The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming Read Online Free Page A

Remember Doctor Phil?
Anyway, the stupid shit had no idea I was setting him up—he went
with a fucking smile. If one of your Super Friends didn’t take him
out, my decoy nuke would have left his bones for you to recover and
play with. You’re welcome. I hope you’re having fun hurting him.
Maybe you can flash me some video. It’s not like we get any Sat or
Net TV on this rock. I miss my Stories.”
    It’s sick, even for him: using a little girl’s corpse
as a radio.
    “So back to the game in progress: As you can see, I’m
a lot more creative than he was with those skills. These Harvester
things have sooo much potential , especially when you add in
select features from our Mods. They don’t even need to eat the
brain to take over the body, as you saw with the King of All
Hippies back there. That was just a simple medial-temporal
interface, something to let me poke his limbic system. On the other
hand, the one you just took your famous anger management issues out
on was much more advanced. As you probably noticed, I was
hacking his DNA, making him into another Mini-Me. Well, more like a
satellite office.”
    “And where are you ?” I ask the obvious
question, hoping against hope that he’ll bite just to toy with me
in person.
    “That’s the real beauty of all this, old friend: I
don’t have to be anywhere anymore! I’m just a made-up memory
set, not really much different than what’s walking around in that
Aryan action-figure that thinks it’s Dee. Or any of the rest of
you, for that matter. Digital memories implanted in a DNA-jacked
meat suit, then stuffed full of Super Friends upgrades. It’s just
that my memories are so unconvincing that I can’t fool myself. I know I’m not a real boy, just a cheap copy. So why hang on
to that pathetic illusion? I’m really nothing more than hardware
and software walking around inside cloned meat, right? And hardware
and software can be copied, upgraded … I mean, that’s what we
do—planned obsolescence and all… You need the newest model every
few years… I just needed the know-how. Turns out, that was also
just software. I just had to hack the files out of Fuckhead’s head.
And Chang’s, before he went boom with his ship. Easy-peasy. Instant
multiple PhD. And not one dollar wasted on tuition. How cool is
that?”
    I hope he’s bluffing, but I know he’s not. The
thought—the potential—that he has all of Fohat’s and Chang’s
knowledge of our science and engineering is crushing. But if he has the potential…
    “So why this ?” I try appealing to his ego.
“Little games with meaningless meat? When you could do so much
more? Or so you say.”
    “Because it’s fun ,” he answers like he was
hoping for the question. (The effect of his childlike rant is
especially creepy coming out of the mouth of a dead child, which
I’m sure is intentional.) “And fun is definitely in my programming.
All over it, in fact. It’s my mission statement. Fucking. Killing.
Destruction and general mayhem. Shocking the shit out of the
so-called moral high-ground. And you . Fucking with you is
apparently my prime directive. Somebody made me just for that
purpose. I have no idea who. I honestly don’t think it was Chang—he
certainly had the skills, and he was a crazy-ass megalomaniac, but
I’m out of his league. I always got the impression I was a gift he
wasn’t crazy about accepting. And it definitely wasn’t
Fuckhead—I’ve been all over that sick fuck’s memory files,
and he didn’t make me either. So who? Yod, maybe? Granted, I don’t
know much about that particular mad-scientist’s wet dream, but I
heard you two were best buds… Why would he-she-it-whatever do me to
you?”
    The accusation hits like ice, because I’ve already
suspected it’s true.
    Asmodeus makes the little girl grin at my doubt.
    “Interesting…” he purrs, sounding vaguely distracted.
“But I do love a mystery, so I’m not about to let this one go, even
though it ironically puts