Gudsriki (37 page)

 

 

A
FTER
AGES
of darkness, Vibeke began to see lights. Suburbs at first, like at Pohjanlahti, then villages like Pohjanlahti itself. Then bigger structures. Industrial zones, factories. Though they had lost their sinister tone, the grand jagged masses of them remained intimidating, intricate and decorated with form beyond simple function. Soon the water was bright, a glow from all the lights collected into a vibrant center, and from the center emerged the brightest, most complex and massive structure Vibeke had ever seen.

The city was so huge it was dug deep into the sea floor but still reached like a mountain up to and above the surface. There it had a dock for topside ships. The structure of the city was akin to an arcology but also strangely organic like the biomass that had taken Paris. The whole thing was in motion, connecting parts to each other and reconnecting them to industrial buildings and various smaller buildings. As they came closer, Vibs could see that the city was in fact composed of hundreds of smaller villages and thousands of homes like the one they were in, all connected and mobile and rearrangeable. The core itself was only a humongous network for organizing and docking the many craft that made up the city.

They docked into a tube system made of the same old materials as Pohjanlahti, but bustling with thousands of Cetacean commuters. Unlike the village, the city was all in a hurry, all moving, all the people and places on their way to somewhere. Once they emerged into the core, they were struck by the sight of shops, markets, and eateries. It was almost like the Internet, but nobody was yelling or fighting. It was almost like the surface used to be, but nobody was paying. It was some sort of barter communism, with no money changing hands. People took what they needed and gave what others wanted.

The Valkohai lead them through endless chambers and corridors, through village bodies and connecting branches. It took them nearly an hour to walk down and east to the first door they came to. And that was only the entry to another network of more exclusive, less crowded tunnels. As they progressed past more doors with more and more visible security systems, more people moaned greetings to the Shark. Soon they were near the dug-out sea floor. Portals ceased, and they were underground. There were fewer and fewer people, and the few there were seemed less hurried and somehow more serious. They came to a door covered in detectors and speakers.

“The admiral is here. Speak politely. I am not responsible for your demise.”

Pytten stood behind them. The door seemed unornate compared to some of what they'd seen. A modest door, carved simply with a lion and anchor, and a name: Turunen. The door had a whistle tied to it. Pytten took it and played a complex code.

Silence, then footsteps. The door opened to reveal a Cetacean man. Also white on his belly and gray on his back. On his shoulders were panels of seal leather with the same lions and anchors. They couldn't read his facial expression but could tell it was an intense one. Vibs tried her best to be very polite.

“Hello, sir.”

“Pytten, what is the meaning of this?”

“Intel, sir”—Pytten swallowed—“that you need to hear.”

Risto stood silent. Vibs remembered something she had heard from Pelamus.

“Permission to come aboard, sir?”

He stood still. Then stepped back, and waved for them to enter. They stepped into the modest room across the shifting mismatched hatches. It didn't seem like an admiral's office, which Vibeke assumed would be something like Balder's. Weapons on the bulkheads, various trinkets and devices, heaps of papers. Instead the room was nearly barren, with only a few scattered symbols of status and a table covered in communication equipment and one giant salamander, which Vibeke could swear was silently growling at her. She also spotted a large coil of what she guessed were maps. Pytten followed them in and closed the door.

The admiral led them to stools, which he positioned kindly for them to sit on, and they sat. He then pulled up one of his own and sat opposite them. He sat in silence. Vibs ventured to speak again.

“Forgive my ignorance of your customs…. May I ask your name?”

“I am Admiral Risto Turunen. Why did you seek us out?”

“Loki Turunen.” He seemed to wince, if Vibs read his face correctly.

The admiral shouted at the other Cetacean, “
Pytten
!
What is the meaning of this
?”

“It goes beyond him, sir, you need to hear—”

“What filth have you spat upon my doorstep?”

“They are from the Hall of the—”

“You would dare to sully my city with these monsters? Why?”

Vibeke spoke up. “The Ares device. A system capable of flooding the Earth. The device would be a powerful means toward defense if it were in your—”

“A myth! There is no such device.”

“It's in Kvitøya. Go there and you'll see it.”

“Why,” Risto growled, “would a she-ape tell us of a weapon that could destroy her kind?”

“Because Loki Turunen is the only thing keeping it from going off.”

Risto sat back in his chair as if she'd slapped him. He looked to Pytten.

“Pytten, you are relieved of all duties concerning myself and my office. Report to the disciplinary council at 0900 tomorrow for review of your demotion to lieutenant.”

Pytten breathed heavily. “Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

Pytten did an about-face and walked out of the office. Risto held still, thinking. Vibeke wondered if the information had frozen him completely.

“You were his sisters in arms, I assume?”

Vibeke nodded.

“I am his brother, only by blood. So you came to me to deal with your family.”

“Sir, Veikko—Loki caused the war on the surface. He did it trying to destroy the device. We've lost everything. We live now only to defeat him. We beg you to go to Kvitøya, seize the device and kill—or at least capture him. Punish him any way you want.”

Risto sighed and considered, holding perfectly still for several minutes. Vibeke waved her hand before his face, but he didn't budge. She was very unnerved by the Cetacean habit of total motionlessness while thinking.

Risto knew it would be as wrong to fail to act because of Loki as it would be to act solely because of his personal grudge. He also knew how difficult it would be to convince the assembly to act when it was the cause of his brief downfall come back to haunt him. And the Ares… it would be the ultimate defensive threat. He had to act.

Finally Risto came to life again.

“Family is responsible for family, good or bad. The three of us are perhaps to blame for all that has happened, perhaps not. But we must deal with our family. You will provide us intelligence on the fortress, and on Loki?”

“Yes.”

He switched a device on the table, and it began to whir.

“Then begin.”

 

 

K
ALASHNIKOV
MONITORED
from his Tikari as it approached the door.

“They're meeting with a Cetacean. I couldn't get a good look in the door, but it was marked with an insignia suggesting high rank, I think.”

“What are they saying?”

“Repeating: ‘…one inactive chromatic gateway and one hole that was once a walrus tr—' Fucking shit, she's giving them intel on Valhalla.”

“We kill them here and give Vibeke a bore. Find out her plans with the Cetaceans, then act accordingly.”

“We have to assume that the Valkohai exist and that's who she's meeting. If they
are
an entire navy, we need more than four Valkyries.”

“T team should have found a way in by now. They'll have their weapons.”

“Can we contact M team again?”

“Not from here, not in time.”

“We'll regroup if we have to, but right now we need to take down V team.”

“The intel they're giving…. Kabar, they know the ravine is empty. They know the Ares is intact. Why would they give it to the damn Valkohai?”

“Why would they start a nuclear war? A wave war? V team has been bent on the total destruction of Earth since they came back from Mars. We can only assume they're insane.”

“It doesn't add up, Kabar,” said Katana.

“It'll add up when we hack into their corpses.”

“And if by some miracle they were engaged in a necessary mission?”

“Anything they can do we can do better. As soon as they emerge from the militarized basements, we exterminate them.”

 

 

T
HE
INTEL
ran out. Vibeke had laid out nearly everything, and Nel filled in the last bits. Her tactical mind was flawless, based in part on the same system that once rated their missions by percents effective. Vibeke was intimidated for the first time to have a companion smarter than herself.

A companion she was reasonably sure she'd had sex with the night before. Her memory was tainted green and distorted, though, and she didn't feel like she could work up the nerve to ask Nel what they'd done.

“We will analyze your statements in a committee to convene immediately.” Risto flicked a few switches on his desk. “I suggest you wait in the lower atrium you passed on the way here. Then I will send for you.”

“How will they recognize us?”

“You'll be the humans.”

They thanked the admiral and left his office for the atrium. Pytten was standing in the hall outside the door. They looked over the gray Cetacean, not without a feeling of guilt.

Vibeke started, “I'm sorry we—”

“You did nothing. I alone am responsible for my actions and their consequences.”

“Then you have my sympathies.”

“I believe I did what had to be done. If my demotion is a result of the sequence of events necessary to secure the Ares, so be it.”

Vibeke and Nel nodded, then headed back up the ladders and ramps out of the guarded zone and into the wide room. A guard with the Valkohai paint job followed them at a distance.

Vibeke was certain they were doing the right thing. The Valkohai would keep the device safe and either imprison Veikko forever or find a way to kill him. The events were set in motion. She debated in her mind whether they should simply leave then and start the hunt for Mishka as she sat down on a carved wooden thwart.

She was admiring the sea monsters on its back when Nel spoke.

“Vibeke, do you remember—”

“I don't know what I remember.”

“Not with any accuracy?”

“No, do you?”

“No.”

They sat in awkward silence.

“Are you lying?” asked Vibs.

“Yes, I remember it all.”

“Did we—”

“Yes.”

“I didn't say what yet.”

“Doesn't matter. We did everything.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Regretful ‘yeah'?”

“No.”

“Well… what we did under the influence of grog can't be considered normal behavior.”

“Of course not,” Nel agreed.

“So we never—”

“No. Not… officially.”

They sat still, both afraid to move. Vibeke finally spoke before the silence grew irreparably awkward. “Not officially.”

“No, I have yet to file the proper signed forms.”

Vibeke smiled. Didn't laugh, just smiled. Nel smiled too. For a moment they swore they could hear the Valkohai guard groan in disgust.

“So how was I?” Vibs asked.

Nel swallowed. “Good, but….”

“But?”

“You have a serious hair pulling thing.”

“I do not.”

“You totally do.”

“No, I—maybe like a little, but—”

“Full-on hair grabbing and pulling constantly without restraint.”

“I'm not—”

“I'm not saying you have an unhealthy hair pulling fetish. I'm just saying if you masturbated to a Rapunzel movie I'd not be surprised.”

“Oh my God. Fuck you, Nel.”

“Okay, just leave my hair alone next time.”

Vibeke huffed and stared angrily at the deck.

“Okay, fine, I won't pull your hair again.”

“Does that mean we're gonna to have sex again?”

“If we do it without grog in our systems, it'll mean something.”

“Are you afraid of it meaning something?”

Vibeke thought for a moment. “No. Are you?”

“No. I don't think anybody cares about meaning now, about the meaning of anything.”

“Right. Hedonism prevails after the world falls.”

“Makes sense.”

“So if I want to kiss you right now I should just do it.”

“I wouldn't stop you.”

“And it wouldn't mean anything.”

“Nope. Completely meaningless pleasure without consequence.”

“Sounds good.”

“Yep.”

They sat still, each afraid to move toward the other. The guard, clearly disgusted by their sappy display, finally left. They watched him leave and looked down the hall for a few seconds after. Then to each other.

Nel leaned forward to kiss her and pulled her close. Vibeke didn't resist. She wanted furiously to kiss Nel back. To abandon her worries and regrets. To feel loved again by whatever creature would love her. She put her hand on the back of Nel's head, careful not to tug her hair, and sought out her lips.

The thwart exploded. They were both thrown three meters in opposite directions. They weren't dead, and that suggested the explosive had gone dud from the moisture in the air. By the time they landed, both were looking for the assassins. Nel saw a human running from the atrium and gave chase. Vibeke was about to join the chase when she saw the remains of the bomb. It was a partially used blasting repeater, gold plated and clearly from Valhalla stores. She picked it up, noted one charge undetonated, and ran.