by Ari Bach
Alf grunted. “Pointless old farts, aren’t they?” He sighed, thought for a moment, and added, “They have their job and we have ours.”
“And what is ours?” Violet asked. “Have you decided what to do?”
“We decide tonight,” he said, looking at her with all the lenses in his MMR eye. “You are not with Vibeke right now… because you think you have nothing to offer her?”
She nodded in shame.
Alf went on, “We neglected to train you for that, didn’t we? Go to her and be there, that’s all. It will do her little good, but little is more than none.”
She stood up as if it were an order from a drill sergeant. She had something to do, orders straight from the top, and with that she could go back. She marched out to the med bay. There, through the clear wall, she saw Vibeke sitting with Varg and Veikko. Veikko had gone back instinctively. Violet would have to walk in and explain that she needed Alf to tell her what to do. It was too shameful to consider. She could imagine the scene and didn’t want it to play out. Vibs had Varg and Veikko. She had nurses trying to take her dagger’s bones for another Tikari. She didn’t need Violet stumbling to speak.
Violet knew it was fear. Not fear of pain or fear, like the Geki, but some petty weasel kind of fear that was keeping her away. She rationalized it, convinced herself it was instinct, convinced herself Vibs would be better off without her just then. It was all feeble crap, and she knew it, but she had enough willpower to make it real, and she didn’t enter the med bay. She walked away before they saw her. She hated herself for doing it all the while, so more or less subconsciously she wanted to punish herself for it. She knew just the man for that and walked right to the brig.
Wulfgar had been interred there only hours ago, as soon as Violet admitted the brig was impervious to escape and Alf gave the go-ahead to move him. Cato had told her in passing that Wulfgar seemed happy in his new cell, though she hadn’t cared to hear from Cato at the time, or about Wulfgar. She’d only wanted to see Vibeke again. How times change, she thought.
The brig had a link label now that it was up: Gleipnir. Violet didn’t bother to query Alopex for how it got the name. She was content just to hate it. Valhalla loved its bizarre old mythic names. Call it the damn brig, she thought. That’s what it is. She walked past a couple of empty hexagonal cells and sat down on the floor across from Wulfgar’s. She glanced at the bars, the detectors, the systems all designed to keep him in, the systems designed to keep him alive and prevent him from linking out (if he had a link). And in the middle of it all was a well-groomed man with friendly eyes, smiling.
“I love looking at you, you know,” he said softly. “You tease me with yourself at my hungriest, and hunger is my favorite seasoning for girl meat.”
“You like your new office?” she taunted.
“It’s better than the cage but still smells like fish breath. Do I have you to thank for it?”
“You have me to thank for the buttresses, the lack of windows, and a few other security matters that the architects underplanned.”
“It’s not so different from København. I had to worry about the same things there, from the opposite side. But as long as I live, you’re kidding yourself that you’re outside the bars. You’re in the cage too, girl.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“I did, I am, I will again. I love when you visit. I shouldn’t be too distressed if I wake up one day to find myself a hundred years old and still enjoying your visits. So why now, purple cow? Why let me milk you?”
Violet had to think about it. She really didn’t know why she was there, especially now of all times. She was sitting there aloof, talking to the one guy she most surely shouldn’t be talking to. A man whom she was still painfully aware had digested some of her. She lied, “You put things in perspective.”
“A purple cow full of a bull’s shit. You still don’t know,” he laughed.
She was as clear to him as the med bay walls. Why the hell was she so desperate not to see Vibs? Was it because she couldn’t bear to see her weak? To see her hurt? Because she was afraid Vibs might lash out at her? All the time Vibeke had been gone, Violet had held an odd sort of hope that when she got back, Vibs would jump out of a pogo and hug her. Mishka would be out of the equation. Violet might have even told Vibs… things. Her thoughts were fractured, discordant. She had no chance of understanding why she came to talk to Wulfgar when Vibeke needed her. So she asked her makeshift shrink, “No, honestly, I don’t. You want to tell me?”
Wulfgar stood up. “It’s because you never had time to adjust to life without Mom and Pop.” He pointed his finger as he spoke, as if giving a lecture to a student. “Your army sergeants gave you a taste of parental compassion and order, but the leaders here do not. The place is relaxed and soft and gooey, like the old queers that run it. So I”—he placed his hands on his chest with great pride—“I, as the lone heterosexual on base, attract you like moth to flame, and I know even if you don’t why the moth seeks the flame! Because it longs to get burned!”
She had only one thing to say to that. “Damn, you’re weird.”
“And you’re cute, Violet.”
Maybe she saw him from time to time to remind herself why she hated the guy. She certainly did at that moment. But then, why did she suddenly feel so much better when she spoke to him? She had the last time and now, she had a sudden will to go find Vibeke. She had the strength to apologize for not being there before. She could even say honestly where she had gone. She was happy Vibeke was back and ready to lend her a shoulder to cry on.
Violet walked out of the brig and headed for the med bay. As soon as she was out the opaque heavy door, she walked, clumsily, right smack into the first person passing by and toppled over on top of her. Only as she pushed herself up did she recognize Vibeke lying under her.
“Happy to see me again, Vi?”
Violet pronounced a rapid series of apologies and exclamations of condolence as she tried to stand and help Vibeke up. She considered herself lucky she hadn’t been stabbed by the dead Tikari. But to Violet’s surprise, Vibs wasn’t holding it.
“Where’s your Tikari?” Violet demanded. Then she cringed. Oh shit, she thought. Great way to say hello.
Vibeke was so surprised at it that she laughed. Violet thought it was a sob, hugged her immediately, and spewed forth another string of apologies. Then, realizing how pathetic her words were, she stepped back, and leaned against the brig. She looked at Vibeke, tried to look her in the eyes. She looked broken, tired, angry, hurt, strong. In the strangest way, she looked sexier than Violet had ever seen her. The instant she thought that, Violet almost smacked herself to wake up. She finally got a couple of coherent words out. “Can I start over?”
Vibs nodded. Violet took half a minute to think of what to say, finally blurting out a useless, “Hello.”
“Hi.”
“Uh, how are you holding up?”
“I’m not a damn victim, Violet.”
“I know, Vibs.” She sighed.
They looked at each other for a while. Vibeke felt quite as useless for speech as Violet did. For the last few minutes, Varg and Veikko had coddled her to the point where she had jumped off the medical table and walked out. She didn’t want to deal with the crap people gave to weaklings. She didn’t want to deal with nurses explaining how they could make a new Tikari. She got so sick of them asking for it that she gave in to a sudden surge of anger and stabbed Nurse Taake in the leg with it, and left the poor thing in his care. They’re in med bay, she thought. They can deal with a stab wound. Vibeke just wanted to get out of the friendliness and find Violet.
Violet wouldn’t coddle her. Violet wouldn’t try to convince her to move on or get a new Tikari. Violet wouldn’t understand or even know what to say to her, but she would at least be Violet, and that would be something. So after their horrible reacquaintance, Violet and Vibeke sat down together against the fortified, buttressed brig wall and got a chance to breathe and finally talk.
“What were you doing in the brig?” Vibs asked.
“Talking to Wulfgar. It’s easier to say the wrong words in front of your enemies than your friends.”
“Fuck words.”
Violet was somewhat surprised to hear her say it. She spent so much time reading them. She didn’t know Vibs was merely fed up with consolations and took it almost as a justification of Violet’s own lack of a use for them. Though she did wonder what had been sitting on Vibeke’s bed while she was away. “What are those books on your bed?”
“Two of Mishka’s favorites.” Not what Violet wanted to hear. “I was looking for the right lies to tell her. Didn’t get to use any of ’em. Aloe said you were with Alf before you came here. He say anything?”
“No, we’ll all go over what to do tonight. Dreams, I assume. Today he was meeting with the Geki. I walked right into the scary zone.”
“Oh, that sucks.”
“Not as bad as your day.”
“Maybe not.” Vibs paused and rubbed the empty hole in her chest. “It wasn’t the worst week of my life. It will all work out when we go to destroy them. I’m sure we will. And if the elders don’t send us to do the job, I’ll stow away…. I’m really going to enjoy killing her. I don’t even care if we get her brother, or the tanks, or the hammer, or the whole of Africa. I’ll make her pay for it all herself.”
Violet tried to affirm what she said, to play along. Now wasn’t the time to argue, just to subtly remind her that she had people with her, that she wasn’t alone. “Valhalla will handle the rest. We’ll make sure we get assassinations, even if they call it a sidetrack.”
“Side? Valhalla is the sidetrack. Africa’s the sidetrack. I love you like a sister, Vi, but I’d give up the team to get her. I’d have to.”
Violet asked despite herself, “Like a sister?”
Vibs grew annoyed. “What would you prefer? You wanna fuck me too now?”
Violet was tempted to say “Maybe a little” but held back. She might have admitted that she wanted Mishka dead so she could have Vibs to herself, or even so things would go back to normal, if killing the problem could make them the way they used to be. It could, Violet thought. If killing the problem didn’t solve things, then what was the point of Valhalla? Violet resolved to comfort Vibs subtly, to remind her she was still sane. “Don’t let her turn you into a total mental case, Vibs.”
Vibeke was full of finely directed anger. “Then don’t let her get away. When we get to Africa, don’t let her get away or die by any hand but mine. Then it will all go away.”
“And if she escapes?”
“Then we chase her.”
Violet remembered an old story about that sort of obsession, something from Varg’s movies. It was about a guy who wrecked everything and everyone around him to get revenge. There was one classic line she never forgot. She repeated it to Vibs as best she could. “Chase her around perdition’s flames?”
Vibeke was a little surprised and a little amused. “I thought you couldn’t read those books on my bed.”
Violet was suddenly very interested in those books. “They made a book from Wrath of Khan?”
Vibeke laughed. Violet didn’t know why. She was sure she had just said something stupid. It wouldn’t be the first time. But that didn’t matter. Vibeke had laughed, and that was worth whatever mistake caused it. They sat in silence for a moment as Nurse Kampfar walked up to them, holding a Carlin blade with a ladybug-colored hilt. He handed it to Vibeke, who accepted it without a word. Violet looked at it in Vibeke’s hands, a cold dead Tikari, still sharp to the molecule, though the med team had taken its bones. Her own bug stirred in her chest. It surely wanted to peek out, but Violet wasn’t going to let Vibs see it. The sight of it could only hurt her.
Vibeke threw her dagger as hard as she could into the wall of ice near the walrus cages. It lodged almost six centimeters into the ice, impressive as she threw it sitting down. She got up and retrieved it, then threw it again. She hadn’t thrown it in anger. This was practice. Her throw was powerful, accurate. Violet could almost see Mishka in the ice, so strong was Vibeke’s intent.
She watched Vibs in silence, wondering if she had become a liability, if her desperation for revenge would cause problems. Violet wouldn’t have said anything if it did. She decided that whatever missions came and went, whatever critical situations they got themselves into, it wouldn’t be worth it to drag Vibeke down to earth. She couldn’t try to change her like that, to tie her down. She could only fail and grow farther from her if she tried. And she wanted to stay close, even if she was close like a sister.
Vibeke, as she chipped the wall away with successive throws, wondered why Violet had asked “Like a sister?” She wasn’t sure what could be closer, but then she’d never had a sister. Or family. Mishka was right about that. She didn’t understand how Mishka saw her loyalties. She didn’t really care. And she had read Moby Dick before she left on the mission. She knew even then what she was getting into. That’s why the other book was The Count of Monte Cristo. Vibs had never bothered to finish its last quarter.
Mishka wasn’t an animal, no force of nature. She was a perfectly killable, vengeable human being. Vibeke threw the knife again. It hit the wall so hard it shattered the ice, sending chunks sliding across the ravine floor. She wanted to go to sleep, not to rest but to meet with her team, with Alf and Balder, and begin planning. Violet wanted the same. Vibeke helped her up, and they walked to the barracks.
IN THE center of Minack Amphitheater stood Alf’s tarantula avatar. To his left were the chess set of C team, to his right stood Balder, and behind him, in three obsidian avatars, his team. The theater seats were filled by teams H, S, T, and V. Violet had returned to using the old purple squid avatar she had as a child. Vibeke was present as a myopic green worm, Veikko as a ball of flame, and Varg as himself. Many observers from other teams floated around as transparent eyes just to watch.
They began the meeting with Balder’s synopsis of the intel he had collected. Not only did his speech cover all Vibeke had learned, allowing her to stay silent, but he gave so detailed and exhaustive an account of Sasha’s history, forces, and plans that Vibs couldn’t imagine how he’d learned it all in only a few days. Even after all they knew, he dumped a sizable heap into their memories, along with maps and equipment diagrams.
Alf then began discussion of what was to be done. “At the least, I think we have an obligation to retrieve our weaponry and see that it does no more harm. Balder feels we should destroy Sasha’s force and dismantle the military theocracy he’s setting up across the continent. What say the rest of you?”
Hellhammer’s avatar, a hellish hammer, enlarged to take the floor and spoke. “H team will capture the Mjölnir system.”
“T team will steal a few of those juicy tanks,” called Tahir.
“S team,” announced Skadi’s rock giant, “will destroy the carrier, unless Valhalla wants the thing.”
“Nowhere to put it,” said Alf. “Might as well blow it up.”
Varg smiled. Nobody on V dared to speak before Vibeke. She floated up off her seat, enlarged her avatar, and said, “V team will assassinate the siblings in charge.”
Nobody objected. She had her wish, and nobody outside her team even thought it a special one. That was just how Valhalla worked.
Balder spoke next. “My team and I will handle air support and transportation. Is R team present?”
A pistol blinked into the dreamscape. “Monitoring.”
“I’d like you in proximity to the battle zone, two pogos.”
“You got it.”
The tarantula spoke next. “As you’ve taken all the fun duties, C team and I will be traveling to Africa to disassemble Sasha’s regime. Has anyone anything else to say before we split up for tactical projections?”
A frog with a crown blinked in and spoke with Wart’s voice. “New guy here. Um, are you really letting the most junior teams fight the fights while you work on diplomacy?”
>
The tarantula responded, “Certainly. This isn’t advanced spycraft or anything so unevenly matched as Udachnaya, merely a battle. Diplomacy is the field that requires expertise. Wars have always been fought by children.”
Wart didn’t question it. Alf called for any last remarks. There were none. He said, “Very well. To your teams now. Let’s refine this wild hunt.”
Within seconds, every good name for a project was taken and posted. V team was left unaware that they were even supposed to name this one, so the few appropriate terms they could think of—Oskorei, Perchten, Herlathing, and Asgardsreien—were all taken. Having gained little creative will, V team called their part of the project Beta. They coordinated with all the other teams heavily, but focused most on cornering Sasha and Mishka onboard the carrier. The rest was routine murder.
Coordination took longer. V team ran their reasonably simple plans—go in, kill people, leave—by the others and got sound advice all around. S team suggested they do more for camouflage than let their suits turn white, so they arranged for Dr. Niide to tone their skin and hair white as well. Only the space around their eyes would be black, so as to reflect as little light into their eyes as possible. Though Veikko and Varg thought it made them look like corpses, Violet couldn’t help but stare at Vibeke with her natural hair color reinstated. Varg caught her staring and necrophilia jokes ensued.
H team showed them how to pack extra explosives into their Thaco armor. The clips on their arms were good for small concussion bombs. The three triangular pegs on their backs could hold heavier thermite loads. Each had their microwaves, and they stuffed the other standard bits and pieces in the little squares across their chests. The inside of the toughest armor could hold even more, med kits and the like. All in all, they crammed into their armor twice as much as Eric designed them to hold.