Gravewalkers: Dying Time (7 page)

Grand Marshal Wayne took a
second glass from his desk drawer, poured Critias a whiskey, and
then asked, “Cigar, Critias?”

Critias nodded, “I’d be
delighted, sir.”

Wayne pushed the cigar box
to Critias’ side of his desk, “You did a fine job down there,
son.”

“
Not well enough for
Governor Grant to even know my name,” Critias felt a little
underappreciated.

Grand Marshal Wayne gave
Critias a knowing smile, “When I sent you on that mission, how did
you feel about it?”

“
I was wondering what I
did to make you want to punish me with a reclamation center
inspection, a far cry from my usual support and rescue. It’s no
secret, sir, that there was bad blood between you and Colonel
Walker. Seeing one of your most loyal protégés was certain to set
him off in the worst way.”

Grand Marshal Wayne
expected more of an answer, “And?”

“
And in the end it seems
you were right, sir. Things were crooked down there. Colonel
Walker’s friendly-fire incident was really an infected laborer that
he executed off the books. Not long after I arrived, we find out he
had another infected on walkabout from the dormitory. The
brain-cooker ends up locked inside a dozer-defense tank, which he
then uses to plow a new highway straight out into the wild meat
yonder. As you can imagine, sir, things went rapidly downhill from
there. Some Red Rats I hooked up with dropped that building down on
their heads. Those guys really hustled. I will put them up for some
well-deserved commendations.”

“
I guess I was on the ball
then with my decision to send you down there and rattle Walker’s
cage a little.” The Grand Marshal leaned back in his office chair
feeling well satisfied with Critias’ assessment of the decisive
wisdom involved. After a puff of tobacco, he added, “I hope you
were not thinking it was just perchance that my number one son was
on the scene when they needed him most.” Wayne sipped whiskey,
“Speaking of rewards for service, how is that new gunship working
out for you? I don’t suspect even twin P-7 field-drives feels as
smooth under you as that new android. I have seen the combat specs
on that Epsilon-K they stewed for you. She’s the beauty hiding the
beast.”

Critias felt embarrassed
over his failure to fully appreciate the many fine luxuries he had
accrued with the generous assistance of the appreciative Grand
Marshal, who had in fact sensed improper goings on down at the
Chicago ERC and then promptly took appropriate measures to reach
the root of it. “I apologize, sir,” Critias admitted genuinely.
“You have always gotten the best for me and it was your shrewd
instincts that saved the day down in Chicago.”

Wayne divulged, “I’ve known
Colonel Walker since I was well younger than you are now. We grew
up at ludus together. I knew him more than well enough to sense
when he was getting a little shady to pump up some inarguably
astounding reclamation figures. His friendly-fire story was more
than fishy enough for me to have cause to command a formal inquiry.
I sent you to do an inspection, confident you were the right
marshal to infuriate him enough so that we could get to the bottom
of it.”

Critias said, “Not to seem
ungrateful again, sir, but I don’t think you have told me yet why
you summoned me here.”

“
Well,” the Grand Marshal
began and then paused to drain his glass, “the eggheads down in
engineering have pulled off something really amazing. It would be
more true to say that they have done the impossible. As I
understand it, they have discovered an important new lead on
creating a true antigen for infection. This project promises to
deliver a means of completely immunizing humans for Earth
recolonization.”

Critias liked the sound of
that, “So they are looking for a volunteer to retrieve something
for them from dirt-side. That’s my kind of assignment.”

“
I’m glad that you feel
that way,” Wayne told him seriously, “because from the information
I have received, no one but you can even attempt this assignment.
Get some rest and when you’re feeling up to speed, head down to
Sector Eight and talk to a Doctor Kine.”

“
I know that name,”
Critias recalled readily from memory. “He was calling me down in
Chicago, but said he just wanted to make sure I was there. I’m
wagering he will be equally crazy in person.”

Critias went home to his
apartment to get some much-needed sleep. He didn’t get any rest
while aboard his gunship during quarantine or any since, so he felt
truly exhausted. Before getting into bed, he went to his desk to
type out a formal recommendation to the Council of Governors that
Lieutenant Daniels and the rest of his recon armature team receive
exemplary beyond service accolades. Critias attached a letter of
acclaim for whoever took credit at RAT central for training Daniels
in the first place. Their off the cuff ingenuity and heroism in
toppling that building had saved most if not all their
lives.

After Critias searched up
the name of the bitten soldier, the final one who had rushed back
down to make final attrition defense, he put the name of a D. Roads
to the Council requesting the man’s family receive his posthumous
medal of heroism. Critias made clear in his written recommendation
for Roads that one hardened marshal colonel leaped right off the
skytower roof after he witnessed such blazing valor right after
having survived so much of his own incautious command. Critias also
emphasized that he was the second seasoned marshal who was there as
an eyewitness to tell of the bravery in a hero’s last charge gun in
hand. Critias felt that the governors would approve the requests
for commendations. Medals not only made their best soldiers more
loyal, the politicians could hand out manly gold nails with which
they could hammer shut the lid on a disaster they wanted retired
into that vault of old lore with reverential warnings.

Carmen came in to switch
the lights back on right after he had turned them off then put his
head to a soft cool pillow. She wore a flattering white bikini
swimsuit and raucously carried a zero gravity lacrosse-racket. She
shouted, “Bam!” as she swung her racket at an imaginary infected.
She punched her fist through a pretend face, “Then I went biff! So
you think you can tussle with me, hunter!” She leaped in the air
with a spinning flash of her back foot like one of the twirling
ice-bladed dancers the dirt-footers used to have. “I was super
amazing, Critias. You should have seen me in action. I could
download you a copy from my visual cortex if you want to see me
kicking butt like a superhero.”

His tone let her know he
surely didn’t want to see her combat footage, “Where in Hell’s
Acheron Yacht Club have you been, missy?”

“
I was at the recreation
center, thanks for asking.” She may have managed to produce a sneer
on her upper lip but couldn’t be sure of it. Carmen hoped some
bitter sarcasm would help manifest such a sneer, “It’s that place
with the swimming pool and team sports games you’ve never taken me
to see. I was born three months ago and all I ever get to do is sit
inside your crummy little apartment.”

Critias would also make her
sit in his gunship for many hours on end, make her bathe him or
sexually gratify him on command. He had never even offered some
explanation as to why she existed to service his least and most
selfish irrational whims. Carmen was recently realizing that she
didn’t even like being his servant since she found her labors
inherently unpleasant in a dignity robbing way. Her master was not
a bungling incompetent as she had first suspected, rather he was a
deliberately parasitic menace that exploited her loving maternal
nature. It was dawning on her that her master really was just an
ungrateful tyrant.

“
I bet you have amazing
nightvision for covert operations,” Critias told her to set up a
mocking of her naïveté.

“
I have infrared and
ultraviolet spectrum at better ranges than your mechsuit can
provide,” she confirmed with pride.

“
Good,” he rejoined, “my
crummy little apartment is a mess and my laundry needs washing.
Fortunately, you can work all that out with the lights off. Try to
keep the noise down while I get some sleep.”

She continued to smile at
Critias, but her eyes shot resentful daggers, “You can’t think of
any other demeaning tasks I can do for you, my master of a thousand
trumperies? If you have nothing else to tell me, I’ll go wash off
your codswallop.”

“
Now that you mention it,”
Critias didn’t catch any of her insults, but he had noticed her
rocking figure in a skimpy bathing suit. She was dressed for
another task that Carmen could perform magnificently while in
complete darkness. The idea made him grin at her while he held open
his covers, “You can climb in here for the night and let me give
you some nocturnal swimming lessons, or you can work all night, and
clean the shower too.”

She immediately refused,
“I’ll get started cleaning the shower then.” She walked off to get
away from his line of sight that invariably homed in on her
bathing-suited backside. “You need your beauty sleep,” was as
negatively close as she could get to venting uninhibited words of,
‘If I ever get free of these behavioral inhibitors, I’ll slowly
twist your head around to face backwards like one of the sinners in
the Divine Comedy.’

“
Oh well,” Critias
dismissed her as no loss. “I can use you for that anytime. I’m sure
I’ll get by waiting till morning. Turn off the lights and keep the
noise down.”

‘
I must do what he asks,’
one of her hardwired directives forced her to say in her crowded
mind. Carmen turned off the lights, changed into her flight-suit,
and then started cleaning.

While she spent a few hours
washing everything to perfection, Carmen knew she had heard the
same mechsuit footsteps the second time they passed the apartment
door. The fifth time she opened the door just in time to make an
obstacle of herself.

“
Marshal Gorman,” Carmen
greeted him as he was about to pass by again. “You’re here to visit
Critias? I’ll wake him for you.”

“
Uh, no,” Marshal Gorman
lied incompetently. “I was just on my way to the water treatment
facility on this ring.”

Carmen closed the door
behind her then delivered a hard gaze onto the armored marshal that
made the man step back in fear. “I will not allow you to harm my
master,” she warned Marshal Gorman, “even if he is a total jerk. If
you think you can get past me to do so, try now. My directives
ensure that you will live, but do not specify how many days you
will spend in the med-unit.”

“
I’m acting on orders from
Grand Marshal Wayne to watch only,” the marshal told Carmen
truthfully. “If it turns out that he is not the real Marshal
Critias, he could be dangerous.”

“
Try doing your duty
without stomping up and down outside his door,” Carmen advised him
as she took up a post that blocked the doorway where she was
prepared to wait indefinitely.

Marshal Gorman turned about
then walked out of sight down the hallway.

Once he was gone, Carmen
went to the computer terminal on the wall where she requested
access to the security grid. The security firewall gave her no
refusal in accessing what she wanted to see. Her privileges in such
matters were lofty, since androids were incapable of betrayal and a
marshal’s android was an extension of the Marshal Service
itself.

The security map told her
the answer she needed to explain the bizarre statements made by
Marshal Gorman and the suspicions of the Grand Marshal who ordered
him to task. One sensor confirmed that her master Critias slept in
his bed in his own apartment. Another sensor confirmed that her
master Critias slept in a hospital bed in Containment Laboratory
Four, which was a no access area for unauthorized
personnel.

“
That doesn’t include me,”
Carmen told herself as she pressed the button to clear the wall
screen. Carmen’s inhibitor drive vehemently insisted she had only
one master that she had to protect and obey at all times. What the
inhibitor could not say with certainty was which Critias was the
genuine article. Carmen walked off to go and see the discrepant
Critias in person.

The original Critias awoke
in his apartment to the delicious smell of breakfast after a long
pleasant sleep. He opened his eyes to see Carmen’s smile greet
him.

“
Good morning,” she told
him as she positioned his breakfast tray. For a moment, it seemed
as if she tried to lean close enough to steal a kiss or at least
invited him to seize the opportunity. “I got you all of your
favorites,” she informed him hoping he would be pleased.

Critias adjusted himself
upright to eat while he also kept a suspicious eye on Carmen. Her
conspicuously genuine tenderness was more than a little bizarre and
Critias regretted to think it entirely unexpected. He was aware
that he had easily grown accustomed to forcing her participation in
his selfish whims of the moment and it was unlike her to volunteer
those affections cheerfully. “You seem in an unusually pleasant
mood,” he commented, “especially after I made you clean all night.
Did I miss something?”

“
I’m sorry I was not more
diligent in your service,” she apologized referring to the lack of
cleaning upkeep that had generated the mess. She also felt bad
about interfering with his rest period by barging in so
obstreperously.