BZRK: Apocalypse (BZRK 3)

“How do we know that?” Anya demanded.

“They found Keats and me. They blew up the boat that was coming to pick us up.”

“Convenient, wasn’t it?” Nijinsky said.

Plath didn’t say anything to that, because she’d had the same thought. Convenient. If you wanted to push her and Keats back to New York. Say, after you’d ignored an order to get your ass back there already.

The punishment for desertion is death, isn’t it? Or is that some Hollywood bullshit?

The boat had blown up, but there was no follow-up. No attack on the beach, no attack on the compound they’d been staying in. No attack as they rushed to the airport and flew away from the island.

No attack waiting for them when they refueled in Kenya or Madeira, and no attack when they’d landed at Teterboro.

Had a quick change of hair color somehow thrown off the kind of people capable of tracking her to Madagascar and then to Île Sainte-Marie? Not likely.

Just enough violence to send her running back to New York. Not as if someone was serious about killing her.

Like someone wanted her back in the game.

Get back in the game.

That had been the text from Lear. The one she’d ignored, because, why? Because she was Sadie McLure, that’s why. Since when did she take orders? What was she, someone’s butler suddenly? Fuck you, Lear. I’m on a beautiful island with a beautiful boy who loves me and wears himself out trying to please me.

For the first twenty

-four hours after that she had felt liberated. Like maybe she had regained control of her life. But slowly her doubts had grown. What right did she have to blow off Lear? Lear was BZRK. Lear was the general, and she was a lowly lieutenant or whatever.

And he’d been right, hadn’t he, Lear? Right that she had to get back in the game? The Armstrong Twins seemingly still lived. The nanobot technology still existed. The liberty of all humanity was still in danger.

The Armstrongs still had to be stopped. Didn’t they?

“I’ve heard from Lear,” Plath said. She wasn’t sure why, but she was reluctant to tell them. Maybe because once she said it she would have to take action.

“Did he mention whether he liked the whole blonde look you have going on?” Wilkes. Of course.

“Lear says the Armstrongs have developed some kind of remote biot killer. Nature unknown. No other details. But …” She shook her head ruefully. “But his instructions are to destroy AFGC. Destroy their data in particular so this new technology doesn’t go into use.”

Long silence. Much mute staring. Biots already faced a number of potential enemies, from the slow but irritating defenses of the body itself to the much more dangerous nanobots. But nanobots could be faced, fought, and, with luck and skill, killed. The idea of a weapon that could kill in some unfathomable way, in some way that did not even allow for a fight, was terrifying. It would be push-button madness.

Finally, Nijinsky laughed, a low, slow sound weighed down by cynicism. “Well, I’m going to use that word again. Convenient. We’re all sitting here wondering why we’re still playing this game, and what do you know? Turns out the bad guys have the means to drive us all insane and then enslave the human race.” He lit a second cigarette and blew the smoke insolently at Plath.

She thought about telling Nijinsky to put it out. Show him that she was back and in charge.

But was she in charge? That was not clear.

She checked Keats. He was as dubious as Nijinsky.

“Yeah,” she said by way of acknowledging their doubts. “Yeah. Convenient. But I guess unless we want a visit from Caligula, we’d better …” She faded out, realizing what she was saying.

It was Anya who put it into words. “In the Great Patriotic War—what you call World War Two—Russians had soldiers. And behind the soldiers they had NKVD. Secret police. If a soldier complained, the NKVD shot him. If a soldier failed, the NKVD shot him. If a soldier said, ‘To hell with this, I am going home,’ the NKVD shot him. And then they arrested the man’s family and sent them to the gulag.”

“Well, they were fighting the Nazis,” Billy piped up.

Anya snorted a derisive laugh. “Yes, murderous, evil Nazis. And who were the NKVD? Murderous, evil Communists.”

“I’m confused. Which are we supposed to be?” Wilkes asked.

[ARTIFACT]