Jessica rolled her eyes. At a glance, she caught Sig doing the same.
“So what can you do?” the boy said, hopping off Holly. Again, the bots conversed in dance-club strobes.
Dillon tipped his head down for the briefest instant before raising his chin. “I can hear them.”
“Right, real useful…and you, Miss Hero?”
“Everything I need to.” Ayla and Kahn had returned to her side. She checked her rifle, seeing Bunny wearing over-sized sunglasses, sprawled out on an invisible chaise lounge, the battery warning blinking. Nicky’s butt-box flipped open, though he didn’t turn from the conversation with Spangler. “Nothing more. Nothing less. We do it together.”
~ 46 ~
Sixteen
November 31, 4124 — 8:10 PM
“Sixteen hours!” Jessica said, unsure whether to panic or cheer.
Spangler used a stinky solvent to swab Dani’s helmet and visor. “Yeah. At noon tomorrow, federal marshal law says bye-bye.”
“Four days total…if they allow us tomorrow.”
“They won’t,” Holly said. “Before control lapses back to Anatali, they will make sure to have completed their objectives, one way or another. We have tonight to rest.”
“Why a whole night? Shouldn’t they just wipe us out now? I mean, they’ve known about the timing longer than Shannon—hey, is he ok?”
“Granddad’s taking a nap.” Spangler’s motions could have just been careful, but from his tone and her days spent with the bots—they had a certain body language that went along with their sophisticated emotions. Dani hadn’t been out of arms length since he arrived; his attention looked tender. “They got him on death’s doorstep for sure, minimal power, nifty locks. Took about all he had left just to upload his current incarnation inside.”
“Lord Odin will be fine. Now it seems, you saw to that by disrupting Lord Loki before she subverted all instances.”
Jessica laughed, “I’d say I broke your Ragnarok, but a thousand deaths versus one ghost, right? And I’m happy he’s still around, but we got our own asses on the line. Again. As always. So why aren’t they attacking?”
“The Umbrella’s shedding has neutralized many of their optical and thermal sensors.” Dani sounded a bit more cheery with her jargon than normal. “Considering our strengths, it would do them no good to rush their final assault when morning light will do. Also, the hyper-irradiants we encountered may have damaged their mobile dampener, though unlikely.”
“What was that cube-thingy?”
“From your description, Shrine would be able to tell you if she saw it,” Sig had acted cool through the conversation, though his interest was obvious. Hilde seemed caught between the men’s gravity, equal distance between him and Dillon. Typical.
“Shrine?”
“Our most adept Dvorak and dark energy specialist.” Holly somewhat mimicked Dani and Spangler’s connection, focusing most of her words not on Jessica, but on Nicky. Cute. “She’s the one keeping the mob loose so they don’t completely freeze.”
“Very wise. You’ve not allied with the children of Hel, but have manipulated them. I believe those Vanir girls could learn a thing.”
Don’t talk about Jacob like some monster…well, fuck.
“Kati and Fiona, right?” Sig said. “Fiona I can understand, but Kati, no way.”
“What grade were you two in? I was a senior when Kati was a freshman, but I don’t remember you.”
“Juniors.”
“Well, Kati has always been a bit different,” Jessica paced away from Nicky. His and Holly’s visors flickered. “I don’t think talking trash and being a badass has anything to do with being a vanner.”
“What’s a vanner?” Both said in unison, expressions blank.
“Forget about it. Anyway, just keep your ear to the ground for some real power. If you get a bad feeling, it’s probably them. Do not take them on alone.”
“What do they want?” Sig said, eyes already drifting to—
“You got it. Super-stud, here. Though they aren’t all wet over him like some girls I know,” she said. Dillon clenched his jaw. Hilde’s cheeks puffed, flushing cherry red. Jessica swallowed a chuckle. “Apparently, he’s the chosen one or some shit. I certainly can’t figure it out.”
“Mom.” Hilde regained her composure. “I couldn’t do a thing until she showed me how. Holly, we’ll be a while.”
The FireBot matron waved them off. Nicky not so much as twitched from his spot. Fine fucking time to fall in love. Then again, what better time than the last night of your life. That sounded familiar.
* * *
The warehouse narrowed at the east side and got quite a bit warmer. Jessica stripped off her jacket, catching subtle leers from Dillon and Sig—fucking boys. Was the replication of the same bullshit in the Ragnarok? It had to be. In any case, Ayla had her back, or rather Kahn’s, who now followed Hilde like a baby cub.
Worst love-hexagon ever.
In a wide corridor lined with mattresses and cots, she recognized a handful out of the thirty she and Calvin liberated from Clydesdale, the surrogate and infant being the main eye-catcher. The refugees as a whole still didn’t look at her with much other than blank stares. They did have a lot more color in their skin and wore better clothes. Not another black-eye among them. But if radiation poisoning had weeded out the unhealthy, then what was their excuse to sit on their asses? Then again, maybe Jessica really was batshit crazy, and this was how normal people dealt with ongoing tragedy. She felt assured if there was something they could do to help, Holly would have already employed them.
A headcount clicked off eleven, plus the two kids with her and two on the roof. Fifteen in all. There were three more; one of which they were seeking.
They passed a room whose door rattled with a steady bass. Gas-powered generator. Important to protect. Then Sig squared his shoulders and went from stroll to march, aimed at the end of the hall. Jessica could already smell something ghastly, all too familiar. She secured a hand on Bunny’s shoulder strap. Ayla whimpered, but followed without pause—but Jessica did, kneeling to stroke her friend. “Open it up before we go in.”
“It’s five rooms away. C’mon.” Sig laughed, looking to Hilde. His smile fell to a grimace as she stood at Dillon’s side, asking him what was wrong.
“N-Nothing. Just a bit loud.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. A narrow bubble surrounded him. The girl’s hand bounced away, almost spinning her backwards. Sig backpedaled a short step. C’mon yourself—Dillon’s skills were shit. He smiled. “That’s better.”
Jessica reached for his arm, piercing the bubble, though it didn’t pop this time. She walked him to door number one, elbow within elbow. The kids trailed ten feet behind.
* * *
“Y’alright, girl?” Jessica said to Ayla, who met her eyes, panting, but stable. “Ok, but don’t be too proud to leave.”
As if. Kahn still stalked Hilde, and Jessica herself was walking into god-knows-what. She understood Ayla enough to know if she’d take a bullet and stand up to veritable gods, a brain-destroying stench wouldn’t turn her off. Could dogs even adapt to that? Or did it smell like food? Whatever rattled her—here went nothing.
She turned the handle and pushed. A rush of fetid air overwhelmed Jessica, hitting with near physical force for its rankness. Her eyes watered, her stomach churned, but by mixed-blessing she’d gotten used to the smell, if not the sight. Ayla growled and stood firm at her calf. The kids had caught up, both shouldering ahead. Dillon didn’t seem bothered in the least, though he raised an eyebrow.
“Shrine, we got a newbie,” Sig paused just beyond the door.
“I heard, send her in.” The voice was familiar—not as raspy, but still delicate.
“It’s the guy, Mom.” Hilde reached for Dillon in passing but was again repelled. She gasped and cradled her hand.
Wrinkled, but not ancient, slumped but not hunchbacked, Jessica recognized Shrine from her liberation of the Clydesdale
prison, the first room with the two men and the dead-dead kid. Now she wore a gore-splattered butcher’s apron and appeared ten years younger, from her skin to hair color. At a polished steel operating table, she stood elbow-to-guts inside a writhing white-skinned Dvorak. The room itself was smaller than the last four they’d passed, the air vents above blocked off with plastic and duct-tape. The remains of a dozen other bodies lay dismembered or hollowed-out, none of them moving.
None of them moved.
Viscera and chunks of muscle coated the floor, the blood congealed or half frozen, though that didn’t help the smell. Shrine swiveled a glowing surgeon’s visor to the top of her head and removed her arm from inside the Dvorak. The body shuddered and flailed. In her black-coated hand, she held what looked like an ebony crystal. She worked the tiny stone between her thumb and forefinger.
She smiled. “Good to see you again, Jessica.”
A spark flashed between her digits. The crystal shattered. The Dvorak roared, then fell limp.
A chill colder than the snow filled Jessica’s bones. Ayla yowled. Dillon clutched his temples.
Then it was gone.
~ 47 ~
Shrine
November 31, 4124 — 8:48 PM
“The fuck was that!” Dillon shouted, black smoke rising from his shoulders.
Sig and Hilde leapt to Shrine’s side, hands raised. The woman grinned and opened her palm. The smoke rushed to her hand, swirling to a pin-dot singularity. “Stop it, kid. You came here for answers, no?”
The mist strengthened, but continued its path to her palm. Jessica felt all kinds of dizzy: the smell and the black-eyed stomach-punch were equal offenders. She shook him by the bicep. “Dillon! Relax!”
He snarled, then coughed, falling to a knee. The mist evaporated, though Shrine now held a crystal twice the size of the one she just shattered. He stared up at her, hands balled to fists. “What’d you do to me?”
“Nothing,” She walked forward with a heavy limp and offered the stone. He reached out; she pulled her hand back. “I accept no violence in my work. You don’t have to mind your tongue, just don’t get carried away. Releasing your power can easily cripple you,” she raised her other hand, summoning a tiny tornado in that palm. The crystal shrank. “You understand. This is a place for learning. Hell’s classroom.”
She met his glare eye to eye. Hers were as black as the rest, but unique with snake-eyed vertical slivers as a pupils. At a twitch of her thumb, the funnel stretched to Dillon in a line. The crystal shrank out of sight and the stream thinned to nothing. A minute-long coughing fit later, Dillon fell on his rear, gaping at the woman. “W-What are you?”
“Not what you think I am.” Shrine propped her hands on her operating table and hopped up, sitting against her recent patient. “Rox, Fred, leave us.”
“But—”
“Trust me, children. I know where the focus lies,” she said. Sig curled his lip and left. Hilde chewed on hers before doing the same. After they slammed the second door behind them, Shrine nodded towards Dillon. Ayla and Kahn appeared dazed as well. “Good show, right?”
“Eh?” Jessica glanced at her out-of-it crew. “We don’t really have time for bullshit, ya’know. We need to know why they want him so bad. They said you could help.”
“And I can. But first you have to ask yourself why, of all the people in Nome, you and him are stuck together.”
“There’ve been others,” she held back. “What do you know about it?”
“I know enough. I heard it all from your boyfriend's memor—”
“He’s not—!”
“He thinks of it that way.” She tapped a fingertip on her temple. “Oh, was that a surprise? You’re the only one he trusts. The others are just empty space. Men fill space. Women create it—in his mind, you created that rift between you.”
Jessica slapped Ayla’s rear, who in turn yipped at Kahn. “Well that's something he'd think, the idiot. But getting date-raped in bondage isn’t my idea of romance. Get back to the point.”
“Fine. Your paths are intertwined, like it or not. When they look for him, they find you. When they look for you, they find you via him. Can you be sure he’s even the target, that all these people even know who they're looking for?”
“Well, yeah, the girls said—”
Shrine snapped her fingers. “Sorry, John, you were saying?”
“I said, what the fuck did you do to me?” He gawked about the massacre before settling on Shrine, this time sans the smoke.
“The human spirit has no true home in the body, but when dark energy bonds to a life-force, it can be found, or even captured.” She tossed Jessica a smirk. “This is as true for us as it is for them—the debt we owe for our health and abilities.”
“So I got a rock in my chest?” Jessica lit a cigarette, hoping it’d help with the smell. Shrine smiled and reached out. She lit a second.
“You misunderstand. When you see power, like from John or Freddie, that is raw dark energy that they’ve either stored or converted on-the-fly. Since the flare, it’s far more potent in this city than in natural places where the universe’s lifeblood is evenly dispersed. As it infuses your bones and blood, it must be properly channeled, and only those who’ve survived have had the nature, or instincts, to do so. If it is forcibly collected from those it sustains, the tie may be weakened, or even severed.”
Shrine took a long drag and continued. “It’s much more difficult with people, or even Dvoraks with strong wills. So no, Jessica, I cannot crystallize your life-force, and am only able to siphon from the children because they lack self-control. They may as well be handing me their lives. Even my daughter has trouble balancing her power.”
“So what am I?” Dillon said. From the look on his face, that whole speech flew right over his head. It almost made sense to Jessica, and she felt glad the woman was on their side.
“You’re sensitive, John.”
“Fucking Christ!” He shouted, “I’m trying to help here.”
“Then what would boost your ego: that you're special, potent, divine? You’re indeed those, but the focus is external, not internal. Your power depends on those around you, not as a siphon or mimic, but as a countermeasure. You can only do as much as those seeking you harm. And you’re powerless when you believe you’re wrong, which for you is the norm.”
“Psycho-babble bullshit, right, Jess?”
“It’s all in your head, kid. You can’t embrace your potential because you’re afraid of yourself. Honestly, it’s better that way. I’m sure you’ve seen those who’ve fallen over the edge.”
“You’re right about that,” Jessica said. So whatever Dillon could do, whatever reason everyone was up his ass, he’d kept himself in check subconsciously. Maybe that was good news, but it would take something special to survive the morning. Maybe it was time for him to step up. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to. “Still, give him something.”
“Fine. Means nothing to me. Next time you face that kind of power, try being more receptive. You can probably do my little trick better than I can. All you have to do is collect the power others send out, including the rage of the dead. It happens inside you, by your will. It’s not a skill to be learned, but a belief that you are stronger, that you can shape it.”
Jessica swallowed a lump in her throat. “Got any insight about me and mine?”
Shrine flipped down her surgeon’s visor, the wide strip of yellow a reminder of the bots in the warehouse. Her eyes now obscured, she pursed her lips. “You’re a mystery, absolutely fascinating. You and your dog’s auras are the clearest I’ve seen. I couldn’t feel you even after you opened this door, and that is truly special. No one notices you. No one can hunt you. No one can contain you. You’re invisible—like it all passes straight through you.”
“Not very flattering, is it?” She didn’t want the ego boost, but being called invisible was belittling, even with her supposed reputation. Self-esteem issues for being totally underpowered? Hell yes. “I can
’t shoot fireballs or even hear the fuckers. What am I supposed to do tomorrow?”
“What you’ve always done, Jessica. Do what brought you here.”
Mad-dash scrambles, shouting profanities, and leading her comrades into certain death? Her best weapon didn’t even need her to pull the trigger, much less aim. And when new threats arrived, she stood dumbstruck and waited for advice. Jessica had been reacting from the onset, never really having a plan.
Was not having a plan her true power? Blind luck? Bullshit. Absolute, total bullshit.
“I like you, Jessie. And it’s written on your face and in your words—you attribute your survival to those you depend on. But did you ever think leadership was a strong enough quality to save yourself and those around you?”
“You have no idea what I’ve lost, who I’ve failed. I’m sick and fucking tired of being shit on by strangers, and put on a pedestal by people who think they know me. None of ya’ll is right about me. All I want is—”
“To live?” Shrine took a final hit off her cigarette before extinguishing it in her specimen’s hollow belly. “Somehow you think that demeans you, makes you less than a Valkyrie, less than a hero. Without this visor, without knowing you, I can see you for what you are. The people trusting you can do the same. Likely, you’ve had your eye on the prize since day one, and those who chose to follow you, did so to borrow slivers of your gift.”
“Survival?”
It couldn’t be that simple. If the odds were in favor of those who wanted to live the most, then what of Calvin and Trent, who’d lost nothing, who had a home to return to? Namby-pamby inspirational rhetoric without grounds. Jessica should have died by now. She almost wished she had. But there was that one thing keeping her going, and that was…unless there really was something more to it.
Anatali: Ragnarok Page 25