by Ari Bach
Copyright
Published by
Harmony Ink Press
5032 Capital Circle SW
Suite 2, PMB# 279
Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886
USA
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Valhalla
© 2014 Ari Bach.
Cover Art
© 2014 Ari Bach.
Cover Design
© 2014 Paul Richmond.
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or [email protected].
ISBN: 978-1-62798-718-9
Library ISBN: 978-1-62798-720-2
Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-719-6
Printed in the United States of America
Second Edition
February 2014
First Edition published by Ari Bach: August 2010, March 2012.
Library Edition
May 2014
Chapter I: Kyle
OF THE million people in Kyle City, there was none so aimless as Violet MacRae. That’s not to say she walked into walls or spoke in tangents, only that she lacked a purpose in life. Every night since she could speak, her parents asked her the same question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” They would have asked even earlier, but this was the civilized world and children didn’t get their vocal cords until they proved they knew when not to use them. Violet didn’t get hers until she was three. At seventeen and a half, she had just passed her adulthood tests, and that old question was more pressing.
On the night of January 3, 2230, Violet and her parents stood on the deck of their apartment in Arcolochalsh, her native arcology. They watched the demolition of Skye Bridge 193 floors below. The decaying concrete monstrosity that had linked the Isle of Skye to mainland Scotland for the last 235 years was finally obsolete: Any vehicle that could jump its way past the wall of skyscrapers to the sea could easily jump the water itself. The bridge’s destruction by explosives was marked by great celebration and pageantry, though it could have been accomplished at less cost by hiring a four-year-old to kick the thing. Not a minute after the bridge fell, June, Violet’s mother, used the impressive spectacle to push Violet toward a career.
“How about demolitions?”
It wasn’t bad compared to her usual suggestions. Violet’s mom had recommended careers in everything from xenobiology to cosmetology, somehow managing to avoid the mention of a single job Violet could stand considering. Demolitions seemed almost tolerable until the stink of sulfur and concrete dust made its way past the filter pumps up to their nostrils. Violet didn’t need to say no; the toxic cloud said it for her.
The trio walked indoors to escape the air and eat dinner. As her father closed the door, he was already planning a new tactic.
“Is there any place you want to visit?” he asked, “Any sights you want to see?”
Violet knew the question for what it was but appreciated the subtlety. She tried to think.
“The aurora borealis,” she said. “Maybe the corona from orbit. Oh, and I want to see snow.”
Having grown up in northwestern Scotland, Violet had never seen snow in person, only online. There it lacked the sparkle, the painful cold, and the underfoot crunch of the genuine article. She had learned in class that it was once a common sight all over Scotland. And she’d spent some of her free time looking at simulations of the far north, where snow still fell and people had to wear clothes all year round just to stay warm.
“Maybe you should get into solar science,” suggested her mom.
Tracking photons was dull enough, but science meant working online. Violet had spent most of her life online, logged in to school. She wanted to live her life in the real world, doing something more physical.
“I’d rather fix zoo robots or fly trucks through the desert,” she joked.
Her mom laughed. “How about sports?”
Now there was an idea, but Violet’s interest was short-lived. Violet didn’t care who could jump highest or run fastest. All the best sports were online anyway. Boxing and bullfighting and death-match wrestling had all been reduced to online versions that dared not let any real harm come to their champions, or animals. Even synthetic beasts with advanced enough artificial intelligence were gaining protective legislation. Sports had no real stakes, nothing to be ventured or gained. She wanted something meaningful but feared to say so. If she admitted she wanted a meaningful job, her dad would push his own choice yet again.
Nelson MacRae was a police officer and proud of it. When Violet was very young, that meant she heard tales of yakuza wars and Orange Gang massacres, and even some stories about the mysterious Cetacean Divisionists and the dreaded Hall of the Slain. Of course she grew out of believing in such monsters. Her father’s stories lost their mystery when pirates were revealed to be common net thieves and monsters turned out to be no more than ordinary humans who had engineered and modified their bodies beyond recognition.
Violet liked how her dad was respected by people around the arcology. He looked impressive in uniform, though he rarely wore it. She might have wanted to be a cop herself but to her shame, she couldn’t apply. When she’d taken the maturity tests she ranked a twenty-nine on the VVPS (Verhoeven Violent Predilection Scale). Police specs demanded ranks under twenty-five. If she were one point higher, that would have meant neurorecalibration. Luckily, after years of having her test scores reported to her parents, the maturity test offered adult citizens their first private results. Violet didn’t want her parents to know the real reason she couldn’t be a cop, so she feigned disinterest in the job.
Her VVPS score was no surprise to her. Kids used to mock her angry demeanor often in the arcology playgrounds. The mockery made her want to rip the lips off their laughing faces. Such violent thoughts were relayed to the supervision programs through the net link antenna behind her ear, resulting in a lecture about violence from the nanny programs. She’d heard lecture 12D so often she knew it by heart: “Good kids don’t think that way,” it concluded. “Only bad little girls want to hurt people.” She let every lecture go in one ear and out the other without a word of dissent. Dissent just triggered lecture 14B. Ignoring the words did no harm, she thought. But after so many lectures, something eroded its way into her subconscious. Not that she decided to be a good kid. She just came to think she was no more than a bad little girl.
So from time to time, she acted like one. More than once she had been logged out of class early with a note of bad conduct. Sometimes she would get into fights with other students. A fight between two children’s avatars in a virtual classroom wasn’t much to see, but it was enough to get them punished. They were punished by (what else?) a lecture from the teaching program. It was a gentle AI for kids, so they were never harsh, just horribly demeaning. Then after
class she’d get the same lecture from her mom, in a voice even softer yet somehow more insulting. Sometimes it seemed to her that every adult and program in the world existed to talk down to her, except one. Her dad never gave her the lectures. He would just ask what happened, and sometimes she caught a hint of amusement hidden behind his eyes. He never even reprimanded her for playing games in class; he just thought it was funny she played Othello during a lesson on Shakespeare.
Violet was also plagued by the Lecture’s elder sibling, the Apology. Whenever an incident involved another kid, she had to cough up a few apologetic words. When it involved an adult, the words were doubled and often dictated by her mother, thus resembling one of her lectures. To apologize was the ultimate insult, a lecture forced into her own mouth. But at long last, the days of lectures and apologies were at an end. She was an adult now. She was allowed all the privileges, rights, and responsibilities of a citizen. She could vote, work, hire, receive pay, pay taxes, own property, apply to own a company, fornicate, marry, adopt, apply to give birth, apply for military service, apply for apprentice education, file a lawsuit, enter adult zones online and off, commit suicide, drink, smoke, caffeinate, use adult-rated drugs, and best of all, if she did something wrong, she could go to jail for it instead of hearing another damn lecture. And she had to find a job.
“I’ve got it! How about carpet pattern design?” said her mom.
At times like this Violet envied programs and robots. Sometimes she wished she were just an AI. They had no choices before them, no field of a million options, no questions about their future. They had a purpose. They were designed for it. To Violet, it seemed a flaw that humans were made with none in mind.
Her dad appeared ready to suggest another line of work when she smelled something strange. It wasn’t the debris cloud outside but a hot metallic smell. It was coming from the front door. Violet turned her head and looked across the apartment to see that there was no door. It had been melted off its hinges. Her dad saw it too and cursed loudly.
“Get Violet out of here! Get out now!”
Where the door had been, there were three men in orange hats and orange business suits coming in. There were two tall, tough men and one fat, ugly thug with a slack jaw. Her mom took her by the arm but had no chance to escape with her. One of the men already had a microwave pistol aimed at them.
“Do not move, not any of you,” said the thug in a Dansk accent.
“Herr Kray,” demanded her father, “what is this?”
“You know exactly what this is, Nelson. We know who you are, Officer MacRae.”
“Hrothgar, I don’t know what you think you—”
Then her father was dead. Violet had never seen a microwave go off, but she knew it when she saw it. A black burn mark just appeared on his chest, over his heart. She knew that a beam had just burnt through his ribs, and in an instant he was gone. She knew it happened. She didn’t go into denial. She would deal with it all when she was safe. The microwave was pointing at her and her mom.
“Do not move or speak,” said Kray. Violet stayed frozen. She could feel her mom behind her shaking, holding her tightly. The thug waved to the third man, who took a small pack from his belt. From it he produced a nail gun. Then Violet realized what was coming. Her dad had told her once how the Orange Gang crucified its enemies. She’d never believed it before, but it didn’t surprise or scare her now. She simply knew the likely course of events. She was keenly aware of every move the men made and aware that her mom was growing frightened and enraged. It occurred to Violet as strange that she was not scared too.
She watched Hrothgar Kray and the other man take hold of her father, preparing to nail him to the wall. Her mom couldn’t stand it. She shouted out. Violet didn’t hear what she meant to shout; the gunman was too quick. As soon as sound waves passed her lips, he shot her. Violet felt the hot air pass over her head. She smelled her mother’s skin burn, and she did not move. It wasn’t fear that held her still: She stood knowing that if she moved, she would be shot as well. She heard her mom’s body flop back to the floor, then all was silent. Herr Kray looked to Violet. She stood still and expressionless. She knew he was deciding if she should live or die. The gunman waited for the order. Violet gave him nothing to inspire her demise. Kray quietly turned his back, leaving the gunman to keep an eye on her as he knelt down to her father’s body.
The second man came to his side and helped him with the corpse. They tried to prop him up to the wall, but Kray was too short, and he let the arm slip. Her dad’s corpse fell halfway to the floor. The gunman turned to see if they needed help. For a fraction of a second, he took his eyes from Violet and let his microwave drift a few centimeters off target. In that instant Violet showed an extraordinary skill she never knew she had.
Through the entire episode she had remained oddly, totally detached. The emotional impact of her family’s death didn’t register so much as the acute awareness of how it had happened. She saw how the gunman had unlocked his weapon and how he pushed a key on its side while pulling the trigger to fire. She saw how they were struggling with her father’s body. She knew that behind her, her mother had fallen in a position that could trip one of the men if he were not careful. She knew with utter clarity that for the moment all three men had their eyes off her. This was all a defense mechanism, one that separated the hysterical, panicked fool from the calm and able. Her dad had told her ages ago how some victims wept and shook during a traumatic event and how others became strong enough to lift a car and focused sharply to fight at their best. That focus was now introducing itself to Violet.
She knew as soon as the man’s eyes were turned that they might not turn again. She knew that though all of them were likely armed, only one had his microwave ready, and that if she were shot by the small nail gun, at this distance it wouldn’t be fatal, not immediately. She knew that there was no way they could let her live after this, and only briefly did she wonder why Kray hadn’t ordered her death a second ago. It only took her another instant to decide what to do. The gunman was standing within a meter of her. His finger was off the trigger. His grip looked loose. She put that to a test and grabbed it. She was wrong; his grip was quite firm. Now that he knew what she was doing, her element of surprise was at an end. She thought it best to surprise him further by twisting the weapon away from herself and toward the man with the nail gun. That proved a good idea when the microwave went off and fried the man’s eyes out.
Violet saw that Kray was slow in recognizing the threat. The gunman was putting all he had into wresting the microwave away from her, so she kicked him very hard in the shin. As she expected he shouted in pain, but he did not let go. So she kicked him in the other shin. He still didn’t let go, but he did fall to his knees, and that put his testicles so close to her foot that she kicked without thinking. That loosened his grip. She pulled the weapon from him and moved it to her other hand, letting go of the barrel and gripping the handle firmly, finger on the trigger. She was new at gunplay, so she tested what she had seen by pressing the same key he had and pulling the trigger. She was careful to test it in the safest possible direction, in this case at the gunman’s forehead. A black burn mark erupted on his skin, and he fell limp and silent. Violet was content with this test and used her newfound skill on the blind man, who fell onto Kray.
She shot at the thug. Using his former companion as a shield against the beam, he managed to stand up and throw the remains at her, knocking her down and sending the microwave sliding far from her hand. She wasn’t scared when she hit the ground. It registered only as a change of advantage, and that change didn’t favor her, so she scrambled to her feet and ran, considering where best to regain control of the situation.
Knowing she had a better idea of the apartment’s layout than the intruder, she ran through the kitchen and around the corner, down a hall and into the bathroom. She looked for anything that might be used as a weapon. In the instant before he came in, she ripped the safety controls from the molecular di
spersion toilet. It was easier to break than she expected. She hid behind the door.
She expected him to have taken the microwave as she ran, so she was prepared for it. When he pushed the door open, she slammed it on his hand. It would have made him drop the weapon had he held it, but he wasn’t holding it. A glimpse of his other hand revealed that he didn’t have it at all. He must have felt she was no threat without the microwave. He would come in fast with brute force. She let him come. He burst in with such strength she had no problem pushing him farther, forcing his head down into the toilet’s bare dispersion field. There was a harsh smell of ozone, a loud crackle, and Hrothgar Kray fell limp from her hands, his head absent, leaving only a cauterized neck stump.
She didn’t let down her guard. It seemed possible that in her haste she hadn’t killed the two others, merely stunned them. There could be more men outside. She left the bathroom with great caution, looking around for anyone else who might have entered. She found the two men on the dining room floor, one twitching, one not. She considered leaning in to take pulses but decided against it. She found the microwave under the table where it had slid. She ensured their deaths by firing point blank into their heads. She held the beam on the first until he stopped twitching, and on the other until his body began to heat and bloat, then burst. She watched the tissues blister, burn, and peel until the weapon began to overheat. Only when her hyperactive attention reminded her that overheating weapons can explode did she release the controls.
After glancing outside the melted door, she was satisfied that the immediate danger was over. It took her some time to figure out what “over” meant. While the event sorted itself through axons and dendrites and filed its elements into their proper lobes, she stood still. She became aware of the beeping sounds of microwave detectors and door alarms and of approaching sirens. The sirens echoed as noise in the air and over her link antenna. The link siren carried warnings and instructions: “We have detected microwave fire in your residence. Drop your weapons. Remain still.”
