Read Online Allie's War Season One by JC Andrijeski - Free Book Online
Authors: JC Andrijeski
Ads: Link
Many are also Rooks, albeit low-levels ones for the most part, non-infiltrators. It is in the interests of both human and seer governments to keep this reality from civilians.
Wait, I send. You’re saying human governments—
Yes, he says, emitting a shrug. Does this surprise you? Although, as I said, even they do not know the extent of it. Some know this situation isn’t tenable. There is a sort of ‘cold war’ happening between the seers and the humans on many levels...
I don’t answer him.
Shrugging. he adds, There are more seers here than you see now, Allie. A trained infiltrator can eliminate their frequency from regular perception in the Barrier, mainly through blending with the lights that make up their environment.
Another thought trickles in, one that has already occurred to me.
They cannot see us, Allie, he confirms in answer to my unspoken question. At least not in a regular scan. I am shielding us. There are ways to track anyone, of course...
I stare down, trying to count them.
It is impossible.
Seers have only three real options, he tells me. We can live with traditional, religious seers in seclusion, and according to their holy precepts. It is not a bad life, but it is not for all seers, just as it would not be for all humans. The second option is to be owned...to sell our sight to humans. It provides some freedoms, providing one is skilled and has an employer who is fair. But it is risky...a kind of voluntary slavery.
He adds, The third option is to join the Rooks...or ‘the Org,’ as they call themselves. They are an underground network of seers with an anti-human agenda.
Which are you? I say, unthinking.
He pauses, letting me know that the question is, indeed, rude.
Presently, I am all but the third, he says then.
I watch a cluster of seers toy with a crowd of humans, changing their emotions back and forth like ocean currents. I feel their laughter as we pass.
They are no more dangerous than humans, he says, a little defensively. There are mature elements, and less mature. Kind, and less kind. Thinking, he shrugs. Some are bitter about being enslaved, of course...
I stare at him. No more dangerous than humans?
Well, perhaps that is an exaggeration.
You think? I burst out. What are you all doing here?
Surprise and anger flare his light.
What do you mean what are we doing here? We live here! Same as you!
I refocus on the seer lights, fighting back more words.
Those lights come in more colors than my mind has names for, their textures ranging from smooth as milk to jagged electric sparks. I notice they differ far more from one another than the lights of humans do, which all seem to occupy the same rough spectrum of gray.
Moreover, the seers are chameleons, changing their skin from contact with one another and threads of light through which they pass.
I feel my companion’s light change subtly and...
We pop out somewhere else.
I find myself staring at the glowing hands of a Betty Boop clock on the wall near the ceiling and it hits me that I am in the diner where I used to work. I watch blob-like human forms move through a catacomb of vinyl booths. Unlike before, I know a few of these blobs. When I concentrate a little harder, I recognize Sasquatch the cook, Cory behind the bar.
I try to determine if any of the light blobs are Cass––
To learn a place or thing from another’s light...this is called imprinting, he tells me. I took this one from you.
I look down. My light-feet are standing in a man’s plate of ham and eggs. He eats through my ankles, but I feel his light fingers and tongue and jerk away, repulsed. My companion grabs my light arm before I can float across the room.
I am what is called an infiltrator, he says. A seer trained to find things behind the Barrier. It is a trade, one that is learned, often at a young age.
A spy? I venture.
He doesn’t like this, I can tell.
Still, he shrugs it off.
A human equivalent might be espionage, he sends diplomatically.
Wait, I send. You’re saying human governments—
Yes, he says, emitting a shrug. Does this surprise you? Although, as I said, even they do not know the extent of it. Some know this situation isn’t tenable. There is a sort of ‘cold war’ happening between the seers and the humans on many levels...
I don’t answer him.
Shrugging. he adds, There are more seers here than you see now, Allie. A trained infiltrator can eliminate their frequency from regular perception in the Barrier, mainly through blending with the lights that make up their environment.
Another thought trickles in, one that has already occurred to me.
They cannot see us, Allie, he confirms in answer to my unspoken question. At least not in a regular scan. I am shielding us. There are ways to track anyone, of course...
I stare down, trying to count them.
It is impossible.
Seers have only three real options, he tells me. We can live with traditional, religious seers in seclusion, and according to their holy precepts. It is not a bad life, but it is not for all seers, just as it would not be for all humans. The second option is to be owned...to sell our sight to humans. It provides some freedoms, providing one is skilled and has an employer who is fair. But it is risky...a kind of voluntary slavery.
He adds, The third option is to join the Rooks...or ‘the Org,’ as they call themselves. They are an underground network of seers with an anti-human agenda.
Which are you? I say, unthinking.
He pauses, letting me know that the question is, indeed, rude.
Presently, I am all but the third, he says then.
I watch a cluster of seers toy with a crowd of humans, changing their emotions back and forth like ocean currents. I feel their laughter as we pass.
They are no more dangerous than humans, he says, a little defensively. There are mature elements, and less mature. Kind, and less kind. Thinking, he shrugs. Some are bitter about being enslaved, of course...
I stare at him. No more dangerous than humans?
Well, perhaps that is an exaggeration.
You think? I burst out. What are you all doing here?
Surprise and anger flare his light.
What do you mean what are we doing here? We live here! Same as you!
I refocus on the seer lights, fighting back more words.
Those lights come in more colors than my mind has names for, their textures ranging from smooth as milk to jagged electric sparks. I notice they differ far more from one another than the lights of humans do, which all seem to occupy the same rough spectrum of gray.
Moreover, the seers are chameleons, changing their skin from contact with one another and threads of light through which they pass.
I feel my companion’s light change subtly and...
We pop out somewhere else.
I find myself staring at the glowing hands of a Betty Boop clock on the wall near the ceiling and it hits me that I am in the diner where I used to work. I watch blob-like human forms move through a catacomb of vinyl booths. Unlike before, I know a few of these blobs. When I concentrate a little harder, I recognize Sasquatch the cook, Cory behind the bar.
I try to determine if any of the light blobs are Cass––
To learn a place or thing from another’s light...this is called imprinting, he tells me. I took this one from you.
I look down. My light-feet are standing in a man’s plate of ham and eggs. He eats through my ankles, but I feel his light fingers and tongue and jerk away, repulsed. My companion grabs my light arm before I can float across the room.
I am what is called an infiltrator, he says. A seer trained to find things behind the Barrier. It is a trade, one that is learned, often at a young age.
A spy? I venture.
He doesn’t like this, I can tell.
Still, he shrugs it off.
A human equivalent might be espionage, he sends diplomatically.
Similar Books
