Valhalla
Page 15
Violet learned about cover stories, disguises, and survival skills on her own, her teammates having learned them before. She would catch up to them within the month. Survival training entered places she did not expect to need to survive. They even taught her all she needed to know to endure and even navigate without a link. In one test she was given her basic gear, flown blind for hours and then left alone in a hole. She knew to put up all-collar masks against anything from poison gas to a vacuum, which was good because she found upon standing that the hole was on the surface of the moon. She lived for seventeen hours in the Sea of Tranquility, which she found refreshingly tranquil. It was also quite simple as far as Valhalla tests went, given they dropped her there only minutes after explaining the importance of an immediate vacuum mask in unknown situations. They had left her well equipped compared to other tests due to the potentially dangerous climate. They didn’t want her to die again unless she was as dumb as a moon rock. As soon as the shuttle arrived and let her in the airlock, she asked the pilot if anyone had ever failed.
“If anyone fails that,” he said, “they get what they deserve. Not Valhalla material.”
She was about to question the conviction of his boast when they lifted off. In the cold lunar light she saw two rocks that looked very much like bodies. She felt no need to press the question further.
The pilot was kind enough to swing a bit off course to see the corona behind the moon, which was pretty but smaller and more distant than she’d imagined. When she returned to Valhalla, she went over her stats. Analysis showed that with the manner of energy expenditure and rationing she’d employed, she would have survived twenty-four days. Abandoned underwater or trapped in ice, she could have lived nearly half a year, given the proper tools and pills. Abandoned on any surface on Earth with nothing but her suit, she could survive indefinitely. Violet was becoming very hard to kill.
She was also getting better at killing. She gradually came to an understanding with her Tikari, as well as an understanding of sparring limits with Veikko, moving on to the finest forms of karate, judo, tae kwon do, yoga, Spetsnaz system, MoQ’bara, and so on. This training evolved into martial arts developed around guns, microwaves, blades, beams, brutal tricks, and poisons and pitfalls to employ in the most desperate of times.
V team learned interrogation in all its forms. They learned how to torture along with an education in why they should never do so. Torture was useless for information because it was unreliable. It was just as pointless for striking fear because it produced anger instead. Obviously, they were not to torture anyone for their own pleasure unless the fucker just totally deserved it. They learned the uses and misuses of truth drugs and brain hacking. Violet finally learned the cerebral bore, which she was sad to learn was merely a portable brain-hack antenna and nothing as gooey as it sounded.
They learned the problems and solutions presented by diverse methods of keeping silent. People could kill themselves to avoid divulging information, but a postmortem brain hack could fix that. People could erase their memories. They learned to reassemble them. And then came the unexpected problems, as they learned on assignment: Having caught their man on a chase in Vadsø, they proceeded to question him on the spot. Veikko put on his angriest face and barked, “Tell us your name!”
“Never,” the man shouted.
“Tell us now or we hack in!”
“Never!”
Vibeke readied a cerebral bore.
Veikko continued, “Last chance! Tell us your name!”
The man faltered. “Schmelgert Helgerzholm!”
The trio looked to one another. Veikko barked back, “Tell us your real name!”
“Schmelgert Helgerzholm. It’s Schmelgert Helgerzholm!”
Violet stared at the desperate man and asked, “Really?”
“Lesson over,” laughed Øystein over the link. Their next lesson taught them to recognize the truth they uncovered, however disturbing and unbelievable it might turn out to be. Later that night the trio dined with Schmelgert Helgerzholm and his family, who enlightened them to the long and noble history of the Helgerzholm line and their custodial duties in the Valhalla ravine.
V team began to study the moral implications of operating outside all laws and oversight. Veikko often challenged Alföðr’s wisdom on these matters and always got a specific and clear response. His questions were never avoided or answered halfheartedly.
They learned how to use people without telling them they were being used. They learned how to destroy minds with only a select few words (“I love you” being the most pernicious), and how to sell guano to bats. Their mastery of the human mind came more from mastering their own over the course of training than from any simple psychological technique. Their arsenal of psych capabilities came to encompass violence, fear, hate, love, sex, lies, and a dose of historical oddities like long-forgotten Crowlean theory and the long-long-forgotten art of patience. Violet asked outright just how they would learn to use sex.
“You’re female,” Vibs told her. “Instinct covers sex.”
“I mean as a weapon,” she said.
“You’re female,” Vibs repeated. “Instinct covers that too.”
Veikko cringed.
There were reminders from time to time that the more experienced members were not training, but performing important and dangerous duties. There was an alarm one day as the team was dealing with a small walrus calf. V team had never heard a real alarm before. It didn’t make any sound in the real world, but it resounded across their links. They managed to find their designated blue-level alarm cavern, and they waited for the all clear. It seemed someone had been followed back to the base after a mission in Russia. The small clan that followed them was unprepared for an entire base and was wiped out in seconds upon arriving, but still—their elders were not infallible. The base was not invincible, or as the walrus hunt resumed and reminded them, impermeable. Shit still happened and it still hurt when it did. That particular shit reminded Violet to ask Alf some questions she had neglected.
“They killed all of the intruders, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they couldn’t be allowed to escape once they knew what and where we were, obviously.”
“Why weren’t they held prisoner?”
“Because we have no prison. We take no prisoners.”
“Why?”
“The simplest reason is that if someone wants to do us harm, we think it best not to keep them here where we sleep and keep all our weapons, however securely. The people worth imprisoning here are the ones most capable of breaking out.”
That made sense to Violet. Something else didn’t.
“Why don’t we seal off the walrus hole? I’m not objecting to the walrus detail but isn’t it a security risk?”
“A very slight one, perhaps. We’re certain the rampart covers it when raised. But there are also advantages in having a secret hidden entryway.”
“So you know where it is?”
Alf thought for a moment, then smiled. “Actually, in all my years, I never got around to pinpointing it. Consider it your first mission.”
Chapter VI: Bayern
“SAY WE use some sonic charges to clear the ice,” Veikko suggested, “and it just happens to collapse whatever we find. It’s not like Alf would have us digging it back out. No walrus hole, no walrus detail. We’d be free!”
“Alf would certainly have us digging it back open,” said Vibs, “and if he didn’t, it’s plain to any Cloutier fan that you’d die someday for lacking it as an escape route.”
“Cloutier?” asked Violet.
“Author from the 2060s. His writings had so many twists of epic proportions and unlikely poetic justices that his death at the hands of his frustrated readers was judged worthy of his own works. But poetic justice isn’t limited to Cloutier, especially when Alf tells you what to do. If you ignore him, you’ll pay for it.”
“Robot,” Veikko accused.
“Besides, didn’t you have some foolhardy plans
for the next walrus?” pushed Vibeke.
“No, I found the right sedative, but I can’t find a good way to get it into Skadi’s bunk. And I can’t find a funny wig for it either.”
Veikko’s sophomoric pranks were standing out in contrast to his other new project. He had started writing a new regular column in Håvamål. It almost always offered a polemic alternative to conventional wisdom, or at least to Alföðr’s. Sometimes he went so far as to challenge the entire concept of Valhalla’s subtle ways in favor of sweeping reforms of world problems.
Violet had only learned of the column when Vibeke had read her a quirky snippet from the text version. Violet wasn’t particularly interested in the political complexities that Håvamål tackled, so she quietly ignored it online, but she did enjoy watching Vibs read the text. Vibeke looked enraptured by the paper, with the same deeply focused expression people had when immersed in the net or listening to Alf speak in person.
V team would take a place at his table or at Balder’s whenever there were spots open. Balder would tell stories of seducing Phobosian Dissidents and fighting hordes of Christians with only a sun-bleached donkey mandible as a weapon. Alf would speak his concerns about the running dry streak: Valhalla hadn’t been involved in a critical international incident or saved the planet in a full eight months. Balder hoped that this was a sign of retardation in the world’s violent cycles, but Alföðr held a more pessimistic belief that it was an exceptional calm before an exceptional storm. When Alf spoke, his few words were always definitive and tended to end most debate. That’s why he often maintained his silence, allowing a good spirited argument to go on around him with open ears and a subtle grin.
Violet steered the team back on course. “First we have to find the hole. How do we do that? By the time Aloe spots a walrus, it’s already to the ground floor.”
“Not necessarily,” said Veikko. “She reports them as soon as a surveillance node spots them. But most of those nodes are deep down in the ravine or covering the open sky. That’s how we know they can’t be just falling in. Actually, most of the time she spots them from the eyes of a linked resident. As soon as one of us sees one, she knows.”
“Like if one woke up with S team,” Vibeke snarled. “What would that accomplish again?”
“It already made you angry, Vibs,” Veikko said, satisfied, “and you’re cute when you’re angry.”
She looked to Violet to back her up, but Violet wouldn’t argue. Vibs was very cute when angry but the expression never lasted.
Vibeke returned to the subject at hand. “We need to tag one of them. Follow them in.”
“Umberto,” said Violet. The three-ton beast with a chipped tusk had been caught five times that month. He was among the slowest-moving of all the return customers. They always found him partway up the wall, suggesting that he never got far from the entry point before he was seen. It also meant a long, slow chase to the cages with him every time.
Veikko approved of the idea. “About time the lug did some good. I’ll get a tracking pip from storage.”
The trio took a lift to the topside terrain and proceeded to employ their most basic skills to find their walrus. The sun was surprisingly bright for midnight. It was a strange sight to Violet. The days grew longer and longer in summer until one night the sun failed to submerge behind the horizon. It stayed in the sky without cease, dipping low but never leaving. Good for tracking.
Their target was presumably a member of one of the pods that stayed close to Kvitøya, so they began with a survey. Aside from learning a great deal about walrus loitering patterns, they found Umberto at the western coast. They patiently waited for him to finish his display of machismo to a lesser bull, and then Vibeke sent her Tikari to land gently on his plentiful back fat and inject the pip therein. Back in the ravine, they told Alopex to monitor the pip and inform them should it come within twenty-five meters of Valhalla.
That done, they returned to their training. There was little left for Violet to learn before she caught up to her teammates. Only a few finer points of injury training remained. She headed to med bay, where she was taught to recognize a variety of stings and bites. She learned which stings would paralyze her, which would kill her, and which would hurt like hell for no reason at all. Next she felt a diverse array of bites, from the debilitating shark to the annoying but harmless birds, and that of the domesticated canine, which was far worse than its bark. She had once wondered why her arcology banned the animals. She didn’t anymore.
Finally when she checked her memory partition of training assignments, she found it devoid of single-person projects. She had caught up to Veikko and Vibeke and would spend the rest of her training with them. She’d thought the moment would come with an added sense of accomplishment and belonging, but she felt there was something left to do. Something she had forgotten. There was something she had been meaning to learn since she arrived, something they could teach her… but its name was out of reach. It was distant, behind her, as far gone as her family.
She let the sense fade and sought out her team. Veikko and Vibeke were working on special weapons and tactics. Violet found them scaling a wall with ropes for a simulated incursion. They were already up the wall, so Violet switched to her Tikari’s eyes and flew up alongside them. Veikko saw her first.
“Ewww, there’s some kind of giant gnat following us.”
Vibeke recognized the Tikari and joked, “Gross, smash it before it gives us some disease.”
Violet playfully landed on their ropes and lifted a wing as if to cut them.
“Shoo fly, don’t bother us.”
“Yeah, bug off.”
Violet linked to them from below. “I’m done with single training. You’re stuck with me from now on.”
“We’re doing an incursion on P team right now for special weapons and tactics. Scout for us.”
“You got it.” She linked and spied ahead. P team was expecting Tikaris and kept their own zoomed in and solely focused on Vibeke and Veikko’s chests, with an order to report a launch. Of course they were not watching Violet, nor her airborne friend, so she managed to sneak in and scrutinize the room.
They might have complained about V team cheating had they not done so well together. After Veikko and Vibeke stormed the room with perfect knowledge of what was waiting for them, the EPF analysis marked them at 99.999998 percent efficiency. Nobody really blamed them for knocking a pencil off the table, so they were marked flawless. The only sense of failure was Veikko’s, owing to his inability to come up with any jokes about how Violet’s fly had helped them on a SWAT exercise.
AS THE team waited for Umberto to sneak in again, they continued to train as a trio. Like the rest of Valhalla’s teams, they could predict each other’s every movement, every response, and they became a powerful force in the simulations, tests, and light duties. Together they managed, one quiet, bright night, to dominate the På Täppan heap for nearly half an hour. They were only deposed when S team showed up, and having four perfectly coordinated members to V’s three, they sent the trio back to the floor with a few broken bones to remind them how far from complete they were.
After standard post-På-Täppan med bay repairs, they joined S team for a midnight snack.
“How goes the walrus hunt?” asked Snot.
“Dull,” answered Veikko. “We got a pip in one of ’em, and now we get a five-day dry streak. It’s like they all gave up.”
“We can plant a sonic—”
“No thank you, Sigvald,” Veikko interrupted.
“We’re enjoying the vacation from walrus wrangling,” said Vibeke. “What are you four up to?”
“Another sort of walrus hunt,” said Svetlana.
“In a way it is,” Sigvald agreed. “Valfar found a hole in the armor around special arsenal seven.”
“The one with the detector problems?” Vibs asked.
“The same. He patched the hole, but someone’s trying to get in.”
“Who?” asked Violet.
Veikko meanwhile engaged in an all-out footsie campaign on Skadi, who fought back expressionlessly, her mouth belying the good humor with which she pinned Veikko’s legs to the floor.
Sigvald went on to describe the techniques with which they scanned around the arsenal and how they were fortifying the building in case it was a sign of more of a problem than local kids. “It’s strange, because everyone on a team can get in. We just link in to the door, and it logs what we put in or take out. Obviously nobody has invaded us all-out, but we can’t overlook something small scale. If someone out there has plans for what’s in there, we have to see that their plans fail miserably.”
“Plans failing miserably.” Violet’s memory was jogged. That was one thing she hadn’t learned since she arrived—not training, but curiosity that the cops wouldn’t satisfy and Valhalla’s hacking systems could. She excused herself from the table and ran to the com tower. She summoned Alopex and hardwired herself into the tower broadcast network.
“Alopex, open Kyle City Scotland Police Network.”
She saw the log-in silo for her old local police.
“Bypass all security.”
For the Valhalla system it was as simple as that. Alopex set to work and broke through all the police security without a problem. The secret file icons stretched out before her. Alopex kept watch for anyone who might happen to link in on them unannounced, but even if a tron program was listening or a gelatinous blob came in looking for hackers, it would have a hard time recognizing them as anything but another program, a harder time than typical police security could handle.
Violet set to work finding her father’s files and opened them to see forty tan folders and one red one.