Free Gudsriki by Ari Bach Page A

he had no eyelids. Or eyes. But he could see something, shapes, blurry but growing sharper from tunnel vision half-faded to red.
    And then he saw Mishka. She smiled at him.
    â€œGood as new!”
    She held up a mirror.
    Veikko wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first. It looked like a Rorschach test but red and raw. Blood encrusted tissue, nasal turbinates, two clear eyes—it was a cross section from a head.
    Then he realized it was his own. Horror struck him as if a Geki had jumped into the ravine. It couldn’t be him, but it was. He was reduced to a shingle of meat and bone, a grotesque visage like nothing he’d ever seen even among the Unspeakable Darkness. He was a horror.
    â€œThat’s not the best part,” said Mishka. “Look down.”
    He looked down and saw the mass of machinery and meat he’d been trying to master. It looked like a twist of jagged metal and mutilated flesh sinking into a hole in the ground. He was right beside the Ares, the YGDR S/L, his body propping up the heavy power plant and entire ravine atop the curved empty space of the rampart.
    â€œI think you actually have arms and legs, but you’re… not put together.”
    â€œSkadi….”
    â€œShe’s to your left.”
    Veikko looked. His eyes were foggy. He had only lenses in front of his retinas but no sclera, no actual eye to keep the stray light out. He had half a sense of vision.
    Skadi lay dead on the stone floor. Her chest was a hole, her suit burned up black around it. Veikko felt nothing at the sight. He couldn’t even absorb her loss; too much had happened to him.
    He was the ultimate victim of the great prank. He got all he wanted, but he got it wrong. He owned the ravine, but it was empty of everything but the Ares, to which he was now bound. The world was at war, but he couldn’t rise up and play in it. And all the wrong people had died. Everyone who received his link dump. Everyone on his team. He might have cried if he still had tear ducts.
    â€œDon’t kill me,” he said.
    â€œWhy would I do that?” asked Mishka.
    â€œI’d kill you if I could.”
    â€œBut you can’t. You can’t do much of anything, can you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œPoor little thing. How about you tell me where your sister is?”
    â€œDead.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œI got her killed starting this war.”
    â€œOh, this is your doing? Why start a war?”
    â€œWas trying to nuke the Ares.”
    â€œThe Ares?” She looked up at the throbbing mass. “Is that what this thing is? That’s what this was all about? They brought it back from Mars? Ah! And you were the team sent to stop it. Good job, Valknut!”
    â€œFuck you too.”
    â€œGood thing the rampart’s up! I’d hate to see the whole planet end thanks to you. Oh wait.”
    â€œWhat’s it like up there?”
    â€œRadioactive and quiet. Haven’t been south yet. So you claim Vibeke is dead? How dead? All dead or only mostly dead?”
    â€œI don’t know. I hacked her to launch a nuclear missile. If it didn’t land here something went wrong.”
    â€œYou know a Valkyrie isn’t dead until you see their liquefied brain. And Veikko, really? You hacked your own teammate? We hacked a hundred people a year in M team but not each other, silly fish.”
    Veikko might have looked ashamed if he had a face to show it. “Don’t call me a fish.”
    â€œOkay, nudibranch. Where did you send my pet?”
    â€œDimmuborgir.”
    The ravine shook. Veikko screamed in pain. Mishka just looked around until it ended.
    â€œWhat was that?”
    â€œThat’s why you can’t kill me. I’m the only thing keeping the ravine from collapsing. Only thing keeping the Ares from hitting ocean.”
    â€œThat’s… that’s a pretty good reason.”
    â€œJust go away, Mishka.”
    â€œI’ll kill your sister