Murder of Crows (Book One of The Icarus Trilogy) (12 page)

“Oh, no,” she said unwittingly.  Ryan Jenkins was staring back at her from his picture on the overlay.  If she had gods she would have cursed them.

“What?” Hawkins asked in a clipped manner.  He was already annoyed with her for pointing out his mistake with the resurrection equipment.  Only now were the mechanical arms and medicine caches sinking within the walls, but Jenkins’ cell was just becoming visible in the blackness of the storage area.  It was unlikely the crash unit would be ready for the soldier.

“It’s Jenkins.”

“Who?”

“He was the last premature adoption, Hawkins,” Dr. Kane yelled.  “Don’t you remember?”

“Oh, him,” Hawkins said, suddenly more curious than angry.  “He certainly has bad luck.”

Charlotte was furious at that point.  Hawkins was a callous sort, but sometimes the man seemed to have no humanity left.  She wheeled around towards the entrance to the chamber and half-ran to the loading deck.  The crash unit was still slowly extracting itself from the wall.  Kane screamed profanities to the people in charge of making the damn thing.  Jenkins’ cell entered the room, clipped into the intermediate stage and the biotic fluid started to drain from the soldier’s container.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Charlotte willed the machine under her breath.  The now nearly-empty cell sank into the loading deck and the loading arm returned back into the opening behind it.  The cell hissed as it opened and revealed Jenkins lying limp with his breathing tube hanging to the side.

“Fuck me!  Shit,” Charlotte shouted.  “Hawkins, get in here!”

“Wait a bit,” Hawkins said over the intercom.  He had lost his sense of urgency when he saw the breathing tube.  As long as it was the soldiers’ fault they died, he didn’t have to worry about any liability fines.  He could take his time.  The soldier was most likely brain dead from the premature adoption, anyway.

Kane cursed him along with her pretend gods.  She looked in desperation at the crash unit that was even now coming out of the wall.

“Shit,” she said again.  She had to do something.  She rushed to Jenkins’ side and lifted his chin and pressed her hands to the man’s chest.  She pumped three times, then placed her mouth to his and tried to get his lungs to work.  The process was archaic, but the human body hadn’t changed at all.

Hawkins laughed as Kane was hurriedly attempting CPR.  Doctors only learned it then as a formality.  Compared with all the technology of the day it was crude, at best.  Hawkins shrugged as he started to tap on the display again.  Charlotte Kane had found an appropriate pet, it seemed.

She tried for about a minute or so.  The good doctor had no idea if she was even performing it correctly.  Throughout the process she looked at Jenkins’ vitals and what she saw didn’t encourage her.  His brain activity was almost non-existent.

It was a mixed reward when the man sputtered back to consciousness.  A stream of biotic fluid spurted out of the man’s mouth onto Charlotte.  There was more, but the rest just drained out to his side.  It was somewhat disgusting for the doctor, but she was more concerned with the soldier’s life.  He coughed up the rest of the fluid and opened his eyes.  He looked up at Charlotte like he was completely lost.

“Ryan, are you ok?” Charlotte asked, wiping off the biotic fluid and trying to be as compassionate as possible.  It was a difficult process.  Jenkins looked up at her with his eyes filled with sadness.  He shook his head at her.

Well, look at that
, Hawkins thought as he sat in the Control Room.  He hadn’t expected it to work.  The scientist tapped a few more times at the screen to move the resurrection equipment back into place.  Hawkins laughed at how the crash unit had just slid into place and shook his head at the man’s suicidal antics.

“What an idiot,” he muttered to himself.

“Seems like,” Hawkins heard behind him.  It startled him and he whipped around to see the half-naked Carver standing behind him looking at the two in the resurrection chamber.  He looked down when Hawkins slid away from him.

“Oh, relax, you pansy.  I’m not here for you,” Carver said dismissively.  He turned to walk through the door of the chamber.  Hawkins didn’t even think about stopping him.

Jenkins was having a rough time coming back to the living.  Dr. Kane was looking at him and trying to talk.  He couldn’t quite hear her; he could see that she cared.  She looked pretty.

“Are you ok?” she asked.  He could finally hear her.  He hurt quite a bit; his throat even more than the last time.  He shook his head.  He couldn’t lie about that.

“Do you know who you are?”  He thought about the question.  He knew who he was.  At least, he knew his name and where he was.  Jenkins nodded at her.  She visibly relaxed after that, but soon he noticed a shadow above her.  Jenkins panicked at first before he recognized that it was Carver’s elderly face.  He relaxed, confident he was safe.

He wasn’t.

Jenkins felt Carver’s strong hand close around his throat and suddenly he was off the table and thrust against the wall.  The young Crow could hear Dr. Kane saying something, but his focus was on the soldier who held him with no difficulty.  Jenkins couldn’t help but listen to the man’s words.

“I know you can’t speak yet.  Your vocal chords are new and unpracticed.  That will not stop you from hearing what I have to say.  In fact, it’s better because you can’t interrupt.”

“Never. 
Never
do that again.  I know you’re angry, but that’s no solution.  They will save you. Or they will stop you.  Even if they can’t they’ll just bring you back.  You get nothing from this.  If you’d been gone for any longer the next body would have woken up and that, my friend, would have been a problem.  Think, Jenkins, before you decide something like that,” Carver concluded.  He hadn’t hurt Jenkins; he had just held him against the wall.  Carver let the boy go and started to walk out the door.  Charlotte glared at him as he went.

“Coddling the suicides doesn’t help them, hun.  They need to know their situation,” he said unapologetically.  She didn’t stop glaring.

“That couldn’t wait five minutes?” she asked accusingly.

“It could have, but he could understand me.  He wasn’t dying.  And now,” he said, turning to look back at the soldier.  “Well, now he has something to think about.”  With that he walked back out of the resurrection chamber.  Charlotte was angry at the man.  There was plenty of time to knock sense into Jenkins after the near-death experience.  This was the second time in a row Jenkins had a premature adoption.  Then she remembered who Carver really was.

She stopped being angry.  Charlotte looked down at Jenkins and felt sorry for both of them.  She helped Jenkins back to the table and gave him a sedative.  The man closed his eyes and let tears fall down the side of his cheek.  The good doctor only just had the ability to stop her own.

Carver walked through the control room without looking at Hawkins.  If he had he would have seen the wicked smile twisting the scientist’s face.

“I rather liked that speech,” he said smugly.  Carver had been at the doorway of the room and ready to leave but he stopped with that statement.  He turned slowly and faced the smaller man.

“Oh, really?  Well, I have a few words I would share with you.  Would you like to hear them?”  The veteran made sure the venom of the statement was dripping from every word.  Hawkins flinched ever so slightly, but soon he was bolstered by his over-inflated ego.  The soldier dare not touch him, not after the fine from last time.

“Sure, Carver.  What words would you like to say?” Hawkins asked in a mocking tone.  He wished the soldier would do something.  The old man shrugged and eased the tension from his shoulders and stood up straight.

“Not now, Hawkins.  When you’re dying you’ll be ready to hear them,” he said before turning and walking through the doorway.  Hawkins forgot to breathe until well after the soldier’s departure, and when he did it was not a relief.

-

Jenkins had thought about what Carver had said.  His sadness from the event had quickly turned to anger.  He resented the old man for that lesson in shame.  The veteran should have had compassion for the new soldier.  Jenkins was allowed to be angry; he was allowed to rage against his situation.  The old men stepped into his life and out of bounds.

It was a quiet resentment.  Everything Carver had said was completely true.  It was just the way the old man had carried the message.  It made it worse that Carver was with him through the whole therapy process.  Due to the massive scale of the annihilation match and the timing of their deaths the two of them had to undergo their therapy at the same time.  The entirety of Jenkins’ recuperation after the botched suicide was spent being side by side with the man who so easily had humiliated the young soldier. 

Jenkins’ thoughts were filled with fantasies of tackling the older man and beating him within an inch of his life.  It wasn’t completely out of the question; he was young, after all, and that was something that Carver certainly had going against him.  The old Crow would definitely get some licks in, but in his fantasy Jenkins would have bloody knuckles and little else.  Those thoughts helped him through the calisthenics regimen.  Those thoughts of revenge were enough to push away the pain.

He had someone to be angry towards and that was enough.

The entire walk back to the base was uneventful.  Jenkins had actively tried not to stare at Carver on the way.  He wanted as little interaction as possible with the man.  That didn’t stop his curiosity, however, and every once in a while he glanced at the veteran.  From just a few steps behind, Jenkins could see the elder soldier gazing up at the moon.  There was only one time where the old soldier looked away from the broken satellite.  Jenkins had increased his pace to get in front of the man but ended up at the veteran’s side.  The veteran didn’t even turn his head.  He just looked out the corner of his eye at the young soldier beside him.  Carver was asking a rhetorical question with those eyes; he knew perfectly well what the answer would be. 

He knew that Jenkins wanted blood.

-

It didn’t take long once they were inside the building.  It was only a couple of minutes before Jenkins finally snapped and tried to grab at Carver’s neck from behind.

He quickly found Carver’s elbow pushing against his stomach.  He didn’t even have enough time to spit out the air in his lungs before Carver swept the legs out from under him and followed with a palm thrust determined to pass through his chest and into the floor.  It didn’t quite make it, but Jenkins’ ribs creaked from Carver’s effort.

Jenkins retched as Carver stood over him.  He had no food in his stomach before the maneuver, which was quite the blessing.  Biotic fluid covered the floor in front of his bleary eyes.  Jenkins rolled onto his back to see Carver looking down at him.  He wasn’t angry; the old man was almost apathetic.  Only the slightest tilt in his eyelids betrayed the lurking sympathy behind them.  He stepped away from the vomit and reached out his hand.

“C’mon.  No funny business.  We’re gonna talk,” he said.  Jenkins wasn’t mad anymore, but he was wary.  He let the older soldier’s hand stay floating in the air.  Carver sighed.  “Just talking, Ryan.  I need to tell you something.”

Jenkins almost thought about grabbing the elder’s hand, dragging him downward and smearing his wrinkly face in the vomit beside him.  He very quickly realized he didn’t have the willpower for it and reached for Carver’s hand.  The old man dragged the soldier to his feet and led them to the mess hall.

The fluorescent lights weren’t filling the room with artificial rays and that created a strange effect.  They could see well from the light bouncing off the Earth, asteroids and other floating objects, so the fluorescents weren’t necessary, but it was quite different from the usual atmosphere.  Jenkins much preferred it this way.

Carver walked over to the second table, sat down on the bench and promptly seemed to deflate in front of Jenkins’ eyes.  His shoulders sagged; his legs went limp.  For the first time Jenkins saw the man and thought he was actually old.  Carver didn’t just have years behind him; he had all the aches and pains that came with them.  The old man looked at the other soldier and beckoned him to take a seat on the bench across from him.  Jenkins was wary, but he didn’t know how long those new legs of his would allow him to stand.  The pain was already creeping through him.  Jenkins sat down and eyed the old man.  Carver let out a tired breath and tapped his chest twice.

“How’s the…?” he asked, feeling awkward about striking the boy.  Jenkins squinted at the man and looked away.  He never thought he’d see the man being awkward, either, but his newly-acquired resentment was not a shallow thing.

“What do you expect?  You know just as well as I do that a pat on the back is not going to make it better.”  Carver sighed and put his hand up to support his head.

“Sorry about that.  I’ve always been a fan of ending things before they start.  So,” he said before pausing for emphasis.  Jenkins had turned back to glare at his superior.  Carver was staring right back.  Jenkins was instantly reminded of the gargoyles of New Chicago.  The gaze was the same except for Carver’s bright blue eyes.

“Speak your mind, kid.”  Jenkins thought about screaming a thousand curses and maybe suggesting Carver stick his head up his ass.  But he only thought about it.  Carver had heard all of it and worse by people much more intimidating.  Jenkins couldn’t blame the man in any case.  All the old man had done was retaliate.  Jenkins looked down and huffed.  He had nothing to say.

 “Well, if you don’t want to, I’ll talk.”  Carver’s gaze softened.  He shifted his head to the other arm and continued.  “I can understand your frustration.  I’ve felt the same anger.  I have no idea what it was like for you on Earth or wherever you came from, but I know all the misery you could ever experience here on Eris.  You’re not alone.”  Jenkins heard the seemingly empty platitudes.  To Jenkins, it was just another leader speech.  What irked him most came in that last statement.  It was enough for him to growl at the older man.

“Ok, I get that you’re trying to play father figure, but you do
not
know what’s happened to me.  Sure, we die; some of us more than others, but every time they bring me back they fuck up the whole process.  I wake up completely numb and drugged up and I can’t even see anything because it’s all pitch black.  The first time I didn’t even know if I was alive or if I’d gone to limbo or someplace even worse.  They strand me in the darkness with no ounce of comfort.  I’m alone in there.  You can’t understand.”  Carver merely sighed.  No shock; no awe.  The man just looked at the young soldier.