BZRK: Reloaded (BZRK 2)

Her biots, which had been traversing millimeters between probes, now barely moved. Would more recent memories be in closer proximity?

She placed a marker exactly on the spot she had stuck. Now she began probing in a circle around the spot.

A boat? A ferry. A ferry moving through dense fog. “Michael Ford. Don’t turn around.”

&nb

sp; Plath froze.

Vincent, resting elbows on a chilly steel railing. His skin was clammy from the fog, his hair felt limp. There was a girl wearing a biking outfit seated to the right, far enough away not to overhear anything. The girl had cast one or two impassive-but-interested looks at Vincent.

He had looked at her when she bent over to retie her shoe. Desire. He could feel desire. He wanted while nevertheless knowing he would gain no real enjoyment.

He could want.

But he was here for a purpose and the bike girl with the long legs was not the point.

He felt someone approaching. He guessed this was it.

A whispered voice. “Michael Ford.” Not a question, a statement. “Don’t turn around.” An order. Obedience was assumed.

Curiosity. Vincent felt curiosity, too. His other emotions were intact. Only this one thing was missing: joy. He could fear, he could care, he could loathe.

Could he love?

Plath opened her eyes, and Anya was staring at her. Her dark eyes were wet with need.

Vincent listened, tried to analyze the voice he was hearing. Male or female? It was subtly masked by electronics.

Vincent’s mind searching for clues. Was the figure in the fog tall or short? Fat or thin? White, black, Asian . . .

“Who are you?” Vincent asks.

“Lear,” the unidentifiable voice says.

“The mad king betrayed by his children.”

“‘As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; / They kill us for their sport.’” It was obviously a quote from something. Plath didn’t recognize it.

“You’re fighting them?” Vincent asks.

“Who, the gods?”

“The Twins. Nexus and the Armstrongs,” Vincent said. “The whole mess.”

“What is it you really want to know, Michael? This once you ask a question. After that, you take orders. One question.”

Vincent waits. He knows the question, but he isn’t sure it’s what he should ask. He’s not sure Lear won’t hear the question and simply walk away.

He doesn’t want Lear to walk away. He realizes it. He wants this. Vincent wants this …purpose.

“Are you good or evil?” Vincent asks.

“We, Michael. All of us. We,” Lear corrects him. “We, Michael, are good and evil. But we are less evil than them.”

Vincent hears this and—

“Goddamn it!” Plath cried. The memory ends there. She pushes the pin slightly deeper and finds only an unrelated memory of a funeral for a neighbor’s cat with a very young Vincent solemn in attendance.