BZRK: Reloaded (BZRK 2)

Minako hit the water before the sound of the cannon reached her.

She was still plunging down, down into chilly, nearly opaque water when she heard the loud explosion of the shell hitting the Doll Ship just at the waterline. The shock wave was strong but not deadly.

She kicked and crawled her way up toward light. It seemed to take forever for her to find the surface, and when she did at last the Doll Ship was nearly past.

Minako sucked in air and trod water as the Chinese vessel fired a second round followed by a second explosion.

Silver surfaced fifty feet away, looked frantically around, and when she yelled, “I’m here!,” began to swim to her.

A third round, a third explosion, but now the Chinese ship was in danger of being crushed between the Doll Ship and the shore. It reduced speed, and the Doll Ship, damaged but still plowing ahead at full speed, crushed a vintage sailing yacht to splinters.

A wall of skyscrapers was directly ahead

More people were jumping now, falling into the water.

From the too-near shoreline Minako heard alarms going off. There was a cruise ship docked almost dead ahead and looming up over it the row of forty-story buildings, built right to the water’s edge.

“It’s going to run right into those buildings!” Minako cried.

“Yes it is,” Silver said. “That’s Harbor City. A huge mall, office buildings, hotels …God save them.”

The Chinese police vessels had now swung in behind the Doll Ship. The harbor was lit up by frantic machine-gun fire, by the sudden explosions of the cannon and the eruption of flaming steel from the LNG carrier’s stern.

The Doll Ship was riding lower and slower, but it was less than a quarter of a mile from impact, still moving at ten knots, and nothing was going to stop it.

Helen Falkenhym Morales had been to National Cathedral only once before, for the funeral of a supreme court justice. That had been two years ago, and at that time she hadn’t paid much attention to the location and the look of the place. It was north on Wisconsin Avenue, out past the Naval Observatory in a surprisingly green setting for so urban a location.

The cathedral itself might have been transplanted straight from medieval Europe. It was a pointy object seen from th

e outside, a bit like a hedgehog, if a hedgehog could be Gothic.

They were running late, so there was no sequestering in a secure side room, the Secret Service after some debate allowed her to walk in the front door like a regular person. Everyone in the cathedral— and it was jam-packed—had of course been checked out, and in any case these were congressmen, senators, White House staff, major donors, foreign prime ministers, first ladies and first gentlemen, and other well-behaved folks. It was a sea of black suits and black dresses and somber looks.

The president’s pew was at the front. It felt like a very long walk between those massive columns, beneath that distant vault of a ceiling, past the eyes that followed her, that were always on the president. And of course the cameras, discreetly mounted on brackets, one aimed at the altar, one remotely controlled following her, and a third panning the room picking out this or that celebrity.

But there was no doubt that at this moment Morales was on just about every TV screen in America.

A rector preceded her, Gastrell and two Secret Service agents followed behind, but the president walked alone, arms at her sides, head high, eyes front. She walked at a steady pace, a reassuring pace, sending the message, that’s right, world, the president of the United States was still strong and in charge.

She sat. A sort of sigh of relief rose from the audience, and shuffling as people got comfortable.

The Right Reverend Jenny Hayes did a reading, followed by MoMo’s own parish priest, Father Miguel Richards. The choir sang. It was lovely. MoMo would have liked that, although he would have been bored by the readings.

Then the first lady of Canada, Hanna Ellstrom, gave the first eulogy. She’d been a friend to MoMo; they’d liked each other and had hung out at important functions while their more important spouses were doing their terribly important business. Ellstrom’s voice broke when she described a joke MoMo had played on her.

Then at last it was time for the main event. No one was expecting great eloquence from Morales. She had never been an especially compelling speaker.

As she walked slowly up the steps to the special bulletproof podium, the president knew that all she had to do was read the speech. It was short, just twelve minutes long.

Twelve minutes.

Bug Man had a sketchy, grainy view out over the audience at National Cathedral. He had excellent positions for viewing through the president’s eyes. After all, he’d had weeks to get it right. But there were still limits on the method, and none of the people were recognizable, they were just dancing gray pixels. The huge columns were just shapes and shadows.

The words on the autocue swam into view, ghostly and blurred. Only a few words could be made out. He might have brought in still more nanobots to refine the resolution, but he was going the opposite direction: his nanobots were retreating from the dark corners of the president’s brain, rushing for the exits, and soon those nanobots still attached to the optic nerve would also be detached.

There was no winning this game, but there was a way to keep BZRK from winning: destroy the value of what they had. And what they had was him: Anthony Elder, Bug Man.

They were after him because he controlled the president. If you can’t get the puppet, get the puppeteer. And if the puppeteer no longer pulls the strings?