Gravewalkers: Dying Time (9 page)

Critias was no expert on
Earth history, but everyone in his time remembered King Louie as
the reason humans still existed at all. He was the great savior of
mankind, a man of myth and legend as much as flesh and bone. He
thought it obvious that he should begin there, “Where does King
Louie fit into this Dying Time?”

“
King Louie not only
survives in this age, but expands his dominion,” Carmen told him as
much as he already knew. “Every human being alive on the space
stations and oceanic platforms are a descendant of his leadership.
Records from his time are thin, but it’s certain that the other few
major groups of successful survivors join up with him while the
rest perish in the apocalypse becoming infected themselves or food
for them. You can ask King Louie about all this yourself when we
meet him; that’s why we’re here.”

“
Hard for me to believe
that they can survive dirt-side with only primitive technology,”
Critias reasoned his thoughts aloud. “Not when in our time the
ghouls are still kicking our asses.”

She pointed at a set of
crates, “Their technology is about to become a lot less primitive
after you accomplish our initiatory objective.”

Critias gave his attention
to her scientific equipment crates, “What is it we’re supposed to
deliver to them?”

Carmen explicated their
prize cargo, “We have in our possession an unassembled Epsilon-R
technical android. That is clearly the most valuable technology in
our possession. Protecting it should be your highest priority.
While they might be able to reverse engineer a lot of advancements
from our other equipment and weapons, the android will already
comprehend the scientific principles involved in their outright
manufacture.”

“
That much makes sense,”
he agreed. “I don’t think even all the space stations have their
own Epsilon-R. So we assemble this super arrogant egg timer then
drop him off at his new home with the great King Louie.”

She cautioned him,
“Assembling it would be unwise since the Epsilon-R is extremely
capable intellectually, but nothing compared to me in hostile
environments.” She bent down to pick up an old aluminum frying pan
from among the junk that littered their shelter. While she held it
out with one hand, Carmen punched a deep dent into the center with
her other hand balled into a fist. “My skeleton is grade-five
titanium and this is the Epsilon-R’s face.” She handed him the
distorted frying pan. “The minimal combat stress tolerances of that
model make it vulnerable to irreparable damage from even a minor
impact to the head. Were we to activate it now, the infected may
destroy it before you can make delivery.”

“
I see,” he understood,
“so he can’t be used rough the way you can.”

Carmen flashed passionate
adoration at him in reference to the sexual pun, “That’s
true.”

He eyed her with returned
suspicion that she behaved strangely. The company of a bi-polar
combat android made him uneasy. She had always been obedient and
mostly cooperative, but never genuinely affectionate and that made
him nervous. For the time being, he thought about how they were
going to move all the crates without a gunship to fly to their
destination. Distance was a factor, so he asked, “Do you know where
we are?”

She did, “I arrived three
days ago and began moving everything down here for safety as it
arrived after me, including you. This location is rural farm
country hundreds of kilometers south of the Chicago city where
Colonel Walker will eventually build that reclamation center. King
Louie’s survivors are in another metropolis to the west of here,
about fifty kilometers.”

Critias shook his head at
that unpleasant description, unable to believe King Louie was not
only surviving, but also doing it in a major city where the ghouls
were always at their worst. He hoped aloud, “I don’t suppose we
have a marshal gunship outside?”

“
No, but the world in this
era is nothing at all like the one we are from, aside from the
obvious fact that both have a major problem with all the irate
infected. One of the first things you may notice is that some of
the ghouls in this time are still wearing pieces of human clothing.
In this period, the buildings, technology, and vehicles are still
usually functional and in abundant supply. Three more centuries
will have to pass before your ancestors’ civilization decays to the
decrepit condition that we are familiar with.”

“
I like the sound of
that,” Critias saw many advantages in having equipment everywhere
that hadn’t rotted away to scrap. “That means that old fashioned
Earth food still exists in cans like the stories tell. I always
wanted to try some of that.”

As Carmen moved close to
him, she wore a peculiar new expression that seemed to say that she
waited for him to say something important. “We have another four
hours until sunrise,” she informed him. “Go make yourself
comfortable and I’ll bring you the cans of food I already found in
a building nearby when I was exploring this area.”

She used a microwave flamer
from the weapon crate to heat him a can of condensed chicken noodle
soup. For dessert, she opened a cherry pie filling in syrup that
she seemed to enjoy as much as Critias did, just by watching
him.

Critias met the dawn on the
surface with Carmen by his side. The summer morning breeze was cool
on his face with the visor open on his mechsuit. The land was flat
in all directions with lots of tall grass intermixed with immature
corn, soybeans, and wheat that grew wild.

Carmen wore her usual blue
flight-suit with an additional marshal’s pistol belt while she
carried her bightstaff. She stood and let her violet hair feel the
wind like cat’s whiskers as she asked, “The Earth is still so
beautiful, isn’t it?”

“
Kind of quiet, actually,”
Critias meant the distinct lack of ghouls that chased them around
the beautiful scenery. He was glad to have his combat android by
his side so he didn’t have to deal with the situation all on his
own.

The shelter they had hid in
was the basement of what had once been a house before it became
scattered debris that littered the landscape. Critias thought it
looked like teslaflux grenade damage. He asked her, “Did you blow
it up?”

“
I used a grenade,” Carmen
admitted somewhat embarrassed. “When I first arrived, I had some
problems with infected trying to get down into the basement, and
one thing led to another.”

He couldn’t see much in the
way of civilization so he said, “The nearest town must be a good
distance off. How many ghouls have you taken out so
far?”

“
Only thirty-nine,” she
answered. “Apart from that grenade indiscretion, I’ve done my best
to be quiet about it.”

Critias closed his visor to
explore telescopically as he gazed about for a direction in which
to explore. He told Carmen, “We need some kind of truck to move the
crates.” To the west, he saw a large building about three
kilometers away with some vehicles around it. Pointing over there,
he advised, “That seems like a good place to start.”

Critias could run
tirelessly in his mechsuit, but not fast enough to keep up with
Carmen at her full speed. They dashed the short distance together
through the tall grasses that obscured their presence from infected
eyes that may have watched their travel. A dozen white-tailed deer
let them pass at a close distance without any particular concern.
The deer had already changed in behavior that they associated
infected with predators while they saw humans as a harmless and
nearly forgotten curiosity.

The isolated industrial
area had a line of tall grain silos beside a large sheet-metal
shed. Various trucks and farming vehicles were in the parking area.
A fence that was unsuitable as any defense perimeter against
infected surrounded the whole compound. The barrier might have
dissuaded the ghouls who casually wandered through that area, but
it would never stop them from getting past if they were determined
to do so.

Critias easily jumped the
fence with a teslaflux rifle in hand then Carmen followed. They
slowly approached the building together and studied everything
carefully as they went.

“
That looks like a good
one,” he pointed out a large truck that was mostly cargo box with a
rear vertical sliding door. The vehicle seemed like it had been new
at the time of the Outbreak then sat untouched ever since. “Too bad
it’s nothing but aluminum and thin sheet steel,” he criticized it.
“A hunter will tear through it like paper.”

“
I’m programmed with the
skills to operate indigenous tools,” she informed him with
confidence that she could fix it up. “We armor it a bit and then
we’ll be good to go.”

He still had his
reservations, “That is if we can start it and we can find the fuel
it consumes. Let’s see if we can make it operational.”

A ghoul’s feeding shriek
alerted them to the presence of danger. An old man turned
plague-feral predator still had on filthy upper rags of ripped
coveralls and one of the boots he had worn in natural life. Critias
was not used to seeing infected dressed in human clothes. In his
future time, the ghouls ran around all dirty and naked; their
clothes had long-since rotted off their bodies. He raised his rifle
to put a bullet through the creature’s head, but Carmen gently
pushed his weapon down with her hand.

“
I will take care of this
one quietly,” she offered as she stepped forward to attract the
infected’s attention. “Here boy,” she called to it, “come to
Carmen.” The ghoul had the appearance of an old man that drooled
after them with ravenous hunger, but it moved with the alacrity of
youth. When the ghoul leaped to tackle her, Carmen sidestepped
while she caught its leg with the crook of her bightstaff to trip
it to the ground. Before it could get up, she stepped on its back
then snapped its neck with a clever hooked twist of her
weapon.

“
You are pretty good with
that thing,” he praised her talent with the rudimentary weapon.
Critias didn’t have a history of doing covert reconnaissance. His
typical tactic was to blow a ghoul’s head apart with a bullet. The
sonic boom from his rifle’s projectile would have been audible for
kilometers so he had to admit her way was better. He had the option
to shoot at lower velocity to be comparatively silent, but
experience had shown him that such shots could fail to have the
same terminal effect that he got when he blew a ghoul’s skull
completely apart, which even when successful had the added
disadvantage that he splattered infectious blood and brain matter
all over the work area. With the ghoul out of the way, he
suggested, “My bet is that there are tools in the building. All
this agriculture equipment would have required
mechanics.”

Carmen opened the hood on
the truck Critias wanted to take so she could examine the engine
and then she tapped on the fuel tanks to see if they were empty.
With a satisfied nod, she declared, “I can perform maintenance on
this vehicle. Its battery is not functional, but I should be able
to recharge it with the rectifier bridge on my pocket generator. It
would be better if I had capacitors, but I think the output
adjustments should prove sufficient for our purpose.”

“
Sure, you do what you
said,” he agreed with no idea what she talked about, which was
nothing new. “I’ll go check out the shed.”

The shoulder of his
mechsuit was enough to burst the lock on a side door to let him in.
The interior of the spacious sheet-metal barn was thick with
undisturbed dust that would have recorded the passing tracks of
infected, so he felt safe enough. There were more vehicles inside,
many assorted tools, and other equipment he did not recognize. In
total, it appeared to be a mechanics’ depot for the maintenance of
agriculture machinery as he had suspected.

When he went into a small
office, Critias noticed expended weapon cartridges scattered on the
floor. They were red plastic tubes as big around as a finger with
brass caps on the closed end. “Someone was discouraging unwanted
guests,” he thought aloud as she glanced about for signs of damage
from the shooting. Two places had swarms of holes from what had to
be scattergun pellets of some sort.

While he peeked into the
drawers out of curiosity, a lurker under the desk snatched Critias
by the ankle. The dried-out old ghoul was too weak from starvation
and dehydration to attack a mechsuit effectively. Critias kicked
its hand loose and then flipped the desk over to expose
it.

Scattergun blasts had
gutted the infected and severed its spine with an irreparable
removal of vertebrae. After that, the thing had dragged itself
under the desk where it wasted away ever since. The crippled ghoul
had waited years for some fool like Critias to blunder into it. The
mechsuit had protected Critias from the ragged and infectious
fingernails, but even so, he cursed himself for being such an
incautious amateur. If not for his suit, he would have been dead
already, and he was a professional.

Critias pulled a wooden leg
off the desk, which he stabbed through the lurker’s head to leave
it permanently inert on the floor.

Carmen had the truck
started in less than an hour. Critias pushed open the main doors so
that she could drive it into the shed where they could make it more
defensible. She used a bottled-gas welder on hand to cover the
windows with metal rods and she reinforced the front bumper to make
it more suitable for when she rammed into barricades so the impact
wouldn’t damage the radiator or collapse the front fenders to the
point that they would injure the tires. After that, she cut a hatch
into the roof of the driver’s cab then welded the doors permanently
closed.