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  No. No!

  Loki felt the stirrup-like gag they’d fastened over his mouth expand with the force of a car jack—opening his mouth and keeping it open no matter what he did. He felt the sharp pinch of a pair of pliers pulling his tongue forward roughly and then the searing cut that bored right into the center of his mind. Loki’s tongue was cut clean from his mouth.

  As he died within himself, trapped in the broken shell of his body, Loki felt the shell’s head pulled back and the devil’s voice whisper again.

  “The Daemon no longer knows you. And I have all the biometric markers I need to become you. I will be Loki Stormbringer. Your identity is my reward. The only reason I’ll keep you alive is so that you can pass the occasional fMRI test for me.”

  It was the final nail. Loki felt his soul guttering, flickering, and though he prayed with every fiber of his being for death, it did not come. He existed, just as The Major said he would, as a vessel that spoke of torment.

  Oscar Strickland’s interest in medicine arose from his many blissful years hunting white-tailed deer in the Colorado Rockies. Cleaning and dressing carcasses beneath the aspens awakened in his young mind a fascination with all living things. This ultimately inspired him to join a volunteer rescue squad and become an EMT—which exposed him to the miracle of human anatomy as he helped to pry victims out of crumpled wreckage on mountain roads. And it was here where he discovered his connection to pain. Namely the infliction of it.

  The discovery was accidental—a careless push of a gurney that struck the edge of an ambulance door. But then he began adding a few extra bumps to a spinal patient’s transport, or not quite administering a painkiller. At first it was the thrill of indulging a taboo. But then it was a need—a need to see others suffer. He endured several years of private shame, feeling that he was a horrible person.

  When he joined the army, it was with the hope that they would give him the discipline he needed to conquer his sick compulsion. But on the contrary, in the army he found that pain—and the infliction of it—had a long and storied history. It was, in fact, the history of the world. No great nation or empire could exist without it. It was in some ways the guardian of all that was good. Fear of pain kept men honest.

  And as Strickland’s career advanced from the army to covert government operations and then on to private security operations, he held his head high. For his was a noble profession.

  It also paid well—especially given the current economic crisis. Strickland’s contract would do more than care for his wife and kids in Wyoming. It would also care for his wife and kids in Costa Rica.

  But on this posting, he was a second stringer. It was easy work. He looked up from his Sudoku puzzle as his lone patient groaned pitiably. The man was strapped to an old bed among several dozen others in the infirmary of an old Catholic school. Strickland looked up to see a cross-shaped clean spot on an otherwise dirty wall above him. The diocese apparently had some difficulty with lawsuits and had to shut down the school. He had no idea who the maimed young man was—only that he was an enemy combatant who needed to be kept alive. The way they’d cut him, Strickland didn’t see how they’d ever be able to get anything more out of him.

  Unprofessional.

  Still, the groaning was nice background music. He focused his lone lamp more fully on the puzzle and continued.

  But then he heard the telltale sound of a security detail approaching over the squeaky wooden floors. He put the puzzle in the empty desk drawer and sat up straight—ostensibly to observe his patient suffering nearby in the darkened ward.

  However, what came around the corner surprised him. It wasn’t the Korr Military Solutions officers who’d brought him out here, or any of the site security detail—it was four men dressed in outlandish battle armor, like something from a sci-fi convention. The faceplates of their helmets shimmered like the surface of a soap bubble, and they had odd, high-tech-looking plastic/metal rifles slung on straps with suppressors at their tips. They weren’t weapons Strickland had seen before—and he had seen just about everything. Probably elite special operators. Private industry always had the best gear. . . .

  Strickland stood up. “Gentlemen.”

  That’s when he noticed their gun barrels were smoking. The odor of cordite wafted over him.

  One of them raised a gauntleted hand and motioned for the outliers to walk around the edges of the desk—approaching Strickland from two different directions.

  “Whoa, what’s going on?”

  The voice came over a radio speaker. “Nothing, sir. Please put these on.” He reached forward, extending a pair of expensive-lo oking eyeglasses.

  “Hold . . . what?”

  The two soldiers on either side grabbed him roughly by the arms. Their grip was crushing—almost supernaturally strong.

  Again came the radio voice from that inscrutable mirrored faceplate in front of him. “I said, put these on.”

  “Okay. For chrissake. What’s going on?” The twin guards relaxed their grip enough for him to take the glasses—heavy things—and put them on.

  As he did so, the view in front of him suddenly changed to reveal a sixth person in the room—a ghostly apparition that was kneeling next to Strickland’s lone patient among the rows of beds. He could hear it whispering.

  “Oh my god . . .”

  As Strickland spoke, the apparition turned and stood. It then walked calmly and methodically toward him. It was unaccountably the translucent apparition of . . . apparently of an SS officer with full trench coat, monocle, and peaked hat.

  Strickland tried to back up, he was so startled, but the guards held him fast.

  The ghostly Nazi came right up to Strickland’s terrified face. “Now ve can see each other. Do you know of me, mein Herr?”

  “Do I know of you? I don’t even know what you are!”

  “It was a yes or no qvestion. And yet it vas seemingly beyont you.” The ghostly Nazi turned to the real-world soldiers. “Place ze cap on him.”

  Strickland struggled as one of the men approached with what looked like a water polo helmet. Wires led from it to a controller. They began to strap it to his head.

  “Hold it! I’ll tell you what you want! You don’t have to do this!”

  The Nazi pulled out a long black cigarette filter and lit a cigarette. He took a long drag. “It tastes so much better at zis resolution.” He turned to Strickland and gestured at his headwear. “Ze cap on your head uses near infrared to measure blood acktifity in your brain. In short—it tells me if you’re lying.”

  “I just work here. I was taking care of him.” Strickland could already see a real-life, human medical team moving over to his patient—half a dozen men and women holding IVs and wheeling a stretcher.

  The SS officer laughed a unique, wicked laugh. “I haf no idea vat you’re saying . . . but it sounds terrified.” Then he focused his spectral gaze on Strickland. “Ver you ze one who injured mein Freund?”

  “No! I swear it!”

  The Nazi paused a moment and then nodded—before asking, “Do you know ver I can find ze perpetrators?”

  “No.”

  He spoke more insistently. “Do you know ver I can find zem!”

  “No! I don’t know!”

  There was a pause. The Nazi nodded again. “Vill zey be coming back to zis place?”

  Strickland waited as long as he dared—then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Gut, gut, mein Herr! Ve are just about finished here.” He walked right up to Strickland, blowing virtual smoke in his face—causing Strickland to cough out of instinct. “Tell me . . . vould you haf enjoyed harming mein Freund—if you had ze chance?”

  Strickland just stared. His mouth was suddenly dry as he looked into the ghostly eyes only inches from his own. They were insanely real—as was the gleam in them when the Nazi smiled.

  “Zat’s vat I thought. . . .” He turned to the soldiers. “Secure him, gentlemen....”

  A soldier pulled the cap off his head.

 
; “Hold it! Hold it!” Strickland looked to the faceplate of the soldier to his right, then to his left. “It’s wrong! The machine is wrong!”

  The soldiers grabbed his wrists and slammed his hands against the wall with incredible force. They seemed to have artificial musculature in their suits that he was helpless to resist.

  They placed steel restraints over his wrists and then tapped the wall looking for studs—finally using a power tool to bolt the restraints in place. They repeated the process for his struggling feet.

  “No! Stop!”

  Meanwhile, the spectral Nazi just stood observing, smoking his cigarette on its long filter.

  The soldiers finally stood. “Done, sir!”

  “Gut. Leave us.”

  The soldiers exchanged looks and left in a hurry. As they did, a deep rumbling noise came to Strickland’s ears. It was like a slow, rolling thunder. Through the wide infirmary doorway came a hellish-looking motorcycle covered in blades and mystical sigils and glyphs. Another one followed it.

  “Oh my god . . .”

  They pulled up alongside the apparition and slammed down hydraulic kickstands. Both of them extended fiendish sword arms with a ring of steel.

  “No!”

  The Nazi removed his trench coat and hung it on the extended blade of a nearby bike. Then he rolled up his sleeves. He moved toward Strickland along with the second motorcycle. “I do so enjoy my vork. . . .”

  Part Three

  July

  Gold: $4.189USD/oz.

  Unleaded Gasoline: $18.87USD/gallon

  Unemployment: 32.3%

  USD/Darknet Credit: 202.4

  Chapter 23: // Ultimatum

  Realtime.com/news

  Violence Spreads as Dollar Slides—Marauding gangs of heavily armed immigrant workers are terrorizing entire counties in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, prompting calls for martial law in several Midwestern states and causing locals to take up arms in self-defense. With hyperinflation and never-before-seen gas prices invalidating the economies of entire communities, officials fear civil order has begun to break down.

  With the U.S. military thinly stretched overseas, private security firms have contracted with several Midwestern municipalities to restore order and suppress looting.

  The heads of America’s intelligence services sat around a circular boardroom table in Building OPS-2B of National Security Agency headquarters. Now outnumbering them at the table was a wide array of private intelligence and military analysts, led by familiar executives from Computer Systems Corporation (CSC), its subsidiaries—EndoCorp and Korr Military Solutions—and the lobbying firm, Byers, Carroll, and Marquist (BCM).

  The atmosphere was tense. On a bank of flat-screen televisions behind them, a dozen news channels were silently chronicling the meltdown of the American economy in animated graphics. But the real headlines were reserved for the fate of the U.S. dollar. All the graphs were heading down at a precipitous angle.

  Their host opened the meeting.

  NSA: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re facing a grave situation. As we sit here, the United States government has lost control of portions of its communications and air defense assets. At the same time, civil disorder is spreading throughout the Midwest, and the dollar is plummeting on foreign markets. I’m hearing calls for martial law coming from lobbyists on Capitol Hill. More worrisome is the talk I’ve heard about implementing Army Regulation 500-3.”

  BCM: “It’s being brought up with good reason.”

  NSA: “What reason?”

  CSC: “Army Regulation 500-3 was intended to preserve civil order in the event government communications are severed due to nuclear attack, natural disaster—”

  BCM: “Or technological emergency. I think the Daemon qualifies.”

  CSC: “Make no mistake: this is a full-scale attack by the Daemon. Its forces are launching a violent revolution. Regulation 500-3 is called for. Civilian leadership is unable to maintain secure communications.”

  NSA: “What I want to know is why our systems degraded so suddenly and completely.”

  EndoCorp: “The Daemon is conducting a broad denial of service attack against government domains and communications. It’s also undermining the confidence of capital markets. It’s part of Sobol’s overall strategy.”

  DARPA: “Bullshit.”

  All eyes turned to him.

  EndoCorp: “Excuse me?”

  DARPA: “You heard me.”

  BCM: “There’s no reason to abandon decorum, gentlemen.”

  NSA (holding up his hands to calm the situation): “However, my colleague’s succinct critique stands: we may have outsourced a large portion of our raw intelligence-gathering capability to private industry, but we’re not completely blind. There’s no indication that the systems operated under contract for us have been compromised.”

  CSC: “That’s ridiculous. We can show you the proof.”

  NSA: “I’m not interested in your digital proof. We’re monitoring network and electromagnetic activity in real time. There’s no evidence our national defense assets have been degraded.”

  BCM: “That’s a bold and reckless statement. You’re accusing trusted national security partners of gross negligence, Mr. Director.”

  NSA (pointing to the TV monitors): “This so-called domestic uprising related to the economy—Mexican drug gangs running loose, raping and pillaging in the countryside. Panicking the populace.”

  BCM: “This is what happens when economies collapse. Order needs to be restored before the chaos spreads. Private security forces are available and more palatable to the public than a government military force.”

  FBI: “These gangs—we’ve arrested heavily armed suspects all across the Midwest. They’ve murdered policemen and civil authorities—and more than a few of them have turned out to be professional mercenaries tied to defunct military regimes in Central America and Eastern Europe.”

  CIA: “Trained operators whose fingerprints we have on file.”

  BCM (raising an eyebrow): “Then you’ve worked with them before?”

  CIA: “My question is: who brought them here?”

  EndoCorp: “Most likely drug cartels, taking advantage of general lawlessness to make money.”

  CIA: “That defies logic.”

  NSA: “And what about money?” (Opens up a folder and tosses out reports like a blackjack dealer in Vegas.) “Financial houses controlled by your clients have been selling Treasury bills like crazy—you’re precipitating a run on the dollar.”

  BCM: “Our clients have a fiduciary responsibility to their investors, and quite frankly the monetary policies of the U.S. government haven’t—”

  DIA: “As if the U.S. government controls the creation of money! It seems the same private institutions entrusted with setting monetary policy were the ones who profited from debasing the dollar. No wonder the public is flocking to the Daemon network. The darknet credit is still worth a damn!”

  CSC: “That’s treasonous talk.”

  DIA: “Don’t lecture me about treason!”

  BCM: “Everybody calm down. Let’s stop throwing the T-word around. One man’s treason is another man’s patriotism.”

  FBI: “How do you figure that?”

  BCM: “The nation is under attack, and here we are arguing. We need to put our heads together.”

  NSA (glaring at him): “Yes. The United States is under attack. The question is by whom?”

  They all sat in bristling silence for several moments.

  BCM: “Certainly you don’t intend to stop us from defending our property? Or from maintaining public order?”

  FBI: “Who is behind the covert terror operations in the Midwest?”

  BCM: “Does it really matter?”

  DIA (looking to NSA director): “We need to declare a national emergency and mobilize whatever National Guard troops and equipment not already deployed overseas.”

  BCM: “You have a serious problem, gentlemen. Without immediate financial support,
the U.S. dollar will collapse—precipitating the complete insolvency of the U.S. government. Picture Russia. Argentina.”

  NSA: “This is treason.”

  BCM: “A multinational corporation can’t commit treason. My clients have no obligation to America. Risk must be hedged.”

  NSA: “Get the treasury secretary on—”

  BCM: “Your government can create all the money it wants, but it will be worthless here and abroad. Without outside intervention the U.S. government will soon be a hollow shell.”

  There was silence for several moments.

  NSA: “What do they want?”

  BCM: “They need Army Regulation 500-3 amended to include private military contractors. And then they expect it to be invoked.”

  DIA: “You expect us to suspend the Constitution? Are you insane?”

  BCM: “You’re to stay out of the way while they deal with the Daemon. If you do so, global financial institutions will support the dollar—of course, there will need to be economic and social reforms put in place first to ensure a return to fiscal discipline.”

  The government half of the table looked like they were pondering violence.

  DIA: “Why are you doing this?”

  BCM: “My clients are simply defending their property—they own the genes being stolen by the Daemon’s operatives. They own the networks and software it has compromised. They own the global brands it has undermined. Representative government doesn’t have the will to defeat this threat.”

  DIA (to the NSA director): “Have him arrested!”

  The BCM representative gestured to the phone near the NSA director’s chair.

  BCM: “It’s your call. Try to arrest our people. Try to have the military interfere with our security operations. I think you’ll find that no one in your government has the stomach for it. We are not the enemy of America.”

  NSA: “I don’t know what you are. But some people in government still take seriously their oath to uphold the Constitution.”