The God Mars
Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming
By Michael Rizzo
Copyright 2015 by Michael Rizzo
Smashwords Edition
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Table of Contents
Part One: Game of Dead
Chapter 1: Abandon All Hope
Chapter 2: Confidence and Paranoia
Chapter 3: Dire Maker
Chapter 4: Quagmire
Chapter 5: A War Like Me
Chapter 6: The Cult of Kali
Chapter 7: Empty Rituals
Chapter 8: Apocrypha
Part Two: As I Walk Through This Wicked World
Chapter 1: Masquerading as a Man with a Reason
Chapter 2: Plague of Hornets
Chapter 3: And Once You’re Gone…
Chapter 4: Charlie Foxtrot
Chapter 5: The Sons of Liberty
Chapter 6: The Thought That Pulled The Trigger
Chapter 7: Say You Want a Revolution
Chapter 8: “And As We Wind On Down The Road…”
Chapter 9: “…Our Shadow’s Taller Than Our Soul”
Chapter 10: Harm’s Way
Chapter 11: Dei ex Machinis
Map of The Vajra
Author’s Afterward
Part One: Game of Dead
Chapter 1: Abandon All Hope
From the memory files of Mike Ram, relative date 23 May 2118:
“It strikes clear that none of this would have happened if it weren’t for you and your kind, Colonel Ram.”
And so it drops, however little sense it makes.
“The robot attacks… Now this new horror… All you. The demon said so himself: He’s only doing it to torment you.”
But then, fear doesn’t need to make sense.
The grief does. Despite the privacy they usually hold to in their funeral ceremonies, they’ve laid the bodies out in their Council Chamber, which tells me they want us to see what they’re blaming us for:
Two children, a girl and a boy, maybe only five or six Earth Standard years old. They both bear the telltale neck wounds of Harvester injectors: small punctures haloed by distinctive bruises, the unmistakable imprint left by the injector housing; heralding certain, horrible death by what it delivered into them. That they look otherwise intact tells me that they were spared that fate—a victim suffering the process of conversion usually injures themselves in their agony and madness as their brain is consumed, the interface weaving into their brainstem and the sensor stalks forcing their way into the eye sockets through the skull. I can’t imagine that the Pax—or anyone human—would simply restrain them and leave them to suffer that. Someone—perhaps one of the Pax here in the Chamber with us, perhaps a family member—took on the agonizing duty of giving them mercy.
But how they were given that mercy is unclear. I (and those like me) can kill a Normal with a touch, but these people only have simple handmade weapons. I’ve seen them spare their own with a well-placed blade or arrow, but there are no other visible wounds on these bodies. It seems reasonable to assume they’ve reserved a less violent method—poison, suffocation—for their children, to make the terrible act very slightly more bearable. That they’ve even had to consider the most humane way to kill a child is its own tragedy.
I’m distracting myself, letting my morbid curiosity obsess on the mechanics of the act so I can have the briefest respite from dwelling on the reason that it had to be done.
Despite the display, the Pax have still taken their own steps to make this easier to endure, as all humans do in matters of mourning: The small corpses have been arranged neatly, peacefully, with reverence. They could be asleep—such a poor and worn comparison, however well it fits here—but my visual enhancements assure me that they’re as cold as this cavern, destroying the illusion for me. I scan no breathing, hear no heartbeats. They are children no more, just empty shells of flesh and bone, however gently cared for. All the potential of their lives has been taken. And for what? A sick piece of shit’s petty amusement. And that makes me angry beyond reason.
But I have to maintain myself (especially since my host doesn’t seem able to). This is a solemn moment. These people need to grieve. Again. And they need some kind of hope. This isn’t the time for rage.
And even when it is time to rage, there must be focus, control, reason. Many have been lost in these last terrible months, but there are many more lives that might still be saved, if so-called cooler heads can prevail. Thankfully, I’ve always had a special talent for turning rage into tactical calculation, a plan to win the unwinnable battle.
Of course, that tactical (practical) part of me wants to warn them: If you don’t destroy the control modules that are building themselves right now around these children’s brainstems, or preventatively sever their heads, their small bodies will reanimate within three days of their infection, and the sick technology that will then be unnaturally motivating their corpses will immediately seek to replicate, to pass the ravenous nanotech to the nearest warm target. But I know the Pax know that. They’ve learned that lesson far too dearly. I expect the reason that they’ve risked leaving the bodies intact this long is that they are still freshly mourning, that they need time and ritual to say their goodbyes before their beloved beautiful children are destroyed like so much toxic meat.
(I feel a wave of nausea, but not at the thought of the mutilating that needs to be done to these bodies. It’s because I’m immune, invincible, and practically immortal. My enemy can’t hurt me except by hurting them. There’s no way to stop that except ending him, and the fucker has been gleefully keeping himself out of my reach.)
Among those gathered here, I can reasonably guess who the dead children’s parents are, who are siblings and grandparents and extended family (though the whole community is family). Their collective grief is agonizing to be in the presence of. I wonder which one of them accepted the terrible duty of granting these children mercy. I certainly would have, if I’d been here, if they would have let me. I’ve already lost count of how many innocents I’ve killed and mutilated (as cleanly as possible) in the last few weeks since Asmodeus unleashed this atrocity on the people of this world. I couldn’t do otherwise, because I have seen the alternative run its course. And I would have to do it out of need, to keep the technological plague from spreading, from taking more lives. But is it better to let a stranger—an outsider—do the soul-scarring deed? Or just easier? I can’t answer that for them.
“You will leave this place now,” Leder Sower, their elected leader, orders me and mine. I can feel his own rage and grief cut me with every word he measures out through clenched jaws. “I bid you get as far from our lands as possible, and make yourselves seen doing so. Take this evil with you, before it takes us all.”
The command makes the rest of the Pax present visibly uneasy. They keep silent, don’t argue with their Leder in front of outsiders, but it’s clear that none of them expected Sower to go this far, not after how we’ve fought to protect them, to help defend their lands from killing machines and worse.
I especially catch the look in Gaius Archer’s eyes. He’s obviously disturbed by this, but knows his place as a captain of their Hunter Warriors, staying at
attention with his elaborately handcrafted Green Man mask hung over his chest. But I get the impression that Sower’s unexpected decree and the two dead children displayed here aren’t the only things upsetting him. He looks worried, and seems eager to speak up about something, but can’t, not here and now.
The cut-stone Council Chamber falls into a tense silence. I can hear the wind whistling across the top-ends of the narrow skylight shafts that provide the manmade caverns their dim, haunting light.
“You aren’t wrong, Leder,” I try diplomacy. “Asmodeus does attack you to taunt us. But he will continue to attack you even if we leave, because he knows that doing so will bring us back. He knows we won’t leave you to his atrocities.”
“Then we will disappear, as we do,” Sower insists, gritting his teeth like he wants to scream at me. “Vanish into the Green. Seal up our Keep with stone.”
This triggers a fresh wave of palpable discomfort in those listening. The Chamber echoes with their combined gasps—they can no longer fully suppress their shock for the sake of decorum. Ordering our eviction was one thing, and understandable to a point, however short-sighted. But this… Yes, the Pax are unmatched in stealth in this verdant environment, but the things that Asmodeus has sent to hunt them have proven their lethal efficiency in tracking and targeting them. This Keep has been their only effective protection against the hunting parties of bots that have devastated their Steads and killed scores of their fellows, entire families. Abandoning this fortress without need in the face of such threats is throwing them all back out into the firing line, without adequate cover or defense.
Something is wrong—wrong with Sower. I can feel it twist in my gut. This doesn’t seem like the same man who so warmly welcomed us to feast only weeks ago (and they’d certainly suffered devastating losses then). He reminds me of… I’m not sure. Someone under the influence of something, some drug or mental illness. I can see it in his expression, his eyes, his coiled and trembling body language. It’s a strong enough impression that I have to wonder if it’s more than emotional and physical exhaustion.
I have a chilling thought: Could he be slipping into dementia? I have no idea how old he is. Perhaps in his Standard sixties, perhaps older. His wiry body is covered by thin, weathered skin over muscles that look like cables; his white hair reduced to a few stubborn wisps adorning his tanned skull; his deep-set eyes yellowed and framed by deep wrinkles.
I have no idea what these people’s average lifespan is, how well they age and what they tend to succumb to, living adapted to the terraformed environment as they do. They certainly appear healthy, though I have no standard of reference for their low-gravity lean, elongated physiques and low-pressure enlarged ribcages. The air may be thin, but humans on Earth have managed to live at comparable pressures. The food is plentiful, and they habitually protect themselves from solar UV. The electrostatic Atmosphere Net helps reduce the cosmic radiation that would cause steady cell damage, and having a mountain over their heads adds to that protection. Out in the Steads, they layer water-rich soil and plant life over their burrow-like shelters. But exposure to even low levels of gamma is debilitating on brain tissue over time, and Sower is one of the eldest of them that I’ve seen. Is that what Archer is looking so concerned about? Is his Leder showing the signs of neural degradation?
“And what about Katar?” I have to shift the conversation before one of my fellows can no longer hold his tongue. Both Bly and Lux are bristling, standing on my either shoulder. “How will they hide? Their City is exposed now.” Thanks to Asmodeus.
“I don’t care about Katar!” Sower almost does scream. “My responsibility is to my own. And too many are dead. Because of you. Children!” He jabs his long boney finger at the bodies. There’s a fresh surge of weeping among those gathered. Sower is using their loss as leverage. He may have even been the one who delayed whatever funeral ceremonies need to happen, just to have the display to justify his decision.
“You kill our children!” he comes up out of his seat, slamming his fist on the polished stone table between us.
Staged or not, I can’t help but feel a chill sink in my gut. And I’m not even sure which deaths he’s blaming us for, there have been so many, first by bot and now by this—a nanotech infection that turns a man (or a woman or child) into a walking corpse whose only purpose is to kill the living, to make more of its kind.
I can’t speak. His rage has found a target because I do feel guilty. Guilty for failing to protect the vulnerable from Asmodeus. Guilty for having to kill the infected, because we still haven’t managed a “cure”. If we could just find an effective countermeasure…
“We’re trying to save your children!” Bly can’t stay silent any longer, having lost probably all of his own people to this war.
“Asmodeus has gone to ground somewhere,” Lux tries reason, shifting into his female aspect. “We have reason to believe he may be here, hidden in your cave network. Please let us search, let us help you search.”
“You. Will. LEAVE.” Sower is beyond adamant, beyond reasoning with. His face has gone bright red, his mouth almost foaming. I…
I hear a ping. The briefest flash of signal. Subtle. Then gone, silent.
I’ve been hearing it since we were ushered through the defensive maze and down here, but can’t get a lock. It’s too brief, too long between. It’s not a bot signal, not even a Harvester signal. Just a simple short string of gibberish code.
“Asmodeus fielded Harvesters against the Katar evacuees three days ago. Several of them had been converted from your people,” I back up Lux’s claim—the reason we came here today, along with some fragments of images gleaned from the recovered memories of our most-unwilling “guest”—but I’m almost too distracted to focus on the argument anymore. “Did they come from here? Or were they from outlying Steads that hadn’t sheltered here? Who among you is unaccounted for?”
I can’t offer bodies to identify. They were vaporized by the Asmodeus clone’s suicide bomb.
“Archer! Escort them out!” Sower screeches. “Out beyond the Gate! Out beyond our borders!”
Archer has to know he can’t make us leave unless we’re willing, and I don’t know how willing I can be with so many lives on the line. But I’m sure that’s not what Archer is looking so nervous about. When I look him in the eye, he’s willing to show me his trepidation. He wants my help, but he can’t…
I hear the ping again. It’s like when I was young, back on Earth, when a smoke detector battery got low: There would be a beep from somewhere, then not another for several minutes, leaving you to try to figure out which detector needed attention. And it always seemed to happen in the middle of the fucking night.
“I can hear a signal,” Lux says out loud. “Somewhere nearby.”
“Intermittent,” I confirm. “Brief flash.”
“Is that what that was?” Bly asks, relieved that he wasn’t hallucinating, until the weight of the implication hits him: “We can’t leave. They’re here!”
“Nothing is here!” Sower insists, pulling back just a bit from raving. He takes in a deep, ragged breath. “You. Just you. All of this is you!” But then I see his face contort: a flash of a grin, then a giggle, stifled, like he’s trying not to laugh. Then he fights himself under control again.
Dementia? Or…
The Companion-Bound said their Blades could influence them by prodding at their emotions, Bly reminds in my head. Is there a technology that can do that without a Blade?
Oh no. No. I feel sick.
We need Bel, Lux answers him urgently, though matching his discretion by keeping our conversation where no one else can hear.
But now I’m staring at Sower like I could actually see into his brain. He locks my eyes like this is a contest. His trembling gets much worse, to the point that he’s almost convulsing.
“Has he been injured lately?” I ask Archer sideways, not breaking eye contact with Sower. “An unexplained sore? Headaches?”
“He…” Arc
her starts to answer, but stops himself. I see him shake his head, but it isn’t a denial.
The other Council members start to get up, to go to Sower, to support, concerned.
“I’d stay away from him,” Lux warns as lightly as she can.
Sower begins to scream, and reaches up to tear at his thin white hair like he wants to open up his own skull. The scream becomes laughter, then rage, then an insane storm of both. He pushes himself out of his seat, pulls a stout knife from his belt and lunges at me across the stone table like an animal.
I receive him easily enough, and try to be gentle, but his thrashing as I take him down is battering him to the point that he may break his own bones and dislocate his own joints—I think the only reason that doesn’t happen is that the Pax skeletons, like the neighboring Katar, are more flexible than Earth-gravity bones.
Archer and some of the other Hunters rush in to help me restrain him. Archer orders the Chamber cleared, and a doctor to be sent for. An older woman tries to push her way through the crowd and has to be restrained by the Hunters, begging to go to him—I recognize her as Sower’s wife. I’m sure the look on my face gives her no comfort.
Sower’s emotional storm keeps shifting, too fast to follow: Rage, sobbing, laughing, then something that looks like sexual arousal, then back again, second-by-second.
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