War in Heaven

by Gavin G. Smith

  Pagan lifted his hands to the night sky. Unusually for him, no lightning accompanied the gesture, but the wind picked up and rocked me back on my heels. It blew the flames of the bonfire around and whipped Pagan’s hair and beard about as he shouted into the wind. I hoped it was Pagan who was responsible for the wind and not Nuada.

  ‘I turn towards north, towards Findias, the shining silver fort, the fort of the mighty, the fort of the moon, the fort of spirits and bravery. Home to Nuada of the Silver Hand, first king of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, Lord of Victories, Lord of Conflicts, he who has power over force and strength.’

  Go on, Pagan, I thought. See if you can get your nose all the way up there. He was really going for it now as the wind tore all around us.

  ‘Whose is the sword that none can run from, the sword that seeks flesh, the sword that cuts stone and metal,’ Pagan continued.

  These old gods liked to hear how cool they were. I heard the cry of a bird of prey and looked into the night sky. I could just about make it out, a shadowed form against the dark blue of night. A night-hunting eagle was very unusual. The wind intensified and we were all being battered by it. I didn’t think this was Pagan’s special effects now.

  ‘Lord of Battles, Lord of Hosts, we beseech you attend us this night!’ Pagan screamed at the night sky.

  We beseech you attend us this night? The arse-lickery was of course accompanied by some very complex code.

  The wind seemed to blow out and then return to its earlier pre-ritual levels.

  ‘Well that was nice,’ I said.

  All three of the hackers turned to glare at me.

  ‘The wind wasn’t mine,’ Pagan said as all three of them turned their back on the Luddite. ‘Neither was the eagle.’

  ‘Something definitely happened.’ Morag’s voice sounded like gravel being ground together. Tailgunner was nodding. I was trying to get closer to the fake heat of the fire.

  ‘It was a powerful ancestor to try and summon,’ Tailgunner said. I think he was trying to console Pagan.

  ‘Er, guys, is that supposed to be happening?’ I asked. In front of each of the severed-head-topped wooden poles, a ghostly figure was standing. They looked like the battered and bleeding owners of the original skulls. Some of them fitted with the surroundings, the cartoon cow less so.

  ‘The ghost fence,’ Pagan said.

  ‘There’s something in the fire,’ Tailgunner warned.

  A figure seemed to gather the fire into itself. He looked like flame beneath taut-muscled black skin, the flame shining through complex spiral patterns, his mouth and his eyes. He reached into the moonlight and his hands came back full, holding the hilt of a moon-bladed sword. He wasn’t quite the same being I’d seen when Morag had taken me into Their mind. This time he looked angry, but the silver arm was there. Actually, ‘angry’ didn’t really cover what he looked like. Even ‘furious’ wasn’t adequate. Heat radiated from him, causing all of us to step back.

  He swept his hand forward. The ghosts in the fence distorted and screamed like tortured souls but the fence did not break. Nuada seemed to be fighting to control himself. Taking long gasping breaths of smoke and fire.

  ‘You know I will break this and you are all forfeit,’ he finally said. Flames flickered over a mouth full of obsidian canines as he spoke. His voice was a bass rumble that sounded like it began somewhere south of hell.

  ‘Yeah, the question is, can you break it before I plug Rannu into the system? He has a fragment of Demiurge in him,’ I said.

  Nuada reared up. Smoke and flame swirled and spiralled around him. To his credit he didn’t bother with the whole you-wouldn’t-dare speech. I could feel the power pouring off him even through the ghost fence. Whatever they were, they were not subtle in this electronic world. I had no doubts that given the chance my so-called patron would leave me a smoking corpse. He was communicating this with literally burning eyes. He didn’t need to bother with the threats. That said, the mention of Demiurge had a physiological effect on him: the name had seemed to ripple through flame, smoke and flesh. Was that what passed for fear with him?

  ‘What do you want?’ he finally rumbled.

  ‘I want you to free Rannu. Exorcise Demiurge or whatever you do; just bring my friend back.’

  ‘And if it’s not possible?’

  ‘Then whatever it was that’s in here –’ I tapped my head ‘– is lost when we plug Rannu into this system anyway.’

  ‘Your people have as much to lose as the Tuatha de Danaan if that happens,’ he told me. I glanced at Morag.

  ‘I’ve been told I’m a very selfish person, but you can do this, can’t you? It’s not a problem for you. You just don’t want to because it’s all one-sided with you guys. You want us to jump through hoops and then worship you for it, right?’

  ‘Do not speak to me like that. There is a threat … The Adversary is a corruption, a disease—’

  ‘Aren’t you the Lord of Hosts? The Lord of Battles? I’m smelling a lot of fear here.’

  He narrowed his eyes at me. I held his stare. The worrying thing was, this guy struck me as the sort who held grudges. In the unlikely event that I lived, I suspected I needed to stay out of the net for the rest of my life. Perhaps it would be better to just avoid all electronics.

  ‘You are a fool, Jakob Douglas,’ he said, flames licking at his lips. ‘But you are not a coward. This is for nothing anyway. Your friend will likely die.’

  ‘Rannu’s tough,’ I said.

  Nuada spared Pagan a look. Letting him know that he was as unhappy with the architect of his summoning and trapping as he was with me. Pagan looked away from him, refusing to meet his burning eyes.

  ‘Now, Salem,’ I said. On the quiet, Tailgunner and Morag set subtle and stealthy diagnostic and analytical programs running.

  It was like a rent in the sky, a smoking black fissure, as Salem connected the solid-state memory cube with the copy of Dinas Emrys in it to one of Rannu’s plugs. Nuada held his huge sword up into the beam of light from the moon. The sword acted like a prism of silver fire. It was bright, so bright, like ground zero, like Balor lifting his patch. We all became silhouettes just before the dark of blindness. The last thing I saw was silver fire, then nothing. All I could hear was Rannu, not the beast inside him, but Rannu. He was screaming in agony.

  Burning. Bright light but not as bright, almost a relief after where I’d come from. The plug in the back of my neck was cooking the flesh surrounding it. I saw smoke drifting up past me. The rock felt cool beneath me. I was lying on the stone floor looking up at the ceiling of the small cave Rannu was in. Even in the sulphurous atmosphere it stank of bodily fluids, stale sweat and a body turning rancid and rotten.

  But Rannu wasn’t screaming. I could hear other people shouting. I sat up. Morag was gripping the back of her neck, smoke drifting through her fingers. Tailgunner and Pagan were sitting up as well. The solid-state memory cube that had contained the copy of Dinas Emrys had melted and was letting off acrid black smoke.

  On the cot I could see Rannu’s emaciated, ravaged body. His corpse. He was clearly dead. Merle and Cat were trying to change that. Smoke was pouring from all four of Rannu’s plugs.

  I staggered to my feet still holding my neck and watched Cat ram a stim straight into Rannu’s heart. Merle then shocked him again and again. It looked merciless to my eyes. Rannu would live. He had to. This couldn’t have been for nothing. I couldn’t have put us all at risk for no reason. Besides, he was a tough bastard.

  Rannu spasmed, his back arched and he threw himself around in his cot. I sank to my knees.

  ‘His heart’s beating,’ Cat said, sounding relieved.

  ‘He’s breathing,’ Merle said, matter of fact.

  I felt someone hugging me. I looked down to see Morag. She looked up at me, so happy, and then like night falling she remembered what I’d done to her and pushed away. Even that didn’t affect how happy I was to see Rannu back. I turned around to see Mudge leaning against the cave mouth
smoking a spliff and grinning.

  20

  New Utu Pa

  I think the Kiwis’ home-brewed beer wouldn’t have seemed so bad if the entire world hadn’t tasted of rotten eggs. I’d bartered for the beer using some of the gear we’d got from one of Merle’s caches. Merle had revealed the whereabouts of another cache with ill grace. I’d pointed that it was his own fault that the first one had been compromised. I’d managed to score a laser pistol at the cache but I was still light on weapons. I had no chance of replacing my Mastodon or shoulder laser out here and nobody had an assault shotgun they were willing to give up. I was quite tempted to nick Merle’s Void Eagle but it would have just caused more trouble.

  They’d cleaned Rannu up – he hadn’t been strong enough to do it for himself – and then moved him into the cave where I’d been imprisoned. It smelled a lot fresher. Even on this world. When I walked in Rannu was doing press-ups. The stylised biomechanical Kali tattoo on his back seemed to dance with the movement of his muscles.

  Rannu looked up and then sat down on his cot. We’d spent quite a long time checking him out, making sure that the scary thing that Nuada had done had completely burned Demiurge out of him. As far as we could tell it had.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

  ‘Tired, wrung out, very angry.’

  I nodded and offered him a beer. He seemed about to refuse but changed his mind and accepted it.

  ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘I remember us escaping. I remember attacking the last pa thinking we were attacking Rolleston and his people. I remember being shown the truth …’ He faltered. ‘Then feeling like I was drowning in filth. The next thing I know I’m being resuscitated.’

  His wrists and ankles all had open wounds from the manacles. His body was a patchwork of self-inflicted cuts and lesions, some of which had manifested spontaneously. Pagan had said this was the result of a particularly convincing and potent, self-inflicted biofeedback attack.

  ‘You’ve not left the cave much,’ I said.

  Rannu didn’t look up. ‘We did some damage,’ he said. ‘Not just what we did, the things we said.’

  ‘It wasn’t us, you know that.’

  If I could just convince myself of that then I might have a chance of convincing other people.

  ‘That’s not what they’re going to see, is it?’

  ‘Well, they’re just going to have to fucking live with it, aren’t they?’

  Now Rannu looked up at me. ‘So are we.’

  ‘Frankly, I think that’s the least of our problems. You need out? You’ve been through the wringer.’

  ‘How could you even ask that?’ he demanded angrily.

  We lapsed into silence, sipping our beers.

  ‘How come Morag hasn’t been to see me?’ he finally asked.

  I thought about how to answer this. I didn’t think he wanted to hear that it was guilt over having written him off. She had been right: it had been a very risky proposition indeed. It only looked good now, seemed to be the right thing to have done, because it had paid off. It could have just as easily fucked everything up. She could explain it to him.

  ‘They got some stuff from when Nuada or whatever the fuck that thing was burned Demiurge out of you. They also found some stuff in my head. They think they may have a way to hack Demiurge without it noticing. She’s been pretty busy, man. Why don’t you go and see her? You’ve got to get to used to angry Maoris staring at you because you killed their friends.’

  He laughed but it was pretty humourless.

  I stayed and bullshitted for a while. It didn’t take long to run out of things to say. There was too much mutual guilt floating around in that cave. I made my excuses and left. Not that I had much to do except try and get back to a reasonable degree of fitness and wait for the hackers to let us know what they’d found.

  ‘That was touching.’ Morag was leaning against the rock wall outside Rannu’s cave.

  I turned on her. ‘Okay. I’ve got it. You’re angry at me, you hate me, but don’t take it out on him. Don’t tell him what you said, just deal with your own fucking guilt and go and see him,’ I told her quietly. I didn’t want Rannu to hear.

  ‘Pagan wants to see everyone.’

  ‘Fine. We talk in there with Rannu.’

  She shook her head. ‘Dinas Emrys.’

  ‘Fucking whatever, but he can bring his staff here. I’ll tell the others. Why don’t you go in and see him?’

  She glared at me but turned towards Rannu’s cave. I grabbed her by the arm.

  ‘When are we going to talk?’

  ‘Don’t fucking touch me!’ It was loud enough that heads turned in our direction.

  ‘Morag? You okay?’ Rannu asked from inside the cave. Morag shook me off.

  ‘Your touch fucking sickens me.’

  Rannu was at the cave mouth. ‘You okay?’

  She turned and hugged him, hiding her face from me. I walked off. The selfish arsehole part of me told me that her hugging Rannu had been for my benefit. I looked up to see Little Henry and Strange watching me intently. Little Henry had been avoiding me since I’d killed his whanau brother; now he was walking towards me. Strange remained still and just stared at me.

  ‘Pagan wants to see us all in Rannu’s room,’ I said when he was close enough.

  ‘The last of the supplies from the heist are in,’ he told me, ignoring what I’d said. The short guy with the bowler hat had been the warmest and most approachable of the whanau; now there was no trace of his previous warmth or friendliness.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Surely you guys are handling the distribution?’

  ‘It wasn’t food or ammo. Mother said you should see this.’

  ‘Can’t you just tell me?’ I asked, looking at him and then Strange suspiciously.

  ‘Trust me. You’ll want to see this.’

  I was reasonably sure I could handle Big Henry and Strange if it got nasty. They led me out of the pa, through tunnels and into a cave used as a garage because it connected to some of the larger tunnels used as a road system. Ground lights illuminated the battered civilian cargo lorry.

  The modular cargo container on the back of the truck was freshly painted and I suspected it had come off the back of one of the vehicles we’d hijacked. Big Henry went to the back of the container and opened the double doors. Glancing at him and Strange, I moved around and looked in.

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘We thought you’d want to see,’ Big Henry said coldly. Strange was swaying back and forth as if in anticipation.

  Up close they looked less like biotech and more like human technology made from metal and composite. The exo-armour, however, reminded me of large metal Berserks made symmetrical. The tips of tentacles protruded from their backs on either side of the flight systems. I suspected they were made of some nanotube-like material. They looked sleek, predatory and violent. There was a hint of alien about them, but in a human battle line they could pass as human tech, though I suspect they would give veterans pause because of their resemblance to Them. They were fully armed and spare ammunition was secured in a cargo net at the back of the container. There were eight of the suits of armour.

  ‘They were in the last truck. Soloso has no use for them and they would just give him away if they were found,’ Big Henry told me. I had visions of using them to infiltrate the Citadel. ‘Go ahead, have a look.’

  I turned to look at Big Henry in the cave’s shadowed half-light.

  ‘I hope you’re not fucking around,’ I told him.

  ‘Look, I know who’s to blame. That doesn’t mean I have to like looking at you. Besides, what are we going to do? Lock you in the container? A bit fucking childish and I’m pretty sure a man of your initiative and training could break out of there.’

  I watched him for a while trying to work out what was happening here. Strange was just looking between the two of us, still swaying and breathing funny. Like she was aroused. Idiot curiosity got the better of me an
d I climbed up into the container.

  ‘How’d you open it up?’ I asked as I examined the first suit, the one closest to the door.

  ‘We don’t know; nobody’s been able to do it yet,’ Big Henry told me. I touched the centre chest plate. The armour split and then slid apart leaving strands of a thick viscous lubricant that looked like a bodily fluid strung between the two panels.

  ‘Oh.’ Big Henry sounded genuinely surprised.

  Inside it looked like black meat, a Themtech version of human innards. I made a disgusted noise. It was obvious that a human was supposed to climb in there and join with the armour. It was also obvious that the armour was alive.

  ‘Demiurge?’ I asked.

  Big Henry shrugged. Not an encouraging response.

  ‘There are no transmissions and no locators that we can tell,’ he said.

  ‘Worth getting Pagan or Tailgunner to check that out again,’ I said and turned around to jump out of the rear of the container.

  The sickle fish-hooked me in mid-air. I tasted metal in my mouth and then my momentum tore the side of my mouth open, pulling my head back. I landed painfully on my back on the stone, my mouth full of blood. Big Henry was on me, his face a mask of bestial anger as he raised a club above his head. I kicked up from the ground catching him in the face, sending him flying out of my view.

  A massive hand grabbed me by the front of my inertial armour and lifted me easily to my feet. I found myself face to face with Soloso in his finery of rags. It was a hit. They’d called in external help. I didn’t need this. Except Soloso looked furious. One-handed he threw me across the cave, slamming me painfully into the wall.

  I didn’t even have time to slide to the ground before Strange was on me, slashing at me with her curved blades. I nutted her with every bit of strength I could muster. She staggered back as her nose exploded.

  Fuck this. The three of them were closing on me. I extended my blades, though the ones on my right hand were still much shorter than those on my left.

  ‘I’m going to kill all three of you,’ I told them. Or that was what I meant to tell them. It was actually more a case of me gargling and spitting out blood as I failed to talk. My newly bisected cheek flapped around. It really hurt.