Valhalla

by Ari Bach

  “But what if”—his eyes grew wide—“Wulfgar betrayed his genius, betrayed his gang and his greed? What if he fell like one of the lesser Caesars? Then slowly, controllably, the world might recover. Now, what might make a man, a strong brilliant man, collapse like a common jealous lover driven to kill?”

  Violet began to see wheels within wheels. “If some bitch killed his brother.”

  “And a spectacular bitch she would have to be! Men and women come to Valhalla from all kinds of problems. Vibeke came here from prison for the death of her father. Easy to kill, the only result of his death was that many children won’t get molested. The problem that brought you into our sights is a particularly tricky one. We offered you revenge, but that doesn’t mean you can go kill Wulfgar today. Not even after great training. No, your revenge must be a work of brilliance to dwarf his own!”

  Violet felt as if he had just thrown a walrus on her.

  He saw her concern. “You are smarter than you think, Violet. Not smart enough to take him down alone, but you have a ravine of us to help you. Together, we will drive him to madness, turn him to a pathetic jelly, and watch him lose his power, and I dare suggest you will enjoy that far more than a microwave to his head. And then, once he is nothing but a speck of dust, you will push the last rage from your lungs and blow him into oblivion.”

  Violet liked that last part. She really, really liked it.

  AFTER LUNCH and a walrus relocation with her team, Violet met with Valfar for a short lesson on how to survive the arctic climate should she get stuck in it. His accent fell away with the link, and she found him rather agreeable. Still, he had a habit of going on tangents that went over her head, link or not. In what was to be a talk about frostbite, he ranted angrily against membrane, loop and string theories, and praised the discovery of the odo particle, the shapeless sublepton that kept quarks in order.

  “Yah, neh, now the cat’s out of the box!”

  Through those sticky zones of his lesson, she waited for the next meeting to come. Alf would give her the first lessons on how to survive the underground of spycraft and violence she would work in.

  He would teach her in depth: tailing, surveillance, capture, stealth, evasion, escape, cover stories, disguises, detection, defense, offense, interrogation, interrogation resistance, codes and exchange, code breaking and interception, special vehicles, technology and chemistry, weaponry, explosives, psychological manipulation and defense, linguistics, recruiting, and some matters of trust that went beyond catching someone falling backward with their eyes closed.

  “How,” he began, “do you know you can trust me to, among other things, teach you accurately?”

  “No idea.”

  “Exactly. Aside from hearsay, the only reason you have to trust me right now is because you have no real reason not to. You came and met me as soon as you got here. I have displayed no intention to harm you, and you may surmise that because I have stated my intention to teach you and use you to our ends, I would not mislead you. Often, you will get nothing more than this from people you will need to trust absolutely, with almost no time to question or justify it. Naturally you have instincts, but they aren’t always reliable yet. You need to master the composition of your instincts to the point that they are always right. What do you think forms your gut feelings?”

  She considered, then replied, “Mannerisms, actions, nervous ticks, obvious falsehoods, tone of voice?”

  “Yes, but not at first. Your first impression of anyone you meet in the real world will almost always be based on sight. If someone has gray skin and big silver eyes, you can gather they are probably Cetacean. It won’t always be so obvious. You have to take into account what you expect to see. If you’re in the ocean, you can expect to see a Cetacean, but if you see one basking in the sun in the desert, there’s something treif. More subtly, if someone claims to be one of us, at first sight, how do you know?”

  “Check if they’re in a suit, or if they aren’t, should they be, vice versa? Is the suit black or camouflage if they’re working, do they have any marks or modifications we wouldn’t have? Are they in good health…? Are they pointing a microwave at me?”

  “That last one would be a good starting point. Now, these will not apply to individuals undercover, but we will address that another time. What gives someone away as a threat, aside from that last point?”

  And so it went on. The early discussions were followed by demonstrations or tests, in this case identifying people at sight. She was surprised to find that this was not done online, with an infinite availability of possible test cases, but in the caverns, under different lights and situations, even crowds of Valhalla civilians who seemed to enjoy her tests as a form of ravine recreation.

  She excelled in all forms of the game. She caught on to a man who was in all appearances Alföðr but was given away by an inverted antenna. Soon her teammates were invited to the games, though at first they weren’t on her side. She found Vibs and Veikko in disguise and found the one disguised woman in a row of undisguised unfamiliar women. The only test she missed on the first day of this activity was when Veikko turned out to be the bad guy, Violet having dismissed him simply because she already knew him and did not see the signs that he was readying a knife behind his back. This failure stuck in her head far better than any of the lessons she got right, and she would never again let familiarity stop a proper scan.

  Alf took her back to his library at the end of the day, which indeed had more genuine paper books than Violet had ever seen—she had never seen one, save that on Vibeke’s bed. He offered her the freedom to enjoy whichever she chose, but she had to admit, “I can’t read text. It was just an elective at Achnacarry.”

  “Ah, nothing uncommon these days, but you may find it worth getting used to. There’s a good deal of it offline and advantages to be had in our line of work.”

  “Of course, just seemed a bit….”

  “Outdated? Quite quaint indeed, but I find some old things are worth keeping around….”

  She was worried she might have offended him until he spoke again.

  “I do not mean myself, though I’m happy to be revived time and again. But perhaps there is something to be said for so antique a tool as a Bowie knife?”

  She was happy to hear him approve of her choice and wondered what his tarantula might turn into. She was about to ask when another question cut in line.

  “Snorri mentioned that you—that your body could change shape?”

  “Yes, though he was kidding about the blender. Reassembly for the public realm aspires to make an amputee or temporarily dead person as close to how they were as possible. The silver lines you see across my own skin or other members’ is an attempt to use the occurrence to improve ourselves.”

  He demonstrated by raising an arm with one of the telltale silver seams. His arm disconnected along the seam to reveal mechanics inside that would not only make it very strong but allow it to extend a full meter, rotate 360 degrees, and hide some small objects. He saw that she was astounded and reassembled the arm.

  “This arm also houses a laser guidance and weaponry package, some personal keepsakes, and a projectile cannon.”

  He pulled back his thumb like part of an old shotgun and she heard the mechanism load a cartridge.

  “The other arm is less impressive. It serves only to connect my hand, which is still real. The worse the state the medical bay finds us in, the more they enjoy loading us with their latest gadgetry. You would be both shocked and amused to find what they put in my left pinky toe.”

  But he did not tell her that day. The lesson ended at 1530 with the day’s paranoid focus on recognition and awareness still squirming through her sulci.

  As night fell, V team and a junior instructor, Øystein, left the complex. They flew south to Vadsø. Violet was surprised to be leaving. She’d assumed the next few days, if not weeks, of her life would be spent exclusively in the pit. It was both reassuring and alarming to be back in the busy outside wor
ld. The streets of Vadsø were quite alien to her. It was cold, and people wore thick clothes. After a day of learning to spot hidden meanings in clothing, this was intimidating. Was she to be tested out in the open? Of course she was. What was the use of learning it all in a safe place? She was learning to spot hidden weapons and the telltale signs of violent minds to avoid them in places like this, not when she was safe in the barracks.

  She was not told what to expect. Neither member of her team gave away anything but the subtle unspoken suggestion that they too had been taken outside for this same test. She became more and more aware as time went on, anticipation growing for whatever might come. She waited, she observed. She saw the man carrying a mirror. Why did he have a mirror? What threat did a mirror hold? What would he be carrying it for? Who would have a mirror on the street? He walked away, down an alley. They approached the alley, and she was ready for him to do something; she couldn’t guess what—but he didn’t. He was gone. Was this a threat missed, a threat passed, or some guy with a mirror on the street?

  The four entered a beer hall. They drank beer. Violet had not been given any training in poison detection so that couldn’t be it. They wouldn’t do that to her unannounced. But they would, obviously they would, nothing would be announced in the real world. It would just come. She observed the team drink from the same pitcher without caution. She did the same. Øystein began to talk about something, some small talk that went in one ear and out the other. He was talking, she knew instantly, to distract her. She managed to pick up the points of his spiel, just enough to answer questions on his words if she was asked, but stayed aware of the surroundings. More aware than ever, that had to be the trick, the test du jour. Could she pretend to be a normal girl in a beer hall while still picking up on the threat to come?

  Time passed, but the threat waited. It was sadistic, this test, holding back for an hour, for two, as they wandered the streets and warmed themselves by the artificial fireplace. Her mind was so overworked by the time they left the hall that she could have recited the nature of every man, woman, and child there. She knew one man was probably a fisherman from his odor and modified hands. She knew that one woman was very angry, but probably not dangerous, as her anger was focused only on one of her husbands. Vibs and Veikko were giving no signs of danger, nor was Øystein, whose only fault seemed to be his habit of repeating the same punch lines for the wrong jokes.

  They returned to the pogo, and she knew this was it. If they were about to leave, it would happen now. She was more cautious, more tense, her heart beating faster than the night her parents died. She was ready for anything; she was on top of all things, prepared to fight, kill, or face any foe. They got onboard and flew back north. Øystein left them at the lounge, and they went to the barracks. Nothing happened.

  “What the fuck was that?” she demanded.

  “We got beer.”

  “Yeah, what were you expecting?” Veikko grinned.

  “Something! My brain was on overdrive. That wasn’t a test?”

  “Well,” said Vibeke, “if your brain was on overdrive, you passed the test. Get used to it. You have to be in that state of mind without cease. That’s the point.”

  “If there were a point, which, of course, there wasn’t.” Veikko savored the revelation. “We were just getting some drinks.”

  “You’re sick. They did that to you too, didn’t they? After all the trust crap shoveled into your heads, they throw you outside and see if it stuck? You did the same thing, right, brains on fire, scared to death?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yup.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  They laughed, they relaxed, but Violet’s mind didn’t return to normal. It never slowed down again. From that day onward, her state of attention never waned or remitted. It just grew more and more acute, and that acute state grew less and less frantic to maintain. The next morning Alföðr asked the same question—what formed those first impressions? From that night alone she had a hundred more answers.

  Alföðr then focused on focus itself. She had attention, but attention was a general state. When focused onto one object or goal, it became a weapon, a tool, a vampiric suction that desiccated anything of its guile and left it a clear window. This was surveillance—the art of denuding anything she wanted to know. She performed brilliantly. She could pick out the important conversation in a crowd. She could pick out the important words in a conversation. She could pick out the hidden meanings behind words and the implications of hidden meanings. She felt concerned that with so much material flooding her mind, her memory could suffer. It did the opposite. She could recall more and more, everything she needed at will. Soon she found the artificial memory partitioning that she had become accustomed to in school to be more of a nuisance than simply remembering what she had to remember. With that came a respite from all the thoughts that used to buzz around her like flies. She became sharper and sharper, stronger and stronger. It happened fast.

  When they went to Vadsø the second time, she had the ability to enjoy her time with friends. She enjoyed the opulent decor of the Gilded Grildeaux, though the radiators they sat by were hot, so she removed the collarpiece of her suit and set it on the table. Violet even joined the conversation but didn’t neglect to catch the man sneaking up behind her chair. He had no chance to aim his toy water pistol at her. She saw him in the reflections, she smelled him in the air, she felt his presence like a slap in the face. It was so obvious. She also knew he was not a real threat. She could hear the water slosh in the weapon and smelled no hint of accelerant, and more importantly, she caught Veikko smirking with anticipation. She hoped she would not come to such a conclusion in error in the future.

  She was not to have any rest tonight, though. The man she caught fled, and Øystein asked calmly, “Are you going to let him get away?”

  Team V gave chase. Violet spoke to Vibs silently over the link as they ran through the slushy streets.

  “I haven’t been taught chase and capture yet.”

  “We have.”

  This was her first lesson in teamwork. This was the time to trust her two teammates blindly and follow their lead. Violet was still not in prime shape. She could run, but a stitch was threatening to form in her side. She knew her lack of stamina could hurt the team, so she linked them her status. They heard and told her what to do. When they arrived at an alley with two exits, Violet took the closer as Veikko took the farther escape route over some crates. Vibs gave chase. Veikko reported the subject headed for Violet. Violet reported again that she had not learned capture yet. She saw the man running for her corner. She hid. Vibs responded to her by voice.

  “Just kick his ass, Vi!”

  She heard him come close, and she sent her foot into the void beyond the wall. This hurt a lot when a man came plowing into it. It hurt him a lot more. She got a better look at the assailant. Ozymandias from Othala team. He seemed unfazed but clearly in pain.

  “Owwww. Bloody kick was better suited toward a real bloody enemy, Violet. Tomorrow you learn some bloody restraint….”

  Violet felt some guilt at having broken her instructor’s ribs, but that guilt was pacified when she entered the lounge to the light applause of several slightly older trainees. Many a team had performed aptly on their first chase, but nobody had broken Ozzy’s ribs in their first week. That was second week material. Beyond all the chatter and good humor was the pleasure that hit her when she saw Vibs’ and Veikko’s faces. They looked like her parents when she’d earned a high grade, or when she’d solved her first Kal-toh. Violet had never felt happier in her life than she did that night.

  Then Veikko handed her a Thaco suit collar. She didn’t recognize it at first, but then she saw it was her own. She had left it behind. She might have been a neophyte but was ashamed at the neophyte mistake.

  “Don’t sweat it, Vi. What you drop, your team picks up,” he said. She understood what he said literally but didn’t recognize the truth behind it. Violet had so little toleran
ce for any weakness in herself, she couldn’t comprehend that she was bound to have flaws, even in Valhalla, even on missions. It didn’t register in her mind that teams are teams for a reason. Thus began a splinter in the backbone, a dim fear that she was the weak link. She didn’t know about that splinter, and she didn’t know why she felt for a moment like she had at Achnacarry. She didn’t know that whatever she dropped, literally or metaphorically, her team would be there to pick it up.

  SHE LEARNED what she did wrong on that night (not much) and what she did right (much). At Ozzy’s suggestion, she did indeed learn restraint in attack. Sparring was taught by her teammates. After dealing with a walrus that had somehow wedged itself into a heating vent, they headed to the gymnasium and found a free dojo. Veikko walked onto the mat and bade her to follow. The sparring arena was nearly identical to that at Achnacarry, a firm mat floor, wooden walls, and a variety of weapons on the walls, though the weapons here were more varied and less fake.

  Vibeke sent out a quiet link around the base. “New girl sparring.”

  Violet suddenly felt two dozen knocks at the back of her eyes. She had let people peer through her eyes before. Her parents used to look in from time to time, but now she was receiving requests from all around the ravine, mostly strangers amid the teams, all waiting to see her spar. She let them in for fear they might try to hack their way in midmatch. She could see Veikko’s face twitch from even more incoming viewers. Vibs got them too. Everyone wanted to see what the new girl was made of. Violet prepared herself and bowed like she had in the army. Veikko bowed too. It must have been a universal custom. Unlike the silence that had lease in Achnacarry, Veikko linked in to the wall speakers and started a music program.