Bring Me the Head of the Buddha

by Bloom, A. D.

  He saw them first as Individual worshipers that each believed if they gave enough blood to this Death God, sacrificed enough Others to Him, then he might pass them over. Then, as if on the opposite side of a coin, he saw the combatants on the roof as the Same in the mathematical sense. Human equaled human, so they were the Same, and their worship of the God named Death was practiced through a self-annihilation. They visited destruction on The Other they saw, that was, in reality, The Same Being. For an infinitesimal moment, quickly lost like a dream suddenly forgotten, it was Both. He saw both sides of the Coin at once, and he was sick with it. He was sick all over the warped steel deck of the control room.

  Though the G.S.A. troops had a numeric advantage, they had difficulty bringing it to bear because the narrow doorways to the rooftop were few and easy to keep suppressed. For every man that made it out to join the firing lines, another fell next to him as they exited the doors. The Morituri already had a dozen bulletproof, assault-suits on the roof and the G.S.A.'s standard issue rifle didn't pack enough punch to fell them without the sustained fire they couldn't manage to muster before being cut down. The insurgents behind the Morituri's walking tanks gained some partial cover and managed to maintain a stream of fire on the doorways that made egress a less and less attractive option for the G.S.A. troops.

  The number of blue helmets on the Zig's first level rooftop dwindled rapidly, and when the troops inside saw this, they no longer tried to exit. They decided it was better to cover the doorways from the inside and keep the insurgents from entering the building. The remaining Peacekeepers engaging on the first level roof conceded it to the insurgents and fled inside. Over half of them were shot in the back as they fled inside the Zig, slipping and falling in the blood of their dead and dying comrades.

  “Hey, Casper, man,” Otis said peeking over the half melted control panels at the rooftop battle. “Isn't that your girlfriend?” Casper looked out through his spy hole, and saw eight Marias Muertas running forward across the roof in a loose formation, carrying four heavy, counterfeit fashion label duffel bags. He knew that Otis had meant the entire formation, not just the Maria that had called him 'cutie-pie'.

  Halfway across the roof, the Marias split into pairs that each ran towards the four doors into the Zig with a bag between them. The armored Morituri and the other insurgents on the roof advanced ahead of them and laid down fire on the doorways. It was suicide for any blue helmet to peek out and try to shoot the advancing insurgents, and they'd all retreated to positions inside where they could pour fire on anyone foolish enough to enter.

  All along the ten-foot-thick, transparent Eastern wall of the Ziggurat's second level, there were blue-helmeted troops staring out at the insurgents on the rooftop who stared back at them. The walls were far too thick to shoot through. Some obscene gestures were made, but for the most part they just eyeballed each other. There was hatred, to be sure, but they stared out of curiosity and the sheer weirdness of getting a close-up, prolonged look at their enemy. Believers stared Believers in the eye for thirty seconds or more as Las Marias Muertas set timers and detonators on their designer duffel bag bombs.

  From his vantage point in the control room, Casper saw that the bag carried to the nearest doorway was an expensive AniLux coated one with a cute, dancing cartoon kitten on it that waved hello. The kitten had a bow in its hair, and as the designer bomb was carried the last few feet to the doorway, the kitten waved at the blue-helmets on the other side of the wall, who watched in horror because they guessed what was about to happen to their comrades that had taken firing positions in the hallway near the door.

  The bags looked heavy. Las Marias Muertas swung them in a wide horizontal arc and released them, airborne, into the four open doors. Into the Zig. Each landed a little over fifteen feet inside and slid on the floor a few feet more before detonating. The blasts blew plumes of flame and smoke out the doorways. The blast resistant walls of the Zig channeled most of the explosive force, and it bounced off the walls, down the short hallways inside, and killed any blue helmets that had taken up positions to guard the doors.

  Nobody waited for the smoke to clear. The assault-suited shock troops led with blazing guns, and the rest of the insurgents followed them inside. The main body of the assault force now began to pour out of the blown-out hatchways of Lady Chatterley's mangled superstructure. They ran in great numbers towards the doors. Casper saw nearly a hundred screaming White Sunday, Morituri, Chinese Christians, Angry Angels, and the Koreans make it across the roof without resistance, until twenty of the charging insurgents fell to bullets fired from the roof of the level above.

  Shooters in the superstructure were quick to spot the blue helmets poking over the edge and firing down en masse. Having located the source of the fire, they suppressed the edge of the roof. Ten seconds later, the charge across the lowest rooftop of the step-pyramid began again under covering fire.

  Despite the apparent lack of any figures shooting down from the rooftop above, one in five who ran across exploded inexplicably. First they were there, then they weren't. Their flying, dismembered limbs and the horrible spectacle of their blood misting in great expanding clouds soon discouraged the remaining insurgents inside the superstructure from attempting to cross the roof and join the fight inside. There were no shooters above that could be seen, but there was clearly fire raining down. “What the fuck, man.” Otis said, “They're getting blown to shit out there all of a sudden.” Carlos peeked over the control room console under which he'd kept himself hid.

  “Roof looks clear of blue helmets,” he said, “but there's definitely someone laying down nasty out there.”

  “Can we wait to cross?” Bonnie asked.

  “Yeah,” Casper said, “can we wait? That does Not look clear.”

  “Wait? For how long? If we wait too long then one way or another that'll be bad news.” Everybody except Bonnie looked confused, so Carlos explained, “When the battle for the Zig is won, the Cleansing will start. These guys will start killing each other over religious disagreements, and we don't belong to any of these nutso factions, so nobody's gonna protect our asses once that shit starts up. Wait too long to get in there and get to the client and we're screwed.”

  “Well we can't just run out there now,” Otis said, “It looks like every third or fourth guy who tries to cross the roof gets blown to shit.” As if to emphasize Otis's point, two more runners disappeared in a cloud of blood-mist and chunks. The moment that happened, Casper felt like he should look away, like he'd invaded their privacy. He felt like when he watched people at a moment like that maybe he lacked something called 'decency'.

  He kept watching and asked, “Where the fuck is the fire coming from?”

  “Goddies better figure it out quick,” Carlos said, “'cause there's a shitload of G.S.A. in there and only, like, less than half the Goddies made it in. If they don't reinforce the guys that went inside already, then the Goddies are gonna lose this battle. Then we'll really be fucked proper.”

  “ProDif Stealth Suits,” Bonnie said, “Gotta be Operators in ProDif up there.”

  “What the fuck is that?” Carlos asked, slightly offended that someone would invent something without him hearing about it. Bonnie stared at her feet.

  “Optical Stealth suits. We use 'em for sanction actions.”

  “You mean assassination.”

  “Whatever,” Bonnie said before explaining, “ProDif... projection and diffusion... works best in bright light like this, makes you damn near invisible. Operators wearing ProDif suits. Gotta be. A little blur is all you can see around the edges. They've got integrated flechette guns... must be using the micro-explosive darts.”

  “How come everybody ain't wearin' 'em?” Casper asked, still staring out his spy hole at a group of five insurgents running serpentine across the roof. Two got misted and chunked in rapid succession.

  Bonnie passed her hand over her eye patch and said, “They're supposed to be a secret prototype thing so we've only got three
but... that's what's up there.”

  “How the fuck do you shoot invisible dudes... Fuck me,” Casper said.

  “Nope, actually Fuck Me,” Bonnie said. When Casper asked what she meant by that, Bonnie didn't answer because she was already three steps out the door of the control room.

  There was only one way to clear her name – complete her original mission and bring Delvaux his prize. It was the only way to prove her loyalty, the only way to get off the Shoot On Sight Blacklist. To do that, she'd have to cross the roof, and to cross the roof, she'd have to take care of those Operators in ProDif suits. She would have rather let the Goddie's assault stop right there, but she didn't have a choice. She'd have to hope the blue-helmets inside could repel them.

  She knew that once she took off the eye patch she'd be able to spot the Operators wearing the ProDif suits and plinking insurgents. Invisible didn't mean a damn thing to her and her emerald eye. Bonnie knew she'd be able to see the thermals.

  Gotta pop 'em quick, Bonnie thought.

  Gotta pop 'em quick.

  There were three reasons she repeated that to herself. The first reason was that even if the Operators weren't invisible to her, Bonnie herself wasn't invisible to begin with, and she didn't want a micro-explosive flechette turning her into a cloud of mist and flying chunks. The second reason to pop 'em quick was that if the Operators saw their buddy get popped, then they might suspect that they were no longer invisible and make themselves harder to shoot. The invisible shooters were fighting a holding action, keeping the remaining Goddies from reinforcing those who had already entered the Ziggurat. Every second of delay helped them win the battle. The third reason to make it quick was personal – using the emerald eye Hurt. The East walls of the Ziggurat were reflecting the pain-inducing morning sun and she wasn't in a good place to slap on a painkiller derm and get all looped out and smiley afterwards.

  Bonnie figured the stealth-suited Operators would be positioned for optimal aim and maximal effect. Since they were invisible, thought they were, anyway, they'd be kneeling for stability right over the edge of the second level roof with one in the middle and one on each side. Capping one or two and then playing hide and seek wasn't an option. She needed a place where she could get an angle on all three in quick succession. She'd seen a balcony that ran all the way around the half-melted deck where Team Buddha had been hiding in the singed forward control room. That should work if she used it right. She ran her hand over the shielded eye patch, as she made her way back through the twisted passageway. She found the aft hatch and it wasn't melted, just a little jammed. All it needed was a good kick, and it opened.

  Simple plan. Walk towards the Zig on the North balcony, exposed to only one Operator. Cap him. Run forward fast towards the northwest corner. Sight and shoot the second Operator. Pop around the corner to the West side as fast as possible, sight and shoot the third Operator before he knows what the hell hit him and his buddies.

  Bonnie set aside her sub-machine gun.

  She didn't want to kill Operators if she didn't have to. For this, she'd use Hi-5's Sagami pistol. It was long range for a pistol, but the multiple darts it fired would spread wide like a shotgun burst, and she only needed to hit them with one dart. Whatever Hi-5 loaded the darts with was powerful.

  Bonnie stepped out on to the catwalk and smoke began to rise from the soles of her boots. Crap. Better make this real quick. Before she had a chance to reconsider, she stripped off the eye patch and let the emerald eye drink in the scene while she took a second to make friends with the Pain.

  She was thankful that the ship had been cooling underwater. Lady Chatterley's orange spine barely hurt her eyes. The remaining one and a half towers at her stern were another story. They were still hot from the Sun Gun and were a painful, stabbing bright green. The bay's waters were a cool and soothing maroon behind them. Better not get used to that, she told herself. Turning to her left she'd forgotten what a difference distance made because the exterior of the superstructure was hot enough to glow a truly painful bluish-white. There were shapes like icicles hanging from the bent overhang above, and Bonnie regretted looking up. The steel grate she stood on was searing her boot soles. It had faced upward into the Sun Gun's ray for a few moments after the overhang above had sagged and melted. She knew enough not to look down at it. It was already glowing in her peripheral vision like a migraine. Bonnie inhaled, exhaled, and walked forward, turning the corner to walk up the North side of the catwalk balcony.

  The first Operator was right where he was supposed to be, on the Northeast corner of the Zig's second level. Bonnie stopped, brought the Sagami pistol up, exhaled and aimed at the center body mass of the vermilion, green-cored figure standing arrogantly on the edge of the rooftop, extending its arm with the integrated flechette gun. He was tracking a target, and he never saw Bonnie Levi-Mei fire a spread of fast-acting narcotic darts. One caught him in the shoulder, one in the abdomen. Good enough. He fell backwards.

  She jogged forward with the weapon in ready low position until she could see the second Operator. He came into view at the same time the first Operator's body hit the rooftop. The second Operator's orange and green head turned to look at the body of the Operator Bonnie had just sent to la la land. He guessed where the shot came from and saw Bonnie just before she loosed another spread of darts that struck him with three of the six she fired, all high in the chest. He fell backwards and disappeared from Bonnie's view.

  Her feet were burning.

  Bonnie rounded the corner as fast as she could and marked the standing, orange-green silhouette of the Stealth-Suited Operator's position just before the sun's reflection off the Zig distracted her with a painful stab to her optic nerve. He saw her rounding the corner and had two choices: drop to the rooftop for cover or take a shot. He almost got his arm up to aim at her before she loosed a burst that landed low, but landed. He received darts in his knee, his groin, and his belly. It ruined his aim and did worse things to his balance. He tumbled forward off the second level roof and died on impact.

  Crap.

  Bonnie pulled her eye patch back down over the emerald eye and ran as fast as she could back the way she came, off the burning steel grate and back inside. There were lights dancing in front of both eyes from the pain of her burning left optic nerve. She stumbled down the warped passageway and collapsed on the hot metal deck just yards outside the control room where Team Buddha was hiding. Bonnie was pretty sure they'd find her. She told herself it was just a little nap before she let herself pass out.

  -53-

  MUNI 5-7 had plenty of cameras. It watched Oskar Delvaux go mad with rage and perform a hopping, spasmodic dance of impotent anger as the three ProDif Stealth-Suited Operators who had slowed the stream of invading militants to a trickle were spotted and picked off by none other than the traitorous Bonnie Levi-Mei and her emerald eye. The insurgents poured inside, throwing explosives and bullets at anyone in their path.

  A group of Eastern Front militants attempt to access a locked down data-interface in the explosion-shredded office of a dead administrator. The AI granted them access and the answer to their eventual query, the location of the nearest armory. MUNI 5-7 unlocked it for them without being asked, and saw on cameras throughout the Ziggurat, that the Goddie insurgents were winning the battle.

  Now, as the rogue AI watched the remaining insurgents leave Lady Chatterley and cross the roof in droves to enter the Ziggurat, it searched the crowd with ten different cameras. It searched the figures jogging across the cracked roof for one in particular. It found him running awkwardly on short legs, ringed by eight golden-robed Sons of Caine.

  MUNI 5-7 was pleased.

  -54-

  Team Buddha were thankful that the gunfire and explosions from the front lines of the battle sounded like they were far off down the Zig's corridors or raging above or below them on other floors as the Battle of the Ziggurat progressed.

  Casper stepped over the bodies. There were more blue-helmets littering the corr
idors than insurgents, and as they moved deeper inside, Casper began to notice that the G.S.A. dead weren't all soldiers. Some of them were lab techs in white coats. Others looked like secretaries and bureaucrats. Many of them, Casper noticed, had no armor, no helmets, and had either been stripped of their small arms or never had any. The deeper they pushed into the Zig, the more it looked like wholesale slaughter.

  Casper's hand touched the Korean sub-machine gun he'd been given on the shores of the toxic dunes by a golfer in body armor. It was no longer across his chest, but he hadn't fired it yet, and now, staring down at the ruined, bleeding body of a clerical worker, he wasn't so sure he wanted to. Being a merc had sounded great, but he knew he didn't want to do this to another person, not for money. He couldn't think of one really good reason he had to do that to anyone.

  Team Buddha was in a wide main hallway when one of the not-quite-dead bodies nearby began to move. A blue-helmet made a feeble attempt to unholster and raise a pistol. The Peacekeeper was only ten feet away, lying on his belly in a pool of blood. He was so slow that Casper had time to look around the group to see if anybody else saw the man struggling to bring his sidearm to bear. Bonnie and Carlos were already past. Otis and the golden-robed ring with Alvin in the center continued forward behind Bonnie and Carlos. Casper knew there was no way around it. Once the wounded blue-helmet got his sidearm free, he'd have to shoot him or the man would probably shoot them in the back.

  Casper held the weapon away from his body as if he didn't like being close to it. He pointed the business end down at the half-dead man and yanked on the trigger with his eyes squeezed shut. Nothing happened. He'd forgotten to chamber a round. Casper pulled the bolt back and let it slide forward like Bonnie had showed him, pointed the weapon again without really aiming, and pulled the trigger. The recoil and the shells flying out the side made the whole gun kick up and diagonally, and Casper, who had never fired a gun indoors was so shocked at the painful noise that his eyes squeezed shut involuntarily. He didn't see the burst draw a line across the prone man's back, and he didn't see the man's body jerking, pushed upward by the rounds ricocheting off the floor, but that was good because, when he opened his eyes, the sight of the torn body alone was enough to make him want to toss the weapon away and vomit for the second time in the same half-hour.