Allie's War Episodes 1-4(172)

No great flash of insight or understanding greets me. Instead, it is ordinary, mundane memory. I stand before a leaking espresso machine. Wet coffee grounds cover the front of my waitressing uniform as Revik watches me from a corner booth. He looks tired, and I know him now, so I see it in him. Still, he is watching me, and I see other things there, too.
He watches me minutely, I realize.
I make him nervous, fascinate him, but he feels he knows me, too. He wishes he could approach me. He wishes he could just tell me who he is. I still manage to embarrass him. Hearing me and Cass speak to one another, he feels foolish for having bought the shirt he saw me admiring in that shop, and something in this touches me deeper than I can express.
Over me, the television blares.
Suddenly, I know what I am supposed to see.
...and then the image vanishes.
A stone holding cell morphs around me in its place.
Dark and dirty, it feels more mundane to me now, too, as if I am there in a less emotional reality, one that lives outside of Revik’s subjective mind. Two men enter that dim, dank-smelling space, pausing at the door to stare at the prisoner chained inside. One of them has no face. Revik raises shackled hands, blinking against the shock of light. As I watch, the blurred lines of the faceless man begin to clarify.
Features appear behind a sheen of liquid light. I see the outline of a handsome face, not completely young, but a young middle-age.
He studies the man on the bench, smiles.
“Rolf Schenck?”
...and then the four of us stand on a hill above lines of SS, where the third of three gasoline tanks already burns. When it explodes, the shock rips holes in the turf, throwing wood and iron as shrapnel, tearing into the bodies of the standing men.
Terian hits Revik playfully on the chest, then starts down the hill at a run.
“What are you?” Revik asks Galaith.
“Perhaps you should ask yourself that question, Rolf...”
I know who you are, I breathe, softer.
...and again, I fight with an espresso maker. A television blares over the bar, where the President of the United States smiles at a press conference. Young, charismatic, the whole world looks up to him. Cass walks up to me in her waitressing uniform, and she looks incredibly young to me now, an overgrown child compared to the woman I was jealous of in London.
“Jon's here,” she says. “So is your buddy.”
...and I stand in Revik’s study, pointing a gun at Revik.
My eyes glow a pale green, faintly visible in the sunlight from the windows.
“Allie.” Tension vibrates his words. “I would tell you, I swear I would—”
Revik! I step closer to him, inserting myself between him and the version of me holding the gun. I remember that moment in Germany, where the younger Revik seemed to look at me, too. I had thought he was dead then, but he wasn’t.
He’s not dead now, either.
Revik, I’m here! I wave my arms idiotically. REVIK! Look at me!
“...Even if I did,” he says to the other me. “I don’t remember—”
REVIK! I scream, desperate. I slam into him with my light. LOOK AT ME!
He turns, staring at me. The echo fades.
For an endless pause, he just stands there, looking at me through clear eyes, staring at me from a few meters away. His eyes shift between the past me and the present...
For the moment, Galaith is gone.
It is only us.
Revik...I’m here! I run forward, grasping hold of him with my light. When he tries to look at the past me again, the one holding the gun, I shake his arm. No! This already happened! Where are you now? Can you show me?
The London apartment melts. I feel him slowly come back awake...
Positive flashes to negative.
He hangs in a dark space, immobilized by silver strands. They feed on him. Eyes roll back in pleasure as they draw on his light, a near sensual repose. In terror, he cries out...
...and in the study, Revik staggers.
I hold his arm tighter, supporting him with my light. He looks back at the version of me frozen in time, the determination on my face as I grip the Lugar in my hand. Cass, Jon, Eddard and Maygar all stand frozen in various poses as they react to a scene that can no longer be played out, that is already over. Then Revik looks at me, and his eyes change.
This time, he sees me. He really sees me.
Allie? Where are we?
Revik. You’re really here... Looking at him, my happiness fades. I feel the weakening of his light, the hunger of the beings behind him. He is dying. I clutch his arm tighter. Revik, listen to me. Can you get out, if I distract them?
Allie, he says. No. No, I won’t leave you...
I kiss his face. You won’t have to. The succession order...do you remember how it works? How the pieces fit together?
Confusion darkens his features. I don’t have it, Allie.
I have it, I tell him. You gave it to me, remember? On the ship? But all I have are the numbers. I need you to make sense of it. Can you remember enough to do that?