Gudsriki (30 page)

“You're a liar, Veikko. I don't believe squat.”

“You're a
bad
liar, Vibs. You know I'm telling the truth. The love of your life is one of my lies. I forged it like a dime-store Mona Lisa, smile and all.”

Vibeke's hands shook.

“And what I found in that sad mass you call your brain while I was in there. Oof. Jacking off to Mishka even after she betrayed—”

Vibeke marched toward him, the mess of him. “You're fucking dead!”

Veikko waved a partly assembled finger at her. “Ends the world, Vibs.”

“Fuck the world.”

She pulled her microwave and held it on his face.

“You won't. You don't have it in you. I know, I was there.”

She switched it to a killing burn.

“I'm not even scared,” he laughed.

Nel pounced on him and pinned him to the Sigyn ring.

“But you know Violet would, don't you?”

She punched into the mass of mechanics and grabbed his organic tissue and pulled. He gurgled in pain.

“And you have no idea what I'm capable of. Hell, even I don't know. But I know this hurts”—she pulled harder—“and I know if you say one more word to Vibeke, I'll leave my hand clamped here until the fish arrive. Got it?”

Veikko gurgled in the affirmative.

“You are lying, aren't you? Don't say it, it doesn't even matter. Violet loved her from the start, and you didn't hack that. And you didn't hack me.”

Vibeke's mind flipped from Veikko to Nel. He didn't hack Nel. What did Nel mean she felt for her?

“The fish are gonna fix this ravine and make you disposable real soon, Veikko. And when they do, they're gonna give you to me. Then you're gonna pay.”

She let go of his guts and turned to Vibeke. She put her hand on Vibeke's hip and gently escorted her to the walkway.

“You…. You overgrown fucking cunt plug! You're a glorified dildo, ‘Nel.' Nelson, you were a lame bug, and your mom was a shit Valkyrie!”

Nel and Vibeke kept walking.

“Fucking meat puppet! Worthless gizmo bitch! Bring the fish! I'll break out and beat the shit out of you! I'll hack you to pain eternal. Vibeke! You know I did it! You owe me every orgasm!”

They could barely hear him as they ascended.

“You're a pathetic fucking twat. You'll never convince the fish! Just try! I'll get you, Vibeke, and your little bot too!”

Veikko's curses grew distant and inaudible as they reached the walrus trap. Vibeke cautiously opened the door.

“What are you looking for?”

“Orson.”

Nel checked Violet's memories and saw the giant beast. It matched the one charging them from an alcove down the walkway. She tapped Vibeke and alerted her.

“Microwave it!” she shouted.

“No,” replied Nel.

“What?”

Nel laughed, “I'm not gonna fry a walrus. Besides it would take a month for the beam to get through all that blubber.”

“Just kill that thing!”

“It's a walrus.”

Orson reached them but Nel held her ground. Orson stopped short of hitting her and barked.

“See? He's harmless.”

“He's a fucking monster.”

“You're just a wimp.”

She reached up and rubbed his chin.

“I wouldn't do—”

Orson regurgitated half a ton of half-digested rotting carrion onto Nel. He spat the last drops at her and then wandered off. She looked to Vibeke, who was trying very hard not to burst out laughing.

Nel began shoveling the goop off herself and stared daggers at her. “Didn't you just learn the love of your life was a forgery?”

Vibeke laughed out loud, “Yeah, but that was totally worth it.”

Nel continued flicking and flinging the stinking mess off of herself as the two walked out into the snow.

 

 

T
HE
G
EKI
spotted the Arctic Cathedral from kilometers away. They floated toward it on jump residue.

They passed over roads full of diseased bodies praying, wailing, some cutting themselves. Bonfires of men and women burned alive. The horror of it pierced Varg and made him feel his own Farnesene Pulse. They saw one man enraptured with his hands toward the sky. He was laughing, ecstatic despite the pulse.

“What are you possibly happy about?”
Varg asked.

“His love! God is love!” the man exclaimed.

“Best not to talk to them,”
said the elder.

They continued on in silence. By the roadside there were bodies strewn about with various fatal wounds. Torture marks. It took them a moment to realize that most were children.

They approached a muffled howling sound. When they came within sight of it, even the elder stopped. It was a boy tied to a lamp post, bound and gagged. A priest stood before him with a torch. He touched it to the child over and over while uttering prayers. He begged God to forgive the child.

“What did he do?”
asked the elder.

“He would not confess.”

“Confess to what?”

“He touched himself. Polluted himself.”

The elder hit him with a bolt of fire, disintegrating him. Another spark released the gag.

“Angels!” shouted the boy, terrified.

“No, there are no angels.”

“You can't say that! They'll kill you!”

“Let 'em try.”

“They'll do worse!”

“What's worse?”

The kid didn't speak. He looked down. Varg noticed blood on his underwear. He'd been castrated.

“Jesus,”
said Varg in disgust.

“Jesus! Jesus! Come unto Jesus!” cried a lone, burnt walker.

The elder Geki incinerated him with his flame. They floated on. Varg began growing numb to the sights.

They came to the Arctic Cathedral, a giant white church, now half-encrusted in gold. An ancient building renovated by slave labor to suit Mishka's purposes. Hundreds of men and women outside were hit by the pulse; most stood petrified. Some bowed and prayed. The Geki came down to the ground and walked straight to the front door.

The Geki entered and found the main hall empty, except for one woman. She stood, seemingly unafraid. They knew it affected her. She could posture all she wanted, but she was feeling it. They had her. In a rarity, she spoke first.

“I've been expecting you.”

“This ends now, Mishka.”

“Voivod Suvorova to you.”

“We do not recognize your titles. Only your actions, for which you will pay.”

“I think not.”

“You think wrong.”

The elder Geki started a fire in his palm.

“Shouldn't you both be able to do that?” Her voice quivered. She was scared to death, but she was fighting back. “No? Someone is missing an implant, aren't they?”

She hurled a fireball at both. The elder snuffed it out with his flame, but she fired again. While extinguishing the fire, he couldn't hurl his own. Mishka showed off. She produced complex fire forms that attacked them from every angle. They were tactically matched.

“To the ruins!”

The Geki jumped away.

Mishka put out the fires that had started in the church and blew out the flame in her hand. Her last acquisition from Veikko and Skadi had proven a brilliant steal.

 

 

V
IBEKE
WAS
overjoyed to be back on the pure white surface after the grunge and insult of the ravine. Nel still stank like stomach acid and an open grave, but she could at least rub herself down with fresh snow.

They were warm inside their furry armor and ready to walk 2000km south to Umeå, the nearest known portal to the Cetaceans. It was a months-long walk in arctic weather, over an ice bridge to Europe and then through the northern Suomi terrain. There was nothing to do but talk, and no fear of speaking to each other any longer. After meeting with Veikko, their conversations on the way seemed utterly normal.

“Have you ever seen a real hairball?”

“No,” Vibeke answered. “Never seen a real cat.”

“Violet visited a reserve once. That's all she remembered of it.”

“A hairball?”

“One of the cats coughed it up as she and her parents watched. ‘K-hek k-hek k-hek,' and then it just fell out. It smelled like poop.”

“Dang, I'm glad you told me.”

“That's this brain for you. Things just come up.”

“It's okay. Mine does the same thing.”

Nel wondered if she should ask about the voice, but Violet's memories of dialogue on the matter of voices were always predecessors to mental recalibration. If you heard voices that weren't from the link, you were insane. Nel knew she wouldn't get committed to a mental hospital but didn't want Vibeke to think she was nuts.

It was perplexing as to why. Violet's memories contained next to nothing of concern for how people perceived her. Nel had no reason to either. So what in her cared what Vibeke thought? It couldn't have been the brain; it couldn't have been the AI using it. Something new was developing. Nel realized she was growing a personality. It occurred to her that she could shape it, make of herself what she wanted. Violet was, as far as Nel could understand, a very sardonic creature. Sardonic didn't appeal to Nel so much as an abstract sense of being that worked on another principle. One that had no name Violet had ever heard, no name programmed into her recognition matrix. She surveyed her wants, her interests. She found herself compelled by her brain to say something. She let it out mostly just to see what it was.

“It doesn't matter, you know. If he hacked you.”

“Can we not talk about that, Nel?”

“If we don't talk, you won't understand how little it means.”

“What, you're an expert on psychology now?”

“You still loved her no matter what. Just because Veikko—”

“He didn't! He was fucking lying! Don't fall for it.”

“I haven't. There's an 87 percent likelihood he was lying.”

“You calculated that?”

“Yes, it's unlikely he was able to hack you in such a manner.”

Vibeke exhaled and thought. They traversed fifty kilometers in silence, pushing through the deep snow. Their suits kept them at a perfect heat, except for their faces, which were a bit chilly with only body heat fields to keep them protected.

“You can lie, can't you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you? When you said you calculated that?”

“I can also change the subject. Do you really intend to turn over control of Valhalla to the Cetaceans merely to spite Veikko?”

“Spite is all I've got. If you have nothing else to do, whatever you do have is the meaning of your life.”

“I envy your lack of purpose.”

“It's usually the other way around. Why?”

“I was built for a purpose, but I've failed.”

“You've kept me company.”

“You created me for love and sex.”

“And conversation and fights. I don't know what I was thinking. You have a broken god, a creator who didn't think you through. The fact you function at all is sort of a miracle.”

They walked on. The sound of crunching snow and wind permeated them.

“I didn't ‘create you' for love and sex.”

“Then what am I for?”

“Company.”

“If you only wanted company, you'd have enlisted in the army.”

“Valkyrie company.”

“I'm not a Valkyrie. That's painfully clear.”

“Fine, you're not. So what?”

“Seeing the ravine, the real thing from Violet's memories…. I wish very much I could have been a real Valkyrie.”

“Well, you can't, so get over it.”

“And I can't be Violet, so get over that.”

“You're right, it was Violet's company I wanted. I loved her, but she was also my friend. The only friend I had on that level.”

“You weren't friends with Veikko and Varg?”

“Sure, but not like her. We could talk about…. Well, no, I guess we couldn't talk about—okay, we didn't really talk about anything in depth, least of all when we were finally together. I guess I had you built because I wanted Violet all those years and never really got all I wanted of her. As soon as the walls fell, she was gone. So I needed her back.”

“I can speak with authority on most matters she could have, from her point of view.”

“Not the most important one. That was after the backup.”

“What was it?”

“Why she beat me down and tried to rape me.”

Nel tried to recall Vibeke's memories, but they'd faded. Violet had done something, but she couldn't be certain what anymore. Nel found herself angry at Vibeke for suggesting it could have happened. “Violet wouldn't do that.”

“Yeah, well, she did.”

“No.”

“Yes, she broke my cheek and sent me to the mattress, then ripped my suit off and would've done more if I didn't shock her out of it.”

Nel tried to remember Vibeke's memories. It sounded right, but she couldn't accept that.

“Now the probability is that
you're
lying.”

Vibeke laughed. “Violet wasn't perfect, you know. Far from it.”

Nel spoke against her thoughts. “Nobody's perfect.”

“You say it like you know someone who is.”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

“Wow, narcissistic robot.”

“Then say what's wrong with me.”

Vibeke thought. Nel was cruel, but Vibs deserved that, earned it. She was actually kind not to have killed her already. Vibeke thought hard but couldn't find any human flaw with her; certainly none of Violet's had manifested. And none of Vibeke's own. She couldn't think of anything to say. Just like she couldn't think of why she loved Violet at that critical moment.