by Lee Bond
Garth bent over to retrieve the laser gun, narrowly avoiding a spray of bullets that shredded Missy’s torso. Turning the bend into a dive, Garth slid across the smooth marble floor only to bang his head on the wall. “The fuck?” he demanded loudly, rubbing his abused skull ferociously.
Someone shouted from the other end of the hallway. “’Yeah, though I walk through Shadow Valley, I won’t fear no evil.”
Garth chuckled. He didn’t have time to correct the paraphrasing or to be amazed that the Bible from thirty thousand years ago had lasted long enough to be even loosely quoted, quadruply so in Latelyspace.
Garth started crawling along the floor towards one of the remaining pillars. He peeked around the marble pillar. It was one of the weirdoes from the basement. “What the fuck! You’re supposed to be all locked up downstairs!”
Bob Horace laughed oddly and sent another spray of bullets down the corridor, hitting everything but his target. “We asked, the Lord provided. Tommy got squashed but the gates opened wide.”
Garth allowed as how the explosions rocking The Museum could’ve sent some ceiling down through the basement to knock them loose. Shit like that was something you just couldn’t plan for. It complicated things, though. “Uhuh. But, don’t you think it’s unwise for like, this very small group to try and beat up on over a hundred real paramilitary terrorist types?”
“The Lord will provide.” Bobby shouted vociferously. To illustrate his point further, he took better aim and tried to shoot the column out of the way so he could kill the Goddie.
“There’s that whole God thing again.” Garth checked the weapon he’d taken from Missy. It was a low-yield fuzzy light laser weapon, barely able to microwave a chicken past a foot and a half. In close quarters, though, it was a ghastly weapon, especially against the heavily armored God soldiers. Even one of those big goofs would think twice after having most of his skin burned off.
Disgusted that a terrorist leader would outfit his disciples with such a weapon, he turned his attention back to the devout lunatic, shouting, “Hey, what’s up with the God thing? I thought you all hated that shit.”
“I am a True Believer!” Bobby announced boldly, bristling with holy dementia. “God is on my side and with God on my side, I am invincible.”
“Crap.” Garth picked up a small piece of mortar up and hucked it down the hall at the True Believer. Another spray of bullets tried to remove sun from the sky.
“You,” he replied sadly, throwing a baseball-sized piece of ceiling at the Believer’s head fast enough to put Darryl Strawberry into a crying jag, “are a shitty shot, man.”
Bobby made a noise like a chicken and fell over slowly, like a very short tree. On the way down, he banged his head against a turnstile. Garth rubbed his own bruised noggin in sympathy.
He lay on the floor for a couple of seconds longer, waiting for someone else to show up, all hot and bothered to fill him full of lead for the Lord. When everyone had the decency to be somewhere else, Garth climbed to his feet and went to check on the True Believer’s status. A quick pulse check revealed he was merely unconscious.
Unfortunately, he had a dead terrorist to explain. While the ‘True Believers’ wouldn’t question anything they saw because they were fucking morons, Vilmos Gualf was not and would not. He’d demand answers and would probably figure out right away that someone else had done the deed.
A scenario needed laying out for any other terrorist runners who might come upon the scene, so, grumpily, Garth dragged the Chicken Squawker the Holy Terror over to Missy’s eviscerated corpse, cursing mildly under his breath. One of these days, he was going to have a relaxing afternoon, even if he had to build an entire planet just so he could hang out and do regular shit.
Still grumbling at the unfairness of it all –really, who could’ve expected dropping into Latelyspace would require the same levels of fortitude as a Deep Strike expedition?- he decided on a decidedly unpalatable course of action. Wrinkling his nose unhappily, Garth tried to think his way towards another solution before throwing in the proverbial towel. He had no choice, as disgusting as it was.
Garth pointed the laser at True Believer’s head and proceeded to cook it to death with Missy’s laser. The smell was very unappetizing, so he quit after an eyeball burst. Then he went back to the dead waitress and put the gun into her hands.
He considered his little display from a distance, pretending he was some dude who’d just walked onstage.
It wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but it was the best he could do on such short notice. Vilmos’ runners were hopefully all like Missy; not too bright, probably not a part of his inner circle, possessed of enough brains to be relied upon not to forget passwords and a few choice commands. Confronted with carnage like this, any runner would almost certainly see dead bodies and not bother to investigate further before hustling ass back to their leader.
“When I,” Garth casually addressed Melted Face, “am in charge of the Universe, I am taking a fucking vacation. You guys can go screw.”
xxx
Vilmos’ prote sent off a small squealing alarm that drew a startling curse from his lips. He read the report and cursed again; most of the newer members of his little cabal had been required to swallow a tracking device that also monitored health. A standard precaution for someone in his line of work, and one that’d saved his life on more than one occasion. Hearing it now, so early in the day … he didn’t quite know what to think.
Gesturing for Mary to come forward, Vilmos took her aside, whispered softly into her ear. “Si Melissa is dead. Just now.” He squeezed her shoulder gently to keep the reaction to a minimum.
“Do you think it’s Goddies?” she whispered back, thinking nervously back to those explosions. What if the explosions hadn’t been caused by their own devices, but by the Goddies losing patience?
“It could be. If it is, it’s no more than one or two. Those explosions were immense. Amarkand is climbing the walls now to get a video feed to the outside world. Whatever those explosions were, they obliterated ‘LINK traffic as well.” He indicated a black dot high up on the wall close to where the thick glass of the Viewing Room’s skydome met the concrete fortifications. “While he’s up there he’s going to deploy the filanet you brought.”
The thought of God soldiers falling through the molecule thick mesh when they came through the roof was very unsettling. She grimaced, saying, “Is that necessary?”
“It is.” Vilmos nodded. “Those blasts have changed the game in a big way. Doans won’t risk blowing up the building even though someone’s halfway done it already. That would resonate too closely with people’s memories of Scottsdale. You’re too young to remember the idiot’s theft of the VapoRaptor, but he demolished the old Museum during his attempted flight to freedom. The People reacted poorly to that. I’m guessing the damage is quite severe. The OverCommander and his command staff will want to come in guns blazing now, and that leaves them the roof. We’re going to need to accelerate.”
“What do you want me to do about these others?” Mary smiled at one of the younger terrorists as she made her way through the crowd, asking if everyone was okay. They were walking a very thin line, and it was of paramount importance that their hostages remain calm until the last second. Their deaths needed to be on Doans’ hands, not their own.
“Round up some men. Change to the seven rounds. If …” Vilmos squinted at Mary’s reaction, “if they are God soldiers, you’ll need to kill them. The seven rounds are the only thing that you can carry that’ll do the job quickly enough.”
“Those bullets cost a lot of lives to bring here, Vil.” Mary said tightly. “But fine. I’ll do as you ask.”
Vilmos closed his eyes. “Good. I sent Missy to check on the tech squad and to survey the damages. Check that out as well. Break radio silence.”
Mary looked up from her prote, only half her roster completed. “Sa?”
“Doans has already used her prote to bypass our firewalls, si. If s
he feels the need, she can remote access anyone’s machine. There’s little point in trying to hide. She knows we’re here, she knows what we’re doing, what we want. Any use of her executive powers will only serve to strengthen our position. Now, quickly, go.”
Mary nodded. “Right away.”
xxx
Garth moved slowly through the maze-like corridors of the inner museum, continually reminding himself that Harry Bosch was a much larger person than he was; he’d already caught the huge Latelian hologram out of the corner of his eye, reflected off a glass case or mirror a few times.
If he weren’t careful, someone would shoot at his chest instead of his head. If even a single religious bozo turned out to be a halfway decent shot, there’d be no relying on the illusory gap separating the real from the unreal.
Whoever the religious fruitcakes were, they were making enough racket to wake the dead, undoubtedly bolstered by the insanely crazy belief that the Lord was interested in making them all bullet-proof. If that were the case, then He would’ve done so from the beginning and not well after the fact.
Hiding behind an all-terrain vehicle used in some war or other, Garth counted five of the original cast members making their way noisily towards where they’d sent their buddy off to die. The odds sucked, especially when two out of the five were packing the same automatic rifles as True Believer. Since Garth wasn’t feeling very bulletproof, he let the God Squad leave without hindrance.
The magnanimous gesture didn’t last very long. A group of four vacation-clad heavy munitions-toting terrorist anti-authoritarian headcases came tearing around the corner jabbering excitedly into their protes about ‘making enemy contact’ and ‘engaging fire zone’ and other militaristic jibjab that sounds great over the radio.
Startled to hell and gone by the sudden appearance of the very rivals they were walking the halls to deal with, the five-person God Squad team collectively shrieked like little girls and tried to hide behind the ATV.
Where they ran into Garth, who, posing as Harry, was just sort of sitting there, fervently wishing he were in Disneyland.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Garth let loose with a grunt of exasperation that sent one of the five unwanted guests from his hidey-hole and towards the door. The other four -pale and trembling- remained. “Give me a fucking break!”
“Open fire!” Mary barked, hoisting her own rifle and cutting the fleeing suspect in half with a quick burst of steel-VII bullets. Her handpicked crew stared at the surprising bit of carnage before turning their guns towards the ATV and the people hiding behind it.
“They’ll never cut through this armor plating.” One of the God Squad declared confidently as the terrorists took aim. “This truck is covered in duronium!”
Intent on hiding behind one of the big rubber tires, Garth skootched quietly further down the length of the ATV. So far, besides being very religious in a place where such things got you killed relatively quickly, the God Squad’s only other given talent seemed to be a deep skill in dowsing for bullets. With their bodies.
“Dunno about that.” Garth said this conversationally to the one kid who was following slowly behind; the other three were enjoying their faith in God, but the youngest one of the group seemed to have a partial head on his shoulders.
“Why’s that?” the Kid whispered.
“Bullets sounded funny.” Garth tried to recall the last time he’d heard bullets like that.
“Bullets have a sound?” the Kid asked, taking up position next to Garth behind a big knobbly tire.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” Garth balled a fist and -while the Kid took a moment to realize his intelligence was being called into question- punched the religious weirdo right in the face. Garth caught the unconscious kid and lowered him gently to the ground, then turned his attention back to the scene on the other side of the truck.
In the space of the ten, maybe fifteen seconds it took for Garth to knock his new friend out, the terrorists had decided not to fuck around by wasting time on idle banter with religious zealots. They took aim and started firing.
They filled the hypothetically impervious ATV’s armor cladding with bullets, displaying a similar level of gusto evinced just moments before by the remaining God Squad morons, only with actual lethality; the three smug dumbasses jerked and jigged before generally bleeding all over the place. The ATV groaned angrily, and then started shedding parts.
“Check it out.” Mary barked to her subordinates. She began sending a sit-rep to Vilmos.
“Dammit.” Garth ever so quietly extricated the Kid’s assault rifle from his dead hands, rolled even more quietly underneath the ATV, and then tried to pretend he didn’t exist.
Odin’s holographic avatar -amazing in its own right- didn’t know what to do with Harry’s bulkier form and the sudden lack of ‘free space’ in which to render the soldier’s much larger body. Because the ATV was too low to the ground to admit a Latelian of any decent size underneath the bodywork, Odin tried to compensate and failed miserably; Harry’s body started flickering like mad, a spastic, futuristic version of Max Headroom except with less cool things to say and a wave of sheer, indignant frustration that rolled outwards.
The woman in charge of the group shouted loudly that there was someone or something beneath the truck. Garth sighed disgustedly and considered his options.
By chance, the two terrorists deployed to the truck decided to spend their time sticking the tips of their rifles into the big gaping holes torn into the opposite side and discussing the overall merits of steel-VII versus duronium-coated rounds instead of trying to plumb the weird flickering lights beneath the demolish truck. They were just concluding that, while the VII-rounds were definitely better in terms of killing things through armored trucks, they lacked the overall patriotic connection to the Latelian Homeland. It was then that Garth chewed their feet off with skillfully deployed bursts of the far lesser efficient duronium bullets, proving quite nicely it’s not how many bullets you shoot, but where you shoot them.
Pissed he was actually having to resort to violence, Garth decided against putting a few in their skulls. He really wanted to, which made him distrust his own motives. “It is a fucking pain in the ass,” he muttered to himself as he wriggled his ass around, “when you distrust your own fucking common sense.”
Mary took haphazard aim and opened fire, all concerns over wasting the seven-shots gone. Someone was beneath that truck shooting back. Ertlinger followed suit and together the two of them sent a few hundred rounds through the undamaged portions of the truck, successfully venting the ancient ATV.
Garth, always ready to avoid death at the drop of a hat, had rolled away from his blown hiding spot and was currently running very quickly across –not away- to the other side of the room. He hid behind a newer version of the ATV that the terrorists had just killed with extreme prejudice and thanked Whoever was listening that steel-VII bullets being fired out of Latelian guns made enough racket to drown out a Twisted Sister concert.
He could’ve been shouting his surrender at the top of his lungs with a megaphone and they wouldn’t have heard a goddamn thing. If the sole remaining terrorists in the room survived the next couple of minutes, they’d be lucky if they weren’t deaf by the end of the day.
Garth realized his hands were curled into fists so tight he fingers were aching and forced himself to relax. There was no need to kill these idiots. They were doing a good enough job on their own. In addition to demolishing a relic of ancient design, the haze of bullets released by the man and woman had thoroughly obliterated the foot-shot idiots.
Mary dropped her gun. “Stop, stop, stop!” She grabbed hold of Ertlinger’s arm and pushed it down until he realized that it was time for him to stop firing his gun. “He has to be dead by now. And we really shouldn’t waste any more of these bullets. These are for uninvited guests of a much bigger size. Check it out.”
Ertlinger snorted and shook his head. “Not on your life.” He�
�d seen the other two get their feet blown off and he liked his feet where they were. Embarrassingly enough, their absolute panic in being attacked by their unknown antagonist had led to the … accidental deaths of their compatriots. Not a good way to start out the day.
Garth snickered behind his hand.
Mary pointed her rifle at Ertlinger’s forehead. “Check it out.”
“And I,” Ertlinger retorted, aiming his rifle at Mary’s chest, “told you not on your life.”
“We’re all going to die anyway, Ert.” Mary hated backpedaling, but given her druthers, she’d druther die in the Viewing Room killing God soldiers than in some side room dealing with a pack of poorly trained idiots who’d managed to sneak their way in unnoticed.
“Yes, I haven’t forgotten.” Ertlinger jerked his head sideways at the ATV, which still wasn’t done falling apart. Like all the antique vehicles, it was still powered to provide young children with some amusement. Their ‘firing practice’ must’ve hit some ancient electronics, because the beast had started emitting the occasional wisp of smoke. “Go ahead. You check it out. I’ll go back to the Room and do a few Goddies for you.”
Mary raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. There really was no point in arguing any further. Instead, she lowered her rifle slowly to her side. Then, when she was reasonably confident Ertlinger wasn’t going to shoot her in the back, she lowered herself to the ground face first. As she peered through the debris and dead bodies, she caught sight of a massive Latelian standing almost completely hidden at the far end of the room. He was massive, and while not dressed in God army issue clothes, was almost certainly a Goddie. You didn’t get to be that big by eating healthily.
Mary’s stomach quailed. This wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either. Because she was human, she was going to use this bit of news to her own advantage in ridding herself of a rival.
“What do you see?” Ertlinger asked, dropping his own weapon and leaning forward.