The Valhalla Covenant

Blast these meetings with the hoods, thought the Senator at the prospect of conferring again with his own dubious allies. Linetti knew the Vos had their place in the overall scheme of things, but he didn’t like them.

They conducted themselves in some ways like servants, but for all that, he knew they held a disturbingly high place in the scheme of things. They were a damned mysterious lot and he knew that they acted independently for the most part, which was what really bugged him.

He strode down the long dim corridor, stopping hesitantly in front of the heavy wooden door with the curious symbol on it. He had never been game to ask what it meant and he never would.

There was not a human alive, nor had there ever been one who knew the origin of the symbol and exactly what it meant. Linetti was no exception and he always felt ill at ease in the company of those within for that reason. It took a couple of moments to steel himself before knocking.

There was a grunt and he entered. At once, he felt he knew the figure in the easy chair before him, though he had never fully seen his face. Seated towards the back of the dimly lit room, behind him, were three more. The first one didn’t greet the Senator, nor did he smile beneath the hood or make any casual conversation.

“Just one matter, ahead of the main,” he said. “Your man at the drug company — I read your report. You said he seemed a little too inquisitive about the purpose of these psychoactive substances. You may have to keep a closer eye on him,” he said in a voice of ice, fiendishly unmarred by any effort to make it seem so.

“He’s a good man.” The words fell foul from his lips and he straight away knew he’d done Vinson no service.

“Secrecy is paramount. The corporation comes first.”

“I know that. It’s just my personal assessment that the benefits of his leadership outweigh the risks.”

“No risk is acceptable once a person starts asking questions, and we do not require him to lead but to manage.”

“Yes, the thought had crossed my mind. I’ll see to it,” said Linetti, his already cold heart turning to ice at the thought of the unknown potential he suspected in the hooded individual.

“The young man who obtains our guinea pigs might be a good replacement. He’s the goose that’s laying the golden eggs.”

“Indeed. I’ll deal with it straight away.”

For a moment, he almost felt like asking who the hooded one was to authorize such a senior level sanction but he thrust the thought immediately from his mind with an almost visible shiver.

The robed and hooded figure shifted a little in his chair, easing into a slightly more relaxed position.

“This fellow Xoldin — his loyalty and silence is guaranteed?”

“As far as can be. There’s footage — the usual set-up.”

“Then he’s not a worry to us. Have him deal with Vinson soon and place him in his job — so long as he executes the matter cleverly. We’ll have all that under one roof then, won’t we? Now, onto other matters. What do you know of these rebels? Our Australian branch is in chaos thanks to those Little River trouble-makers, and now one of our Russian contacts has heard of a fellow snooping around with some sort of electronic brain analysing device.”

“Yes,” said Linetti. “Prime directorate asked one of my men to check him out. It hasn’t been easy. Russians have been at the game a long time and they very rarely actually say anything, but this guy left a notepad out for just a moment too long and we got line of sight on it.”

“Results?”

“It was enough for our digital section to enhance. Someone called Blaze, working for freedom — strong, wealthy, committed and promising material assistance. This guy sounds like a major player.”

“Where?”

“We don’t know yet but we have to bear in mind the possibility that he’s from the antipodes. That’s the source of the River, after all, strange though that may be. We’re keeping a close watch on the target to see if there’s any further contact.”

“Close? Permanent?”

“Twenty four hours a day, until further notice, as of this morning.”

“Who is he?”

“Anatole Vorducov. Radical thinker. Sideline activist. Quite a few known associates.”

“So you don’t have any idea who Blaze is?”

“Nothing much on that yet,” Linetti replied, then continued: “Probably a company man. From the name, he’s probably Anglo in origin. Nothing firm has come from a search of the top three databases of the world’s known wealthy, in either the over one hundred million category or over twenty million category. Nothing that would suggest such a radical, anyway.”

“We’ve heard stories of people speaking about a confederation of corporations that’s attempting to gain control of the world — and of the need to resist,” the robed man said, more quietly.

“Attempting to gain?” the Senator laughed carefully. “More like steadily increasing its hold.”

The robed one saw fit to laugh in response: a thin, raucous shriek so humourless that it sounded completely absurd. Linetti wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if a glimmer of gold light came from within the hood.

“It may be about time for a shake up to get these meddlers off the scent,” he said. “What can you do?”

“Anything from the release of small tactical nuclear weapons, to hyena groups, street riots and random acts of violence. What do you want?”

“We’ll discuss it but I think it would be well to throw in a generous selection. There have also been some curious reports about what actually happened in Sydney — you know, the order of events,” the robed figure said in a tone that suggested neither censure nor praise.

“So you aim to flush out the full story?”

“Of course. See to it that our response is broad, though.”

“International?”

“Yes, we don’t want any new player on the scene to know we’re onto them until we get a better idea of what they can do. This Blaze must be wealthy and resourceful but there is also evidence of significant new technology. We’ve still not been able to determine the source of the weapons that destroyed government bases there — destruction meted out from invisible sources in the sky has to be a game changing element and warrants rigorous investigation.”

“Of course. We’ll let the harpies loose and goad them into action.”

The hood lowered a little and the Senator knew his time was up. He rose and left without a word, glad to be out but wondering, for the thousandth time, exactly how the Vos fitted into the picture. Through long experience, he knew that all the documentation would tally with the pertinent content of the meeting. No matter what they said or what they suggested was appropriate, it always seemed to happen.

While the Vos never revealed their faces, the voices always seemed the same — icy, not dominant yet inevitable, controlled. They were plainly linked with prime directorate but if so, why was he, an outsider, permitted to initiate direct contact with the Emperor and not with them?

Maybe the Emperor concealed his true appearance. None other of them showed their faces, there or here, but a good disguise would allow no chance of his face being recognized or recorded.

Linetti had long been aware that with all the security protocols he did not even know where ‘there’ was, but in the final analysis that didn’t worry him.

At least with the Emperor you knew where you stood. That was a hell of a lot more than you could say for these creepy Vos, though he knew not, nor questioned why, he had such unstinting loyalty to the supreme commander.

***

Early one morning, barely a week after the Institute’s European tour was over, alarming news came to the Castle Citadel. A widespread spate of terrifying and catastrophic events in many countries around the world took everyone by surprise.

In Rome, another anti-globalization riot had gone badly wrong when shots from an unknown source had provoked fire from machine-gun-toting police. Hundreds were injured and a dozen killed. Tanks had been used, literally, to crush hunger riots in Dacca. To top that, in India, unknown assailants had taken three large nuclear weapons, using nerve gas to kill hundreds protecting the arsenal.

No one had claimed responsibility for stealing the H-bombs but suspicions were, of course, focused on Islamic militants in neighbouring Pakistan. Grave fears were held in India that her own weapons would soon be used against her. In truth, though, no one had any idea where the weapons had gone.

Reports came in several hours later of a complete meltdown in long troubled Indonesia, involving the wholesale slaughter of Christian and Buddhist minorities, leading to a large-scale flight of refugees from almost every island in the archipelago.

Ukraine was sparring with Russia again using US armaments, and martial law had been declared in South Africa after a sniper attack had cut down half a dozen politicians.

Most recently, an Islamic terrorist suicide squad took control of an A500X super jet and flew it into the Golden Gate Bridge during the evening rush, resulting in near a thousand deaths, not to mention the complete destruction of the iconic landmark.

Major trouble came in every quarter of each hemisphere and no city was immune. On the following day, full-scale war reared its ugly head again in the Balkans, Korea and Palestine, and major civil unrest manifested almost everywhere else. The world had already been a powder keg of profound disturbance but it seemed somebody had at last thrown in a match.

Rumour of widespread fighting and terror brought instability to regions not usually so volatile, including the wealthy ‘Peninsular’ enclave in Sydney where Jos lived — a place that was as privileged and secure as any, and before long looting, riots and a breakdown of services were becoming frequent there as well.

Many of the newer GI members that still lived in or near the enclave had been in contact with the Castle Citadel already. Most felt that things were surely starting to fall apart and were anxious to find alternate living arrangements until things settled down.

In every mainland city shops were closed, telephone services other than satellite were out, the power was cut most of the time and the water supply was disrupted. Workers would simply not go out to fix things unless they had access to Little River backup, which amounted to Global Institute operatives when they were available.

Water was given the greatest priority. Between dealing with that and power there was nobody left to guard the shops and because of the security shortage chaos reigned in the streets.

Reimas checked out the reports as soon as they came in and tried to verify them as much as he could through his own sources. After a few hours of assessing the situation, he was so concerned that he decided to contact his Vezarin contact, Tor.

Settling back in his chair in the office of his apartment, and turning within, he called to Tor, telepathically.

Moments later, he responded, but this time in voice only.

“There’s been more trouble,” he said.

“The H-bombs are the main worry,” Reimas replied.

“We should have arranged surveillance for you.”

“It might help in the future, but those who operate secretly have ways of getting around surveillance, believe me.”

“I understand. You would know. Anyway, we may not be able to prevent those things going off, but if they do, we should be able to extract a substantial amount of fallout from the area before it spreads.”

“That would be useful. How?”

“Matter transport beam technology.”

“You have that?”

“How do you think we brought you out to see us?”

Reimas was surprised.

“I thought that was all in the mind.”

“No. We couldn’t risk being overheard by others that might have thought transference capabilities, so we actually took you out into space.”

“I thought it felt real. Is that how a transporter feels?”

“We dressed up the sensations a little, to satisfy the illusion but, in main, yes.”

“That would be handy. Why haven’t you given it to us?”

“That’s a complex issue. Perhaps some day when you’ve time to grapple with the intricacies of operating it, and the immediate threats have been dealt with, we may let you have it — or perhaps you’ll crack the secret yourselves. For the time being, though, the last thing we would want is for this sort of technology to fall into the hands of the Aereons, or anyone like them.”

“I suppose you have a point,” Reimas conceded.

“For the time being, however, just make sure that if you’re anywhere near one of these weapons when they go off, don’t go in to help. The cleanup process could create great turbulence.”

“Got it.”

Opening his eyes, Reimas turned back to the view screen on his desk and clicked the urgent meeting tab. An associated names list lit up and ticks flew into place beside them almost immediately.

With plans already clear in his mind, he was pleased to see that most were ready to attend despite their having only recently completed a lengthy tour of the European countries. When he took his spot at the round table, it was almost full.

“I take it you’re all aware of what’s happening,” he began, after a brief private consultation with Sean, seated to his right. “In some ways, what we’re seeing now is good news. I’d say it’s reasonable to assume this sudden spate of trouble has something to do with our secret foe.”

“I don’t know,” said Jos. “It’s world-wide.”

“And we’ve made contacts, virtually world-wide,” Angus observed.

“We’ve taken the plunge,” Sean agreed, apparently enjoying the atmosphere of urgency and stretching, catlike in his seat. “We’ve moved against repression, expanded our membership base considerably and stirred the pot. No wonder there’s been a sharp reaction.”

Reimas moved forwards a little, elbows on the table and his hands clasped under his chin.

“There seems little doubt, then,” he said. “They’ve seen what we’ve done and they don’t like it. This is their way of flexing their muscles and attempting to show us who’s boss.”

“Wouldn’t they limit such extreme reactions to our home turf, in that case?” said Jos.

“Perhaps they don’t wish to scare us back into the shadows with an overly direct attack.”

“So in their wisdom,” Sean speculated, “they spread the reaction out over the world to send us a warning.”

“Either they don’t know where we’re based or they’d like us to think they don’t know.”

“Which means they probably don’t know, since we’re not in Australia anymore while they’re still avoiding retaliation there.”

Reimas scratched his chin.

“Maybe, and I’d like to keep it that way. Don’t forget all our relatives and friends back there. The less trouble there, the better.”

“Don’t you find it strange, though,” Laurence asked, “that they’re acting more and more like us, in the capacity of the provocateur?”

“Yes,” Reimas acknowledged. “It does suggest that they hope to gauge our reach by forcing us into playing the protector in the wider sphere.”

The importance of the observation was reflected in a swell of affirmatives and grunts of approval.

“I was actually going to suggest that we try and keep their depredations at bay with a show of force,” Sean admitted.

“We could still do it,” Reimas replied, “only we’ll have to be selective.”

Sean nodded.

“And keep a low profile.”

“Yes. We’ll put teams out on the ground in every major city to keep a watchful eye on things.”

“Now?” Jos asked.

Reimas nodded but, seeing that Erin had something to say, refrained from answering.

“Just one thing bothers me,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I can see that it makes no sense to go out and do battle with Global Unity’s attack dogs, and to keep an eye on things instead, but there’s also no reason in the world why we shouldn’t ask most of our membership to come here, temporarily, out of the likeliest path of the storm.”

“A good point,” said Laurence, hunched tightly over his spot at the table, nervously scratching his left cheek and twirling a pen with his right hand. “As long as it’s done quietly, why not protect those who might very well be useful to us later, and who by their commitment deserve the help?”

“I’d have had them on the way here by now,” said Reimas, “but it’s also occurred to me that it might play into the hands of these secret adversaries. They probably don’t know either who we are or where we’ve retreated to yet, but if we start retrieving a lot of people and taking them here, we could give away our position without any real gain.”

“Right,” said Sean, “it does make sense to presume that the flyers could be tracked, perhaps with some new sort of detection equipment.”

“But who says we’d have to bring anyone here?” Sasha asked. “We could simply get out into the field and help people make it to safe places, even if only for a few days to see how things pan out.”

“That’ll do,” said Reimas. “It’ll keep the ball rolling without playing into their hands, and might even throw them of the scent.

“So, does everyone agree?”

A forest of hands showed that it was unanimous.

“Alright. We need to get out there and help, but without using any hardware that might give us away in the thick of things.”

“Oh well,” said Finn, with a wry smile. “I guess it’s not so far by boat.”

Angus laughed.

“I think Reimas means that we ought not to use the flyers in actually moving a lot of strangers around,” he said. “As things stand, I don’t see why we shouldn’t put everything into the air. It would hardly do to have you all stuck out there on the ground in all sorts of foreign lands without assistance when we haven’t the faintest idea what could happen next.”

A tangible wave of relief swept through the room.

As a last measure prior to initiating action, a general caution to foreign branch heads was issued. Word came back within half an hour from all the regional groups and it reflected a unanimous mindset in favour of effective emergency measures along the lines proposed.

In most cases, their preparations for survival in the face of conflict were well advanced. Remote base locations had already been found in almost every new Global Institute region, and many, with Valhalla’s technical aid and resources, were in the process of being equipped.