Anatali: Ragnarok

by A. C. Edwards

  “You attacked me, remember?” Dillon said. “We had a deal.”

  “Until your bitch girlfriend fucked it up!” Fiona pointed a red hand behind her. Licks of fire swirled to her palm. Jessica hadn’t seen chica shoot any fireballs, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t. “What they did to Kati—”

  “She killed an entire family on her way out. What the fuck’d you expect to find here?” Jessica stood, again with the help of Bunny. She saw Holly lift Ayla and Kahn, setting them into her butt-box. The FireBot hoisted Nicky’s top half into the air and retrieved his axe from the ground. With a quick, ear-bleeding slice, his head separated from his shoulders. “Holly!”

  Nicky’s helmet spun on the ground, sparks bursting from pipes and cables. Without a word, she scooped his head, double-gripped the axe, and screeched a reverse. Dvoraks scrambled out of her way, but she crushed a half-dozen during her retreat. The supply box slapped shut. Jessica stumbled after her, but again, a certain something held her back—and still.

  “So that’s how it is.” Jessica had just been abandoned by the last able to save her. Every heartbeat felt a bit closer to death, and unlike these two, she was literally freezing to death.

  Jessica swiveled back to Fiona. A fireball rotated against the girl’s flattened palm. It sucked looking down the receiving end of it for once. Gritting her teeth, she braced herself as Bunny leapt to her shoulder. She could almost feel the little girl press her weight against her back, propping her up. Through double vision, she saw the familiar white blob jumping on screen and Fiona's red blob threatening about twenty feet away.

  “Don’t do it,” Dillon said, staring at the back of Fiona’s head. His egg warbled crazily, looking like a top in it’s final spins.

  “Keep that thing away from me or I take your girl.”

  “She can’t hurt you,” he said, “I can.”

  “Fuck you!” With the shout, Fiona pushed her arm outward.

  Jessica squeezed her trigger.

  Bunny vibrated violently as Dillon’s black smoke was sucked into the rifle’s air intake. Roaring and bucking, fire burst out the barrel, not as a ball, but a line of pure fury. At a middle distance, the stream collided with Fiona’s electric-red blaze. Dillon tipped his egg, pointing out. The schoolgirl’s blast stalled, hovering. She cursed and ran closer, towards the fire, both hands splayed. Ripples in the air pushed Fiona's fireball forward, cutting Bunny’s continuing assault into an umbrella spray of orange. Jessica couldn’t see the girl except for her feet; Fiona marched, looking like a child against a gale.

  Jessica struggled to steady the rifle. The barrel now glowed with its heat. If the steel failed, that would be her life. If Fiona’s attack penetrated, the same. Jessica snarled and planted her footing, standing solid for the first time in what seemed like forever. That’s when she noticed: the fire was moving backwards, back towards the vanner. Bunny was winning. Fiona strafed to the left, and Jessica followed, aim steady. On screen, Bunny hunkered down on his haunches, eyes shut, shaking ear to foot.

  No, not you too.

  Jessica dropped the barrel down. The flame-stream bounced off the ground and ignited the entire left wall of Dvoraks. Fifty or a hundred, they didn’t even twitch as they shriveled where they fell, their smoke arcing straight to Dillon. Her rifle wheezed and clicked. The screen blinked to dark, then disappeared.

  Fiona’s fireball still hovered, lunging forward, then back, following the girl’s every footstep—and she was still on the wrong side of it—Dillon was trying to drag the construct back into her. When she paused to shout a garble of Spanish at him, Dillon simply swiveled on his heels, aiming his egg without the briefest look of effort.

  The fireball jumped again back towards its creator.

  Gasping and pale, Fiona stumbled down to hands and feet. The blaze floated, slow and bobbing. Clawing the ground, she scrambled towards the Dvoraks Bunny had torched. She leapt over the motionless ranks only to bounce back, landing hard on her back.

  A lone, short figure high-stepped over the bodies and stopped before Fiona. Jessica felt another crush of fatigue, this time not from the cold, nor her still-dribbling eye. As a good self-healer, she felt that she was winning this battle with her eye, and with the cold. This feeling was all about the things she couldn't ignore, couldn't physically overcome: her family, Dani, Kahn, Nicky, Ayla. She could argue with her body, but not her spirit—she pleaded for just another minute to face him. To face Jacob.

  Her brother stood in a white button-up shirt and dress slacks. His bare feet were a lively pink against the cold. His blindfold now hung around his neck, a loose scarf that tossed in the breeze. His eyes—his eyes were blue, the same blue they’d been four days ago, the same newborn blue as when mom brought him home from the hospital. Was she hallucinating? His movements were natural enough, if always deliberate, not like a robot, but like a soldier. She wondered at what he’d become, and if she’d soon be just like him. What did he see through those 'real' eyes now?

  Dillon grimaced and flashed a palm. A dozen new lines pulled from Jacob’s undead flankers, but none from him.

  Still dazed, Fiona shouted, “Fucking pico! You lead us here to die!”

  You destroyed yourself. This was your plan, but this power does not exist to be consumed, just translated. Though his words filled her head, Jessica knew they weren’t for her. As if in answer, Dillon stepped forward and closed his eyes. Hands on either side of his egg, it pulsed. The entire circular wall of Dvoraks shuddered. Fiona’s fireball blinked-out, the flames replaced by a swirl of mist that spiraled towards the egg in a rush. It had to be more than he could handle.

  “Dillon! Stop!” she shouted, a scream.

  “That time’s over, Jessie,” he said, voice calm. “You trust me or not?”

  Not a chance. Not him, or any of them. “There's nothing left! No Feds, no Christy, all of you, just stop now before we're all—”

  No, Jess. He'll kill you. But you can stop him now.

  ~ 57 ~

  Living dead

  December 1, 4124 — 8:32 AM

  “W-Wha?” Jessica pulled a hand to her chest. That was the first complete sentence he'd said to her, other than her dream.

  “Don’t listen to him.” Dillon’s eyes were closed. “I can see what they are. He's a figment, Jessie. That's not your brother at all. Fight him.”

  “I-I’m tired of fighting,” she said, teeth chattering. Bunny clattered to the floor. “Dillon, shut that fucking thing down. Jacob, come’ere.”

  Neither budged. From the ground, Fiona summoned flashes to fingertips, but couldn’t seem to manage much more. She hadn’t learned Shrine’s energy-gathering trick, nor had she learned to protect her lifeforce like Jacob. She was fair game for draining, and the egg now sparkled with the crimson electricity of her fireball. Not that any of it kept her muzzled. Fiona climbed back on her feet, fists clenched. Her gaze tossed between Dillon and her former ally.

  She launched at Jacob, who bounced her backwards with a flick of his wrist. Dillon again pushed his egg outwards, this time in a steady float onto the battlefield. Now fear showed in her eyes, a slight change from raging or crazed: a turn of the lips, a tremble in her cheeks. Jacob locked eyes with Dillon, who sneered.

  The egg crackled onward, closing the distance to Fiona. The girl pulled herself off the floor only to be knocked back again by Jacob’s advance. Sad business for a beaten girl. Jessica felt more pity than rage—after all, it’d been Christy who threw that knife and killed her friends, and it was Fiona who’d returned her brother back from the horde. All throughout this Ragnarok, the vanners had just chased the conflict; they’d never really created it. Had they all been manipulated? Kati killed the air-guard as part of a full-frontal assault to collect Dillon, and the new Dvorak army had distracted those on the ground despite Fiona's protests. If not for them, Jessica and her friends could have defended the warehouse's twenty lives until noon—maybe.

  Jessica pleaded again, “Just stop it, the fight’s o
ver.”

  “Fuck yourself,” Fiona said without a glance. Five feet from Jacob and ten from the egg, the girl whispered, “Kati…”

  With a fump, the air rippled around her, making a fun-house mirror of brown skin and her pink shirt. Jacob fell back. The egg stalled just like the girl’s fireball. Jessica didn’t know who to encourage or who to scold. Her dead-alive brother, her bat-shit crazy boyfriend, or someone just like her: mere moments from death.

  “No, Jake. I’m still running,” she said aloud. Jessica hobbled, then sprinted for Fiona. For all her uselessness she knew one thing: no one wanted her dead but the girl she was trying to save. Jacob’s eyes finally snapped to her approach. She felt a tickle against her back—Little Dead Girl? Dillon swept his hand broadly, shoulder to shoulder. An invisible barrier slowed her before she pushed through the icier-than-ice-cold chill. He shouted something harsh, unintelligible. The egg reversed away from her path. Good.

  Jacob glared; he mouthed words without sound. Jessica didn’t care. Step-step-tackle, she threw herself into Fiona, not caring if they died, two of three lives left in Nome. After she landed, she shouted,“Stop this hardball shit! We all live. We all walk away. The feds are gone!”

  “Jessie, get off the bitch! She just tried to torch you.”

  “No, that was Christy's fight. Fiona's innocent,” she coughed. “Ayla, Shannon, Nicky, all those people, those kids, everything we had left…I should’ve left you in that cell. This is all your fault.” And she thought she meant it. For whatever delirium she suffered now, last night, or this whole fucking nightmare, he was the only mistake she wished she could take back. She could still feel him under her skin, inside her, so recent it blended together with that dream of Calvin and this current violence.

  Jacob had been right. The blue eye had betrayed her, but it wasn’t Nicky, her reborn brother, or even Dillon’s new power. She’d betrayed herself with every one of them and with every hope and weakness they’d brought upon her—rather, what she’d brought upon herself. Now, as all their hopes slipped away, and Jessica couldn’t explain how it happened.

  Verdandi had been poisoned by her lust, so her sister said. The right people trusted her, and she’d led them to their fates. She was the wrong person during the wrong time. For whatever clarity of vision she was supposed to have, Jessica felt pity for every god she, herself, had led astray.

  “The fuck? None of this is my fault!” Dillon’s egg jiggled before ballooning by a foot. An arc of that crimson electricity licked the ground, melting concrete into magma. He clenched his jaw and squeezed open air between his hands. The egg again took its former shape, but now pulsed in even rhythm.

  Of course Dillon didn’t get it. Volundr hadn’t. But at this point, responsibility wasn’t something to direct, it was something to claim. No one but her seemed willing to do so.

  To the schoolgirl under her weight, Jessica said, “You ok?”

  “Quit bleeding on me.” Fiona bit the words. Her arms shook as she tried to bench-press the dead weight on her chest. Jessica looked over to see a pairs of feet, Jacob’s, marching towards Dillon. The Dvorak wall tightened and collapsed. Their empty eyes that had been ignoring Jessica now looked down upon the girls. Black drool dripped down bare chests and charred security uniforms. “It’s his vanguard. Get the fuck off me!”

  “Can’t you call ‘em back?” Jessica crawled away. Everything burned, including her eye and throat.

  “He’s been the one ordering them all. Me an Kati just been acting.” Fiona rolled onto her belly and followed on all fours. For all the new Dvoraks’ hunger, they still roughly held ranks, content to snarl and swat their claws. “He gave us Anton and has been following along, but the army’s been his since he found us.”

  Black smoke wisped away from the vanguard, but that didn’t weaken their shuffle; the two-dozen bodies lost far less energy than the rest of the circle—they were hand-picked for a reason, apparently. The lines of en-route mist that passed into Fiona didn’t escape. The sputtering sparkles on her fingers spread into a glow. Color returned to the Latino’s cheeks.

  “So that’s why you wouldn’t let me have Jacob. You had no say in it.” Jessica said, accepting Fiona's lean when she caught up. “Then what’d you want Dillon for, anyway? I thought you wanted a kingdom or some shit.”

  “Bullshitting,” the schoolgirl grimaced. “Once we felt him, we knew that guy was the only one that could do something like this. That bomb, or something like it. Some way to stop Jake and stop the bodies. We wanted out of this hell—he could keep us safe from the bodies—but it turns out we got stuck with El Diablo himself. If they both weren't so hung up on you, we'd all be alive, or maybe he would have killed us yesterday.”

  “Me?” Jessica said, honestly confused. “So why'd Jake go along with you?”

  “He knows what we knew. I guess there can only be one big-shot in this city, so as much as we wanted to find your boy, he wanted to kill him. We were just his hunting dogs. And as far as you go, fuck if I know. You're not good for much, are you?”

  “Fuck you.” Jessica didn't drop her support, and now stared at the impasse between her lover and her brother. Jacob had always been smart like that. He made Jessica think he was doing a favor by cooking breakfast, they were both hungry, but it was all about who did the dishes, and cleaned the rest of the house after. That was family, and she loved him for it. But that didn’t change the fact that after Dad died, it’d been all about Jacob. From his pain, the baby, he’d ruled the house. Tit for tat, but skewed for his benefit. It seemed like the vanners fell into the same trap; accepting his help for a price that didn't fit the bill. Pretty trivial, if not for the result.

  “Unless you want everyone dead, yourself, your boy, you’ll help me take Jake down,” Fiona said, getting steadier by the moment as she collected more and more ambient smoke. “It’s all we got left and I ain’t dying without that much.”

  “I-I….” Jessica watched Jacob's stare-down with Dillon. The egg threatened between them, still collecting visible waves from the dead-sea around it. With her one eye, she considered her lover, who was the root of this final catastrophe via his existence, and her baby-brother, who had acted upon every opportunity to devour what little the living had left.

  Help me, her brother said: a command, not a plea.

  Planting a hand of Fiona’s shoulder, she straightened her back and patted her pockets, looking for anything—a battery, a fuel cell, and a six-inch rectangle, Simon’s box knife. She dipped her hand in and clicked the blade full-out, six inches of razor.

  But for what?

  ~ 58 ~

  Valkyrie

  December 1, 4124 — 8:39 AM

  “Not a step closer, kid.” Dillon said. Whether he didn’t want to stop, or couldn’t, the egg continued to suck the unlife out of the region, never growing, just becoming more erratic. The fucking thing whirled and pulsed too fast to even keep track of, now shooting beams of blackness from is poles in rotation. Sweat dripped from his forehead, down his nose. His arms shook; tendons, veins, and muscles flexed in his invisible grasp of whatever the construct was.

  Jacob advanced to a mere body-length from the egg. Another scarlet arc jumped out, this time linking to the boy's own barrier. The bolt locked in, flicking up and down, one of those static electricity experiments from pre-school. Dillon’s brow furrowed.

  Take it, Jess, or he'll kill you. He's losing control.

  Jessica gripped the knife, unsure what he meant by “take it,” and knowing this was probably a means to his planned end. But if she attacked her brother now, what would happen to the bomb? And if she attacked Dillon, distracting him, would it dissipate, leaving them all safe, or blow up like Shrine's ball, only stronger?

  “He's not wrong,” Fiona gritting her teeth, backpedaling. “It can swallow us all. Can you really do anyth—“

  The girl's head snapped back, yanked by her hair. Jessica lurched out in reflex, touching fingertips as Fiona, sparkling, was dragged into the
vanguard. She shouted as the schoolgirl screamed, a dozen bites sinking into arms, legs, neck, and torso. Thrashing, Fiona let loose a burst of power, blasting her attackers into a spray of shattered flesh. The girl fish-flopped three times before shuddering to a stop. Knocked on her ass, Jessica gasped as she glanced over her shoulder. Light spiraled into the egg: the construct looked a split-second away from bursting.

  “Yes,” Jacob's voice.

  In an eye-blink she saw Little Dead Girl, flat-faced emotionless, hand outstretched.

  Her life. Or Dillon's life. Or no lives at all. What did Jacob want? And yet, if this was her power, then finally, maybe, she could save Dillon from himself.

  Goddamn it, she loved Dillon. She loved him.

  Jessica planted a boot on the snowy concrete and leapt towards the bomb. She wasn't sure why, had no idea what it would accomplish, but when she collided with the egg, square in the chest, she literally felt her heart stop. The pain was far beyond anything else she'd experienced in the last four days, her entire life. She would scream if she had breath. Her eye clenched shut, but instead of black, there was only blinding light. Jessica clenched harder, but the light only got brighter, piercing her mind just as the pain in her chest pierced her body. Inside was a beauty so terrifying, so terrifying, that she wanted both to embrace it and abandon it.

  She called for death. Please! Please. Death.

  The torture didn't end, not this time. No unconsciousness, no peaceful black-out oblivion. She felt as if she'd taken the pain of a million deaths into her body, mind, and spirit, and was powerless to escape it. Flooded with all the memories, pleasures, pain, hopes, and destinies of all those that had lived and died, how long was eternity? An instant? A trillion millennia?