The God Mars Book Five: Onryo (30 page)

As I look up at their positions, my graphics pick
them out. They’re slowly pulling back into their tunnels, probably
to consider their situation, and then to plan their next moves. I
have an ugly thought.

“We could use Chang’s strategy,” I tell Ram, almost
joking. “Offer them power and protection if they serve us.”

“And then we’d be using them as
our
cannon
fodder,” Ram isn’t amused. I get the impression he’s wrestled with
the temptation already. “No. They can’t serve us. They have to
stand together when they face Earth, by themselves and for
themselves.”

“And where are we on that day?” I think I know the
necessary answer.

“Somewhere hell-and-gone away from them.”

Wordlessly, I follow him to recover the crate of
confiscated weapons. We add what else we’ve collected. Just as I’m
thinking he’s going to ask me to carry it back to Katar with him, I
hear him signal, and his flyer comes from over the crest with a
rush of turbines. We load and secure the crate, and he gets on his
machine. He doesn’t ask me to come with him. Straker must have told
him why I don’t want to see my people, my father. Or he’s read it
in my thoughts.

“You did well, today Ishmael—Jonathan,” he praises me
as prepares to fly. “Better than I did. Take care of yourself. And
call me if you need me.”

I hear an echo in my head as he says it, where I
usually hear Peter, but it’s Ram’s voice. He’s telling Peter to
take care of me.

I let him go without a word, without telling him that
I don’t know how to call him, and watch him disappear back over the
crest.

So that was Mike Ram,
Peter muses in my head.
Living history. He still lives up to the legend, even like
that.

I start walking back toward Eureka.

I watch over the freed Civvies until they get safely
home. Between their wasted physiques and the lack of breathers
(probably confiscated by the Keepers to discourage escape), they
struggle and drag, and are staggering and stumbling by the time the
make the perimeter hatches and let themselves in, helping each
other down into their poor sanctuary.

I don’t stay to let them thank me or be part of their
celebration and mourning. I know I can’t keep them safe. I can only
be their instrument of vengeance. Their Onryō.

But I
didn’t
slaughter. I wonder if I’ll be
made to regret that choice.

I should be proud of myself, that I did the better
thing today, but all I can think about is that two innocents died,
and that the lives I took and didn’t take won’t make a
difference.

As I hike back to the DQ, I consider whether I
should
try to call Ram (or ask the Ghaddar to, assuming she
does have the ability to), and offer myself to his cause for what
little time I have left (and maybe Peter will continue for me after
I finally fade). Then I consider that Ram is one of Yod’s pawns,
set either to keep balance in the nightmare reality he’s created,
or to further some agenda he doesn’t want to show his hand in
directly; insufficient hero or unwitting tool. I wonder if that’s
what I am as well. I expect so.

I can see why the Jinn withdrew, why their Council
pulled their warriors from the field. They’re refusing to play
Yod’s game, no matter the cost.

I remember Chang, exiled in Haven, doubting that
anything that he’d done (or is) was really him at all, that Yod had
simply invented and used him. Or worse: That he’d agreed to it.
Then I remember Ram confronting Yod, and Yod telling him that
he’d
agreed to it as well; that he’d, in fact,
inspired
Yod to do what he did. Assuming anything Yod says
is the truth, and not just more manipulation.

I’m back at the ship before I know it.

The Ghaddar, anticipating my needs (and apparently
when I’d be back), has set out food and water in the galley. But I
have a more pressing need. I find her in the cockpit, monitoring
the drone feed. She pretends not to care what I’ve just been up
to.

“Why are you here?” I ask her directly, taking off my
helmet.

She swivels her chair to face me, pulling aside her
own cowl and mask so I can see her face, her intense black eyes,
her long dark hair. There’s a deep sadness in her eyes.

“I promised your father that I would protect you with
my life.”

“You failed. You live.” It came out crueler than I’d
intended, but I’m sure she’s been thinking this every day since I
got myself shot. Then I make it worse. “I’m fading. You can see it.
Maybe not as fast as your father, when Chang made Bel’s Seed take
him. But I’ll be like that soon enough: A few lingering memories in
Peter’s head, traces of me in his face, just enough to remind
you…”

Stop it, lad.

“What will you do then? When there’s none of me left?
Will you go back to Ram, tell him I’m gone and he’ll be dealing
with Peter from now on, forever?”

She doesn’t answer. Neither does she give ground. So
I push the essential part of my question:

“Are you here to watch me on Ram’s behalf? Is that
why he was here today? Is that why Straker was at Eureka so
coincidentally?”

What betrays her is that she shows no reaction to me
telling her that Ram was here. I’ve always seen her uncomfortable
around him. She tries to hide it, but never succeeds. (Did she love
him? And then watched him turn into something else.)

“I’m here because I promised your father I would
protect you,” she repeats flatly. “You’re still alive.”

“But I have no need of your protection, do I?”

“My help, then.”

“And the true nature of that help? Keeping an eye on
me so I don’t do anything truly irredeemable? Or making sure I have
at least some human companionship so I don’t fully let go of what I
was?”

Again, she doesn’t answer. Her silence, I realize,
always tells me more than her words. But this time, I get something
unexpected: I actually see doubt in her eyes.

“You really don’t know.”

I suppress a chuckle. Everything about this is
ridiculous. No man would dare talk to the Zauba’a Ghaddar like I
am, except perhaps Ram. But I have no reason at all to fear her.
And she probably doesn’t remember what’s it’s like to face a man
who she can’t intimidate—she’s devoted her entire life to being
terrifying. But to me, she’s just another Normal.

So why is she here?

“I need to eat,” I let it go.

I do need to eat. My graphics are dipping into
yellows and reds. And I feel tired, slow, thirsty and starving. But
looking at the food right now, I remember eating that Keeper
alive.

I head for the shower in my family’s old quarters
instead. The room is depressingly bare, their personal treasures
either taken with them when they fled or long-since looted by the
Keepers. I don’t even possess a spare change of clothing.
(Conveniently, the insulated work jumper that forms the underlayer
for my armor either cleans itself or my body absorbs any soil.)

I haven’t done this very often since my conversion:
take off everything. I even tend to sleep in my jumper if not my
full armor. I have enough of a struggle dealing with my face not
being quite my own, but my body is not mine at all. It’s not just
all the new hard muscle and lack of scars. My bones are different:
bigger, thicker. Peter insists this isn’t him taking over; the Seed
immediately changed his physique as well.

But the worst part—still—is knowing that just under
my skin, or maybe even inside my skin, are billions upon billions
of molecule-scale machines, always busy, slowly changing me into
something else. My body is no longer my own. It’s
theirs
.
And through them, it’s Peter’s.

I tell myself it’s better, I’m a better thing than I
was. Stronger. Faster. Tougher. So much better to fight this fight,
to protect those who need it and fend off the monsters. When I was
just Jonathan Drake, just Ishmael Abbas, I was fragile, vulnerable,
weak. Insufficient. Inadequate. And I died, torn apart by bullets.
Now I’m this. For as long as it lasts, for as long as I last. And
after that, this body will continue. Maybe forever.

I check my frag wounds. I can still feel the ache of
them deep in the meat, but the skin barely shows discoloration.
It’s not natural, not at all. But it’s necessary.

The Ghaddar comes in behind me as I’m brooding over
myself in the mirror. She stands in the open hatch—I’m not sure why
I left it open—with no apparent concern for modesty. Her face is
unreadable.

“The living have purpose,” she says flatly. “The
dead, no longer. As long as you have purpose, then you’re
alive.”

She turns and leaves me.

After I’m done with my shower and back underneath the
armor of the Onryō, I realize she’s nowhere in the ship. I take a
brief look around outside.

She’s gone.

I spend the next three days doing my rituals emptily.
I begin neglecting
Salat
again. When the drones catch
something, I go out into the green, track down the source, and
destroy it, but not expediently.

I start toying with the Harvesters. I let them shoot
at me with their sloppy control over their stolen bodies, finding
it easy to stay ahead of their slow responses. Thankfully (if there
can be anything to be grateful for in this horror), all of the
drones so far have been inhabiting Chang’s former black-uniformed
minions. After they waste their ammo trying to hit me, I move in
and stab and whittle at the walking corpses, lazily shoot bits of
them away, and surgically batter them, systematically breaking
their bones. I make some of them last for minutes, then hours. I
even dismember, gut and “de-fang” one just to see how long its
module will keep trying to operate a useless mass of rotting meat
and bone. I tell myself what I’m doing is studying them, informally
cataloguing the kind of damage they can and can’t take; how much
violence is required to disable their control modules, their eyes,
their transmitters, or just to render them helpless and perhaps
speed the decomposition of their barely-maintained bodies. But I
know it’s just sick amusement, taking out my rage on flesh that’s
too far gone to suffer.

I even know Asmodeus is probably watching me through
them, probably sending them my way on purpose. Do I amuse him? Or
is he waiting for me to break down, to give up, to decide life (and
preserving it) is just as pointless as he insists it is.

So I put on a show, make messes out of human bodies
that even Peter is starting to get shocked by, hoping I’ll draw him
out; make the demon come to gloat, to seduce…

On the fourth day, no Harvesters come. So I sit out
in the green as the leaves close up and wait through the night.

When nothing comes by morning, I rush back to Eureka,
and look for sign of anything that may have gotten around me. The
Civvies send out their gathering parties, vigilant but unmolested.
So I go to the Keeper holdouts. They’re maintaining a thin
perimeter of sniper sentries with their few remaining operational
weapons, but they’re otherwise keeping chatter to a minimum since
they know we’re listening in. I’m sure they’re probably hunkered
down somewhere deep inside the slope, trying to get their weapons
working again, planning their next move.

Whatever it is, I find I barely care.

I go back to the DQ, and fall asleep watching the
screens.

To give me something productive to do, Peter teaches
me how to reload our empty cases. The task becomes especially
bizarre when I find out how we get the raw materials we need. What
we’ve absorbed from getting shot get’s extruded from our breast
plate as raw workable alloy that a handy lab-torch liquefies for
the bullet molds in my kit. My nanites also distill the propellant
powder from raw chemicals in my system. All I have to do is grip
the powder horn, and my scavengers work in reverse, transporting
the chemicals into the reservoir. Holding the struck primers in my
grip for several minutes restores and recharges them. Then it’s
just a matter of assembly, using the dies and hand-press. The
powder horn is self-measuring with presets for different
charges.

After a few hours, I’ve made myself forty rounds, one
at a time. Holding one in my fingers, appreciating the
hand-polished copper and brass, I have to chuckle at the thought
that I basically shit what made these out of my pores. Then I
consider that, given my artificially-enhanced skills, every
cartridge I’ve made could become a life taken.

I never thought about that before, when I was mortal.
Carrying and maintaining a gun, refining my marksmanship, I
treasured every precious round for its ability to defend my life
and the lives of my people. Life-saving treasure. Now I look at
them and just see planned murder, something I know I’ll do just
because I’m too angry to care about better possibilities.

(Is that why Ram shot those three Keepers? Did he
know he had better options, but just didn’t care to use them
because he was too angry to value their lives?)

I slide the shells back into their slots in my gun
belt.

I go outside, perform
Salat
, and Peter prays
at his family’s graves.

I’m gathering for a late lunch when I get the call:
Straker this time, her voice in my head.

“Ishmael. Jonathan. We could use you. Katar is under
attack. Bots this time. He hasn’t sent bots before.”

The Katar have no weapons against bots.

I have handfuls of fruits and nuts. I crush them in
my hands, absorb them directly. Then I start running.

It takes me the better part of an hour to run to the
point of the south rim of the Katar canyon. The time it takes is
unbearable, but I’m grateful that the Trident is indeed a
relatively small place. Only the mountains and divides are
significant obstacles to getting from south to north, since my new
abilities allow me to move through even the thick green swiftly and
surely, and I can always hack myself a path if I run into a thick
barrier of growth.