by Ari Bach
Violet walked up close to Vibeke to suggest just that. Vibs was suddenly easy to talk to, approachable, seemingly robbed of the tension that had surrounded her when Violet wanted her most.
The sudden shift in Violet’s personality also meant that Vibeke found the feelings reversed. Violet was suddenly a powerful figure, one that reminded her at that moment too much of someone else. “Oh!” said Vibeke, “I need to get Alf’s books back to him! I should do that before he gets back.”
Before Violet could say anything, Vibeke was off. Jogging away, looking back at Violet with a look so subtly flirtatious that it made Violet slightly delirious. She enjoyed that look enough that she didn’t need to chase after her. She told herself that Vibs might be under the impression that Violet had something else to do.
Perhaps she did have something. She didn’t feel like showering alone at that moment and she had some inkling that there was someone else to see while she was still covered in red. There was one man who might be beneficially unnerved by such a sight. She always felt better after talking to Wulfgar, and for the first time, she had an idea why. She wanted to see what might happen if she went to see him in a good mood to begin with. A good mood and soaked in blood. She walked to the brig and passed Marduk, unconscious in his cell. She found Wulfgar awake and unaffected by her red coating, only noticing her smile.
“And why are you so happy, my dear?”
“Oh, I just blew up a lot of shit today,” she bragged.
“And now you’ve come to blow—”
She wasted no time on his innuendo. “I think I know why I keep coming back.”
He sat up straight, smug and waiting to hurt her with a snide response. “Tell me.”
“Well, I didn’t want to admit it at first. I thought I was a nicer person than I really am. I wanted to think of myself as a woman who would never get her kicks from seeing a man hurt. But I’m not so mature. Not really. I’m just a girl who likes seeing her enemy in pain.”
Wulfgar was not amused by this train of thought. “But I’m not the one in pain…,” he began. A petty attempt to assert himself. It didn’t work on her, not this time.
She cut him off. “You are in pain. All your talk, that’s how you squirm. You fantasize and flirt because you’re afraid to let me see you broken. And you are so broken. You have no more upper hand. You have nothing. And maybe it’s the childish thug in me, maybe I’m a sadist or a bully, but you know, I really like watching you squirm. If you were dead, I’d have taken no pleasure from it, but now I see you, head of the most feared gang, killer of the innocent, king of the bastards, now beaten down and sobbing in his cell. I’ve done so much worse than kill you. I’ve made you pathetic. And for a hundred years you’ll live in here, pathetic. My taunts will be the closest to living you get. And when you die, it will be as an old man gone insane and weak. And call me a bad little girl for loving it, but damn, Wulfgar… I love it.” She paused and leaned in closer. “Come on, call me a bad little girl.”
He said nothing. He had lost his kind façade. He was angry, hurt, and he knew it was showing. And unlike the face he’d put on as he tortured her, his expression held no animalistic pleasure nor sadism anymore. He looked old and sad. Just a bitter, defeated old man. That’s not to suggest she pitied him. Violet knew she was right about everything she had just said. She was the sadist, and he was in pain. She was in heaven, and he was in hell. She had won and he had lost. And she felt as she did when she’d returned from the second carrier, so good it was obscene, close to erotic bliss. And she had sucked it completely out of the man before her. She was going off the deep end that day. She knew she wasn’t her old self. She had been reborn as a warrior with a blade, and finally she felt truly victorious over Wulfgar. She walked out of the brig with a bounce in her step as he raked his fingernails against the back of his neck.
Violet was hungry, so she ran to the industrial-sized shower and let it deblood her suit and skin. She found Vibeke again, joining Varg and Balder as they drank great amounts of beer. They had turned off their absorption implants and were acting very strangely as a result. Vibs handed her a slice of something brown and unhealthy, which tasted as sweet and piquant as Violet felt.
“Were you talking to Wulfgar again?” Vibs asked. Those around her turned their heads, surprised at the notion.
“Yeah,” Violet answered, then explained, “I talk to him from time to time.” She grabbed one of the pitchers from the table and drank. She was quickly reminded that she hated beer, the bubbly sting of it, the doughy taste as well. She set the pitcher down and reached for more chocolate.
“Why?” spat Varg from behind his own pitcher. Veikko was also eager to hear.
Violet thought for a second of how best to put it. She took a bite of flavorful goo and savored it, then said, “Cuz it’s better than chocolate, and half as fattening.”
TEN DAYS later it was the year 2231, and the polar night was at its deepest. Valhalla was at rest. No major projects were starting up. No urgent duties were called out over the loudspeakers. The biggest change in the whole ravine was a new bench in the communications room. It was like hibernation after the Congo affair, a time of rest and relaxation. The real fires in the lounges never felt warmer. On January 3, Violet tried to dwell on the fact that her family had died one year before. She found she couldn’t dwell on it at all, firstly because 365 days seemed like a lifetime ago, secondly because her family, her real family, was not dead at all. They were alive in the bunks where she slept, alive around the ravine in the gym and cafeteria, all around her. Those who were dead, she felt, were as avenged as people can be. To some extent, she thought the rest of her life would be anticlimactic, because no mission, however important, could compare to what she had done in her first year.
Veikko was putting the finishing touches on the tank Balder had stolen. With four spare legs, Veikko had led Wart and Weather in adapting the tank to run on all eight, a gift of sorts for Alf. His new personal transport was now the fastest land vehicle in Valhalla, and if not for their shuttle it would be the fastest of all, able to outrun pogos across land and to travel at exceptional speed over the most rugged, terrain, even up cliffs and under water. Alf was very happy with his new steed and started riding the thing all around the ravine where he might once have walked. Veikko also supervised its adaptation to YGDR S/L quark power, giving it a fuel advantage over the other tanks, namely that it no longer needed fuel.
Varg continued his sexual odyssey through the female half of the base, as well as Vadsø and the rest of northern Norge. While Veikko was content as the mother of Alf’s new tank, Varg also spent time with H team and Valfar, learning the technological secrets he had to offer and even going so far as to challenge Valfar’s simple theories of strong nuclear force in favor of an encompassing particle that he dubbed the “scroton.” Violet no longer minded being left out of the technological loop. She came to regard herself as the brute force of V team, the brawn to complement the others’ brains.
As for Vibeke, she had plans forming within plans. She intended to return to the hot Congo jungle and find either an ant-cleaned skeleton or a clue. The project might have earned a plain Greek name, but Greek lacked a C, and V team had resolved to be more creative. They weren’t really all that creative, so the project had yet to be named. That and other delaying factors kept them all at home, and home was comfortable enough that they didn’t mind. Vibeke continued her plans despite all delays by heading to see Marduk in the brig, hoping he might have ideas about where Mishka would go after losing everything.
When Vibs entered the brig, she heard Marduk speaking. Wulfgar was asleep. He was talking to something in the corner of his cell. Vibs sent out an alert signal to Alopex and stepped up to demand that Marduk tell her who he was talking to. She stepped forward and saw, for just an instant, a recognizable razor-blade butterfly. The butterfly saw and recognized her, then executed its last standing order to detonate like a mine in her proximity. The synapses grown for Tikari were e
ver so slightly slower than those in humans, so Vibs had just enough time to turn her head before the blast hit. Fire broke through the brig ceiling and echoed loudly through the ravine.
Violet heard it from beside Alf’s tank, where Veikko was showing her his additions. Alf started up the machine and extended its legs to give him a higher view. From there he could see the brig collapsed and expelling smoke. He lowered himself and said to Violet. “You asked why I didn’t want a brig?” He rode off toward the ruin. Violet and Veikko ran behind him. Varg was already on the scene, holding Vibeke.
She was alive but half of her skin was burned off. Varg ran her to the med bay. Veikko followed, pushing away the crowd that was forming, their microwaves drawn to suffocate the fires. As soon as the flames were suppressed, Violet ran into the mess. She recognized Marduk’s remains. He had taken most of the blast and was unsalvageable. But he was not in poor enough shape to have been the source of the explosion. Marrow bombs looked different. Svetlana recognized the pattern. It was a Tikari blast. Everyone around deduced instantly whose it must have been. But that wasn’t what Violet was worried about. She prodded around the rubble of Wulfgar’s cell. There were no remains. There was no prisoner. She doubled the alert sent out across the populace.
Launching bays sealed themselves, air ducts too. Alföðr rode past the nearby structures cursing the day he’d allowed a brig in his hall. Balder linked out to all the teams to assemble hunting parties. V team was listed on Alopex as a three-person team as soon as Vibs was injured, so the only job the system would list them for was walrus detail. Violet linked to Varg, who told her Vibeke was okay. The med team was going to use her brief unconsciousness to give her a new Tikari they had assembled. Vibs wasn’t going to dispute it when she woke up. She would have work for it to do.
There was no clear sign of Wulfgar, nothing to suggest where he had gone. He couldn’t have escaped. The HMDLR detectors around the top of the ravine would have spotted him. He was still there, somewhere. Balder’s hunting parties linked to each other as they systematically checked around the remains of the brig in a growing perimeter. Violet had to do something. She couldn’t just wait as her nemesis escaped. She looked to Veikko, but he was also at a loss for what to do. She linked to Varg, “How is she?”
“She looks like a Gotham DA, but she’s fine. They’re about to wake her.”
Violet felt substantial relief and was again surprised at Dr. Niide’s speed. Varg continued, “Two minutes medical, one minute Tikari activation. We’ll be there soon. Anything from the hunt?”
“We’re not on the hunt. Balder wants full teams for it.”
“Violet, have any of us ever waited for an invitation?”
A damn obvious point. They weren’t on Balder’s controlled task force. They wouldn’t want to disrupt it by trying to cover their territory, but there were other things to be done. Violet and Veikko came to the same conclusion at the same time: If the hunt was taken care of, someone had to be ready to gut the catch. They headed for the special arsenal to prepare something nastier than microwaves. It was past the search perimeter, so they wouldn’t bother the hunters. As they ran, the wide variety of killing devices ran through her head.
“Gatlings?” Veikko suggested.
“Flame throwers,” she replied.
“Drill-shot!”
“Flesh-eating bacteria injectors?”
“Too slow. Now, the grinding needle disks….”
“Calcium desiccation rays….” They turned off the main walk. The arsenal was only meters away.
“Not painful enough. Where do we keep the deep-organ-spaz razors?”
“SA9, other end of the pit.” They came to the nearest special arsenal. Violet grinned at Veikko, then spoke aloud. “But this one has the chainsaw launchers.”
He nodded back and reached to open the door. The arsenals had all locked when the alert went out, so they had to perform the intricate ceremony of unlocking the thing. As Veikko linked down the security measures, he found measures in place that shouldn’t have been started: The arsenal was locked from inside. Violet linked to Balder’s teams.
She and Veikko were knocked off their feet when the door burst outward. Violet caught her breath and sent her Tikari into the air. As Veikko shook off the concussion, she linked fully in to her Tikari and flew around the other side of the arsenal. She flipped through its available vision settings until she could see through the smoke. There was one body on the ground. Not Wulfgar’s. Nergal. A civilian in the wrong place at the wrong time. She could never have left the team after Jylland. Civilians were no more than victims in waiting. She was a predator. She flew on to find her prey. She felt heat rising in her chest.
Veikko headed into the arsenal to collect the weapons they’d come for. Wulfgar couldn’t have carried them all. Violet let her Tikari search on AI and returned to her body. Veikko came out of the arsenal without any weapons. “He blew up the launchers. Blew out the arsenal alongside the ravine wall. He’ll be heading up and out.”
Violet sent her Tikari to look along the spiral catwalk. She linked to Varg, “ETA?”
“On my way, fifty seconds.”
“Forty-five for me,” linked Vibs. “My new… Tikari… is exploring the catwalks.”
Vibeke had run from med bay before they could even log her recovered. There was a tricky tone to her words, angry that they’d made a new bug against her wishes as well as thankful that they’d done it. For the instant she let herself consider it, Violet thought she understood. But there was no more time to think. There were two Tiks looking for Wulfgar. Alopex listed Balder’s men as securing the ravine floor. Violet was about to link and ask why they weren’t on the walls where he was likelier to be, but even she could figure that one out. The walls were best searched by a small contingent, only one team. Balder knew V team was back. He was letting Violet catch her man.
A brief link darted between the Vs, only fragments of thoughts. Veikko would take a lift to the top level, then head downward. Varg and Vibeke would start upward from the base of the spiral. Violet would follow her Tikari straight up the wall—hard work but likeliest to meet Wulfgar first. She pulled out her microwave and began pulling herself up the steepest parts of the wall.
Veikko linked to them, “On my way up, lift seven.”
A rocket blast hit lift seven, destroying it completely.
“Did I say seven? Six. Sorry, lift six, on my way.”
His second link was on high encryption. Was Wulfgar listening somehow? They looked up and tracked the rocket-propelled grenade’s vapor trail back to Wulfgar, only one level ahead of Varg and Vibeke. They kept running. Violet sent her Tikari ahead across the ravine. She could see him better as it approached, still heading upward. But they knew the lay of the land better than he did. It was all one spiral, so at the first junction, Vibs and Varg climbed up to the next level. They would be only meters behind him.
From her Tikari, Violet could see him clearly, still running. The Tikari kept an eye on him as Violet fired upward to the catwalk above his level. She tractored up, painfully fast and a long distance, landing fifty meters ahead of where Wulfgar was heading. She could see him, running around the curve of the wall, right for her. She could see Varg and Vibeke, still half-burnt, coming up behind him. Now she needed her Tikari as a knife. She called it back, and it rocketed across the ravine to her hand.
She hid in an alcove where Wulfgar wouldn’t see her waiting to spring. The anticipation was like fire in her veins, circulating through her. It was devoid of fear or nervous chill. It was pure heat, pleasure of the cruelest sort. She breathed calmly, waiting silently, counting, and calculating his speed until he would run past. She could feel him coming, smell him in the wind. And at the perfect moment, mind burning, she sprang to find nothing. Nothing but some of his weapons lying on the ground. The heat within her didn’t subside.
Varg linked to her to tell her where he was. “He had a microwave rifle, tractored himself straight up. He’s in the air.�
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Violet bit her lip and linked to Balder, “On the walls. Take the shot!”
Balder’s reply shocked her. “Capture Ops are over. We’ve got link activity from him. He heard one of yours, and he’s sending his own. Let him go.”
Violet took a second to try to comprehend. It wasn’t long enough to comprehend, so she requested an explanation. “What the fuck!”
“He’s calling help, Violet. Wouldn’t you like to see who comes?” She didn’t. She really, really didn’t. She wanted to kill. Veikko ran up behind her and spoke, out of breath.
“I heard. Do we stop?”
Violet only glanced back. It must have been an angry glance, given Veikko’s startled recoil. She caught a link from Vibs.
“Well, if he’s calling someone, let’s go meet them.”
Violet smiled. Veikko nodded to her. If Wulfgar could make the ascent, so could they. Varg and Vibeke were in. All four found load-bearing beams on the top level and fired. They shot up slowly to the highest level of the catwalk.
Wulfgar opened fire with wide stunning beams as soon as they were up. The beam was so wide it was weak and glanced off their armor. As soon as they were on solid metal, they opened fire and forced Wulfgar to use his last grenade to break open a door, storage room 1. Oh shit, thought Violet. She heard Varg link, “Alf! Did the alarm seal off our walrus trap?”
“Positive,” Alf responded on high encryption, “but it reads as jammed. You might consider letting him go, V. We’re monitoring his links. We’ll find him and whoever he’s speaking to in time…. And no, I don’t really expect you to stop. But do be careful.”
Wulfgar had sent a link—how could he with his antenna broken? They’d figure it out later. With the trap door closed, Wulfgar was cornered in that room. He probably wouldn’t even guess that a cave leading out was hidden just over his head. They had him. V team gathered at the door. Violet could see Vibeke’s face, burnt but sectioned and patched by the medical team. She could see into her cheek where they hadn’t had time to grow new skin. But despite it, she could see that Vibs was grinning with anticipation. They were about to move in.