Veteran

14

Rivid had done his bit. We had to face the music. Out of the sled, the three of us down on our knees, covered by pros as we were searched and then secured. Then face down on ancient pitted concrete looking at webbed feet.

‘Find their heads, spike them and add them to the rest,’ said an impossibly deep and inhuman-sounding voice. It came as a relief when I realised that Balor was talking about the aviators and not us. A little while later I heard the sled leave. I was pleased. Rivid was a good guy and had presumably cut some kind of deal.

‘And them?’ I heard a female voice that was used to command ask. She had an American accent. Initially I found the growling that responded unnerving but I realised it was just Balor thinking.

‘Show me the girl,’ Balor’s voice answered. I heard Morag being dragged up for Balor to look at.

‘Leave her…’ I managed to say before getting kicked in the ribs.

‘Shut up!’ Pagan hissed at me.

‘Get them on their feet,’ Balor ordered.

We were dragged to our feet. Balor towered over me. He was around seven and a half feet tall, his face strangely angular and his mouth too big for even a head that size. His smile revealed rows of shark-like teeth. His height was in proportion to his muscled build, though as powerful as he looked he still gave off an air of wiry speed. His skin was blue, black and green overlapping scales, as much lizard as it was fish. I knew that his armoured skin and reinforced skeleton were capable of surviving the crushing depths of the freezing oceans of Proxima. He was dripping wet from his dive and the only clothes he wore were a pair of cut-off old combat trousers. His hair looked like dreadlocks made of black seaweed but my understanding was they were some kind of sensor aid to help with echolocation. His large, powerful, long-fingered hands ended in sharp vicious-looking claws. He carried the collapsible long-bladed spear I’d seen him use on the copter pilot, now no more than a cylinder of some super-hard metallic compound from the Belt. Strapped to his leg he had a very functional-looking diver’s knife. At his waist he wore what looked like a Benelli twelve-gauge shotgun pistol. It was a sidearm that only power-armoured troops and the largest heavy conversion cyborgs could use because of the size of its magazine.

Of course the most striking thing about him was the eye. The eye had as many myths about it as the man himself. His right eye was a black pool, yet it still looked organic, despite the fact I knew it to be artificial. It was his left eye that all the fuss was about. The sharkskin eyepatch was engraved with an ornate knotwork design and seemed to cover half the left side of his face. You would assume that this would limit his peripheral vision but I could see he had what looked like small glass studs that circled his head providing him with 360-degree vision.

‘Put them in a cage,’ said the monster, pointing two clawed fingers at Pagan and me. I looked at the circle of hard faces around us. I didn’t know them but I recognised them. Balor had done his work well. He’d recruited from the best. They were dirty and ragged, but their kit, though old, was clean and well looked after. We didn’t stand a chance here but I didn’t want to be separated from Morag.

‘The girl?’ the American woman asked. Balor took his time looking Morag up and down in a way that made my skin crawl.

‘Bring her to me,’ Balor said finally, and turned to leave. It was the perfect time for me to shout no and start struggling but I knew that would have been a pointless gesture in this league.

‘Mr Balor sir?’ Morag said, her voice sounding somehow tiny and scared. Balor stopped and turned to look at her. ‘I really don’t want to be raped or eaten,’ she said. There were a couple of sniggers from the gunmen and -women surrounding us but most of them looked less than impressed, and although Balor’s strange features may have been difficult to read he seemed to be one of them.

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ he rumbled. I was desperately looking around for an opening but finding nothing, when I saw someone I recognised. She was short but heavily muscled, a lot of upper-body strength. She wore tatty but still-functional armour and a telltale bandanna across unkempt short hair. She was carrying a Metal Storm gauss rifle slung horizontally across her torso.

‘I know you?’ I said, desperately trying to place her face.

‘Yeah, you know me,’ she said in a resigned manner. She sounded like she came from the Arizona coast. Then I placed her.

‘You were on the Santa Maria,’ I said. She seemed to consider this for a while. Balor was watching her. Everyone in the special ops community knew the significance of the Santa Maria, the cargo ship we were on when they tried to dump us into space.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I was,’ she finally acknowledged.

‘SEAL, right? I’ll have your name in a second,’ I said. Balor looked at the ex-SEAL and then back at me, his expression unreadable.

‘Cage,’ he reminded the people guarding us.

‘Our gear?’ Morag asked. I groaned inwardly. Balor turned to regard her for a moment, just long enough for the monster’s gaze to make her really uncomfortable.

‘Bring it to me,’ he finally ordered. ‘If there’s anything really good it’ll get split.’ Morag had inadvertently tipped them off that we were holding something worthwhile.

‘Bollocks,’ I said with some feeling. On the one hand I wasn’t dead, which meant I’d lived longer than I thought I would with Rolleston on my trail. On the other hand I was still less than pleased about being in a reinforced cage waist-deep in freezing-cold water. The irritating thing was that the locks were solid, heavy duty and mechanical so Pagan couldn’t even hack them. Nor had boosted muscle been able to bend the bars. It was almost like they didn’t want us to escape. We didn’t even know what part of New York we were in. Our only frame of reference was the occasional dead rat floating by.

We were in a series of partially submerged cages that formed a kind of grid. There were some other people in here but they didn’t show much interest in talking to us. I clambered down from the cage and held myself as I shook from the cold in the water.

‘How’s our girl doing?’ I asked Pagan, assuming that he’d link with Morag.

‘Don’t know, they’ve got too many other hackers keeping an eye on us,’ he said. He seemed pissed off. At me, I mean.

‘If it makes you feel better you can tell me we should’ve gone to Russia,’ I said.

‘Chinese parliament,’ he said. ‘I raised my objection but in the end agreed to come with you – can’t complain about it.’ He didn’t sound like he meant it. Balor had taken the solid-state memory cube that housed Ambassador. The pair of us lapsed into silence.

‘Good work on that missile,’ I eventually said. Meaning the one he’d dropped into the Atlantic before it had gone off.

‘Wasn’t me.’ That got my attention.

‘What then? Malfunction?’

Pagan shook his head. ‘Morag did it.’ I stared at him for a while.

‘Even I know that’s a pretty sophisticated hack. She doesn’t have anything like the experience.’

‘I agree,’ Pagan said. He had a funny look on his face.

‘She scares you, doesn’t she?’

Pagan gave this some thought. Eventually he answered, ‘I’m not so sure it’s her so much as her and Ambassador.’

‘It’s helping her?’ I asked, worried by this alien influence over Morag.

‘Don’t get me wrong. She’s good, she’s definitely got the talent and will be a brilliant hacker, better than me probably, but yeah, to do what she’s doing she’s getting help.’ I wasn’t sure what to make of what he’d said. It was so beyond my scope of experience. Was she still Morag?

‘You sure this isn’t an attack by Them?’ I eventually asked him. He considered my question, shivering in the cold water.

‘I’m not sure of anything – seems an unlikely way to go about it,’ he finally said. He looked up at the network of corroded pipes and the pitted concrete ceiling above us.

‘He’ll sell us to Rolleston, won’t he?’ Pagan asked. I shrugged.

‘I honestly don’t know. I don’t think he thinks like anyone else. He could do anything.’

‘What do you think he wanted with Morag?’ Pagan asked. I just looked at him. I felt that was a pretty naive question for an ex-special forces operator. Pagan had just as much knowledge about these kinds of things as I did and I was trying really hard not to think about it. Co-opted by an alien, and now Balor himself had her. I was trying not to think that maybe it would’ve been better if I’d put a bullet through her head a while back.

We heard the clanking of an ancient freight elevator. Moments later webbed feet stood above us on top of the cage.

‘Balor wants to see you,’ said the strangely modulated voice of one of the Fomorians.

We were under heavy guard. I could barely stand but it made me feel better – it’s nice to get some respect. Outside it was muggy and close, the air ionised, black clouds rolling in above the spires of the partially submerged city. When the rain started it was hot, the pollution making it feel greasy, like being sweated on. We were in what used to be called Times Square. We made our way over surprisingly well-made catwalks towards what looked like some proto Ginza writ large. Neon signs leaked dust from ruptured tubes. Huge viz screens had been hung over the scarred facades of old buildings. They seemed to be showing wildlife documentaries about sea life.

Craning my neck I could just about make out various defensive emplacements around the square, concealed and otherwise. This area was well protected. The well-armed denizens of New York seemed to be congregating in the square. Below us in the water, powerful speedboats, hovers and hydro-bikes were landing at small jury-rigged jetties. In the centre of the square held up by high-tensile steel cables, was part of the flight deck of the USS Intrepid, an ancient naval aircraft carrier that had once been moored in New York. Apparently the Intrepid was now suspended inverted between two crumbling buildings further uptown. The pieces of suspended flight deck were the focus point for the crowds assembling in Times Square. Hovering cameras floated around it and I could see on one or two of the smaller screens pictures of the empty platform from the cameras. On the one hand I had a sinking feeling, on the other it didn’t seem possible that all this attention could be for us.

We climbed up ringing metal steps. The rain was beginning to worsen now, but I was already wet and cold. We headed towards what was once a semicircular lounge in the Marriott Marquee above the waters in Times Square. The roof of the lounge had long since gone and it was now open to the elements. Seated back in the Marquee, sheltered from the open air, a string quartet played something understated and pleasant.

In the lounge itself I was relieved to see a frightened but uneaten Morag. She was sitting at an expensive-looking, long, dark wood table that had been polished to a fine sheen. With her was Balor, who was helping himself to what looked to be a well-prepared meal. He seemed oblivious to the rain. There were several people with him, including the ex-SEAL woman whose name I just couldn’t remember, and a number of his Fomorians. All the Fomorians had been extensively altered to adopt the sea-demon persona of their boss man but none to the extent of Balor. I was trying to decide on an approach but nothing was really presenting itself to me.

I was less than pleased to see Rannu, the Major’s man, sitting at the table. It was the first time I had had a good chance to study the small Nepalese. He was compact but heavily muscled, though his movements suggested that his surprising bulk did not slow him down. He was doubtless augmented, but I suspect he had been fast before he’d been turned into a cyborg. Sunglasses presumably covered lenses not unlike mine. His features were unreadable though he seemed to radiate a kind of passivity. His expression didn’t change when he saw Pagan and me but I knew he was sizing me up just as I was sizing him up.

‘You eat well,’ I said to Balor.

‘I work for it,’ he said without looking up. At the same time I messaged Morag, asking her if she was okay. One of the other people at the table, a nondescript individual wearing practical faded-grey overalls and with half his head replaced by hardware, looked over at Balor and nodded. Balor looked up at Pagan and me. Pagan was shivering.

‘I’m fine,’ Morag said.

‘You think we’re monsters here?’ Balor asked. There was some chuckling from round the table. The SEAL woman didn’t laugh. Reb, her name came to me. Presumably short for Rebecca or Rebel. Knowing the SEALs, it was probably the latter.

‘I thought that was the point,’ I said. Balor’s toothy grin disappeared; I was quite pleased by that, I didn’t like his predatory mouth. He looked between Morag and me.

‘Let’s keep everything out in the open, yeah?’ he told us.

‘You sure you want that?’ Morag asked, her voice sounding surprisingly even for the situation she was in. Balor turned to her, fixing her with what they described on the vizzes as his baleful eye. Morag looked down immediately. Oh, well done, you cunt, I thought, intimidate a seventeen-year-old girl, my anger taking me by surprise. This sort of shit is much easier when you really don’t care.

Balor stretched out both his arms expansively, gesturing at the fine, but increasingly soggy, meal in front of him.

‘In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, pirate crews would go out of their way to make sure they had a good cook on board. Food was one of the biggest bones of contention on any ship. Pirate captains didn’t have the authority that the regular navies or even merchants had over their crews, so good food was one of the ways they kept their people happy.’

‘Kept them in line,’ Pagan said suddenly. I glanced to my side. He looked old standing there shivering in the warm rain. ‘Making it worth their while was one way pirate captains kept their crews in line, the other was fear,’ Pagan had no problem meeting Balor’s eye.

‘And fear is based around…’ Balor began.

‘What you have to lose,’ Pagan finished for him. I found the expression on Balor’s monstrous face difficult to read. He was either irritated by Pagan or impressed. ‘You’re trying to provide us with motivation.’ I wasn’t sure I was entirely following the conversation.

‘Not you,’ Balor replied. ‘Him.’ He nodded towards me. I felt that sinking feeling. I really didn’t think I deserved this. I pointed at Rannu without looking at the solidly built Nepalese. Balor smiled, reached out and tapped his wicked-looking claws on the solid-state memory cube that contained Ambassador.

‘This is bollocks. Let’s discuss this, make a deal. You’re a commercial operator. This pantomime demeans us all,’ Pagan said, quite eloquently, I thought. Rannu had already beaten the shit out of me once. I didn’t fancy it happening again, especially not in front of several thousand pirates. I didn’t think I had a particularly large ego, but these things got around and I could live without spending the rest of my life getting the piss taken out of me by every vet I met for such a public beating. Maybe Balor wanted to humble me for some reason. Weird really. I already felt pretty humble.

‘No, what demeans us is reducing everything to commerce,’ Balor said, his one visible eye rolling up in a disconcerting manner. ‘I am not some fucking merchant and you obviously need to remember that you are alive.’

‘A nice dram and a night with a beautiful woman reminds me I’m alive,’ I said with some resignation. Balor turned to look at me. He took his time, just looked at me until he’d decided I was good and uncomfortable.

‘You are a victim,’ he finally said. I gave this some thought. I had to agree there was an element of truth to what he said. ‘You do it to yourself,’ he continued. I was less sure about that. I hadn’t set these events running. We were dealing with powerful people and institutions way beyond my control. ‘You behave like a worm and as a result you will be treated like one.’

Fuck this. I moved towards the table expecting some of Balor’s people to shift in case I proved to be a threat. They didn’t. That was more worrying.

‘I see what you’re saying,’ I told him. ‘I should just fucking kill you and walk out of here.’ It was only later I realised that the pause was Balor deciding whether or not to kill me right then and there. Balor stood up. I took a step back. Balor climbed onto the table, knocking plates of food and wine glasses over. I took another step back.

‘Bluster and temper are no substitute for courage,’ he said. I glanced over at Reb as Balor began walking down the table towards Rannu. The ex-Ghurkha watched him approach impassively.

‘I’m not a coward,’ I told Balor. I was never going to take unnecessary risks but I could function when the fear came, and that was what it was about after all. Balor pointed towards Reb.

‘I know. I know that you are Soldier A, and Reb told me what you did on the Santa Maria.’ He reached Rannu. I noticed Rannu shift slightly, ready in case something went down.

‘Then cut me some fucking slack,’ I told Balor’s back.

‘Why?’ Balor asked, turning to look down on me.

‘The people here are mostly vets, right?’ Pagan asked, gesturing around at the multitudes beginning to line Times Square. ‘Special operators, yes?’ Balor nodded. ‘I refuse to believe that after lifetimes of violence these people will be impressed by this tawdry spectacle.’ And he was right: if you’d gone toe to toe with a Berserk, watching two guys beat the shit out of each other was going to be pretty tame, especially if you have the same skills.

‘This is just a decision-making process,’ Balor told us, the shark grin back. ‘Why did you come here?’

I looked at Rannu and said nothing. Balor followed my glance, then looked back at me.

‘You know, long ago you could be executed for talking politics in private. You had to have the guts to say what you believed in front of the whole tribe or they knew you to be a low person,’ he said.

I was getting tired of this shit. ‘So I’m a low person,’ I said.

‘And you have secrets,’ Morag said. I looked over to her and she was pointing at Balor. She looked scared but she also looked angry. Both Pagan and the other hacker were looking between her and Balor. What had gone down here? Had she just sent him something? This was the second time she’d implied that Balor needed to keep something quiet.

‘You up for this bollocks?’ I asked Rannu. ‘I’ve heard of you -you’re not supposed to be a wanker.’

‘I’m here for the box and you three. I don’t care what condition you’re in and I don’t care about anything outside my orders,’ Rannu said. His English was good; he spoke quietly and evenly with just a trace of accent. ‘At the moment this would seem to be the easiest way to complete my mission.’ He shrugged. There was not a trace of doubt in his voice that he could beat me.

‘Working for Rolleston?’ Pagan asked. Rannu said nothing. Pagan looked up at Balor. ‘What about you? You were SBS, you must know what he’s like. You going to do his bidding?’ Balor walked back down the table towards Morag and stood over the box containing Ambassador.

‘Well, that’s why we require a decision-making process.’ He pointed at me. ‘I know that you were once a warrior.’ I shook my head. Warrior creed bullshit. I heard Pagan groan behind me. ‘I know what you did for your brother soldiers. I know that once you weren’t a low man, a worm.’

‘I was trying to fucking survive. I was shit scared,’ I told him, possibly not helping my case.

‘And I worked with Rolleston on Proxima. He is no coward but I know what kind of man he is.’

‘So give us the box and let us go,’ I said.

‘But I also know what’s in the box,’ Balor said. I had a sinking feeling. Without looking I could feel Pagan tense up behind me. Suddenly I was aware of the expressions on the faces of Balor’s men. They were expressions of barely contained anger. ‘You see,’ Balor said, jumping off the table, ‘to some it would seem that you have betrayed your own race.’ He was standing next to me all but whispering in my ear. He smelled of the sea, in a bad way. ‘I will not be a slave but I am no friend to Them.’ There was the smell of meat on his breath. I turned around to face him.

‘You think we are? You think we’re selling us all out? You think our experiences in the war were different to yours? Think They came and made us a brew and gave us some cake?’ I asked.

‘Think about it, Balor. What would make you deal with Them?’ Pagan said. Balor never took his eyes off me. Why me? I wondered.

‘I wouldn’t,’ Balor growled. I was sick of this. What Balor probably thought of as courage was just me deciding I didn’t give a fuck any more.

‘Fuck you!’ I told him. ‘We’re-’ I managed before he grabbed me by my neck. I had seen him begin to move and tried to get out of the way but he was deceptively fast. He picked me up and held me about four feet off the ground. Great in a viz, very intimidating, but my subcutaneous armour went rigid, and I could still breathe, and even if he had crushed my windpipe I still had a small internal air supply.

Instinct overcame intimidation. Suddenly my claws were out and I was punching into him with all eight of my blades. Panic started when I felt my blades sliding off armour and artificial physiology designed to withstand the incredible pressure of oceanic depths. I was flung across the semicircular balcony, sliding through the collected rainwater and coming to a stop when I hit the low wall. I started to get up but a foot stood on my chest and slammed me back into the ground with tremendous force. I looked up. Balor looked angry, really angry.

‘Do not,’ he said, his voice sounding like two mountains grinding together, ‘ever disrespect me in my house.’ I bit back my angry replies. Past Balor I could see Morag on her feet looking over at me, eyes full of fear. Pagan was off to my right, presumably aware of the futility of our current predicament.

‘Listen to me,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘We’re not fucking traitors, and I think you know that. There’s more to this, and I think you’re smart enough to know that as well. But if my only way out of here with the box and my people is through him,’ I said, looking over at Rannu, ‘then I’ll play your stupid fucking game.’ Balor just looked down at me and nodded before taking his foot off my chest. ‘Any chance of a gunfight?’ I asked. ‘I’m not feeling my best today.’