Surface Detail

“Quickly,” she said, and coughed as more smoke and burning embers sailed past the three of them.

“What?” the avatar said.

“Quickly,” she said. “Don’t draw it out. Just-”

The avatar gazed into Veppers’ eyes and nodded down at the girl. “See?” he said. “Good kid, really.”

The pain, already intolerable, increased wildly, just around his neck and head.

The coup de grâce was Veppers’ head twisting right round, an almost comical expression filling his already blood-flecked face as the tattoo lines flicked into a spiral, rose up and shrank inwards all at once, so that his head seemed to crumple and shrink into itself, becoming a far-too-thin tall cylinder that disappeared in a spray of blood.

Lededje had to look away. She heard what sounded like a whole big bowl full of rotten fruit being emptied onto the ground, then heard and felt the body thump into the grass beside her a moment later. She opened her eyes to see it twitch a couple of times, blood still pumping from the garrotted, twisted-open neck.

She felt she was going to faint. She put both arms out behind her. “Neat trick,” she said, watching arcs of flame and little sprays of fire burst from the miniature docks and the sheds where the model battleships were kept, as they burned and blew up, shells and rockets whizzing everywhere.

“It moved over from you to him when you tried to strangle the fucker in ambassador Huen’s office,” Demeisen told her, going over to kick the body once, as though testing it was real. “Left you with nothing but a glorified sun tan.”

She coughed again, looked around at the sheer lunatic devastation going on all around them.

“Other ships,” she said. “Soon. Need to-”

“No, we don’t,” Demeisen said, stretching and yawning. “No second wave. None left.” He stooped, plucking the knife out of the leg of the headless body, which had stopped twitching now. “Left the last handful for the planetary defence guys, to give them something to feel heroic about,” he told her as he inspected the knife, weighing it in his hand, twirling it a couple of times. A furious whizzing noise, barely following a flash of light, was a shell from one of the stricken, fire-consumed battleships; the avatar’s arm moved blurringly fast and he batted it away from his face without even looking, still admiring the knife. The fizzing shell slapped into the nearest reed bed and blew up in a tall fountain of water, orange-tinged white on grubby black. “I did think of letting just one through, or even stomping the relevant targets myself, just for the heck of it,” Demeisen said, “and pretending. But in the end I thought not; better to leave more of the evidence on the ground. Plus some of the Hells have only gone dormant, still storing personalities. Might be able to save some, if there’s anything sane left to save.”

The avatar held one arm straight out and the tattoo – glinting, pristine – uncurled itself from Veppers’ body, spiralling lazily up into the air like a twister-wind in a stubble field and wrapping itself round the avatar’s hand like spun mercury, disappearing as it flowed over his skin and up his arm.

“Was that thing alive all the time?” she asked.

“Yup. Not just alive; intelligent. So fucking smart it’s even got a name.”

She held up one hand while he was drawing his next breath. “I’m sure it has,” she said. “But… spare me.”

Demeisen grinned. “Slap-drone, personal protection, weapon; all of the above,” he said, stretching again, as though the tattoo had spread itself all over him and he was testing how it fitted his body.

He looked down at her.

“You ready to go back? If you’re coming back?”

She sat, arms out behind her, blood in one eye, aching everywhere, feeling like shit. She nodded. “I suppose.”

“Want this?” offering her the knife handle first.

“Better,” she said, taking it, then struggling to her feet, helped by his other hand. “Family heirloom.” She looked at the avatar, frowning. “There were two,” she said.

He shook his head, tsked, stooped and pulled the other knife from where it had stuck in the ground. He took the double sheath from Veppers’ jacket, presenting it and both blades to her with a bow.

A scale-model battleship, still tied-up to its quayside, on fire from stem to stern, lifted suddenly in the middle, breaking its back as it blew up, dispensing fire and flames, debris and shrapnel and angrily buzzing and whining shells and rockets all about. The first, keel-sundering gout of fire briefly lit up two silvery ovoids stood on their ends on a small low island nearby, before they vanished, almost as quickly as they had appeared.

Dramatis Personae

Ambassador Huen jumped before she was pushed, as was trad itional. Even the very limited amount of interfering she’d suggested and sanctioned was somewhat more than was strictly allowable in the circumstances. She resigned her post, went home, spent the next few years raising her son and the following couple of centuries not regretting what she’d done at all.