Allie's War Season Three (15 page)

"It was a picture I drew of a bank vault for her, Jon," Feigran said, his voice still friendly. "Based on a recurring dream she'd been having. Would you like to see it?"

"A bank vault," Jon's frown deepened. "Seriously?"

"Indeed."

"So she ripped off this bank because of a drawing you made?"

"She had dreamed the same images, Jon...as I said," Feigran replied. "She also had a similar drawing. She asked me if I would mind letting her compare them..."

"And?" Jon said.

"And they were more or less the same, Jon," Feigran said, once more sitting up, his charcoal stained fingers hanging over the edges of his knees, where his forearms rested. "In the relevant particulars, anyway...I had a few more details than she."

"The relevant particulars?"

"Yes, Jon. The security box number. The bank's name. The image of the owner of the security box..."

"The owner?" Jon said, startled. "And who was that? This owner?"

"It was an older seer...with a gaunt face. Almost a skull-like face, Jon. Quite unattractive, if you want the truth." He looked at Jon directly, his owl-like eyes blinking as he smiled. "Would you like to see it, brother?"

"Not right now," Jon said, suddenly conscious of the surveillance in the room. Allie must have had it switched off somehow, before she talked to Feigran.

Jon also couldn't help noticing that the seer had called him 'brother'...just like Wreg did. He considered asking about that, as well, then decided tangents weren't probably the best idea with Feigran, not if he wanted any real information.

"It's Salinse, isn't it?" Jon said. "The owner of the vault?"

"Perhaps," Feigran said agreeably. "Alyson herself seemed somewhat concerned on that point..."

"Really?" Jon said. "Concerned how?"

Feigran's smile brightened. He looked up at Jon, his eyes holding the warmth of overt affection, sincere enough seeming to unnerve Jon a little more.

"You really do know how to ask the right questions, Jon," Feigran said then. "...It is quite remarkable. Quite remarkable..."

"What was Allie concerned about, Feigran?"

Unfazed, Feigran bent back over his drawing, sketching in long arcs over the page, his amber eyes narrow. Jon thought he might not answer, when suddenly he spoke up above the scraping sound of the charcoal, his voice as calm and unruffled as before.

"...She was concerned that the unattractive seer wasn't Salinse at all," Feigran said mildly. "She told me in her dream, it was someone else. She didn't want the Sword to find out..."

"She didn't want Revik to find out?" Jon said. "But she didn't mind you knowing?" When Feigran didn't look up, Jon pressed,
"Who,
Feigran? Who did she say it was in her dream?"

Feigran continued to sketch, his lips pressed together in concentration.

"Feigran?" Jon said again, hiding his impatience badly. "Did she tell you who she thought the seer was?"

"Of course she did, Jon." The seer looked up, smiling at him once more, his eyes bright with that innocent, boyish expression. "She told me that in
her
dream, the ugly seer was Menlim of Purestred. The same seer who raised her husband and trained him as Syrimne. She said that in her dream, it was
he
who hid something in that bank's metal box..."

"THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE," Balidor said, his voice blunt.

His eyes grew briefly blank, however, probably because he went far enough into the Barrier that it actually showed on his face, Jon thought.

"...No," he said, gesturing more adamantly, his eyes clearing. "He's dead, Jon. The records on that account are complete in every way."

"I didn't say I
believed
it," Jon said, exasperated. "I said you should probably talk to Feigran. And maybe ask to see those drawings...his and Allie's."

Balidor shook his head, clicking. Still, Jon could tell from the frown on his face that he was thinking about Jon's words.

"What did Allie tell you about what she was doing?" Jon prompted after another moment.

Balidor's frown turned into more of a scowl.

"...About that," he said, his voice grim. "I need a favor, Jon."

"From me?" Jon said, perplexed. "Really?"

Balidor never factored Jon into his plans. Never. In his own way, he was more of a snob about humans than Revik was, even though Revik would say things openly sometimes and Balidor remained always and unerringly polite.

At least Revik gave Jon a chance to give him shit about being a racist dick...and, ironically, Revik never treated Jon himself as inferior. Balidor seemed oblivious both to his own racism and his unfailing consistency in treating the humans around him as furniture.

"Yes, Jon...really," Balidor said, his voice annoyed enough that he must have heard at least part of what Jon had been thinking.

Reaching into his front shirt pocket, Balidor pulled out a small green and gray device, what looked like a data chip for a laptop, but so old-looking that it had to be something made prior to personal computers. He tossed it to Jon, who caught it reflexively.

"This is what Allie nearly killed her husband to get," Balidor said, his voice holding a hard edge. "I need you to take it to the New York Public Library, Jon. Dorje will go with you...in case you need to push anyone. As far as we know, Dorje's real face has never been on the feeds."

"Why the library?" Jon said. "Isn't it encrypted?"

Balidor sighed, running a hand through his chestnut-colored hair.

"Not in the usual way, no," he said. "We thought so at first, but the code it was spitting out kept nagging at me...until I cross-referenced it with codes from World War I..." Seeing Jon's eyebrows go up, he clicked at him, sharper. "It is a coincidence, Jon...perhaps it is the same coincidence to which Alyson's dream referred..."

Balidor was probably the only person Jon knew who generally spoke in grammatically correct sentences. Smiling, he shook his head.

"So?" he said. "Again, I ask...why the library?"

Balidor sighed again, this time sounding more tired than annoyed.

"Because it's not an encryption at all," he said after he'd exhaled. "It's actually a data set from a computer based on a language system other than binary. Only a handful of them were ever made...they were actually predecessors to those based on binary language, if you want to get technical. The Rebels used them..." Seeing Jon's eyebrow cock once more, Balidor cut him off, this time in open irritation. "...The Germans had one, too, Jon. We also had reason to believe the Russian KGB used something similar in World War II..."

"And the library has one of these machines?"

Balidor nodded, once. "It does. As importantly...it has a printer that can handle the conversions. I want you and Dorje to go down there and print out whatever data is on that key..."

"Will they even let us use it?" Jon said, skeptical. "I mean, the thing's got to be an antique, right? It can't possibly be living on the floor with all the other terminals?"

Balidor clicked softly, shaking his head as if his mind was somewhere else.

"You will pose as a student, Jon," he said.

"I'm 35 years old, Balidor."

"...A graduate student, Jon," Balidor said, his voice openly annoyed once more. "Dorje will help, if there is need for suspension of disbelief. If you have any trouble, we'll take more drastic measures, but right now, I'd prefer we did this as quietly as possible...and as soon as possible. Before whoever owned this box is notified that their property was stolen..."

"So...now. In other words."

"Yes," Balidor said. "Now. I want you both there the minute the library opens." He checked his organic watch. "...Which is in about thirty-seven minutes, so you'd better go."

Jon pocketed the data key and nodded. Leaving the room, he headed straight for the elevators, not bothering to call Dorje on his headset. When it came to requests like this, Jon knew Balidor didn't screw around. Which meant Dorje would already be waiting for him in the lobby, probably armed to the teeth with weapons that wouldn't set off the beeper when they went through the library's public security system.

Anyway, Jon had to admit, he was pretty curious. Whatever was on this data chip, both Allie and Feigran had dreamed about it.

Which was either a really good thing, or a really bad one.

By the time Jon reached the lobby, Dorje was already checking his watch, sitting in one of those plush, gold-colored couches in the elegant, high-ceilinged lobby with the waterfall sculpture and the massive glass windows looking out over 5th Avenue.

Jon found himself looking at the seer's lean, muscular arms, and his dark brown eyes as he scanned faces out on the street. Since they'd been in America, Jon had seen a different side of his boyfriend than he had in Asia. Something about Dorje seemed sharper here. He even spoke more quickly, and his eyes always showed him to be hyper-aware of his environment. Although it took Jon a week or so to adjust to the change, he found he liked it. In some strange way, it made it easier for the two of them to relate.

Dorje joked that he had just hooked into the American construct...meaning the one that covered the country as a whole...which Jon hooked into naturally as a result of having been raised as an American.

In any case, Jon thought it suited Dorje...even if it meant they tended to fight more, and that Dorje tended to fight more with the other seers. Especially Wreg for some reason. In fact, there was something going on between the two of them that Jon hadn't quite figured out. Whatever it was, it was serious enough that Dorje got pissed off whenever he found Jon hanging out with Wreg, no matter how innocently...including the night before, when Jon went out with Wreg and the others to look for Allie and Revik.

Wreg didn't like Dorje, either.

Jon could read the ex-rebel even less well than he could Dorje, but he'd seen a few looks exchanged between them that told him the hostility was definitely mutual. He'd even overheard them fighting in one of the common rooms once, although they'd both shut up as soon as he walked into the room. Really, most of what he'd heard had been threats...from Dorje to Wreg as much as the reverse, which surprised Jon more than a little at the time. Whatever it was, it was clearly personal, which also puzzled him.

He hadn't known the two of them even knew one another before all this.

That added sharpness in Dorje's light made him a bit more aggressive, anyway, which Jon couldn't help but find sexy, although he knew he probably shouldn't.

"I heard that, cousin," Dorje said, smiling faintly without turning his dark head. His voice grew slightly more subdued. "...Have you forgiven me then?"

Jon shook his head, smiling faintly. "Absolutely not."

Dorje glanced up at him, tensing. When he saw his expression, he relaxed, smiling back. "Well, in either case, if you're done thinking about jumping my bones, can we go? Balidor is screaming in my head like an old woman...probably because your sister was smart enough to run away from him..."

Jon laughed, walking up so that Dorje could see him without craning his neck.

"I'm ready," he said, motioning at him, seer-fashion. "You're the one who's lounging there...looking like you're waiting to have your bones jumped."

Still smiling, Dorje stood in a fluid movement, clicking softly. He chucked Jon's chin affectionately as he walked past, and even then, Jon found himself thinking the Tibetan-looking seer took up more space than he had when they were still in China.