“Valkyrie, do not trust this man!”
Jessica’s jaw dropped. She glanced to see the Firebot, Dillon, Christy, and Kahn. Thanks for bringing the meat to the table, dumbass.
“And the noble protectors of Nome, I applaud your efforts.” He cast a glance back to the shuttle.
“What do you want?” Jessica repeated Dolores, who appeared alive, if without action. “Cut the bullshit. It's Christy, right?”
“She picked that name? Interesting.” His broken cop-man-dog shuddered and snarled, invoking the same from Ayla. Carmichael raised a palm—the man cowered. “I invite you to come with us. No tricks, no fighting, no more death. The time has come to leave. I apologize it’s taken so long.”
“Apologize?”
“And what of the city?” Dolores said. “What of the dead? Natural disaster has become genocidal negligence.”
“Genocide? Tragic, perhaps, but there’s no need to wax melodrama. I assure you no laws were broken maintaining this quarantine. The human species will survive quite well, and better than if we'd let you all scatter to winds.”
Jessica was left without words. For the first spoken words of truth, it was hardly a surprise, but the cold logic of it, that there could be logic—
“S-So, she is one of you?” Dillon stood beside Christy’s suspended body, hand wrapped around her ankle. “It was all a lie, the farm, her brothers…”
“She would tell you it was all true, but with a different setting. No need to go into it. My superior sent herself to protect you from your own mistakes.”
“Fucking bastards!”
For once, Jessica agreed with him. “So this is either a capture, arrest, or execution, depending on what we do.”
“All a point of view. Yes. You’ll be coming with us, one way or another.”
Oh, fuck it.
Rifle to her shoulder, Bunny pointed emphatically at the point of greatest splash, between the soldiers and the fed’s pet policeman. Ayla continued to whine, walking front and backwards between her and the stairs. Carmichael raised a fist. The soldiers swung their weapons, most of them sub-machineguns.
Starring down a barrel felt different than an undead maw. The hollow was just as empty, but this was a lot more threatening. Odd to think she’d be comparing them, three day’s removed from a peaceful life of barhopping and shopgirl labor. She nearly fell over her heels before steadying herself. The Double-D’s tightened their positions, overlapping, axes swept far behind.
“Wait. You want us alive, right?”
“While you’re all very interesting, no, we can revive you later. It’s your call. Don’t think of it as surrender, but rescue.”
Into what? Jessica hesitated on the trigger. Dolores didn’t. She chucked two axes in side-arm twirls. Carmichael dropped his hand. A fireball burst from Jessica's rifle, arced in a high lob.
A crimson curtain shimmered between them and the soldiers. Machinegun muzzle flashes instantly filtered into ruby blobs. A wispy tendril snatched the fireball from its apex, absorbing it. Dolores’ axes rebounded as if racquetballs against stone. One skittered back to the bot, the other shot back towards Jessica. She froze, the speed and size too great to dodge. A blue balloon lurched out. Tentacles flailed, slapping the weapon aside by the haft. Thanks, Dani.
The curtain puffed, twelve feet deep and growing as long. Silhouettes filled the uniform haze as it evaporated. Once again, Fiona, Kati, Anton and Jacob stood relaxed, this time having arrived out of thick air. Teleporting. Had they become even more powerful this afternoon?
“You shouldn’t take other people’s toys,” Fiona said, a smirk on her lips. Both Kati and her radiated their mist, though it seemed to dissipate at an arms length. The mute girl’s gaze was fixated on the gray box.
Jacob hovered near Kati, absorbing the lines of smoke as they reached him. Still blindfolded, he didn’t turn his head towards either camp. Jessica bit back the urge to call out, glancing back to see Dillon looking troubled, but alert.
“Miss Marelli, I thought we had a deal,” Carmichael said, back of his hand raised towards his men.
“You’re breaking the terms.” She swept an arm across the bots and survivors, stopping at Dillon.
“You’ll find your abilities quite challenged this time.” The Fed flashed two fingers, then three, then flicked his wrist. Two trios of soldiers broke off and began to flank. “You’ll take what I give you.”
The mute girl flared, the smoke igniting around her body as a skin-tight corona of violet flames. Anton and Jacob stepped away, expressions constant and benign. Jessica wished she could hear him the way Dillon had, but if that box had anything to do with the Dvoraks’ silence on the stairs, Jacob probably didn’t have anything to say, or at least couldn’t be heard.
“Kati doesn’t like what you said.” Fiona chuckled, resting her hand on her friend’s shoulder. The flames licked up her wrist, but didn’t appear to burn. “We only want the boy. Don’t get in the way, and this will be over.”
“And if I don’t want to go!” Dillon shouted, fists clenched, eyes black—he probably wasn’t aware of it. “I’m with Jessica!”
Since when, monster.
“Any dog can be trained.” Fiona nodded to the Nome policeman. “You’ll find our future more promising than being a lab rat. We’re going to build our very own kingdom. We chose you to become our prince.”
“You’re insane!”
“And you’re just like us, you just haven’t embraced it yet.”
“Enough.” Carmichael closed his hand in a fist. His soldiers formed a three-point firing squad around the vanners; all knelt and raised their guns. “Carina found him the most promising of all, even compared to you ladies. I’d be doing you a favor by removing him from your kingdom. He’s too dangerous for you to handle.”
That comment was eyebrow raising, and being fought over like a savanna carcass didn’t bother Jessica in the least. From resigned to stunned, now a wave of ideas crashed over her mind. It’d be their mistake if these jerks counted the survivors out. Even as the Fed prattled on about how dangerous their group was, he ignored them for the threat immediate.
She backpedaled towards Nicky, making up her own hand signs behind her back: she pointed him to stay, then clenched a fist: get ready. Center to side, she shifted her eyes again and again towards Nicky, hoping the Double-D’s were paying attention in their radial vision.
Fiona sang in Spanish, off-key but completely enthusiastic. She raised one arm and clapped Kati on the back with her other. Her silent partner pointed at the gray box.
And finally spoke, “Shut up.”
A ray of black light shot from her hand, colliding with a barrier. Ripples on vertical water, the barrier shuddered, but held, the ray forming a mushroom cloud against it.
Carmichael again dropped his hand. Jessica ran, scrambling for Nicky. “Leave the bitch!”
Not giving Dillon time to argue, she pressed against him. His eyes widened as a protective bubble formed around him, then popped. By some miracle of adrenaline, she lifted and threw him into her FireBot’s newly empty arms. Nicky rescooped Ayla and launched forward as Jessica jumped for his medical box.
She was abandoning Jacob for the third time, and probably the last. She’d already lost him twice. Not much of choice.
Continuous gunfire filled her ears as Nicky wrapped her waist and set her hard upon her perch. With Dani in tow, they sped away from the standoff, zero to fifty-plus in moments. On screen, Bunny hopped, pointed and pleaded, sights set on Jacob and Anton.
Two bots left the battleground. One was missing.
Jessica saw Dolores reverse, one axe raised above Christy’s neck, the other two in an 'X' at her front. A storm of bullets perforated Anton, blowing his entrails out his back until he collapsed top to bottom. Jacob slithered across the ground, rolling always within Fiona’s smoke trails. The vanners changed their attention from the box to the soldiers. Kati melted one trio to pools via her ebony beam.
Fiona h
ad raised her arms, still singing—until the pet policeman raised a cannon-sized revolver and fired. The slug pierced their shield, knocking Fiona three steps in the air to a harsh collision with the pavement. Then Jessica saw Carmichael.
He stared, meeting her eye-to-eye. He didn’t look impressed or troubled. The expression was resolute.
Dolores’ visor flashed a rapid string of blinks. Dani and Nicky responded, almost running over each other as the battlefield raised out of sight, as they careened down whatever side-street they’d been forced along.
Into the Bay District.
A hundred heartbeats later, a dull fump and column of steam rose from the Rosebed’s entrance.
The sky darkened in kind.
~ 43 ~
Black snow
November 31, 4124 — 6:41 PM
Even with her leather jacket as a windbreaker, the frigid air burned her hands, feet, and cheeks. But no matter how her hair tossed in her eyes, she wouldn’t unfurl a finger to restrain it. Dillon would normally be shouting, and Ayla barking, but she’d cursed enough to keep them silent during their mad-dash escape.
Deeper into the Bay District, bright and dark flashes still rose above their abandoned battleground. No pursuit. As easy as their group could be tracked, that wasn’t much comfort. Be that as it may, she called for a pause—demanding it when Nicky didn’t respond.
“Just a fucking moment! Please. Let him down. We need to get situated.”
“Into fucking what!” Dillon shouted, eyes still black. “You’re lucky I didn’t pop this trashbag.”
“I don’t think you can,” Jessica said, letting real air fill her lungs. Cold as it was, the pain competed with the relief of a moment’s peace. “Whatever it is you do, you’re not like them, no matter what they say. They want you, they’re scared of you, but not because you’ve been blowing shit up. Fuck, John, I can take you down. It’s something else.”
He growled, almost radiating that same darkness. “How could you leave her behind? Bait.”
“Your loyalty is commendable, if misplaced.” Nicky poured a slow trickle for Ayla and Kahn, though he didn’t release them. Both drank greedily out of the gutter. “This battle is over. The Ragnarok is all but done—”
“No fucking way.” Jessica stomped to his front, more to stretch her legs than berate him face-to-face. “You’re giving up too? Like Dolores? Remember all the bullshit pep-talks you’ve put me through—”
“You do not understand,” Dani interjected. “Dolores' fate is beyond surrender, sacrifice, or retribution. We are now at our end. We now meet oblivion on our own terms.”
Jessica bit her lip, glaring between both. When a robot had to choose its way to die, that was the finale. She may as well be dead—everything else was.
Ayla squirted loose from Nicky’s grasp. She thrust her head between Jessica’s calves, butt wagging with her tail. The girl knelt, staring into those deep-brown eyes, as human as she’d seen in days. Ayla was still fighting, still happy to be alive, and to be with her. Maybe it wasn’t a defining epiphany, but it was ample inspiration to smile, stand, and to curse her dwindling group back into action.
A tiny black dot floated between them, swept far left with a breeze. Jessica blinked and refocused. When another and another wafted by, Ayla broke to chase, biting the air. “No, girl,” she said softly. Just more ash.
A dozen, then a thousand more fell from the sky, one landing on the tip of her nose. Cold. Another melted on her ear. Wet. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be healthy, but fuck if it mattered now.
* * *
Jessica was a Nome native, born and raised, never having left Alaska. She’d seen snowcaps on the southern mountains, but had never seen snow fall, nor felt it on her skin. It was as alien as the walking dead and network avatars.
And this shit was tainted.
Dani suggested that either the Spire's destruction, or the EMP, or Shannon’s 'death,' had driven the Umbrella completely haywire, even moreso for the dark energy radiation it had absorbed. In its death throes, it shed its skin over Nome, all the while sucking up the city’s warmth. Eventually it would die, but it was unlikely anyone would survive the cold—as if she hadn’t heard similar odds before.
The scholarly bot also insisted that Dolores hadn’t sacrificed herself for them, had a death wish, or fulfilled a vendetta against the Feds. Her last blinks to her brethren had been translated: “Bitch deserves this; Chelsea deserved better. Tell your cow I’ll see her in hell. Dani, you’re not invited. Nicolosi, you haven’t earned the honor. Go to her.”
And that was it—the candid version—though Nicky had glossed it over beforehand. Fucking typical. And pointless. Though she had ensured a moment’s open ground between the military shuttle and teleporting maniacs—yeah, it was pointless, except maybe for Dolores herself. Jessica honestly hoped she’d found peace before oblivion.
Jessica had only ran away because of the options. Maybe their tireless chariots could get them out of town. Maybe Shannon’s message had gotten through. Maybe time had become their friend and not a statistical guillotine.
She didn’t feel like she could deal with AI anymore. She firmly desired Mark Threes or Sixes, not free-willed personalities that possessed not only the choice of self-sacrifice, but the heart to make it noble, something else that could die. Whenever Nicky chose to fulfill his destiny—that would again shatter her ambivalence. She didn’t want to feel anymore. Not like this. Not for them.
Shannon’s defeat felt empty. And maybe she was numb, and maybe she’d only known him half a day, but she still believed there should have been more emotion as people entered her circle, then died within it. She’d lost the brothers the same hour she’d met the city’s deity—it was as if the knit continued even after a spool was spent. The impact all seemed hollow after Jacob.
Her thoughts always floated back to him, his body walking around the city, his voice a psychic echo only a goddamn vanner could hear. Was he fading? Becoming stronger? If he could learn to speak and regrow his eyes as he did his skin…she felt more interested in that than the fed’s investment in the living's super-powers. Even Kahn’s coat had changed as new silver lines highlighted his fur. During their latest encounter the tiger hadn’t seemed dazed at all. If the dead had a future when cared for, she couldn’t dare to guess what they would end up as in the future.
Yet, it was reason enough to hope for a third reunion with her baby brother. If the girls had survived, it was a sure bet she would see him again.
The vanners, Dillon included, were a mystery only in reverse. All that stuff about controlling Dvoraks and energy manipulation, and Jessica had none of it, just rapid healing. At least God had given her something for keeping her barefoot. Or maybe it was a torture, keeping her alive as punishment for always looking in the wrong place after dad died. Of all the people she lost, who survived and was still at her side? John Dillon, former crush to the point of obsession, and to this day she had never had an honest one-on-one conversation with him. It was always a tease or a disaster, too many people, situations, and horrors interfering.
Jessica didn’t hold any fantasies about riding off into the sunset with him, so it had to be God’s cruel joke that kept him around. Or destiny.
Whatever drew Christy to him, it didn’t seem raw power. The city’s dead residents were a limited resource, even in their thousands, being burnt-up and hacked to bits. As a long-term weapons-grade ability, it was questionable what use talking to Dvoraks had. All the vanners and even Ayla could do as much, if not better.
What made him so special that Shannon and Dolores had to die? That Christy would fuck herself into his life at the risk of her own? That Carmichael would shoot-to-kill all Nome had left? The Sol-Union government had already won, so why take this last step—maybe they’d be sated with having their Carina back and leave them the alone.
From all Jessica had been through, that much seemed like hope. Fuck spreading the truth, fuck creating a new order, she just wanted out. She�
��d take all she had left with her.
* * *
“Where are we going?” She stared along her rear view, Shannon’s Jetty a perfect line from ground to sky. They’d traveled at least a mile more away, deeper into the Bay District. “If you’re trying to shake pursuit, I really don’t think there’s a point.”
“This is Dolores’ call,” Nicky said. Single-D Dani still ran point, the path clear down the unfamiliar street—Sageway Boulevard—not a Dvorak within sight or sound. Maybe they didn’t like the cold either. Via suggestion, Ayla huddled on Dillon’s lap with Kahn over both. The insulation was comforting, especially with the constant rush of hot air Nicky blew upon them. If they were attacked it would be a disaster, but her first concern was avoiding hypothermia. Leftover puddles from Rose City’s storm had frozen solid, not even cracking as the half-ton bots rolled over curbs and potholes. “We are going to Holly.”
“If she’s still alive.”
“She will be. You’ll find no Seven smarter or braver.”
“And when the vanners or feds catch up? Won’t we be bringing down the hammer on them along with us?”
“I have calculated the intensity of the recent conflict,” Dani said, “and adjusted for baseline contingencies such as escape and overwhelming strength on either participating groupings. Even if they have not neutralized each other, both will be impaired. We would be remiss to ignore Dolores’ final advice.”
Go to her.
Sure. Why not. They’d spent the last twenty-four hours chasing people who were supposed to have the answers and it had only cost her a friend, her would-be lover, her own brother (twice), their leader, and their most powerful fighter. At this point she couldn’t imagine losing Bunny, let alone Kahn, Nicky, or especially Ayla. But if Holly and her band of half-starved, half-dead survivors could act as meat-shields, that’d be fucking wonderful, except that was the absolute opposite of what she could stomach.
Anatali: Ragnarok Page 23
