Читать книгу The Fallen Heroine - Fabienne Gschwind - Страница 22

Chapter 4 La Rochelle 1 Thursday, July 5, 2164

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We were all having breakfast. Suddenly the door was flung open and Tartelette stared at us with her face contorted in rage. She went straight for Emily.

"I forbade you to write such letters!" the captain shouted so loudly that I'm sure it could be heard all the way in the policemen's offices, waving a rolled-up piece of paper around. I was stunned, Gabin and Thibault mentally grabbed their cameras to film. I quickly followed suit.

Emily stared at the tabletop. "It's my basic right!" she said in a muffled voice.

"STAND UP!"

She held the paper under the smaller Emily's chin and forced her to look her in the eye. "Someday I'm going to beat this fundamental right out of you!" the captain spat out angrily, tearing up the letter.

She tossed the shreds into Emily's coffee. "Drink!"

Emily didn't answer; she was as white as a sheet. I marveled at Emilie's superior acting skills. You really thought she was scared.

"Drink up, I command you!" Finally, she reached into Emily's updo and twisted her head into her neck, "Is that supposed to be a refusal of orders?" "Tamara please, stop it."

Tartelette's angry expression faded as if on cue and she grinned widely. That mocking grin I had seen so many times before. She tousled through Emily's hair.

"You are such a scaredy cat Emily!" The boss lady took the coffee and drank it down laughing.

"Light sailor, come into my office!" I hurried so much to run after Tartelette that I almost fell over the chair.

But Tamara just wanted me to sign some papers. "Actually, I have a secretary somewhere who should do that. But she works from home all the time, supposedly she's afraid of me."

The first emergency call of the day followed immediately. It was a faulty batch of the animal vaccine and it was to be expected that we would have to run after all kinds of pets in the next few days. I was on my way to the veterinary office to take care of a repro parakeet and Emily, who went with me, enlightened me about the incident earlier.

Emily wrote a transfer request to the job center every quarter. Each time, Tamara made a drama out of it and tore up the request. "You act really well," I told her. She looked at me strangely. "I don't act!"

The budgie was no challenge and quickly we returned. At the barracks building, we greeted a couple of police officers. I was pleased that I now knew everyone.

Meanwhile, the grounds were being diligently worked on. The commandant wanted to use the large square in the rear as a training area. With the earth piled up, we were surrounded by a five meter high earth wall, a perfect shooting range.

I walked with Emily to the front end of the new building and we marveled at the huge construction printer that was in the process of printing the new hangar exactly to Tartelette's wishes and those of the police commander, because we were going to use the hangar together.

Then we discovered our pilots. By the way, we now knew their names, respectively their last names, because they insisted on addressing each other only by that. Granard was the co-pilot, Smilly the pilot, the funniest of the three, and Prassert the weapons officer.

They were taking the Ghosty apart with two technicians to make sure the sand hadn't done any damage.

Gabin and Tartelette stood in a jumble of boxes and cardboard boxes spread halfway across the yard.

"The unloading robot broke down and spit everything out at once while the truck was still maneuvering," Gabin said as he straightened a large box and looked for the scan code.

It was a whole load of retro climbing gear and other military stuff. Then it was finally time for lunch.

But we came to nothing, this time a semi-transformed Chihuahua in the city center, at the same time a repro lamb in the slaughterhouse. I was again with Emily and we caught the repro dog without any problems.

It was a nice feeling and showed the progress I had made in the repro fight.

In the slaughterhouse things had not gone well, the boss had to watch pitifully as a whole fillet of beef was turned into minced meat, which she considered a great loss. We were hardly in the barracks - the next emergency call. A maybe-repro crayfish in some creek outside La Rochelle we had to check if it was a repro or not. By late afternoon, we were in our Ghosty on the way back and we were all heartily hungry. At a bistro, Tartelette shredded a robot waiter and held a machine gun to the whining host's head until we got the nod for a free meal. We weren't on life broadcast so this was good footage.

Our 3D printer had completed the hangar. Gabin and I got all our vehicles and gear in there while Tartelette organized the second dinner, in person and in full combat gear mind you.

"Does Tamara need extra publicity shots that she even raids two restaurant a day?" remarked Thibault, then awkwardly made his way to his apartment to refill his IV bags.

One of the posh restaurants agreed to deliver a full menu, on the house. Whether it was voluntary or whether Tartelette had helped out, we didn't know.

"Verinne de deux saumon dans sa gelée de madeire; Trio de l'agneau au piment d'espellette; gratin de pomme de terre dauphinoise; mousse au fruit de la passion sur lit de crème à la menthe," Tartelette read us the menu as we bent over the plates in full battle gear.

We ate up hungrily and then practiced bomb disposal.

Finally, around midnight, when Tartelette had gone to town (I have no idea where she lives) and Gabin and I were holding down the fort, another distress call came in almost as expected.

It was also an animal that had received a faulty antivirum. This time a German shepherd, but its owner had muzzled it thanks to the doctor's warning. Nevertheless, the dog had fled.

The Fallen Heroine

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