Blood was trickling down her bare flesh and had been spattered across her face, none of it hers. It felt warm in the cool air, almost comforting: the blood of her enemies. The third guard forgot or stopped caring about Gregor's order to bring her back alive.
He drew his disrupter and aimed it point-blank at her bare chest. Evangeline lashed out with her knife and cut the gun in two. The guard turned to run, and she cut him down too, the monofilament edge slicing easily in and out again. The other guards skidded to a halt as she bent down and picked up one of the other guards' disrupters. Gregor was still urging them on, screaming threats and promises and curses, but the situation had changed and the guards knew it. There were enough of them that they were bound to bring her eventually, but they all knew a hell of a lot of them would die doing it. And no bonuses or threats were worth that. So they hesitated, and as they did, Evangeline clambered aboard her gravity sled and took off, leaving them all behind. No one even shot at her.
She laughed shakily, not daring to relax just yet, but finally starting to hope the worst was over. She hadn't been sure she could bring it off. Deep down she'd still thought of herself as the helpless victim, never really believing she could defeat Gregor. She'd gone because she had to, to rescue her friend, and because she was tired of being afraid. But she'd done it.
She was shaking from head to toe as reaction set in. She remembered fighting the guards and smiled disbelievingly. The underground had trained her, as it trained all its agents, but she'd never had occasion to use any of it in anger. Presumably her time with Finlay had affected her more than she'd realized.
Finlay. She was going home to Finlay now, and he'd be so proud of her. He'd take her in his arms and hold her tight, and the long nightmare of her past life would finally be over. It seemed to her that she'd forgotten something, something important, but she didn't care. She was going home. The wind whipped coldly past her bare skin, and she giggled suddenly at the thought of what an awful sight she must present.
But that didn't matter. Nothing mattered except being safe at home with Finlay, and her friend Penny, and her friend Wax. Maybe they'd have a party when she got back. And then, maybe she'd sleep for a week. Or two.
* * *
Valentine Wolfe, as always not entirely in his right mind, sat at his ease in a very comfortable chair on the bridge of his ship, the
He smiled dreamily. It wasn't his fault if people couldn't take a joke.
He'd been in high orbit for over an hour, waiting patiently for the summons he'd been promised. Somewhere beneath all the storms and dramatic weather systems that had made Loki infamous as the most unpleasant and disagreeable colonized world in the whole Empire, in one of Loki's sturdy and permanently battened-down cities, traitors to the Empire were gathering, and wanted him to join them. They didn't see themselves as traitors, of course. Traitors never did. Instead they hid behind words like patriotism, necessity, practicality. Valentine had never needed the comfort of euphemisms. He knew what he was, and gloried in it.
Beneath his present calm exterior, several very powerful psychotropic drugs were battling it out for dominance. The end result of decades of determined drug experimentation had left him with a system that could ignore doses strong enough to kill a normal man, or drive him utterly mad. So these days Valentine had taken to dosing himself with several substances at once, and letting them fight it out amongst themselves. It was a form of Russian roulette, the possibility of sudden death merely adding a taste of decadence that Valentine found utterly irresistible.
Everyone was after him. Everyone wanted to kill him. And Valentine couldn't have been happier. He had forsworn Humanity and allied himself with Shub, and didn't give a damn. He had always taken pride in being able to see all sides of an argument, sometimes simultaneously, while agreeing with none of them. All that mattered was the quest, the search for the ultimate high. And the chance to trample over absolutely everything and have all that lived bow down to him. He just wanted to be God. Was that so much to ask?
His contact with Shub, the planet the rogue AIs had made, had gone more easily than he'd thought. In return for being Shub's agent in the worlds of men, a calm, emotionless voice had promised him new tech augmentations that would give him access to senses far beyond those of mere flesh, and eventually a direct comprehension of reality itself, unfiltered by human misconceptions. They'd given him a taste of this by enabling him to directly control the machines that had destroyed Virimonde, sinking his consciousness into the metal minds of robots and war machines as they dragged men and women down, tearing their fragile flesh with metal hands and grinding their bodies under metal wheels. It had been… exhilarating. But even Valentine knew there was a reason why the first taste is always free. He'd taken many drugs in his time, but had never allowed any of them to master him. His iron will was the only thing greater than his avaricious body chemistry. So he remained calm in the face of Shub's temptations and requested more details. The voice asked him if he'd like to talk to someone who'd already gone before him.
Valentine raised an eyebrow. He'd always thought of himself as being a pioneer on the cutting edge of self- transformation. 'And who might this person be?'
'Who do you think?' said a familiar female voice. 'Who else but Lionstone?'
'Your Highness,' said Valentine courteously. 'How delightful to hear from you again. I was under the impression you were dead.'
'Just my body. The AIs rescued my mind and brought me to Shub. I am metal now. I live in machines.'
'And what is that like. Your Highness? Can you describe it?'
'Of course. I am large, larger than possible while trapped in the confines of flesh. My thoughts move freely, into whatever shape I choose. And I can see so much more than I ever could before. The universe isn't what you think it is, Valentine. It's a wondrous place, complex and magnificent in ways beyond mere human comprehension. There are realms and dimensions, directions and possibilities, almost beyond number. Come on in, Valentine; the inhumanity's wonderful.'
'It certainly sounds it,' Valentine said carefully. 'But what about—how shall I put this—the more fleshly pleasures and appetites? How does it feel to have left them behind?'
'When I was a child, I played with childish things. I've moved on, Valentine. Pleasure has its base in the mind, not the body. I have lost nothing, and gained so very much. Just as you could. All you have to do is say good-bye to the past and embrace the future. The future is metal. Humanity was never more than just a step in the ladder that led to Shub, and it is no great tragedy that they should be replaced by something greater. Flesh decays and dies. We are forever.'
'Immortality?' said Valentine.
'Why not?' said Lionstone.
'We have other voices you might care to listen to,' said the original voice. 'We have your father, Jacob, here. Would you like to talk to him?'
'I don't think so, thank you,' said Valentine. 'We never had that much in common even when he was alive.'
'Then perhaps your brother, Daniel? He came to visit with us, and we gave him many gifts. He is our agent now, currently on his way back to Golgotha.'
'Oh, good,' said Valentine. 'Dear Daniel. I'll have to arrange a welcome for him.'
'No, you won't,' said the voice. 'Daniel is currently rather more important to us than you. Leave him alone. For the present.'
'As you wish,' Valentine said easily. 'Retribution is no less satisfying for being delayed. At the risk of sounding greedy, my metal signors, what else can you offer me?'
'Protection from your enemies. A return to power in the new Empire we shall forge from the ashes of the old. What else could you possibly want?'
'I've always had a yearning to be Lord of Golgotha,' said Valentine.
'That's taken,' said Lionstone. 'How about Virimonde?'
Valentine smiled at the memory. The haggling continued for some time, but the end result was that Valentine was now an agent of Shub, the official Enemies of Humanity. His first mission on their behalf had been this trip to
