Читать книгу The Fallen Heroine - Fabienne Gschwind - Страница 21

I slept a little longer than usual this Monday and dozed for another 30 minutes in the stimulation machine. Fortunately, Gabin had advised me to take very light dream inhibitors, so that I would not dream of being torn to pieces by repro every night, or see again and again the mutilated corpses of those who had been killed. After two night nightmares I took the pills in the evening. Compared to all the drugs I had taken during the operations after the Auvergne mission, it was a piece of cake.

For lack of other options, I drank only water for breakfast and ate an energy bar from my combat gear. Afterwards I got dressed and felt quite strange without the special underwear. Since we wore the battle gear almost all the time lately, both for training and for missions, I was in the armor along with this underwear virtually non-stop.

It was high summer, so I eventually got into some shorts, light sneakers, and a shirt. In the basement was the bike of my previous tenant. It had apparently served at Tartelette before me. I was reluctant to use the bike because the image surfaced in my mind of how a new apprentice would just take over my stuff when I died. Whoa, I put that thought out of my mind.

Finally, I did get on the ancient, rusty bicycle and rode to the supermarket. Enviously, I watched the other road users with their PVs. PVs -- personal vehicles -- are a modern version of the old-fashioned Segways. So, I'd already like to buy one of these, which have a chair and even a canopy. Well, I had to be patient and wait for a few months' pay.

Barely ten minutes later I was at the supermarket and parked my bike.

It was the same supermarket where we had done that stupid blackbird. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but after doing some quick arithmetic, I realized it was only four weeks. It felt like four years. Anyway. Grinning, I still saw a few bullet holes, but otherwise the broken shelf had been replaced. My shopping cart followed on my heels. A glance at my NFC account, which I accessed via forearm computer, showed that I was now truly out of money. Standing in front of the bakery shelf, I counted off the old-fashioned coins I found in my pocket. It should still be enough for a cheap baguette. Snivelling, I thought about how today was going to be a sad, hungry day. I thought that I should just go to the barracks to get some drinking food and some energy bars from our camp. I'm sure Tartelette wouldn't mind. I could a at least fifteen minutes of strength training, then I would have earned it all well.

That's when the little radio on my forearm computer cracked.

"Leave your shopping, our Decacopter is on its way to the supermarket and will pick you up there. The Bordeaux ReS unit called hysterically for help ten minutes ago. And ReS headquarters orders us to fly over and check it out immediately."

I thought it was nifty when the decacopter touched down in the briskly evacuated outdoor parking lot and a bunch of curious people watched me dash over to the Marine decacopter.

The others were all already seated in the small interior. Thibault occupied the two seats next to the pilot. The others were all wearing fancy new black and green camouflage combat armor. And Tartelette held mine out to me, including the special underwear.

"But still white, I'm afraid; we look like ballerinas." Gabin hated the tight-fitting white underwear, and the commander pulled one over his head.

"I love ballet. Don't you say anything against ballerinas again!"

There was no way to stand up fully in the Decacopter, so I ducked into the clothes.

Tartelette had also changed the color. Until now, the suits had been blue because we were getting them from the Marines. But now they were dark green with black armor plates. This was more appropriate, of course, because we were often out in nature.

Tartelette immediately enumerated the advantages and additional armor and weapons.

The list was long, and in retrospect I remembered that she had mentioned flame grenades and fire flares. At least two things I remembered. Because fire could be used to attract repros and the fire flare could be used as a distraction. But Tartelette was already speaking on:

"Oh, boy, here's your new contract."

I grabbed the sheet of paper and almost had a cardiac arrest when I saw the monthly sum and the hazard pay. That was equal three whole year's salary of my parents!

No more counting money at the supermarket, I thought happily.

"After the problem with the elite unit and the terrorist threat with their combat repros, the King President wanted to show that a great deal of funding was being pumped into building a ReS special forces system," Tartelette grinned, and went on to explain that we would also be getting our own decacopter and a small spidercopter. Gabin hooted and clapped his hands. I, too, was delighted - this flying machine would make us superheroes in no time.

I took the contract and went to read it.

"Oh don't read it, just sign it," Gabin said, showing me his contract, which he had signed in a scrawl.

No sooner said than done. I signed it. And deliberately paid no attention to the anti-termination clause that threatened us with the death penalty if we took desertion.

The anti-termination law was a standard clause and said that the employee was not allowed to resign. At the very most, he could report to the job placement center to change jobs. The same applied to the employer.

Suddenly Emily, who was studying her contract, exclaimed angrily:

"Tamara did you see that clause, the one with the Lex Ferrum?"

Thibault also looked at it, "Oh yes, that's the new economic program! It's supposed to boost the flagging buying power, with tax cuts and all that. I think it sounds good, I think it means we don't have to pay tax on our wages anymore. It's positive."

"Positive? If the king president proclaims the Lex Ferrum, we all become serfs. So that's what it says."

Emily seemed rather uncertain but Thibault insisted it was just a legal quibble.

I myself only knew the old "Lex Ferrum" - the iron law - had been a push by the nobles to reintroduce feudalism and serfdom. I had read that from my history books.

But it had nothing to do with today's economic program. In fact, in recent years, this miracle economic program has been advertised over and over again. I remembered my brother who had given a lecture on it at school. At that time I had to hold out as a spectator for his general preparation. And really, if all this was true, what the politicians brewed there, then it would be really good for the economy.

We landed in the middle of Bordeaux at the Meriadeck shopping center, where the Bordeaux unit had its headquarters. The city was completely in chaos. It had started early this morning, at a vineyard near the city limits. The winemaker had been found mangled. An employee had been reprogrammed and had to be shot by special police. The ReS unit detected repro odor, but did not detect a suspicious repro animal. Unfortunately, the headline 'Vintner mauled and a repro shot' had been played up to 'Vintner family completely wiped out by repros' within an hour.'

People had started an evacuation on their own, because the primal fear of wild animals, coupled with the new fear of repros, ran deep. Everyone knew someone who knew someone else who had an incident with a zombie animal. Most died a gruesome death, either mauled or walking as a repro themselves. So you couldn't blame the population.

Most people were well organized for it and many feared a nuclear strike. Therefore, they would travel out of town to acquaintances or friends as quickly as possible. Many owned a small second home or a snug vacation home in the backcountry that was set up for just such an eventuality.

With the local ReS unit, we visited the winery. It was not a real chateau, but a hall with modern production facilities for the world-famous Bordeaux wine.

We found nothing. The trained sniffer dogs of the Bordeaux ReS were also in action, but the trail got lost in the vineyards.

Perplexed, we returned in the early afternoon and visited the beautiful old town, which was eerily deserted. At the cathedral, we sat down in a bistro whose owners had stormed out head over heels. Emily looked around the kitchen and whipped up a few snacks. I noted in passing that we were on shows throughout. But that had to be boring for the viewers.

Then back to work, but on a bench by the Gironde River. Tartelette was running her famous simulation and we were additionally evaluating the video and multimedia that had been recorded in the area around the winery. Emily found what she was looking for and showed the images of a strange animal.

"What is that critter?" inquired Gabin. I reviewed the subject knowledge I had taught myself for the animal keeper entrance exam. After all, I wanted to make a good impression on the audience.

"An ocelot," I then said confidently. Except for Tartelette, who nodded knowingly, I received only astonished looks. I explained to them that extinct animal species had been bred from genes as part of the species conservation program.

Tartelette nodded at my explanation and then pulled out a small, old-fashioned pad of paper on which she kept jotting things down.

"Organize zoology class."

It was no further problem to track down the keeper. After all, anyone who wanted a pet needed a license and had to pass regular knowledge tests. When we arrived at the old woman's neat residence, it was clear that this ocelot was our repro, because the smell was all over the stairwell. The woman's body lay mangled on the floor.

Still, we were stuck again and didn't know where to go from there. Now CSPAR - Centre Scientifique Pour Animaux Reprogrammé - i.e. the ReS research department was added.

CSPAR was one of the leading repro institutes in Europe. It was only in the last 15 years that serious research was done on reprogramming disease. Because after the trireligious wars and the apocalypse, it had taken a long time for the infrastructure to stand again. And even longer until the people were trained again. The repro researchers are still in the dark. There is only agreement that the retroviruses that initiate gene programming are actually not retroviruses, but a completely new species.

Perhaps I need to take opportunity here to describe this repro problem from the beginning: Its origins were in the early 21st century. Shortly after the first trireligion war around 2033. Finally the breakthrough to the ultimate gene therapies had been achieved. Retroviruses could be used to cure genetic diseases such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, or other damage such as defective vision or allergies by reprogramming the defective genes correctly. The therapy was in great demand and no one wanted to wait the usual ten to twenty years of medical research. So G-Rep therapy - gene reprogramming - was introduced early. But if a therapy can cure a sick body, it can also strengthen a healthy body.

Logically, this knowledge was immediately abused in the next war, and during the Second Trireligion War, genetically reprogrammed super soldiers faced each other for the first time in history. But it did not stop at soldiers. In the meantime, it was possible to reprogram the brain structure itself. Thereby one produced will-less super soldiers who attacked everyone and everything. Logically such a thing is not to be used. But brainless, super aggressive rats, pigeons or dogs could be abused as merciless fighting machines.

At the end of the Second Trireligion War, humanity was faced with these reprogrammed, degenerated animals. Their breeders had to understand that they had messed up: The animals did not distinguish friend from foe. And in a panicked retreat, the specimens were taken out of circulation before the damage became too great. These degenerate beasts were also the reason why the second trireligion war came to an end. Everyone had their hands full trying to protect themselves from the beasts. Finally, in 2075, the death of the last reprogrammed specimen was officially declared and all retroviruses had been destroyed. At least one hoped, but of course they were still produced in illegal laboratories. The advantage was too great.

About twenty years passed and another trireligion war swept the world. Super soldiers were hardly used, since one acted exclusively with long-range weapons and suicide bombers. Or the most popular thing of all: one reprogrammed ignorant policemen and soldiers and let them cause massacres among their friends.

At the height of the war, 2089: The Calamity ... or the beginning of the Repro Apocalypse as many called it. Retroviruses designed to reprogram super soldiers and killer animals had happily mutated away and were able to reproduce on their own. The G-Rep disease broke out within a month and swept the world.

Anyone who didn't die from it in a few days became a mindless, super-aggressive monster with only one thing on its mind: killing. Through exchange of body fluids and even droplet infection, these new viruses could be transmitted, and the world-wide catastrophe was already pre-programmed...

It took almost 100 years until everything was more or less in order. But now there are many animals and also humans, who have the carry the retrovirus somewhere in their genes and reproduce normally. The spontaneous reprogramming occurs without warning and within a few hours the transformation is complete. Only antiviral vaccination protects us from this. But you can hardly vaccinate all wild animals with it. There are far too many of them, especially because they have been able to reproduce in peace for the last 100 years, with which mankind dug its own grave.

But where did they get these superpowers? At that time, people wanted soldiers who were stronger and faster, knew no pain and had super healing powers to withstand gunshots. Headless aggression was desired in animals. The repros have it all. Their muscles are compacted and perform at peak levels. Their nerves transmit signals much faster than normal, enabling them to move and react with uncanny speed. They know no pain, you can shoot them, chop off their limbs, nothing helps. The brain is decomposed to the most rudimentary part, the repros know only one thing: attack everything that is alive! Only the head is the weak point. If no more signals come from the brain stem, it is over.

These untamed forces do not come from nowhere. The repros are autotrophic, that means they directly use the carbon dioxide from the air for the building blocks of their cells. And nitrogen from the air serves as another inexhaustible source of energy. The retroviruses reprogram the Golgi apparatus of the cells, and so they can do nitrogen fixation. The blood is replaced by a mucus that stores the resulting ammonia. And this is immediately converted into energy again in a nitrification process. Hence the characteristic odor, but not everyone notices it. In short, our ancestors thought of a number of ways to create to breed super soldiers. And now we are facing these reprogrammed, almost immortal creatures that have been terrorizing mankind for almost 100 years. A scourge beyond compare.

So much for that...

The afternoon slowly passed and we were back that the vine-factory where all started. Tamara was getting more and more impatient trying to get more info in order to feed it in her software and be able to derive where we could find more reprogrammed animals, and where the Ozelot could now be.

I came back from the toilets. At the time we were no longer on the air and all had used the break to go to the bathroom and refresh themselves

When I came back, Tamara had grabbed an employee by the neck and was shaking him to get more info. I wondered if this was arranged with the employees so that this movie-clip could be shared online and the wine factory could take in a lot of publicity for free.

Then I looked at Gabin who was filming with his camera.

"Very good, we have enough material. Well played, buddy...looks super realistic!" Gabin said enthusiathically. The employee didn't seem to have played it so much after all. But Tamara also had so much strength, maybe she hadn't even realized that she had hurt the man.

"Gabin, come with me, I have another idea!”

“Sometimes she overdoes it with these films. At some point, things go wrong and we all have to be held up as the culprits." said Emily, taking off her helmet as Tartelette and Gabin disappeared into the building. We went outside. I took advantage of the interruption to finally get out of the helmet.

“Before, it used to be easy, we always knew when Tamara was faking a tantrum. I don't know, now she's acting a lot weirder. Part of it really scares me," Emily muttered.

I played with the new, more intense power boosters in my gauntlets and crushed a pebble. Without that support, it would be hard to move that much armor. "She's just a very good actress," I said.

"I wonder from time to time what medication she's on ... she hardly ever sleeps." She was silent for a moment, and I thought about Tartelette between all the extra practice in the shooting cellar, she really had almost no time to sleep. Medication was something we all took, if only for the pain of the injuries.

Emily continued, "I worked as a psychologist for seven years. Tamara clearly falls under borderline psychopathic. Master Manipulator... she is extremely charismatic, someone you trust and follow." Emily remained silent, not taking her eyes off the front door. "The longer you're in the business, the more you go crazy. Tamara leistes 25 years of active frontline service! Everyone has to deal with that pressure somehow. Thibault takes strong antidepressants. Gabin uses anxiety and dream inhibitors. After all the horror they see day after day, who among the ReS full-mats can sleep without nightmares? But that stuff ruins us, so don't bother with it."

I froze, had I perhaps already overdone it.

"Don't talk that boy down with your psycho-babble and concentrate on the surveillance footage."

Tartelette had climbed out the second floor window and returned silently. She was standing on a wall behind us. She jumped down from the wall.

"Kid! Don't believe a word Emily says. As long as you don't overdo it the drugs are perfectly fine. Wasn't Gabin?"

He had joined us as well and saluted. "Aye Captain."

I quickly realized that Gabin still had his private camera rolling and he gave me a secret twink. Okay, Tamara was up for a new clip. I quickly imitated Gabin and saluted. "At your command, mon capitaine!"

The commander grinned, "Believe me Matthis, I have trained many, but you have real potential!" It was the first praise I heard from Tartelette and I blushed. I was really proud. Exactly such a scene would bring me many fans!

But Emily didn't let up, "...you want me to stop yapping and you brainwash the kid, huh?"

The commander came back and grabbed Emily by the jaw with her muscle-powered gauntlet.

"Just watch what you say. One of these days I'm going to let myself go and then ..."

She looked to me and to Gabin, quickly I turned my private camera on Emily while moaning in pain. "You're breaking my teeth," she gasped and Tartelette let go.

"I am your captain, obey me! I can't stand insubordination. When I say you shut up, you shut up!"

Only Emily looked at her very apprehensively and rubbed her jaw. Gabin scrolled through the footage and said disappointed. "Nope, that doesn't come out right, Emily you need to act better!”

"Stop this shit, you're overdoing it. It's going to backfire on us!" She got up angrily and headed for the bathroom. Tamara and Gabin laughed out loud.

Finally a new track opened up, namely in the north of Bordeaux, in the vineyard Chateau Climens. We were picked up by a military vehicle and on our way to Chateau Climens when joyful news arrived from Thibault and lifted our morale:

"The Ghosty is hovering four kilometers above you and the three soldier boys are waiting for your orders!"

We all laughed and Tartelette beamed with joy. The scene from earlier was forgotten.

Ghostys are small, agile dualcopters and are actually called Spidercopters. They were developed for street fighting in the first Trireligion War.

Think of it as a car-sized helicopter with short, ultra-powerful dual rotors.

The interesting thing is that the whole copter has no casing or windows for weight reasons, but is held together only by powerful beams of foamed aluminum. The pilots sit in a small transparent foil dome and at the rear the gunner also sits in a combat seat. The powerfull fluoride-ion batteries and engines are crammed in somewhere. The Ghosty is designed to provide tremendous flexibility in street combat for soldiers who are tethered to the copter with ropes. With trained fighters, it looks like old Spiderman movies. They jump off buildings and back up again, leap over them or swing through urban canyons. The Ghosty is above the buildings and can pull the fighters up at any time. In any case, the thing is so cool that Ghosty units have star status and they are the heroes in every action movie.

Flying with a Ghosty is something I've wanted to do for a long time. I could see myself sailing through urban canyons with my Pox9 in my hands, shooting down a repro gull in flight that was attacking a stroller ...

So I was daydreaming while we stood around until the Ghosty arrived. This one did not keep waiting, but approached at breakneck speed. With a phenomenal braking action, it came to a stop just above our heads. The pilots lowered the special ropes. It was the jetcopter crew that had rescued us in Auvergne. Tamara had only wanted these three pilots who had helped us out of the cave at the risk of their own lives. The boss chopped me in, "Well, since you're not trained for this, I'll take your control. Hold on here and don't touch anything else."

Then we were off. I didn't even have time to get excited about my first Ghosty trip. Because as I hung in the air, secured only by a few thin ropes, I was suddenly afraid of heights. But that's exactly what I didn't want to have, because actually I found it super great to fly around with a Ghosty.

Between joy and fear, I missed all the announcements Thibault made to us about the chateau, and only got that it was a castle with an attached hotel. Some people had been attacked by repro cats and were hiding in the wine cellar. We would have to evacuate them.

For a change, a mission without drama. Thirty minutes later, we were done. After that we returned to the cellar “to check on hidden repros” but in reality Tamara studied exactly which bottles were in the wine cellar.

But just as she was about to demonstrate how to open a bottle with a machete while Gabin was filming, the radio crackled.

"Okay, guys," came Thibault's voice over the radio. "The one gardener hasn't shown up yet. He may be hiding in a room in the castle. Or in one of the tool sheds. So you'll have to search everything there."

Tartelette groaned and put the bottle back. We walked back to the courtyard where soldiers and other units had gathered. She then looked around the the scattered people. She quickly assembled the search teams with the R-soldiers and other ReS units.

R-soldiers were specialists who had undergone special training in repro combat, except that they could not detect the smell of repro. Their main weapon was the STEZ, a short machine gun with powerful zappers that fired in a beam pattern, covering a large area with a single shot. This required these fighters to carry ammunition and battery packs on their backs.

I envied them this weapon, it was quite different from our primitive machete.

"No way," Tartelette said when I told her my wish, "Just check the statistics and see how many people have been killed by STEZ fire. Those things are only good when there's nobody around for miles."

"Our zappers kill too, don't they?", I asked doubtfully.

"Yes, but we can switch them to minimum power when there are crowds. A shot at minimal power, is just very painful, but people do not die from it. You'd better learn the theory units! Didn't you learn accelerated learning and speed-reading in school?”

I didn't get to do anything to defend myself. Unfortunately, I had been in an old-fashioned school just as in past centuries with teachers and classes. An not in one of the standard school that support children with trained learning coach and only regarded subject experts gave compact and exceedingly exciting lessons. The main feature was to teach children to learn how to learn so that they left the school as highly motivated autodidacts. I had always envied them. I vowed to catch up quickly on these techniques, Tamara had certainly suitable learning materials.

Together with some R-soldiers we searched the hotel. All rooms had to be searched individually for the lost gardener. But except for a repro cat, we found nothing.

Finally, the resolution came from Thibault:

"Hey guys, news from the Arcachon ReS unit. They found the gardener. He was holed up in a vacant garden tower and is fine."

We had searched the last room. "Well, let's take a break. Let's go to the kitchen," Tartelette said, opening her visor.

A little later, we helped ourselves to the warming buffet, where the arranged plates were still under the infrared heater. I caught a lamb carré with a deluxe potato gratin; it was really good. Tartelette and Gabin discovered a Chateau Briand in one of the convectomats and shared it, while the soldiers went for the various fish dishes. Emily found the cheese and cake buffet.

In the meantime, we listened to Thibault's reports. The ocelot had still not been found, and the muffled rumbling we heard was satellite shots of the surrounding fields, where an entire colony of repro-vole had spread.

Tartelette ran more simulations based on the information of where which repro had been killed.

I emptied another bowl of chocolate mousse and asked Tartelette for permission to briefly link me to my family.

After the chat with my family, I went through our private video footage with Gabin (that is, the ones we had privatly recorded and not already confined by ReS headquarters) and Gabin started editing the scene with the employer being choked by Tartelette. It was unbelievable how skilled he was at it. With effort I also got a clip together, but when I wanted to upload it, I was almost slain by the thousands of messages in my new account. Most of them were positive, but also negative ones, some called me a clumsy fool or made fun of my Alsatian accent.

But one link piqued my curiosity: "How long will the new trainee live?" it led to a betting shop where people were betting on my lifetime. That hit me. I was suddenly tired of all this social media stuff. But Gabin offered to do it for me. He said to just let him have my video footage and he would share the profits fraternally. I was delighted with this offer. But then it was time for work.

The ocelot had been spotted disappearing into the forest and running toward the coast. Tamara immediately gave orders:

"That means we'll follow its trail. If you're tired, take a shot of Adalin. R-soldiers you can join their ReS units and clean up here properly. Thanks for your help."

I instructed my battle suit to give me a few milligrams of Adalin. And quickly scrolled through the side effect list, only to see that Emiliy might have been exaggerating.

Adalin was a sleep inhibitor that was pretty much completely harmless. It worked great and had few side effects. Nevertheless, it was hardly available outside the military, because there was a risk of abuse. At most, doctors could still get it, for example, to get through an eighteen-hour surgery.

When Adalin was introduced, it was seen as a solution to the many labor shortages after the repro-apocalypse. Factory workers were sometimes forced to take it in order to complete 24-hour shifts. After that, some started taking it in their free time as well. After all, they wanted to do something instead of sleeping after all that work. And after some crazy people had been taking it for years to stay awake, going crazy, it was just banned.

That calmed me down, I wouldn't take it all day long, but only in emergencies.

We walked all night without further incident and explored the forest. At some point Emily said, "Can't we finally take a break, we've walked over twenty kilometers now, not to mention all the little detours ..."

But Tartelette, already missing her breakfast, looked irritated and poked Emily violently on the helmet:

"For crying out loud, you've all been given sinfully expensive muscle stimulation machines. So you should be able to do three marathon runs in a row. At least!"

I thought Tartelette was absolutely right, and wondered why Emily was always in a foul mood.

"Good morning folks," Thibault called into the radio, "it's six in the morning. Another sunny summer day is in store. A whopping 33 degrees is expected. I can just see that your hydration supplies are running low. Your best bet is to find a clearing to meet up with the Ghosty."

The Ghosty team brought us a nice breakfast consisting of croissant, tea and coffee. The pilots had unceremoniously bought everything at the nearest village when they changed their batteries.

We had breakfast in the clearing while Tartelette handed out extra weapons.

Loaded like a donkey, we continued on. The Harzapp hung on my back in addition to the pump shotgun, and in front of my chest I had small machine gun too. Fortunately, the forest was getting thinner the closer we got to the sea. It was now just after nine and the sun was already beating down on us pretty hot.

And finally some news from the ocelot. He had bitten a jogger at the Tourist Center at the Dune du Pilat.

The boss immediately instructed the Ghosty to bring us up and we flew to this shifting dune, which rose almost a hundred and fifty meters into the air.

"Ahoy, ocelot ahead, just under a hundred meters off the water, at three o'clock!" shouted Emily excitedly.

Sure enough! The ocelot had run over the dune and was running away from us straight to shore.

"Shoot it down!" screeched Tartelette, for under no circumstances was the critter allowed to reach the water and cause another fish repro catastrophe there.

The Ghosty was loaded with weapons and ejected two guided missiles. They exploded at the water line where we had last seen the ocelot.

Despite an intensive search, we didn't catch the full carcass afterwards, but at least we caught parts of the animal.

"We need to have the beach and shoreline bombed with precision missiles. Thibault, get permission and prepare everything for a precision satellite bombardment within a 250-meter radius. Make sure the government grants it quickly!” She gave the parameters of the bombardment in rapid succession while the Ghosty took cover, namely just behind the dune. The pilots landed and waited. We scrambled to the top edge and looked down at the beach. Finally after 10 minutes, the red laser warning beam shot down. We saw how some sailing ships, which were nearby, immediately turned away and searched for the distance as good as they could. Because they all knew what the red warning beam meant. It was a two minute warning. We waited patiently and watched the sailing boat getting out of range.

Suddenly, a cry of terror from Thibault. "Get off the dune! The idiots have increased the 250 meter radius to 1000 meter. Holy Shit, a nuclear satellite is targeting you!!!"

We frantically jumped down the dune.

"Hack your way in. Stop the nuke!!!" screamed Tamara in earnest panic.

Blinding light lit up the world and the dune was emotionally pulverized.

Of course this was not the case, only the first meter of sand on the dune hill had been thrown into the air and we all had to dig ourselves free, the Ghosty had also started to slide due to the mass of sand and tipped over to the side. However, the soldiers were already digging it free to get it back upright.

The explosion had been violent, but since we were still alive it meant that Thibault could stop the nuke.

Emily scrambled up the dune and looked toward the sailboats, me panting behind. One catamaran floated keel up, and around it floated a larger debris field. Probably all the rigging had been torn apart. One of the three sailors clung to the hull, one swam in slow motion to the third, which lay motionless in water. Quickly, the soldiers brought the Ghosty online and flew off with Gabin and Emily to retrieve the sailors. I was left alone with the boss, which was pale with rage.

"Thibault damn it, what was that about! I exactly told you 250 meter radius….not a any meters more! And I have surely not mentioned a nuclear cleaning when I’m standing right on the targeting zone!” cursed Tartelette into the microphone as we stood alone on the dune.

"Sorry boss, the government people overreacted. They overrode your suggestions and spontaneously ordered a complete cleanup with 1000 meter radius. And somebody managed to get a launch permission for the nuke too. I managed to hack the satellite at the last moment and stop the nuke. Otherwise there wouldn't have been much left of you and Dune du Pilat and surrounding villages.

“Somebody gave launch permission for a nuke? A Nuke? In an habitated area? Without evacuation?? Who has the power to order such a thing ... only the king! Does he want me dead or what!" said Tartelette, pale with rage.

I was still shaking from the shock of almost being killed. But we had no time to think. We still had to find a reprogrammed jogger who had been bitten by the ocelot. The implanted NFC chips meant everyone could be located, and a red dot on the helmet display showed it. So the search would be easy.

I ran after Tartelette, who ran down the dune in great leaps and disappeared into the woods. I had to strain to keep up with her. The red dot on the map we were chasing seemed startled by the explosion and moved lower and moved deeper into the forest. Fortunately, the forest was incredibly dense. This hindered the man ... but us just as much. At some point we resorted to using machetes to make our way.

We had to be very close to the man because the repro smell was quite strong. Then we found him. He had tangled himself in a bramble bush and was unflinchingly tearing away scraps of skin to free himself. He did not see us. His face was frozen in the typical grimace and his eyes looked vacant, as if everything human had left his body. He had countless wounds and abrasions, but they were already healing and forming that hideous-looking black-gray slime. This was never seen so pronounced in animals, simply because it usually disappeared into the fur.

"Thibault, record the kill protocol: Former human Jules Durchand is hereby identified by two ReS employees as genetically reprogrammed. He exhibits all three major symptoms. A final voice sample is awaited." Tartelette flipped up her visor and called the man by name. The latter turned at the sound of her voice, threw himself forward to attack us, tangled himself again, and began to free himself. He forgot about us and did not react to us anymore.

While it did happen that we found people who had not yet fully transformed, they usually reacted in panic and begged for help, knowing that they were transforming. Or worse, they didn't know they were already in the process of being reprogrammed. I had seen a video of such an incident in which a young man begged for mercy and insisted that it was all a misunderstanding. But the commando simply killed him. That was the worst variant of all. I hope to never have to face a semi-transformed person myself, it would feel like murder.

Unless you had to shoot a repro human in self-defense, a kill protocol was inevitable. For in earlier times, to make matters worse, it had happened that police officers simply killed drunks or people who otherwise seemed crooked to them. Only out of the repro presumption. This had been lifted. Only special police units were allowed to shoot repros in non-self-defense circumstances. As special forces, we had been given the killing clearance as well.

"Okay Junior, this is your first human. But don't get confused. He's no different than any of the many repros we kill day in and day out. So zap and behead as usual."

I felt it was a significant difference whether it was a human or an animal. But Tartelette pushed me forward when I hesitated. I didn't know if I was ready for it.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't send you off if I wasn't sure you were going to make it."

With those encouraging words, I stumbled into the bushes, not really knowing if I would have the courage to go through with it. But the repro took the decision away from me. He spotted me and tore free of the brush. He charged at me with a violence that only reprogrammed humans had and wrenched his jaws unnaturally wide open to bite me. The image from my worst nightmares.

The trauma of the last generations: An attacking repro with jaw wide open. Almost casually, I zapped him and moments later my machete sank into his neck. His head rolled away. This happened within two seconds, I was so used to it from training that my body performed the movements automatically. Tamara patted me on the shoulder and I felt like I was in seventh heaven.

"Well done, now we'll wait for the funeral company.... and then we'll have some food ... hmm maybe some blackberries can be found?"

Less than an hour and a half later, we were all sitting in a sidewalk café in the famous wine region in Saint-Émilion. Gabin and the others had flown the sailors, who were badly battered, to a hospital before picking us up in the forest. Then Tartelette had also given the address of an 'exquisite restaurant’.

In the press we found nothing of the incident, there was no report of the near nuclear strike. Somewhere in a side note there was a hint that a sailing ship had not sailed away in time and was therefore torn to pieces during a cleanup operation. Our broadcast was off exactly after Tamara had passed the parameters and only turned back on when we followed the repro in the forest. But our anger quickly faded, as we were celebrated on the evening news for saving Bordeaux from disaster. ReS headquarters had already cut together our most adventurous fight scene and the clip went around the world.

In the evening, the Ghosty pilots just dropped me off in the parking lot of the mall where I was going to pick up my bike. I still had to do my shopping, but I didn't even have any coins with me, because my civilian clothes were still in the Decacopter. Wait a minute, Gabin had uploaded some private clips, hadn't he? And indeed he had kept word and my bank account had magically be filled up with a good deal of money. I let the shopping be and ordered a true five-course menu from a delivery service, while looking for my bike.

A small problem were all the weapons that I still carried. I clamped the Harzapp to the crossbar and strapped the assault rifle to the luggage rack. I then pedaled back on the squeaky bike and more than a few people turned to look at me. At first I didn't know if I should be embarrassed, but then I decided to see the comedy behind it and had to laugh out loud.