Gudsriki (45 page)

“I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. I have to go now.”

“No, Allen, you can have eternal life! But you must give up these wooden idols!”

“How do they put it in religious circles? It will be a cold day in—no! Give it back!”

“I'm saving you, Allen!”

“No! No! Put the torch down! You can't—no!”

“This is his divine will! This is all his holy plan!”

“You don't know what you've done! You don't know what you've destroyed!”

“Only a false idol, Allen! Don't you see? I've saved you from the material shackles and opened the door to spiritual life!”

“You fool, you damned fool!”

Nel began simulating other voices.

“He blasphemes!”

“A heretic!”

“Burn him!”

“Stoke the fire!”

“I love you, Allen! I have to say good-bye now, but I know you'll be saved! I know you'll go to heaven! And I'll see you there where we can bask in his sacred love!”

Nel stopped. The flagellants were coming closer and closer. Vibeke could see dozens of them, encrusted in tumors, hundreds coming. She grabbed Nel and pulled her toward the tank.

A scream came from the woods from where Nel was listening. They could see fire rise through the trees. Vibeke jumped into the tank and began scanning.

Nel looked the same way. Her eyes were even more efficient than the tank scanners.

“There's another tank. Three legs. Coming this way.”

“How long until they're in range?”

“Seven seconds.”

“I need to seal the canopy. Get to high ground.”

Nel didn't waste a second. She jumped up and caught a branch, then rapidly ascended up to the treetops.

Vibeke watched her screens. Beyond the crowd of penitents the shape of a tank slowly began to coalesce. The instant it came into focus, she grabbed at the triggers. But for some reason, her hands didn't clamp down.

Suddenly Geki fire shot through the woods and penitents and engulfed Alf's tank. Vibeke could feel the heat inside, the incredible force. She sent the tank shooting sideways out of the flames. The trees were lit up in every direction.

Finally she could see Mishka's tank coming toward her. It was decorated, ornate now. Shimmering like a jeweled tiara. That made Vibs smile. Tiaras were delicate. Vibs was in a battle tank. She went for the triggers. But again she couldn't press them down. She didn't understand. She darted behind a thicket.

The trees were dense enough to make for a cat and mouse game. The trees burned as Mishka fired the Geki implant in their direction. Soon the tanks were seeking each other in a forest fire, and Nel was in one of the trees. Her feet had countermeasures; Niide had included repulser beam emitters that could keep the fire away but couldn't extinguish the whole tree.

Vibs couldn't even see Mishka to try firing again. The trees were throwing up smoke so thick with burning debris even the MU scanner was confused. She strained her eyes to look past the flames. She saw running cult members, bleeding cult members, burning cult members, but no sign of Mishka's tank.

Nel's tree lost integrity and fell. She leapt and rolled safely away. The heat was terrible. She ran for the closest end to the flames but kept running into cloaked, whipped cultists. Trees kept falling and altering her course. By the time she made the perimeter of the flames her wardrobe was burned away. Some of her metal skin seams were glowing red with heat.

Vibeke kept hunting. She knew Mishka was in the flames, somewhere, hunting her as she was hunted. She had to get to a clear field of view. She headed out of the flames and back to the road.

Nel found herself in a clearing. Half the trees around her were on fire, the other half were beginning to catch. The noise and heat were bad, but the noise was shifting. Something was coming louder than the crackling. Metal footsteps. Amid the noise she couldn't tell if there were three legs or eight. It was three.

Vibeke started sending sonar and black-pellet range probes into the forest. She could only get a faint echo from both. There was no tank in the fire, but something in a clearing. It might have been a tank. There was something else, humanoid. The heat was too much for a human, but this one was alive and moving. It could only be Nel.

The tank circled Nel like a cat. Toying with her. The fire put a glimmer so bright on the shield that she couldn't see Mishka inside.

Vibs watched as the tank ran around her, cornering Nel against flames. She kept slipping, under the tank or beside it, but then the pellet range probes reported microwave fire. Heavy stun.

Nel was knocked off her feet and into unconsciousness. The tank stood on two legs and pushed her into its cargo hold. And ran away.

Vibeke set a course to follow. She had more legs, she was faster. She set off through the fire and wood. She made it to the clearing in no time. She passed through more forest and the end of the flames and the signal became clear again. The tank was glowing red with heat. Mishka's tank was close. Closer. And visible. But again Vibeke couldn't open fire. She could only chase.

Mishka had the advantage. She was slower but couldn't be shot down. But she could shoot. She spun the cockpit around and let loose with every weapon. Microwaves and exploding rounds hit Vibeke's tank. She pushed on. Mishka came to a wide river. Her tank jumped it without a problem. She fired a heavy charge that exploded on Vibeke's shield harmlessly. Harmlessly, but it slowed her down.

Vibs jumped at the river bank but was going too slow now to make it through. The tank was waterproof but boiling hot. When it crashed into the water metal groaned and twisted. The tank stalled.

Mishka's tank ran away. There was nothing Vibeke could do.

She jumped out of Alf's tank as soon as it cooled enough to climb down safely. She couldn't see well enough to repair it in the moonlight or distant fire. She could only keep to the side of the river until morning.

She tried to sleep. She failed. She was afraid for Nel to say the least, but beyond that she was afraid of what Nel would do without her. She'd never been out of contact with her and now she was under control of Mishka. What Mishka would do was bad enough, but what would Nel want, if not immersed in Vibeke's company? Part of her said Nel would be loyal to the end. Part of her knew better. “I have other plans for you,” the robot had once told her. “You don't deserve to die. You deserve to hurt. Like I hurt.” Until the sun rose, Vibeke lay in fear of what Nel might do in the presence of her enemy.

The next morning she examined the tank. The damage wasn't as bad as she feared; some of the armor was warped but only a few critical points in the electrical system had to be hammered out. After dragging the tank from the river she set to work, into the day and into the next night when the shield was working. She grabbed some fire before the forest burnt out and knew as any Valkyrie should how to use it with a few metal scraps to repair all she needed.

She dissected the weapons triggers. There was nothing blocking them. There was nothing to prevent her from firing. She hooked them back in and test fired, flawlessly. She couldn't figure it out. It had been almost as if her hands seized up when she tried before.

As she worked she heard moans from the forest. She cringed and started working faster. She could see more Christians coming up through the trees. She focused exclusively on the weapons systems. She needed it too fast to fix. She ripped out a power cell and began jury rigging it to one of the wide microwave emitters.

The first man came across the river. She glanced up. It wasn't a Christian. Thankfully it was only a wave zombie. She charged the power cell and fired at it. It fell into the river. Then fifteen more began their crossing. She targeted the groups of them first. The microwave set fire to their shredded clothing, and they groaned and fell into the water. In the next wave they began making it across. Vibeke climbed into the tank and fired from a sliver of open shield.

The zombies were all over her, and the microwave was overheating. Their stink was tremendous. Finally she kicked open the shield and kicked the closest zombies over, then ran down their bodies to open field. She kept firing around her, stopping only to let the system cool.

In time the zombie hordes began to peter out. The system had more time to cool, and she could pinpoint each body individually. Before long there were no more, just lifeless bodies surrounding her and the tank. She dragged them off to the side and started repairs.

She was relieved it had been only zombies and not a horde of Christians. Though the two were similar in appearance, smell, mindless destruction, and, well, she lost her train of thought and got back to the tank.

When it was able to defend itself, she climbed in and allowed herself an hour of sleep, so that she would have her wits back for the intricate circuitry work to come. A day later the tank was up and running.

 

 

M
ISHKA
WAS
back home in the Arctic Cathedral. Something resembling Violet was piled on the main altar. Still stunned, but Mishka risked nothing and kept the creature on the inhibitor panel they used for infant baptisms. It was not Violet, Mishka knew, but a soulless abomination given her body and mind, what Vibeke could steal from Valhalla. She stepped away from the robot and took off her vestments, leaving them on the floor of the apse. Unencumbered and wearing only her silk podryasnik, she took her Carlin knife and began scraping away the burnt cloth and skin from the fake Violet. She prodded the metallic seams, pulling the skin back and looking inside, between panels. She recognized Niide's handiwork. The body was mostly robotic, including the peripheral nervous system. She pushed the thing over and pulled apart its back panels, exposing its spine. One by one she disconnected its locomotor capabilities, leaving only its cranial nerves connected. Then she removed the inhibitor.

“Wake up, Violet,” she said.

The thing came to. Tried to move. Looked around until it saw Mishka.

“My name is Nel.”

“Do you know what you are?”

“I'm an artificial intelligence based in a regrown and mechanically modified body with the genetic and memory patterns of Violet as backed up before her death.”

“I adore machines that know their limitations.”

Nel had nothing more to say.

“And unlike humans, they know when to stay quiet. The question is, what do I do with you?”

“Fix me and let me go.”

“Good Lord you're cute. Is Vibeke happy with you? Does she get her kicks having a slave-bot of her old love? Does she make you submit to her every whim?”

“She doesn't control me.”

“Pity for her. Machines are nothing if they don't serve their human masters. Just like my flock. My flock is actually easier to program. But I think I can use you.”

“You'll find me utterly useless.”

“Not true! You already serve one use. You are bait, for your owner.”

“I won't cooperate with you.”

“Good. I like when they fight back. It makes their submission so much tastier. Harvard!”

Harvard ran to her. “Yes, Voivod?”

“Take one of the pogos to the dome I told you about on Kvitøya. Set up a call beacon for the big skiff and set it to repeat for as long as possible.”

“Yes, Voidvod. It should last for two days.”

“More than enough. Thank you, Harvard.” She smiled. He ran from the room to do her bidding. Mishka turned her attention back to the robot.

“What are your plans with the ravine?” it asked.

“Oh, I couldn't care less about the ravine. Veikko's tomb. But this began on Kvitøya, I want it to end there.”

Mishka ran her fingers across the thing's skin.

“You really think you won't cooperate with me. That's adorable.”

Nel said nothing.

“You won't just act according to my wishes; you'll want to. Not slavery, a liaison.”

“There's nothing you could say or do that would—”

“So shortsighted. I'm going to tell you three things about your precious Vibeke, and when I'm done, you'll beg to be mine.”

Nel stayed silent. Mishka jumped up onto the altar and sat beside her, cradling Nel's head against her side.

“When Violet first arrived, Vibs came to me in the M team barracks as the new girl slept. She cuddled up to me, lay down on my chest, and told me about the third Valknut. She was disappointed. All her research into Violet built her up to think she was getting a perfect sister. She was so disappointed. So let down to see what they'd brought in, she wondered if she could wipe the new girl's memories and dump her back in Scotland. Do you know why the team kept her? Why Vibeke didn't return the subpar merchandise she'd procured?”

“You convinced her.”

Mishka smiled broadly. “You're a clever beast, aren't you? Smarter than Violet ever was.”

“Complimenting me won't make me help you.”

“Neither will number two. Veikko hacked Vibeke. Can you guess what he—”

“To love Violet back, old news. But he didn't hack her to love
me
. She did that on her own. If that's the best you've got you can shut me down now.”

Mishka laughed. “That's not the best. Those are the amuse-bouche and hors d'oeuvres, to ready your palate. The main course is when I caught her last. When I knocked her out with a pipe. When I had her unconscious in the ravine, before she stole Violet's memories. The main course is what
I
hacked her to do….”

 

 

T
HE
G
EKI
sat on a secluded plateau just outside of Tromsø. The air was more foul with smoke and disease than ever before. There was no sign of Vibeke on their extended range.