Anatali: Ragnarok

by A. C. Edwards

  Jessica exhaled, meeting Dillon’s stare with a sideways glace. They certainly couldn’t be sure of the Sol-Union’s motives. All they’d done so far was ignore them and blow shit up, obvious bad-guys at face value. But if there’d been a reason for it, quarantine and politics, maybe they could be reasoned with. With her group—breathing, metal, and deceased—she’d survived to the cusp of god-knows-what Shannon had planned. The missions they endured with Nicky released the deity, and they’d yet to see why. An unsure future with Nicky and Shannon seemed better than a suicidal surrender to Nome’s bombers, yet a bad call with any decision equaled certain death, becoming just like the city’s other fifty-two-thousand residents.

  “I at least want to hear the fucking plan,” she said, grateful the water now skipped up her ankles instead of spashing her knees. “Got odds on Ayla not being swept away? She hates being carried a lot more than getting wet.”

  “Eighty-one percent in weight over flow,” Dani said. “Ninety-nine-point-nine-infinite with us in proximity.”

  “Then make her a priority. Set her down. We’re going to finish this.”

  ~ 35 ~

  Juliet and Romeo

  November 31, 4124 — 1:02 PM

  “Seventy-three hours?” Jessica cheered, kicking water and waving arms. ”Eat that, probability. We made it past double-time!”

  Dani said, “The equations do account for—”

  “Triple time, baby!” Jessica took Christy and Dillon’s hands, dragging them in a reluctant ring-dance. Ayla barked, skittering in the half-inch trickle. Kahn paced, huffing and hissing. “Aesir, Aesir, we be ‘de Aesir.”

  “You follow a lunatic.” Dolores paused for the comment as she rolled past.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” Nicky said, now rear guard.

  “Celebrations are indeed in order; time for a rest.” Shannon also lingered, pulsing the Sixes to halt. “Our next destination is The Mission.”

  “Eh?” Jessica stopped mid-step “No. No fucking way.”

  “In a way, yes. We’ll be invading. The Rosebed’s emergency relay is all we have left.”

  “Oh. But computer shit can kill you, right? That’s what Nicky said in The Spire.”

  “Only this me. The reward greatly outweighs the risk. We don’t even need complete control. All we need is to down their comm network for a few seconds, then project our message.”

  “Easy-peasy?” Jessica grinned.

  “Easy enough.”

  “Then why take a break? Let’s get it!”

  “Jessica…” Nicky said.

  “She’s gone.” Dolores unfurled a tentacle.

  “Stop.” Shannon rotated as a globe, simple enough. “We are going to wait.”

  Jessica felt energized, alive, but she couldn’t keep up with the pendulum between despair and promise. Losing her mind? Likely. Finally accepting it? A definite yup, though not as Dolores would like to think. She was either a vehicle of destiny or doomed to tragedy, but every time she placed her fate in Nicky’s hands she became both invincible and fated. Fair enough at this point to say ‘fuck it’ and keep rolling.

  It was impossible to define death in this city, let alone destiny.

  Nicky offered six tentacles to the living. He stated by exciting blah-blah-blah in his core, he could shoot hot air instead of water, that the air intake fueled his water pressure. The Sixes joined him in blow-drying the humans and animals with gentle warmth. Ayla’s Spire wound had completely healed over. A more thorough pick through Kahn’s fur found him unharmed—his skin and coat regrown. Even his Market Street clipper hole had vanished. Did residual dark energy heal him, or had his ‘meals’ been the catalyst?

  In any case, now dry down to her pants cuffs, Jessica stretched her arms and sorted through Nicky’s box. It was far more than she could use alone. She armed Christy and Dillon with wands, gave the girl a restock on her plasma pistol, and dumped Trent’s railgun ammo. Their resident vanner accepted Calvin’s jacket, first hesitant, then huddling the leather around him. She removed some rations: three dinners and a lunch.

  Out of her palms, Ayla ate first, devouring some manner of dry-stock meat, then washed it down with floodwater. The lovers picked through their packs. Dillon focused on the liquids; Christy stole the sweets. Jessica didn’t have much of an appetite, but nibbled on a meat-cube and downed the pills, assuming vitamins or low-grade stims.

  She couldn’t get her mind off Jacob, hoping to God he’d been destroyed, hoping against hope she would see him again. He could already speak to Dillon and those girls. Maybe if she’d traded for him, she could have found a way to hear those words. Maybe he was still alive in that shell, and she had really abandoned him for a second time.

  “Can you hear him?” Jessica nodded to Kahn.

  “Not really,” Dillon said, brow furrowed. “But I can feel him. Right now he’s happy, comfortable, probably because he’s dry and with us. It’s more like one word at a time, but it’s not like the others. He's a little hungry, but keeps thinking about your dog. That’s the constant between other shit. 'Protect, protect.' He’d be different without her.”

  “W-What did Jacob say?”

  “It was all muddled in the fuzz…those chicks made me feel like dying. Like pure nothing. Not good or bad, just empty. Another minute and—”

  “You really wanted to trade, didn’t you?” Christy mumbled to her hands. “But I’d want my brothers to rest. He’s not in there.”

  “How do you know?” she said, “If that was your brother, you’d want to find out.”

  “Yeah, I guess. But would you have traded Calvin or Trent for him?”

  Ouch. Hell, even if Jacob was alive, bartering with lives, their lives, felt inexcusable. She would have fought. She should’ve fought for him.

  “I don’t know if my brothers are alive or dead,” Christy left her lunch on the box, turning her back. “I was with my boyfriend when it happened. We were at the river, skipping school. I think he was about to dump me. He said my family was too much trouble.”

  “Were they?” Dillon rubbed her arm.

  “No!” She spun, scowling, quite rare on her face. “Ephraim and Brent always looked out for me—that’s what they did. If anything, I was trouble for them.”

  “I can’t see that.”

  “You don’t know me, Dillon, what I was, the people I hurt.”

  Jessica’s jaw fell slack. This kid really didn’t know who she was talking to, did she? Dillon’s sex appeal was matched by the broken hearts, and possible date-rapes, he’d left behind, at least three new fans a month—both of the girls almost filled the current quota, and Christy even during an apocalypse. Goddamn if Jessica thought he was hot shit now, but she remembered how she felt. He seemed deep, vulnerable under the ‘I don’t give a fuck’ charm. His dad died two years before hers.

  “Tough shit,” he smiled. “Whatever you were, that’s not who I met. I was different too. All I know is you were thrown in the same cell I was, and I fell for you. Simple as that.”

  Jessica wanted to hockey-stick his head down the Rosebed. Why didn’t she trade him? Oh, that’s right, honor and goodness—that bullshit. Lamed as he was, she couldn’t even feel good about a shove. Fists clenched, she spun and walked away.

  “Jessie?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Goddamn, girl, jealous much?”

  She stomped back, finger pointed. “Do not fucking go there. You may be the last man on earth, but that don’t mean shit to me.”

  “Like I haven’t noticed you following me last few weeks. You keep trying to fix that Tabby mistake by parading your uptight little pussy, but did you ever think I just wasn’t that interes—”

  A silver flash slammed his shoulder, knocking him face first to the ground. A close-range squirt of foam pinned his neck. Dillon kicked his legs, palms pressed to the Rosebed.

  “You will not speak of her that way!” Nicky swiveled. His treads touched the man’s ear, aimed to roll through. Not a bot moved to intervene.
“You may have worth to the Vanir, but do not test my appreciation of your value.”

  Christy leapt forward. The FireBot retreated to Jessica’s side. “Valkyrie, Milady, I apologize.”

  “Don’t,” the girls said in unison.

  “I know you’re not a good guy,” the younger peeled strips of foam, “but don’t be a bad guy.”

  “Did you like that teenage cock, Jess? How’d it feel fucking a stranger? Like mother like daughter.”

  “Who’s the jealous one, fucktard?” She stayed Nicky’s arm with a wave. “I’d say sorry that everyone dying might’ve hurt your sex life, but you’ve still managed to make due. I guess guys like you are only good for one thing.”

  “I could fucking set you straight!” he pressed up from the water, wrenching his neck against the foam. Snapping to his feet, Christy gasped and fell back. Jessica felt it too. Ayla barked; Kahn sprinted around his flank. All bots unfurled their arms.

  “You’re in the wrong group to start this shit, stud.” Rifle on her back, hands to her sides, she stepped forward, staring into black eyes. “I think you’re a douchebag. That’s damn near fact. All I wanted was for you to prove me wrong. You can’t do that, even now. Want to fuck me—maybe get one push before you die?”

  You’d like it.

  She launched her hands at his neck. His eyes widened; a bubble of dim energy formed around him, tossing Christy away. Jessica pierced it, driving Dillon back to the water. Punches to the arms, punches to the face. She pounded a dozen times before feeling a tickle against her shoulders. Dolores’s foam splattered over the globe surrounding them. The Sixes again restrained the bot as Jessica looked to the man she straddled.

  His eyes were closed. Blood on his lips. Breath ragged.

  Stop. A whisper. His voice in her thoughts.

  “Good.” Jessica cast a sideways glace to Christy. “What color are my eyes?”

  ~ 36 ~

  Control

  November 31, 4124 — 1:36 PM

  “Was that what you had in mind?” Jessica glanced to Shannon, left hand on her stick, right steadying the sways of her rifle.

  “Not at all. John Dillon being a loose cannon was obvious, but intentionally provoking him would be pointless.”

  “Christy, what happened in the corridor—with Calvin and Trent—was it him?”

  “I-I didn’t see it.” She walked beside her man, Dillon suspended on a tentacle stretcher. “One of those robots ran at us. Trent shot a lot, Calvin had those wands, but it got too close. Then everything went black. I woke up on the street, with you.”

  “Did you feel anything when it happened?”

  “Not really. I was scared. Dillon held my hand.”

  Typical, but understandable. Now under Dolores and Nicky’s supervision herself, Jessica felt glad she hadn’t went black-eyed, but wondered how she beat one, even if he was weak. As a group they decided it was safer to keep him close, rather than abandon him. Not a vote was cast for death. Maybe he’d awaken normal and afraid, having heard too many voices. Maybe the vanner girls had planted some subconscious seed.

  “They’re gone,” Shannon said. “Let’s head back.”

  “Back to what?” She paused in stride—Dolores nearly ran her over. “A little space, please? What are you talking about?”

  “The Mission has recalled its Rose City campaign. They’ll send more, but at the moment we can proceed unthreatened.”

  “I don’t get it. We’re like fifty feet underground with no way in but a hole. There’s no way out and no control rooms, so why don’t you just network your shit, invade with your hundred clones, and get us the fuck out of here?”

  Silence.

  “Fine. I get it’s complicated, but explain it, ok?”

  “As omnipresent as Odin is, he should only appear as one instance in such a network attack—focus over volume. A million shadows against the same back door will draw undo attention to our methods.”

  “Instant black-out,” Shannon said. “The doors won’t be locked, but erased.”

  “So we would become thieves in the night, ignoble if not for the task at hand,” Nicky continued. “There are no servers here for them to hack, as this is simply a massive, local antenna. And while the Jotuns attempted to physically infiltrate the Rosebed to disable it piecemeal, they did not succeed, whether by defeat or insufficient remaining force. We’ve maintained our head start in case soldiers did penetrate. Now we can double back to complete our quest: invading The Mission.”

  “And if Fiona’s bunch hadn’t showed up?”

  “The excavation and collapse elapsed in two minuets, five seconds,” Dani said, “well within Shannon’s original estimations.”

  “Got an answer for everything.” Jessica hopped on Nicky’s box, her feet pruned and sore.

  “We think of everything.” Shannon pulsed the Sixes to a halt. “But the one thing we can’t figure out is you, Jessie. Out of fifty thousand citizens, with four-dozen survivors remaining, you have made the greatest impact, yet seem the most reluctant to help. Is it a martyr complex, or are you merely disingenuous out of humility?”

  “I called ya’ll out, we called Dillon out, and now you’re calling me out?” She didn’t move from her seat. “Now that you’ve got me all self-conscious, should I be worrying about putting on airs, or should I play the victim like you want me to. If I don’t need saving, what’s your fucking purpose besides being smarter than everyone you couldn’t save—yeah, I’m talking to you too, Dolores.”

  The bot jerked, the Sixes a half yard behind her.

  “I don’t deserve second guessing for my fucking motives. My actions speak for themselves.”

  “As do ours.” Nicky said. Ayla and Kahn stared up from his side. “Do you trust Hagalz?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “I’m not sitting on you because I’m afraid of you!”

  “Then make a choice,” he said, “you can be alone in our company, or you can believe we’re on your side—that you are our side. That choice is the difference between a true team, and foes with a common interest. How would you like it to be, at the end?”

  “Is this the end?”

  “This is the end. It will make or break us.”

  “I’m with you. How many times do I have to say it?”

  “Until you believe it.”

  * * *

  Dillon awoke battered, but blue-eyed. He claimed to have blacked-out during the conversation. It’d become a big ‘whatever’ to Jessica. Whether that was a convenient lie, she’d learned how he really felt about her. The next time he flipped-out, the situation would likely escalate. If it came down to that, she hoped he’d stay alive long enough to be spent as a bargaining chip for Jacob.

  They touched base at the original cave-in before changing directions—north, south, she’d long since lost her bearings. Still within sight of the collapse, the bots stopped. The waters had receded, though the concrete remained cool, wet. She fluffed Ayla and Kahn’s fur, cooing and baby-talking the pair. Both nuzzled her legs.

  “Dani, Dolores, any final words?” Shannon said. That certainly perked her head up.

  “Pairwise independence obscures the mean. One unfavorable variable leads to a ninety-percent handicap. One positive influence creates what you would call a guaranteed success. Mind your options.”

  “I’ve nothing to say,” Dolores said. “My duty is nearly done. Good hunting.”

  “Say goodbye to the Sixes, Jessie. For safety’s sake, I’m deactivating them. Dani and Dolores will stand guard.”

  “Uh, goodbye?”

  The quartet remained in a line as their visors dimmed from blue to black. She wasn’t sure that a techno-invasion was good reason to decimate their fighting force, but then she remembered how easily the Sixes had been double-teaming Dolores. Better safe than sorry, and hopefully they could be revived after…whatever it was they’d be doing.

  Nicky rolled backward, taking a place in line with his brethren.
Jessica stood on his box and looked onward. Nothing but the same pillars, lights, ceiling and floor.

  “Brace yourself.” Shannon twirled in place. His last syllable extended in a thrum, invoking whimpers from Ayla and closed-eyed grimaces from the lovers. Jessica raised hands to her ears, though she didn’t think it’d help. It was the vibration, not the sound. She knelt, feeling a FireBot tentacle support her upright. In moments, the clamor tick-ticked to silence.

  “I’m cool, lemme go.” Dizzy as hell, Jessica stumbled to her feet. Two self-palm-slaps to the temples and her double-vision snapped back into clarity. Or not.

  From their previous yellow-white glow, the pillars before her blazed cobalt blue, a dark shade if not for their intensity. Between them, a thin floor hovered a foot above the Rosebed. Twelve stone workstations encircled a central dais in a twenty-foot radius, each large holo-screen scrolling blurs of coded text. The dais appeared plain, ceremonial, if not for the eight silver halos rising and falling amongst each other, thinning and expanding in a vertical dance. Reflecting the blue, they hypnotized Jessica, though she was already quite sure this was a hallucination.

  “Hurry,” Shannon bonked her shoulder—no, she wasn’t dreaming. “I cannot suppress the barrier for long in this skin.”

  She didn’t question what barrier, spurring Ayla and her humans onward. Nicky shifted his weight and jerked a wheelie, climbing onto the platform, carrying her with. Dolores zoomed around the outer circumference, leaving Dani with the Sixes, but not before claiming two extra axes.

  Last one outside, Kahn paused at the cusp, hesitating through Ayla’s yips, then barks.

  Shannon pulsed; Nicky’s visor flashed a brief reply. He snatched the tiger from the ground as a circular wall of sapphire blinked opaque, then shimmered to transparency. Locked-in or locked-out, Jessica didn’t feel confident about which side was safer if push came to shove.