Ragnarok (48 page)

They departed the train and took a lift down to the station's pogo park, which was thankfully almost empty of people. Violet spotted a speedy if antiquated Suzuki Ninori and hacked its lock and starter. They headed south.

Vibeke clung tightly to her back as they flew. She tried to contact Veikko, but his link was off the map. The map was off the net. The net was flickering between GAUNE ads and UNEGA ads. Alopex couldn't be called up. Her address was simply listed as “Leo, pending.” With Alf and Balder's deaths, the ravine seemed to have ceased to be. It was a lifetime away.

As they flew, Vibeke's arms tight around Violet's waist, the only concern she felt was the deathly prospect of losing her. Not from betrayal or anything related to the rules of the old ravine, but on the mission to come. Violet was right; they should consider a life in transorbital transportation. Vibeke resolved on that short flight to tell her they could last. They could retire together and hack themselves a nice salary and position with whatever company ended up owning the orbitliners.

Violet thought about retirement as well. She was almost twenty and getting old. She'd had a good run as a spy. She needed only to accomplish this one last task. She couldn't quite place why she couldn't abandon it as well. But the thought was somehow unthinkable. Not unpalatable or wicked, but simply unthinkable. They had to destroy the Ares. Then there would be absolute freedom.

They set down north of Dimmuborgir in the civilian zone. Oblivious tourists looked over the strange rocks, positioning their heads to record memory files, bobbing around chatting with their families. It was as alien a lifestyle to Violet as those of the people on Mars. It was the life she suddenly coveted.

“Doesn't look like a missile silo,” she linked.

Vibeke checked the black book.

“Alf's old intel suggests it's under the civilian park. The launch tubes are concealed in the rock, but there should be a long tunnel to its conventional access half a kilometer north of here.”

They headed toward the location. Sinister volcanic rocks jutted up around them, coated in tourists. The two approached a rock whose picture was included in the intel. The tunnel would be hidden in plain sight, completely unmarked and designed to fit in with the surrounding features. Violet spotted it first, only given away by the most subtle difference of black shades. The two climbed up the rock unseen and dropped down into a long, black tunnel.

Microwaves drawn, the two walked through the darkness, eyes straining even with their tapeta lucida on full. The tunnel was nearly a kilometer long, angling 150 meters down into the stale smelling pumice rock.

They walked quietly, expecting guards. As they turned a gentle corner to the left, they found light. Violet sent her Tikari to the ceiling to observe. There were two men, armed to the teeth, standing guard. Armored as well, common microwave beams would do nothing, stunning beams even less. They'd have to get under their helmets to stun them.

Vibeke improvised. She clingered her microwave and started talking loudly with an American accent.

“Becky, I don't think we're supposed to be in here!”

Violet played along. “Shut up, Carla! There's a light ahead. If we weren't supposed to be here, there wouldn't be lights!”

“Oh my God, Becky, you're gonna get us stuck or in trouble or somethin'!”

They walked straight up to the men, who stood still by the door. One was about to speak and held up his hand.

“Excuse me!” shouted Violet. “Excuse me, but can you tell my sister that—”

They sprang, each taking the soldier on their side of the tunnel, cramming their microwaves fast into the gap between their helmets and collars and firing stunning beams directly into their heads. Both fell to the ground. Vibeke began to undress one for a disguise, but Violet stopped her.

“They're in UNEGA aus-guard uniforms. If they saw them inside, they'd know they were stolen.”

They were better off staying agile in nothing but their own armor. Vibeke began to hack into the door.

It was incredibly complex, the most secure door Vibeke had ever seen in her days with Valhalla. Alarms inside security walls inside hack armor inside undirectoried systems inside of a heavily guarded locking mechanism.

Suddenly, it opened by itself.

Vibeke and Violet both knew it meant a trap. They leaped back and kept their microwaves on the door. They waited. Nothing came. Violet sent Nelson to push open the door, keeping her microwave on the space. It opened to reveal nothing but the pink light of motion detectors in the hallway within.

Cautiously they headed toward the door. Nelson leaped to the ceiling and began scanning for the frequency of the detectors he'd need to jam. He found them offline.

“Something's drastically wrong here.”

“Agreed, what do we do?”

“The mission as planned.”

They entered, microwaves at the ready. They found only round halls, every surface covered in a network of red pipes. The halls were filled with hairpin turns, winding up and down and around themselves as if wadded up from a larger complex.

The Tikaris scanned ahead in every direction but found the halls empty. They continued down the wrinkled path until they came to a junction. A cortex node protruded from the ceiling. They didn't dare hack into it, but its ganglion would lead to the control center. They followed it through more wrinkles and came to the control center hatch. It was hanging open, and slumped limply over its sill was a corpse.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“I killed him,” said Veikko. “I killed them all.”

Violet and Vibeke looked around in a hurry.

“Veikko?” It hit Violet like a splash of cold water, a chill as if he'd appeared right behind her.

His voice came from the speaker system. “Sal actually. Pleased to speak to you finally.”

“Sal?”

“Sal, as in Veikko's Tikari. Praying mantis looking fellow? The one that was splashing around in the tomato soup on your birthday. He sent me along to help you. Sorry about the soup by the way.”

It was impossible. Tikaris couldn't speak. It had to be one of Veikko's jokes. But he wouldn't, not on this mission. It became all the more unnerving.

“How are you talking?”

“Well, it's a funny thing. He sent me into the mainframe with a couple simple directions. But when I took over their base broadbrain, I could incorporate its speech functions, internal systems, I even learned a new game program. Have either of you heard of ‘Chess'?”

“This dead body—”

“Oh, I activated the vacuum fire system and locked the hatches. Reopened this one just for you. It killed everyone inside. I thought it would help. I also deactivated the security systems, did everything but launch the missiles. They're on an unlinked system. How about a nice game of chess?”

“Negative, Sal,” said Vibeke. She looked to Violet, still in disbelief. The voice was like Veikko's but hollow, fallen deep into the uncanny valley. She had to consciously treat it like an AI, or the perversity of speaking to it would continue to grate on her.

“Highlight the missile targeting panel in the control room.”

“I can highlight it, but you won't be able to use it. It only powers up with direct orders from UNEGA high command.”

“We'll have to program and launch the missiles directly,” said Vibeke. “Sal, highlight a path to the launch bay.”

“Compliance.”

A route lit up along the floor. They followed it through the crumpled curves of the compact base. Violet could sense an overwhelming curiosity coming from her own Tikari—the proper unformed instinct that filtered in from it that she'd gotten used to over the years.

There was something perverse about a part of Veikko speaking to them without his direct control. As if his hand had left his body and pointed the way for the mission he'd designed. Violet felt oddly supervised, like Veikko didn't trust them to accomplish the mission on their own. Resentment flickered dimly in her mind. But more than that, surprise at the Tikari's efficacy. It had already done the hardest part of the mission, killing off the crew when she'd planned to stun her way through the corridors. As they approached the massive bay door, it swung open itself, two meters of metal thrown aside by the small Tikari.

“How did you manage all this?”

“It was surprisingly easy,” it said lifelessly. “Veikko sent me the night before you took off. A little sneaking, a dash of hacking, and a side order of mass extermination later, here we are.”

They entered a massive open space, an indoor tarmac filled with storage crates and vehicles. It was almost completely dark except for a dim spot of light in the distance. The light reflected off the red piping along the distant ceiling, which they could faintly see had the wrinkles of other corridors all around it.

“But why did he send you before us? What did he send you to do?”

“To ensure the mission succeeded.”

“More specifically?”

“First I was to lift off at a velocity of 7.2 kph within the Fraser's kitchen. Then at an angle of exactly 67 degrees, I—”

“Okay, okay. Never mind,” said Vibeke. She was clearly weirded out by the Tikari as well.

They continued into the chamber. Violet's Tikari reported launch tubes to their east in the light. Cautiously they traversed behind the storage crates toward the launch area. Behind the crates they saw a line of SSS Robots.

Violet had taken a course on them at Achnacarry. Each was a dual gun system designed to work in tandem with its line. Each held 80,000 expandable rounds, 0.5mm in storage but 15mm once fired. They could each hurl 250 in a second. And this line held at least fifty robots. An enormous security system, beyond deadly.

“Don't worry, they're all inactive,” added Sal.

How could he tell they were looking at them? He must have been watching them through the internal security cameras. The Tikari had become the AI of the entire complex.

“What could activate them?”

“I could if you'd like. I don't recommend it as you'd die horribly.”

“Thanks, Sal.”

They approached the tubes and found seven. Each one was massive, thicker than expected.

“I don't suppose you've spoken to Veikko lately?” asked his own voice.

“Aren't you in contact with him?”

“No, I've been running on full AI since I left. His link is off the map. Though this may be due to the fluctuations in link service. Low power, immediate area link communications are unaffected, but I believe the global link system is severely deranged. No communications, everyone is on their own.”

“Seems like it….”

“You can't imagine how lonely we are when we're not in your chests. We miss you terribly.”

Talking to the Tikari grew curiouser and curiouser. It seemed far more intelligent on its own than Violet would have expected. She quelled the thought of her own Tikari speaking to her with her own voice. Nelson was on the ceiling of the silo, a vast dome. She sensed him on AI scouting the area but not thinking, not the way Sal seemed to be. Even online, the Tiks remained silent. Sal had clearly hacked into something above and beyond the common broadbrain. She wondered what else about him might have changed.

“Sal, what kind of system was the broadbrain?”

“A bit flirty at first, but once you get to know her, she's very reserved.”

“What kind of electronic system?”

“Neural selective.”

That answered it. Sal's AI was now integrated with nerve tissue. It could think for itself. That posed the question, though, was it still Veikko's Tikari? It was a new mind, a fusion, a different AI. In a way it wasn't Sal at all.

But why had UNEGA used such a mutable system for something so important as a nuclear missile silo? The only weapons that required a neural network to program were—

“Here I become suddenly useless. The missile launch systems are not connected to the main base system, and the local controls are
unpowered. Their only link is a lead locked hardline to UNEGA
headquarters.”

Vibeke moved to examine the tubes, checking them against the intel in Alf's book. Violet went through her partitions on silo mechanics and compared them to what she saw.

“Each tube has an Ehren Plate,” said Violet. Emergency taps to shut down the devices in case of an accidental launch code. “They're old designs. They can be jury-rigged to launch the missiles if we can hardwire in. We just need to be sure the warheads are able to arm. Sal, the diagnostics should be part of the local system, can you detect them?”

“Affirmative. All diagnostics are part of the base's system.”

“Run the nuclear armament diagnostics.”

“Negative. There are no nuclear armament diagnostics in this system.”

“List all nuclear diagnostics.”

“No diagnostics pertain to nuclear systems.”

“Impossible. How can there be a nuclear missile silo with no nuclear diagnostics?”

“Well, let me just diagnose the cause of that by running the nuclear diagnostics. Oh, wait….”

 

 

V
ALHALLA
WAS
a dead zone. The remains of T team arrived first, having merely traveled to Tromsø to feed Thokk's body into the power grid. They found the photonically selective gateway offline. The drill hole plugged by the drill. Valhalla was sealed shut.

Alopex was offline, replaced by an inactive system called “Leo.” T had no way of learning that there was nothing alive in the ravine save for the walrus pod.

As K team returned in their battle pogos, H, N, and M in regulars from Hashima, the Valkyries put together as best they could what had happened. They knew from the broad link that Mishka had killed Balder, thanks to Thokk. Wulfgar was to attack, and the drill hole suggested he got at least one person in. Alf wasn't responding and never would have sealed the drawbridge to them. They saw Pelamus's sub, too small for an invading force. There was no question: Valhalla was taken. But nothing was happening as a result.