Warriors [Anthology]

by George R. R.

  Had the sister felt something like this at the end? Was there any way to open the door to God’s house without terrible, holy pain? She had brown eyes. He thinks they were sad. Had she been frightened? Why would Jesus let her be frightened, when even He had cried out on the cross?

  I praise You, Lord, Lamentation Kane tells the pain. This is Your way of reminding me to pay attention. I am Your servant, and I am proud to put on Your holy armor.

  * * * *

  It takes him at least two hours to finish changing at the best of times. Tonight, with the fatigue of his journey and long entry process and the curiously troubling effect of the woman’s martyrdom tugging at his thoughts, it takes him over three.

  Kane gets out of the tub shivering, most of the heat dispersed and his skin almost blue-white with cold. Before wrapping the towel around himself he looks at the results of all his work. It’s hard to see any differences except for a certain broadness to his chest that was not there before, but he runs his fingers along the hard shell of his stomach and the sheath of gristle that now protects his windpipe and is satisfied. The thickening beneath the skin will not stop high-speed projectiles from close up, but they should help shed the energy of any more distant shot and will allow him to take a bullet or two from nearer and still manage to do his job. Trellises of springy cartilage strengthen his ankles and wrists. His muscles are augmented, his lungs and circulation improved mightily. He is a Guardian, and with every movement he can feel the holy modifications that have been given to him. Beneath the appearance of normality he is strong as Goliath, scaly and supple as a serpent.

  He is starving, of course. The cupboards are full of powdered nutritional supplement drinks. He adds water and ice from the kitchen unit, mixes the first one up and downs it in a long swallow. He drinks five before he begins to feel full.

  Kane props himself up on the bed—things are still sliding and grinding a little inside him, the last work of change just finishing—and turns the wall on. The images jump into life and the seed in his head speaks for them. He wills his way past sports and fashion and drama, all the unimportant gibberish with which these creatures fill their empty hours, until he finds a stream of current events. Because it is Archimedes, hive of Rationalist pagans, even the news is corrupted with filth, gossip and whoremongering, but he manages to squint his way through the offending material to find a report on what the New Hellas authorities are calling a failed terrorist explosion at the port. A picture of the Martyrdom Sister flashes onto the screen—taken from her travel documents, obviously, anything personal in her face well hidden by her training—but seeing her again gives him a strange jolt, as though the notes that tune his body have suddenly begun one last forgotten operation.

  Nefise Erim, they call her. Not her real name, that’s almost certain, any more than Keenan McNally is his. Outcast, that’s her true name. Scorned— that could be her name too, as it could be his. Scorned by the unbelievers, scorned by the smug, faithless creatures who like Christ’s ancient tormentors fear the Word of God so much, they try to ban Him from their lives, from their entire planet! But God can’t be banned, not so long as one human heart remains alive to His voice. As long as the Covenant system survives, Kane knows, God will wield his mighty sword and the unbelievers will learn real fear.

  Oh, please, Lord, grant that I may serve you well. Give us victory over our enemies. Help us to punish those who would deny You.

  And just as he lifts this silent prayer, he sees her face on the screen. Not his sister in martyrdom, with her wide, deep eyes and dark skin. No, it is her—the devil’s mistress, Keeta Januari, Prime Minister of Archimedes.

  His target.

  Januari is herself rather dark skinned, he cannot help noticing. It is disconcerting. He has seen her before, of course, her image replayed before him dozens upon dozens of times, but this is the first time he has noticed a shade to her skin that is darker than any mere suntan, a hint of something else in her background beside the pale Scandinavian forebears so obvious in her bone structure. It is as if the martyred sister Nefise has somehow suffused everything, even his target. Or is it that the dead woman has somehow crept into his thoughts so deeply that he is witnessing her everywhere?

  If you can see it, you can eat it! He has mostly learned to ignore the horrifying chatter in his head, but sometimes it still reaches up and slaps his thoughts away Barnstorm Buffet! We don’t care if they have to roll you out the door afterwards—you’ll get your money’s worth!

  It doesn’t matter what he sees in the Prime Minister, or thinks he sees. A shade lighter or darker means nothing. If the devil’s work out here among the stars has a face, it is the handsome, narrow-chinned visage of Keeta Januari, leader of the Rationalists. And if God ever wanted someone dead, she is that person.

  * * * *

  She won’t be his first: Kane has sent eighteen souls to judgment already. Eleven of them were pagan spies or dangerous rabble-rousers on Covenant. One of those was the leader of a cryptorationalist cult in the Crescent—the death was a favor to the Islamic partners in Covenant’s ruling coalition, Kane found out later. Politics. He doesn’t know how he feels about that, although he knows the late Dr. Hamoud was a doubter and a liar and had been corrupting good Muslims. Still... politics.

  Five were infiltrators among the Holy Warriors of Covenant, his people’s army. Most of these had half-expected to be discovered, and several of them had resisted desperately.

  The last two were a politician and his wife on the unaffiliated world of Arjuna, important Rationalist sympathizers. At his masters’ bidding, Kane made it look like a robbery gone wrong instead of an assassination: this was not the time to make the Lord’s hand obvious in Arjuna’s affairs. Still, there were rumors and accusations across Arjuna’s public networks. The gossipers and speculators had even given the unknown murderer a nickname—the Angel of Death.

  Dr. Prishrahan and his wife had fought him. Neither of them had wanted to die. Kane had let them resist even though he could have killed them both in a moment. It gave credence to the robbery scenario. But he hadn’t enjoyed it. Neither had the Prishrahans, of course.

  He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His adversaries, Spirit reminded him when he had finished with the doctor and his wife, and he understood. Kane’s duty is not to judge. He is not one of the flock, but closer to the wolves he destroys. Lamentation Kane is God’s executioner.

  * * * *

  He is now cold enough from his long submersion that he puts on clothes. He is still tender in his joints as well. He goes out onto the balcony, high in the canyons of flatblocks pinpricked with illuminated windows, thousands upon thousands of squares of light. The immensity of the place still unnerves him a little. It’s strange to think that what is happening behind one little lighted window in this expanse of sparkling urban night is going to rock this massive world to its foundations.

  It is hard to remember the prayers as he should. Ordinarily Spirit is there with the words before he has a moment to feel lonely. “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”

  But he does not feel comforted at this moment. He is alone.

  “Looking for love?” The voice in his head whispers this time, throaty and exciting. A bright twinkle of coordinates flicker at the edge of his vision. “I’m looking for you...and you can have me for almost nothing. ...”

  He closes his eyes tight against the immensity of the pagan city.

  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God.

  * * * *

  He walks to the auditorium just to see the place where the Prime Minister will speak. He does not approach very closely. It looms against the grid of light, a vast rectangle like an axe head smashed into the central plaza of Hellas City. He does not linger.

  As he slides through the crowds, it is hard not to look at the people around him as though he has already accomplished his task. What would they think if they knew who he was? Would they s
hrink back from the terror of the Lord God’s wrath? Or would a deed of such power and piety speak to them even through their fears?

  I am ablaze with the light of the Lord, he wants to tell them. I have let God make me His instrument—I am full of glory! But he says nothing, of course, only walks amid the multitudes with his heart grown silent and turned inward.

  Kane eats in a restaurant. The food is so overspiced as to be tasteless, and he yearns for the simple meals of the farm on which he was raised. Even military manna is better than this! The customers twitter and laugh just like the Archimedes seed in their heads, as if it is that babbling obscenity that has programmed them instead of the other way around. How these people surrounded themselves with distraction and glare and noise to obscure the emptiness of their souls!

  He goes to a place where women dance. It is strange to watch them, because they smile and smile and they are all as beautiful and naked as a dark dream, but they seem to him like damned souls, doomed to act out this empty farce of love and attraction throughout eternity. He cannot get the thought of martyred Nefise Erim out of his head. At last he chooses one of the women—she does not look much like the martyred one, but she is darker than the others—and lets her lead him to her room behind the place where they dance. She feels the hardened tissues beneath his skin and tells him he is very muscular. He empties himself inside her and then, afterwards, she asks him why he is crying. He tells her she is mistaken. When she asks again, he slaps her. Although he holds back his strength, he still knocks her off the bed. The room adds a small surcharge to his bill.

  He lets her go back to her work. She is an innocent, of sorts: she has been listening to the godless voices in her head all her life and knows nothing else. No wonder she dances like a damned thing.

  Kane is soiled now as he walks the streets again, but his great deed will wipe the taint from him as it always does. He is a Guardian of Covenant, and soon he will be annealed by holy fire.

  * * * *

  His masters want the deed done while the crowd is gathered to see the Prime Minister, and so the question seems simple: Before or after? He thinks at first that he will do it when she arrives, as she steps from the car and is hurried into the corridor leading to the great hall. That seems safest. After she has spoken it will be much more difficult, with her security fully deployed and the hall’s own security acting with them. Still, the more he thinks about it, the more he feels sure that it must be inside the hall. Only a few thousand would be gathered there to see her speak, but millions more will be watching on the screens surrounding the massive building. If he strikes quickly his deed will be witnessed by this whole world—and other worlds, too.

  Surely God wants it that way. Surely He wants the unbeliever destroyed in full view of the public waiting to be instructed.

  Kane does not have time or resources to counterfeit permission to be in the building—the politicians and hall security will be checked and rechecked, and will be in place long before Prime Minister Januari arrives. Which means that the only people allowed to enter without going through careful screening will be the Prime Minister’s own party. That is a possibility, but he will need help with it.

  Making contact with local assets is usually a bad sign—it means something has gone wrong with the original plan—but Kane knows that with a task this important he cannot afford to be superstitious. He leaves a signal in the established place. The local assets come to the safe house after sunset. When he opens the door, he finds two men, one young and one old, both disconcertingly ordinary-looking, the kind of men who might come to tow your car or fumigate your flat. The middle-aged one introduces himself as Heinrich Sartorius, his companion just as Carl. Sartorius motions Kane not to speak while Carl sweeps the room with a small object about the size of a toothbrush.

  “Clear,” the youth announces. He is bony and homely, but he moves with a certain grace, especially while using his hands.

  “Praise the Lord,” Sartorius says. “And blessings on you, brother. What can we do to help you with Christ’s work?”

  “Are you really the one from Arjuna?” young Carl asks suddenly.

  “Quiet, boy. This is serious.” Sartorius turns back to Kane with an expectant look on his face. “He’s a good lad. It’s just—that meant a lot to the community, what happened there on Arjuna.”

  Kane ignores this. He is wary of the Death Angel nonsense. “I need to know what the Prime Minister’s security detail wears. Details. And I want the layout of the auditorium, with a focus on air and water ducts.”

  The older man frowns. “They’ll have that all checked out, won’t they?”

  “I’m sure. Can you get it for me without attracting attention?”

  “Course.” Sartorius nods. “Carl’ll find it for you right now. He’s a whiz. Ain’t that right, boy?” The man turns back to Kane. “We’re not backward, you know. The unbelievers always say it’s because we’re backward, but Carl here was up near the top of his class in mathematics. We just kept Jesus in our hearts when the rest of these people gave Him up, that’s the difference.”

  “Praise Him,” says Carl, already working the safe house wall, images flooding past so quickly that even with his augmented vision Kane can barely make out a tenth of them.

  “Yes, praise Him,” Sartorius agrees, nodding his head as though there has been a long and occasionally heated discussion about how best to deal with Jesus.

  Kane is beginning to feel the ache in his joints again, which usually means he needs more protein. He heads for the small kitchen to fix himself another nutrition drink. “Can I get you two anything?” he asks.

  “We’re good,” says the older man. “Just happy doing the Lord’s work.”

  * * * *

  They make too much noise, he decides. Not that most people would have heard them, but Kane isn’t most people.

  I am the sword of the Lord, he tells himself silently. He can scarcely hear himself think it over the murmur of the Archimedes seed, which although turned down low is still spouting meteorological information, news, tags of philosophy and other trivia like a madman on a street corner. Below the spot where Kane hangs, the three men of the go-suited security detail communicate among themselves with hand signs as they investigate the place he has entered the building. He has altered the evidence of his incursion to look like someone has tried and failed to get into the auditorium through the intake duct.

  The guards seem to draw the desired conclusion: after another flurry of hand signals, and presumably after relaying the all clear to the other half of the security squad, who are doubtless inspecting the outside of the same intake duct, the three turn and begin to walk back up the steep conduit, the flow of air making their movements unstable, headlamps splashing unpredictably over the walls. But Kane is waiting above them like a spider, in the shadows of a high place where the massive conduit bends around one of the building’s pillars, his hardened fingertips dug into the concrete, his augmented muscles tensed and locked. He waits until all three pass below him then drops down silently behind them and crushes the throat of the last man so he can’t alert the others. He then snaps the guard’s neck and tosses the body over his shoulder, then scrambles back up the walls into the place he has prepared, a hammock of canvas much the same color as the inside of the duct. In a matter of seconds he strips the body, praying fervently that the other two will not have noticed that their comrade is missing. He pulls on the man’s go-suit, which is still warm, then leaves the guard’s body in the hammock and springs down to the ground just as the second guard realizes there is no one behind him.

  As the man turns toward him, Kane sees his lips moving behind the face shield and knows the guard must be talking to him by seed. The imposture is broken, or will be in a moment. Can he pretend his own communications machinery is malfunctioning? Not if these guards are any good. If they work for the Prime Minister of Archimedes, they probably are. He has a moment before the news is broadcast to all the other security people in the build
ing.

  Kane strides forward, making nonsensical hand signs. The other guard’s eyes widen: he does not recognize either the signs or the face behind the polymer shield. Kane shatters the man’s neck with a two-handed strike even as the guard struggles to pull his sidearm. Then Kane leaps at the last guard just as he turns.

  Except it isn’t a he. It’s a woman and she’s fast. She actually has her gun out of the holster before he kills her.

  * * * *

  He has only moments, he knows: the guards will have a regular check-in to their squad leader. He sprints for the side shaft that should take him to the area above the ceiling of the main hall.

  Women as leaders. Women as soldiers. Women dancing naked in public before strangers. Is there anything these Archimedeans will not do to debase the daughters of Eve? Force them all into whoredom, as the Babylonians did?