The God Mars Book Five: Onryo (43 page)

“
ASMODEUS!!
” Harris screamed. “
Help
me!!
”

“Fuck you, Gandalf,” Asmodeus answered him without
even looking, like Harris was no more than an annoying interruption
to his fun game.

“
ASMODEUS!!
” Harris kept trying.

“You’ve got not
one
fucking thing I want…” he
tried to convince Harris as Terina tried to take advantage of the
distraction by increasing the tenacity of her attacks. “Even if you
had girl-parts… you’re just too goddamn ugly to fuck…”

I could see Harris process his doomed situation
across his mangled face, trying to think his way out of it through
his panic. I saw his solution click, and in a flash, he turned the
revolver. I was too far away. Too slow.

One shot. Apparently he still had enough of his
Modded abilities to make it count. By the time I turned to look…
I’d almost hoped he’d decided to shoot Asmodeus, to give us
something that might be worth sparing his worthless life…

The blast of the HE round initially obscured my view,
but I knew what had happened in my gut. When I could see, Asmodeus
had blood sprayed all over his face, all over his pretty gold
armor, staring for a moment in dumb shock…

Terina’s head… Her body stayed up for a moment, as if
trying to continue the fight. Then she fell over on top of her
Companion at Asmodeus’ feet, while Asmodeus looked down at her body
like someone had just shit on his dinner.

I think I screamed some… unintelligible… stream of
obscenities… And… I guess I decided the most reasonable response
was to give Harris his Companion back. So I threw it. Right through
his fucking solar plexus.

Then I advanced on him to finish the job properly,
finally, while he clutched at the Blade stuck through him like he
could repossess it, slicing his fingers to the bone. My own Blade
was still linked to it, perhaps irrevocably, locking him out.

If I just put my hand on the hilt, it would start
sucking him dry. But I didn’t want any part of that fuck becoming
part of me.

I was thinking of so many things to do to him when I
heard the engines of the flyers, turned and saw Erickson Carter and
Jonathan Dra… Strike that last… Saw Erickson Carter and the
Onryō
coming at us fast from the east.

Even from where I was, even over the sound of the
engines, I could hear him screaming in senseless, helpless
rage.

I am only half-a-klick away when I see it happen.

I zoomed my vision as soon as we had sight-line,
watched as Straker and the Katar fought back the massive Harvester
advance, while Terina impressively engaged Chang.

I was
three
klicks away when I saw Thel kill
Ambassador Murphy, and Straker try to avenge him. Erickson saw it,
too. But our flyers would go no faster. They were already burning
their fuel cells dry because we were pushing them so hard—we might
actually crash before we reached the fight, and the only reason I
cared about that was how much more it would delay us getting
there.

So I watched while Straker took revenge, battered and
hacked and stabbed Thel, then managed to take his Companion from
him. But taking his Companion did something to her, made her lock
up, and her feed was a blast of gibberish when I tried to link to
her through Peter.

“She’s syncing with it!” Erickson assured me,
cheering like we’d just won a small victory. But while she was
frozen, Thel ran, ran and climbed and crawled back to where he’d
killed Murphy. He grabbed Murphy’s revolver and tried to shoot
Straker as she unlocked and went after him, now with two Blades
instead of one. When he missed, he pointed the gun at the Katar,
but didn’t shoot. I could almost hear him shouting something as he
tried to get away from Straker, but I couldn’t hear what it was
over the wind and the engine blast, not even with enhancement.
Maybe he was begging for mercy.

But then he turned and shot Terina.

All I could do was watch, still just too far away,
too many seconds too late.

He blew her fucking head apart. He killed her. She
probably never saw it coming.

All I am is rage. Not Peter’s. Mine.

He’s
mine
.

I take manual control and dive in for what I’m sure
isn’t going to be a landing when Straker throws one of her Blades
and sticks it right through Thel’s midsection. And all I can think
is “Not yet,” because I want to do it myself, I
need
to do
it myself.

I bring the flyer down just over the rocks like I’m
going to crash it straight into Thel, then hit the braking jets.
Inertia tries to throw me off, and I go with it, jump.

I’m flying right at him as he turns and looks at me
with the Blade still through him, one of his eyes gouged out. I
land short a few meters and roll, aim myself, and hit him with my
body mass. I hear his bones break against my armor as we both go
tumbling across the slope. But I also get beaten by boulders, feel
joints dislocate, feel my spine pop. I don’t care.

When I stop tumbling, I drag myself up, pop my joints
back in place, and move through the pain. I don’t care about the
pain.

I find Thel on his back wedged in a rut between two
big rocks. The Blade sticking through him is now leaning over
sideways as it had ripped through most of his insides as he flew
and rolled. He’s a mess of blood and meat and guts and one eye that
tries to look at me but he looks like he’s passing out. I’m not
going to let him pass out on me.

I stagger over—still putting myself back together—and
pull the Blade out of his torso. It fights me, shocks me, tries to
get inside me through my gloved hand, but I just discard it, toss
it away in the rocks. Then I drop down on top of Thel. I feel his
arms break and grind under my knees.

He’s mouthing something, choking weakly on blood.
Begging or cursing me, I don’t care. I don’t care. He looks up at
me with his one eye like he wants to plead with me, wants to say
he’s sorry or please don’t hurt him please don’t kill him. I answer
him by driving my thumbs through both his eye sockets, driving
deep, snapping through thin bone into his head. He can only rasp
his scream. His body jerks and bucks and struggles under me.
Helpless.

I realize Straker is standing over me, watching. She
doesn’t try to stop me. She doesn’t say anything. She just wants to
see it.

I don’t drain him. I pick up his head a few
centimeters and then smash it down on the rocks, but delicately,
surgically, just to break his skull open. Then I pull my thumbs out
of his eyes, look into the eyeless sockets. His mouth isn’t moving
anymore. I bring the palm of my hand down on his forehead, just a
smack, and then another, to finish breaking apart his skull. I want
him to feel his mind go, not all at once, not instant oblivion, but
piece at a time. I drive my fingers into the shattered mess, into
his brain, and I knead it like dough. And when I’m sure I’ve
destroyed everything he was, I use my palm to smash down and
splatter apart what remains. Then I pick up scoops of it and throw
them across the slope.

“
YYEEESSS!!!
” I hear a sick cheer. Asmodeus is
coming toward me, clapping his gloved hands, his collapsed spear
wedged under his armpit, looking at me like a proud father. There’s
blood and bits of what’s probably bone and brain sprayed all over
the front of him. I know it’s Terina. I can see it slowing being
absorbed into him, and that alone makes me angry—he has no right to
any of her.

“You were right,” I tell him softly, my hands covered
in blood and brain. “I
do
like the slaughter. Way too
much.”

Then I get up and draw my Nagamaki to face him.

“Not a smart idea, Skeletor,” he tries warning me
like he’s not afraid. “The body double you hacked up back on the
‘Cloud Two was a D-Model. ‘D’ as in ‘Decoy.’ ‘Distraction.’
‘Discount.’ ‘Disposable.’ You get it. This is a Premium. All the
upgrades.”

He’s telling me this isn’t really him, that I’m
facing another copy.

“He used a clone-double on the Stormcloud,” I tell
Straker when I catch her looking confused. She’s circled to
Asmodeus’ left, picked up Thel’s former Companion. Erickson is
coming up on Asmodeus’ right, up-slope, his own Blade ready.

“And what was
he
?” Straker gestures to where I
see another gold-armored body sprawled on the valley floor,
headless, twitching. But its cloak is white, not red.

“No, not a copy,” Asmodeus admits like it isn’t
important. “That
was
actually Fuckhead, the One and Only.
The Great and Powerful. Fuckhead. That’s what I call him. Term of
Endearment, really. But he was. Insisted on coming in person to run
the toys. I think he wanted to get a little bloody himself, tired
of doing it by remote-control. I suppose I’ll have to call him
Fuck-No-Head until it grows back. No-Fuck-Head? Fuck-Headless?”

It’s all just a joke to him. All the death.

He sees us semi-surrounding him, getting ready to
attack. (I notice Straker keeps her Blades down, not wanting to
repeat the mistake of holding a guard up to him.) But all he does
is chuckle at us.

“Okay. Let’s make this more interesting…” He hits a
sequence of hidden buttons on his spear shaft. I sense a surge in
heat and particle radiation. “Back when I used to play VR games
there were these things called ‘timed levels.’ I
hated
those. You had to complete your mission against a countdown, or
else ‘boom,’ game over.” He shows us the spear. “Bel pulled this
trick once on Chang. I saw it coming—I warned him—but he still got
his bow blown off. The core materials that power these devices can
be enriched until they become fissile. Add a shaped-charge to start
the chain reaction… We used to call a bomb this size a ‘suitcase
nuke.’ Not much yield at all compared to a thermonuclear device, or
even a tactical warhead. Not even as much as the one Bel made—his
was an implosion core, this one is linear. Simpler. Lower yield but
enough to blast and burn… well, about half-a-klick radius. Assuming
I did the math right. And then there’s the radiation… I just set
the timer for three minutes. A standard boxing round.
Ding
.”

“You’re bluffing,” Erickson hopes.

“Wait two minutes and fifty seven seconds and find
out. Like I said, I may have fucked up the math. Of course, if I
didn’t, you won’t really know what hit you. Only Skeletor here will
grow back. Maybe.”

“And
you
?” Straker dares. “Shouldn’t you be
running?”

“I’m just a copy,” he insists easily. “Everything I
am, uploaded home. That’s all any of us are, you know. Your
consciousness is a phenomenon of your meat brain. It only exists in
the current moment. You only know you’re you, have any sense that
you’re a contiguous existence, because of your memories. And mine
are just made up. Maybe yours are, too. But mine don’t even
feel
real—it’s more like I’m watching a documentary. Two
minutes, forty seconds. You can either try to kick my ass and take
the spear, or try to get the mortal meat to cover before zero.” He
nods up at the Katar line. “Two minutes thirty-five.”

Straker looks like she wants to explode. Stuffing her
rage, she barks at us “Come on!” and runs for the Katar as fast as
she can. Erickson reluctantly follows.

I look at Terina’s body, then at Asmodeus. I pull
aside my mask so he can see the look on my face. It just makes the
fucker happy.

I charge in, all righteous anger, Nagamaki against
spear, and he shows me a little of how good he is. He dances away
from me effortlessly, and with quick darting thrusts puts wounds in
my thighs, my forearms, my face below my left eye. All I can do is
keep him moving. I can’t reach him, land a blow. So I try leverage,
momentum, try to slam the spear out of his grip, maybe destroy the
warhead inside, but he won’t let me.

“You’re doing better than she did,” he gives me.

“Shut up!!” I spit at him.

“I didn’t want her dead, kid. I thought she was hot.
Really
hot. Did you two ever…?”

“Shut up!
Shut up!!
”

I try a play, get my Nagamaki wrapped up with his
spear, press in close and grab the shaft. He charges it to try to
burn me off, but I don’t let go. Then I let go of the Nagamaki, and
before it can fall, draw my revolver and empty it into him, going
for the gaps in his armor. I aim the last two rounds at his head,
up under his chin, but he twists and dodges them by millimeters.
Then he throws me off of him, laughing. But he’s favoring his left
side now. I did him some damage.

“No bad, kid,” he praises, sounding winded. “Not bad
at all.”

I drop the empty gun back in its holster and recover
my blade, try to press whatever advantage I have. He seems to be
having a harder time now. But I’m running out of time.

Asmodeus breaks away, keeps away, taunts me like this
is a child’s tag game. He even tosses the spear from hand-to-hand
to tease me.

“Forty-five seconds.”

He can easily keep out of my reach for that long. But
I’m not running.

I look back and up-slope. It looks like Straker and
Erickson have managed to dig out the tunnel entrance, at least
enough to get people through. They’re not going to all make it. And
some aren’t trying. They’re standing to face the blast, calmly,
bravely. Why are they…?

“Your girlfriend’s most recent memories are in her
Companion,” Asmodeus suddenly reminds me. “Not everything, of
course, but enough for whatever grows back to know a little of who
she is, maybe who you are. But a Companion can’t grow a whole body,
only fix one, so if she gets vaporized… Thirty seconds.”

I take two more deciding what to do.

I ignore Asmodeus and run for Terina, grab her corpse
and drag it. Her hand is still hanging on to the Companion. Hope.
But I can’t look at her, her head…