Gudsriki (47 page)

Mishka leaned over Nel to affix the bore. Nel couldn't help but stare at the full, pendulous breasts moving gently toward her, the Russian cross necklace dangling between them. The curves of her hips under the translucent cloth. Violet had memories of Mishka's body. She'd stared at it, stared for quite some time before her attentions focused on Vibeke. And the real presence of her was near overwhelming.

Then the bore began. It began deleting her love for Vibeke like so much code. It replaced it with lust and loyalty to Mishka, and a hatred of Vibeke so dark, it could only have been copied from Mishka's own mind. That simply, the bore changed her brain, altered it, rewrote it with utter clarity, then finished with a ding.

Luckily Nelson was a Tikari, not a brain like any human. The small insect backed up the brain code as it was altered and reinstated it verbatim as soon as the bore was done.

Mishka put her hand on Nel's breast and leaned in to kiss her, and whispered, “Now that that's settled, why don't I reconnect your muscles and fuck you on the altar?”

“Yes, reconnect me.” Nel was ready to rip her apart. Mishka removed the bore.

“Say you want me.”

“I want you.”

“Say you love me.”

“I love you.”

“Say you never loved Vibeke.”

“I—” Nel hesitated for a fraction of a second. “—never loved Vibeke.”

It was too late. Mishka noticed the hesitation. She knew the bore had failed. She grumbled, “You really are a clever little shit.”

Nel stared at her, angry as hell.

“You,” said Mishka, “you really are Vibeke's doll through and through. An abomination.”

Nel said nothing.

“You're a witch!”

“I'm not a fucking witch!”

“You're an imp! A demon! A—”

“Bitch, I'm the fucking Antichrist
.
”

Mishka slapped her. Strangled her. Screamed at her face with impotent rage. She stood and walked to the altarpiece where she grabbed the heavy gold crucifix. She tore it from the sculpture with her bare hands and moved to ram it down Nel's throat and end the failure. She raised her arms and gritted her teeth.

And stopped. She dropped the cross and breathed hard. She sat beside the altar and thought for a moment.

Vibeke had seduced her toy. That was fine, she only wanted it in the first place because she knew it would drive Vibeke mad. That was the goal. Not her petty old attractions. No, she didn't give a damn about keeping Nel to herself. She wanted Vibeke to suffer. And that she could still do. Vibeke had fallen in love with the thing. She could use that.

She stood and opened Nel's chest. She looked over the Tikari, the brainlink running up to Nel's head. She grabbed her Carlin knife and cut open the cerebral bore.

She cut off Nel's face and began to splice the bore's interface inside. It was easy work, no different from Tikari repairs. She bypassed Nel's brain completely and linked control of the body into the bore antenna under her own frequency.

Within hours, the fake Violet's body was under her control, like a Tikari should be. Its mind disconnected. Helpless inside its skull. She left its eyes and ears attached so it could see her use its body, hear Mishka speak to Vibeke with Nel's own voice.

Mishka didn't even need a new link herself, having sacrificed her real Tikari in an attempt on Vibeke's life. The robot now had a new one visible, but that fit into the plan perfectly. There was no way Vibeke would recognize it with what Mishka had planned, not until she'd killed the robot with her bare hands. As she'd do that easily when Mishka let it go limp. Only then would she see what Mishka had done. The trick she'd played.

Only once the machine was dead would Vibeke realize she'd killed her loyal, loving toy. Mishka hoped it was a deep, genuine love, hoped
Vibeke truly loved it back. The pain would be phenomenal; Vibeke would scream in agony, Mishka knew. That was when Mishka would kill her.

 

 

V
IBEKE
'
S
ATTEMPTS
at thought only grated against the solid, rough anger. Rubbing the inside of her skull raw. It hurt her so much to think that she snapped into the hardest battle mindset she could muster. She would kill the robot. She thought little else. The idea of trickery was locked in a box in a room in a fort in a city on the other side of the globe. The idea of the robot's innocence was beyond it. Unavailable to her. Impossible to her.

Alf's tank was fast, but the skiff was evenly matched. Vibs was a skilled driver, but the skiff was always just out of her weapons range, anticipating her every move.

On it the machine lay helpless, trapped behind her own eyes and stolen face, watching Vibeke chase her.

Vibeke could do nothing but think. Of the horror to come. Of the cruelty of Mishka. Of her impotence to stop her. She hated herself for it. For everything. For trusting Nel, for not seeing the hack clear as day, but above all for falling for the damned facsimile.

She felt hacked to ribbons. The fabric of her mind was torn and tattered by who knew how many hacks by how many monsters. She wanted to rip out her own brain. It had done her no good in years. It was a vulnerability, a victim. The irrational anger she felt for the victims she'd seen turned inward and tore at her. Tears threatened. She focused on the chase.

The skiff was keeping to the banks of a river. When the river opened into a fjord, Vibs angled the tank onto its steep sides. She leapt over the trees and rocks and dug the tank's legs deep into the slanted ground. The skiff continued over the water, but when the fjord opened to the ocean she didn't go out to sea, she kept to the coast. As if she wanted to be caught.
Fine
, thought Vibs,
dig your own grave
. She was still too angry to wonder why.

Mishka lay warm next to her new toy. She was delighted by Vibeke's inability to sense the plot behind her chase. Vibeke was her puppet too, made so by her own weak mind. Mishka had to laugh out loud at that.

Vibeke finally passed over the ultimate horror of Mishka's world. Thousands of boats. The fjords were filled with them, boarded by tens of thousands of evangelists. Missions were heading out to cover the globe.

Under layers of consciousness, far from her active mind, she finally understood why the Geki had abandoned her. Why they weren't there burning the docks. Earth was finally irrevocably lost. Even without the boats, Christianity would slowly pop up around the world and churches like Mishka's would rule, as they did before, for a thousand years. Another dark age.

A flicker of activity. She would kill Veikko and flood the world. Give it to the Cetaceans. Surely the Christians would appreciate a second flood, even if it came to rid the world of themselves. Vibeke didn't care how they took it. She ruined the attempted sense, exterminated all rational thought. She thought of Nel's blood. Hot on her face. Like the most powerful sexual lust she'd ever known, Vibeke craved the splitting of Nel's skin. The tearing of her viscera. She longed to see Nel sob, to see her beg, to see her feel pain such as even a Valkyrie had never felt.

The weather grew worse as they progressed north. Vibeke had to set the tank's shield to defrost in order to see clearly the object of her pursuit. Farther north, all was encased in ice. The ocean was frozen over and no more boats were visible. She was passing the outer edge of evil.

They had reached the edge of land, the skiff and the tank. They were on an ice bridge now. The sun began to set as the two vehicles went on into the dusk. It had been a short day, the penultimate day before arctic night. The last day for many things.

 

 

“L
OOK
AT
you, trapped in your own mind. At least you have me for company.”

Nel tried not to think back.

“Which is better, talking to me or observing what Mishka does with your body? What is she doing? I hope at least someone gets to enjoy that body of yours.”

“Fuck you, Veikko….”

She could feel the amusement radiating from his mind. She tried to shut it out.

“Why so solemn? I heard Mishka through your brain. She's playing a damn good practical joke.”

“I don't want to hurt Vibeke like this. The thought is….”

“Heartbreaking?”

“Yes.”

“You'll get over it. Your time with Vibs is coming to an end. Your time with me is just about to begin.”

Nel remained silent.

 

 

“A
DMIRAL
T
AITAMATON
has taken up positions around the Kvitøya dome and sent four recon forces onto the island. They have yet to breach the dome.”

“Thank you, Pytten, keep me updated.”

“Yes, sir. And also—”

“Also?”

“There's an extremely powerful link signal coming out of the dome. Common net link protocols may be functional within the region.”

“Why does this bear mentioning?”

“Because of the radio array I've been using to monitor Taitamaton's flagship. The link signals present within their bridge appear as static once boosted by the ambient link power.”

Risto stared at Pytten.

“We can monitor their intravessel communications, sir.”

“On screen,” ordered Risto.

Pytten put the static on a waveform program and linked it onto the array's monitor and speaker. They heard Taitamaton's bridge speakers.

“What is the nature of the contact?”

“Ulver, sir. Ulver carrier bands.”

“What does Ulver have in the region?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Scan for mobile solids.”

“Scanning, sir.”

Pytten and Risto listened. For a few seconds the signal was utterly silent. Then—

“Sir! We read hundreds of Ulver vessels incoming.”

“Nature!”

“Amphibious assault ships, over 150. Sir! They're in linked contact with an air force. At least 300 airborne. Ground forces on the ice bridge. Hundreds of CAVs, sir!”

Mayhem cluttered the audio. Pytten looked to Risto.

“How would they know about us?”

“More importantly, why would they care? If they infiltrated us they'd know we pose no threat to them.”

“They're in an offensive formation. They will attack.”

Risto exhaled. “They've been fed false information designed to make them think we're a threat.”

“But who—” Pytten realized it just as Risto said it.

“Loki.”

“He sent those girls to trick us?”

“He sent them to trap
me
.”

 

 

M
ISHKA
WOKE
from a warm, fuzzy dream. They were nearing Kvitøya. The fun was about to begin. She readied her tank and brushed the robot aside onto the landing cushion bed. She slowed the skiff by 1 percent.

Vibeke hadn't slept. She was in a solid state of anger, unchanging, unmoving, ready at any second to strike. And very slowly, the skiff was falling closer. In only a moment it would be in range. Suddenly they were over the island. The skiff was in range. Mishka sprang her tank and fell safe within it into the snow. That was fine. She'd kill Mishka, somehow, later. She'd kill the robot first. Vibeke fired.

A bolt hit the back of the skiff, knocking out its propulsion. The bulk of it, now holding only the robot and its bed, crashed visibly onto the ice off Kvitøya. The skiff shattered. The divan cushioned its occupant and both slid safely across the top of the snow.

Vibeke followed the bright red cushions. She could just make out the robot's shape, wrapped in nothing but a bedsheet. Vibeke drove her tank straight up to the wreck and hopped out in a single fluid motion. The robot was fallen on the snow. Vibeke reached into the wreckage and withdrew a heavy metal pipe.

She walked toward the thing, thinking of all the moments they'd shared. Two warm bodies in a cold wasteland. Fallen on the nuclear glass. Secure in a melting house in the acid rain.

Through Nel's eyes, Mishka watched her come. She looked almost sad. She needed her furious. She linked her puppet to kneel, to rise up, let the sheet slip off. To look at Vibeke with an expression of utter disgust, and speak.

“Kjøtt.”

Vibeke swung.

She crushed its shoulder, breaking it inward and sending Nel to the ground. They had sat together in the bright orange night on the ice bridge. In the groggery deep under the surface. Vibeke wanted to speak, to say anything that would hurt the damn machine, but nothing could manifest in her mind. Only the most sacred times she thought she'd shared with Nel. When Nel must have been plotting her betrayal. All manufactured to hurt her.

The machine was kneeling on the ground. She swung again, bashing the damned robot farther into the snow, onto its back. And again, denting the metal ribs over its stolen heart, tearing the skin on its breast. Where she'd pushed her open to see that heart, and caught her hair when Nel woke and closed up. And then they began to kiss….

She swung again, bashing the side of its right eye, cutting the skin all the way to the hair. She jabbed at its throat. Ripping down to the hydraulics beneath the muscle. The thing looked like Violet for a moment. The retarded bitch who started it all. She jabbed again, harder, puncturing straight through its trapezius.