by Lee Bond
Drawn by the noise, a squadron of the familiar robes-and-toga crowd burst into the room and started shooting at everything that wasn’t them without even bothering to see what was going on.
Garth stepped back out of sight and waited for the idiot zealots to calm down. The terrorists, bonked silly but not out of commission, geared up for a response.
Seeing that he was outclassed and unneeded, Garth backpedaled through the nearest hallway leading out of the room while the terrorists and the religious loonies started shooting at each other, intent on waiting out the conflict; when everyone was done trying to kill one another –which he had no problems with-, he’d mop up the mess. Peeking around the corner, Garth watched the battle unfold.
Better armed but dazed by the bewildering attack from a strangely dressed God soldier, the terrorists resorted to flash bang grenades that blinded the religious zealots. With their enemies temporarily stunned, the radicals wasted precious time by reconvening on the far side of the broken Box. They did a head count, saw that one of their men had lost his head in the ‘gunfight’, and took careful, deliberate aim at the stumbling bible-thumpers.
“Seriously?” Garth demanded softly of the evil terrorists. “I mean, come on.”
Deciding that it was unfair to shoot people like that, Garth streaked back into the mix, rapidly whammying the rest of the terrorists in the legs and ankles, driving them to the ground. Shrill protests and moaning filled the Tomb.
Then, with the preachers with guns stumbling around shouting incoherently and trying to get their eyes to work, Garth did the same to them. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to tie everyone together so they could work through their differences of opinion and separate everyone from their weapons. Garth opted for logic over wisdom, and rounded up as many of the guns as he could carry and all of the seven-shot his pockets would hold and high-tailed it out of the Tomb, clanking and clattering like a clockwork robot. Those weapons he couldn’t take, he kicked out of range and under display cases.
His destination was the basement; during his earlier hunting down of religious weirdoes, he’d spotted a heavy-duty blast furnace. No doubt used to dispose of the fake Box at the end of every Game hosted by Hospitalis, it would definitely do the trick with guns and bullets.
Garth sincerely hoped the religious guys would wake up first and run like scared little girls back to the rest of their group, heads full of terror and mouths delivering up the most amazing story of how fast and deadly and against everyone Harry Bosch was. Then he wanted them to realize that he’d gone out of his way to not kill them and stay quiet and meek as mice for the rest of the engagement.
If none of his earnest wishes came true and the fruitbars decided they’d much prefer a second –or was it third?- attempt at cleansing the world of nonbelievers, well, he’d treat them like he was going to treat the terrorists.
Then they’d find out if there was a God and a Heaven.
xxx
Unluckily for the God Squad, the terrorists regained consciousness first. Luckily, to a one they were suffering from broken ankles. Those that could pick themselves up despite the pain hurried to the Viewing Room with vague promises about sending help.
“What you are doing is wrong.” One of the Christians pronounced balefully.
“Chairwoman Doans is a backpedaling quasi-tyrant who needs to piss or get off the pot!” A terrorist snapped in response. The other terrorists hooted their agreement.
“Chairwoman Doans is a servant of Evil and is the sole person responsible for the loss of our … our souls!” cried a young woman.
“Boo!” hooted a terrorist. “The soul is nothing more than a pseudo-mystical con job invented by ancient salesmen who wanted to get more for their wares than they were worth!”
“The Lord is going to smite you!” The zealots chanted together. Though only two of them could actually claim to worship a monotheistic deity called ‘The Lord’, the other four members really weren’t interested in getting into a heavy-duty theological argument right then; it was enough that they were all agreeing on the same thing at the same time.
“Religion is an outdated thought-modality that perverts free will and convinces humanity that they aren’t worth anything until they die and are magically transported to a wonderful land where they don’t have to do anything and everything is given to them for free.” Shouted one terrorist.
Another terrorist in bright red khaki pants hollered condescendingly. “Wake up and smell the gun powder, kiddies, we’re already in Heaven! All we need to do is convince Doans to retrace her steps and undergo her own paradigm shift! You want to worship some ‘Lord’ who no one ever saw? Chairwoman Doans could kick that guy’s ass with both legs cut off at the knees! And an arm tied behind her back!”
At this point, with that blasphemous utterance, the God Squad had had quite enough. Their unknown assailant had hit them very hard. Worse, the flashbangs and being shot wasn’t sitting well with most of the survivors, but that was fine; unlike their misguided brothers and sisters, they could walk. They hauled themselves to their feet and started looking around for weapons.
Their eyes collectively fell on the broken Box.
“Good.” The original Christian said. “It says right there in the fucking Bible that we shall worship no graven images. I don’t know what ‘graven’ means, but I do know you fucking crazy Regime-nuts love The Box.” To drive his point home further, the Christian booted a chunk of The Box at one of the fallen terrorists. The attacked loyalist squawked in anger.
Dismissing the need for weapons for the moment, The God Squad hoorawed at that pithy statement and hustled instead towards the walls. The ancient tombs had spilled their contents sometime during the assault and they were interested in poking around in the hopes they could find more things to mock. Then they saw that much of the spilled contents were ancient hand-to-hand weapons and scrabbled to pick them up. They hefted their new tools thoughtfully.
Unable to let this slight go, the terrorists staggered to their feet, grunting and gasping in pain. When they decided that they could move if they did so carefully, they too began dragging their sorry asses towards the opposite wall, intending to grab some of their own historical weapons so they could teach the zealots a lesson or two in Latelian loyalty.
Nearly mad from pain, Red Khakis shouted, “The Box saved all our lives four thousand years ago, you ungrateful teat-sucker. There wouldn’t be a Latelyspace for you to try and poison with your cow-worshipping mentality without it.” He and his friends grabbed the weapons nearest them.
Dazed preachers and broken radicals hoisted their weapons. They exchanged dire glares of hell, brimstone, and the right to exist in a tyranny and then rushed one another.
They clashed in the middle of the Tomb and tried to kill each other right over top the broken remains of The Box and the shattered hallmarks of history.
xxx
Vasily watched broodingly as the last of the combatants in the Tomb finished dying, unsure of how he felt. Both sides had performed remarkably against the opposition; detailed analysis of the thermal scans showed that one side, the ‘terrorists’, suffered from broken ankles, and on other, the ‘fanatics’, suffered concussions. Regardless of their specific injuries and differences in numbers, their philosophical and ideological belief systems had been so well matched that they all died together, on the site where the very first Game had been waged. If only both sides could know how ironic their deaths were it might put some fitting cap on their tombs.
Chairwoman Doans was not going to like the fact that Harry Bosch had reduced their latest faux Box to a pile of pieces. That is, they were assuming it was Bosch; in addition to owning a proteus that was mysteriously immune to the Chairwoman’s own proteus, the man was running some of the most complex blocking software on the planet. wEye-scans of Bosch were almost utterly transparent.
It was almost as if the man was a ghost.
A ghost that seemed to be on his own side.
Vasily
rumbled deep in his gut. Bosch was an enigma, to be certain. First, he outs Ashok Guillfoyle, gutting the man across the entire system and then he winds up at The Museum, where yet another intensely dangerous man –Vilmos Gualf- takes hostages and threatens the system. Vasily didn’t like coincidences and wasn’t sure he liked Bosch, but he decided to keep the Chairwoman ignorant of the ‘God soldier’s’ involvement for as long as possible.
After all, there were other tidbits that Alyssa needed to be made aware of first.
Vasily reflected moodily about this hitherto unknown religious organization, one well-heeled enough to provide its constituents with good quality weapons and Intel.
The last wide-scale ‘pious’ uprising had been early on in Scottsdale’s rule. The Chairman –in the over-dramatic style that he’d become famous for- had used tactics similar to Trinity’s approach with nanotechnology; his scorched earth scenario had left –not only a handful of Sigmas disappearing thousands of people- but a sour taste in the mouths of many, many Latelians.
It was highly likely that that incident was directly responsible for the political animal Alyssa Doans had become; her family, wealthy landowners from the Easson hub where the religious had eventually met their end, had been on the receiving end of more than a few of those Sigmas. The land -which Alyssa still owned- was just now recovering from the large-scale destruction, though she wouldn’t drink the water on a bet.
This group, wherever they were receiving their funding, were a hundred times worse than the group that’d been discovered squatting on the ancient Doans plot. What was more worrisome, most concerning, was that this group had received information concerning the terrorist attack against The Museum well in advance of anyone in office. Vasily knew the fools inside The Museum right now weren’t anything but the lowest level of this religious cabal and if any survived Gualf’s attentions, their deaths would become the stuff of legend: the leaders of this group were still out there somewhere in Hospitalis’ world-straddling city. Whoever those leaders were they needed to see in the plainest possible terms just what was coming for them.
Vasily turned to his advisors, pushing those concerns out of his head. Alyssa would learn of things when she learned of them. It really didn’t matter if the news came from him or from one of her many spies.
“Let’s begin.” Vasily sat at the head of the table and waited.
Colonel Harredad spoke first. “What are the chances that this Offworld assassin coordinated this revolt to draw Nickels out into the open?”
“Unlikely. Extremely so.” Vasily summoned up the few plausible details concerning Chadsik’s time on Hospitalis; they were few and far between. “He literally hasn’t had enough time to set this up. According to the Chairwoman’s people -who are still piecing this assassin’s trail together- he’s been too busy killing black-op agents to make the necessary contacts. To organize something like this takes more than just knowing the right people. It takes time, effort and money. Most of all, it takes trust. Chadsik al-Taryin wouldn’t bother with this kind of thing and I can’t think of anyone insane enough to trust Chadsik. No, this is a homegrown terrorist operation through and through. With a rather unfortunate amount of coincidences thrown in for good measure.”
Colonel Salms drew up Chadsik’s armature and displayed it on the holotable for all to see. His desperate, frustrated voice filled the tent. “Our scanners can’t identify what this man is constructed from! We can’t even really tell if there’s any organics in there at all. At best, we know he’s a cyborg. Everyone in Trinity is ignoring our requests for more data on this … this … ‘man’.” The hologram shifted slightly, revealing the few weapons their analysts had been able to identify, and only then because human eyes and instinct had made the final decisions. “These flat packs along the man’s chest are probably the explosive devices that were used to augment the initial blasts. Other than being completely alien in origin, we know nothing. In addition to these … whatever they ares, there is a host of weapons from guns to cannons. He … it.” Colonel Salms blinked. “This man is a threat. I can’t even articulate how strongly I think we need to deal with him before the terrorists or these religious buffoons.”
Everyone at the table seized on Chadsik’s armamentarium and started talking.
Vasily watched his advisors talk for a few more minutes, tuning out their conversation. It was so typical of the age that -when they were in the middle of a disastrous situation- they were fascinated by an Offworld assassin and his impossible existence rather than focusing on the bigger picture. How would they fare when things truly began to change?
The OverCommander wiped the holotable clear of the FrancoBritish assassin. “Sis and sas, while I agree that Chadsik al-Taryin’s truly alien hardware is as fascinating as it is dangerous, I think his relative non-involvement in this hostage situation indicates his disinterest in helping. Or hindering. He was included in your brief so that you would be able to recognize him as a potentially lethal threat. If he is engaged, he will fight back. Against anyone or anything. I know of Chadsik. If you leave him alone, there is over a ninety percent chance that he will leave you alone.
I heard someone a few moments ago posit that he is responsible for the devastation seen thus far and I assure you, the explosives he may or may not have added to the terrorists’ own deposits were put there out of boredom, not mayhem. At the time, he may not have even been aware of the extent of the impending damage or that he was even doing anything wrong. This,” he added dryly, looking around the room, “makes him infinitely more dangerous. When we storm The Museum, I advise you to caution your troops that they should avoid even looking at this man unless specifically ordered to by myself. Without accurate detail on the types of weapons he carries, he is a non-issue. Unless Garth Nickels -his intended target- is in immediate danger, Chadsik al-Taryin will remain neutral. This brings me to another point.
Garth Nickels is also off our list. Actually, if it appears that Garth Nickels is in trouble, our soldiers must protect him, even at the cost of their own lives. Trinity has ensured that It will be most … displeased. Woe betides the man or soldier who harms him.” It was good that they understood the depth of the trouble they were in. While the rest of the system may be entirely ignorant about the powers Trinity truly possessed, the military leaders arrayed around the table knew precisely how dangerous Trinity’s ‘displeasure’ could be. As unpalatable as it would be to spend God soldiers against Garth Nickels’ continued existence, they would do so.
Vasily stared at his advisors one by one until they reluctantly nodded. “Now. Can we continue?”
Colonel Marisa U-Ito -the only female colonel in the last three hundred years to advise an OverCommander- accessed her findings and displayed them for the quorum. “Discounting the group of terrorists who perished in the Tomb, we have at least a hundred more in there.” Off to one side, an updated blueprint flashed. “This is The Museum as it is now. With many main arteries buried under tons of rubble, they are following routes they may not have had time to map out properly. There are three groups of ten patrolling the halls. They are either on the lookout for more of the mystery group or, more certainly, they’re looking for this man,” the blueprint flashed again to reveal the three hit squads moving slowly through different sections of the museum, “who claims to be ‘Harry Bosch’, an ex-God soldier. This … smudge … in the damaged security center could possibly be him. From reports I’ve received from you, Sa OverCommander, his proteus is next-gen. If it is, it is running counter-intrusion measures that are beyond belief.”
Harredad grunted. “I’ve had my teams sift through the cashiered, honorable discharged and voluntary departure lists, Sa OverCommander. No one matches the description you provided us. Certainly no one has a name like, er, ‘Hieronymus’. If he is a soldier, he’s a Sigma.”
Salms spoke. “And then, of course, there’s the problem beneath the CIM protocols his prote is running.”
“Explain.” Vasily barked. There was so much
wrong with what was happening at The Museum and both his temper and mood was fraying rapidly.
Salms did so, hurriedly. “Regardless of the diffuse nature of the scans when focused on this Bosch, the wallEye’s other functions should be able to detect the duronium of this man’s implants without fail. The heavy metals in his bones and in the mesh … they shouldn’t be hidden. Can’t be hidden. He is obviously a God soldier to have done what he’s already done, but…”
“Are you certain?” OverCommander Vasily interrupted with a vast rumble.
Salms swallowed nervously. “As much as we can be, sa, yes.” The Tech Colonel twitched some data onto the table. “Sixty-five years ago, a rogue band of God soldiers utilized similar –and I say ‘similar’ for explicative purposes only- methods of hiding their presence from detection avatars. Until someone thought to use a mineral scanner to search for their implants and meshes, the scan profiles were close to Bosch’s, if only in form. Since that time, we’ve vastly improved our scanning technology. If,” Salms looked to U-Ito, “if he’s running next-gen avatars on that proteus, it’s more like ‘next-next-gen’. I personally can’t think of anything currently in development that can hide the unmistakable signature of duronium.”
“What if he isn’t a God soldier at all?” Vasily asked, wondering if perhaps Garth Nickels had somehow managed to gain possession of yet another black-op prote. From what he knew and surmised about their newest citizen, Garth was the sort of person who couldn’t resist helping people, even if it meant pain and suffering on his own behalf. His dislike of Chairwoman Doans was palpable, so it was a distinct possibility that he’d lied about his willingness to assist. He sighed inwardly. He regretted agreeing to hear the man’s comments about his involvement with Ashok Guillfoyle. His own damned curiosity had gotten the better of him and now they were in trouble.
But the possibility that Nickels was also Bosch? It staggered the mind. If he had gotten hold of a proteus powerful enough to do what the evidence claimed, it seemed likely there was nothing the man couldn’t do. That was a harrowing thought just as bad as terrorists overtaking The Museum!