The Arkhe Principle

by Maxwell Rudolf

  It was always something with Montavon. Gungnir's last op was 37 days ago and went horribly awry. The review board from Operational Revue tried to push him to take the blame and he balked. The mission, "Op Recon 115," specified for five Úlfheðnars to scout 20 kilometers beyond the black zone, an area the Americans called, "The Land of the Nothing." Only he survived, and he considered himself lucky.

  "We have received new information regarding a new region. A rich one. A fresh site."

  "Who's claiming that?"

  "Aefweard. Says over two weeks from here, combat speed."

  "I see. He's got that kind of metal for a self-funded expedition. I don't. How did he find it? Did he say about how many people or how big or what tech or anything else?" He missed talking to his friend about picking. Aefweard was one of the best pickers in the Empire and he wasn't surprised his name was mentioned.

  "I'm recalling you, Gungnir. Not my choice, and frankly, I stalled as long as I could."

  He balled his hand and held back. "Listen up. I'm going to spend time with my brother at the hospital for a while. So don't even try this with me. Believe me. You don't want to do that."

  "We don't have anyone else. Besides, you might reconsider after looking at these."

  Montavon handed him a stack of digi-prints, and he scanned through them. A giant spinning of neon green data pulsated to the sounds of a bio-enhanced drum kit. The next, several high-rise apartments with colorful lights, all with a hideous projected Harlequin, its face distorted into a parody of humanity. Ferals didn't have that type of tech, and if they did, they never knew how to use it. These were fakes.

  "Look, these might be interesting, but they aren't going to change my mind." He turned to another one and flipped it right side up. People were dancing backward and wearing some kind of audio device. "Are you trying to be funny? What's this?"

  "Can't say."

  "Won't," mumbled Gungnir. Looking at a few more, he threw the stack down. "Let's make this simple for you since you aren't listening. I'm not leaving my brother. I didn't listen to him cry out as they pumped him full of brown crud for nothing."

  Unfortunately, metal was scarce—never enough money to pay for himself, his brother's medical bills, his mother's expenses. And picking was dangerous and expensive. As an Úlfheðnar, Gungnir's cast his power around like a living god, doing as he liked. But there were rules he wasn't going to break unless the situation was zeroing itself out, even if it meant his brother dying. Stealing the money from a bank would only make him an enemy of the people, and he enjoyed his status as an anti-hero.

  Montavon rubbed his arm. "I understand. But this op will have new tech, at least if the reports are to be trusted. If there's an advanced society nearby, it's going to be attacked eventually, and we should be the ones to claim it. This could be a chance to advance our tech situation and finally make some needed breakthroughs. Look, old friend, this is important or I wouldn't have come all this way."

  "If my brother dies in bed, then what? You think I'm going to let him die alone? He's bedridden and my mother can only visit him through a telecaster," Gungnir sneered.

  "I don't see how that matters."

  He seized his seax blade, his neck veins ready to burst. He stabbed the dagger into his counter, cracking the Plasstien. "You're talking about my brother, Colonel!"

  "Avoid that tone with me, Úlfheðnar. I've earned this rank through hard work, discipline, and a lifetime of service to the Empire. Don't try to intimidate me with your shit. The op is simple: infiltrate the location; find and take any advanced tech you can find; and bring it back. That's it. You'll be paid well in metal."

  He hadn't heard him talk that way to him in many years. Maybe this was important. "What is it exactly you want to find? Did Aefweard say something? What is this place called again?" he said looking down at the digi-print's title. "I've never heard of this 'Pop Music' place. You want something specific? Look, send me inside the Kingdom of St. George. That's where my talents are best used. You want this war to end sometime, right?"

  "Well, first I'll let you know I tried getting someone else. I knew you'd give me problems, especially with your family situation. I don't blame you. Besides, command wants the Úlfheðnars shut down. Says you guys overextend your welcome in prosecuting your objectives." He looked over at Gungnir's bookshelf, back to Arkhe. Why did he go for the book right away rather than talk about this op?

  "So what's going to happen to my brother if I decide to go? Also, if I do,, I'll be going alone. I'm not going to take responsibility for anyone else this time. Not after what the tribunals pulled on me. There are a lot of people who should thank me for being alive. I don't often restrain myself."

  "I know. Look, the rest of the Úlfheðnars are missing or on assignment, all except Aefweard. Command wants to shut you guys down, and I've been putting myself out there in not letting them. Go check for yourself. And I'm sure they will unless you succeed. You've been in the program, how long?"

  He stopped, looked up at the painting of Wotan riding into battle on his 8-tracked Battle-fortress, and started counting on his fingers. "Three years."

  "Not a long time, and you've already killed how many innocent Saxons?"

  "Don't push me. I'm not sure if I'm being clear. My brother's cancer is more important to me than going on some quest you have. Do you understand?" Gungnir snarled. "Find another."

  "The op is short," Montavon continued. "We can move your brother to the Berlin Center for Cancer Treatment, and I'll wipe the research portion of his medical bill and guarantee all further treatment is at cost."

  "You Roman sodomite! I should kill you, you little maggot! Was it an oddity that prevented you from doing this before? Only now when you want something? I put in for Emergency Empire Assistance..."

  "Never reached me or the procedure would have been approved. Again, I'm not the one making these decisions. Why don't we move your brother where he can get the best care?"

  Gungnir watched him and cast his gaze back to his seax.

  "Please, let's make sure he gets the proper care he deserves."

  "You're essentially blackmailing me. Do you have the slightest notion of how bad his cancer is?"

  "Of course. Before showing up, I took the liberty of looking. That's why it's so important we move him to the Center as soon as we can. Don't you agree? You've eaten dinner at my house. You've played with my kids, taken them to the vids. I hold no joy in trying to leverage you. I hate it, but the Empire needs you. What else do you want me to say? Do you want me to get on my knees and beg you?"

  Gungnir pulled his blade out from the counter and sheathed it. "I'm going to need an advance." Rolling his neck, he saw Wotan again and noticed for the first time a red one on his tunic. In the hundreds of hours, memorizing the masterpiece, the number had blended with the rest of the tunic. "I'll try to find maps in Niflheim. See if I can find anything about it. Also, I'll need to chat with Aefweard. The next time we talk, you better have come through on your promise, friend."

  4 Victoria Tesla's Initiation

  Domain of King Edward (D.K.E.)

  After failing most of her classes, Victoria Tesla had a mandatory abortion at the age of 14. The courts came down hard and transferred her to the Institute. She pressed charges against her rapist, the son of David Rockenstower, owner of the largest vineyard in the Kingdom. Unfortunately for her, her parents never materialized at the trial and both withheld any kind of financial support. Without a proper lawyer, she was crushed under the legalese jackboot of the high-powered Rockenstower's legal defense team. She cried out to St. George for aid, getting on her knees and praying the Help Me Prayer. When the charges were mercilessly reversed, tears fell from her eyes, and she was convicted of being a Sexual Disruption to Society and faced 10-years hard labor in the Black Pits in Glauchester.

  The judge's white curly wig covered her natural hair, and her cardinal red robes drew the court's attention. Her gavel shot out sparks when she smashed it down on the plate. She
tried to memorize the gold medals on the robe, all for excellence, and the St. George Medal of Combat Valor stung her eyes in its Oracle White purity. "Just to be clear, serial number 8,345,734, your speech is completely unacceptable. I understand your parents are not locals, but they did not appear at your trial, and you were unable to produce the necessary funds to hire yourself an attorney. I am afraid if you cannot reign your disgusting behavior in, we will be forced to ship you to Retributive Cognitive Therapy. For now, you are being sent to the Institute to tutor you into cultural obedience. Take this thing away!"

  The dirty slush pattered the window, and she wiped it clean. Along the road, Snow Cleaners were laying down salt and using H2O heat sweepers to melt the icy sludge, causing it to run off into the gutter, down into the Underworld. The many Military Coalition recruitment centers and copper stations buzzed with activity. Being an adult would be easier.

  During in-processing, they stripped off the nail polish, trimmed her flaxen hair, and smacked her as she signaled the answers to the questions rather than answering them with her voice. Because she didn't understand how to talk without getting herself into more trouble.

  "Cadet Tesla, you cannot use your hands to speak. Now, answer!" The uniformed Institute's Instructor clipped voice barked. If not for being inside the school, this thug would be on the ground, begging for her life. And by the way she was balancing, an amount of respect had been achieved without anything being done on her part.

  "I ain't got much to say about that. I'm tryin' to understand the question you askin'." Her hands were behind her back, tied there by one of the in-processing personnel.

  "We do not allow our students to talk this way. Cease this manner of speech this instant!" He opened his desk and found his lash. "Are we clear on that?"

  "Yes, sir. I tryin'."

  She ducked underneath the swing and it swished in the air, missing her by centimeters.

  "Hold her down," he said to the other administrators. She resisted initially, but couldn't react to them all. "Now you shall receive double. Strip off her shirt and put her against the wall. Time to beat some Institute sense into this girl so she'll learn to become one of us and not an enemy."

  The Cadets laughed at her American hairstyle, with its deep recessed shavings on the side of her head, her American manner of speech, her use of her hands when she spoke when none of the facility was looking. "Leave me alone," she cried. She didn't make any friends; not even the lowest of the students would associate with her. Talking to her imaginary friend Camelia often lasted many hours after lights off, but Victoria knew she was pretend anyway. And several times her classmates had searched around the room looking for who she was conversing with.

  During St. George Week, she spent the time in The Chamber of the Dead, along with the other orphans, listening to St. George priests lecture about the need for having a firm moral compass. At first, the speeches were interesting. She particularly enjoyed the part about the saints. She navigated through the list of them, watching digi-prints of each one in all their spectacle and magnificence, dressed in white, their specific banners flying just under the St. George cross.

  The nights were always the worst, right before lights off, and she watched the digi-clock as it ticked, ticked, ticked.

  "Tesla. Tesla. 'Little I cannot speak, Tesla.' Around and around and around she goes. Where she is going to die, nobody knows." The call was led by the dorm Captain, a brown-haired girl with a million freckles who demanded the title Lady Sasha.

  "I hate you. Fight me one on one, you bitch," Victoria stammered. She pushed her tormenter to the ground, and lost her footing, slamming into a bunk bed. "I'm not going to fuckin' take your fuckin' shit anymore you..."

  Someone elbowed her in the back of her head and everything went into stars. Lips moved, but her ears failed. Something tight strangled her and Victoria's lungs fought for air. Sasha smiled, squeezing hard.

  "What a delicate morsel you are." She squeezed harder. She grabbed at her hands, trying to pull them off so she could breathe in a gulp of air. "I think I will make you my slave. You would like that, I bet. Licking the floors clean with that pretty tongue of yours. Look, girls? She likes me!"

  The dorm erupted in laughter. Her bunkmate scurried to the toilet and disappeared, and any hope for assistance drained from her imagination. Squiggles reflected back into her eyes. Sasha fully extended her arms and started spitting in her face, spittle landing in the eye.

  "Let her go," a boy bellowed behind her.

  "John Rex. This is none of your concern."

  "I will not ask you again," he sneered. "If I have to break protocol, I will."

  Sasha stiffened and dropped her, and she gasped, taking in a huge breath of air, putting her hands up to her bruised neck. She swung around. The infamous Dr. Bells marched double time down the hallway towards her dorm. She dipped her blue eyes into John's, and she rose. Cute and with good timing.

  "Get away from here, Cadet. Back to your room," he snapped. He shoved John aside. "What is going on in here?"

  "I was standing watch, sir, and I heard a commotion. It is almost Lights Off Hour," John explained.

  Dr. Bells' face turned red and he spun on his jackboot addressing John, "Back to your bloody post!" Then he turned back to the girls. "If something happens like this again, Cadets, I will find someone to expel."

  Victoria's heartbeat thudded in her ears.

  "Do I make myself clear, ladies?"

  "Yes, sir," the dorm relented. Her bunkmate slithered out of the toilet and merged back into the crowd.

  "Good. Cadet Tesla and Cadet Parket," he said to her and her tormentor. "Come with me. I am going to require a full report about this incident on my desk in an hour. This type of behavior will not be tolerated. As for you, Cadet, or should I call you Lady Sasha? I saw you. This is not your first violation. You will be cleaning my officer's mess for the next two weeks during leisure hour. I am extremely disappointed in all of you. Despite Cadet Tesla's vocal disability, she is a member of the Institute."

  Victoria's mind returned to John every minute. She tried to find him, asking around, but as soon as she would, they laughed at her accent. She gave up and talked to her imaginary friend Camelia instead. They both agreed she needed to get away from the Institute as much as possible.

  When she was old enough, she applied for a work visa. After school, she made .50 E an hour plus 2,500 calories for working at a Ralphie's South Side Food Market as a cash intake person four days a week. And on the weekends, she worked at the Oxford Theater as a janitor. But despite the hard work and long hours, she looked forward to it every night. Anything to get away from the school.

  The 50-meter digi-projection screen at the theater was so realistic, she sometimes forgot she was watching something that wasn't real. When "Tears in the Sky" was released starring the hunky Gary Archer, she made excuses to be inside when it was playing. During the last scene when Lace Epcot fell into his arms, she saw John's face, and she never laughed so hard, cried so much, or wanted two people to be together in her whole life. When the credits rolled, and Gary and Lace drove away happily ever after, the audience roared and clapped in joy. Victoria simply bawled.

  5 Gungnir's Sacrifice

  Winter/Spring

  The time of the Long Nights had arrived. Gungnir had great respect for the frost giants, those mythological beings who exhaled during this time of year and breathed out their winter breath, freezing everything. The wicked cold had become longer, harsher, killing thousands in the Empire who couldn't afford to pay the metal for their electric bill. Every year, he paid for his family's bill sometimes for the entire year. And on those days, he drank himself to sleep wishing something inside himself he didn't understand.

  His stomach growled, and he swallowed down the last of the neo-goat jerky he'd saved. Its stale taste was more like chewing on tree bark, but he pulled out a chocolate cherry stim and chomped down, taking away the cardboard taste and warming his skin. He closed his eyes, inhaling.<
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  All around him, the hanged bodies of the small St. George reconnaissance patrol dangled from the trees, all sacrifices to his god, Wotan. Their eyes had frozen shut and their trousers were yellow with encrusted piss. Six in total and not a satisfying number by any means, but enough, he hoped, to please him. Glory to the All Father and his wisdom!

  A day away, the destination for his travels stayed transfixed in his mind: a tiny place called Pop Music, a newly discovered location rumored to be full of advanced tech and splendid, hidden riches. He went to the back of his vehicle, with its spiked tires and armored camo shell, and counted the rest of his .75 quad cannon ammo. Over 3,000 rounds left, connected with links and stacked up tight in the back seat.

  He climbed inside his buggy, letting the heat warm his bones, and flipped open the hydrotherma displays. Reading green, he recalibrated the solar panels to allow for the decrease in light from Sunna, that all-important goddess in the sky who cast light upon the world from above. His hands found the box of St. George rations in the passenger seat, and he sorted through them, finding a package of protein steak mix. He spread the mix on two vanilla biscuits and washed them down with a bottle of Vineyard Green wine.

  He sped off down the barren road and the autocraft's scanners nulled and he slowed down and activated the auto-turret. Gungnir couldn't make much of the displays, and they all blacked out. He toggled the built-in probability matrix. Jammers. Range?

  Unable to determine.

  >>Line

  He clutched the shift, pulled it in reverse until his optics activated, and gazed into the periscope. No back roads and everything around was a dirty white. A scurry of dead neo-squirrels had frozen in place, chewing a fallen bird next to them. A thin mist curled through the wind and over him, blocking regular sight. He flipped the switch and went to infrared, but something sparked inside, and he togged regular view. That periscope was expensive and getting another one was going to be tricky.