Читать книгу The Fallen Heroine - Fabienne Gschwind - Страница 28

It took forever. In the meantime, ReS headquarters had already assembled an entire team to capture the human repros alive.

So 36 hours into the mission, we were decontaminated and back at the edge of Aven Armand, which was bustling with activity.

"And the dear Commodore still hasn't let a nuclear bomb fly around our ears?" asked Tartelette.

"Still no sign of him. But the media tore into him after your dialogue was aired, replicated and printed thousands of times. He has announced his resignation."

It occurred to me that the Commodore-in-Chief must have had many friends who were now hostile to Tartelette. They would not let the matter rest.

But then another radio from Thibault.

"Ahoy folks, the wolves have been found, near Montpellier- le-Vieux ..."

Finally, we agreed that Gabin and Emily would stay with the repro catcher units to support them, while Tartelette and I went to see about the wolves. It was already evening and night would soon fall.

In the meantime, since our Ghosty was chauffeuring another ReS unit around and there was no Deca available, we had to take an autonomous vehicle.

As usual, we were on the radio with all the people working with us and it was getting chaotic. There were our Ghosty pilots, even if they were with other people, the whole African repro catcher squad, Thibault and some more ReS units working directly with us. Somehow Thibault had to be very stressed as well, because otherwise he was careful that we did not hear all communication, but only what concerned us. While the other way around, everything we spoke was relayed.

In the quiet car, this confusion seemed to disturb even Tartelette, who was usually used to listening to the conversations of the policemen, Voltaires and other units as well.

"Thibault, can you get a handle on the radio, it's a mess."

No answer.

"Thibault!!!"

Then the radio traffic just stopped. Probably an overload.

I wanted to sit back and get some sleep, because the last of the Adalin had fizzled out and I was infinitely tired. But as I dozed off, the back of Tartelette's hand slammed into my face.

"What? Use the time to watch theory videos." I held my aching nose, gave myself a generous shot of Adalin, and listlessly set to work. I wondered why Tamara had done this, there was no one filming here far and wide. And she threw another tantrum. She wanted the car to stop at an organic farm to get some goodies. But the vehicle drove on unperturbed, because the boss had had no access rights.

An hour later we were there. No one was waiting for us in the huge parking lot and we had received no further information. The sun had almost set. A tourism robot spit out two paper plans with sightseeing routes through this rock labyrinth and so we set off.

The rock formations were beyond beautiful and the view of the Gorges de La Jonte was magnificent as well.

"And we're back!" came Thibault's voice over the radio.

Eventually it turned out that a drone had shot down the suspect wolf pack, the wolves were not repros as we now knew. Instead, Thibault sent us to Roc Hourtuc, where there was supposedly a repro sheep running around.

"It's going to be fun if we have to chase every animal in the backcountry because it might be a trained repro..." grumbled Tamara.

As we got into the car, the boss asked about the Ghosty. The answer after the missing Ghosty was complicated and Thibault had to elaborate a bit: "Here's what happened: the Commodore was here briefly earlier, after all, to hold an impromptu media conference on the spot. He's doing damage control. He tried to explain that he knew, of course, that you can't kill repros with a zapper... and that it was all a radio misunderstanding. In short, he personally dispatched your Ghosty for his own transport to fly him back to his hotel in Nice. After all, he has to prove what a hardened fighter he is," Thibault explained.

"WHAT?!?"

It was all the way back, with a raging boss beside me. What else could you expect on a Friday the thirteenth? I don't think I've ever watched a training video so intently.

Finally we arrived and in the darkness, made worse by a threatening storm cloud, we set off.

In pouring rain we found the mangled carcass of another sheep, but the tracks had been washed away and any repro smell had dissipated. We took shelter in a crumbling stone hut while listening to Smilly's news. They had had to make an emergency landing in the middle of the Alps because the commodore had refused to wear combat gear. He was massively hypothermic and wanted to sit in the pilot's dome. But there he had to find out that it did not provide any weather protection, but only kept the insects from slapping the pilots in the face.

So our guys had gotten out and parked the Ghosty between two glaciers while they unpacked the survival gear to keep the Commodore warm.

An ambulance deca was already on its way. Tartelette was amused by this.

Saturday, July 14, 2164

Finally, we found our repro ram. A chaotic chase along the deep canyon ensued. But unfortunately the ram went over the slope into the river.

Tamara ordered a deca with missiles to take him out. It was simply too dangerous to jump after him in white water.

But someone in the government insisted that we had to take him out by hand. If it was a trained repro after all, it would be important evidence.

Even ReS headquarters got involved and Tamara and I were lectured about our rights and that we should do what the authorities ordered, otherwise our families would suffer.

Of course, right at this moment our live broadcast was interrupted with a commercial break.

After all the threating of our families, we had no choice and jumped in after it.

"Someone in the royal government is doing their best to kill me by forcing us to take dangerous actions.” Tamara cursed.

I had somehow not expected that the headquarters would threaten us so clearly! My employers were no better than Mafiosi and were not afraid to threaten my family openly! Actually, something like that should have put me in fear and terror. But I didn't have time to really think about it, because I had to survive the next few hours first.

Due to all the rain, the Tarn was swollen and we were whirled through rapids. It was chaotic, every now and then I was pushed up to the surface and could see something.

Tartelette caught the ram and clawed at his leg. Both were pushed underwater for minutes. When they resurfaced, the buck was bloody, Tartelette's combat gear leaking and filling with water.

"Too many rocks down there," she gasps.

Tartelette had hit several times, but not fatally, so the buck bit into her shoulder armor and swiped at her with its hooves. Tartelette jerked her visor open and gasped desperately. Finally, she wrapped her legs around the ram and grabbed my chest strap with her hands to keep me from being swept away from her. "Blow his head off."

Now that I could let go of the animal, I got the slippery Gun out of the holder and put it to its head. It was darn close to Tartelette's unprotected face. "Shoot it!"

I shot. A gush of blood and brains splashed up and shrapnel flew around. For a few seconds, I thought that this was surely a movie scene that would go viral.

There was another surge. It was like being in a washing machine full of rocks. At least my suit stayed tight, Tartelette's was flooded and she could barely hold on to the surface. Her right arm dangled powerlessly in her combat gear. Together we dragged ourselves to the shallow shore. The dead ram washed up right next to me without having struggled as I had.

I opened the visor, gasping like crazy, and everything hurt. I gave myself a strong medicine to be on the safe side. I didn't even know exactly where I was hurt.

The boss was vomiting river water. She was panting heavily, an absolute rarity. And I had her perfectly in the frame of my helmet camera...unfortunately the shots belonged to the ReS headquartes… I already saw the title: "Reproslayer Arlette almost drawn by a Repro-Ram."

"Something in my shoulder is broken," she said, trying to give herself a pain block. But the pack of injectors was destroyed. She unceremoniously fixed her arm with pieces of the destroyed armor.

I was still lying in the sand when the commander got up and inspected the carcass of the buck. Her face was swollen on one side and shrapnel flashed in the flesh. But that didn't seem to bother her much, because part of her facial muscles were synthetic, after the accident with the tiger.

We could not detect any bite marks. Therefore, we assumed that it was a natural reprogramming. A glance at the clock told me that we had been fighting in the river for almost an hour. Slowly the exhaustion of the last two days was adding up and I could barely walk. In addition, I seemed to have sprained my foot when I hit a boulder. The pain blocker prevented the most suffering, but I was buckling under strain.

"Thibault, what's up."

"Let's see, Gabin and Emily are about to collect the last repro. The wolves that started it all are dead and you have the sheep too. And an ambulance is coming to pick you up."

As we were flown to the field hospital, we got word that even the king had come to look at the human repros.

The matter was so important that Louis-Napoleon the Third showed up in person!

Somehow I was proud of that. But we wouldn't see him, because the medical team immediately packed the two of us into regeneration tanks. Tartelette's collarbone was broken and her shoulder dislocated, my foot was badly sprained. But unfortunately they were not the generous glass regeneration tanks from the hospital, but only narrow mobile metal tubes. Through the small peepholes one could hardly see outside. I felt like I was in a coffin and counted down the seconds. They had promised to get us out in two hours. So two counts to 3600.

But then something very surreal happened. Men in a kind of knight's armor with waving capes came into the lazaret tent and shooed doctors and nurses out. It was the royal bodyguard! I tried to peek through the viewing hatches. A group of people dressed in the fancy clothes of nobles entered. I had only ever seen the king on television. But I was sure it was the guy standing in the middle while everyone fawned over him.

"No sensors, no microphones, no cameras," a guardsman said, nodding at the king.

I had no idea what to do and did the only thing I could think of: I pretended to be asleep.

"The boy's name is Matthis Kembs." Someone said, and Emily and Gabin's names were also listed. But then the king's voice rang out, "I'm not interested in the low-ranking employees of ReS La Rochelle. With Tamara's sailor attrition, they'll be dead and replaced by others within a year anyway. Only the lady here interests me."

I squinted through the hole. Everyone was standing around Tamara's tank, who could do nothing but stare angrily through the peephole. "Well well well, Commander Arlette. I'm trying so hard to promote my friend LeBoeuf to commodore, and you're undoing all my efforts with your big mouth. And as revenge I send you into a dangerous hunt through white water but you survive that with flying colors. Well, the good thing is that you have again delivered spectacular shots, which fills the state coffers. Actually, you should do highly dangerous missions more often..."

I didn't understand the rest; there was mocking and laughter.

"What button do I have to push to cut off the oxygen supply in the tank? Tamara, I hope you also did apnea training with your special unit!" the king laughed and then he tapped on her tank.

"Dear Tamara you are a real pest. Believe me, within a month you'll be kneeling before me. Or I'll have you guilotinated... Oh no, your fans would rave. I'll make you my cupbearer!" General laughter followed this saying.

I pressed my ear against the wall, not wanting to believe what I was hearing. Tamara drummed on the tank wall in anger, which only made everyone laugh more.

But then the king turned and left. "Duke Timoté deMaase will be so pleased when Arlette and her sailors fall to him. That lady is nothing but trouble." The king laughed again and everyone left the tent. I squinted again at the commander - she looked distressed.

After two hours, they finally let us out. The tank hadn't been enough to complete the healing, and Tamara's shoulder would be operated on that evening. She carried her arm in a sling and I helped her slip on a jacket.

"The king..." I wanted to start my sentence. But Tamara covered my mouth and shook her head.

"I thought you were asleep and didn't notice." She let go of me and looked around. Twice she started to say something and shook her head, finally she just whispered: "The king wants to proclaim the Lex Ferrum." This was the second time I had heard this, but I didn't understand why Tamara was so afraid of it. It was just an economic program, I explained. Tamara looked at me unnerved:

"You don't understand! The king wants to go back to feudal rule ... and we are his damn pawns in the process."

She stomped angrily outside. I thought about Tartelette's words and shrugged. None of it made any sense. I decided to read into this Lex Ferrum later and study it carefully.

Finally, Gabin and Emily appeared. They looked exhausted, but were unharmed.

Then there was a rattle as the Ghosty landed back at La Malene in the marketplace.

The pilots briefly told their story with the commodore.

"Then didn't he threaten you with a war tribunal or something?" inquired Tartelette skeptically.

"Nah, we're still part of the Army, so we're not part of the ReS yet. So he had no command over us... maybe we should leave it that way, and not mutate into the Navy after all."

With that, everything was said and the boss organized a wonderful dinner. She fought her way through the feast single-handedly, only cutting the meat caused her problems.

She was taken to the hospital immediately afterwards and we packed up our things. Late in the evening we flew back. On the way we watched the many new video clips of our fights on various video portals. As usual we had broadcast live and the fight with the human repros had reached dream ratings. Many shots were from my camera and you could mostly see Tamara doing something heroic.

A few clips also showed me fighting and many fan comments admired my fighting spirit.... I was proud of myself, and vowed to myself to train even more diligently.

Then great news from ReS headquarters: for my good performance, they gave me extra two days off duty starting immediately.

I had promised my mother to visit her as soon as I had time off. Now I was able to keep that promise, and after a short chat with my family, everyone was happy that I would come.

As soon as I was in my apartment, I delved into the train schedules, because I had to leave as soon as possible. Otherwise, my days off from work would already be gone. The train connections in France were terrible and the infrastructure had been reduced to the minimum. There were only two express trains a day to Paris. The first one at eleven in the morning. That was too late, I would not arrive in Ferrette, my home village, until the evening.

I could rent a car. My brother had come with my father's autonomous vehicle. Unfortunately, the west-east axes had been minimally restored, and the trip took twelve hours, as one had to drive on small back roads all the way to Paris before getting on the highway heading east.

Flights were also abnormally expensive and there weren't many. Basically, we were still at the level of the last trireligious war. Back then, politicians had done everything they could to restrict people's ability to travel. After all, they wanted to stop terrorists from moving around Europe at will, at least that was the official reason. In reality, they wanted to control everyone. Travel was only for the rich or people in powerful positions. Ordinary citizens could hardly afford cars; they were unaffordable, the price of gasoline unaffordable. As in past centuries, people had to walk or cycle for several hours to get to work.