The God Mars Book Five: Onryo (40 page)

Asmodeus drops bots from his hull—I count two dozen
Bugs and about half as many Boxes. They ignore the three of us and
charge straight for the Gate Wall to engage the far more vulnerable
Katar. Erickson turns reflexively to go after them, but Ram holds
up his hand to stop him, to remind him of the larger plan. So we
just watch as the Boxes spin and roll through the narrow Gate gaps,
banging against the walls as they go, while the Bugs scramble up
the Wall itself for the Katar placements. No one tries to fire in
resistance. The Bugs make the top of the Wall, while on my
satellite view, the Boxes have made it through the gaps and are
rolling into positions behind the Katar lines, turning their guns
to cut the bow-and-Naginata-armed warriors to pieces.

But then the bots all stop, hesitate. I hear a wave
of coded chatter, almost melodic, followed by silence. One-by-one,
the bots turn their guns, turn them upward, and begin firing on
their master.

Well done, Dee.

Asmodeus concentrates his turret fire on the Wall, on
the Katar and the bots alike. I’m hoping that the armored suits I
see burst and topple are the ones filled with sticks, not flesh. He
also turns some of his guns on the sniper positions, tearing up
their nests with a more intensive barrage than his Discs could
muster. I fear for my people, feel as helpless watching this as the
Katar must, but I know the way to end it, and I will be part of
that.

In the sky, the Discs have given up on trying to
chase Azazel and turn on their next-highest-priority targets. Bel,
Lux and Bly lead them on another merry chase, drawing their fire
back into their own mother ship and even into each other. They also
draw them into the Knights’ waiting guns. But it’s inefficient
work, and time isn’t a luxury as long as the Stormcloud can still
fire. So counter-intuitively, they lead the remaining Discs back
toward the City, where a few more fall prey to their
formerly-fellow bots guns. But once they fly over the Wall, over
the City itself, the bots stop shooting at them, and I hear another
song of code. The Discs begin to wobble, slow. A few simply tumble
out of the sky and burst into the abandoned structures, but others
get themselves back under control, bank and turn, and head back for
their now-former master. They add their guns and grenade launchers
to our bombardment.

The Stormcloud continues to drop debris on the field
as it gets chewed at, but it still has plenty of guns to fire back.
And then I can see heat building up in its midsection. There’s a
blast and a geyser of what looks like steam from the underbelly,
followed by another. My radiation detectors give me an alarm.

“Coolant,” Ram confirms. “He’s melting down his
reactors.”

“They’ll burst and poison everyone still in the
City,” Erickson makes the obvious conclusion. “And contaminate the
whole canyon for generations.”

I draw my Nagamaki.

“Are we done standing here playing distraction?” I
growl.

“We are,” Ram agrees. He reaches his left arm upwards
for the wreckage of the bow of the ship, and blows the grappler of
the Unmaker auto-rappelling device that Azazel modified for him.
Erickson and I do likewise with the matching devices secured to our
forearm armor.

The hooks trail micro-line cables as they fly, and
thankfully find purchase in the blasted superstructure. I feel the
motors spin, and I get pulled forward and up by my arm, up into the
air. I swing over the wreckage-littered field, into the shadow of
the ship, then pendulum back as I get smoothly hauled up.

Our allies—human and bot—hold fire on the bow while
we get pulled into the damaged ship. Once we grab metal, the hooks
disengage and retract back into their launch mechanisms, and we’re
free to climb.

As if he knows his way, Ram leads us into what’s
still intact enough to look like some kind of reinforced forward
viewing gallery between the remains of the rail-guns. The thick
polycarbonate transparency that sealed the bunker-like viewport
slit has been blown in, letting us crawl through. Inside is a large
chamber lined with broken screens and interface panels, dominated
by two large pilot’s chairs.

“Command Bridge,” Ram confirms what I think it looks
like. The room isn’t lit and is thickly hazed with smoke, but
there’s no sign of occupation. Ram tries the panels and finds the
power down in the section. Through the deck under our feet, I can
still feel the ship’s batteries firing, and the stronger kick of
rockets and grenades answering back. The hull echoes with random
blasts and the pervasive rattle of auto-fire.

Ram pops the apparent main hatch into the ship, and
leads us down a long, dark, smoke-filled corridor. I can hear him
send out a ping, like he’s trying to link to something. Someone. He
moves with more surety, drawing his own sword.

We climb unstable stairs up into daylight, up onto
the top of the ship.

The upper deck, the same one Asmodeus lounged on and
taunted from with his depravities, is now littered with debris and
pocked and ruptured from rocket hits. Smoke pours skyward from
either broadside and from the remains of the bow guns, obscuring
our view of the embattled canyon, but we can hear and feel the
ship’s batteries continue to unload in bursts.

I see the flyers skim in low over the deck, and we’re
joined by our fellows, who all seem drawn to the same signal.

Through the smoke and junk, we quickly find Asmodeus,
bloodied and crawling away, tangled in his own cape, leaving a
smear-trail of blood. His left leg is missing at the knee and the
side of his face and head are torn open.

Without hesitation, Ram draws his pistol and puts two
shells through Asmodeus’ back, penetrating his armor and exploding
inside of him. They knock him flat to the deck and send more blood
puking out of his mouth in a spray. One shell hit him dead-center
of the spine, probably severing it, while the other hit him in the
region of his liver. Despite this, he pushes himself up, and using
his spear like a crutch, flops over to sit upright, facing us. He
grins at us with blood still flowing out of his mouth like this is
all some kind of joke, a fun pretend game for children.

Cautiously, we semi-surround him, our weapons ready
like we all plan to step in and chop him to pieces on cue. Ram has
his gun pointed right at Asmodeus’ face, and demands:

“Where’s Fohat?”

Asmodeus just spits more blood at him and laughs,
chokes.

“Not here.” It’s Astarte’s voice. She appears, a
pristine vision in white and gold, walking out of the smoke. She
still wears the black-gemmed diadem. She looks and sounds very
distant, aloof.

We wait for further explanation, but get none.
Astarte simply steps up close to Asmodeus’ back as he tries to
stand, but he only manages to get up on his remaining knee, leaning
on the spear. He’s still leaking, leaving a spreading mess of
himself on the deck, his nanites apparently not managing to fully
stop his hemorrhaging yet. Still he won’t stop grinning at us like
a madman. He tries to pull himself to standing but fails—his gloved
hands are almost too slick with blood to hang on to his spear, and
his remaining leg looks dead under him. But he doesn’t quit. He
looks us over like he’s sizing us up and finding us all wanting,
like we still can’t hurt him, like he can still beat us.

“You’re lucky
he’s
here…” he rasps at us,
nodding to Ram. “You all need the advantage…” He looks down at his
stump, wipes some of the blood out of his beard before locking eyes
with Ram. “You were the only one who could ever hold your own with
me in a fight… The rest of you…” He nods to Bel. “…a
scientist
…” To Lux: “…a
gamer
…but at least you’re
fuck-able… half the time…” To Bly: “…and the Pirate King… all brood
and no bite since you lost your ships and your crews and got glued
into a suit of armor… At least the suit was badass… Now you look
like a wannabe Jedi…” Then he looks at me. “Now
you
… You at
least look interesting, whatever you’re supposed to be… Did anyone
ever tell you that you look like Skeletor? Heh… you probably don’t
even know what that is…”

Something’s wrong.

He looks lazily at Erickson.

“And you… I have no idea who you’re supposed to be
either. Sorry. Can I guess? He-Man? Nope… Needs to be blonde and
showing more skin… Prince Valiant? Nah… Haircut’s wrong… You look
like a mishmash of John Carter and Major Matt Mason… I guess I’ve
lost touch with the hot cosplay… I give up… So
who
are you
supposed to be again?”

“Something’s wrong,” Erickson voices what I’m
thinking, then clarifies. “We’ve met. We’ve fought. He
knew
my name.”

“Modded memory is hardware-backed,” Bel confirms,
confused. “Eidetic. He shouldn’t be able to forget
anything
.” Then Bel looks like he’s listening. I think I
hear a signal, faint, encrypted, coming from Asmodeus. “He’s
searching for signals, requesting backup. Refresh.”

“And he’s not healing properly,” Lux adds,
disturbed.

“You haven’t seen my best trick…” Asmodeus chuckles
through blood, his teeth stained disturbingly red. I see him finger
the controls on his spear.

I lunge forward, and with all I’ve got, cleave with
my Nagamaki. The blade cuts armor and flesh and bone all the way
through from left shoulder to out through his right lower ribs
before he can even get his guard up. I manage to cleave the spear
shaft as well, and there’s a flash and pop of energy. The butt-end
on the spear goes skittering away and over the side of the ship.
Asmodeus wobbles in place for a fraction, then falls apart,
splitting into two pieces as he hits the deck.

Astarte barely reacts, her face blank, but I see her
subtly pointing her left hand rightward across her body at waist
height, pointing northwest. Then she flickers and fades. She was
never here.

Neither, I fear, was Asmodeus.

I use my blade to split Asmodeus’s skull about
halfway through the side, then stomp down to smash his head open.
And then I have to scream in frustrated rage. Inside, wired through
his brain, is a module not unlike a Harvester, only more advanced,
more complex and elegant.

“What is it?!” Bly demands to know.

“Clone,” Bel guesses. “Or some poor victim whose DNA
was jacked to morph his appearance. The module probably provides
the rest, mimicking the original. Memories. Personality…”

“And why not?” we hear Asmodeus again. He steps
through the smoke toward us, whole and unhurt, spear held casually
like a hiking stick. “What am I, after all, but a stack of files
that pretend to be memories, loaded into a clone body?”

Ram raises his pistol and fires again, but Asmodeus’
head only shimmers for an instant as the round passes through.
Asmodeus shrugs, then looks down at the mess I’ve made of his
stand-in, and makes a show of pouting over it.

“Well, at least he got thoroughly laid before you
ended him. And
I
get the benefit of the uploads. Or should I
say ‘
we
’?”

There’s more than one copy. Or he wants us to think
so.

“I got the idea from an old Bond villain,” he
rambles. “Do you remember Bond movies? I
loved
them growing
up. Especially the villains. Is that wrong? So now I should say
something snappy, I suppose.” He makes a show of concentrating,
then shrugs again. “Huh. Nothing comes to mind. You might want to
get off my ship, though. We’re about to have a Chernobyl moment.
Then once the Barbie City is too hot for human habitation, maybe
I’ll move in, build myself a nice condo. It
is
rather
pretty. Marvelous engineering. And the whole camo-scheme is just so
cool… It’s why I came here, you know. It’s all about the real
estate. The Pax Bunker is such a dark, damp, dreary place. You’d
think it was a dungeon. And the Eurekans live in a hole that smells
like a sewer.”

I want to cut him down again so badly, but there’s
nothing really here to cut. So where is he?

“Drake,” he names me as an afterthought, just to show
he can. “And Erickson Carter. I suppose I should have backed up the
files better, but I didn’t know there’d be a quiz. Ah, well.”

I realize the others—Ram, Bel and Lux—are ignoring
him, concentrating. I feel the ship shift, move. It begins to slide
east, away from the colony. The guns have all gone silent.

“Impressive,” Asmodeus allows. “But too slow, I’m
afraid. Especially if you plan to get off before what we all know
happens next.”

“
Go!
” Ram orders the other three of us. “This
is a distraction! He’s doing something else. Something worse.”

Asmodeus grins in confirmation, satisfied.

“See, old friend? Just like it used to be: You and
me, and everybody else just meat in the crossfire. And you
really
should get off the ship.”

Asmodeus vanishes, but the three Seed-Immortals don’t
budge. Ram has to yell “Go!” at us one more time before Bly,
Erickson and I listen, though it takes Erickson grabbing me by the
arm to get me moving. And what he tells me next, with his voice
only so that Asmodeus can’t hear:

“He’s going after the evacuees!”

We run and jump over the side of the doomed ship,
which is now outside the fork of the Canyon. We come down in the
thick green of the forest, crashing through the green, and land
badly, battered more by what broke our fall than the fall
itself.

The trees also obscure our view of the smoldering
wreck as it keeps heading too-slowly east, back the way it came,
still dropping junk and bleeding radioactive steam.

“General Richards,” I hear Ram broadcast. “Prepare to
fire. We’ll be clear of the colony in five minutes.”

“You need to be clear yourselves,” the Unmaker
General insists.

“Hell of an opportunity you’re passing up,” Ram
almost jokes. “Three of us in your sights. You could be risking
your command. I would know.”