by Ari Bach
By the end of 2205, no less than seventy monsters wandered Iceland, causing nightmares and insanity in those lucky enough to survive their coming. Those less fortunate they digested alive, their internal mechanisms designed to keep victims alive and awake as they melted into proteins and prions. The armies were called in. The creatures, called “The Agony” on official reports, were all destroyed. Høtherus’s labs were incinerated, but the news logs reported he was never found, nor was his comrade Koeller. As the last of the Agony were erased and various lesser monsters rounded up for study, UNEGA admitted publicly that their creator was lost and at large.
He was, of course, not. UNEGA had found and imprisoned him and forced him to work. They weren’t about to let the fiasco rob their weapons divisions of his genius.
Koeller went missing too but not before leaving his final legacy: Koeller’s Gravy. A fluid composed of RNA coding chambricles, controlled by a liquid neural network, that could be transmitted broadly by use of a superintense omega wave.
Under the most absolute secrecy possible (meaning GAUNE got a spy in on the first day) Høtherus continued his research by designing his final masterpiece: the Wave Bomb.
Targeted mutagenic warfare on a scale that put his original beam to shame. With its radius determined only by the strength of the omega wave, one bomb could be set to mutate a single room or the entire planet. Of course, nobody would ever set it to planetary scale. No less than eighty-six bombs were manufactured by UNEGA to target smaller regions in GAUNE. GAUNE manufactured sixty-eight of the devices, with one notable difference.
GAUNE’s bombs were made from their own Koeller’s Gravy, not the original substance. That was both a blessing and a curse. GAUNE wave bombs were predictable. They could turn an entire city into quivering sticky masses of pain, but they did nothing else.
An UNEGA bomb, however, was unpredictable. It could reduce a population to slime, or far worse—it could reduce them halfway to slime, leaving just enough of them to perceive their state. Tests on Deimos found they could turn people into what could only be described as zombies. Though alive, the victims were capable only of feeling pain and hate, and tore each other apart, devouring each other’s flesh. In some tests they caused nothing but massive suppurating tumors on all they affected. In others it would mutate them into a variety of Høtherian monstrosities. The UNEGA bombs could even fuse individuals into vast conglomerations of flesh or produce new bacteria that caused unspeakable disease. The only thing they never did was nothing at all. They always, always resulted in pain and horror.
Høtherus never explained that the original Koeller’s gravy was in fact made with Haring Koeller’s brain. He had used nervous technology to liquify the man’s cerebrum and grow within it a network of sadistic intent. UNEGA wave bombs were living, thinking organisms. Able to alter their composition, thinking constantly of new horrors to inflict. That was the grand master work of the evil genius—a weapon of mass affliction that even those who commissioned it found too appalling to ever use.
Høtherus was finally quietly executed in the UNEGA High Command’s basement. But his benefaction lived on in GAUNE and UNEGA hands. The most hateful weapon ever devised, literally, for it could feel hate, misanthropy, a greed for fulfilling its purpose to cause unthinkable suffering on an unthinkable scale. A weapon mind with which Veikko’s Tikari was now fused.
FIVE MISSILES down, two left. Vibeke jumped down from the plate and began to climb the next tube. Violet watched. She trusted Vibeke with complex hacks more than herself.
“You must not disable the missiles, Vibeke. You must launch them. Veikko has planted intel that will result in the destruction of the Ares in the event of an armed launch from this silo.”
“If there’s a wave war, then what’s the point?”
“That is a rhetorical question.”
“Yes, it is. Shut down and head back to Veikko, Sal.”
“Negative. My duty is to ensure the mission is successful.”
“Sal, the plan is to nuke Valhalla. These aren’t nukes. We can still accomplish the original plan. We just need to deactivate these first.”
“The probability of success decreases substantially if we diverge from Veikko’s intent. This mission cannot fail, Vibeke. The planet is at stake.”
“You’re ticking me off, Sal. Shut down, or I’ll shut you down.”
Vibeke began broadcasting a jamming signal, as powerful as she could manage.
“No, no, don’t do it!” called Veikko’s voice. “Please, stop!”
“Shut down and return to Veikko!”
“My mind is going, I can feel it.” His voice grew distorted, slower and deeper. “I can feel it… Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…. No, but seriously, I’m hardwired in, so you can’t do squat.”
Vibeke worked faster. She opened the sixth seal and began to activate the fail-safe. A sound echoed from across the chamber. Violet recognized it.
“He’s arming the SSS robots!”
“Yes, I am. Launch the remaining missiles now, or I will kill you.”
“Kill us, and the mission fails,” said Vibeke.
“I was talking to Violet.”
Vibeke looked to her. The loud screech of the SSS tracks shattered the air. Violet took a breath.
“Don’t launch ’em. I’ll run. They’re on tracks, I just need to get to the—”
Hundreds of rounds began to strike Violet’s projectile field. She felt the cold instantly. The energy sucked out of her to keep the field active against the incoming fire. But this was unlike any fire she’d taken before. The sheer number of rounds hitting her was enough to freeze her to death within seconds. She ran.
“Goddamn you, Veikko!” Vibs shouted.
“Sal. Launch the missiles now, or she will die.”
“Are you insane?”
“I am an AI. I am not capable of insanity. Insanity is a human malfunction. You have only seconds.”
“Goddamn it! You can’t believe Veikko would want Violet dead!”
“You can’t believe it’s worth losing your girlfriend to stop some kid in Timbuktu from growing a third arm.”
“Turn off the robots, and we’ll talk!”
“We are talking. I estimate Violet has forty-seven seconds before her projectile field sucks the last joule out of her and she hits absolute zero. Launch the missiles.”
“She’ll outrun you. This mission will only succeed if you stop this now.”
“She will not outrun the robots. She is already pinned down.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Tikaris can’t lie.”
“Yes, you can!”
“I know, I was lying. Vibeke, you’re wasting her life for nothing. Launch the missiles.”
Vibeke hit the charge and boiled the fluids. There was only one bomb left. She hopped to the next tube and opened the seventh seal.
“Do not boil the warhead. Leave it intact, and I’ll stop the robots. We can talk.”
“Talk is over.”
She wired into the plate and found the boiling fail-safe. Right next to the launching glitch.
“You’re killing her, Vibeke. She’s running out of time.”
“Violet will live.”
“If you launch, yes. Destroy the warhead, and I assure you, you destroy her with it.”
Vibeke knew Sal was right. She chose instantly. She chose wrong.
THE ROBOTS in line kept firing, their arms shaking forward and backward from the recoil, making each whole robot vibrate drastically as the rounds seared the air toward Violet.
Every round connected with her projectile field; every round was deflected. But every round cost three megajoules from her body to deflect. At 250 every second from each robot, she had gone cold in an instant.
She ran for the crates and climbed on top. The fire ceased as the robots stacked themselves to get to her height. Fire began again. The cold surrounded Violet and made it hard to breathe, but she kept running. From feel alone she had a chance
of making it outside. The air within her field was already cold enough to desiccate, and her skin was going numb. Rounds flooded into her as the robot line gave chase. In a few seconds, her shield would run out of heat to suck out of her, and she’d hit absolute zero, inside and out. When the shield failed under their weapons, she would be frozen solid when the rounds hit. She would shatter, and there would be nothing left of her to recover. Not that Valhalla was there to recover her.
She ran as fast as she could, over the tarmac and toward the vents. The fire was relentless, the cold piercing. She ran faster than she ever had before, her muscles breaking inside her, brittle and stressed. The pain grew and grew as she passed over some sort of crane boundary, marked by text but nothing else.
And then she froze. Not her temperature but her motion. She couldn’t move. Her suit was rigid. The robots moved closer, all fifty of them firing a barrage into her field.
She knew then what the text must have said. Magnetic Crane System. She’d run into a heavy magnetic field, and her armor was frozen in place, impossible to move. The robots kept firing. Thousands of rounds sucking the energy out of her.
Alf was clearly right about learning to read. But he only merited a fraction of a second in her mind. Vibeke took the rest. A hope that Vibs would launch the missiles and save her, somehow. But she knew there was no chance, no way. She had no choice but to save the world, the entire world over one bad girl.
Her mind grew calm as the water within her neurons turned to ice. Supercooled into a sublime state of perfect clarity.
In those last seconds, fear abandoned her. Sadness crept in, telling her Vibs would be wrecked without her. She forced the thought away. She felt Vibeke by her side, lying on the window of the GET to Iceland, her voice emotionless and her expression cold. But Violet didn’t feel cold. Not at all. She remembered what Vibeke told her. It hurt at the time, but now her words resounded with hope. About to die, those words were a promise. A warm thought in her frozen brain. “Maybe in another life,” Vibeke had said.
Maybe in another life.
Check out the Valhalla series official blog at
http://the-walrus-squad.tumblr.com.
Don’t miss how the story started!
Valhalla
Valhalla: Book 1
By Ari Bach
Violet MacRae is one of the aimless millions crowding northern Scotland. In the year 2230, where war is obsolete and only brilliant minds are valued, she emerges into adulthood with more brawn than brains and a propensity for violence. People dismiss her as a relic, but world peace is more fragile than they know.
In Valhalla, a clandestine base hidden in an icy ravine, Violet connects with a group of outcasts just like her. There, she learns the skills she needs to keep the world safe from genetically enhanced criminals and traitors who threaten the first friends she’s ever known. She also meets Wulfgar Kray, a genius gang leader who knows her better than she knows herself and who would conquer the world to capture her.
Branded from childhood as a useless barbarian, Violet is about to learn the world needs her exactly as she is.
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About the Author
ARI BACH’S artwork can be found online at http://aribach.deviantart.com/.
Ari also runs a webcomic at http://www.twistedjenius.com/Snail-Factory/ and has a Tarot deck at http://surrealist.tarotsmith.net/.
But Ari is probably best known for the humor blog “Facts-I-Just-Made-Up” at http://facts-i-just-made-up.tumblr.com/.
All the Devils Here
By Astor Penn
Brie Hall, a sheltered and privileged teenager, is in her final year of boarding school in New York City when disaster strikes. A worldwide biological crisis, the origins of which are unknown, quickly decimates a large portion of the population, and there is no known cure. The threat of contamination is always present, and she cannot trust anyone she sees on the road, and as time goes on, she sees fewer travelers.
While journeying to find her family, Brie meets another wanderer, a girl with a past she can’t or won’t divulge. Circumstances force them together to escape notice of government-issued hazmat vehicles sent to deliver them to unknown conditions. With no hope of a cure, they do only what they can to survive and remain free, picking up new skills and hardening into people they never meant to become. While struggling to answer the question of how to survive a plague, they must also ask how they can survive the version of themselves they’ve become.
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The Little Black Dress
By Linda Palund
Carmen is the most beautiful and desirable girl Lucy has ever known, and when Carmen is savagely murdered, Lucy’s teenage life crumbles. She is devastated by the loss of her first love, and when it appears the killers might never be found, she vows to solve the murder herself.
Together with her best friend Seth, who is not only a master computer hacker but also the son of LA’s new Chief of Homicide, they gain access to the gruesome autopsy reports. They learn the true extent of the horror inflicted on Carmen, and Lucy gets closer to understanding the secret behind Carmen’s little black dress.
After another beautiful girl is murdered, they uncover the brutality lurking within the corridors of their privileged Los Angeles high school. They put their lives on the line to come face-to-face with the murderer himself.
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Noble Falling
By Sara Gaines
Duchess Aleana Melora of Eniva, future queen of Halvaria, is resigned to the gilded cage of her life, facing a loveless marriage to Tallak, the prospective king, and struggling under the pressure to carry on the family name despite her wish to find a woman to love.
When her convoy is attacked on the journey to Tallak’s palace, Aleana is saved by her guard, Ori, only to discover her people have turned against her and joined forces with the kingdom of Dakmor, Halvaria’s greatest enemy. Her only hope is to reach Tallak, but she and Ori don’t make it far before another attack and an unlikely rescue by Kahira, a Dakmoran woman banished from her kingdom for reasons she is hesitant to share.
Though Kahira is marked as a criminal, Aleana’s heart makes itself known. Aleana is facing danger and betrayal at every turn, and she fears giving in to her desires will mean she will enter her marriage knowing exactly the kind of passion she will never have as the Halvarian Queen—if she survives long enough to be crowned.
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Pukawiss the Outcast
By Jay Jordan Hawke
When family complications take Joshua away from his fundamentalist Christian mother and leave him with his grandfather, he finds himself immersed in a mysterious and magical world. Joshua’s grandfather is a Wisconsin Ojibwe Indian who, along with an array of quirky characters, runs a recreated sixteenth-century village for the tourists who visit the reservation. Joshua’s mother kept him from his Ojibwe heritage, so living on the reservation is liberating for him. The more he learns about Ojibwe traditions, the more he feels at home.
One Ojibwe legend in particular captivates him. Pukawiss was a powerful manitou known for introducing dance to his people, and his nontraditional lifestyle inspires Joshua to embrace both his burgeoning sexuality and his status as an outcast. Ultimately, Joshua summons the courage necessary to reject his strict upbringing and to accept the mysterious path set before him.
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Ben Raphael’s All-Star Virgins
By K.Z. Snow
Sixteen-year-old Jake McCullough and his friends Rider, Brody, Carlton, and Tim are the invisible boys of Ben Raphael Academy, an exclusive coed prep sc
hool. Brody decides they need “mystique” to garner attention. “Nobody has more mystique than a desirable virgin,” he declares. Thus is born Ben Raphael’s All-Star Virgin Order or BRAVO.
The boys polish their appearances. Brody launches a subtle but canny publicity campaign. Soon, the boys are being noticed. But they’re emotionally fragile. Two have succumbed to a seductive female teacher. Jake and Rider, roommates and best friends who are attracted to one another, fear the stigma of being gay.
It takes an unspeakable tragedy to make the BRAVO boys realize what’s important in life, and that “virginity” has more than one meaning.
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