War in Heaven

by Gavin G. Smith

  I’d skidded to a halt on a slight rise in some scrub wasteland looking out over the US border proper. The edge of the Dead Roads. Things didn’t look that much better over there.

  ‘No,’ I answered tersely, sounding a little childish even to my own ears. I climbed out of the car. Mudge followed. I could see Rannu riding towards us on a powerful dirt bike, his head swathed in a shemagh, dust goggles protecting the black lenses of his cybernetic eyes.

  Mudge turned his camera eyes on me. It had taken a long time for me to get use to the way the lenses always seemed to be rotating one way or the other as they found the best focus point. He was a little shorter than my six feet and much thinner, though both of us had a wiry build. There was something weird about his long face, but it was difficult to put your finger on it – he just looked slightly odd. He had two days of sparse blond stubble on his cheeks and his fair hair was a short unkempt mess.

  Rannu brought the bike to a halt, kicked the stand down and dismounted. His cargo trousers and black armoured combat jacket were covered in dust from the road. He started to beat the dust off himself, all the while observing around us.

  ‘What happened – were we compromised?’ he asked.

  ‘Only by this pussy’s delicate feelings,’ Mudge answered. I could practically hear the squat, powerfully built Nepalese’s eyebrows rising under his goggles.

  ‘We’re not doing the Wait?’ Rannu asked. Now I could hear the slight undertone of surprise.

  ‘We’re not,’ I told them.

  ‘Really?’ Mudge asked. It sounded less like a question and more like an experiment to see how much sarcasm you could pack into a single word. ‘See, they kidnapped me, tortured me, gave me a lethal dose of radiation poisoning and generally made my life a living hell. Not to mention what a fucking whiney burden on my friends I became. Oh no, wait, that wasn’t me. It was fucking you!’

  Rannu shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘You didn’t have to—’ I started.

  ‘Yes, I fucking did!’ Mudge spat. He seemed overwrought. ‘Because you made me promise!’

  ‘When I thought I was dying. I’m better now.’

  ‘My promise to help deal with them still stands,’ Rannu said. He’d finished beating off the dust and had removed his goggles. His eyes, like mine, like most vets’, were matt-black plastic lenses. I sighed and leaned against the car wishing I had a cigarette.

  ‘I know and I appreciate that.’

  ‘Then fucking what?!’ Mudge screamed at me.

  ‘Why aren’t we killing the fascists?’ Rannu asked much more calmly.

  ‘The what?’ I asked, confused.

  ‘Their ideology, it’s called fascist or Nazi. It’s pre-FHC. The fucking bad men!’ Mudge explained not very helpfully.

  ‘We’re on the eve of what could be the biggest human-on-human war since the FHC. This is in part our fault—’ I started.

  ‘Bullshit. Rolleston and Cronin could call it quits any time they want,’ Mudge pointed out.

  ‘We have to take responsibility, wasn’t that what you said?’ I asked.

  ‘You want to go and fight the Black Squadrons?’ Rannu asked. For the first time I realised this held some appeal for Rannu. I’d known I was holding him back by getting his help in dealing with the Wait when I’d thought I’d wanted to. I had thought I was holding him back from returning to his family. It seemed it was something else.

  ‘No. That’s it. I don’t want to kill any more people. Enough is enough.’

  ‘Oh, this is bullshit. This was the same song you sang before Atlantis,’ Mudge said, but he was calming down.

  ‘And we didn’t kill anyone.’

  ‘We tried damn hard with Rolleston.’

  ‘Him I’d make an exception for. He needs to die for the general well-being.’

  ‘So do those fuckers!’ Mudge exploded. Rannu was nodding. ‘Those silly wank-stains want to kill you because your grandmother was from Thailand; they want to kill Rannu because his skin’s a different colour to theirs. For fuck’s sake, we raise the average IQ of the race by putting these cunts out of our misery!’

  ‘No doubt, but I can’t do it any more. We were so close to an end to it all, so close to peace …’

  ‘I think we may have to fight some more first,’ Rannu said.

  ‘Probably, but not me. Don’t you think we’ve done enough?’

  ‘I think we’ve done a lot. I think we’ll know when we’ve done enough. There will be peace and my children will be free.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but someone else is going to have to fight this one,’ I said. Rannu nodded. I think he understood but I think he was disappointed as well. I turned to Mudge. ‘Are you going to fight?’

  Mudge pointed at the huge dust storm in the distance that was Crawling Town. ‘I just want to kill the arseholes,’ he whined. Rannu and I looked at him. ‘You know me, I’ll shoot it.’ He tapped his camera eyes in a way that put my teeth on edge. ‘And if it gets too hairy …’ He rapped his legs with his knuckles. His cybernetic legs were his pride and joy. He’d paid a lot of money to be able to boast that he was built for speed. ‘I’ll just do a runner.’ He’d always said that. It was all bullshit, he never ran.

  ‘Vehicle incoming,’ said Rannu, the only one retaining any degree of professionalism.

  Mudge and I looked up. Both of us zoomed in on the bizarre vehicle approaching us, which looked like a cross between a six-by-six pickup truck and a hearse. The front passenger side seemed to have been cut away and there was something monstrous and metallic sat there, a little smaller than an exo-armour suit. Through the magnification on my eyes I could make out the brightly coloured glowing veves painted on the side of the vehicle. These were the mystic symbols of Papa Neon’s own brand of Pop Voudun. The truck definitely belonged to the Big Neon Voodoo.

  It pulled up next to us in a cloud of toxic dust and dirt. The monstrous thing in the truck’s cutaway cab was Little Baby Neon. Younger brother of Papa Neon, he had traded his soul for cybernetic power until he was a deranged, uncontrollable psychotic. His older brother had, as far as I could tell, effectively lobotomised him in an electronic ritual and turned him into a cyberzombie.

  Little Baby Neon climbed out of the pickup/hearse. Actually he more sort of unfolded himself. The suspension looked glad of the relief.

  We were sort of friendly with the Big Neon Voodoo, but it was more through Pagan and he wasn’t here. I had one hand in the car, close to where my Benelli assault shotgun scabbard was strapped to the underside of the roof. Mudge was doing likewise with his converted AK-47. Rannu just stood close to where his shotgun/sniper combination weapon was clipped to the dirt bike.

  With Little Baby Neon watching us, the pickup/hearse moved round so its back was facing us. Dry-ice smoke started to issue from the back of the vehicle. Mudge glanced at me, his eyebrow raised questioningly. The back doors opened, then the glass roof slid back. A colourfully decorated coffin, adorned with skulls, bones and other grizzly additions, rose up to a nearly vertical position. The front of the coffin swung open.

  I started laughing, as did Mudge. I’m pretty sure even Rannu cracked a smile. Papa Neon’s bass laughter joined us. He was a tall man with very dark skin. His weathered features were covered in implanted circuitry that formed veves on his face. Dreadlocks sprouted from his head where they could; the rest of it was either covered by a precariously balanced top hat, or by his military-built and black-market-augmented integral computer.

  Papa Neon wore a long purple leather coat that looked heavy enough to be armoured and was again covered in many colourful symbols. As he stepped out of the coffin he leaned on his glowing neon staff. He looked every part the role of the Voudun priest and gang leader that he played so well.

  He stepped down and we all relaxed somewhat. He nodded at Rannu, who nodded back and courteously stepped away from the bike and the weapon clipped to it.

  ‘Does that ever impress anyone?’ I asked as the smoke was clearing, carried away by the dry
wind that blew across the wasteland.

  ‘No, but it is good fun,’ Papa Neon announced in his thick Haitian accent. He looked me up and down. ‘Are you dead?’ he surprised me by asking. Then again hackers tend to see the world differently as a result of their various net-born religious manias.

  ‘I’m as you see, Papa Neon. In no small part thanks to the drugs you supplied.’

  After I was rescued from the Wait I had received medical treatment from the Big Neon Voodoo. This had included a substantial supply of drugs that had enabled me to cope with the symptoms of dying from radiation poisoning. Papa Neon gave this some thought.

  ‘This is good. I think that the Loa have blessed you. I know this because they have told me. They are pleased that Obatala is now among us in the spirit world.’ I think he was talking about God. ‘I danced when he returned.’ I knew he would. ‘But the devil walks around the sun far out in the night,’ he finished. I looked at him blankly.

  ‘I think he means Demiurge,’ Mudge suggested.

  ‘Not my problem,’ I said. Papa Neon regarded me carefully before reaching into the pocket of the threadbare finery that was his waistcoat and producing his UV monocle. He placed it in this eye and looked at me some more.

  I was starting to feel the discomfort I always got when hacker pseudo-religious bullshit was brought up. Particularly when it was applied to me. I realised it was how they understood the world around them. At its heart they just had a different but arguably no less valid way of understanding things. It still always sounded like madness to me.

  ‘Ogun Badagris has had too much fun.’ I glanced at Mudge, who shrugged. ‘Will you not cage his horse?’

  ‘I don’t know what that means,’ I said, ‘but my fighting days are over.’

  He moved in close to me. I tried not to flinch. I could smell rum and stale marijuana smoke. Then something occurred to me.

  ‘Have you been speaking to Pagan?’ I asked.

  ‘The Loa and the dead want to speak to you.’

  ‘Where is he? Where’s …’ I started and then suddenly felt very self-conscious, more about Rannu than Mudge. Though Mudge was reasonably well informed about how pathetic I could be.

  ‘The Mambo walks in the lair of Anansi’s twisted younger brother,’ Papa Neon told me.

  I looked at Mudge again. ‘Anansi’s a spider god, I think.’ It didn’t sound good.

  ‘Look!’ Papa Neon shouted. I turned to look where he was pointing and could just make out a large copter speeding towards us. Its rotors were folded and it was using its jets.

  ‘The spider wants to speak to you,’ Papa Neon began. ‘The dead want to speak to you and the Loa have not done with you.’

  Fuck. I just wanted a drink and a smoke, maybe some peace and quiet.

  ‘Is that a black helicopter?’ Rannu asked, a hint of incredulity in his voice. I shaded my eyes with my hands and watched as the copter’s twin rotors unfolded and started to rotate. It was a military cargo model that had indeed been painted black, its windows tinted.

  Mudge started laughing. ‘Fucking spooks, man. One cliché after another.’ He shook his head. ‘They actually think this shit is cool.’

  I turned back to look at Papa Neon. Maybe he was a cliché too, a stereotype. It was difficult to tell how much was real and how much was show – a bit of theatre and intimidation for those watching, waiting for his fall. Or maybe he’d played the role too long and believed it. Or maybe it was all real, which is what the hackers would have us believe.

  ‘I think you came here to feed the Baron with those stupid white boys,’ he said. Then it hit home.

  ‘You were on us from the moment we came into Crawling Town,’ I said.

  ‘I asked Obatala to watch for you,’ he said. Thanks, God, I thought. But the sense of betrayal was misplaced. This was what we had asked God to do after all. On the other hand, how were we ever going to sneak up on someone ever again? ‘The way those boys killed you—’

  ‘They didn’t kill me …’ I started. Papa Neon looked at me in a way that made me want to not interrupt him.

  ‘The way they killed you, you don’t walk away from that.’

  ‘Those boys are evil,’ I told him. The copter was getting closer.

  ‘No doubt, but they is our evil. You do not live here.’

  I’d decided that the Wait got a pass, but I couldn’t help smiling and playing devil’s advocate. ‘So how long would I have to live here before I could do them?’ I asked.

  ‘Jakob?’ Rannu said. He had the sniper/shotgun combo in his hand. He unfolded the weapon and twisted the barrel, changing it from a smoothbore twelve gauge to a rifled twenty gauge. Turning it into a heavy-calibre marksman’s weapon. I was aware that the copter was beginning its landing approach. He slid the magazine with the caseless twenty-gauge rounds into the combination weapon.

  ‘You have to live here.’ Papa Neon emphasised the live. ‘We know the difference. Goodbye, my friend.’ He turned, heading for his pickup/hearse.

  The copter was now kicking up a lot of dirt. I reached into the car and slid the assault shotgun out of its scabbard. Mudge already had his AK-47.

  ‘Goodbye, dead man!’ Papa Neon shouted through the swirling dust.

  The copter was heavily armed. I could make out rotary railgun turrets pointed in our general direction.

  ‘Papa Neon! When the devil comes will you fight?’ Mudge shouted over the roar of the copter’s engines.

  I could hear Papa Neon’s deep laughter as the coffin closed and he sank into the back of the truck. Little Baby Neon was already in the cutaway passenger seat, and the vehicle made its way back towards the huge dust cloud that was Crawling Town. The cloud seemed to fill a lot of the horizon. I was sorry to see them go. It would have been nice to have someone as frightening as Little Baby Neon backing us up in a discussion with the inhabitants of the copter.

  The three of us spread out. Mudge to my left, Rannu to my right. Our weapons were at the ready, held horizontally against our bodies but not pointing at anything in particular. The dust cloud engulfed us as the aircraft landed. We all switched, I’m guessing, to thermal to look at the copter in the reds, yellows and oranges of its heat signature. This was significantly masked, which suggested it was set up for stealth to a degree.

  A door in the centre of the copter opened, stairs extending to the dirt. Three figures came out. We saw them as thermal outlines. They had weapons at their shoulders pointed at us.

  Rannu and I had our weapons to our shoulders covering them. We each picked the closest target. I’d been working with him long enough to know that was what he would do. Mudge was a fraction of a second behind us.

  ‘Drop your weapons!’ they shouted. They were American. We didn’t say anything; we just kept them covered.

  ‘Drop your weapons or we will shoot!’ The one in the middle was doing all the talking. Still we didn’t reply. We just watched for the tells that they were about to fire. Hoped that we were quicker. Worried about the copter’s weapon systems, which were the biggest threat by far.

  This sort of bollocks was typical of some paramilitary types. Had they landed and talked to us we would have talked back to them. Instead they’d probably read in some textbook somewhere the importance of establishing dominance in a power relationship so they could control the situation. The thing is, to us it wasn’t about a power relationship, it was about a threat. If we didn’t respond to having weapons pointed at us this time, then what happened the next time, when someone did actually want to do us harm? People like this never seemed to learn that they could get a lot further by behaving courteously. Would they get scared and back down or would they get scared and do something stupid?

  Okay I admit it, part of it was that we just didn’t like being strong-armed. If they were going to do that they should have brought a lot more people.

  ‘We have you covered! Lower your weapons!’ The vocal one shouted again.

  ‘Should we threaten them back?’ Mudge sub-vocalised ov
er the comms. ‘I can sound really macho and threatening when I want to.’ I failed to completely stifle a laugh. Rannu grinned. This didn’t help.

  ‘Put down your guns!’ He sounded shriller now. The dust was settling. The three of them looked almost identical. Boy Scout haircuts, dark glasses, anonymous dark suits, fancy European gauss carbines. They looked exactly like what they were: bad intelligence operatives. They may as well have worn a uniform. The question was: were they going to commit suicide today? The problem was that if they did it meant our imminent death at the hands of the copter’s heavy weapons.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’ Mudge sub-vocalised. He even managed to sound genuinely peeved. ‘I am threatening and intimidating.’

  I decided to throw them a bone.

  ‘Shut up, Mudge,’ I said out loud. ‘You want something from us?’ I called out. ‘Because if you do you’re not going about it very well.’

  ‘Drop your weapons. You are coming with us,’ the guy in the middle said. All three of them looked nervous. We didn’t.

  ‘I can’t think of any compelling reason to do that. Why don’t you take your guns off us and tell us what this is about?’

  ‘Put your guns down!’ he screamed.

  ‘His shrillness bothers me,’ Mudge said. Rannu remained quiet. I favoured Rannu’s approach more. I’d had enough.

  ‘Put your guns down,’ I said to Mudge and Rannu.

  ‘What?!’ Mudge demanded. I lowered my assault shotgun.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Rannu asked.

  ‘These guys are dicks. They’re also stupid. If we don’t, they’re going to force us to kill them.’

  ‘Put your guns down!’ He was sounding more masterful now. I think he thought he was winning. That this was somehow validation for being a dickhead.

  ‘Shut up!’ I shouted back at him. ‘I just can’t be bothered with it,’ I said to Mudge and Rannu. I also didn’t mention that the result of killing these idiots was death by rotary railgun. Both of them lowered their weapons.

  The three idiots rushed up screaming at us to drop our weapons and lie down. Mudge started laughing at them. Rannu seemed to have just the slightest look of contempt on his face, which was unusual for the passive ex-Ghurkha. I was just bemused.