Gravewalkers: Dying Time (19 page)

She cursed him loudly, “You
are one unbelievable bastard!”

He gave her a wounded
expression, “You don’t need to worry about Carmen; getting here
stripped out all her electronic shackles. She can do as she pleases
and kill whom she likes, including me. I count myself lucky she
spared my life at all when I found out she was free. I had it
coming and we both knew it. If the malfunction had never happened,
I surely would still be keeping her as a slave. I treated her like
shit and I’m ashamed of it. It will never happen again.”

“
If Carmen is so
disposable,” Gloria reasoned, “what makes you think your bosses
care enough to ever bring her back? It sounds to me like it would
be less expensive for them to just abandon her then build another
one.” No sooner had Gloria finished her sentence than she saw
Critias’ color drain away as he realized she was probably right.
Why would the governors send King Louie the scientist android as a
gift but not give him the soldier android too? Gloria didn’t mind
kicking him when he was down since he deserved it, so she added,
“That’s assuming they care enough about saving you
either.”

He challenged her lofty
moral reasoning, “I followed orders the same as you. I got the
nicer apartment and the better food just like you. Honestly,
Gloria, do you really think you would have been any different if
Jim offered you the best possible everything? You already do live a
better life than many of the others here. My job was dangerous, the
same as yours; that’s why they send people like me to places like
this. You’re better than they are; you can do a dangerous job the
others can’t, and when the little people are cleaning your toilet
or cooking your dinner, you don’t feel any pity for them at all.”
He sneered at her, “Do the math, Gloria. Where do you think we came
from? We came from you. We are you.”

She threatened, “I’m going
to go tell Jim and make sure he does something to keep Carmen away
from you.”

Critias calmly cautioned
her, “I did you a favor telling you about Carmen and it will hurt
her if you spread it around. She doesn’t want your pity or everyone
to think of her as less than a person as you do now. Try to
understand that Carmen doesn’t answer to anyone anymore so hope she
has some religion because she has no restraints other than moral
virtue. That pistol of yours couldn’t penetrate her armored skull
from point-blank range. She could kill you, this whole city, and
probably even me wearing my armor, and nothing could stop her.
She’s more than tough. Carmen is an expert with every weapon, her
bare hands, and she has the tactical intelligence that none of us
would ever know she was coming until it was already too late. She
doesn’t need your protection. The truth is that you need my
protection from her. If you hurt her in the wrong way, I have no
idea what she might be capable of doing. If you want to help her,
be her friend. She doesn’t need another keeper.”

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.