The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming (54 page)

I walk farther, past the recently stripped
foundations. I find graffiti, names carved into the foundations
that may be a roster of survivors. Most of the names are
well-weathered, old.

Out beyond the ruin, to the east just inside the
canyon, I find the “cross ships” we’ve been looking for: Three of
them, sitting side-by-side, hidden by nano-mesh camouflage nets,
cold and abandoned. I figure I know what happened to the crews.

There’s been no sign of Asmodeus. Star was wrong. If
he was afraid she did have critical secrets to share with me, he’d
have come by now.

Before it gets dark, I go back to the graves, then
the ‘Horse, but I can’t find Smith. When I finally do, tracking him
by sound, he’s found Jackson’s AAV.

“She’s still got enough fuel to make it back to the
forward base,” he tells me when I poke my head into the cockpit.
“And I think I can get a call out. It looks like they’ve planted
repeaters.” But then he looks to me for permission.

I shake my head.

“Not yet. Guaranteed that sick fuck is listening.
Let’s keep him guessing.” As far as he knows, it’s only me and Star
left. But he should have come by now. Unless he’s waiting for
something, our next move.

Let’s give him one.

“Do you have the codes for the warheads?”

He’d seen Corso stash a small paper journal. It has
the codes Richards gave her to signal Orbit, and the arming
sequences for the nukes. I make Smith stay inside the AAV as I work
through the night, pulling one of the warheads from its tube, and
setting it up on a pillar foundation in the heart of the stripped,
bloodied ruin.

It reminds me of an altar, I realize. I remember an
old science fiction film, with a post-apocalyptic society that
worshipped a world-killing bomb. At the end, the “heroes” decided
to detonate it, because they’d personally decided that the world
wasn’t worth saving. I remember asking myself who would make that
kind of decision, to destroy an entire world just because you can’t
see any hope in it. But then, apparently, a small group of us did
just that.

I finish setting the warhead so that I can trigger it
myself. I have no intention of doing so, I tell myself. This is
just a show to convince the bastard that he’s made me that
desperate, so he’ll come and egg me into doing it. But I know I
would probably push the button if he actually does show up in his
primary body and I can’t manage to contain him any other way, even
if Star, Lyra (whoever she’s going to be) and Smith are in radius.
If nothing else, it will buy this planet some time until he can
reassemble himself (assuming that
is
possible, and Chang’s
return wasn’t just Yod doing whatever Yod wants), maybe give my
fellows the opportunity to be ready for him when he does.

I take a breath of the cold night as I check my work.
The fucker has got me twisted this far, that I’d blow my own toxic
hole in the goddamn planet just to hurt him back, even if it takes
me and a few friends along with it. But then I touch the blood
soaked into the concrete, smell the lingering stink in the air. And
I think maybe I should push the button, scour this place clean,
erase the last traces of his latest atrocity, even if it is trading
one stain for another.

I sit down, back up against my apocalyptic altar, and
curl up against the cold. Sitting down… I haven’t stopped moving in
days. Even a concrete wall makes a good pillow…

I dream of pressing that button, over and over.
Shoving the warhead down his grinning throat and vaporizing the
world. You and me, you sick fuck… We’re going out together…

Just like it should be. Just like it needs to be.

“Uh… Hey…”

It’s morning.

It’s Lyra. She’s up, out of her hole. Standing over
me like she’s half-asleep herself.

I look around through my own shocked-awake haze.
There’s no sign of Star. Just…

Except for a little dirt, she’s clean, no blood, no
stink of corpses. She’s still wearing the L-A trousers,
shin-armored boots, and the t-shirt she was in when I “buried” her,
but all in better condition now, new-looking. The most obvious
change to her wardrobe is that she’s wearing forearm guards very
similar to mine, as if copied in homage. She also has a new double
gun belt loaded with magazines, with a UNMAC-issue-type sidearm
slung on each hip. And that’s it. Otherwise, she looks very much as
she did—same face, same hair—only healthier, stronger. And her eyes
betray her, of course: metallic blue.

I don’t recognize this whoever-it-is from my
lost-world memories. All I see is Lyra. (Maybe the cosmetic changes
haven’t begun yet. Am I to be tortured by being made to watch her
slowly fade, punished for my sins through her?)

She blinks like she’s having trouble focusing, like
she’s confused, disoriented.

“Am I…? Am I
done
?” she stammers, looking down
at her hands. She also looks like she’s having trouble just
standing up. Shaky, wobbly, like a new fawn taking its first
tentative steps. “I mean… I’m still… I’m still
me
.”

What?

I get up and step toward her tentatively. She puts
out her hands like she really can’t see very well, and I end up
catching her. I can feel the tech inside her, hear her signals
screaming, chaotic, confused. She
has
been converted, fully
Modded, but…

“I
feel
you… in my head…” She closes her eyes,
flinches at the barrage of new sensations. When she opens them
again, she stares blankly, as if blind.

I take her by the wrists, look into her eyes. She
winces and blinks like she’s looking into the sun. But she sees me.
On multiple spectrums.

“My eyes… So much, so
clear
… and there’s
graphics, like on a heads-up, but they’re
inside
my eyes,
inside my
head
…” She tries to shake it away, fails, shuts
her eyes tight again. “Is this what it’s like for you?”

“Who are you?” I need to know.

“
Me
... Still me… Lyra… I think…” She looks at
me again as if I can see her soul and know. “When does it happen?
When do I…?” I can feel her fear. Her blue eyes tear up. “
When
do I stop being me?
”

I grab her head with both hands, make her look at me,
try to interface.

“You… You
are
in my head… I can hear you… I
can…”

Her
head. There’s no one else in there, no
other code.

Laughing with joy, I wrap my arms around her, hug her
tightly. She struggles for a moment, confused, then starts to
steadily return the embrace.

“What?” she whispers in my ear, wanting and not
wanting to know. “What is it?”

“Blank Seed,” I tell her, starting to cry myself now.
“It’s not coded to anyone. No DNA. No memory set. Factory
blank.”

I took a blank with me—or Yod sent it with me—for
some worthy soul, someone from
this
timeline. All this time,
I could have given it to anyone, without erasing them. But it—or
I—or Yod—chose
her
.

“Does that… Does that mean what it sounds like?”
She’s crying into my shoulder armor.

“
Exactly
what it sounds like.”

She holds me tighter.

“Does that mean… Does that mean I can’t…?” Now she
starts laughing through her tears. “I won’t ever die?”

I back up—I need to look her in the eye for this.

“Everything that lives will die. We… My kind… We just
made it a lot harder. Hard enough that we can’t manage it
ourselves.”

“
Our
kind,” she corrects me after taking that
in for a second, trying to stop crying. “You said ‘my kind’.”

I nod, accepting it, accepting this gift.

She smiles for me.

“Are you going to teach me… I don’t know…
everything
… how to use this…?”

“I’ll do my best. I think I’m still figuring this out
myself.”

That makes her chuckle. But I can hear how nervous
she is, how afraid.

“It’s all… I have to figure out how to move, how to
walk. I feel like if I didn’t, I’d take a step and fly off into
space or something. Everything’s different. Weird. I can think so
fast, slow things down, hear you in my head—I knew where you
were.”

“You get used to it. Sort of.”

“How do I even look? I mean… I’m so much bigger than
I was before…” She looks down at herself. She does have a lot more
tone under her t-shirt, like an Earth-grav athlete. “Where did all
the extra muscle tissue come fr…?” I see it hit her, see her face
sink. “Oh…
Oh
…” She doubles over, hands on knees, and her
mouth falls open like she’s trying to vomit. She stays like that
for several moments, but, of course, nothing happens.

“I want to be sick…
Why can’t I be sick?
” she
pants at her boots.

“Antiemetic Mods,” I let her know. “Basic accessory.
You vomit because you’re poisoned…”

“There’s a region of the brain where the blood-brain
barrier is just permeable enough to detect toxicity,” she reminds
me that she’s very well educated.

“But nothing can poison you anymore. Up to and
including neutron radiation. So that leaves other things the body
may interpret as signs of poisoning. Vestibular. Sensory.
Emotional.”

She looks up at me sideways like I’ve told her
something insane in a world of insane. (That part’s starting to
sink in.)

“Not many people actually enjoy puking,” I reason,
hoping the chatter will partially take her mind off her building
distress. “Not without some kind of pathology. And I suppose if
someone really wanted to, they could purchase a custom Mod on the
black markets.”

She shakes her head. Tries to get her breath
back.

“Fucked up world you come from…” she pants. “I guess
I come from there now, too, huh?”

“No. You just got the deluxe accessory package.”

“Not really funny… Not right now…”

“What else do you feel?” I’m hoping for some kind of
distraction.

She chuckles again, more breathless this time; shakes
her head, still bent over.

“Horny!” she spits out with an embarrassed laugh,
making herself stand back up. “Sorry, but that’s the word for it.
As soon as I laid eyes on you. I just want to jump on you, devour
you…”

“That would be your Mods messing with your…”

She doesn’t let me finish. As if the libido Mod was
specifically designed to distract from the downsides of artificial
immortality, she gives in to it, lunging at me, wrapping her arms
around me and slamming her face into mine in a ravenous kiss. And
my own responds in kind before I bother to think about what I’m
doing.

I haven’t kissed anyone like this since I was a very
young man, a teenager. It’s like she’s trying to force herself as
far inside me as she can get, and get me as far inside her as she
can. She’s got hold of my back with both her arms, and I feel a
hand grab my hair as she wraps a leg around me as well.

“You’ve gotten better at that,” I break for air. She
grabs me by the face and says

“Shut up…” And then she’s back to breathlessly
devouring me, grinding herself against me.

I open my eyes again just in time to see the air
shimmer behind her, see him become visible. I feel her jerk as I
feel the spear punch through my armor, stab into my chest
through
hers. Her eyes go wide with shock, and something
else…

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” Asmodeus purrs as he
twists his weapon through us, pinning us together, spearhead buried
in my solar plexus. “Saw something like this in one of those bad
old horror movies, the ones with the unkillable killer… Anyway, he
spears these two kids together while they were doing it. Talk about
your blatant symb…”

Rage. Indignant rage. She’s roaring with it as she
spins herself around, snapping the spear off inside her (and
leaving the blade still stuck in me after giving it a good wrench).
The mechanisms inside the shattered shaft spark and flare. Asmodeus
gets a few tenths of a second to be surprised before she draws both
of her pistols, shoves them up under his jaw, and blows his brains
out through the top of his head. Then, as he staggers and falls
backwards, she sticks a muzzle in each eye and blows the rest of
his brains through the back of his skull.

I catch her by the shoulders as she stumbles back,
convulsing, but her body is already absorbing the spear shaft,
bypassing her cardiac system, sealing her wounds, just like mine
is. She looks down at the center of her chest and watches it
happen, her pistols still in her hands.

“I’m fine…
I’m FINE!
” she shakes me off.

Asmodeus’ body twitches on the ground. I leave her
side long enough to check him.

“Fuck.”

I find the remains of a module network in the remains
of his skull.

“
Nice moves…
” I hear him calling happily. He’s
about twenty meters away, standing on top of the foundations,
grinning like the smug fuck that he is. “Do I know this one? Or is
this one of the ones you started fucking
after
you killed
me?”

I’m actually about to answer him when Lyra does, with
her pistols. He dodges the first two shots aimed at his head, but
she predicts his moves, or leads them, and he gets hit just below
the left eye with the fourth round.

“
Ow
…” He rubs at the wound like it’s a minor
blemish. This version is certainly tougher than the last one.

Still, he jumps back for the cover of the
blood-stained foundation when Lyra proves she can repeat her trick,
making him dodge into rounds that slice his ear, smack him in the
plate over his balls and burst off of his teeth. But then the
foundation he was hoping to hide behind starts getting blown apart,
knocking him backwards, making him scramble to try to run and hide
behind something else. It’s Kel, pounding with his repaired
20mm.