteemed Bridge,
Balidor sent politely, rising from his knee. He gestured for me to approach, his smile disarming.
We were waiting for you. I simply wished to pay my respects...

I nodded. “All right. I can wait, though...”

“There is no need,” he said, stepping back.

Hearing him speak English, I realized that was the language I had used. Most seers in Asia didn’t know English. Stumped, I only nodded again.

Balidor resembled a human in young middle-age, which told me he likely topped the four hundred year mark. Still, there was no way to know for certain. Chandre looked like mid-twenties to me, and I found out from Maygar she was over two hundred years old, nearly twice Revik’s age, although he looked closer to thirty.

According to Maygar, though, Chandre looked young for her age. I’d been thinking all this as I approached them, and was surprised when Balidor chuckled.

That she does,
he sent. He smiled a nod towards Chandre, who gave me a ‘thanks a lot’ sideways eye roll.

Still, I could tell it didn’t bother her. She wasn’t really into guys anyway.

Chandre snorted. I saw a faint smile touch Balidor’s lips, just before his eyes followed Chandre’s to Cass.

He didn’t miss much, this Balidor.

“So,” I said, clearing my throat. I used Prexci, the seer language. Like I mentioned, most seers didn’t know English. My Prexci was still pretty bad, though...my accent, according to Maygar, “comical.” Still, I could understand most of what was said, especially with Vash’s help in the background.

“Can we begin?” I said.

Balidor bowed his head, sitting back, so that he joined the ring of cross-legged seers.

They all looked up at me expectantly. I nodded to Balidor, and their eyes swiveled to him. He bowed to me in thanks. I had to fight not to give him the ‘just get on on with it’ hand gesture.

Seers were big on formality.

Smiling faintly, he turned to the rest of the group.

“We caught one of the shooters.” He glanced at me. “Female. She wasn’t local. From preliminary scans, it is clear she once ran with the Rooks...she had the Barrier signature of having being detached from the Pyramid. We have not yet determined where her loyalties lie now. The other, a male, is still being tracked. They tell me we should have him by nightfall. Wellington...”

He glanced at me, then elaborated for the others.

“...The Terian being who is impersonating the human President of the United States, Ethan Wellington...has a significant number of seers protecting him, seemingly more every day. We have identified twenty-six in his immediate circle so far. He moves between several constructs in the White House, and in private residences and governmental buildings. Several of these have been fortified from constructions that existed when Daniel Caine...the being we now know as Galaith...held the Presidential seat.”

He flashed images as he spoke. Having been American most of my life, I recognized a lot of the locations. Those I didn’t know were likely either specific to Wellington, or close enough to military or security concerns that un-doctored images didn’t make it to the news feeds.

“...Since the dispersion of the Rooks’ main network,” Balidor continued.

He paused while a brief flash of the Pyramid crumbling, breaking apart on its moorings, touched the collective group. I felt all of the seers in the room pause to acknowledge me silently...almost like a recitation after the mention of a dead person’s name.

Again, I inwardly sighed.

“...He seems to have made it a priority to gain control of key pieces of the human infrastructure,” Balidor said, giving me another faint smile. “Namely the military and corporate leadership, but also communications...” He looked at me, his mouth suddenly grim. “...Including all news feeds deemed legitimate by the human public. So your interest in outing him as a seer is likely not feasible at this juncture, esteemed Bridge, and carries certain dangers...”

I blinked at him, then looked at Vash.

Clearly, my ideas were traveling a lot further than I had realized.

“For one,” Balidor added. “We now have reason to believe that the Wellington body is biologically 100% human. So a disclosure of that kind could backfire...and make him seem like a terrorist target. Or simply damage your credibility further—”

“What else?” I said, motioning him on.

“He is clearly attempting to isolate the United States as a geographic and political entity within a particular Barrier construct. He wants them cut off from the rest of the world.” Balidor flashed the image of a bubble of light solidifying over the land mass of the United States. “...He is fanning racial tensions internally, and not only between Sarks and humans. He is inciting ethnic prejudices as well, particularly against those humans whose ancestors come from Asia. He does this mainly through subtle phrases in his speeches...”

“To what effect?” one of the monks spoke up. “What purpose does this serve?”

I noticed the rest of the monks leaning forward as well, long fingers clasped on knees or folded together in laps as they awaited Balidor’s response. Traditional seers were extremely curious about human to human interactions and conflicts. Things that had obvious meaning to someone raised human were unfathomable to the majority of seers.

Balidor, however, could not possibly belong to that camp of seer. He’d been in at least two major human wars. Dorje also told me Balidor had been the leader of the Adhipan when they helped bring down Syrimne. He’d shown me a picture they had framed in one of the prayer cabins of the final hunting party.

In the center stood the human who claimed the killing shot, a defector from the Bavarian army with the unlikely name of Hraban Novotny, thereafter known only as “Galaith”...as in, you guessed it, Galaith. Looking at the photo though, I understood why no one made the connection. The photograph was grainy, and Galaith disappeared soon after, rumored to have been killed by angry seers. When he emerged forty years later as Daniel Caine, another human, who would have connected the dots, especially since he hadn’t aged?

In that same photograph, right behind Galaith, stood Balidor.

He’d been looking away from the camera, out over a burnt field, holding a German infantry rifle in the crook of his arm and frowning slightly. He’d looked very much the same as he did now...only a lot dirtier.

I asked Dorje how Balidor failed to recognize Daniel Caine when he stepped up as president later. After an awkward silence, Dorje confessed to me, somewhat apologetically, that most seers barely noticed the differences between humans.

From the Barrier, they all looked the same.

So Balidor probably just figured Daniel Caine looked a bit like Hraban Novotny, and never gave it another thought. According to Dorje, most seers never really believed Galaith made the killing shot anyway. The fact that Caine always tested human further removed any reason to look at him more closely. Humans, after all, aged visibly in fifty years.

Now, in Vash’s chambers, Balidor just shrugged at the monk’s question. He glanced at me before turning to the peaceful, nonviolent seers sitting around him in a half-circle.

“To heighten paranoia and aggression,” he explained. “To help other humans, civilians, feel a willingness to make war against humans who have done them no personal wrong. To make those same humans feel afraid of those they would be fighting.”

I saw the monks whisper to one another, looking dismayed. I didn’t want to be insensitive, but we couldn’t treat this as an anthropological experiment either.

“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Balidor? What are your thoughts? Can we influence from the Chinese side?”

Balidor clicked softly as he shook his head.

“We now suspect Terian has at least one operative high up in the Chinese government,” he said. “We are having difficulty identifying who...a serious impediment, in terms of finding means of effective influence. The Chinese government is also suffering from a number of factional issues at this time. We suspect Terian is fanning those difficulties, and persuading them that war is the easiest solution to reunite the populace...

“...The Chinese are less naive about seers, however,” Balidor added. “Therefore, it is not only Terian who is blocking our attempts to gain access. We must negotiate with factions who are attempting to discern from inside China what outside influences may be contributing to the unrest. They have a few hundred of their own seers, many of whom are genuinely loyal to the Chinese government. We have attempted to speak with a few of them, to persuade them that we mean their masters no harm, but they are highly suspicious of us.

“...The most elite of these were raised in the Forbidden City since birth, some of the older ones alongside the royal family. It is a different kind of seer soldier the Chinese have cultivated...they are honored as sages, treated as family, and they have been incorporated into many aspects of Chinese religious and traditional beliefs...as well as Communist ideals around ‘brotherhood.’ These higher-echelon seers, known as
Lao Hu,
‘Tiger People,’ are not likely to trust us, simply because of who we are...”

I sat down, plopping cross-legged on the floor even though I knew it would upset the monks. With my current rank as ‘oldest soul’...which wasn’t super flattering, by the way...I was supposed to be above their eye level at all times. But I wasn’t in the mood to stack up a bunch of cushions in the chair-less room. I saw a few of the seers tense, their faces conflicted as they tried to decide how they might adjust their seats so I remained above their eye level.