The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (24 page)

“But not just you,” she concludes darkly.

“I didn’t know. I appear to be missing memories of my
mission. I didn’t know I was also carrying your seed. It must have
latched on to your DNA, activated—your own host is the ideal
target.”

“How many more like you are there, Colonel?” Burns
jumps in to interrogate.

“Why ruin the surprise?” I goad him.

“Is she able to reproduce more of you?” he ignores my
attitude.

I don’t answer him.

“Is it specifically sexually transmitted? Is it
contact? Fluid exchange?”

“Is that it?” I grill him back. “UNCORT wants the
tech? Wants you to make more, replicate the conversion process? Or
are they hoping to be selective about it? Get something they can
weaponize? We just had this conversation: Isn’t that exactly what
you’re supposedly so terrified of? Or is your entire mission
bullshit? Are you really here to harvest arms technology?”

“That’s absurd.” He almost sounds honestly offended.
But he’s speaking for the record. “What we need are
defenses
. We need to know how to protect ourselves. From
Chang. From you.”

“From the ETE,” I make the next conclusion for
him.

“This technology is unimaginably dangerous,” he
excuses.

“I agree. Don’t fuck with it.”

“And we should just leave it in your benign hands?
Your regular and generous use of obscenity is evidence enough of
your kind’s character.”

“’
My kind’
? Are we talking modified humans? Or
are you describing everyone who’s been on Mars all these decades
while you had your little Luddite theocratic revolution?”

“No. Of course not.” But his hesitation before he
says it, and the backpedaling politician’s tone in his voice as he
does, is damning. “We have mobilized an incredible global effort to
rescue these people.”

“So far I haven’t met a single survivor-descendant
that wants to be ‘rescued’,” I say for the record. “And your plan
to force the issue is going to result in bloodbaths.”

“And the alternative? Let you and Chang have free
reign to infect innocent people, create an army of freaks armed
with super-weapons? How long until you’re ready to head for
Earth?”

“
Stop it!
Both of you!” Lisa shouts. She
sounds like she’s in pain. She gets herself up off the floor,
stands, faces the primary camera. “Colonel Burns. Please forgive
the destruction of base property, but I need to try to prove
something to you.”

She touches her fingertip to one of the thick
multilayered polycarbonate panels of her containment cell. It
instantly spiderwebs with fractures, then dissolves in a snowfall
of fragments. She steps to the next panel. Punches her hand clean
through it. Then faces the airlock. Reaches out, manipulates the
air with her fingers. The secure locks disengage and the doors to
her cage open.

Then she’s gone. Just disappears from the monitor. I
hack MAI’s security grid: Her tag tracking is gone. There’s no heat
signature, no detection of motion. Even the weight sensors on the
Iso floor say she isn’t there. The exit hatch pops.

Alarms go off. Burns is barking orders as hatches
lock down in series, out of his control, isolating a clear path to
the nearest surface lock. Then that airlock cycles. Opens to the
outside. Shuts. We wait. There’s still no sign of Lisa. Burns has
an armor team wound up and ready to move, but has no target.

And then she’s back in Iso, right where she was. She
never moved.

“Colonel Burns: you have my promise, duty or no, that
I will remain here voluntarily. Colonel Ram: You will under no
circumstances attempt to ‘rescue’ me. General Richards and his team
are due in orbit in a few months. I hope once they get better
established, have more resources and talent in orbit and on the
ground, they can begin to see their situation more clearly. Colonel
Burns is a long way from home with no easy relief, and—partially
thanks to you—little on-planet support in carrying out the
difficult orders he’s been given by a distant command. I will do
what I can to educate and, if possible, reassure them that their
only real threat is Chang and his allies.”

I breathe, take in the chilly thin Martian air.

“Agreed,” I give reluctantly. “But you know how
they’ll want to use you.”

“I’ve been sitting here with nothing to do but think
for a few days now,” she tries to reassure. “Speaking of: Colonel
Burns, I would greatly appreciate it if you would request
permission from your superiors to give me more maneuvering room. I
will stay confined to base and restricted to whatever sections you
see fit.”

He doesn’t answer her. I’m sure he’s trying to figure
out how to salvage this, turn it to his advantage. I’m surprised he
doesn’t just go ahead and make offers to try to sell Lisa that he’s
really a reasonable man, but he may not have that authority.

“Michael,” she addresses me gently. “I can do more
good here. You need to trust me.”

“Of course I do.”

“I’m still really pissed at you,” I think she’s
trying to lighten things. “Even if I understand why you did what
you did, or that what you did to me wasn’t intentional.”

“I’m just really glad I didn’t get you killed,” I
tell her.

“Jury’s still out,” she downplays, sounding like
she’s trying to maintain. “I don’t feel like me.”

“I know what you mean. And I’m sorry for that. Take
care of yourself. And everybody else.”

“I expect we’ll be in touch.”

I cut the Link before Burns can jump back in a ruin
the moment.

“Oh.
Swell
. Polly Purebred is here, too.” It’s
Kali. She’s been standing behind me, probably hacked into my feed,
her bladed arms folded across her chest like she’s trying to hold
herself together. I’m grateful she didn’t just splice herself into
the conversation.

“So we’ve got the Good Soldier, the Whore, and me,”
she considers with cruel joy. “That’s like your entire sexual
history. And we’re all immortal and stuck on this rock. Together.
It is going to suck beyond comprehension to be you. Maybe Bel
should record it.”

Bel is standing sheepishly back by the main gate.

“It’s too bad your memories are missing,” Kali muses,
turning back to head for the dome. “I’d really like to know what
Yod offered you to make you take a deal like this. You are so
fucked. This is going to be fun…”

I watch her go, and I think I know what agreement I
made with Yod. These are the three women I loved most in my life,
at different times. Maybe it was insurance: If Chang did succeed, I
didn’t want them erased. I wanted them to keep existing.

Bel’s looking at me like he’s in pain on my
behalf.

“You said I’m carrying one more?” I confront again.
“And no way to tell who it is?”

“Not until she—or he—pops out and says ‘hi’,” Bel
insists.

“Was it the sex?” I have to ask.

“Well,” he seems to calculate, “let’s just say it
wasn’t airborne. The seed ideally needs to be introduced
mechanically into the host body. I’d let you try it with me—really,
I would, anytime—but this suit is already occupied. And one seed
can’t override another—one of those fail safes. Too bad, because it
would be a really satisfying way to end Chang.”

Now he’s looking at me like he wants to see if my
mind just went where his did. I give him a grin.

“Seriously: It could have been done a number of
ways,” he gets back to facts. “Your helmet, for instance: There are
a number of microscopic injectors—they interface you with the
helmet’s systems. Painless. But still, I wouldn’t risk anyone
mortal putting it on—might be an accidental lobotomy.”

I had my hands in Fera’s guts. She was dying. Dead.
Maybe I was just trying to save her.

“You realize this is actually very funny on several
levels?” Bel tries lightening. “I mean, if those seeds were planted
sexually… Did you know that Shiva, the Hindu Destroyer—has a
massive erect phallus as his symbol of power? I mean, they try to
say that’s not what it is, but they’re not fooling anyone. And then
there’s the relationship metaphor: everyone you sleep with
immediately turns into a monster you can’t ever get rid of. All
that sounds like Yod’s sense of humor.”

We get interrupted by the sound of gunfire. From
inside the garden.

I’ve let Kali wander off.

The shots came from somewhere on the east side of the
dome, near the housing terraces. The green is already alive with
motion and heat shapes as the Cast rally against whatever threat is
materializing. There’s several seconds of silence. Another few
shots, echoing high in the dome structure but muffled a bit by all
the plant life. I race my way through the living maze of the
gardens. Hop up a level to try to better see what’s happening.

“Hit and run,” one of the Cast tells me. “Trophy
try.”

Random mayhem seems unlikely.

“Two Gun?” I ask another I pass. She points where I’m
headed.

I find a body on the terrace deck—a girl, maybe
sixteen—hit in the torso. One shot. Then I hear screaming. Kali.
And someone else.

I jump, run, fight my way through the growth. And
almost get hit when a body comes flying at me. Black and gray suit.
H-K. I stop long enough to see what’s been done to him. It looks
like he’s been mauled by a tiger. He’s still alive, choking on his
own blood. But whatever cut him up went through his layered armor
like it was paper.

More shots. But this time I find Two Gun and Murphy,
hunched low for cover, looking for targets in the green.

“Incursion,” Murphy whispers urgently. “Looks like a
trophy-hunt. Routine culling. Makes no sense.”

“Distraction?” I consider.

He chews his lip. Nods.

“Two Gun!” I get his attention. “We’re being led away
from something. We…”

I get interrupted by another body flying at me, but
this one’s been intentionally tossed at my feet. Another H-K. Face
and throat in ribbons. Kali steps out of the bushes, licks her
bladed fingers. She’s sprayed with blood. A bullet is stuck in her
forehead, already dissolving. Two Gun has his pistols on her. He’s
frozen, not sure what he’s seeing.

“We’ll talk later, sweet boy,” she tells him. “Don’t
waste your bullets on me.”

“Diversion,” I tell her when she meets my eyes.

“All the wild things come running…” she
processes.

“Skull Hill,” I hear Bel in my head, realize he
wasn’t just lagging. I pass the intel along, start running. Lose
the lead when Kali flies past me like some big cat.

We find Bel down behind the hill, on the old trail to
the airlock I’d fused after my exile. And two more H-K. They’re
down, but look intact. Bel looks only annoyed. He’s standing over a
large cargo case.

“Thermobaric bomb,” he tells us. “Not big enough to
do the job.”

“They’re bringing more,” Murphy concludes. “They’ll
need to plant in multiple locations.” And then I’m jerking him out
of the way as we get sprayed by full-auto fire. ICW.

Palmer.

It came from somewhere up in the rafters. I give him
a target, track his fire home, draw my pistol and fire. Blow his
perch out from under him. His stolen armor comes crashing down in
the terraces. I see Cast shapes swarm him.

“The bombs are on hardwired timers,” Bel tells me we
can’t just hack them remotely. Kali is already gone.

I still have enough from what I sifted from Gardener
to know their sally-ports. Just bringing it up appears to share the
intel with my two modified companions. Two Gun and Murphy seem to
know the possibilities well enough to anticipate. We divide. Move
fast.

I hear shots. More screaming. Kali has found more
victims.

I’m coming up on another pair of H-K’s carrying a
case. They get stuck with knives while they’re busy drawing on me.
Mak steps out of the green to make sure they’re done. I take the
time to punch my hand through the metal box, reach in and destroy
the timing mechanism. Go.

There’s more shooting. Pistols. And another ICW. I’m
thinking it may not have been Palmer up in the rafters—they have
two stolen suits and guns.

I find two more uniformed H-K, fly into them, draw my
sword. I hurt them badly but don’t kill them—a small price to pay
for participating in genocide. I break their bomb and move on.

“Two more down,” Bel tells me in my head. I haven’t
heard any news from Kali.

“Colonel Ram!” I hear Murphy shout. I find him
standing over two of his former comrades. One is dead, the other
has been shot in the throat—he’s gripping at the wound, trying to
keep from bleeding to death. Murphy has already disarmed them both
for good measure, their revolvers wedged in his belt. “Bomb!” he
directs me. I bust through the top of the case and kill it. The
bleeding man is glaring at Murphy—he’s made himself traitor to his
own people to protect these people. His face is stone. I give him a
quick nod, try to reassure him.

More ICW fire. Stray bullets whip through the green
at us. Murphy gets himself behind a support pillar. One of the
rounds hits the bomb case and I hear hissing. I rip the lid off,
get a face full of O2. The case has three main components: two gas
canisters—one oxygen, the other probably hydrogen—set to burst and
disperse, prime the thin air; the third is packed charge that will
likely disperse a powdered fuel, possibly as simple as aluminum. A
final thermal charge then ignites the aerosol mix, incinerating
everything in and around the cloud. The bombs are probably timed to
perform each stage in sync with each other: fill the whole dome,
then light it up. It’s all homemade out of common supplies.

I tear the leaking O2 canister free and throw it as
far as I can. I surprise myself by making it fly out through one of
the gaps in the dome.

Then I go find whoever has that ICW. It doesn’t take
me long to lock his location based on sound alone. But then the
sound changes: I hear the cycle and pop of a grenade, hear and feel
the blast somewhere still well ahead of me. I decide to forgo
mercy, pop my own round back at him through the green. I don’t hear
any more ICW fire. But I do hear Kali scream in frustration—I guess
I just took her target.