Allie's War Season Three (18 page)

Dorje rolled his eyes back in that same, exaggerated seer fashion.

"She was raised human," he said, his voice uncompromising. "She used to play the same 'poor me' game...but she has stopped. She knows it is crap, so she stopped doing it. Further, she now knows that while playing ignorant might protect either of you in the human world, in
our
world, it is dangerous. It is also disingenuous. No one likes a liar, Jon. No one follows a liar, either...and we need a leader for the humans. You are our best candidate right now."

"What about Cass?"

Dorje gave him a dismissive look. "Even if she were here, Cass is not suitable for this. You know that as well as I do. She is a great fighter...she would work well on your team. But she does not have your diplomacy. She also doesn't pretend to be humble like you do...but she is too reckless to lead. She is too quick to fight. Too quick to push others to fight, too..."

Jon stared at him for a minute, unable to think of a response to that, either.

He knew the seer must have hit some kind of mark though, since he could feel his face warming, even more than the stuffy storage room could explain.

"You need to suck it up, Jon," Dorje said, making a flourishing gesture with one hand. "...Grow up. We can't wait for you anymore. We need you...you have a skill set we need. You do not have the luxury to pretend you don't have it anymore. Not now."

"Fine," he muttered.

"Especially now," Dorje added. "If that disease is being deployed, we have no time left, Jon. We have waited too long as it is to recruit among the humans..."

"I said fine...I heard you."

Dorje bit his lip, but didn't answer.

Sighing, Jon folded his arms, unconsciously mimicking the pose of the shorter seer. "I did hear you, Dorj...and I'll make an effort, okay? I mean it. And I'll hit Allie up for the sight lessons. Or whoever they want me with..."

Dorje nodded, once.

"Good," was all he said.

Seemingly the instant he said it, the machine erupted into a higher-pitched sound...right before it began spitting a long coil of paper out of the slot near the top. Both of them watched as the single sheet curled neatly into the glass box, fattening a long, rolled cylinder as it continued to feed out of the organic machine. Again, Jon was reminded more of an animal than anything mechanical...like a squat toad vomiting out some portion of its lunch.

"Nice visual," Dorje commented, grimacing.

"Of course, you could just
not
read my mind
all
the time..." Jon muttered.

"And you could think
quieter
if you don't want me to hear things..." Dorje grumbled back, squeezing his own chest with folded arms. "You are my lover, Jon. Of course I am going to be in your light. Of course I am going to hear things you don't shield from me...it is a part of sharing light." He frowned at Jon, his voice holding more emotion that time. "I don't know why it bothers you so much. I thought you liked sharing light with me. Or would you prefer it only happen during sex...not while you are with me outside of bed...?"

Jon sighed again. That time, he'd managed to hurt the seer's feelings.

He also realized he was lashing out, partly because he was worried about that disease in San Francisco, and partly from feeling like a scolded schoolboy when Dorje lectured him about acting like a leader instead of playing the martyr. He couldn't always help feeling at a disadvantage in their world. His own boyfriend was something like 200 plus years older than he was. And whether they shared light or not, it meant something different to each of them, and it gave Dorje a lot more insight into Jon than the reverse.

Dorje grunted again, conceding that with a vague gesture of one hand.

Jon could tell he wasn't forgiven though. Not entirely.

Walking up behind the Tibetan-looking seer, he laid his hands on his shoulders cautiously. When Dorje didn't move away, Jon began massaging the muscles there with his fingers and palms. He didn't speak until he felt Dorje begin to relax.

"I'm sorry, cousin," Jon said.

"I do not like this comparison thing you do," Dorje grumbled in a lower voice, folding his arms tighter. "It already bothers me that you assume I will leave you in a few decades only because you will appear older than me to other humans. You think I am like some teenager, who will run off with the next pretty butterfly..."

Jon didn't answer that, either, but continued to massage the seer's shoulders. He moved gradually down his back when Dorje didn't move away. The only sound in the room was the machine's low hum as it continued to spit out the long, continuous ream of paper from somewhere inside of its workings.

"Am I forgiven yet?" Jon said.

"No," Dorje said, his jaw tightening as he continued to face forward.

Sighing, Jon continued to massage him, but decided not to try and coax him into a better mood. Things had shifted with them again recently, and Jon knew Dorje was a little sensitive as a part of that. Sometimes that manifested in him being hyper-sensitive to Jon using sex in any way to influence his moods.

Thinking about that, he took his hands off him after another beat, and wandered over to the machine, peering down at the paper that was coiled in the bottom of the container. He felt Dorje react to him taking his hands away, but he also knew the seer probably heard his reasons why, so wouldn't take it personally.

Even as he thought it, Dorje came up behind him, sliding his arm around Jon's waist as they looked down at the bin.

"Don't you want to read it, cousin?" Dorje asked. His voice was warm now, holding an open affection.

Thinking about this, Jon smiled, glancing down at the shorter man. "Yeah," he said then, realizing it was the truth. "Yeah, I do."

Reaching carefully into the bin so he wouldn't tangle the still-flowing paper, Jon pulled out the thick roll that stood in there so far, and carefully began unwrapping it to reach the end...which, in this case, would be the beginning.

"How much data can one of these things hold?" Jon said, squinting at the small print covering the ream in an uninterrupted column.

Dorje shrugged. "I don't know. I never used one of these...not even in the war."

Jon nodded, still unrolling the paper, moving away from the machine to keep the strip flowing smoothly, and relatively straight. When he reached the end, he found himself staring at the words printed there, sure he was hallucinating.

"What is it, cousin?" Dorje said, walking up beside him once more.

"Am I seeing this right?" Jon said, the disbelief reaching his voice.

Dorje leaned closer, his head resting against Jon's shoulder as he read the small print at the top of the page. Jon felt the seer stiffen after he'd looked at it, right before his eyes wandered over the characters again.

"That's
you,
Jon," Dorje said in a whisper.

"I guess it is," Jon said, swallowing.

"What does it mean?" Dorje said.

Jon shook his head, still staring at his own name, printed out in a font that looked as old and organic-seeming as the machine, in a script closer to handwriting than actual typeface, but with perfectly legible letters.

...Jonathan Sebastian Taylor. Male. Born: July 20, 1980. Birthplace: San Francisco, California, USA. Rank: 1 (command). Position: First wave - Second. Race: Human, possible crossover (Knight)...

"It says 'command,' Jon," Dorje said, tapping the paper with one finger. "Did you see that? It says
command
by your name..."

"I saw it." Jon shook his head, as if to clear the word from his memory. "...What's a 'crossover'?" he said, rereading the last words. "What does 'Knight' mean?"

That time, it was Dorje who shook his head, his eyes puzzled as he read over the same words. "I don't know. Maybe Balidor could tell us?"

"Or Wreg," Jon added without thinking. "...He seems to know a lot about this kind of thing."

Dorje frowned, but didn't answer.

Again, Jon wondered if the seer was hiding something from him, then decided he probably wasn't. In any case, he could press the point later.

He slid further down the coiled roll of paper, letting his eyes travel down and find random lines of text. Every time he paused, it was on another name, with the same sets of information, but all answered differently.

...Rain Katarin LeBruin. Female. Born: January 1, 1986. Birthplace: Pierfonds, France. Rank: 2 (genetics). Position: First wave - Second. Race: Human...

"Are they all human?" Dorje asked, reading sections of paper as Jon handed them to him, scanning names from the same list.

"I don't know," Jon said, swallowing.

He found himself reading the next name, and the next...almost as if memorizing each one.

...
Sanja Elana Kovokovich. Female. Born August 10, 1973. Birthplace: Montenegro. Rank: 2 (tech). Position: First wave - Second. Race: Human...

...Geoff Stefan Volkelieben. Male. Born: May 10, 1990. Birthplace: Stuttgartt, Deutschland. Rank 3 (military). Position: First wave. Race: Human...

...Shotzhu Xui Lin. Female. Born: December 22, 1995. Birthplace: Lhasa, Tibet Province. Rank 2 (beta). Position: First wave - Second. Race: Human...

"No other crossovers," Dorje commented. "I wonder what that means?"

Jon just stood there, working his way down the list, reading names, ranks he didn't understand...positions for which he had no definition. Dorje stood motionless beside him, doing the same. The seer didn't speak either, but Jon felt something between them, a shared silence, as if they were reading some kind of religious text instead of what looked more like a membership roster to some inexplicable club. Something lived in the collectivity of all of them together, on the same list...something of more import than the simplicity that the names, dates and terse descriptions seemed to allow, at least on their own.

For what felt like a long time, the only sound in the room was the hum of the machine as the long ream of paper continued to run out of the slot in the side.

6

IRRATIONAL

I DON’T KNOW when, exactly, that I knew something was wrong.

It didn't come to me the way that information usually comes...meaning, I didn't get words, or even pictures. I didn't get any sense of him, really, or even of pain, at least not any more than usual. I could barely feel him at all, in fact, at least when it came to specifics.

It was more this feeling of dread, like something deep down in my stomach.

It didn't occur to me until later that it reminded me more of what I'd felt in that hospital bed under the White House in Washington D.C., when Revik had been upstairs playing unwilling with Ullysa and Kat, along with the Vice President and all of his seer-fetish pals.

It's probably good I didn't think of that then, though.

As it was, I found myself wondering if I was being blocked somehow...if someone was intentionally interfering with the connection between us. Given everything that had just happened, that alone was more than I could really take.

I'd already been more than a little tempted to take him up on his offer of spending the day together in bed, and probably would have if Balidor hadn't insisted on grilling me the second we got back, while Wreg took Revik somewhere else, away from me. I'd wondered even then if Balidor was deliberately keeping the two of us apart.

In any case, that dread was bad enough to get me out of bed, in spite of how tired I was.