Ragnarok (34 page)

 

 

R
EID
AND
Haglaz arrived at the ice hangar. Ragnar aimed the pogo's microwaves and melted it. Varg gave Rebecca a kiss and seated himself in the Blackwing, then closed the canopy overhead.

R team headed immediately south to set off the fluff bomb. Varg sent two radio transmissions, first to Mars on conventional encryption reading “Taking Spit up on her offer,” her offer on Mars having been some innuendo about occupying her secluded hangar. Then he sent a simple note to Valhalla reading only, “En Route.” He sent a thoughtwave up into the system, and the BIRP took off with a thunderous rumble.

R team prepared. Ruger looked over the sky for any sign of the thermobaric thruster.

“Is that it?” he asked, pointing to a conventional contrail.

“No,” explained Ripple, “I think we'll know it when we see it.”

Varg flew on ramjets up to 5,000 meters and prepared to activate the thruster.

“How about that one?” Ruger asked of a slightly larger contrail.

“Trust me, you won't need to ask.”

Varg activated the thruster.

An explosion of incomparable size obscured half of the daytime sky from view. Ruger didn't ask if that was it. The explosion raced south at incredible speed, propelling the small craft at its forefront faster than any other object had traveled in Earth's atmosphere before. It reached R team in only seconds after their flight of an hour.

R team launched their fluff bomb at the exact proper time and hit the Blackwing, setting off a charge that made a tiny explosion of deep red that Skunkworks would recognize as the craft's demise. Simultaneously, Varg cut off the thruster and fell into the ocean. The illusion was complete, and within minutes the news logs were streaming with reports of the long lost BIRP's destruction at the hands of incompetent thieves.

Varg propelled the Blackwing slowly south out of the zone in which searchers might look, then launched unseen that night from the ocean.

He rose to the edge of the atmosphere on ramjets, then set the BIRP to head to Mars under conventional Hall thrust. The thermobaric thruster could have maintained a localized atmosphere in space and sent him there in a matter of hours, but it would tip their hand. It would take a month at regular speed, so Varg took his cryo-tab and went to sleep. The orgy he dreamed up was phenomenal.

 

 

T
HE
NEXT
morning Veikko walked to the edge of Kvitøya and ejected his Tikari.

“Hey, Sal.”

Sal fluttered its wings and stared at him, on full AI.

“We've got some rough times ahead, little guy. I'm gonna need you to do me a big favor.”

An hour later, Balder and the remains of V team met in his office. Balder looked oddly disheveled. He saw that they picked up on it, and he explained.

“My dream software is acting up, happens when I try to do too much in my sleep. Nightmares creep in.”

“Are you okay?” asked Vibeke.

“Yeah, just a malfunction. We have things to deal with. Varg is going to be two months out, to and from Mars. He has to travel slow and silent. Project Daunting is over, but we have to see to its repercussions, the Geki.”

Violet took a deep breath. She wasn't looking forward to seeing them again.

“We're summoning the Geki at 0900. Any questions before we begin?”

Violet was unnerved by the word “summoning” and wondered what dark ritual would call the black-cloaked enforcers. She wanted someone to ask a question to delay the inevitable but couldn't think of any herself. She just wanted it to be over. 0900 came slowly.

“Very well, then, take your last calm breath.”

The team did so, and then Balder enacted the complex and mysterious ritual that called the Geki to his presence.

“Geki!”

They appeared. Fear hit Violet and the others like ice-cold water in the Tikari port. She stumbled back a step away from them, the anxiety thick in her chest. She looked to Veikko, who was clearly even more affected by it than her. Vibeke was frightened but on top of it, standing tall. Three kilometers over Balder's office, Sal noted a minuscule air distortion moving at a slight curvature.

“Who is the third?”

“Vibeke,” said Balder. “She stands with her team.”

“Leave.”

Any other time Vibeke would have stayed, stoic, but the Geki's voice commanded her to her deepest neuron. She couldn't disobey, so she left without a word.

Outside her distress turned to empathy. She was free, but Violet and Veikko were not. Her thoughts went to Violet most powerfully. She was heartbroken that she should suffer another second of it. Her pity grew harsher and more raw as she waited. Seconds passed, feeling longer. She wondered how long Violet could take it, if she should return and rescue her. But she couldn't. The Geki's suggestion was still active in her mind. She was helpless.

“You are responsible.”

It wasn't a question. The Geki's accusation was an order, a demand for acceptance of their crime, motivated by its voice as if they'd been holding back a confession for years.

“Yes,” Violet admitted quickly to stave off the pressure.

Veikko seemed frozen again. Violet feared he was stuck in a miserable loop the way he'd been the first time they met the Geki. But he was lucid and able to speak. And somehow, Violet couldn't imagine, he had the strength of will to disobey the Geki's order and say something other than yes.

“I'm responsible. Violet acted on my orders.”

“Your kind do not give or follow orders.”

Again, Veikko disagreed and somehow had the strength to tell a half-truth to the inhuman gaze. “I did because the world was at stake. I am responsible. Violet just pushed a button.”

“Did you?”

The question was directed completely at Violet. She could feel it focused on her, restrained to her and more intense than the other words. She wanted to do as Veikko did and oppose the force, but she couldn't. She answered.

“Kind of?”

Her answer surprised her. She knew she was incapable of lying, but she thought she'd take responsibility for the mushroom cloud. It was as if the Geki's will filtered into her, and it didn't want her to say no. As if the Geki were, somehow, for one fleeting moment, protecting her.

“Then leave.”

It was an order. Violet walked out and fell to her knees outside the library. Vibeke ran to her side and hugged her. Violet had no energy to hug back, let alone flirt. For one brief moment, they were friends again and nothing more, nothing tainted or complex. United in their concern for Veikko, who remained.

“You take full responsibility for the detonation of the nuclear bomb?”

“Yes!” Veikko shouted, the question rooting the word out of him.

“You will choose. You may die now, or you may come with us until Valhalla undoes the damage you've done to UNEGA.”

The option of death stuck out at him like a release, as if he were forced toward it. The option to stay with the Geki was a promise of living hell. The Geki's words were swaying him, pushing him toward death. He pushed back.

“I'll go with you.”

“Balder. We will keep Veikko until the civil war declines commensurate with the damage of the nuclear incident. Your senior teams will undo that damage now. If they fail, we will keep him forever. Act quickly, we are watching you.”

The Geki disappeared, and Veikko disappeared with them. His microwave fell to the rocky ground. Balder was suddenly alone in the room. His breath returned to him. Veikko was gone. He'd made his choice. There was nothing Balder could have done to protect him. He left the room.

Three kilometers up, Sal detected an air distortion moving on the exact opposite direction of the previous one, along the same curvature. The Tikari did a quick calculation and pinpointed the distortion's point of origin and return—13,000 kilometers away. Two days with available power. Sal activated his rocket and flew southwest.

“Where's Veikko?” asked Violet.

“They took him,” said Balder, as grim as if they'd killed him on the spot.

“Took him where?” demanded Vibs.

“I don't know. I don't know where they go when they disappear. They gave us an ultimatum: our senior teams fix any escalation the bomb caused and they let him go.”

“We'll cancel Hashima, we can—” said Violet.

“No,” Balder interrupted. “They made a mandate. They said senior teams. We do what they said, exactly as they said it. You know we can't refuse or beg them to change.”

The three stood silent. Balder looked sick.

“Are you okay?” asked Vibeke.

“Okay, but afraid,” said Balder.

“It stuck with you? Or you're afraid we'll fail?”

“No. Afraid of what Veikko will do.”

Violet didn't understand. “What can he do?”

“He can get us all killed,” Balder sat down against the library wall. He looked broken, far from his constant powerful aura. “My dreams have been so bad these days. So very bad. They won't be any better tonight.”

He waved for Violet and Vibeke to leave. They did so quietly. They tried to think of what Veikko could do, of what he would do. They weren't as concerned as Balder because they trusted him fully. But their minds dwelled on the worst possibilities. Of the Geki coming
to destroy Valhalla. The deaths of project Rasekrig compounded
tenfold. Or, with the Geki involved, of something even worse.

 

 

T
HEY
HAD
called it project Rasekrig because it was intended to end a race war. Vibs had to explain it to Violet. It was literally a fight over skin tones. They had been more common in the past, but they weren't completely dead in some regions.

“The stupid zone, apparently,” Violet remarked.

“Just don't say that when you work with them.”

“Why should we work with them? If they want to fight about who's blonder, let them kill each other.”

“It's the innocents in the region we're concerned with,” Vibs went on. “We can't stand by while people who don't want to fight are kicked out of their homes or killed.”

Violet had to agree with that much.

There were four belligerents. There was Kigali, a city company that wanted to drive the light-skinned people out of the region. There was Swastikult, the obnoxiously vocal and occasionally violent minority. There was Bruise, Swastikult's online presence, and there was Kigali En Ligne, their opponents. The online halves had long since fought a different war from their real world counterparts, a war of hacks and takedowns rather than the machete-based fight in the real world.
Shameful
, thought Violet. Every briefing she heard of it. But Alf called it a good simple start for political missions, a perfect introduction to the field for junior teams.

V team was assigned to Swastikult; W team to Kigali; X team to Bruise; and Y team to KEL. Each team was to pose as new recruits and convince their respective target to go pacifist or assassinate whoever wouldn't until the leaders were more amicable. They knew it would be a bloody, nasty project, and some had doubts about sending the most junior teams in, but the youngest of them were merely online, so it wasn't too big a risk.

V team ended up with the easiest job. Swastikult proved happy to go peaceful. They were just waiting for a ceasefire. That left V team with very little to do beyond protecting their target until the others stopped fighting.

That's where Violet met Gabrielle. Gabrielle looked nearly identical to Vibeke. Pale with white hair, the same hair Vibs would have had if she hadn't dyed it. Same round face, same shape of body, slightly larger breasts, slightly broader hips. Violet had long since given up on Vibeke romantically, or so she thought, but her near-doppelgänger wasn't off-limits and well, Valknut had little else to do.

Violet wasn't quiet about her conquest, so Balder ventured to give her a warning.

“These racial types are very backwards, you know.”

“About race, certainly,” Violet admitted.

“About more than race. Swastikult is from a long line of conservatives. They can be very closed-minded, even religious.”

“I'm sure Gabrielle is above it,” explained Violet. “She's very smart and not at all about the war. Moving her into a more powerful position was on our list from the start.”

“Just be careful, Vi. Make sure she doesn't… take anything the wrong way. Conservative types can object to some things that the civilized world, that
you
might take for granted.”

Violet wasn't certain what he meant but agreed anyway. And got to know Gabrielle better. And better. She wasn't as smart as Vibeke, but Violet wasn't looking for her teammate over again. The looks were just coincidental. She wanted a fling like one of Varg's, and Gabrielle seemed chipper around Violet more than anyone else in her gang.

Then X team was dead. And Y right after. V team got the signal an hour after it happened. There was nothing to do. KEL and Bruise were fighting each other on the Black Crag, hemorrhoid of the net. X and Y fought there too. And they got hacked, hacked into living spyware.

C team recognized it fast and put them down like rabid dogs. It was the blackest day in the history of the ravine. Two junior teams killed because they stepped onto the wrong website.

V and W took over the online aspects, which died down after the same mass hacking killed off 90 percent of Bruise and 99 percent of KEL. There was just some simple cleanup work to do, but the easy work was made next to impossible by the loss.

Gabrielle hugged Violet as soon as she got offline the first time. Violet hugged back harder. It was the strangest feeling. She was angry and sad and hurt, but completely transformed by that embrace. If she didn't have a crush on Gabrielle before, she was head over heels after that.