Gudsriki (52 page)

As he did, Nel grabbed a wall and tore it from the building to deflect as he fired the same. She threw the wall at him and jumped back away.

He jumped and flew down toward her, leaving her only an instant to roll out of the way. She didn't make it far enough, and he came down on her leg, breaking it backward. She reassembled it and ran, only to get hit by an energy blast from his own integrated systems.

Then a small rock fell on her. She barely noticed it, it was harmless. But it came from the rampart. The blast had cracked it and the cracks were growing. She felt Veikko's mind grow concerned. He wanted to finish her and get back to his hole.

She spotted Veikko running for her and opened her ribs to fire the last of Niide's projectiles. They hit Veikko without harm. She scrambled up and ran behind an arsenal. Veikko snuck around the corner to ambush her but found her gone. They briefly lost sense of each other's position. Nel cautiously ran through the buildings away from him, trying to think of some way to hurt him, trying to remember what was in each arsenal. Trying to find a weapon that would help.

Veikko burst through the wall of the closest one and grabbed whatever he found. A heavy heat seeking missile launcher. He loaded it. He stalked her through the burnt towers and buildings. They tried to look into each other's minds. Scoured each other for any hint of position. Veikko's focus let her in ever so slightly to other thoughts, to his fear of the ravine collapsing. His desire to get back to the hole. And his fear for his weakness…. He knew he had one. And now she did too.

She kept low and headed for Arsenal 4, hoping the gas weapons inside could dissolve his organic parts. She made it to the open field around the pogo pads and then turned to see Veikko launch the heat missile right for her. There was nothing she could do. She couldn't run, it would find her. She rolled into a defensive posture but the missile could annihilate her completely. And it would have had Orson not flopped out into the way and exploded in a torrential rain of burning blubber around her.

She wiped the goop from her eyes and launched in a pounce at Veikko's face. He craned his neck around a half meter off its position on his shoulders to avoid her. He'd not let her connect there, and the rest of him could take anything she could throw. Nel understood she wouldn't beat him with strength. She had to think.

Veikko knew the Sigyn system was minutes away from activating again. He had to end the fight fast. Nel felt his panic. And again, his fear she would exploit his flaw, his fault.

A massive boulder fell from the rampart and hit him on the back. Nel looked up and saw the rampart beginning to collapse. She ran for cover but there was none. Rocks began to fall, giant slabs of rampart.

They rolled off Veikko like they were hailstones. They hit Nel with crushing force. She was weakening, her systems bruised and breaking. She didn't know how much longer she could take the rocks and Veikko's hits. She sidestepped a colossal curved chunk of falling rampart and Veikko used the move to collide with her and grab her. He held her immobile. Then he launched his hall thrusters.

He flew holding her before him as he plowed through buildings and structures, breaking solid metal and rock with her back. They flew across the ravine floor into the rock wall where he crushed her, breaking the mechanics of her legs irreparably, crushing her hips and shattering the rock behind her. She was broken in a hundred places. She could barely move, held by him and damaged severely.

The last of the rampart fell down around them, the dusk sky flooded into the ravine. Veikko leaned in close to deliver a killing blow.

As he leaned in she looked deep into the hole of his face, the bloody crusted mess from which he could barely see and speak. And breathe. As her thought flickered about his breath, his fear returned, making him hesitate. But why? What did he fear? What was the weakness if it was in his breath?

Veikko's thoughts darted away. He tried to think of anything else to keep her away from his vulnerability. He thought of hatred. He thought of pain. He thought of Nel dying in his hands. He thought of Skadi. He thought—she could tell against his will—of the safeguards he lacked in his respiratory system.

He felt Nel think it. He felt Violet's memories within her. Her days in school, a flash of her teacher speaking, and he knew she'd found it. A sneeze leaves the body with incredible involuntary force. He knew he had to kill her that moment. He revved his arm hydraulics to deliver a blow that would crush her head into absolute oblivion.

She blew gently into his exposed nasal turbinates. He paused. He sniffled. He sniffled more. He sniffled at the verge of sneezing. He caught his breath and stopped. Then he sneezed and the overpowerful lungs blew his head clean off his neck.

Nel fell to the ground as Veikko's body deactivated, twitching on the rock. She felt his thoughts recede from her mind, cold and dead, and finally absent forever. She took stock of herself. She could move, barely crawl. Her critical systems were broken beyond repair, her body was shutting down. She had only minutes before Veikko's damage would grind her to a halt and leave her immobile, and then only hours before the last life supports ceased to function. But she didn't need hours. Or have them.

Veikko was gone and the Sigyn system was only a few minutes from activating. When it did the ravine would collapse. The ocean would pour in and hit the active Ares. All Mishka's cult, all the nation of Ulver, any land thing that survived the Blackwing's thrust overhead would be drowned as the sun set on a dry Earth for the last time. All suffering mankind on the planet's surface was finally to be euthanized. None of that crossed Nel's mind. She crawled up the walkway to find Vibeke.

She collapsed by the side of her body, her legs breaking down and unable to move her again. She cradled the lifeless corpse and held it close. Vibeke was torn apart, limbs missing or hanging on by threads. Full of holes, out of blood. But Nel knew she wouldn't need her own for much longer. She opened the panels on her chest and exposed Violet's heart.

Nel disconnected her own descending aorta and split her fingers to reveal her medical array. She cut through Vibeke's chest and opened the region where her heart once was. Nel worked quickly to connect her own vessels with Vibeke's carotid arteries. She released epinephrine into their blood systems.

She had the wrong blood type; the act would kill them both in minutes. But they were down to seconds now. Nel began to lose consciousness as soon as her blood poured from Vibeke's wounds. But Vibeke's dead eyes began to close. Slowly her skin regained the slightest color. Nel held her up and embraced her and ran her fingers through Vibeke's hair. The Sigyn system activated and the ravine began to shake.

Vibeke opened her eyes and saw Nel. In pain and more tired than she'd ever felt, she made no conscious sense of how she lived or what state she was in, or to what state she would shortly return. She didn't think of anything but losing Nel so horribly, she wasn't capable of more.

But Nel was there and smiling past her tears. Vibeke understood that much.

Nel held her close as the ravine began to break apart. She held Vibeke's head up and thought, for the first time in her short life, that she was satisfied. She had Vibeke in her arms and felt no conflicts of love and hate, nor held any questions about what Vibeke meant to her, or what she meant to Vibeke. Vibeke thought nothing of the hacks to which she'd been subjected. What was before her, she loved despite it all of her own accord. That love was real. It belonged to her and Nel, and them alone. The two looked at each other only briefly and felt finally a sense of total clarity, despite all the pain between them, despite what they'd done to each other, despite the horrors through which they lived and their deaths soon to come.

The sun dropped beneath the edge of the ravine and the day was over. Valhalla shook. Its walls shattered, and the ocean came crashing in behind them. Nel and Vibeke spoke no apologies; they shared no parting words. At the end of the world, at the end of the day, there was nothing that couldn't be said by one last kiss good night.

 

Violet MacRae is one of the aimless millions crowding northern Scotland. In the year 2230, where war is obsolete and only brilliant minds are valued, she emerges into adulthood with more brawn than brains and a propensity for violence. People dismiss her as a relic, but world peace is more fragile than they know.

In Valhalla, a clandestine base hidden in an icy ravine, Violet connects with a group of outcasts just like her. There, she learns the skills she needs to keep the world safe from genetically enhanced criminals and traitors who threaten the first friends she's ever known. She also meets Wulfgar Kray, a genius gang leader who knows her better than she knows herself and who would conquer the world to capture her.

Branded from childhood as a useless barbarian, Violet is about to learn the world needs her exactly as she is.

 

www.harmonyinkpress.com

 

After a year spent hunting for Mishka and Wulfgar, V team is no closer to finding them. If they're going to locate their nemeses, they're going to have to break some rules. As they begin their most dangerous mission yet, the stakes grow higher than they ever imagined as they uncover not only the subjects of their hunt, but the greatest threat the Earth has ever known.

To save the planet, their path will take them across the globe, across the solar system, and deeper into their relationships with each other than they've ever dared to look. Sacred bonds will be tested, the closest alliances will fall, and Violet will come face-to-face with a far more daunting and dangerous challenge than saving the planet—her growing love for Vibeke—a love that could be her salvation, or the cause of her ultimate downfall.

 

www.harmonyinkpress.com

A
RI
B
ACH
's artwork can be found online at aribach.deviantart.com/.

Ari also runs a webcomic at www.twistedjenius.com/Snail-Factory/ and has a Tarot deck at surrealist.tarotsmith.net/.

But Ari is probably best known for the humor blog “Facts-I-Just-Made-Up” at facts-i-just-made-up.tumblr.com/.

Check out the Valhalla series official blog at the-walrus-squad.tumblr.com.

www.harmonyinkpress.com