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  It was a shame that these were going to be destroyed. They looked fun.

  As they came roaring toward their targets, Loki motioned with his gloved hand, setting loose a hundred foot-long steel spikes from a weather-balloon-like platform floating at eighty thousand feet several miles to the east. They were just steel spikes with motorized fletching linked to a radio receiver, but they could be guided like a smart bomb to their target—either directly by a darknet operative or automatically at saved targets (using a cell phone in someone’s pocket or a Bluetooth headset ID as a beacon). Darknet operatives had taken to calling the spikes “angel teeth,” probably because they came silently out of the heavens like divine retribution. Few weapons were as cheap, since they were easy to manufacture and were often reusable. Wind and rapid movement of the target were an issue—which was why Loki dropped a hundred of them.

  If he timed this correctly, he’d be able to eliminate sentries and surround The Major in his hotel room before he was even aware of Loki’s presence.

  Loki glanced up at the sky through the aluminum walls of his racing trailer. He could see the D-Space call-outs of the hundred spikes spreading out as they descended, moving to their assigned targets.

  Loki throttled back the two AutoM8s so they didn’t strike first.

  And then, with practiced skill, the plan came together rather nicely. Aerial surveillance showed eight sentries walking in pairs suddenly being struck down by a hail of silent steel spikes coming in at terminal velocity. It wasn’t windy, so most of the spikes struck their targets.

  With another gesture Loki sent the waves of razorbacks in, still on quiet electrical power. He could see video from the lead bike, and guided it around to the back of the motel and toward the room that was his target.

  Moments later the northern AutoM8 came roaring around a bend in the county road a quarter mile away. It didn’t follow the bend, but instead came roaring straight at a Chevy parked in the parking lot of a gas station—one containing two private military contractors. It struck broadside going ninety miles an hour.

  Loki winced and covered his eyes in mock horror. From the air it looked spectacular. He tagged the video and dragged it to his feed so others could check it out later.

  By the time he turned to the southern AutoM8, it had already plowed through a billboard and creamed the car containing the remaining sentries. To his disappointment there was no explosion. But no one was walking away from that crash.

  Now he focused on his razorbacks, powering up their massive engines, extending their blades, and roaring in to the attack. They spread out and smashed through the doors of four motel rooms almost simultaneously. Loki had also left several razorbacks behind the hotel to pick up anyone climbing out rear windows.

  He needn’t have bothered. Plainclothes military contractors had already grabbed their weapons and the moment the first razorback came through the door, several M249 machine guns opened up-tracer rounds bounding around the room as they deflected off the ceramic composite cowling of the lead razorback.

  Loki always found this part exciting. It really did resemble the world’s most realistic video game. He almost felt like he was there—with military contractors screaming in rage as they unloaded assault rifles and machine guns on him from behind a sofa, an overturned dining table, and the nearby bed.

  Loki noticed they had all donned tinted flash goggles—so his green laser blinders wouldn’t have any effect. Damn. The Major had equipped his group well. But where was he hiding?

  Loki raised his gloved hand and starting clicking on individual targets. He had to clear away all these NPCs. The razorbacks surged forward to cut them to pieces. He winced because in one of the rooms a contractor fired a forty-millimeter grenade into the doorway, damaging the lead razorback, but also stunning everyone else in the room.

  Idiot. Loki switched his POV to the next razorback in line and surged it forward into the mercenaries, cutting them down. It reminded him of a real-time strategy game where you had to keep moving the view around to juggle all your priorities. Soon enough, the mercs fell back reloading, and the razorbacks began to tear them apart. Their screams came over the audio feed. That’s when Loki noticed something interesting. . . .

  In the background he could see a young, attractive woman bound, blindfolded, and gagged in the bathroom of the second motel room. She was nude and tied to a kitchen chair. She struggled like mad to break free amid all the gunfire and chaos.

  Very interesting. Still, he needed to find The Major.

  By now Loki was in mopping-up mode. The last of the mercenaries were tossing grenades or running for the rear bathroom windows. They’d all be dead or bleeding to death shortly. One thing he already knew—The Major wasn’t here. But these men were protecting something.

  So Loki turned his attention again to the bathroom, switching POV to the nearest razorback. He drove it right up to the door, nudging it all the way open. What he saw was very nice, indeed. Just the way he liked a woman—young, nude, and tied up. She was cringing from the powerful engine throbbing next to her, and visibly sobbing behind her blindfold. Her breathing was labored as she tried to get enough air despite the duct tape covering her mouth. He could see a tattoo on her shoulder of a bosomy manga girl in a schoolgirl outfit, twin katanas raised.

  Loki extended the razorback’s bloody sword and brought it near her throat. She sucked in air—trembling at what she sensed was so close. Perhaps she smelled the blood that coated the stainless steel.

  A minute later, Loki guided his own Ducati Streetfighter motorcycle into the motel parking lot as panicked guests watched him from the safety of the woods on the far side of the road. Loki knew that none of their cell phones would work, and it didn’t look like anyone had the balls to go get their car with a squad of blood-soaked razorbacks standing about on hydraulic stands. He got off his bike and walked into the second motel room in full battle armor.

  He glanced around to see the usual topographical maps, folders filled with printed spreadsheets, shattered laptops—and severed limbs, bloody torsos, and coiled intestines. The whole place was splattered with blood and thousands of shell casings littered the floor. There were bullet holes everywhere.

  No wonder no one was in a hurry to come investigate.

  Loki stepped through the bathroom door and took in the beauty of the young woman in person. She had short brunette hair and alabaster skin. Her hips and legs were beautifully proportioned. The nipples of her small, firm breasts were clearly defined. She had a couple more Japanese characters tattooed on her hip and right forearm.

  Loki leaned up to her face, still in his battle helmet. “Tell me where The Major is.”

  He reached up and tore off the duct tape covering her mouth. She sucked for air and immediately started sobbing.

  “Where is The Major?”

  “Why would I know?” Still she sobbed.

  “But you’ve heard of him?”

  She was still heaving. “Please untie me.”

  “Where did you hear of him?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Never mind who I am.”

  She looked unsure for a moment, but spoke through sobs.

  “I’m a darknet member! Shadowcreek faction.” She fell into more weeping.

  “Bullshit.”

  “I can prove it! They have my equipment.”

  “Where?”

  “In a radio-proof bag. Silver. They have it here. I was bringing an artifact north.”

  Loki eyed her body again. If she were telling the truth, it would change things. He couldn’t do just anything to a faction member. He leaned outside the bathroom and there by the nightstand he saw what looked to be a silvered tent bag, now spattered with blood droplets. He walked over to it and dumped its contents on the floor. Suddenly half a dozen D-Space call-outs appeared above various electronic gadgets—HUD glasses among them.

  Damnit.

  He grabbed the HUD glasses and reentered the bathroom. He took another look at her lith
e body, then removed her blindfold. She was as pretty as he thought she might be. Eurasian.

  She looked up at him, her eyes still red from crying. She recoiled at Loki’s fearsome appearance. He placed the glasses on her head, and in a moment a call-out appeared above her indicating her name was Siren_3, a third-level messenger with the Shadowcreek faction.

  She stared at him—no doubt seeing Loki’s very powerful call-out.

  “Thank you for saving me.”

  “We’ll see how grateful you are later. We need to leave.”

  “Untie me.”

  With a flick of his wrist a razor sharp spur protruded from his riding outfit. He slit through the nylon rope binding her hands and then her ankles. She sighed and rubbed her rope-burned wrists.

  “I want to leave here. I want to go home.” She was looking around for a towel or something to cover herself.

  Loki looked at the pile of D-Space objects on the bed. One of them in particular stuck out at him. He picked it up. It was a silver ring with the name Signet of Spell Storing—Level Twenty-One hovering above it.

  Holy shit. “Is this the object you were transporting?”

  She obviously didn’t want to say.

  “Siren. Is this what you were bringing north?”

  She had wrapped a towel around herself and nodded.

  “This is powerful. Whose is it?”

  “It belonged to a sorcerer killed near Denver. How it got to Oklahoma, I don’t know. Our faction found it, and we’re contributing it to the fight in the Midwest.”

  Loki took off his armored gauntlet. “Consider it contributed.” He slipped it on his finger. As he did he felt a sharp pain. “Ah!” He pulled it off and could see blood dripping off a needlelike protrusion.

  And then it hit him—even as he was already staggering toward the doorway.

  She looked at him. “What’s wrong?”

  Loki was meandering like a drunken person, cursing and now nearly on his knees.

  “You little bitch!”

  “What is it?”

  “A needle! You fucking cunt!” Loki raised his one gloved hand and suddenly a blinding flash of bolt-straight electricity leapt from his fingertip into Siren’s eye. Her hair stood on end briefly before her head caught flame and she dropped like a rag doll onto the floor—her entire body smoking and sizzling.

  Loki slammed down onto the bloody, littered carpet and felt his mind losing connection with his body. Paralyzed, he stared at the bottom of a dead mercenary’s boot. Beyond that he could see the open doorway of the motel room—and a razorback standing guard. He tried to summon it. To control it. But he couldn’t move. He felt saliva flowing out of his open mouth.

  In the distance somewhere he heard several deep booms—one after the other. With a final boom, the headlight assembly of the razorback in the doorway blasted apart. It fell out of sight.

  Moments later, through a syrupy haze, he saw men walking through the motel room doorway. One of them leaned his face down next to his.

  It was The Major. “You helped me win a bet, Loki.” He gestured to unseen witnesses. “They said you wouldn’t kill the girl. But I knew better.”

  As Loki’s vision began to fade, The Major moved closer. “She was innocent, by the way. . . .”

  Chapter 22: // Identity Theft

  Loki hung by his wrists from a hook on the ceiling of a concrete cell. He was naked and had been from the moment he awoke. He’d spent most of the last day with a hood over his head, bags on his hands, chained into confinement positions. No one spoke to him. No one said a word. It was only in the past hour that they’d brought him here.

  As Loki looked around, the doors and walls of this place indicated it was a stable. There were thick, wooden doors, split into two parts—like a Dutch door. That’s where the horse would stick his head out and feed. That’s how it worked, wasn’t it?

  There were cameras and lights all around him in the room, creating a harsh glare. He was having difficulty breathing in this position, and the pain in his shoulders was almost unbearable. They’d also strapped some sort of muzzle over his mouth that had an almost stirrup-like piece of metal forced between his teeth. Sleep was impossible.

  He felt the loss of the darknet like the death of a close friend. No, that wasn’t right because he’d never really had a close friend. He felt the loss of his connection to the darknet like the amputation of a limb. As though someone had castrated him. His electronic contact lenses were gone. His haptic vest was gone. His gloves, his bone mic—everything. Everything except the implant near his aorta—that remained. However, it was just a locator—he couldn’t interact with the darknet through it. But it was his only hope. The question was: how much time had elapsed?

  After what seemed like an eternity of pain, he heard the slap of heavy bolts and looked up to see the big wooden door open on squealing hinges.

  There before him was the devil himself—The Major—followed by several other men, some of whom were wheeling metal carts on rubberized wheels. The Major stood in the doorway for a moment to regard Loki.

  Fuck you, too, motherfucker.

  “So you thought your fanboy toys would destroy us, is that it? Do you think you’re the first group to come at us with novel tactics? It’s not about how many people you can kill—it’s about who runs out of people first. And I promise you, it will be you.”

  The Major moved into the room. His entourage began to set up equipment and workspace behind him. The Major was wearing what looked to be surgical scrubs. Loki heard the clank of metal tools being arranged behind The Major. He felt a cold dread creeping up his spine. Fear gripped him, causing him to tremble despite his exhaustion.

  The Major accepted rubber gloves passed to him by an Asian man wearing a face mask. The Major did not wear a mask. He grinned humorlessly as he pulled the rubber gloves on.

  “Loki Stormbringer. That’s what you call yourself isn’t it? Fiftieth-level Sorcerer—or something like that? The most powerful darknet operative known. Your fingerprints bring up nothing in government records. Was that the first thing you did, Loki—destroy your old identity? No footprints from birth. No fingerprints from child abduction prevention programs. No DNA samples from prior arrests. It’s like Loki is the real you—as though you wanted to pretend the white-trash loser you were before never existed. But I’m going to show you that you do exist.”

  The Major walked right up to Loki’s face. “I’ve been amused by the debate in America over whether torture is effective.” He paced a ways away and picked up a pair of nasty-looking clippers from a metal table that had been set up. “Of course it’s effective.”

  The Major returned holding a tool shielded by his hand. “But not at producing information. Torture isn’t about extracting information.”

  He brought the sinister-looking clippers up to Loki’s face. “Torture is about control. You let me torture a thousand people, and I can keep five million working obediently with their heads down. The more innocent the victims, the better. And after they’re broken and maimed, you release them so that everyone can see what awaits those who resist.”

  Suddenly the hook on the ceiling started to lower, and in a moment Loki’s feet touched the ground. It was the first time in hours that the pressure on his breathing and shoulders had eased. But before he could relish the relief, strong hands grabbed his wrists, and he was forced down onto his knees. Two powerfully built men forced his wrists into clamps that were bolted to the floor. They shoved pieces of two-by-four under his palms to prevent him from closing his hand into a fist, and even though he struggled, Loki soon found himself with his arms splayed out before him. The Major was kneeling right alongside him.

  “There is no debate about torture in here, my friend. So you see, there’s nothing you can tell me that will stop the pain. You’re no longer Loki, the sorcerer. The only thing you are is a billboard—on which I’m going to write my message: this is what happens to people who join the darknet. . . .”

  At which p
oint The Major clamped the tip of Loki’s index finger in the metal clippers, and though Loki struggled to pull away, the steel jaws snipped off his index finger up to the second knuckle.

  The pain shot through him like needles moving through his bloodstream. He tasted blood in his mouth from where he had bit his tongue.

  The agony was followed by still further searing pain as the Asian doctor in a lab coat applied a red-hot filament to the stump, cauterizing the wound and sending up a sickening sizzling sound.

  Loki thrashed around, pulling a muscle in his back, but it was only the beginning. The Major cut off another fingertip, and another, and another. The doctor cauterized each wound before the next digit was clipped off. Loki felt his consciousness ebbing, but they waved smelling salts under his nose.

  The Major was in his face again. “How will the Daemon know you if you have no biometric markers left?”

  The unbearable agony continued as the spawn of Satan himself snipped off the tips of all eight of Loki’s fingers. And finally the most painful ones of all—his thumbs.

  In his mind Loki was begging for death. To use his powerful intellect to will his heart to stop. To die and let the universe take him.

  But his world was nothing but a white-hot wall of pain.

  And yet it got worse. Before he had a chance to realize what was happening, he felt his left eyelid pried open and he saw a pair of surgical scissors coming for his eyeball as they pulled it out of the orbital socket. He tried to scream—tried to turn away, but they’d clamped his head into place. With a dagger of pain, he lost all sight in his left eye and saw through his tear-filled right eye as they dropped it into a metal pan.

  The next few moments brought utter blindness as the horrific event was repeated. Loki prayed—actually prayed—for death, yet it did not come. He heard horrible groaning, and realized that he was the source. He was like an animal being butchered. He no longer wished to live.

  He heard the devil’s voice in his ear one more time. “And so that the Daemon cannot recognize you by your voice . . .”