Ragnarok (38 page)

The door was another constricting aperture, but it had no visible controls. Violet reached out with her link but found no operating system. Touching the curious gate suggested it wouldn't open by force.

Vibeke whispered, “Open Sesame?” and they heard a low beep. The door didn't open, but they now knew it was voice activated.

“What would his password be?”

“Hrothgar,” beep.

“Hrothgar Kray,” beep.

“Orange Gang,” beep.

“Fenrisulfr,” beep.

“Violet MacRae,” ding. The aperture opened.

“You should be flattered,” whispered Vibeke.

“You can't see me blushing under the soot.”

The Tikaris took off and stuck to the ceiling, monitoring ahead. There were no people for at least several meters. The hall offered a slow curve, and it turned back upward. As they walked through the strangely round, lobed corridor they saw one brief hallway leading down, but it came to a short end and appeared utterly useless. Up was the only way to go.

The round walls were covered in wallpaper, far nicer than the cave they'd been in. And they noticed a red carpet floor, which they almost felt bad about dirtying. But there were plenty of footprints on it already. They were giving away no tactical advantage. The area resembled a nice hotel, even if it was clearly still in a mineshaft, and the open rooms branching off suggested the same. There was a pool in one, empty. One appeared to be a kitchen, cooking up far more aromatic food than that of the cafeteria.

As the hall leveled out, it was downright opulent. Sconces decorated the walls, and the floor was finally clean. The doors were made of rich wood and had gold knobs. They had entered Wulfgar's mansion. As the hall turned downward again it became almost garish. Wood paneling, gilded chandeliers. They felt terribly underdressed. Their Tikaris kept pace, warning them of detector systems and alarms, but there were fewer and fewer. They'd clearly entered the inner sanctum where security ended.

Their Tikaris found a meeting room with a closed door, betrayed by their superior hearing. Nelson flattened himself on the outside of the door, and Violet listened through his tympanum.

“I think what's important is that Wulfgar not feel we're keeping a secret from him.”

“Agreed, if he finds out, our plans will be ruined.”

“The risk is incomparable. I can't stress this enough.”

“Steel Toes has us covered, I assure you. Little Boots won't find out until it happens.”

“Then it's settled. Tomorrow morning as soon as he leaves his room.”

“We'll be waiting outside his door.”

“I'll have the cake.”

“I have the streamers and confetti planted in the ceiling and on remote.”

“I think he'll really enjoy this. He'll never expect it.”

“He doesn't even think we know his birthday. It'll be a real treat.”

“What did you get him?”

“
Mass in G
by Goggly Gogol.”

“Oh he'll love that!”

Violet withdrew her Tikari and cringed at Vibeke. They proceeded on down the hall, and after a sigmoid twist in the corridor, they came to a central hub with a beautifully engraved door.

At no time in all their caution did they notice the tiny black sphere rolling behind them all the way from the surface. Mishka saw everything they did from her perch on the surface. She was losing link resolution so deep in the tunnels, but she could recognize an emperor's door when she saw one.

Violet and Vibeke recalled their Tikaris and approached the door. They drew their microwaves and set their Tiks to kill anyone with a giant metal jaw. Violet scanned for traps and found none. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

She saw Wulfgar seated in a leather chair behind a luxurious desk. He looked up as the door opened. His expression flickered from surprised to angry at being disturbed. He hadn't yet recognized them. She was struck again by his eyes, the animal eyes that stared at her, the demented piercing eyes that stood out in Aga's mind. And the jaw, silver and exaggerated, filled with sparkling teeth that shifted loosely along their track as he moved. And he was bigger than she remembered, enlarged in surgery and now terribly intimidating, though not disproportional. He looked simply strong, powerful. Above all dangerous.

But terrible as he was, Mishka, Violet, and Vibeke were far more alarmed at what was behind him: Violet's corpse.

 

 

R
ISTO
WAS
born in 2207, six years before Loki. He learned fast and started speaking very young. He learned to swim young as well, and his parents were thrilled. It was as if he were born with an awareness of his great future underwater, as if he were eager to get moving, to get sinking.

He never cried, never spoke disrespectfully or stepped out of line. He questioned everything, of course. He was no robot, but when his parents explained the rules, he saw the value in them and followed them without further discussion. He avoided trouble when he saw it until he could avoid it no longer, that is to say, until Loki was born.

Risto was six when the little monster barged into the family. Loki cried constantly. When he learned to speak, he shouted and acted out. He wouldn't follow any rules, wouldn't hear the explanations or even listen when they spoke at all. And he never did learn to swim. He screamed the first time they took him to the pool. As soon as his feet touched water, it was like he'd been dipped in acid. The kid just couldn't stand it.

Had Loki's parents been sterner, things might have been different. But they didn't believe in striking the child. Such things were better left to history books. They loved him and cared for him with the utmost compassion, but that did nothing to quell his violent outbursts. Before long he had harmed another student in school and was removed.

“Take him topside,” they said. “Let him learn online.”

So Loki became the first in the family ever to get a link. Linked in, he saw the human world. So different from the Cetacean. Everything was bright and loud, everything was easy and painless, and everyone loved a good fight. There were fighting games, news of fighting in the streets, classes on how to fight better, and more.

By the age of seven, Loki couldn't understand why Risto was so happy down undersea. Everything was hard work. Everything was quiet and stagnant. The colors were brown and gray. Fighting was unheard of, except when it was Loki who started it. Loki certainly couldn't understand when Risto got his gill. The operation was long and bloody, and Risto was clearly in pain. The coming of age ritual was a gruesome affair, yet his parents stood proud, proud like they'd never be of Loki.

Loki resolved never to become a full Cetacean. No gills, no fins, no set of big silver eyes. He'd move topside as soon as he could.

Before long, Risto turned eighteen and finished his surgeries. He was the very model of a perfect Cetacean. Tall and slick, gray with the huge eyes and translucent skin.
Gross as hell
, thought Loki. Risto was no fan of Loki either. In the last few years, he'd been kicked out of online education, and that's no easy task. He'd been in brigs twice at the age of twelve, once for breaking a stanchion in a restaurant and once for attacking Risto with a knife. Risto pitied him. Something was clearly wrong with his brain. They could fix such things topside. Perhaps someday Loki would be fixed, but not on their euro. They had no money. Money was for land folk. Risto had everything he'd ever need. Why would he need a medium of exchange to get more?

He joined the Valkohai. The strongest sea force on the planet. And the most secret. He kept it a secret from Loki, of course. If Loki thought there were a navy, he'd join to “kick ass” and other such primitive things. That could not be allowed. The Valkohai were strictly a defense force. They'd never been deployed. Only in the event of a major attack from the humans would they ever unleash their terrible power. And humans had calmed down since the olden days.

Except for Loki. He didn't see Risto after he left for who knows where. He thought his parents knew but wouldn't tell him, which infuriated him to no end. He was an angry teenager. He landed in brigs twice more for violent acts, and his next would kick him out of the colony for good. A day he longed for. The only thing keeping him from exile was his father. His mother had practically disowned him. She cooked for him and cleaned his dry, land-made clothing but only out of care for her husband, who still held hope his son was something more than a total disaster.

When he turned sixteen, they argued. He felt it was time to leave. His mother felt it was time to leave. His father wouldn't let him. He would fix the boy first, make him acceptable before unleashing him on the world. It was his duty, he said, to see that Loki could do no harm. Loki of course wanted to leave, and the old man was in his way.

Cetaceans are somewhat fragile out of water. They have floppy feet, and their underwater eyes don't work, just their atrophied air eyes. And they have long necks. Loki seized his father's and squeezed. His mother shot him through the chest with a harpoon gun.

He knew he had only seconds to live. He used them to pull his mother onto the barbed spike that stuck out from his chest. The barb caught in her and pulled out of him as she fell back dead. By then his father was too, choked quickly—a disadvantage of having only one lung. Cetaceans were weak, thought Loki. And they were dead.

He was still alive. The harpoon had missed his vital organs, though there was a hole in him, and the hole was losing blood. He was turning pale.

Leaving his parents bodies behind, he took the boat and headed topside. It took thirty minutes to get to the beach, and by then he was unconscious. Almost dead. But crashed on the shore, his boat was seen by hundreds and poked and prodded by those curious about the first Cetacean vehicle they'd ever seen. They found him and took him to a hospital.

Loki healed quickly and found himself alone on Earth. He had never been so happy. No police from below came topside to hunt him, or if they did, they never came close enough for him to see them. He enjoyed the hospitality of those he ran into, curious to hear tales of the great below. Before long he was set up doing odd jobs for an acquaintance of one of the nurses that saved him.

Odd jobs such as beating up debtors, catching traitors to the organization. He was never invited to join the gang completely. Hrothgar didn't trust anyone from the sea, but Loki made do and made cash and settled into a decent thug's life.

But he craved more. More violence, more impact. He sought out the Unspeakable Darkness. They were all as modified as Cetaceans, not for Loki. He sought out the Yakuza, but they didn't trust a sea-born either. He looked into the myths, the fairy tales of darker organizations. He heard of the Hall of the Slain.

The stories were few and unreliable, but they grew clearer as Loki asked around, finding people nearer and nearer to the incidents that inspired the rumors. The Hall had not in fact killed five hundred men from Gang Green. It never had so many men. But a team of four, with Sowilo runes on their belts, had killed twelve of them when they were plotting a bombing. And they had left survivors.

Loki spoke to them and heard the account. It was mostly just the same thing he heard before, told with more clarity. But the new information was the location of the fight. 2722 Ankkurikatu, a warehouse on street level. He found the place and broke in.

It was a dark, dank place. An empty one. There were microwave scars on the walls, chunks broken out of the concrete from years prior. He hunted for any clue and, in his thorough search, found something far better than a clue. A tiny gold pebble stuck to a ceiling corner. They had left a monitoring device.

Loki chipped it down from the ceiling and looked into its lens.

“My name is Loki,” he said. “I am a skilled warrior, a hunter of men, a born fighter. There's no band of soldiers on land or sea good enough to deserve me, except perhaps you. If you hear this, watch me and see what I can do, then come get me.”

The observation pip informed S team of new material, and they watched it, amused. They turned it over to G team who watched it and gave him a shot.

He was impressive. He was working for gangs and taking up mercenary work where he could find it. He had only street skills and little more, but how he used what he had was impressive. He was clever, clever in the extreme. He had instincts, the kind one can't learn. The kind G team looked for. In the end, they decided to bring him in.

They arrived to fake his death. He recognized the trick and spoke plainly.

“You don't need to fake it. Nobody cares if I die.”

He walked into their pogo and headed for the North.

The Hall of the Slain—they called it Valhalla—was all he hoped for and more. A land full of strange weapons, extraordinary armor, and the prospect for spectacular training and spectacular missions to use it for. It was heaven to Loki, especially because he also got to choose his new name and shuffle off his Cetacean-given moniker.

It had to start with a specific letter, so he looked through the history pages and after a couple days of consideration, selected Veikko, after Veikko Korpiklaani, president and CEO of Suomi from 2150 to 2156, who slaughtered the first Cetacean divisionists and set the seas back many years.

 

 

T
HE
INITIAL
shock of seeing herself dead gave way almost instantly in Violet's mind to the rationale of how he had come by it. Valhalla-grown to replace her and presumed disposed of, Wulfgar had repaired her false body and preserved it. But that wasn't enough for him. As soon as she saw her corpse move, Violet realized he had granted the body a simple AI, some artificial brains. He had it programmed only to react to torture and scream in fear at the sight of him. Violet could have been offended or disgusted or felt terribly violated, but she never did waste time on such things. She quickly broadcast a hacking signal, broke into its brains, and told it to strangle its owner.