The Beauty of Destruction

by Gavin G. Smith

  ‘So our last act is just to try and kill everyone? Stop anyone from getting off this yeast infection of a planet?’ Alexia asked. She was scratching at her skin.

  Beth could see the pollen-like Seeder spores in the air. She was pretty sure that she was only able to do this because of her augments.

  ‘Even in the highly unlikely chance it works …’

  ‘Evacuation was what the Circle was geared up to do,’ du Bois pointed out.

  ‘Before the Seeders woke up, but if by some miracle this does work, all you do is give that fucker a much larger playground.’

  ‘What is “hope” for you, then?’ Beth asked.

  ‘The slight chance I can survive being reasonably close to a tactical nuclear explosion, and then I go looking for the Brass City.’

  Du Bois opened his mouth to retort.

  Beth held up her hand. ‘Okay, we’re going in to talk to them. You cover us. When you’ve had enough then you pull the trigger,’ Beth told her. Grace stared at her. Du Bois opened his mouth again. ‘No. She’s got a point.’ She cut him off and then turned to Grace. ‘You get to decide.’

  Of course it might not matter. The deal could have already been struck. Mr Brown and the DAYP could already be on their way, though if the nuke had gone off they would have seen it. It had started to rain. The rain was gritty, unpleasant, and tasted of salt. They had risked the motorway, freeway, Beth corrected herself. It was the fastest route. Du Bois was driving now. With the CROWS turret out of action there was no requirement for gunners. He was using the weight of the vehicle, and its superior armour, to barrel through other vehicles and roadblocks. She convinced herself that the bullets hitting the armour sounded like the rain.

  As they came over the Vincent Thomas Bridge, being pursued by an armoured tow truck with a snowplough attached to the front, Beth could almost convince herself things were normal. The Port of Los Angeles, and the Port of Long Beach, looked reasonably untouched. Except for the root-like tendrils that had grown up the bridge’s suspension towers. Their dark mottled flesh had burst where they had released their spores. Except for the two container ships and the oil tanker that had been partially dragged by the tendrils down into the water, a black puddle spreading outwards from the tanker. Except for the smoke rising from the Federal Correctional Institution out on one of the artificial islands, bodies hanging from its walls. Even if the inmates had weathered the initial electronic attack through the communications network they would have succumbed to the spores by now. Except the helicopters in the air over Long Beach, and further south, Huntington and Laguna Beach, much of it burning as the Marines from Camp Pendleton slowly ‘took back’ the city. The shape of the helicopters looked wrong somehow.

  They had caught a glimpse of the submarine from the bridge. It was docked on the north side of the farthest, boot-shaped, artificial island in the Port of Los Angeles. A modified Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast-attack boat.

  They had come off the freeway and headed down Navy Way next to the train lines and onto the artificial island. It was a bumpy ride where the tendrils had grown through the road and taken root in the concrete of the actual island itself. They could see the overgrown cranes, places where the stacked containers had fallen over.

  They drove past the entrance to the container yard and pulled up. Grace climbed out of the back. She had swapped weapons with Beth. She was carrying the Model 0 LMG and the last of the belted ammunition. Beth, in turn, was carrying the punk girl’s N6 carbine, magazines for the weapon, and the remaining grenades for the grenade launcher. Grace also had du Bois’s Purdey. It had looked like it had been a wrench for him to hand the weapon over until his sister had snapped at him, pointing out that it was only a gun. The punk girl had four of the 7.62mm nanite-tipped bullets for the sniper rifle.

  ‘How long?’ du Bois asked. Beth was pretty sure that Mr Brown knew they were there. There was only one road onto this part of the port. His erstwhile employer would be a fool not to have Navy Way under observation.

  ‘Half an hour,’ Grace said. Du Bois was already shaking his head. Half an hour wasn’t a long time to effect a stealth infiltration. ‘Fifteen minutes.’ Then she turned and ran into the rain towards the stacks of containers.

  ‘This is fucking stupid,’ Alexia muttered. Beth wasn’t sure that she disagreed.

  ‘If we can get out, if we can do something here, then I want you with me,’ du Bois said. ‘But you’re right. This will probably end badly. If you want to go, go.’ Alexia didn’t say anything. Instead she reached over and hugged her brother.

  It had seemed like a very long fifteen minutes, then they had started towards the submarine’s berth. They had not got very far before they had started taking fire. Most of the incoming fire was from small arms and machine guns. Alexia jumped and swore when first a fifty calibre round, and then a 40mm grenade, exploded against the armour, rocking the heavy vehicle. A rocket exploded nearby, another in the air, but the larger weapons never seemed to hit them. Beth assumed that this was because Grace was doing her job of providing sniper cover, taking out the heavier weapons that could actually damage the Cougar. Through the rain and gunfire she caught glimpses of their attackers. They were clearly military trained, but their uniforms looked wrong. They were dressed like somebody’s idea of post-apocalyptic pirates. She guessed that the surviving members of the DAYP had customised some of the Marines from Camp Pendleton to fit in with their new environment when they had slaved them. It smacked of the DAYP’s video game reality. The white sheet they were hanging off the armoured 6×6 truck as a white flag had to be in tatters now.

  In the headlights of the Cougar, Beth could make out figures standing by the submarine’s boarding ramp, her eyes cutting through the rain and general gloom of the day. She saw a gunman take cover behind an armoured Mustang muscle car. The woman with the silver mask – du Bois and Grace had referred to her as the Pennangalan – and Mr Brown, leaning on a staff with drips hanging from it, were both there. Mr Brown’s hand shaded his eyes as he peered into the truck’s headlights. Du Bois drove steadily and slowly towards the obsidian figure of his old boss. Beth was now sure there were two figures hiding behind the Mustang, both dressed in ridiculous post-apocalyptic outfits she suspected that they had seen in a film, or in a computer game.

  Du Bois stopped as close as he dared get to Mr Brown, parking the Cougar next to a stack of cargo containers, and waited. Bullets rained down on their armour. If they hadn’t been able to filter out most of the noise it would have been deafening. Suddenly Beth started laughing. Du Bois and Alexia turned around to look at her as if she was mad.

  ‘I think you’ve both been doing this too long,’ she told them. Mr Brown looked like he was having a shouted conversation with one of the figures behind the muscle car. The figure stood up and waved his hands around, apparently to illustrate his point. He had a large and heavy-looking rucksack on his back.

  ‘That’s the nuke, isn’t it?’ Alexia said as the gunfire stopped. Du Bois just nodded. Without the gunfire they could make out the four figures in front of them better. King Jeremy, aka Weldon Rush, and Dracimus, aka Torsten Elling. Both of them looked like Aryan high school jocks at a Mad Max fancy dress party. Dracimus was aiming an AR-10, modified to fire enormous .50 calibre Beowulf rounds, at their truck. King Jeremy had a .50 calibre Desert Eagle in his right hand. She had to magnify her vision to work out what he was holding in his left hand. A dead man’s switch, presumably attached to the nuke in his backpack. Du Bois had called it correctly. Anything happened to King Jeremy and his thumb came off the button, then everyone died. It seemed that the Do As You Please clan had found something that actually threatened Mr Brown. Beth looked down at King Jeremy’s face. The insanity was written all over it, it was in his cold green eyes, and she suspected that at this moment it stemmed from fear as much as anything else. She knew that Grace would be looking through a scope at King Jeremy right now. At any moment she expected a bullet to hit the DAYP clan leader, and then t
here would be a very bright light, and she would cease to exist, but nothing happened. Strangely, she didn’t feel frightened. More resigned. She almost wished it was over because this, all of this, she could almost understand. If their plan worked then she knew that she would have no frame of reference for whatever happened next.

  Du Bois looked over at her, then his sister. She nodded, as did Alexia. Beth drew and checked her OHWS, du Bois did the same with his .45. They opened the doors and jumped out into light, raised weapons, and shouting. Lots of shouting. The air was thick with nanites. The Seeder spores were in conflict with what Beth could only imagine was some kind of industrial-strength blood-screen. She suspected that Mr Brown must have some kind of S- or L-tech nanite factory nearby, protecting the area from the Seeder spores.

  Beth had her pistol levelled at King Jeremy, and nothing would have given her more pleasure than to squeeze the trigger. Du Bois’s weapon was aimed at Dracimus. Alexia’s ARX-170 was aimed at the Pennangalan, for all the good it would do. Dracimus, despite, presumably, being extensively augmented himself, looked terrified. The Beowulf rifle was steady, however, as it was aimed back at du Bois. The silver-masked woman had her weapon up and was aiming it at Beth. King Jeremy had raised his pistol. He looked more tense than frightened right now. Marines in post-apocalyptic pirate chic also surrounded them. Everyone was shouting at them to put their guns down, except for Mr Brown and the Pennangalan. The three of them waited, expecting to be cut down in a hail of gunfire. Expecting to see King Jeremy die and his thumb slip off the dead man’s switch. Nothing happened. Nobody shot. Eventually Mr Brown motioned for everyone to be quiet.

  ‘Malcolm, a surprise, but a pleasure,’ he said when there was finally quiet. Beth had to will herself not to get turned on by his deep voice.

  ‘The Marines are your people?’ Malcolm asked King Jeremy, ignoring Mr Brown.

  ‘Go and fuck yourself,’ King Jeremy snapped. ‘Kill this motherfucker!’ he ordered a slightly pained-looking Mr Brown.

  ‘Weldon,’ Mr Brown said. ‘You need to order your people not to shoot.’

  ‘What? Why?’ King Jeremy demanded. It was the voice of a spoilt child. He was already grating on Beth. Her finger curled round the trigger of her pistol, she remembered the manticore, and she almost fired.

  ‘Because I understand what is happening, but you will require a demonstration.’

  ‘Or,’ King Jeremy started as if he was talking to a particularly stupid child, ‘we kill him and get on with our day.’

  ‘Do you want to live?’ du Bois asked the sociopathic man-child. King Jeremy held up the dead man’s switch and smiled.

  ‘You’re too fucking stupid to know what this is, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ Alexia muttered. ‘I thought he was supposed to be some kind of prodigy.’

  ‘Apparently not when it comes to reading people,’ Mr Brown muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. ‘Calculate what they have to lose,’ he told King Jeremy, sounding pained. ‘Then perhaps we can “get on with our day”.’

  ‘You’ll be fine, nobody’s going to hurt you,’ du Bois told King Jeremy.

  ‘Okay, nobody shoot,’ King Jeremy said.

  ‘No matter what happens,’ du Bois added. King Jeremy repeated him. Du Bois shot Dracimus twice in the face. Dracimus staggered back, the nanite-tipped rounds already eating away at the inside of his head. Du Bois shifted his aim to King Jeremy as Dracimus collapsed to the ground, his head now looking like a half-eaten bowl. There was more shouting and threats. The three of them waited patiently, as did Mr Brown, until it all died down.

  ‘Now you’re thinking that maybe you can get us in a rush, before we fire?’ du Bois said, and then raised his left hand. Another shot rang out from a distance and the Pennangalan staggered back and then sat down. She was up on one knee, the Sig 716 carbine at the ready, in a moment. ‘The next round is nanite-tipped and goes in Weldon’s head, understand?’ Du Bois shouted.

  ‘I’m going to fucking kill you!’ King Jeremy spat.

  ‘So you have suborned Grace,’ Mr Brown mused. ‘If she believes you then she must be very angry with me. I’m surprised she hasn’t already killed Mr Rush.’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’ the already on-edge King Jeremy snapped. Beth was half starting to think that in his anger he would forget to keep the dead man’s switch’s button depressed. Mr Brown had a point, though. It seemed that Grace was playing along with their plan.

  ‘Would the nuke kill you?’ du Bois asked.

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ Mr Brown said after a moment’s consideration. ‘It’s enough of a doubt that I am willing to consider partners, although there was always a place for you, Malcolm.’

  ‘This is how it works,’ du Bois said through gritted teeth. ‘King Jeremy drops his gun and stays with us at all times. We go into the sub. I’m in front. Beth is behind. He is always covered. I even suspect something is happening, conventional or your magic bullshit, we kill him and everyone dies.’

  Mr Brown had looked even more pained at the mention of magic. ‘You must want to live a great deal. Tell me, will Miss Soggins be joining us?’ Nobody answered.

  ‘You’re not serious?’ King Jeremy demanded.

  ‘Shut up, Weldon,’ Mr Brown told the sociopath, and then turned to du Bois, Beth and Alexia: ‘Well then, you’d better come on board, I suppose.’

  39

  A Long Time After the Loss

  It had been the longest journey that the Monk had ever experienced in Red Space, and it had happened far from the Church beacons. To the Monk’s mind they might as well have been lost among the blood-coloured clouds of the supposedly coterminous universe. More than thirty standard days, with the ship acting more and more strangely each day. They had neunonically cut their connections to the Basilisk II. They couldn’t take the risk of the Yig virus suborning their neunonics, and meat-hacking them. The Basilisk II was seemingly flying itself. They had resorted to voice commands to communicate with the ship. It responded to them sluggishly, if at all. The Monk had half expected the craft to take on more serpentine qualities, perhaps influenced by Scab’s tale of the bridge drive ghost being infected by the Yig virus, but that hadn’t happened. Instead there had been a subtle change in the interior design, and in the texture of furnishings, as if the ship had reconfigured itself to cause a constant feeling of unease. She was pleased that as far as she could tell it hadn’t corrupted the food supplies, yet.

  They hadn’t summoned Basil since the Yig virus had infected the bridge drive’s navigation biocomputer. The biocomputer was S-tech, it was an isolated system, it shouldn’t have been possible to hack but then Naga-tech was also derived from S-tech, and had been given more of an opportunity to evolve. As good as the security was on the heavily modified yacht, the ship’s AI wouldn’t have stood a chance. Nobody had seen Basil since, although Talia swore blind that she had seen a hunched figure creeping around the corridor by the bedrooms.

  They couldn’t even immerse. That was the worst thing. Maude and Uday were either gone, or horribly corrupted by Yig. The Monk had been able to lock away the loss of the Cathedral while they were careening from one disaster to the next. Now she had all the time she needed to think about it. She had books, movies, music contained in her internal liquidware, accessible through her neunonics, much of it from before the Loss. She had spent a lot of time lying on her now tactilely unpleasant bed, clutching her legs to her chest, listening to sad music, or watching old films in her mind’s eye without time compression, despite having perfect recall of them, wishing she could cry. She was trying to process her emotions, but using drugs to moderate her moods so she could function. All the while expecting the ship to turn on them, or to learn that they were forever lost in Red Space at any moment.

  Their hope mostly lay with Ludwig. The L-tech automaton Elite was monitoring the ship as best it could. It had been quite open in admitting that in doing so it had caught the Yig virus. Li
ke Oz, Ludwig was trying to fight the virus off, and seemed in control of himself, which was fortunate, as after the bridge ghost had been infected with Yig, Scab had suffered a psychotic break. The human killer was in a permanent fury. Ludwig had to restrain him. This loss of control only made Scab worse. The Monk felt like she was back in prison and banged up with a real psycho.

  The Monk hoped the infected Basilisk II was going to the Ubh Blaosc, and she hoped there were answers there. If not, it had been a long hard road for nothing. After thirty days she wondered what was happening in Real Space. Had the rest of the Church been hunted down? With the Monarchist systems down to one Elite now, had the war begun? Or was it already over? What was Patron doing?

  She felt the changes in the ship. She had become attuned to it during the long voyage. The main systems were powering down, so it could bleed off heat and limit its EM signature. It was reconfiguring to make it more difficult to detect. Then she was aware of the slight change in the atmosphere, the background noise, as the bridge drive was activated. The Monk stopped the music in her head, rolled off her bed and onto her feet.

  ‘Door.’ Nothing happened. ‘Door! Please.’ The door opened. Talia was walking by, Vic trailing after her. The hard-tech augmented ’sect had spent all of the voyage either with Talia, or in a semi-hibernated state. It seemed that he was not able to cope with boredom very well without access to immersions. He turned to look at her as they passed. She suppressed a shiver. She had never been able to cope well with the inhuman movements of ’sects. It was like their heads were mounted on swivels.

  The lounge/C&C was bathed in red light, the smart matter hull completely transparent. Ahead of them she could see the blue rip of a bridge point and beyond that Real Space. She tried to feel relief but there was still too much unknown, though she was hoping for an advanced but benevolent race that would help them. She wasn’t sure what was wrong, but the ship’s flight felt off somehow.