The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (23 page)

But she looks (and smells) clean. Which means she
absorbed it all. Resources. I don’t point that out. Bel, however,
is chewing his lip, looking like he’s trying not to comment. But
then he blows it:

“So this is the wife?”

“Twice, apparently,” she growls. “If you count the
horny little wild thing I’m sharing a brain with.”

“Fera?” I try again, hopeful.

“Sort of,” she allows, but she sounds stressed even
by the reminder. “Failsafe. I didn’t over-write her. So now I get
to remember this whole other life.”

“You started conversion while the girl was still
alive,” Bel assumes.

“I seem to remember some really hot fucking,” she
says without shame, looking at me almost hungrily. “Like us in the
good old days.”

“You were carrying her seed?” Bel confronts me.

I hesitate. Shake my head. I have no idea…

“How do you
not
know that?” she almost spits
at me.

“Brain damage,” Bel excuses for me. “Something went
wrong during his regen. He doesn’t remember Yod at all.”

She starts to shake her sharp finger at me like I’ve
failed in some unforgivable way, then seems to remember something.
Laughs.

“Time crunch,” she explains to Bel like I’m not here.
“He didn’t agree until the last minute. We had to use a backup. It
wasn’t updated.”

That seems to make perfect sense to Bel. He actually
looks relieved. I’m not sure if I should be or not.

“Why didn’t
I
know you were working for us?”
she grills him.

“None of you did,” he tells her. “Yod wanted to make
sure nothing about us got shared.”

“’
Us’
?” she picks out.

“Ummm…” Bel regrets.

“I’m not allowed to know that?” she growls at him.
“Even now? I may have just woken up five minutes ago, but just from
what’s in Wild Girl’s shit-life memories, I know we’re beyond
fucked. Chang
won
. Everything is
gone
. And what the
fuck did you fail to do to stop him when you had the chance?”

Bel looks frozen, locked up, probably second-guessing
everything he did or could have done. I realize I don’t even know
what his orders were. Or his situation. I don’t know if he could
have done more, but it’s clear: he’s been carrying the guilt of
doubt. And Kali isn’t in an understanding mood. (I seem to remember
she rarely was.)

“It’s that Company whore, isn’t it?” she assumes.
“Astarte. Whose idea was it to trust that skank? She lies like she
breathes.” She turns back on me. “And don’t you fucking defend her.
You were just banging her because you were on the rebound from your
bad breakup with Tess Trueheart, and she was happy to use you to
save her own ass.”

“Yod sent her,” Bel tries, his voice sounding
unusually small.

“Yod!” she rages at neither of us in particular. “Yod
is
gone
! Gone with everything else! Including the real me!
And you! None of us ever even existed now!”

She’s losing control. Her claws extend and she lashes
out, gouges the metal bulkhead. Again. Screaming like she’s in
agony. She puts a hand through the small table, spins and aims for
the nearest of Fera’s costume displays. Stops with her claws just
inches from the shrine. I see her whole body shake. She lets out a
keening cry through clenched teeth. Puts her hands over her face.
Her claws dig into her own forehead, draw blood. But the cuts heal
almost instantly. Still, it leaves her face painted crimson when
she finally drops her hands.

“Remember the old joke? I think you told it to me…”
She’s sobbing. “How does a Buddhist order a hot dog? He says ‘Make
me one with everything.’” She staggers back into the bulkhead by
the hatchway, slides down to sit on the floor. Bangs her head back
against the steel. Tears are streaming down her cheeks, trying to
wash away some of the blood. “Yod was going to make me one with
everything… I was finally going to be free…”

Her life spins in my other memories:

Calliope Tostig. Callie. She was a badass operator
when I met her: direct and brutal and always in control. I got that
she had a crush—she was an aggressive flirt, not at all shy about
her sexuality. But she was too young for me—I think we both got
that.

Then, a few years down the road, I stopped being an
old man. Found her again. (After Lisa was done with me the second
time, and Star was off again doing whatever she did to never sit
still.) I brought her into the project. Made her even more weapon
than she had been. And for awhile, we were inseparable.

She chose the codename Kali, just a different
pronunciation of her name, female aspect of the destroyer, Shiva.
His consort. It seemed appropriate. After all, I was the Ragnarok,
the Destroyer of Gods, doom of the established power and bringer of
a new order.

But then there were no more wars to fight—only the
destructive games of men-turned-gods. She got bored. Bored with me.
Bored with life. Bored with sex. She started playing with extremes,
dropped all the limits and taboos she had when she was mortal. I
caught her indulging in “Live Guro”, getting off on torture and
mutilation (and those willing to be tortured and mutilated for
their own sexual gratification were surprisingly common), drenching
herself in blood and gore. She wanted me to join her, hoped I would
share her new tastes. She called me every vile name in her arsenal
when I walked away.

Now she’s here, in this timeline. And partly Fera, at
least her memories. But I don’t think that’s what’s got her broken
in a sobbing heap on the floor. I realize I’ve never seen her like
this. I wonder what Yod showed her, promised her. (I wonder what he
showed
me
.)

“How did this happen?” I ask Bel, needing to know
enough to dare breaking the moment with practical urgency. He
shrugs. But he knows:

“You must have been carrying seeds. Contingencies in
case more of us were needed. I’m carrying two myself. All you need
is a compatible host, or viable DNA to complete the sequence and a
pile of raw materials, or both. Better if you can score an actual
DNA match, like Astarte did with you—find the version of the
seed-model in this timeline. Or someone close.”

“Sounds like something you would need to do
intentionally,” I criticize.

“Yes. But there are contingencies if you get yourself
in bad trouble. There’s also the possibility that you did it
unconsciously.”

“And how would I have planted one of these seeds?” I
look at Kali, remember Fera, assuming…

“It could be any prolonged intimate contact,” he
confirms. “With you or whatever object sustains the seeds.”

“Is there any way to tell if I’m carrying more?” I
really need to know.

He shrugs again. Steps up to me. Very close.
Hesitates, like he’s waiting for my approval. Then asks when I
don’t get it:

“May I? Don’t take this the wrong way…”

I’m still not getting it when he leans in and kisses
me, his gloved hands holding my face, holding us like that for a
few seconds while I endure awkwardly. Then he breaks.

“…or take it any way you like.”

He chews his lip, almost like he’s tasting me. Mulls
it. Raises his eyebrows.

“You have one left.”

The news hits me like a shock.

“No way to tell who,” he answers my next question. “I
wasn’t there when you were loaded. But it looks like you were
carrying two, just like I am.” He looks down at Kali. She throws
her head back into the wall again, eyes closed. Her mouth curls
into something between growl and grin as she seems to remember
something. And that something is either amusing or hurting her or
both. (I realize she has fangs.)

“
Three
,” she corrects him lazily, like she’s
in some degree of shock. “He was carrying three. Check his stupid
fucking helmet.”

Bel’s eyebrows go up again. I fish the helmet out of
my surcoat, unfold it. Kali winces at the sight of it like it
embarrasses her. Bel takes it from me gingerly, eases it over his
head like he’s afraid it may decide to piss on him. I can’t see his
face, see his expression. He takes it off. Sighs.

“She’s right,” he tells me like it might be bad news.
“You had three. She’s one. One’s still in you. So where’s number
thr…?”

I don’t let him finish. I shove past him out the
door. My head is racing.

The sun is rising—I can see the sky purple through
the gaps in the dome structure. I almost take a tumble because of
the ice frosting every hard surface. Run.

None of the Cast are up and moving yet. It’s still
well below freezing. I run and jump and hurdle my way down to the
skull hill. Scramble up. Search in the low light. I’m just about to
shout for Two Gun to help me when I find the H-A helmet Palmer had
discarded, displayed like a trophy on one of the vine-wound struts.
Fera’s name has been painted on the visor, possibly in her own
blood, apparently giving her credit for at least having the H-K’s
life in her hands.

I reach inside, snap out the Link jack. Run for the
main gate. Run outside.

I hack, use my own energy to power up the piece of
UNMAC tech. The sun has broken the valley horizon far to the east,
at my back. I call out as calmly as I can manage.

“UNMAC Base Melas Two. This is Colonel Ram. Please
respond.”

I don’t get an answer, but a Link channel has been
established. They’ve heard me. And it lets me back in to MAI. So if
they don’t feel like answering me, I can…

“I was wondering when you’d have the nerve to call
us, Colonel,” Burns comes on, trying to sound completely smug even
though it’s clear I’ve shaken him, if for no other reason than he’s
afraid of me. I can see him on video feed, directly in my head,
projected in my visual field. “I was actually betting you’d show up
in person. Apparently you’re not as brave—or reckless—as I
thought.”

“I’ve been busy,” I grace his sliminess with an idle
excuse. I form an avatar image of myself on his screens, no
background, so I can talk with him almost face-to-face.

“We’ve seen. That was you, wasn’t? Did you make that
warhead yourself?”

I can’t help but grin at him. He—or his
command—thinks I blew up Chang.

“Can’t take credit,” I correct him vaguely. “I’m not
Chang’s only enemy on this world.”

“Then you must be calling about your girlfriend.”

I feel my gut drop, my face flush. But this
is
why I called.

The feed shifts. I’m looking at Iso. A female figure
in black BDU pants and a T-shirt reclines on the exam bed, not
sleeping, looking bored, staring at the ceiling. She’s slim,
tanned, her long dark hair untied and down around her shoulders.
And she’s young.

“Lisa?” I ask into the channel.

She bolts up, looks at the sentry cameras. I put
myself on one of the Med screens. I zoom in on her face. Her irises
are dark metallic, like hematite. She looks like she’s fighting for
words, a dozen competing emotions about to explode out of her. What
I get first is most primal: Rage.

“
What the hell did you do to me?!!
” she yells
at my avatar, hopping off the bed. “
What am I?!! Who is
Parvati?!!
”

Oh.

I hesitate like an idiot as a storm of memories wash
over me. I try to explain:

“Your codename. From the Project.”

“That was
real
?!” she’s struggling. So she
vents what she’s been waiting to: “
I woke up in a grave!
They buried me! I had to dig myself out. Stagger back to an
airlock. Starving… Scared the crap out of everyone… Guns pointed…
Got thrown in here. Two days now. They’ve been running every test
to can think of…”

She approaches the transparency of her cell like
she’d do me violence if I was there.

“Is this what you are?” she demands to know,
gesturing to her restored body.

“Similar,” I tell her as gently as I can. “I think
our optional mods are different.”

“
What does that mean?!
” She’s losing control.
Her hands are on the polycarbonate. It starts to vibrate. Crack.
Alarms go off. She jerks her hands back. Then touches the damage
she’s done, disbelieving. Afraid. It heals, disappears. This only
seems to scare her more.

“What else can she do, Colonel?” Burns pries. Then
fills in: “She’s been cooperatively uncooperative. Just keeps
insisting she’s still her. Just like you did, before you hacked our
systems, absorbed our bullets, morphed into whatever it is you’re
supposed to be.”

“I’m coming to get you,” I assure her.

“
No!
” she yells at me. “No! I’m staying! This
is where I belong. And you need to stay away!”

“You’re a thing for them to experiment on.” But I’m
sure she already knows that. And this: “They’ll never let you go.”
What I don’t say: They can’t stop you if you don’t want to play
anymore.

I watch her go back to the bed like she’s going to
sit on it, but instead she slumps to the floor, leans back against
the base of it, puts her head in her hands.

“I remember Matthew,” she tells me softly. “I
remember him dying. Here. On this planet. But he died of old age
and cancer. There never were Discs, no nuclear strike, Mars was
never isolated… Married. Heh… He was married. To Tru Greenlove. I
mean, that
can’t
be right…

“But you… you wouldn’t come see him. He was dying,
and you wouldn’t come. Your best friend… You were too pissed that
he wouldn’t take the treatment, wouldn’t become whatever it was
that we were. He just wanted to live and die like a person, a real
person. He didn’t want what we were. He saw what it was doing to
us.”

“He was right,” I try.

“Fuck you.”

I leave her be for awhile. To his credit, so does
Burns.

“They think it’s because we had sex,” she eventually
tells me.

“Yes and no,” I admit, not caring if Burns is sending
all of this back to UNCORT. “Ra implanted me with the ‘seed’ of
what I was—it remade me. It was a way of sending a version of me
back in time, like Chang, to fight him. Unfortunately, Chang got a
head start.”