Gloria changed her mind about Jim, “So when she is done with Bob she will be coming back here to you?”
He shrugged then went back to his plate, “Frankly, I’m surprised she hasn’t shown up already. She can hear our raised voices from farther away than she is and that is assuming she isn’t listening already by tapping into my helmet. I’m warning you not to underestimate her. Carmen wouldn’t let you harm me anymore than I would allow anyone to harm her, so we’re fortunate that we have not given her that impression.”
Gloria found that hard to believe, but not enough to think it impossible so she turned then opened the door to check the hallway. Carmen stood right outside and the surprise made Gloria squeak.
“I apologize for eavesdropping,” Carmen excused herself, “but it sounded like something was wrong.” If she was in a hostile mood, she did an excellent job of concealing it. She only wanted to see if Critias was in danger at the hands of their new hosts, “Is everything alright?”
Critias gave her a wave to show their squabble was nothing for her to be worried about, “Gloria didn’t say anything to me that I didn’t deserve. Everything’s fine.”
Carmen saw that their gear was in the room as if that was their new quarters, “Did Jim give you this room for us to stay in?”
He was concerned she didn’t like it, “It’s kind of small and rather homely. I can go back and talk to him about getting us something a little bigger.”
“Don’t ask for another room,” she said; the thought of that displeased her. “This is a special place now, our first home together, only the bed is too small.” The thought of that made her smile at him adoringly, “That will just be cozy too.”
Carmen’s clear display of love for her abusive tyrant disgusted Gloria, “Why do you want to stay with him when he treats you so badly?”
“Critias has never wanted to hurt me,” Carmen answered her. “He’s human and a man. It’s not his fault that he’s selfish and stupid.”
Gloria thought she knew the nature of an abusive man and the submissive nature of a battered woman, “You cling to him only because he has conditioned you to it. If you knew better, you would leave him and never look back. I wonder if he wasn’t lying about your electronic shackles being broken. He just doesn’t want all of us to know what he’s doing to you.”
Critias commanded Carmen so he could prove Gloria wrong, “I order you as your lord and master to go back to what you were doing and leave us alone.”
Carmen shrugged with complete indifference to his orders, “You can tell me what to do, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen if I don’t want to, and I’m not ready to leave yet. I order you to come over here and give me a kiss. I do want that. Maybe after that, Gloria will let you take out the Milk Wagon and we can all be friends again. It’s true that my work with Bob is at a critical stage and I don’t have all night to keep her from shooting you to avenge my honor. If she goes to Jim to complain and he does try to part us, I’ll be angry.” Carmen gave Gloria a serious stare, “Critias is mine and no one will take him from me.”
Critias went over to kiss her cheek. It wasn’t enough for Carmen so she kissed him with more passion on the mouth. For a brief instant, he caught her searching expression where she wanted some mysterious thing from him. The unfathomable request in her expression still made him uncomfortable. To put distance away from that mystery, he told her, “I found a sword down in the armory that I thought you would like.”
Carmen saw it lying on the other bed so she went over to examine it. She picked it up then unsheathed the blade about a quarter of its length. Carmen recognized its origin immediately, “This is a Dōtanuki. I suspect that whoever put it in the armory did so not realizing its actual artistic and historical value. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to carry something this irreplaceable.”
Critias didn’t think it would be that valuable and wondered if it was wrong for him to take it without asking, “Is it that old?”
“It’s probably about three hundred years old,” she confirmed. “Maybe you should give it to King Louie to display as art.”
He disagreed, “You’re the only person anywhere who actually knows how to use it properly. It’s the kind of weapon worthy of you. If they complain later, I’ll compensate them somehow. Let that be my burden.”
“If this is a gift from you then I shall cherish it.” She returned the sword to the bed, “I will sharpen and polish the blade later. Are you going to be here? I should be finished helping Bob before morning.”
“I’ll be here waiting for you,” he promised.
She kissed him appreciating his gift and the thought behind it, “I’m glad you’ll be here. My electrocells are so tired. It’s been such a long day.”
Gloria wasn’t sure what to think, but she accepted the fact that Carmen had free will and wanted to be with Critias regardless of whatever past differences they might have had. Gloria still needed to hear it from Carmen’s own lips, “Why do you stay with him, if you don’t have to?”
“You know why,” she answered on the way out the door. “Everyone knows why just by seeing him. I thought Critias was the only one without the nerve to just say it.” Carmen shut the door then she was gone.
“Finish your dinner,” Gloria told him with acceptance as she was also leaving. She did know why Carmen stayed, because Critias was a good man and he did love her. “Wasting food is a sin,” Gloria preached. “I’ll be seeing you for the next trip in the Milk Wagon to the grocery store.”
After Gloria had left, Critias finished his dinner in quiet solitude. It was not that tranquil with the distant howling of the ghouls out in the city, but he had long since conditioned himself to put that out of mind. He took the tray back to the Funland kitchen afterward and while there, Critias asked for directions to where he could find the storerooms with extra clothes, furniture, and other household items.
He spent several hours while he refurnished their apartment. Critias put in a new bed large enough for two people. He added a dresser for their clothes and loaded it with a wide assortment of garments for Carmen and himself. Some gun racks and two footlockers replaced the crates that stored their equipment. Critias made the room pleasant enough with a new rug on the floor and his other minor improvements.
It was after three in the morning when Carmen finished her work where she helped Bob assemble the science android. Critias only half awoke when she came in quietly in the dark. Carmen slipped into bed beside him and with a few whispered gentle words he would not remember, she put him back to sleep with her snuggled naked against him.
Chapter 8: The Hawk, Scorpion, and Frog
Critias’ mechsuit helmet picked up a fresh frequency about an hour after sunrise. A broadcasted woman’s voice awoke Critias as she called in desperation, “Can you read me? Please come in! Can anyone hear me? We are,” then the transmission fell off into unintelligible distortion.
Carmen sat up first then shook him fully awake, “There’s a message coming from your helmet.”
He got up to grab his helmet off the chair, “I set it to scan for frequencies still in use.” The transmitter and antennae in his mechsuit were of much superior hardware than anything in the contemporary technology so it was unlikely anyone else could receive such a feeble signal.
“Heard your transmission,” she said followed by something inaudible, “your help.”
“I can hear you,” Critias transmitted back with considerable power.
Having finally gotten an answer the woman elated, “Oh, thank God! There are five of us in our group. We are north of the city and can’t find,” the message broke off, “roads are blocked. We’re searching for King Louie.”
“Don’t try to cross the city,” Critias warned them. “You won’t make it. Find a secure hiding place and don’t reveal yourselves. We will come get you.”
If the woman heard him, she didn’t answer. It was possible that the atmospheric conditions that skipped her weak transmission all the way to Critias
had closed its window or that her radio had simply run out of battery power.
Carmen went to the door of their room, flung it open, and then yelled for one of the duty guardsmen to come to her aid. She could make herself heard when the mood was upon her so Carmen called with an impulsion that would have made Fat Jack envious. She didn’t have to wait very long before a man ran down the hall to stop outside her door to see just what the emergency was that required so much urgency.
“What is the matter, miss?” the man inquired short on breath.
Carmen put a finger under his chin to lift his gaze off her rectangular racing stripe of purple fringe. Once he gazed into her eyes, Carmen instructed, “Go inform King Louie that we have received a radio transmission from five survivors who are currently trapped in the northern part of the city. It is clear that they need our immediate assistance. Tell the King that we will meet everyone in Funland in ten minutes.” She gazed back to see that Critias didn’t watch her with an elevated gaze either so Carmen told the guard, “Better yet, make that a meeting in twenty minutes.”
The watchman ran back the way he came to deliver the message. Even while still afoot, he called into his handheld radio so that the gist of his news would arrive ahead of him.
As Carmen shut the door, Critias reached for his clothes to cover his morning potency. Like the lucky guard, he couldn’t resist the temptation when he admired Carmen unclothed and the view had made the firmness of his purpose all the more resolute.
Carmen snatched the pants from his hand then tossed them aside, “We have unfinished business, you and I.” With an emphatic shove, she toppled him back across the bed to make vigorous use of him, “It would be terribly irresponsible of us to undertake a rescue mission while I’m only half charged.”
The King’s patrol guards used their radios to spread the word that everyone should meet in Funland for an emergency meeting. It was more than a request because such a summons could only mean something important. To be the last to arrive to a call of general emergency reflected poorly upon a person so everyone made haste to get there except for Carmen and Critias who arrived a minute late. Once again, Carmen’s amorous appetite had made Critias tardy for an important appointment.
The sight of a thousand survivors in one room as they waited to hear news impressed Critias. The people had come from secret gardens atop hotels and from dusty tunnels that ran beneath the streets. They were the hardiest specimens that humanity had to offer, the final few with the indomitable will to outlast all others. Decoded like a message from their grim determined faces, Critias took measure of their boy king.
The crowd parted to let Critias and Carmen pass through them toward the Captains’ Table end of the room with its back to the kitchens. Critias wore his full mechsuit weapons strapped. During his explorations of the general storerooms, Critias had discovered diving-suit gloves and a hood that matched Carmen’s wet-surfing body suit. Thus aquatically dressed, she appeared the paragon of splash protection, especially combined with goggles and respirator. Along with her pistol holster, teslaflux carbine-rifle, and the new samurai sword across her back, the military equipment gave Carmen the intimidating visual aspect of a clandestine martial assassin, which wasn’t far from the truth.
The King stood on the Captains’ Table where he waited to speak while the crowd murmured with all their speculation. Because Critias had finally arrived, Fat Jack shouted, “Everybody listen up!” His insistence was enough to bring a hush down over the room.
Jim spoke to the attentive community, “The newly arrived Critias has just detected a radio message coming from five survivors somewhere up north of here on the edge of the city. All our best efforts to regain radio contact have thus far ended in failure. Come up here Critias; tell us as much as you know.”
Critias went to Jim with Carmen by his side then he told the audience, “I believe they are still alive, taking shelter somewhere awaiting rescue. Their radio is of poor quality, which explains why we can’t reach them, but it may still work well enough for us to use it for finding them once we are close to their location. Even if their radio no longer functions, I’m certain they will hear us approaching. They can find some way to signal to us, either by making smoke or by gunshots. Even while uncertainties abound, Carmen and I are prepared to make a try for them. We have experience at this kind of rescue operation. If any of you are volunteering to assist us, your help is appreciated.”
Jim told the room, “All the main roads going north are blocked in with stalled traffic. One option is to take the Thunder Child even further north up the river then drive in heading south. The only way to get there from here would be by taking the Rhino bulldozer out to clear the road. Without knowing exactly where those people are, the risk of dying stuck out there outweighs any realistic expectation of success. It is one thing for us to lose those five strangers out there, but it’s altogether worse not only losing them but also the rescue team I sent after them besides. Any rescuers I sent out would surely be from among our best most talented people, the kind of specialists we could least afford to waste.”
The audience as a whole felt inclined toward offering help to the five survivors, but most of them didn’t think it was worth the try unless they knew precisely where to go.
“We will go alone on foot before leaving them to their fate,” Critias pledged. “I told them to take shelter and that help was coming. I intend to fulfill that promise. I will not let this be the first time that I refused to render aid to those in need of rescue from ghouls.”
Jim turned to Fat Jack, “The survival of everyone depends too much on you and the Foragers. I can’t allow any of you to risk yourselves over this. I’ll go with them myself in the Rhino. At the very worst, we should just make it back without them. The Rhino can handle any number of infected by just plowing them under.”
“No, my King,” Hatchet advised hotly against it. “Send me in your place. If you fall so shall we all. If you get killed, everyone would be at each other’s throats within a month and divided inside the year.”
Jim decreed, “If anything happens to me, Jack will take my place and everyone will follow his lead. Even so, Hatchet, I would not go without you to watch my back.”
“Just send me in your place,” Hatchet begged.
“Admirals don’t win sea battles by watching them from shore,” Jim told him. “If we are to undertake this reckless endeavor then I will have my own hand in it. I need teams to ready the Rhino to leave immediately. We need fuel, weapons, and emergency supplies.”
The room exploded into the action of people as they rushed off to make the preparations.
The Rhino was a tracked bulldozer that they had removed the original blade from then replaced with an indestructible steel wedge like the prow of a ship. The body of the lumbering machine was a cube of armor plate that formed a mobile bunker. Downward-pointing skewers fortified the roof to repel any infected that tried to scale the tall smooth sides of the armor. Heavy military machineguns pointed to the front and rear and flamethrowers could spray in all four directions. While nearly unstoppable, the Rhino was agonizingly slow. It had a small hatch on the top and a large one in the back. They kept the vehicle behind the shed that sheltered Big Joe.
The crews quietly snuck out from the King’s Tower entrance and then down the covered tunnel to the transport shed so they could operate the gate to let the Rhino outside the barrier. One of the teams loaded ammunition and supplies into the vehicle then made certain they had it fully fueled, which included the emergency reservoir.
When all was ready, Critias and Jim went carefully out first to the Rhino so that none of the ghouls outside the barrier witnessed their movements. Hatchet and Carmen followed after. The vehicle’s rear hatch was against the wall of the shed so it was possible to reach it undetected.
Only a few dozen ghouls lurked at the edge of the barrier cage, but hundreds more were less than a minute away, always ready to respond to any feeding calls of their kind. Many previous batt
les with the infected had left the streets outside the barrier stained with their infected blood. There were also those scattered headshot bodies that lay green in the sun where they had fallen. Their flesh stayed perpetually inedible to rats, birds, and insects alike. No other animal but man could serve as host to the ghoulish disease, but all creatures considered their tainted meat to be indigestible.
Jim checked the Rhino’s radio to make sure it was operational then he ordered the gate crews in position to let them out of the barrier. Hatchet started the Rhino’s engine on his first try and then drove for the gate. The sound of the Rhino’s powerful engine instantly alerted infected to a human presence for a kilometer all about.
The gate crew ran to their task ever vigilant that one scratch from the metal of the barrier could mean their doom as they became one of the slavering ghouls or at the very least, it would mean a day in the cells as they waited to see if they turned. Two of the men swiveled flamethrowers to give the infected near the gate a thorough discharge from the weapons, which set the creatures into blazing retreat. As the Rhino was about to collide with the barrier, two other men released the locks that let the counterweights raise the portal.
Gravewalkers: Dying Time Page 14
