The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming

By Michael Rizzo

The God Mars is a pulp-style science fiction series set in a rich world of varied cultures and colorful characters. The series plays out on a partially-terraformed Mars, a half-century after a man-made disaster cut thousands of colonists off from Earth, and the fear of a rampant nanotech plague prevented rescue. Left to survive for generations with few resources, the various groups develop unique new cultures at different levels of technology, ranging from the primitive to the frighteningly advanced. But all are trapped in an escalating war between an oppressive Earth that’s terrified of potentially infectious nanotechnology, and invincible superhumans—both heroes and villains—who claim to be from a nightmare future caused by that technology.

In Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming, Colonel Ram is shattered to the core by the revelation of what the all-powerful nanotech entity known as Yod has done to reality. But he can’t afford to wallow in his paralyzing doubt. The technological demon Asmodeus is gleefully escalating his war against Earthside Command, with all the peoples of Mars caught in the crossfire, and there may be no force on any world capable of stopping him from destroying the human race.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Rizzo
• Release date: Oct 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311155863

Michael Rizzo

In addition to writing dark speculative fiction, Michael Rizzo is a graphic artist (yes, all those covers are his), a martial scientist, a collector and frequent user of fine weaponry, and a pretty good cook. He continues his long, varied and brutal career as a mercenary social services consultant, trying to do good important work while writing about very bad things.His fiction series include Grayman and The God Mars. (The research he’s done for the Grayman series has probably earned him the attention of Homeland Security.)Check out his Facebook pages ("The Grayman Series" and "The God Mars Series") for lots of original art and updates.He causes trouble in person mostly in the Pacific Northwest.

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The God Mars

Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming

By Michael Rizzo

Copyright 2015 by Michael Rizzo

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Table of Contents

Part One: Game of Dead

Chapter 1: Abandon All Hope

Chapter 2: Confidence and Paranoia

Chapter 3: Dire Maker

Chapter 4: Quagmire

Chapter 5: A War Like Me

Chapter 6: The Cult of Kali

Chapter 7: Empty Rituals

Chapter 8: Apocrypha

Part Two: As I Walk Through This Wicked World

Chapter 1: Masquerading as a Man with a Reason

Chapter 2: Plague of Hornets

Chapter 3: And Once You’re Gone…

Chapter 4: Charlie Foxtrot

Chapter 5: The Sons of Liberty

Chapter 6: The Thought That Pulled The Trigger

Chapter 7: Say You Want a Revolution

Chapter 8: And As We Wind On Down The Road…

Chapter 9: …Our Shadow’s Taller Than Our Soul

Chapter 10: Harm’s Way

Chapter 11: Dei ex Machinis

Map of The Vajra

Author’s Afterward

Part One: Game of Dead

Chapter 1: Abandon All Hope

From the memory files of Mike Ram, relative date 23 May 2118:

It strikes clear that none of this would have happened if it weren’t for you and your kind, Colonel Ram.

And so it drops, however little sense it makes.

"The robot attacks… Now this new horror… All you. The demon said so himself: He’s only doing it to torment you."

But then, fear doesn’t need to make sense.

The grief does. Despite the privacy they usually hold to in their funeral ceremonies, they’ve laid the bodies out in their Council Chamber, which tells me they want us to see what they’re blaming us for:

Two children, a girl and a boy, maybe only five or six Earth Standard years old. They both bear the telltale neck wounds of Harvester injectors: small punctures haloed by distinctive bruises, the unmistakable imprint left by the injector housing; heralding certain, horrible death by what it delivered into them. That they look otherwise intact tells me that they were spared that fate—a victim suffering the process of conversion usually injures themselves in their agony and madness as their brain is consumed, the interface weaving into their brainstem and the sensor stalks forcing their way into the eye sockets through the skull. I can’t imagine that the Pax—or anyone human—would simply restrain them and leave them to suffer that. Someone—perhaps one of the Pax here in the Chamber with us, perhaps a family member—took on the agonizing duty of giving them mercy.

But how they were given that mercy is unclear. I (and those like me) can kill a Normal with a touch, but these people only have simple handmade weapons. I’ve seen them spare their own with a well-placed blade or arrow, but there are no other visible wounds on these bodies. It seems reasonable to assume they’ve reserved a less violent method—poison, suffocation—for their children, to make the terrible act very slightly more bearable. That they’ve even had to consider the most humane way to kill a child is its own tragedy.

I’m distracting myself, letting my morbid curiosity obsess on the mechanics of the act so I can have the briefest respite from dwelling on the reason that it had to be done.

Despite the display, the Pax have still taken their own steps to make this easier to endure, as all humans do in matters of mourning: The small corpses have been arranged neatly, peacefully, with reverence. They could be asleep—such a poor and worn comparison, however well it fits here—but my visual enhancements assure me that they’re as cold as this cavern, destroying the illusion for me. I scan no breathing, hear no heartbeats. They are children no more, just empty shells of flesh and bone, however gently cared for. All the potential of their lives has been taken. And for what? A sick piece of shit’s petty amusement. And that makes me angry beyond reason.

But I have to maintain myself (especially since my host doesn’t seem able to). This is a solemn moment. These people need to grieve. Again. And they need some kind of hope. This isn’t the time for rage.

And even when it is time to rage, there must be focus, control, reason. Many have been lost in these last terrible months, but there are many more lives that might still be saved, if so-called cooler heads can prevail. Thankfully, I’ve always had a special talent for turning rage into tactical calculation, a plan to win the unwinnable battle.

Of course, that tactical (practical) part of me wants to warn them: If you don’t destroy the control modules that are building themselves right now around these children’s brainstems, or preventatively sever their heads, their small bodies will reanimate within three days of their infection, and the sick technology that will then be unnaturally motivating their corpses will immediately seek to replicate, to pass the ravenous nanotech to the nearest warm target. But I know the Pax know that. They’ve learned that lesson far too dearly. I expect the reason that they’ve risked leaving the bodies intact this long is that they are still freshly mourning, that they need time and ritual to say their goodbyes before their beloved beautiful children are destroyed like so much toxic meat.

(I feel a wave of nausea, but not at the thought of the mutilating that needs to be done to these bodies. It’s because I’m immune, invincible, and practically immortal. My enemy can’t hurt me except by hurting them. There’s no way to stop that except ending him, and the fucker has been gleefully keeping himself out of my reach.)

Among those gathered here, I can reasonably guess who the dead children’s parents are, who are siblings and grandparents and extended family (though the whole community is family). Their collective grief is agonizing to be in the presence of. I wonder which one of them accepted the terrible duty of granting these children mercy. I certainly would have, if I’d been here, if they would have let me. I’ve already lost count of how many innocents I’ve killed and mutilated (as cleanly as possible) in the last few weeks since Asmodeus unleashed this atrocity on the people of this world. I couldn’t do otherwise, because I have seen the alternative run its course. And I would have to do it out of need, to keep the technological plague from spreading, from taking more lives. But is it better to let a stranger—an outsider—do the soul-scarring deed? Or just easier? I can’t answer that for them.

"You will leave this place now, Leder Sower, their elected leader, orders me and mine. I can feel his own rage and grief cut me with every word he measures out through clenched jaws. I bid you get as far from our lands as possible, and make yourselves seen doing so. Take this evil with you, before it takes us all."

The command makes the rest of the Pax present visibly uneasy. They keep silent, don’t argue with their Leder in front of outsiders, but it’s clear that none of them expected Sower to go this far, not after how we’ve fought to protect them, to help defend their lands from killing machines and worse.

I especially catch the look in Gaius Archer’s eyes. He’s obviously disturbed by this, but knows his place as a captain of their Hunter Warriors, staying at attention with his elaborately handcrafted Green Man mask hung over his chest. But I get the impression that Sower’s unexpected decree and the two dead children displayed here aren’t the only things upsetting him. He looks worried, and seems eager to speak up about something, but can’t, not here and now.

The cut-stone Council Chamber falls into a tense silence. I can hear the wind whistling across the top-ends of the narrow skylight shafts that provide the manmade caverns their dim, haunting light.

You aren’t wrong, Leder, I try diplomacy. Asmodeus does attack you to taunt us. But he will continue to attack you even if we leave, because he knows that doing so will bring us back. He knows we won’t leave you to his atrocities.

Then we will disappear, as we do, Sower insists, gritting his teeth like he wants to scream at me. Vanish into the Green. Seal up our Keep with stone.

This triggers a fresh wave of palpable discomfort in those listening. The Chamber echoes with their combined gasps—they can no longer fully suppress their shock for the sake of decorum. Ordering our eviction was one thing, and understandable to a point, however short-sighted. But this… Yes, the Pax are unmatched in stealth in this verdant environment, but the things that Asmodeus has sent to hunt them have proven their lethal efficiency in tracking and targeting them. This Keep has been their only effective protection against the hunting parties of bots that have devastated their Steads and killed scores of their fellows, entire families. Abandoning this fortress without need in the face of such threats is throwing them all back out into the firing line, without adequate cover or defense.

Something is wrong—wrong with Sower. I can feel it twist in my gut. This doesn’t seem like the same man who so warmly welcomed us to feast only weeks ago (and they’d certainly suffered devastating losses then). He reminds me of… I’m not sure. Someone under the influence of something, some drug or mental illness. I can see it in his expression, his eyes, his coiled and trembling body language. It’s a strong enough impression that I have to wonder if it’s more than emotional and physical exhaustion.

I have a chilling thought: Could he be slipping into dementia? I have no idea how old he is. Perhaps in his Standard sixties, perhaps older. His wiry body is covered by thin, weathered skin over muscles that look like cables; his white hair reduced to a few stubborn wisps adorning his tanned skull; his deep-set eyes yellowed and framed by deep wrinkles.

I have no idea what these people’s average lifespan is, how well they age and what they tend to succumb to, living adapted to the terraformed environment as they do. They certainly appear healthy, though I have no standard of reference for their low-gravity lean, elongated physiques and low-pressure enlarged ribcages. The air may be thin, but humans on Earth have managed to live at comparable pressures. The food is plentiful, and they habitually protect themselves from solar UV. The electrostatic Atmosphere Net helps reduce the cosmic radiation that would cause steady cell damage, and having a mountain over their heads adds to that protection. Out in the Steads, they layer water-rich soil and plant life over their burrow-like shelters. But exposure to even low levels of gamma is debilitating on brain tissue over time, and Sower is one of the eldest of them that I’ve seen. Is that what Archer is looking so concerned about? Is his Leder showing the signs of neural degradation?

And what about Katar? I have to shift the conversation before one of my fellows can no longer hold his tongue. Both Bly and Lux are bristling, standing on my either shoulder. "How will they hide? Their City is exposed now." Thanks to Asmodeus.

"I don’t care about Katar! Sower almost does scream. My responsibility is to my own. And too many are dead. Because of you. Children!" He jabs his long boney finger at the bodies. There’s a fresh surge of weeping among those gathered. Sower is using their loss as leverage. He may have even been the one who delayed whatever funeral ceremonies need to happen, just to have the display to justify his decision.

"You kill our children!" he comes up out of his seat, slamming his fist on the polished stone table between us.

Staged or not, I can’t help but feel a chill sink in my gut. And I’m not even sure which deaths he’s blaming us for, there have been so many, first by bot and now by this—a nanotech infection that turns a man (or a woman or child) into a walking corpse whose only purpose is to kill the living, to make more of its kind.

I can’t speak. His rage has found a target because I do feel guilty. Guilty for failing to protect the vulnerable from Asmodeus. Guilty for having to kill the infected, because we still haven’t managed a cure. If we could just find an effective countermeasure…

"We’re trying to save your children!" Bly can’t stay silent any longer, having lost probably all of his own people to this war.

Asmodeus has gone to ground somewhere, Lux tries reason, shifting into his female aspect. "We have reason to believe he may be here, hidden in your cave network. Please let us search, let us help you search."

"You. Will. LEAVE." Sower is beyond adamant, beyond reasoning with. His face has gone bright red, his mouth almost foaming. I…

I hear a ping. The briefest flash of signal. Subtle. Then gone, silent.

I’ve been hearing it since we were ushered through the defensive maze and down here, but can’t get a lock. It’s too brief, too long between. It’s not a bot signal, not even a Harvester signal. Just a simple short string of gibberish code.

Asmodeus fielded Harvesters against the Katar evacuees three days ago. Several of them had been converted from your people, I back up Lux’s claim—the reason we came here today, along with some fragments of images gleaned from the recovered memories of our most-unwilling guest—but I’m almost too distracted to focus on the argument anymore. Did they come from here? Or were they from outlying Steads that hadn’t sheltered here? Who among you is unaccounted for?

I can’t offer bodies to identify. They were vaporized by the Asmodeus clone’s suicide bomb.

"Archer! Escort them out! Sower screeches. Out beyond the Gate! Out beyond our borders!"

Archer has to know he can’t make us leave unless we’re willing, and I don’t know how willing I can be with so many lives on the line. But I’m sure that’s not what Archer is looking so nervous about. When I look him in the eye, he’s willing to show me his trepidation. He wants my help, but he can’t…

I hear the ping again. It’s like when I was young, back on Earth, when a smoke detector battery got low: There would be a beep from somewhere, then not another for several minutes, leaving you to try to figure out which detector needed attention. And it always seemed to happen in the middle of the fucking night.

I can hear a signal, Lux says out loud. Somewhere nearby.

Intermittent, I confirm. Brief flash.

Is that what that was? Bly asks, relieved that he wasn’t hallucinating, until the weight of the implication hits him: "We can’t leave. They’re here!"

"Nothing is here! Sower insists, pulling back just a bit from raving. He takes in a deep, ragged breath. You. Just you. All of this is you!" But then I see his face contort: a flash of a grin, then a giggle, stifled, like he’s trying not to laugh. Then he fights himself under control again.

Dementia? Or…

The Companion-Bound said their Blades could influence them by prodding at their emotions, Bly reminds in my head. Is there a technology that can do that without a Blade?

Oh no. No. I feel sick.

We need Bel, Lux answers him urgently, though matching his discretion by keeping our conversation where no one else can hear.

But now I’m staring at Sower like I could actually see into his brain. He locks my eyes like this is a contest. His trembling gets much worse, to the point that he’s almost convulsing.

Has he been injured lately? I ask Archer sideways, not breaking eye contact with Sower. An unexplained sore? Headaches?

He… Archer starts to answer, but stops himself. I see him shake his head, but it isn’t a denial.

The other Council members start to get up, to go to Sower, to support, concerned.

I’d stay away from him, Lux warns as lightly as she can.

Sower begins to scream, and reaches up to tear at his thin white hair like he wants to open up his own skull. The scream becomes laughter, then rage, then an insane storm of both. He pushes himself out of his seat, pulls a stout knife from his belt and lunges at me across the stone table like an animal.

I receive him easily enough, and try to be gentle, but his thrashing as I take him down is battering him to the point that he may break his own bones and dislocate his own joints—I think the only reason that doesn’t happen is that the Pax skeletons, like the neighboring Katar, are more flexible than Earth-gravity bones.

Archer and some of the other Hunters rush in to help me restrain him. Archer orders the Chamber cleared, and a doctor to be sent for. An older woman tries to push her way through the crowd and has to be restrained by the Hunters, begging to go to him—I recognize her as Sower’s wife. I’m sure the look on my face gives her no comfort.

Sower’s emotional storm keeps shifting, too fast to follow: Rage, sobbing, laughing, then something that looks like sexual arousal, then back again, second-by-second.

He hasn’t been himself… Archer finally admits, kneeling beside me, clearly terrified. He…

How long? I need to know.

A few days…

I hear the ping again. I’ve found the source. I try to hack in, to insert myself into whatever’s in Sower’s limbic system. Sower starts fully convulsing, eyes rolled back. He’s having what looks like a grand mal seizure. All I can do is keep him from smashing his brains out on the rock floor.

I can’t get in, Lux lets me know she’s having the same problem. It’s too simple.

It is: Just a basic nanomachine designed to prod his emotional responses with micro-voltage pulses. It could have been introduced in any of a dozen ways. But now the power is spiking, shorting…

I need to get in, I need to rip it out of his skull, but without nanosurgical tools, I’d just be killing him myself (and for an instant, I feel like I should, that it would be better if I did). But then pyrrhic mercy does it for me: I can feel the device burst in his midbrain like a tiny bomb, as if it was designed to upon discovery. Blood gushes out of Sower’s nostrils, and he goes still, his life gurgling and rattling out of him as we hold him. His wife wails and collapses in the arms of the green-suited Hunters.

I very badly need something to kill right now.

We need to search the entire facility, I tell the crushed Archer, jarring him back to action. We need to do it now. We need to gather everyone and check them.

He hesitates, but then gets to his duty, rallies his fighters.

Expect Harvesters, I tell him as an afterthought.

I ease Sower’s body down onto the cold stone, and close his eyes. Another friend, another good man who trusted me, dead by that sick resurrected motherfucker.

I almost hope Asmodeus has a lot more clones, because I want to enjoy butchering him as many times as I can.

Fan out, I tell Lux and Bly, my voice barely more than a growl. Search deep. The bastard will be hidden deep.

Under other circumstances, I would be marveling at the neatly cut labyrinth that is the Pax Hold Keep. I’ve wondered if the squared-off tunnels and more naturally-shaped chambers—dug out when the ETE were still actively involved in providing aid to the survivor groups—were excavated by their tapping machinery or by their Tools. (Sower had told us that the Keep was dug decades ago. Did the ETE have the ability to generate selective repulsor fields and manipulate molecular bonding forces that long ago?)

But now, the magnificent shelter has become a dark, eerie place as we advance into the more remote sections. Shifting to my night vision Mod only makes it look more threatening.

(Abandon hope, ye who enter here, comes involuntarily to mind as we descend.)

Unwilling to simply give over the protection of their own to strange outsiders, no matter the risk, the Pax Hunters put their metal masks on and lead the way with their spears, bows and crossbows.

Your target is here, I remind them needlessly, jabbing a gloved finger straight at the base of my nose, then behind my ear. Smaller than a man’s fist. And stay away from the mouth.

But that’s not the only vector anymore, as Asmodeus recently showed us (and at great cost).

And their guns, I hear Bly add, accompanying his own recon. Anyone gets hit by anything other than a bullet, best give mercy quick.

And sever the head, or the body will still reanimate, Lux finishes our grim mission brief.

But the Pax all know this already. Asmodeus has given them too much practical experience.

Archer, I take him aside. Do you know where Sower has been over the last few days? Where does he sleep? Has he been anywhere alone?

Hard to say, but I doubt he had reason to go deep. His chamber is not far from Council, and the Council has been staying together since the bots came. He cocks his masked head back the way we came.

Which means Asmodeus likely got to him in a more populated and traveled section. If so, he could have gotten to a lot more, especially if he’s developed a more subtle form of infection and conversion.

My growing dread is interrupted by shouting and screaming from somewhere up ahead—it’s hard to tell where or how far because of the way the tunnels carry sound, not even with my enhancements. But then people—civilians—come running toward us.

Contain them! I try to order. They need to be checked!

But the Hunters’ priority is elsewhere. They let the families run through our staggered line, out for the exits, as they ready their arrows for whatever drove the panic. I count nearly two dozen as they flee past me, and know this likely isn’t the only such flight. Soon I hear Bly and Lux in my head, trying to slow more terrified dashes. Unless they’re all coming from the same place, we have threats in multiple locations.

Twenty meters back! one of the women stops just long enough to tell Archer. "Sick! Eyes glowing! Tried to bite, but…"

Did anyone get hurt?

It’s Tammer Cutter… And Sil… she breathlessly rattles off names. More… I couldn’t see…

Gather your family and the others out in the courtyard, Archer orders her. Check everyone for wounds, even small ones.

She swallows her fear and does what she’s told.

We move forward, cautiously.

The Harvester control modules build themselves from their injected seeds using the victim’s brain, bone and blood as raw materials, and there’s one small blessing to that horror: It means they aren’t metal-cased, aren’t armored, so a well-placed arrow or blade can destroy their operating mechanisms. But even disabled, the seeds that they in turn produce to infect others stay viable in their injector magazines, posing a lasting hazard until the heads are carefully severed and burned (or the whole body is).

I have no doubt that the Pax Hunter Warriors could deal with a Harvester attack in the open forest, but these tunnels are another matter. And if the Harvesters are armed with seed launching guns like they were against the Katar, this could be a slaughter—there’s no cover, and the Pax wear very little armor.

Worse, the sleek, long-limbed Pax don’t move nearly as gracefully in these tight spaces. I doubt they’ve had much practice. This is supposed to be their safest place, the Hold they naturally fell back to when the bots—and then the Harvesters—began attacking their Steads in the open forest. The haven we promised we’d help protect. But somehow the monster has found his way in.

We pass a large, long chamber that has narrow slit openings to daylight. It smells musty, like a wetland back on Earth, and it’s filled with manmade pools of standing water. I see random movement intermittently disturb the otherwise still surface. These must be the dragonfly breeding facilities I’ve heard of—another marvel of their science and engineering for the benefit of everyone living here, now reduced to just one more sinister dark space by these circumstances.

The Pax do a quick and thankfully uneventful sweep, and we move on.

As I follow closely behind Archer’s point fighters, this is a special hell for me, because the Harvesters pose absolutely no danger to me or any of the other Modded, but the slightest nick of a seed injector or dart guarantees a slow agonizing death for these people, unless someone spares them with a quicker one. But—as always—they won’t run, won’t let us do their fighting for them. I have to respect their bravery, their sense of honor, but that doesn’t make stomaching their deaths any easier (especially since Asmodeus is only killing them to make me suffer).

The first attack comes as a blur. I’d let myself get distracted, wallowing in my toxic rage. It’s a woman in plain work-greens. She lunges out of a side-chamber like she’s been thrown, trying to tackle one of the leader Hunters. He’s quick, and blocks her with his bow, holds her off while he hesitates long enough to make sure that this isn’t just another panicked civilian. But when her jaw dislocates to jab the injector array at him as if she’s vomiting it, he uses the arrow he had nocked to stab up under her jaw.

It has no effect, other than to spray him with her blood. While an arrow fired from a thirty to forty kilo draw weight bow should be able to penetrate the cellulose shell of a Harvester module, an arrow stabbed by hand at close range might not be able to do the job. Thankfully, one of the other Hunters responds with his own bow, and sinks a shaft into her ear.

The woman’s skull shorts and pops, and she convulses for a few seconds before dropping like a cut marionette.

Now that I can see her better, she was perhaps forty Standard, weathered and lean. Her jaw is still forced open way too wide by the injector that protrudes from her mouth. Her blank eyes glow dimly red for a moment, then fade.

Cass Sower, Archer mourns, recognizing. His mask looks up at me. The Leder’s daughter.

Was she the vector that infected him? I shift my vision to T-wave and scan, but the cruel machine in her skull looks just like all the others I’ve seen.

Check him! Archer is already ordering his men to examine the one she attacked. I play back my visual memory. It doesn’t look like the injector made contact. And blood, as far as we know, isn’t a vector—the infection is injected mechanically. Or it has been so far.

I hear a sickeningly familiar shuffle, and another shape comes at us from down the tunnel. I dash past the Pax line, sword ready, but also hesitate to be sure of my target. I see the red glow in the eyes, hear the faint command signal, smell death, bring my blade down. The skull splits, the module bursts, the body drops at my feet. I don’t stop to look. I can hear more coming, see the staggering ghostly shadows in my night vision.

Choke point! Here! I order them to hold the position like I have the authority to, then run ahead.

In my head, Bly and Lux and reporting encounters from their sections as well. If fully-converted Harvesters take three days from infection to module completion, that means Asmodeus may have started this as he was launching his attack on Katar, using that as a distraction to draw us away from here. Or perhaps he was here even before that, since he did have several converted Pax in the ranks of Harvesters he threw at the Katar as they fled from his rail-gun.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to cull much intel from Fohat since we contained his fallen body and let his blasted brain start to rebuild itself. So far Bel’s only managed to recover just enough from his digitized backup memories to bring us here. But even if we allowed Fohat’s brain to fully regenerate, let him regain consciousness, I doubt Asmodeus would have let him know anything truly useful, or he wouldn’t have left his body for us to take.

Another drone comes running at me sloppily in the dark. I know that the sensor stalks that penetrate into their eyes can see beyond the visual spectrum; that they probably lock on heat and motion, then a preset attack algorithm is triggered when they detect a vulnerable target. In my own night vision, this one looks like a young boy. His eyes glow red and his mouth gapes wide as he throws himself at me. I impale his skull on the tip of my blade, and twist until the module shatters. I don’t have time to grieve what I’ve done. I can only let his body drop free of my sword, step over him and meet two more.

The tunnel here is almost too narrow for long swords, so I have to thrust, twist, repeat.

Small blessing: the drones we’ve seen so far don’t have guns, but I expect the reason for that is they’ve all been converted from the Pax, who have no guns as far as I’ve seen. We still haven’t seen a single drone wearing Chang’s black uniforms, no sign of a potential non-Pax Vector Zero, unless an infected Pax brought this back home, either unknowingly or under Asmodeus’ control.

I wish I had a proper map of this maze. Maybe I could find Asmodeus’ access point, guess where he might be holed up (assuming he’s even here at all). Lux and Bly send me enough data to get a rough sense of where the Harvesters are being encountered, but this is still a blind labyrinth for us. They could well slip in behind us, a…

I hear it as I’m thinking about it: Sounds of violence from behind me, bows and swords against flesh and bone. I shouldn’t have left the Hunters. I turn back to…

You shouldn’t have left them.

It’s Asmodeus, in my head. I reach out, try to find his signal.

But then you never were a team player, not when you were being honest.

That wasn’t in my head. That was in my ears, echoing in the tunnels. But it doesn’t sound right. Raspy. Weak. Like he’s hurt.

That’s right, sweet thing, he taunts as I run toward the sound. This way… I have another present for you.

I find a chamber with a shaft of light lancing down through the middle of it. There’s a table in the glow, and sitting up on it is a male in Pax Hunter gear, mask and all. A shaky hand reaches up and lowers the hand-hammered Mycenaean-style mask of a journeyman warrior. The room is thick with the stink of death.

You’re early. I’m not done yet.

It’s… It’s Asmodeus, but it isn’t. I can see him in the face, a definite resemblance, but not really him—like he’s part someone else. And the hair and beard don’t match. And his eyes glow red—corpse eyes with Harvester stalks.

Still, you get the idea.

I charge forward, run my blade up under his jaw and out the back of his skull, twist, then rip upwards until I split his head apart, flinging his mask into the stone ceiling. Then I chop down quick into the remains of the module, so hard my blade winds up halfway down through his sternum. I get washed in blood that smells like rotten meat. I step back, and the split body sprawls back across the table.

"Hey! I spent days on that…" he complains like I’ve just ruined an idle art project. But his voice still isn’t in my head. It’s behind me, now sounding small and higher-pitched. I spin, only to face a straw-haired little girl, maybe seven Standard. Her face is corpse-blank, her eyes glow, but she doesn’t try to attack me.

Okay, I didn’t really spend days on it. I just program it and it makes itself.

His voice—distorted and disturbingly childlike—is coming out of her mouth, which just hangs open limply. He’s not making her speak, he’s got a speaker inside of her. He’s just digitally mimicking a child’s voice.

"You’ve probably figured out that I gave you Fuckhead, left his spectacularly-lobotomized body for you to collect. Nothing sinister. I just couldn’t stand the guy anymore. Can you blame me? I mean, what a self-obsessed dick. No social skills whatsoever. And impressively stupid for a smart guy. He was easy. All I had to do was give him ideas, and watch him work. He had no idea I was downloading all of his nanotech skills. I wonder why Chang never thought of that? We could have ditched the asshole ages ago. Maybe he just wanted the company. Not that Fuckhead was ever any kind of good company. He just made you want to rip off his head and shove it up his ass, every time he opened his mouth. Did I mention no social skills? Or social smarts: After I’d milked him for everything he knew, I just idly dropped the hint that maybe he should get out there and have some fun in person for a change; get out of the lab, get back on the horse, get the fuck over when your girlfriend filled him full of his own bots’ bullets. I was like his own personal Doctor Phil. Remember Doctor Phil? Anyway, the stupid shit had no idea I was setting him up—he went with a fucking smile. If one of your Super Friends didn’t take him out, my decoy nuke would have left his bones for you to recover and play with. You’re welcome. I hope you’re having fun hurting him. Maybe you can flash me some video. It’s not like we get any Sat or Net TV on this rock. I miss my Stories."

It’s sick, even for him: using a little girl’s corpse as a radio.

"So back to the game in progress: As you can see, I’m a lot more creative than he was with those skills. These Harvester things have sooo much potential, especially when you add in select features from our Mods. They don’t even need to eat the brain to take over the body, as you saw with the King of All Hippies back there. That was just a simple medial-temporal interface, something to let me poke his limbic system. On the other hand, the one you just took your famous anger management issues out on was much more advanced. As you probably noticed, I was hacking his DNA, making him into another Mini-Me. Well, more like a satellite office."

"And where are you?" I ask the obvious question, hoping against hope that he’ll bite just to toy with me in person.

"That’s the real beauty of all this, old friend: I don’t have to be anywhere anymore! I’m just a made-up memory set, not really much different than what’s walking around in that Aryan action-figure that thinks it’s Dee. Or any of the rest of you, for that matter. Digital memories implanted in a DNA-jacked meat suit, then stuffed full of Super Friends upgrades. It’s just that my memories are so unconvincing that I can’t fool myself. I know I’m not a real boy, just a cheap copy. So why hang on to that pathetic illusion? I’m really nothing more than hardware and software walking around inside cloned meat, right? And hardware and software can be copied, upgraded… I mean, that’s what we do—planned obsolescence and all… You need the newest model every few years… I just needed the know-how. Turns out, that was also just software. I just had to hack the files out of Fuckhead’s head. And Chang’s, before he went boom with his ship. Easy-peasy. Instant multiple PhD. And not one dollar wasted on tuition. How cool is that?"

I hope he’s bluffing, but I know he’s not. The thought—the potential—that he has all of Fohat’s and Chang’s knowledge of our science and engineering is crushing. But if he has the potential…

"So why this? I try appealing to his ego. Little games with meaningless meat? When you could do so much more? Or so you say."

"Because it’s fun, he answers like he was hoping for the question. (The effect of his childlike rant is especially creepy coming out of the mouth of a dead child, which I’m sure is intentional.) And fun is definitely in my programming. All over it, in fact. It’s my mission statement. Fucking. Killing. Destruction and general mayhem. Shocking the shit out of the so-called moral high-ground. And you. Fucking with you is apparently my prime directive. Somebody made me just for that purpose. I have no idea who. I honestly don’t think it was Chang—he certainly had the skills, and he was a crazy-ass megalomaniac, but I’m out of his league. I always got the impression I was a gift he wasn’t crazy about accepting. And it definitely wasn’t Fuckhead—I’ve been all over that sick fuck’s memory files, and he didn’t make me either. So who? Yod, maybe? Granted, I don’t know much about that particular mad-scientist’s wet dream, but I heard you two were best buds… Why would he-she-it-whatever do me to you?"

The accusation hits like ice, because I’ve already suspected it’s true.

Asmodeus makes the little girl grin at my doubt.

Interesting… he purrs, sounding vaguely distracted. But I do love a mystery, so I’m not about to let this one go, even though it ironically puts me in the same boat with the sickeningly-vapid God-Wads: What’s my purpose in life? What’s my Creator’s plan for me? Well, at least I know the answer to one of those questions, so that puts me ahead of the game, doesn’t it?

If your purpose is me, then bring it to me, I demand levelly.

The little corpse does an exaggerated shrug and eye-roll.

"You know it doesn’t work that way, he chastises me, pretending to be exasperated. I can’t hurt you. You can’t hurt me. So what have we got? Your compassion and my Schadenfreude. I had compassion once. It sucked. It got me killed, or so I’m told. Won’t make that mistake again. Can’t, in fact. But you… I can stick hot pokers in you by hurting these pathetic little creatures we used to be."

He’s right, and there isn’t a fucking thing I can do about it. Unless I become what he is. And I think that’s what he really wants, that’s what he’s always wanted: to prove we’re the same. Brothers in sociopathy.

The corpse-girl grins at my fuming.

"Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll move on when I get bored. I mean, the whole zombie meme has been done to death, after all—no pun intended. Okay, maybe a little pun intended. But then it does still have some untapped potential… And it seems to upset you in a new and unique way, so I must be doing something right."

I’m getting distracted by the sounds of battle echoing in the tunnels. He’s wasting my time here.

"Speaking of upsetting you in new and unique ways… I’ve never been into little girls myself, but since I’m here, and I do like to watch, shall we see if you are?"

He makes the dead girl start to undress.

I feel a surge of shame and disgust and rage. It propels my sword through her skull. It releases her body from his control, but somehow I can still hear him:

"Mission accomplished. You are just too easy…"

I get back to the Pax, running. Asmodeus’ voice echoes triumphantly in the tunnels.

"Was it the pedo or the necro? Ah, well, maybe next time… I’ll try to get someone more your type. And maybe a little