The Naked God — Flight

Europe said remorselessly. “He was on Norfolk, which we now recognize as the major distribution source of infection. He was at Nyvan which has elevated the crisis to a completely new stage; as far as we can tell one which has proved as hostile to the possessed as it is to the ordinary population. And now we are certain he arrived here at Supra-Brazil.” He looked directly at the South America supervisor.

“There was an alert at the Brazil tower station fifteen hours after the Mount’s Delta arrived,” South America said tonelessly. “Just after its descent, one of the lift capsules suffered exactly the kind of electronic glitches known to be inflicted by the possessed. We had the entire arrivals complex sealed and surrounded within ninety seconds. Nothing. No sign of any possessed.”

“But you think he’s here?” East Europe pressed.

South America smiled without humour. “We know he is. After the alert, we hauled in everyone who came down on the lift capsule, passengers and crew. This is what we got from several neural nanonics memory cells.” Nyvan faded away to show a slightly fuzzy two-dimensional picture, indicating a low-grade recording. The figure in the Royale Class lounge wearing a blue-silk suit, and slumped comfortably in a deep chair was undoubtedly Dexter.

“Merciful Allah,” North Pacific exclaimed. “We’ll have to shut down the vac-trains. It’s our one advantage. I don’t care how good he is at eluding our sensors, the little shit can’t walk a thousand kilometres along a vacuum tunnel. Isolate the bastard, and hit him with an SD platform strike.”

“I believe even we would have trouble shutting down the vac-trains,” South Pacific said significantly. “Not without questions being asked.”

“I don’t mean we should issue the order,” North Pacific snapped. “Feed the information up to B3, and make the President’s office authorize it.”

“If the public find out there’s a possessed on Earth, there will be absolute pandemonium,” North Africa said. “Even we would have trouble retaining control over the arcologies.”

“Better than being possessed,” North America said. “Because that’s what he’ll do to the arcology populations if we don’t stop him. Even we would be in danger.”

“I think his objective is more complex than that,” Western Europe said. “We know what he did to Nyvan, I think we can assume he wants to do the same thing here.”

“Not a chance,” Military Intelligence said. “Even if he could sneak around up in the Halo, which I doubt, he’d never acquire enough nukes to split an asteroid open. You can’t remove one of those beauts from storage without anyone knowing.”

“Maybe, but there’s something else. Kavanagh and Fletcher Christian both say that Dexter is here to hunt down Banneth and have his revenge on her. I checked Dexter’s file; he used to be a sect member in Edmonton. Banneth was his magus.”

“So what?” asked North Pacific. “You know what those crazy brute sect members do to each other when the lights go off. I’m not surprised he wants to beat the crap out of Banneth.”

“You’re missing the point,” Western Europe said patiently. “Why would the soul possessing Quinn Dexter’s body care about Dexter’s old magus?” He looked questioningly round the table. “We’re dealing with something new, here, something different. An ordinary person who has somehow gained the same powers of the possessed, if not superior ones. His goals are not going to be the same as theirs, this craving they have to flee the universe.”

North America caught it first. “Shit. He used to be a sect member.”

“And presumably remains so,” Western Europe agreed. “He was still performing their ceremony on Lalonde; that was incident one, after all. Dexter is a true believer in the Light Bringer teachings.”

“You think he’s come back to find his God?”

“It’s not a god he worships, it’s the devil. But no, he’s not here to find him. My people ran a psychological profile simulation; what they got indicates he’s come back to prepare the way for his Lord, the Light Bringer, who glories in war and chaos. He’ll try to unleash as much mayhem and destruction on both us and the possessed as it’s possible to do. Nyvan was just the warm up. The real game is going to be played out down here.”

“Well that settles it then,” North Pacific said. “We have to close the vac-trains. It’ll mean losing an entire arcology to him; but we can save the rest.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Western Europe said. “Dexter is a problem; a novel one, granted. He’s different, and more powerful than all the others B7 has faced over the centuries. But that’s what we are here for, ultimately, to solve problems which would defeat conventional government action. We simply have to locate a weakness and use it.”

“An invisible megalomaniac as powerful as a minor god has a weakness?” North Pacific said. “Allah preserve us, I should like to hear what it is.”

“The Kavanagh girl has escaped him twice. Both times it was due to the intervention of an unknown possessed. We have an ally.”

“On Norfolk! Which has bloody vanished.”

“Nevertheless, Dexter does not command total support from the possessed. He is not invincible. And we have what should be a decisive advantage over him.”

“Which is?”

“We know about him. He knows nothing about us. That can be exploited to trap him.”

“Ah yes,” the Halo supervisor said contentedly. “Now I understand the reluctance for a personality debrief on the Kavanagh girl.”

“Well I don’t,” South America declared querulously.

“Personality debrief requires a much more invasive procedure,” Western Europe said. “At the moment Kavanagh is not aware of what has happened to her. That means we can use her ignorance to get very close to Dexter.”

“Close to . . .” South Pacific trailed off. “My God, you want to use her as a lightning conductor.”

“Exactly. At the moment we have one chance for proximity, and that’s Banneth. Unfortunately there is only a limited degree of preparation we can make with her. The possessed, and therefore presumably Dexter, can sense the emotional content of the minds around them. We have to proceed with extreme caution if he is to be lured into a termination option. If he learns someone is hunting him, we could lose several arcologies, if not more. Moving the Kavanagh girl back into the game doubles our chances of engineering an encounter with him.”

“That’s goddamn risky,” North America said.

“No, I like it,” Halo said. “It has subtlety; that’s more us than closing down the vac-trains and using SD fire to incinerate entire arcology domes.”

“Oh heaven preserve we should let our standard of style drop when the whole fucking world is about to go down the can,” South Pacific groused.

“Does anyone have a substantial objection?” Western Europe enquired.

“Your operation,” North Pacific said hotly. “Your responsibility.”

“Responsibility?” Australia chided lightly.

There were several smiles around the table as North Pacific glowered.

“Naturally I accept the consequences,” Western Europe purred volubly.

“You’re always such an arrogant little shit when you’re this age, aren’t you?” North Pacific said.

Western Europe just laughed.

The three Confederation Navy marines were polite, insistent, and resolutely uncommunicative. They escorted Joshua the entire length of Trafalgar. Which, he thought, was a hopeful sign; he was being taken away from the CNIS section. A day and a half of interviews with sour-faced CNIS investigators, cooperating like a good citizen. None of his questions answered in return. Certainly no access to a lawyer—one of the investigators had given him a filthy look when he half-jokingly asked for legal aid. Net processors wouldn’t respond to his datavises. He didn’t know where the rest of his crew was. Didn’t know what was happening to Lady Mac . And could make a pretty good guess what kind of report Monica and Samuel were concocting.

From the tube carriage station a lift took them up to a floor which was plainly officer country. A wide corridor, good carpet, discreet lighting, holograms of famous Naval events (few he recognized), intent men and women looping from office to office, none of them under the rank of senior lieutenant. Joshua was led into a reception room with two captains sitting at desks. One of them stood, and saluted the marines. “We’ll take him