Valhalla

by Ari Bach

  “‘The Unspeakable Darkness’—I’m speaking about them, so they are in fact a speakable yet still very mysterious darkness. Owned by Zaibatsu, just like the yakuza. We know they have an air force. We know they are heavily modified, genetically and surgically. They bear no resemblance to humans, and descriptions vary to the point where they may not bear any resemblance to each other. More intel when you need it. Pray you never need it.

  “We saved the worst for last. ‘Hall of the Slain’—Ownership unknown. Every villain, every monster, every army, mob, gang, and powerful underground force fears them, fears them greatly. They’re the monsters waiting under the beds of the monsters in your closet. They are known to be real, and they are known to be extremely powerful. And that is all we know.”

  Something in Cameron’s voice suggested he did know something more because he feared them too. He would not be telling them why. That made the biggest impression. Violet had learned from the police that silence can teach more than sporadic facts.

  Being linkless taught her how people can function without the nets. For her whole life, whenever she’d needed to know something, she’d just linked it out. When she found what she was looking for, it got dumped into her brain. This was the best way to learn information, of course. That’s why they’d loaded her up with manuals before she arrived. But for ages, people didn’t have it so easy. They had to learn from talk or text. Violet had assumed the ancient hieroglyphics all around her were decoration, but they were in fact the English language “written” on walls and floors and maps and pages of pictures. Sgt. Cameron claimed he could read the stuff but he didn’t defend the claim when everyone laughed. It was an odd breakdown of order, and not the last. As weeks passed and the platoon thinned, the strictness relaxed.

  One day in the dojo, Sergeant Cameron asked if there were any questions. It was more surprising than a hit from his favorite whacking stick. Violet welcomed the opportunity and used it first.

  “What gave you that scar?”

  He was amused.

  “This did,” he said, grabbing the like-shaped knife from the wall. “This is called a Bowie knife. It has a long, noble history that you don’t need to know. But the shape is pure genius. It was the basis for blades for three hundred and fifty years, the best we had until the Carlin knife. I got this scar when I claimed to an American that the Carlin knife had made it obsolete. Take my word, MacRae, this thing ain’t obsolete.”

  He passed it to her. It was weighted strangely compared to the usual Carlin bent dagger, but it had an antiquarian appeal. She handed it back but remembered the way it felt. He put it on the wall was quiet for some time. Then he said thoughtfully, “Another thing I learned from that American—strength ain’t muscles, it’s nerves. That’s why he’s dead.”

  He said no more about it, but the instructors grew more and more approachable. Then they let recruits speak to each other, and the order Violet had come to love was crippled. Private Static even had the chutzpah to let his hair grow beyond regulation and was not punished. It was a little longer than Violet’s, but hers was keratin-welded down when she arrived. His flowed past his shoulders.

  The first breakfast in which they were allowed to talk seemed more heavy a burden than the heavy-burden run or double-gravity PT. Violet alone remained silent for the first meal. She just listened to the others, so much like the kids from school. Days of pure silent order had done nothing to them. They reverted back to their old typical selves and they were even so vulgar as to discuss popular music idols and complain about their superiors. Violet did not say a word until dinner that evening, and only then when she was cornered.

  “Violet MacRae?” asked a girl her age, one from her barracks. Brown hair, brown eyes, cute round face, and a voice that said she was tired of training but couldn’t drop out. Violet assumed she was from one of those military families who joined out of tradition. But she said “Violet.” They never used first names.

  “Yes, how did you know that?”

  “You’re the girl who killed the Orange Gang men, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your face was on the news.”

  “Oh.”

  “My name is Heather. Sorry, Private Lyle. My uncle was killed by Hrothgar Kray.”

  “My parents too.”

  “Yeah, we all know. Thanks for helping me off that obstacle, by the way.”

  “Which?”

  “On the course with the wood obstacles, you caught me and pulled me off the giant triangular thing.”

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Was covered in goosemud, wasn’t I? That’s all right.”

  Violet was suddenly aware this was the most she had said to anyone since the police. It felt awkward, unnecessary, disjointed. She was sure this person meant well and was trying to befriend her. All Violet could think of was the merit and quality of friendship among troops, and whether it would make them more or less efficient in battle, and other such practical nonsense. She concluded that interaction must have been approved or they would not allow it.

  “What do you think this grainy stuff is?” Private Lyle asked.

  “Corn bread.” Wait, Violet thought, this is small talk. Be funny. “Or rubber, possibly,” she added.

  “Heh, yeah. I bet it bounces.”

  Enough small talk. “What did you hear about me on the news?”

  Violet learned that her reputation had preceded her. She was not surprised to hear that she had been in the news logs for a few days, announced between the latest mergers and the latest kitten to climb a tree. The police had asked that her name and picture never be shown to the public, but freedom of the press had long ago conquered its last frontiers. Nobody asked her to recount her tale, not out of politeness but because they had simply heard it all before they came. So Violet humored the social goings-on and got to know her comrades. She gained a solid reputation as a model trainee and a frigid bitch.

  DAYS BEFORE the end of basic training, order was in fast decline. The Sergeants Cameron began to treat recruits like people. They began to squander the respect they had earned by speaking casually. Violet didn’t like the idea but understood that at some point the shouting had to end, or the drill instructors would go mute. One day the obscure Sergeant Bilby substituted for an injured Cameron and wanted to show the man’s sparring class that they were still subject to flinching. He didn’t know that Violet was not the flinching type, and he didn’t explain his intent for the false punch. Seeing the fist coming at her, she assumed she was meant to fight back. She grabbed the arm and broke it, happy to have anticipated a test of fortitude.

  The reactions of all concerned revealed her faux pas. She was not kicked out for it. The instructor had not told her specifically not to break his arm, so she had not really broken any orders, just an ulna. She was yelled at for a solid half hour, then thrown in a stockade cell for a few peaceful nights. She found the experience too remarkable for boredom or shame. By day there was an absolute quiet like nothing she had ever heard before. It was as though she could hear her own thoughts spoken aloud. At night she began to remember her dreams, and they were wild and unpredictable, sometimes scary or utterly surreal. She couldn’t think of the time as punishment. Sensory deprivation and relaxation were the most generous of gifts.

  When she came out, the other trainees treated her awkwardly, to say the least. The instructor whose arm she had snapped also looked at her differently, but not with disdain or contempt, rather, with a grudging respect—the unspoken pride in a student who had outdone her master. Sergeant Cameron counted the ulna on their running contest. She was treated well for a criminal among the ranks, slightly too well for the comfort of some.

  She kept winning the contests and running ahead of the crowd. She didn’t slow down for the weak, and why should she? It was their job to keep up. Her first true failure in training was that she didn’t understand teamwork. The instructors’ failure was in allowing themselves to be impressed by Violet’s skills.
They didn’t explain teamwork to her, they didn’t make her slow down, and they didn’t force her to work with the others. Any officer who had lived in a time of war or even for three generations after would have known teamwork to be one of the most, if not the most important parts of training. But, however unforgivable, there were some lessons that a world without war forgets to teach. The romantic notion of a single soldier capable of great feats was no longer kept in check by the reality of battle, and even the highest officers now believed that a soldier alone could be more than useless. So they believed they were seeing the dawn of a great lone heroine and they treated Violet like she was special.

  This infuriated the other recruits. They didn’t handle anger well. Shades of her youth’s social problems darkened the barracks. They didn’t speak to her much after a while, and though she considered this silence pleasant, it began to manifest as a gap in morale, and the officials didn’t seem to help. She tried to ignore the rumblings and throw herself into training, so she did even better, and the other trainees resented her more.

  One morning they woke the recruits with loud simulated projectile fire and drove them into a muddy, filthy course without the benefit of breakfast or clothing. The course was made of sandbags, and though it was only three kilometers long, it was a cycle, and they were to run it again and again. If they slipped, which was a common matter with bare feet in the mud, they did fifty push-ups. Everyone slipped on the first circuit. Except Violet, of course. She traversed the course perfectly, and in an attempt to boost that decaying morale, when she came upon struggling soldiers she helped them up. Every time she helped someone, she felt good and thought they might finally forgive her. Sadly, they didn’t think that way. When she offered them her muddy hand, they thought she was showing off, rubbing their failure in their faces, and they grew so sick of her on the course that the mud had a better name.

  Then, finally, she slipped up. Literally, on a wet sandbag. She fell to the ground, hit hard, and felt mud attack every orifice on her head. For the first time she tasted why Private Lyle called it “goosemud.” Horrible as it was, she was okay with it. Everyone slips sometimes, she thought. A few push-ups and she could get back up and let the rain wash her clean. But the worst possible thing happened. She was overlooked. Not because of her other accomplishments, but because Sergeant Cameron was picking his crooked nose and didn’t see her. That would have been enough to earn the eternal hatred of her platoon, but she reacted terribly. She diligently, in a tone so soldier-perfect as to rub her team just the wrong way, informed the instructor that she had fallen. Cameron was impressed with her honesty and complimented her on bringing her fall to his attention, so she was not forced into the mud to do push-ups.

  “What’s the point of making this girl do push-ups?” he remarked. “When she hits the ground, it’s the ground that weeps. On your way, MacRae.”

  Half the platoon heard it as they ran. The other half heard it as they did their push-ups and dipped their noses again and again in goose shit, slime, and sludge. She could tell as they grunted their pains and sorrows that this was the straw to break many a frustrated back.

  She’d guessed the military code: Fuck up, get punished. Don’t get what you deserve, get beaten by those who did. It was obvious. But to Violet, perhaps from a lack of tact or common honor, or even out of a shortage of social intelligence, it did not occur to her that she had to take it lying down, literally or figuratively. It was simply not in her nature to be a victim.

  They came after sunset call with undiluted bathing napalm and a few ideas of where on Violet to smear it. She lay there, not asleep, and heard when they whispered the call to attack. She slipped into defensive mode, as she had months earlier in her apartment, but now with the added benefit of knowing what she was doing.

  They would surely try to restrain her, so she drew in her arms and arched her back, causing them to bring a tightly rolled mosquito net down a full decimeter looser than they should have. From there it was a simple matter to grab the headboard bar and pull herself out of their clutches. She knew her advantage being on the top of a triple bunk bed and wasted no time in using it. On her way down, she counted twelve barracksmates, recognized their makeshift armament, and assessed their positions. Then she hit the floor by way of tackling the three closest bodies.

  Violet rarely thought of any recruit by name, but looking up at the closest adversaries standing, she matched every face to a full name and a list of weaknesses she had subconsciously assembled and updated daily. She recognized Pvt. Till “Flake” Kruspe, left leg weak from a recent training accident. A good starting point. She grabbed the leg and sent him tumbling into the balance-lacking Pvt. Agatha O’Daimon, who crashed as Violet designed into Private Windir. Violet and two of those she’d downed made it to their feet at the same time. She was now on the same floor without any benefit over the others. Violet was, tactically speaking, screwed. Or she would have been, if not for the collective lack of understanding. As it had not occurred to her to take the punishment, it had not occurred to them that she wouldn’t. They didn’t know they were being attacked until she had pounded two more into the bedposts. Even as understanding moved through the ranks, hesitance followed. Violet took advantage of it as she’d learned to on day nineteen and noted how they failed to exercise the form and stances that they’d all been taught together on day four. Only Private Therion managed to uncap her napalm and raise it only to see Violet grab it, pull it from her, and elbow her in the back as she fell from the force of the pull. Violet’s fellow trainees having failed in all aspects of their attack, she was overcome by a feeling of disgust. Had these people learned nothing? She almost told them aloud that they should be retreating, regrouping, and considering a flank or rear assault. Even Private Keenan, who had once expressed his desire to assault her rear, remained silent in surprise. Violet was not in the mood to advise these traitorous morons. More than half the attackers, including Private Suzuki, who she had always considered a friend in the making until this debacle, were on the floor in too much pain or with too little breath to get back up. Finally the remaining five figured out they were in a fight.

  Private Static got in a well-formed side kick directly to her vulnerable ribs, breaking two of them. That only made her angry. Having now classified him as a genuine threat, she responded, after only an instant to regain her breath and form, by grabbing his nonregulation hair and driving his face into the floor, by pure chance into the puddle of spilled napalm. He screamed a sound no human should ever make. In her state that did not mean it was time to let up; it meant a demoralized enemy. She remained so precisely aware of her actions that she weighed in her mind the likelihood that she had gone too far in her mind as she picked up the howling fool to choke him into unconsciousness.

  By now the last assailants were running away. Only Pvt. Heather Lyle remained and only then out of disbelief. Violet had once smiled when she helped Heather over an obstacle. Her expression now scared Heather to the depths of her heart. Private Lyle had dropped her can early, having wondered if she should participate at all when the troops insisted she did.

  Now they stood face-to-face. Violet was bleeding, broken, and more akin in appearance to a homicidal maniac than the girl she’d befriended. Heather was between saddened and afraid. Violet surveyed the threat posed by her conquered adversaries and slowly allowed herself to calm down slightly. Heather knew that her old pal would kill her if she made the wrong move, so she slowly raised a hand in surrender, meant to calm the beast. Violet only saw a hand moving toward her. She gave a front kick that sent Heather’s four front teeth into the air and knocked her unconscious. Violet considered how Sergeant Cameron was never satisfied with her front kick. She was quite sure he would have found the ball of her foot oriented correctly at last. All was quiet.

  As she stood atop the pile of defeated recruits, most either still and staring daggers at her or unconscious, she began to recognize that the establishment would find her to be in error for the fight, how
ever successful she was. She wondered if they’d be right, if some irrational lust for violence had taken her over, some need to avenge her parents’ deaths by beating up her comrades. Was she really in so dismal a state, or was it right after all to defend one’s self?

  In the eyes of the military, it was quite wrong indeed, and she was out of the academy as soon as word reached superior ears. Not without punishment, of course, and this time it was excruciating. They took hours talking to her, in patronizing tones so grotesque that they could be called cruel and unusual. They went on first about why they were there, why she was there, why they were in the office together. It was like grade school all over again. Watching her parents die had been easier, because at least she could kill the fuckers who did it. This, this was just sickening.

  They spoke so softly, those strong voices she had once admired. They spoke as if they were trying to ease her out of her short-lived home. So damn softly. Were they afraid of her? The thought was repugnant, but no, that wasn’t it. They were just revealing their true pathetic impotence. They were, in the end, no different than the nanny programs. When she did something wrong, sure, they yelled at her. But when she did something really bad, they just treated her like a kid again. Odd, she thought, that when things go as badly as they can go, when her parents died and she killed three men, nobody yelled, nobody lectured her once. If things go bad enough, she thought, nobody says anything at all. She should have just murdered everyone in the barracks.

  But her thoughts distracted her only so long from the damned speech. They declared at length how disappointed they were. They’d had such hopes for her, how they’d paid so much for her. They seemed most horrified that a girl would so readily select good people as her enemies, that she would attack with equal ferocity one who intended to kill her and one who intended to haze her gently into military life with a mild beating. Violet knew that this at least was true. She didn’t care if an opponent was going to slit her throat or spank her arse; an attacker was an attacker, and she saw no reason to allow herself to be attacked.