Читать книгу The Fallen Heroine - Fabienne Gschwind - Страница 9

"Muscles need rest to grow, it's called supercompensation," Tartelette explained to me. Emily had prepared breakfast and set out extra protein drinks for me. "So you can build muscle mass and get as big and strong as Gabin," she smiled as Gabin took off his uniform jacket and posed like a bodybuilder. Tartelette joined him and performed some ninja pressure technique on Gabin, who fell to the ground like a potatoe bag. I watched in fascination - I really had to learn that trick.

Breakfast sort of turned into brunch while Tartelette watched helmet video with us and gave us tips on what we could improve.

Someone knocked on the door. Our ReS doctor, Doctor Selger, entered. "Ah, the vampire. Well roll up your sleeves, folks." The doctor was used to these jokes, as he came by every two weeks to draw blood and do other tests that were on his long list.

Since we came in contact with repro so frequently, it was important to check us regularly for blood count changes. In addition, we were closely supervised by fitness trainers and physical therapists. After all, we had to be fit to fight again in the shortest possible time after injuries, so we received the best possible medical care. Gabin, with his broken ribs, was ready for action again after only six hours in the regeneration tank.

Tartelette rolled up her sleeve and extended her forearm to the doctor. Afterwards, Emily went to the shooting range and Gabin wedged himself behind some theory sessions, while Doctor Selger suddenly turned to Tartelette. "Commander, have you committed this boy yet? Because of paragraph 24(4)?"

I had opened the large ReS manual on my computer and looked up in amazement.

Tartelette was looking at me with a strange expression on her face. "Boy, wait in the old coffee room. Gabin, where do you keep your wonder magazines?"

Somewhat confused, I stood up and walked to the unused chamber where packaging, boxes, cleaning robots, and old combat armors piled up. What on earth was the boss planning to do with me? Suddenly, she stood behind me and pushed me roughly onto a crate while she pulled the door shut behind her. "So, you must have had biology in school?"

I was relieved. I would do well on a science exam and so I nodded in agreement. "Then you've also heard about Mendel and his peas." Immediately I affirmed, remembering the lessons on heredity and breeding.

"Wonderful, then you must have had sex education in school?"

Her icy blue eyes stared at me. I was embarrassed and felt myself blushing.

"Very well, then fill this up and get it to Doctor Selger." I looked at the plastic box she held out to me. I think my face contorted into an incredulous grimace.

"... W ... w ... what?", I then brought out.

"Lad, don't make such a fuss. You're a clever fellow, aren't you? It will be obvious to you, won't it, that the gene that allows us to smell Repros is incredibly valuable. But ReS sailors usually die before they get around to fathering children. So sooner or later, the gene would die out. Once a month, sailors donate their sperm and female sailors are forced to donate egg cells."

I fell silent as Tartelette held out a retro porn magazine to me, and the little tin with my name on it.

"You know how to do it, right?"

I think that made my face fully blush, because I felt the burn all over. Hesitantly, I nodded. "Very well, then fill up the little tin!"

"Now?"

She hefted the rolled-up magazine over my head.

“No! Tonight, on your own time! You're not getting paid to have fun here!" With that, she turned around laughing.

I didn't dare go back outside, because now I wouldn't survive a joke from Gabin or Thibault.

After what felt like an hour, I thought I was no longer blushing and stuck my head outside. Emily had just returned and a police officer was walking purposefully to Tartelette's office.

"Hey ReS!", it was the friendly policeman, Gerhard, our contact man to the police barracks. Because we shared the building with the cops. "We're going to play a round of zapper shooting later, want to join us? We could use some teammates. There's cake afterwards too!" he tried to bait Tartelette, but she was a willing participant from the start.

"We'll join in, it's good target practice. Will you bring us some game zappers ... we don't have any."

Logically, our normal zappers were much more powerful than the ones the police used. Gerhard nodded and disappeared again while Doctor Segler stowed the blood tubes and said goodbye.

"Emily are you playing?"

"No, mon Capitaine. I don't want to shoot anyone, I think that's stupid."

I dared to slip quickly into the room, for at the moment no one was paying any attention to me. It was good that everyone was distracted and Tamara was staring at Emily relentlessly.

There was a crack as Thibault came into the room with his exoskeleton just behind me. He had overheard the conversation and reared up behind Emily. "When the captain says you raise the sails, you don't argue, you do it, sailor!" Tartelette laughed and everyone joined in.

By the way, the fuss about sailors and ships was not far-fetched, because the ReS was not under the army in France, but under the navy for completely illogical reasons. I had learned that yesterday from Thibault.

After everyone had calmed down enough, Emily looked up.

"I'll do it if you order me to," she clarified, and Tartelette looked at her icily. Thibault had told me that both women regularly engaged in catfights, and I wondered if this was it. But after Emily lowered her eyes, Tartelette eased away from her.

Fortunately, no alarm came and we played round after round with the cops. To my great regret, there were only three female officers in the crew of twenty. Of those, two were maybe barely thirty, so way too old, the other already had a boyfriend... So I would have to look elsewhere for a girlfriend....

The police commander was satisfied with my shooting performance and praised me: "The boy is really good. Hey kid, aren't you going to join us?"

"No way, Colonel, Matthis is mine!" my captain countered immediately and I became quite blissful that she was using my name for the first time.

Finally, there had to be a wrestling match. A new policeman was persuaded to compete against Tamara. Although Commander Arlette was known as a fearsome fighter, this did not impress the big, strong commissar. He was confident of victory and threw himself at the smaller Tamara. I grinned as my commander unceremoniously took him down and forced his arm into a police hold until he gave up. Unbelievable how many tricks she knew!

Everyone hooted and laughed. What fun! And I asked Tamara to teach me to fight that well, too. "About 30 years of experience and daily training," she told me her secret. "Just do what I tell you, kid, and you'll learn everything."

I resolved to do just that, to emulate Tamara as best I could.

I dreamed in the night of Tartelette as queen and Thibault as king, while I was general of a rat repro army, trying to save a sinking boat with Gabin. Afterwards, a repro came at me with a stiff step and opened his jaw unnaturally wide. I fired, but my zapper didn't work. Then its teeth dug into my throat. Zombie! Yes, that's what they called the people who became repros. Because they corresponded exactly to the cliché of the mythical revenants.