by Ari Bach
“I’m really very happy to be here now,” Vibs said as the sky grew dark. She was leaning against Violet’s side. Their suits were wooly against the cold and had complex internal temperature mechanisms that should have made them feel the same homogenous warmth all over, but Violet could swear Vibs felt very warm against her, and the arctic night’s cold was feeble by comparison.
Over time, Veikko’s reports became more and more depressing. He was sending back horrors of gang life and collecting priceless information, but he was only observing. He observed as they killed people, he observed as they cheated and stole and raised hell for companies in Italia and Danmark and UKI. But they were cleared only for observation. They downright hated observation, uselessly watching crime after crime. One day Vibeke remarked how much easier it would be to observe a smaller gang. To disable the gang and shrink its numbers would be a good observational tool. The team agreed.
Strict observation gave way to subtle action. It wasn’t so different from walrus detail. They closed off all avenues of escape and made sure the gang moved toward the cage. When Wulfgar planned to assassinate the CEO of Dansk Fiber Optic, Veikko made a dead drop to Varg, who sent the info to Vibs, who contacted Mishka, who with great style and efficiency foiled the plans without letting on in any way that someone knew about the attempt. Alopex monitored and found no significant global change. When Wulfgar ordered his men to take over an industrial district in København, they found the area defended too well to make an attempt. When they tried to sell kidnapped victims to chop shops, Mishka and Marduk saw that the doctors who ran the shops were caught before they could buy.
Whenever Wulfgar made a move, he was thwarted by means so mundane that he never had reason to believe it was anything but a streak of bad luck. As his luck grew worse, his trust in Will grew stronger, the man who had such great ideas, who managed to keep the gang alive through one disaster after another, and more than that, spoke to him in his most depressed states. Who would act as a psychiatrist when he needed a shrink and a bodyguard when he needed a bodyguard. But most of all, Will was a friend when he needed a friend.
All Valhalla praised their efficiency and results. Alopex monitored no dangerous shifts or takeovers. Everything the gang did led to another lesser criminal enterprise taking their place or a company blocking chaos’s way. Alf himself saw their action as an homage to his boating days. It was a fine operation in every way. And it went on and on without losing its potency.
It went on and on so long it stagnated, and the team in charge of it got bored again. Violet could have asked Alf or Balder how to cope with the boredom of a job well done, but she didn’t want to cope with it. Neither did Vibs, Varg, Veikko, Mishka, or Marduk. They had crippled the Orange Gang, reduced its numbers over several weeks to less than forty men.
Veikko was so smooth in convincing Wulfgar to fire or kill his men that he was never even associated with their loss. He organized revolts and fights between factions within the gang that resulted in the deaths of many and the desertion of many more. He maneuvered Wulfgar into committing lesser and lesser crimes to compensate for his losses in manpower, and he exploited the loss of morale by making sure the news logs got wind of the most pathetic arrests.
Veikko finally sent a note to Valhalla expressing Wulfgar’s misery when four of his gang were arrested for “conspiracy to loiter.” Though the crime was in fact arson, Wulfgar was nonetheless miserable to lose 10 percent of his remaining gang.
The gang was a pathetic trace of what it used to be. It was high time to end it. Violet and Vibeke considered what might provoke a Geki response. Alopex confirmed that the gang was now small enough that its total destruction would have little effect. Italia was totally free of the gang and prospering in the grips of an elder Mafia that had welcomed it back. Still, they would not kill Wulfgar. Though the gang was only thirty-six men strong, though Alopex had read every net source and tracked every individual, it might still have unforeseen connections.
As the mission was one of “observation,” (they giggled at the word) they decided to “observe” what would happen if Wulfgar and his last men disappeared. After all, they could observe him better in jail. Valhalla didn’t have a jail, but Vibs suggested it might need an excuse to build one. Then they could watch what might become of his lesser known, looser allies, those on Venus or the Americas, and annihilate them too. Then perhaps he could be killed.
Technically they needed no permission for the capture. They didn’t need to keep Alf and Balder appraised of every move they made, and it was far easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Violet knew she was approaching a line. She knew they were going a bit farther than they were supposed to, but they had done that already and the ravine had loved them for it. And how many would-be victims in Danmark loved them for it without knowing? Violet had done exactly what Balder said she could. Her team had taken Wulfgar down to the level of a petty criminal. Veikko reported that Wulfgar had actually cried when Lars, his old number-two man, tried to kill him with a drug overdose. “He probably cried,” Veikko reported, “because I replaced Lars’s drug with concentrated estrogen.” Vibeke made a note to disembowel him again when he got back.
The new, brief planning phase paid little attention to the distant remains of the Orange Gang, the rumors of members in America or Russia, on Mars, Venus, or Luna. Veikko still couldn’t confirm there really were any, and if there were, they would be driven underground by Wulfgar’s disappearance. V team decided it was unlikely any would try to find him again, though all agreed it would be pragmatic to destroy as many of the remaining thirty-six as possible in the events leading up to his capture. Even Death herself was proud of V team, and pride was infectious. And anyway, Violet told herself, it’s only capture. If something bad happens, we can set him loose again. With a personality hack in his brain.
So the day came. Trusted adviser Will recommended a night at the opera to calm Wulfgar and as many of his men as he wished to take along. He knew Wulfgar’s tendencies so well he had to feign surprise when Wulfgar had the idea to take all thirty-six, and had no doubt the man would pick Hemlighet om Runor. In fact, he had already signaled Vibeke to tip the police that Wulfgar would be attending.
Thirty-three men showed up for the performance. Perhaps the others had already abandoned ship. Twenty-six police officers were in attendance. For the small venue, that meant only five civilians were present that night, and they bolted as soon as the fireworks began. It was a peculiar sight to Veikko, who watched from the empty mezzanine: Everyone in formal wear, police highlighted by link sirens, and the Orange Gang highlighted by their clumsy attempts to escape. Half the gang was cuffed and welded to the floor in seconds; a couple were zapped, a few beaten by police who were overeager to score their first major blow against the gang. A total of twelve escaped, as did Veikko, but no group of thirteen counts the traitor ex post facto. Needless to say, Wulfgar was among the survivors, and Wulfgar was at the end of his rope.
Valhalla had anticipated around fifteen escapees, and by the time they reached the safe house, Veikko was well on his way to implementing the plan to dispose of them. Having met Wulfgar right outside the theater doors, he spoke of revenge from the start.
“We still have weapons,” he rallied. “We still have men!”
Wulfgar was quick to add, “And we have the tank from the Roskilde job. We have a tank, and we know where the pigs live!”
The planning lasted only half an hour, there being little to plan. The remainder of the Orange Gang would take every resource they had left in the country, a few microwaves, a few rocket launchers, a seventy-year-old treaded tank, which the gang used mostly for sewerside transportation—and they would lay siege to the police headquarters. The two members who had been arrested before in that district knew the layout and knew it was crammed in between enough newer buildings to make it blind and inescapable on three sides. If they took the cops by surprise, they could annihilate them before they could haul out their own arsenal. This fa
ult was exactly why V team made sure that particular police force incurred Wulfgar’s wrath.
Will was in charge of preparations for the assault, of course, and before they left, he diligently checked every weapon and vehicle, making certain all the microwaves were uncharged, all the bullets were duds, and all the rockets lacked fuel. And then they marched. A tank rolled through Amagertorv for the first time since 1945 and up to the least strategically positioned police station in København.
The police were scared shitless. For the last few months, it had been open season on orange hats and this previously unheard of little station had received the tip to take the gang down for good. So they had and times were bright, until they saw the tank. And the men. And their weapons. Chief Namier felt like he had been punched in the stomach. Soon he would be remembered posthumously as the fool who had taken on the nastiest gang and suffered the nastiest death for it. Wulfgar shouted the order to attack.
And nothing happened. Triggers were pulled left and right, buttons were pushed up and down, and not a round flew, not a beam sizzled, and for some reason the barrel fell right off the tank’s turret. Some of it was Veikko’s expert sabotage; part of it was the suppressing beam that Varg was firing from a pogo overhead; part of it was the ineptitude of Jan Tsang, who had the one loaded clip of the bunch but had loaded it wrong. It took Namier a few seconds to understand that the siege was impotent. As soon as he did, he called in every man with every microwave in the station. With a crazed expression of relief and bloodlust, he ordered them to fire.
The tank exploded. The men exploded. The street under the men exploded from the heat of twenty police microwaves set to wide field and full power. Namier laughed in an insane howl as burnt flesh rained down on his uniform. The Orange Gang was suddenly a gang of two. Wulfgar had turned his back as soon as he’d heard the click of an empty weapon. Veikko was at a distance, watching where Wulfgar fled. He linked quickly to Varg’s pogo to inform him that the target was heading to a nearby alley.
The pogo fell from its position and past traffic to cut Wulfgar off. It landed only meters away from him. Veikko followed to cut off his only escape. Wulfgar saw the traitor for the first time as he truly was—and bore no expression. As soon as it registered, Wulfgar decided in cruelty that he would deny this traitor a look of rage. He would make no move nor put up any fight. He hated the man too much for that, and more than that, admired his skill. He turned his back to Veikko and his drawn microwave and faced the pogo. Its door opened to reveal something even more shocking. Someone he had killed not too long ago.
Violet stepped out of the pogo with Vibeke beside her. She looked into his eyes. He recognized her but didn’t look surprised, or as ashamed as she had hoped. He was more reserved than ever. Not broken or defeated at all, though she might have been disappointed if he’d broken down. She walked up to him and demanded his knife. He calmly took it out of his coat pocket and set it on the very fingers it had once cut off.
“Did you know, Violet, that I once kidnapped the finest surgeon in the city to have him implant explosives in the marrow of both my personal bodyguards to detonate in just such an instance as this? I have the detonator right here.” He raised his hand to show off one of his rings. “One is dead in that pile behind me. The other, I’m heartbroken, never showed up for the opera.”
He pressed the ring. Somewhere, kilometers away, Mehmed Parker burst like a melon.
“And I am left alone, at your mercy. Well played, girl. Well played.”
He knelt, and he thought. His admission of defeat wouldn’t fool them for much longer, if it had at all. He had only seconds to pull out his Thunder 5 revolver and only time to fire one shell. There was the girl who killed his brother. The boy traitor who had destroyed his gang. And some girl he never saw before. Wulfgar was not dead, and therefore these masterful children didn’t want him dead. They must need him alive. Perhaps they knew about Venus and needed to question him? Then he needed to know too. He would have to get under their skin and learn what they knew. Yes, there was only one choice. He would cause pain to the two he knew, and if he survived, he would exploit it cruelly.
His arm moved with lightning speed, and as soon as Violet had fired the stunning pulse, the shot was passing through Vibeke’s neck. The splatter was enormous, the heat of her blood intense on Violet’s cheek. For a brief moment, Violet had no idea what was going on. Vibeke fell to the ground, her head only half connected to her body. Blood covered her chest, the street, everything.
They hurried to throw Wulfgar’s unconscious body into the pogo alongside Vibeke, with whom they took far more care. Vibs was awake and looked perversely happy enough for her injury. They had just ended the gang and taken Wulfgar into custody. Varg gave Wulfgar a hard twenty-five hour sedative and broke off his antenna. He then took the pilot seat and headed back for Valhalla as fast as the pogo could fly. Veikko tended to Vibs with the greatest care and skill.
Violet held Vibeke’s head in her lap, trying to estimate how it would have lain with a full neck. Violet tried to apologize, to tell Vibs she was sorry for how it went down, to tell her she was going to be okay, but no words came. Violet couldn’t speak, she was so worried. She didn’t know why she was worried. It was only half her neck, comparable to injuries some sustained in training. But Violet felt as if she had betrayed Vibeke with the stupid plan, her idiotic pride, and all the crap she had felt so smart about as it had gone down. She had let her ego bloat that past month. She thought herself worthy to bargain with the elders, to tempt the Geki, to take down the whole gang single-handed. She didn’t think that way anymore.
She thought instead that ending the gang would mean nothing if she didn’t have Vibeke to share it with. However it turned out, however better the world was, however triumphant she might be against her grand nemesis Wulfgar, it was meaningless with Vibeke hurt. Memories of lounging around with her, looking over intel, came unbidden to her. Memories of how Vibeke’s arm pressed against hers in Veikko’s bunk, how they caught each other out of breath sparring in the gym. How they laughed in anticipation of the pleasure of annihilating Wulfgar’s last men. That pleasure had been utterly deflated, killed, and Violet knew it was because she felt more for the friend lying injured in her lap than she felt hatred for Wulfgar.
She admitted that until the recent plans and projects, Wulfgar hadn’t even meant that much to her. She only felt so much because she had friends at last to share her feelings with, friends worth letting into her mind. And now she had a weakness for them that she never had before. She had become vulnerable, and for someone who had never been vulnerable for a second in her life, it was terrifying, more than the Geki or anything she had ever faced. Violet had felt a kiss on the cheek that made her feel warm in the frozen north, alive after she had died. She was devastated to admit she’d risked the girl who gave it to her on so small a nuisance as Wulfgar Kray. She only knew the value of that life when it was bleeding away rapidly before her.
Vibeke died on the flight home.
Chapter X: Austfonna
THERE WAS much rejoicing in Valhalla. After Vibeke was patched up and jump-started, a process taking Niide under ten minutes, she was the celebrity du jour in the ravine. Greeted by citizens and teams alike, she was paraded from the med bay as the first battle-death of V team. Mishka gave her a strong hug and a light slap to the repaired part of her neck.
“I knew it would be you, I just knew it!” she laughed. Eric presented Vibeke with a new collarpiece for her armor. S team had taken the old bloody collar to hang from the med bay windows, declaring the consummation of V team’s training.
Varg asked what it had been like. Veikko asked if it still hurt. Both jogged by her side, more proud than envious. Alf and Balder applauded. Valfar called out a compliment that even Alopex couldn’t translate. T team approached, Tahir pulling a small metal object from his Thaco collar as he walked. He approached Vibs and held up the trinket—a little magnetic coffin. The crowd went quiet for him to speak. “For Vib
eke! May she rest in peace!”
The crowd cheered as he stuck the little coffin to her new collar. “We’ve passed this on since D team. I earned it when I got pushed—”
“Fell!” yelled Toshiro. “You fell in!”
“When I was thrown by gravity herself into an industrial bottling machine. I present it now to you, Vibeke of Valknut team, for gallantly getting your neck shot to shit in the line of duty. May it be the first of many such grisly deaths, and however often you might break your neck, may you never lose your head.” He leaned in close but still spoke loudly. “Keep this coffin safe for Wart. He should earn it in a day.”
Wart giggled when she looked at him. Necrosis pushed past him to shake Vibeke’s hand. Death, who’d started the tradition, whispered something into Vibeke’s ear that made her laugh. It was all laughter, whistles, and cheers. Violet could hear it as she walked to a janitorial shed and grabbed a carriage system. She was relieved to be away from it. Someone had to drag Wulfgar from the pogo, though she wasn’t sure to where. She was just desperate to do something so she wouldn’t have to watch the party.
Nobody knew just why Violet was in so dark a mood, least of all her. She had seen Vibeke get patched up, seen color return to her face with new blood. Vibeke was as good as new, but the sickly feeling of her death stuck to Violet like slime. It was clear from Vibeke’s waking remarks that she didn’t blame Violet. She didn’t even think of the possibility. She was just as happy as the rest to have ended project Alpha, captured Wulfgar, destroyed the gang, and earned the neat little magnet on her suit. But Violet did blame herself. She would all but set the sleeping bastard free if it could take back what had happened. She loaded Wulfgar onto the carriage and hauled him from the pogo.