Anatali: Ragnarok

by A. C. Edwards

  “So if I shot you now…“

  “I’d be rather upset, but ‘providence unites those who would survive the Ragnarok.’” Nicky rose off his haunches, his head about nine feet above the pavement. His wide shadow blanketed Jessica’s bench and her entourage. She bit her lip. It looked as if he could get another four feet out of his frame—no question who’d win that fight. “You don’t want to attack me, but you’ve only just met your Einherjar. I imagine your feline companion wasn’t met with open arms either, by the looks of it.”

  Jessica’s eye twitched. Kahn and Ayla were enjoying an exercise in butt sniffing, its purpose well-beyond her. She’d only accepted him because of Ayla, but if any other survivors were as crazed as Wade and his bunch—she’d had her hands full with two on one. Once again, ‘kill or run’ was a rule that she couldn’t quite grasp, even with robots.

  “Ayla’s all I have left; she’s the brains of my outfit. The cat’s name is Kahn. He’s either her pet or boyfriend.”

  “Oh.” Nicky seemed, for once, at a loss. “I did not expect any of that.”

  “Neither did I. Do you think he’s safe?”

  “You’d know his purpose better than I, Valkyrie. That’s your role as—”

  Echoed moans interrupted Nicky; a six-pack of corpses shambled far down towards Marsden. Jessica checked her rifle’s battery-life and ammo. She only had four hundred shots left, considering the charges in her jacket. The gun’s rotund bunny frowned beneath a red X, but Jessica tipped it back and fired an arcing shot. It splashed four blocks away, three-quarters of the distance.

  “How far’s a safehouse?” she said, looking to Ayla. Her friend appeared hot, tired, and bored.

  “About a mile. If you’ll accept a ride, we could be there in two minutes.”

  “We’ll walk, thanks.” Not that his offer wasn’t insurance if the locals got feisty.

  “The way you wield your spear, inviting combat might be a bad idea.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Jessica said. “I’ve only had it an hour.”

  Strength in numbers? How’d that fit in with, 'don’t trust anyone?' She accepted at some point she simply had to pick her poison.

  ~ 9 ~

  Firehouse

  November 29, 4124 — 3:09 PM

  “This place is Vigrond, the great plain where Ragnarok, the Fate of the Gods, is fought.”

  “That’s all Norse, right?” Jessica said. “I thought Nome was a Greek word.”

  “Nomoi means prefecture, any prefecture, hardly a poetic title for this setting.”

  She rolled her eyes, not caring if he noticed. “If you have to draw comparisons, why pick some fifteen-hundred-year-old play?”

  “Because my namesake’s masterpiece translates so well.” Nicky slowed to a halt. “We’ve arrived.”

  Thank God. The only thing more mind numbing than her night in smelly darkness was deciphering Nicky’s chatter.

  The firehouse was a two-story gumdrop of seamless, crimson steel. Windows were sparse, and with rounded edges at each flat wall, it was artistically void. Jessica could see a receiving ramp leading down to lower levels. The flat roof was a foundation for antenna, siren speakers, and a host of blinking red lights. A row of ritzy townhouses framed it on either side—a stark contrast of state-of-the-art and centuries-old.

  Jessica had read about the advanced buildings, but they only serviced corners of City Centre, not her neck of the trailer park. Like most things in Nome, the test structure’s output was overkill when compared to the limited area and population—or at least it had been. Currently, its doors were open, its garage empty save for a pair of large flat-panel shipping containers near the back. She didn’t see anyone: alive, dead, or automated.

  “If you call this Valhalla, I am going to shoot you,” Jessica said, looking from Nicky to Ayla. Her friend inspected the entrance with calm curiosity.

  “No, Valkyrie, Valhalla is but a state of mind in this conflict. Think of this as Heimdall’s Outpost, where he wakes the Aesir to action, to assemble at Vigrond.”

  “Great news.” Jessica approached the garage, rifle lowered from her shoulder. “Aesir are the good guys, right?”

  “There is no good or evil in Ragnarok,” Nicky matched her pace, “only those who survive, and those who fall—all fulfill their fate.”

  “Fuck you. My family’s dead. Fate’s a small consolation.” She paused, eyes narrowed on the hunk of scrap. “Talk to me about good and evil when someone you care about is trying to shred you.”

  “I’m sorry, Jessica. I care for this city as well. I know you can’t trust or believe how I feel, but I—”

  “Whatever, Nicky, what can we do here?”

  “Everything,” he said. “There’s a shelter below, communications equipment on the ground floor, and AG attachments on the roof.”

  Jessica stared at the blinking lights topside. Versatile bots such as Nicky could connect to various modules, such as an Anti-Gravity shell. In the past, the expensive devices had only been seen in photo-ops of cat rescues and hospital airlifts. But now, maybe, an airborne escape from Nome seemed plausible. Hope.

  Ca-thunk.

  Her rifle swiveled to the garage. The sound had been hollow, an echo. Ayla snapped to attention—watching Jessica, not searching for the bang. Kahn licked his dribbling clipper wound.

  “The hell. Ayla, didn’t you—”

  Ca-thunk.

  This time she pinpointed it, one of the metal shipping containers in the back—something inside. Nicky hadn’t moved from his spot behind her, which didn’t help her growing sense of paranoia. The container erupted in a percussion of bangs and clanks, all from within. That got Ayla’s attention, finally, but her ears were perked, rather than laid back.

  “Nicky…” She aimed from the hip at the FireBot, her rifle’s bunny leaping, obscuring the entire sight—a distance of two meters.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Yeah, right.” AI or not, he had the capacity to lie, especially at his level of sophistication. Even if he wasn’t involved, the truth was evident enough for anyone but Ayla to add two-and-two together. Why wasn’t she en guard?

  From over a neighboring townhouse, a pair of shadows darkened the roadside, stopping short of the firehouse and Jessica. Two slack-bellied FireBots hovered; their AG shells cupped the machines’ lower halves in glowing, flat-bottomed hemispheres. They descended to the street, each dangling a pair of thrashing corpses at their sides. The clamor inside the shipping containers doubled.

  Ayla yipped at Kahn, driving him back. Jessica backpedaled away from the garage doors, her sights set as the new arrivals touched down, floating inches above the pavement. They swiveled to Nicky and flashed blue staccatos from their visors.

  Nicky remained motionless, silent.

  “AFBMK7-103-0012, please facilitate transmissions immediately,” one said in monotone, his captives wrapped at the ankles, hips and heads. Gagged by the metal tentacles, lines of black drool arced in the midday wind.

  “Unable to execute. Engage secondary protocol.” Nicky’s own visor blinked in a slow, even pulse as his voice cut into a grating stream of beeps and grinds.

  “Unable to access AFBMK7 codex: retry.” The bot released his corpses’ heads and torsos for pendulum swings at the ankles. It reached for its axe and snaked an arm towards a nearby hydrant.

  Nicky again vocalized an ear-piercing series of clicks, this time at twice the volume. The other bot floated around their flank, arming itself as well. “Unable to access AFBMK7 codex: retry.” Its corpses wriggled, reaching towards their final restraints, hissing.

  “Communications error. Requesting conventional discussion.” Nicky had made no move towards Jessica’s team or his weapon. His tentacles were tightly furled at his shoulders.

  “Request granted. Restrain irradiated subjects immediately.”

  “Query: authority and operation?”

  “NCOD, Shannon. Plan DE008: detainment, reconnaissance, and execution. All AFBs directe
d to engage. Restrain irradiated subjects immediately. Subject: Female, disarm or face arrest and prosecution.”

  Jessica had been easily flanked, her bunny red-X’ed at every target. Ayla and Khan hugged her calves. She withdrew her clipper as an answer, aiming it at Nicky’s head, with her rifle pointed at the bot to her rear.

  “Unable to fucking comply.”

  Nicky unwound all six arms, splaying them as spokes. “Jessica. I’m sorry.”

  She squeezed both triggers as every arm blurred towards her. Ayla leapt to the front—far too tiny, a moment too late. The clipper round chipped Nicky’s visor as the other bot and his captives were set ablaze. A tentacle collided with her head, dropping her vision into darkness.

  Arc 2

  Trust

  ~ 10 ~

  Captive

  Unknown, 4124 — Unknown

  “If she’s Verdandi, the dog is Ehwaz, the cat is Hagalz, and you’re a nameless Einherjar, who’s that make us?”

  “You think you’ve earned a role?” Nicky’s voice.

  “We’re alive, aren’t we? Don’t think you can replicate a grand play without all the players,” said a male—a man—his tone light and jesting. “Hey, she’s coming around.”

  “Good. Fresh water.” The trickle out of Nicky’s arm was familiar, soothing.

  A wet cloth padded Jessica’s forehead and a stinging wound behind her ear. She opened her eyes to a dim blur of shapes and color. The ceiling was a flat expanse of gray, the face before her a backlit oval with short hair. Her hand twitched, absently combing through soft fur on either side: Ayla and—

  “Fuck me.” She jerked her hands to her face, squeezing her eyes against the fog.

  “Settle down, honey. You might need a minute,” the man said, “Nicky here gave you quite a smackdown by the looks of it.”

  “I used minimal force.” A haughty reply. She found his outline, settled low on his base at the far side of the chamber.

  Chiseled stone framed a broken window; the brass ivy running over it was coated in thick cobwebs. Light glowed from a lantern, its chemistry bathing the area in bright green. Large squares dominated the walls in a regular pattern, their inscriptions all but unreadable through dust. She lay slightly elevated on hard stone, a central block towards the back of the room, rather, the tomb. A pair of massive double doors were calked with foam at every seam.

  “Who’m I sleeping on?” she mumbled.

  “Samuel Banister.” The man wrung the cloth and wiped again. “The most action he’s seen in four hundred years.”

  “My regards.” Jessica struggled upright, brushing away his hands. Ayla’s nails tapped on the stone. “Why ain’t I dead?”

  “You can thank your friends,“ another male said, his tone more serious.

  Jessica finally shook away her own cobwebs and focused her vision on the new speaker, a guy dressed in slacks and a button up shirt. He looked like a younger, more athletic version of her caretaker; white, rosy cheeked, clean cut beyond the dirt smearing his face. He held her plasma rifle on his lap and gripped her clipper on his knee, half-pointed between her and Nicky. Her stick was propped against the wall next to his floor seat.

  Jessica balled her fists.

  “Now, now. Let’s get a few things straight,” her caretaker said. “I’m Trent. This is my brother, Calvin. You’re Jessica—”

  “Thanks for reminding me.” Held at gunpoint by another guy? Her luck could only carry her so far, even if Ayla and Kahn were there to back her up. She certainly couldn’t rely on Nicky. Who knew what the circumstances were. She was as easily their hostage even with his presence. At this point, she was happy her pants were still on.

  “Shut up and listen.” Trent stood, blocking out the lantern’s light. “We’re survivors, just like you, and we plan to stay that way. We still have a home in Anchorage, and we have girls there; we’re not interested in anything funny, so chill.”

  “You’re not my type,“ Calvin said, one eye on Kahn, the other on the clipper’s mechanics.

  “Fuck you.” Jessica looked to Nicky. “Feel like doing something?”

  “We have an understanding,” he retracted an arm, drips still falling from its end, “I wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise.”

  “Big relief.” Fully awake, she snatched the demin pant-leg away from Trent and nursed her wound. She didn’t doubt either brother’s ability to take what they wanted, and their words weren’t much assurance to the contrary. Jessica remembered Simon’s simple turnabout, her original lesson in trust. Ayla was easy enough to deceive by the living. She needed a gun.

  “You’re trying for The Spire, right?” Trent said.

  “I was, yeah.”

  “Want some company?”

  “What, you don’t have something better to do?” She turned on the charm with a simple smile. Trent returned it, though Calvin was still stone-faced on-the-ready.

  “We’ve run out of options.” Trent brushed off his bottom, looking out the window. “Like I said, we’re not from around here. We don’t know your town, how you got the guns, where to hide, where to escape to. The flare nuked my car—“

  “Flare?”

  “He confirmed my suspicions,” Nicky said, “though they weren’t enough to tell you at the time.”

  “Of course not.” Jessica shot the FireBot a glare. “So you understand what’s happened?”

  “We do. We were there.” Trent looked to his brother, an edge in his voice. “I guess it’s story time. We shouldn’t be traveling at night anyway, right, Nicky?”

  “She’s the one you should be asking.”

  “Day or night, it really doesn’t matter,” Jessica stood on wobbly legs. Chin tipped up, she strutted over to Calvin and reached for her stick, stretching her torso during the grab. “Ayla, Kahn, and Nicky can sense them a lot sooner than we can.”

  “Quite a team.” The younger brother stole a glance at her chest and midriff.

  That’s the spirit, boy.

  “You’re right, but if you know what happened, we’re not going anywhere until I hear it.” She plopped against a wall, patting her thigh with a nod to Ayla. Followed by Kahn, the furry duo settled down at her side. “Nicky, a drink.”

  The bot snaked his arm across the room, pouring a trickle into her mouth. The display seemed to work; Trent and Calvin shared raised eyebrows. The older brother cleared his throat.

  “Yesterday, noon. Did you see it?”

  “Been calling it the Black Wind. It knocked me out, destroyed my house…killed my family.” Jessica swallowed the emotion. “Killed everyone.”

  Trent nodded, lips set in a line. “I’m an Anatali lab coat. I was troubleshooting Nome’s DETH reactor on your outskirts. I had been all week. I brought Calvin into town for some job shadowing—university entrance reqs.

  “I don’t know why, but the reactor went critical.” He wouldn’t look Calvin in the eye. “There wasn’t time for analysis or containment. I couldn’t even make it to a workstation. Within thirty seconds, the building was gone and we woke up at the edge of the crater. I might be clueless about the flare and how we survived, but I understand everything that happened after: Nome’s Umbrella, the comm issues, the Dvoraks—”

  “Dvoraks?”

  “Dark-energy Variant Organic Reanimated Anomaly Kirghiz-class,” Nicky said.

  “The bodies,” Trent continued, “This isn’t the first time this happened, well, the dead walking and all.”

  “And here I thought it was the apocalypse. Silly me”

  “You’re kind of a bitch, aren’t you?” Calvin was lucky he had the guns.

  “On a normal day, no. How’s about I kill your brother and see if that sets your mood.”

  “Children…” Nicky said.

  “Shut the fuck up, robot.” She slammed a bare heel over the other and crossed her arms over her chest. “Get on with it, Trent.”

  He shook his head, thumb and forefinger firmly on the bridge of his nose. “You know about dark energy,
right—what fuels the DETH reactors?”

  “I kind of slept through that class.” It wasn’t a lie. “Free energy, right?”

  “The ultimate energy. It’s an undercurrent, like radio waves and gravity, everywhere but invisible. The stuff makes up most of the universe, but you’ll never see it, never feel it, except in moments like these.

  “Dark energy reactors condense it and transform it into a usable power source. There have been accidents in the past, but nothing like this has happened in two hundred years. The last time was a little hiccup in Nevada, before that, the big hiccup on Venus.”

  “Oh, the Jensen-Almay thingy.”

  “Thingy?” Trent paced, a professor giving a lecture. “When the reactor went critical, a unimaginable amount of condensed energy ripped through your town, not only nuking the outskirts, but irradiating all of Nome.”

  “Irradiated. That’s what the Mark Six at the firehouse…”

  “Correct,” Nicky said. “You’ve all been exposed to a lethal dose of dark energy radiation. The deceased retaining their mobility isn’t nearly as surprising as your survival. Even if you managed to withstand the flare, the ambient saturation should have killed most living organisms by now.”

  “Radiation—why Mom and Jacob were burnt and the ones in City Centre aren’t? White eyes and no eyes.”

  “Especially at ground zero, the fact we’re alive is so minute a possibility—it’s a miracle.” Trent smiled at Calvin. “We must have done something right in the last life.” His brother didn’t return the mirth.

  “So Kahn—Ayla?”

  “Case studies in the past prove heightened sensitivity among those irradiated, living or not,” Nicky said. “Animals are more intuitive by nature, but I wonder about that girl at your school.”

  Jessica’s brain hurt. Too much to take in. “So, you were there, but you weren’t responsible?”