Anatali: Ragnarok

by A. C. Edwards

  “Well, no.” Trent’s expression hardened. “If you’re looking to place blame, don’t look here.”

  “And the rest of the world is fine?”

  “Most likely.” Nicky had been rinsing a corner of the tomb from dirt and dust. Now complete, he summoned Ayla over with a musical shower of water on stone. Panting, she and Kahn abandoned Jessica’s side.

  “Are we going to die?”

  The kicker. And silence. Trent nodded to Nicky for the final word.

  “That’s up to us. History says those who survived radiation fallout ended their lives through combat, starvation, and old age; not through a lingering poison. As for the Ragnarok’s Verdandi, she perished confronting her sibling.”

  Considering her only brother was already dead, the allusion didn’t hold much stock.

  ~ 11 ~

  This isn’t going to work

  November 30, 4124 — 5:11 AM

  Nome’s dawn hung below the horizon, sunrise an hour away. The eastern sky was lit with a pale blue that competed with the low-hanging moon. Three humans, two animals, and the ton-weighted FireBot exited the cemetery. Jessica glanced up at the fading stars.

  “The fuck made you choose this place?” One hand gripped her stick, the other snug inside her jacket around the clipper.

  “Necessity,“ Trent nodded to Calvin, “in my crew, he calls the shots.”

  “They could be churning underground,” the young man hip-planted her plasma rifle, “but they can’t claw six feet up.”

  “This is a bad horror movie.” Jessica waited for the anvil to fall. Ayla and Kahn had taken a rotating perimeter. Nicky rolled at point.

  “No, it’s a happy ending,” Calvin said, much more vocal on the field. “ You all escape, and I live to see my girl. Good as that.”

  “Can’t imagine your girlfriends. Trent probably has the hothead. You’ve got the mouse.”

  “We both have hotheads,” Trent said, still unarmed, thumbs looped in his pockets. “Never really considered why.”

  “I was thinking of balance.” Jessica surveyed the open street through narrowed eyes, set upon a rattling corner shop, their first threat as a group.

  The corpses—Dvoraks—inside cracked the glass. Without a look to the bunny, Calvin fired a three-shot burst through the window. The building’s sprinklers went off, but not before the bodies were charred beyond movement.

  “Nice gun,” he said.

  “I’ll be having it back, whenever.”

  “Soon as we find a replacement,” Trent said. “You have your insurance.”

  The clipper was a better human deterrent than her stick, or the long-range rifle, yet she still felt as naked (and barefoot) without her best weapon.

  “We’re both older than Calvin, right?” she said. “Why’s he get the big gun?”

  “Nicky can get it back at your word. I think you can answer your own questions.” As annoying as Trent’s logic was, he had a sense of responsibility about him, his age; it set her at ease—it was also pretty hot. Definitely nice having another warm brain in the mix.

  The gunfire stirred moans across the street side.

  “You should really let them just beat their heads against the glass.” Jessica summoned Ayla back from her prowl.

  “Sure, tell me that now.” Calvin backed towards Nicky.

  “Common sense.” She did the same as shadows under streetlamps lumbered into view. “Don’t start none, won’t be none. Still, eight on four is nothing.”

  “More like a dozen. And Trent ain’t got a gun. And why aren’t you counting your dog?”

  “She just tracks the Dvor-ah—dead-things. Kahn eats survivors. If you’re worried about your brother, don’t stir the pot next time.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Trent hugged Nicky’s backside. With a small hop, he sat upon the FireBot’s first-aid box. “Might I suggest a preemptive barrage?”

  There were more than eight. More than a dozen. Nearly twenty Dvoraks approached in a shifting semi-circle, appearing from alleys and unlocked doors. Nicky rolled forwards, tentacles unfurled. Jessica shifted a hand from the clipper to a double-grip on her stick. Ayla backpedaled in circles, woofing.

  At a hundred feet out, Calvin again let loose three fireballs—all collided with the densest pack of prowlers. Half were torched before the survivors charged, their groans becoming snarls. Trent braced himself on his impromptu seat as Nicky lurched forward, hosing thick globs of foam from his arms. The spray solidified at the legs and feet of several Dvoraks, rendering them immobile, or at least impaired. From under his box, the large, one-sided axe arced into view, weaving back and forth.

  Jessica kept her distance, sidestepping the fight and watching their flank. Ayla dashed to Nicky’s other side, barking, ears back. Another quartet from up the street hobbled under a lamp’s glow, ten or more at their heels.

  “This isn’t going to work,” she said, though a blast from the rifle overwhelmed her voice.

  The dozen downed by Calvin and Nicky were replaced by other shadows, other moans, wandering out of the darkness. Foam and fire enveloped the moving wall. A straggler from the initial group sprinted at Jessica, gnashing its teeth.

  Moments from contact, it tripped, falling forward. She slammed her stick into its back, between the shoulders. Behind the corpse, Kahn rose from a crouch, sniffing the elderly woman’s feet. She planted her hands on the pavement and pushed up. Jessica shattered an elbow and laid into her neck.

  “Three more!” Trent said, now off the bot and pointing furiously beyond Kahn. The cat dropped to the ground in an armless man’s path. The Dvoraks didn’t seem to notice him.

  “Traitor,” she whispered, half-smiling, prepped to obliterate the new arrivals. Her last victim swiped towards her ankles, but was too broken to crawl.

  Nicky’s axe cleaved one man shoulder to hip. The gush of black blood washed over Kahn, who was a good sport about it, rolling into his own target, knocking the armless man as prone as the last. The FireBot tore the final attacker off her feet by the neck and flung her towards the approaching horde, into Calvin’s line of fire. Jessica winced, shaking her head.

  A nudge at her calf spun about-face, stick-raised. It was Ayla, her tail low, flipping side to side.

  “This isn’t going to work!” Trent yelled over Calvin’s din, inches from his brother’s ear.

  Jessica thought the mob of storefront corpses was risky in itself. Ayla’s focus was on a staggering horde, each row seemingly doubled by the one at its rear. As of yet, there wasn’t an end to the shuffling column, now a half block away and gaining speed.

  Sirens.

  “That good news or bad news?” Jessica said, shoulders slumped, trusting Nicky to hear through the chaos.

  “Bad!” His voice boomed as a cannon, halting Calvin. The smoldering circle closed in, the mob’s reinforcements just a minute behind. The sirens were centralized deep in City Centre, though the distant wail quickly grew louder. “Get Hagalz.”

  “Like fuck, you get him.”

  Strafing Nicky's movements and ducking his arms, Jessica and Trent now hugged his right. Calvin retreated to his left, still incinerating the closest assailants. Ayla yipped at Kahn, though the cat now sported a limp, slow to return. As efficient as the Calvin-Foam-Axe-Stick array had been, the Dvoraks had tripled their numbers—far too many targets, far too shitty odds. Nicky’s belly had deflated to a sagging rectangle.

  “Last stand?” Jessica gritted her teeth, looking to Trent.

  “Like fuck,” he said through a smirk. “No sacrifices; abandon ship.”

  Jessica nodded. “I’ll take that ride now.”

  “This will be uncomfortable.” Nicky scooped Kahn around the chest and Ayla with a whimper.

  Jessica climbed atop his butt-box, hugging his neck, clutching her stick. With his four remaining arms, Nicky snatched Calvin and Trent in a knee and under-the-shoulder grab-and-go. The balance wasn’t perfect, but the bot steadied his torso, leaning against Calvin and Kahn. His tre
ads smoked the street as he twisted into a screech. The axe was more in Trent’s hands than his own.

  Calvin fired backwards from his swinging perch, nuking the closest band in pursuit. Wasted ammo. At this speed the only thing that could catch them was another bot. City Centre may have been vacant, but the outskirts were flooded.

  “What now?” she shouted, the wind stinging her eyes.

  “Regroup!” Trent dangled, one leg loose. ”Find a park!”

  Nicky needed water. They all needed a plan. The Spire’s twin lights blinked just below the Umbrella, teasing her, yet questioning her goals. If they couldn’t survive the trip there, or the escape to city limits and beyond, then what was the plan? Even if Calvin hadn’t stirred up shit, the Dvoraks still would’ve congregated.

  “The canal,” Jessica said.

  “Good idea.” Nicky slowed to a halt, swiveled, then backtracked, the horde in a wedge-shaped sprint a few hundred yards away. “Young Master, cover, please.”

  Calvin growled and shot between his knees. The barrage scorched the triangle in a line, from the point Dvorak to a sweeping gash deep within. The mob expanded in a ‘W’ as the ranks tumbled over each other.

  Good enough.

  Nicky sped up the street and cornered deep right, inches from dragging Ayla on pavement. The dog barked her protests, squirming against Nicky’s grip and Jessica’s reassurements. The tangled group avoided a duet of jumpers from an alley rooftop, Trent batting one away with his half-shared axe.

  In a storm of debris, they vanished into the shadows, the mob left in the dust.

  ~ 12 ~

  Detour

  November 30, 4124 — 6:03 AM

  The canal was an old-school drainage channel that deferred Nome’s tropical rainwater to the bay. It cut a clear border between east City Centre and the majority of downtown that surrounded it. A line of water towers further divided the sub-districts, purifying and storing the resource in case of a rare emergency or drought. The canal’s bottom was a shallow creek, and after crossing into greater downtown, Nicky refilled his balloon-belly at a tower’s service port.

  “Versatile, aren’t you?” Trent scrutinized the bot’s joints and tentacles.

  “We pride ourselves on it.” He shimmied four arms, the whoosh of water fading as two gripped his axe, its tip resting on the ground. “However, between the Marsden fire and our latest confrontation, my Fire Retardant Foam has dwindled to forty-three percent.”

  “That’s almost half,” Jessica tapped a foot, “quit whining.”

  “That was a short fight,” Calvin said. “That foam shit ain’t meant to last long, is it?”

  “Not under these circumstances, no. The foam I used to subdue our attackers is a high-concentration blend of F.R.F. and water. We are less than prepared.”

  “Agreed.” Trent crouched to fluff Ayla’s fur, pausing when Kahn came to get his. “I think we could all use a meal and more guns. Suggestions?”

  “My hook-up’s tapped-out,” Jessica said. “Food is easy—bust in a house. Guns are the hard part. The pawn shops are all north downtown; we’d be going the wrong way.”

  “A two-hundred-plus story skyscraper seems like a deathtrap,” Calvin said. “What do you expect to find there?”

  “At the beginning, answers. Survivors. Someone who knew what the fuck was going on and could get Ayla and me out of here.” Jessica looked again to The Spire’s morning silhouette. “I don’t know how to drive manual, and the nav network was liable to send a car crashing into us even if I did. So our options were: trying to survive the walk to Anapolis, hotwiring a yacht at the Marina—which I don’t know how to do—or looking for help at The Spire, The Mission, or Shannon’s Jetty.”

  “Why the Jetty, Miss Valkyrie?” Nicky released a tentacle from the axe, pointing at a thin vertical line on the western horizon. The brothers squinted, expressions blank.

  “Without getting rescued by The Mission, I figured that was our best chance to make it alone. If we could ride the rail to the top, I’d think there’d be escape pods on the observatory.”

  “Very creative,” Nicky said. “The shortest line between A and B can often be a seventy mile detour.”

  “Thanks—”

  “However, access to Shannon’s Jetty is locked by heavy encryptions, and not even my emergency codes can surpass them.”

  “Damn.” She wiped at her forehead against the early humidity. “So our options are boat, car, or help; and if those Mark Sixes are any indication of how the city thinks of us—”

  “I can’t hack a car or boat without equipment, “ Trent shrugged. “I’d say your first guess was the best one, unless we want to ride Nicky to the next town.”

  “If we get cornered again, we’re toast.” Calvin scanned the rifle’s holo-screen, slapping another cartridge in front of the trigger. “There’s a lot of ground, and too many of us. Trent, you remember how many we dodged on the way into town.”

  “Yeah, this morning’s clusterfuck aside, this is the safest we’ve been since the flare.”

  “But I would not advise lingering in City Centre,” Nicky said. “The Mark Sixes appear to be malfunctioning and several of my brothers are not responding within our network.”

  “Do you think you’re being tracked?” Jessica looked about, half-expecting to see a squad of tanks rolling across the canal.

  “It’s possible, if my brethren have been…swayed. The FireBots’ main patrol is within City Centre, so as risky as it may be, I suggest we circumvent the district and cut-in directly to our goals.”

  “Glad he’s on our side,” Calvin said.

  “I was thinking that when he was chucking corpses.” Jessica slid on her butt down to the creek, Ayla and Kahn following in an uncontrolled run. “Let’s move!”

  * * *

  The march north, down-stream, was pleasantly uneventful. More often than not, Nicky carried Ayla and Kahn, supporting Jessica against his back. The brothers were forced between an awkward walk on the dry slope or re-soaking their rich-boy shoes in the city’s dreck.

  The second morning since the Black Wind, she felt worse than exhausted; she felt like giving up. What was she living for anyway? She’d already lost everything, her home, her family, her friends and possessions. Every memory of the life before yesterday felt not just distant, but unreal, as if it’d happened to someone else, a story she’d heard at the bar. Mom and Jacob’s faces were blank in her mind.

  Jessica closed her eyes.

  It’d been Passover the last time they all picnicked together—a Sunday at Phelps Park. The taste of strawberries, the honeyed smell of Easter lilies, the fresh-cut grass tickling her calves through the checkered blanket. Ayla sat in a birch’s shade, dozing as Jacob played with her tail.

  Mom opened a wicker basket, laying out their matzo and meats, along with a large thermos of soup. Dad uncorked the wine bottle, pouring three glasses and a small toast for the youngest. Her parents were smiling, together, chatting about the weather and his recent trip to Fairbanks.

  The wine dulled her hangover’s edge, lightening her irritation. It was also gameday. The Nome Battery had a chance this season, the rugby team returning to the majors for the first time in eight years. They were playing Juneau, last year’s champs, a conference match that would set the tone—their first statement game. And she was stuck in the sun, missing the biggest kickoff party yet.

  Jacob sipped on the soup. Ayla pawed his knees, nearly on his lap. His attention shifted between the picnic, the sky, and his comm-unit, the holo-screen showing a countdown and a simple graphic of opposing discs.

  The sky dimmed; the birds hushed. Her brother jumped to his feet, aiming his comm-unit to the sun, its screen black. Ayla stole half his sandwich and scampered away. Mom and dad knee-walked beside him, squinting through the screen as the Moon overtook mighty Sol. Jessica remained sitting, content to nibble on a matzo.

  Like a dumbass, she glanced at the sun’s sliver, partially obscured and fading. The crescent’s light
struck her eyes as daggers—immediate punishment. Spilling tears, she squeezed her lids. At the eclipse’s crescendo, she opened them.

  She screamed.

  “Valkyrie, Jessica!” Nicky’s voice shattered the vision.

  Jessica’s eyes snapped open. She still lay against his chilled balloon, wrapped in his arms. Staring at his visor, she wiped her cheeks on her shoulder. “All dead. All of them. God…Jacob.”

  “Steady—relax—you were dreaming,” Trent said, knee-deep in the flow, hand on her waist. “Can’t say this is much better though.”

  “What is it, we got a problem?” she said, still remembering the sun’s burn, and her family’s faces—not as they had been, but as what they’d become. “Nicky, get off me.”

  “We got something.” Calvin posed on the right shore, staring downstream, her gun at his shoulder. “Get it together.”

  “Fuck you, kid.”

  In moments, Ayla and Kahn joined her, tucked behind the bot’s girth. Nicky released the arm around her shoulders, but still wrapped her torso. One tentacle flashed the axe, the remaining par stretched far above.

  Beneath an overpass, a dozen silver curves reflected the morning light, sparkling as fireflies against the shadow. Still a ways off, a tall silhouette floated among the curves, its posture straight.

  “I’m fine, Nicky. Where’s my stick?”

  “I’ll be borrowing it.” Trent flipped its weight in his hands. “Get that pistol ready.”

  Against the current, the curves and figure approached, displacing water up the banks. Jessica made no assumptions, but had learned to expect the worst. She again pushed away her grief. Not knowing why she struggled wasn’t all that important—if she failed, she’d never have the chance to figure that out.

  ~ 13 ~

  Black eyes, white hair

  November 30, 4124 — 7:19 AM