Fabienne Gschwind - The Fallen Heroine

About twenty years passed and another trireligion war swept the world. Super soldiers were hardly used, since one acted exclusively with long-range weapons and suicide bombers. Or the most popular thing of all: one reprogrammed ignorant policemen and soldiers and let them cause massacres among their friends.

At the height of the war, 2089: The Calamity ... or the beginning of the Repro Apocalypse as many called it. Retroviruses designed to reprogram super soldiers and killer animals had happily mutated away and were able to reproduce on their own. The G-Rep disease broke out within a month and swept the world.

Anyone who didn't die from it in a few days became a mindless, super-aggressive monster with only one thing on its mind: killing. Through exchange of body fluids and even droplet infection, these new viruses could be transmitted, and the world-wide catastrophe was already pre-programmed...

It took almost 100 years until everything was more or less in order. But now there are many animals and also humans, who have the carry the retrovirus somewhere in their genes and reproduce normally. The spontaneous reprogramming occurs without warning and within a few hours the transformation is complete. Only antiviral vaccination protects us from this. But you can hardly vaccinate all wild animals with it. There are far too many of them, especially because they have been able to reproduce in peace for the last 100 years, with which mankind dug its own grave.

But where did they get these superpowers? At that time, people wanted soldiers who were stronger and faster, knew no pain and had super healing powers to withstand gunshots. Headless aggression was desired in animals. The repros have it all. Their muscles are compacted and perform at peak levels. Their nerves transmit signals much faster than normal, enabling them to move and react with uncanny speed. They know no pain, you can shoot them, chop off their limbs, nothing helps. The brain is decomposed to the most rudimentary part, the repros know only one thing: attack everything that is alive! Only the head is the weak point. If no more signals come from the brain stem, it is over.

These untamed forces do not come from nowhere. The repros are autotrophic, that means they directly use the carbon dioxide from the air for the building blocks of their cells. And nitrogen from the air serves as another inexhaustible source of energy. The retroviruses reprogram the Golgi apparatus of the cells, and so they can do nitrogen fixation. The blood is replaced by a mucus that stores the resulting ammonia. And this is immediately converted into energy again in a nitrification process. Hence the characteristic odor, but not everyone notices it. In short, our ancestors thought of a number of ways to create to breed super soldiers. And now we are facing these reprogrammed, almost immortal creatures that have been terrorizing mankind for almost 100 years. A scourge beyond compare.

So much for that...

The afternoon slowly passed and we were back that the vine-factory where all started. Tamara was getting more and more impatient trying to get more info in order to feed it in her software and be able to derive where we could find more reprogrammed animals, and where the Ozelot could now be.

I came back from the toilets. At the time we were no longer on the air and all had used the break to go to the bathroom and refresh themselves

When I came back, Tamara had grabbed an employee by the neck and was shaking him to get more info. I wondered if this was arranged with the employees so that this movie-clip could be shared online and the wine factory could take in a lot of publicity for free.

Then I looked at Gabin who was filming with his camera.

"Very good, we have enough material. Well played, buddy...looks super realistic!" Gabin said enthusiathically. The employee didn't seem to have played it so much after all. But Tamara also had so much strength, maybe she hadn't even realized that she had hurt the man.

"Gabin, come with me, I have another idea!”

“Sometimes she overdoes it with these films. At some point, things go wrong and we all have to be held up as the culprits." said Emily, taking off her helmet as Tartelette and Gabin disappeared into the building. We went outside. I took advantage of the interruption to finally get out of the helmet.

“Before, it used to be easy, we always knew when Tamara was faking a tantrum. I don't know, now she's acting a lot weirder. Part of it really scares me," Emily muttered.

I played with the new, more intense power boosters in my gauntlets and crushed a pebble. Without that support, it would be hard to move that much armor. "She's just a very good actress," I said.

"I wonder from time to time what medication she's on ... she hardly ever sleeps." She was silent for a moment, and I thought about Tartelette between all the extra practice in the shooting cellar, she really had almost no time to sleep. Medication was something we all took, if only for the pain of the injuries.

Emily continued, "I worked as a psychologist for seven years. Tamara clearly falls under borderline psychopathic. Master Manipulator... she is extremely charismatic, someone you trust and follow." Emily remained silent, not taking her eyes off the front door. "The longer you're in the business, the more you go crazy. Tamara leistes 25 years of active frontline service! Everyone has to deal with that pressure somehow. Thibault takes strong antidepressants. Gabin uses anxiety and dream inhibitors. After all the horror they see day after day, who among the ReS full-mats can sleep without nightmares? But that stuff ruins us, so don't bother with it."

I froze, had I perhaps already overdone it.

"Don't talk that boy down with your psycho-babble and concentrate on the surveillance footage."

Tartelette had climbed out the second floor window and returned silently. She was standing on a wall behind us. She jumped down from the wall.

"Kid! Don't believe a word Emily says. As long as you don't overdo it the drugs are perfectly fine. Wasn't Gabin?"

He had joined us as well and saluted. "Aye Captain."

I quickly realized that Gabin still had his private camera rolling and he gave me a secret twink. Okay, Tamara was up for a new clip. I quickly imitated Gabin and saluted. "At your command, mon capitaine!"

The commander grinned, "Believe me Matthis, I have trained many, but you have real potential!" It was the first praise I heard from Tartelette and I blushed. I was really proud. Exactly such a scene would bring me many fans!

But Emily didn't let up, "...you want me to stop yapping and you brainwash the kid, huh?"

The commander came back and grabbed Emily by the jaw with her muscle-powered gauntlet.

"Just watch what you say. One of these days I'm going to let myself go and then ..."

She looked to me and to Gabin, quickly I turned my private camera on Emily while moaning in pain. "You're breaking my teeth," she gasped and Tartelette let go.

"I am your captain, obey me! I can't stand insubordination. When I say you shut up, you shut up!"

Only Emily looked at her very apprehensively and rubbed her jaw. Gabin scrolled through the footage and said disappointed. "Nope, that doesn't come out right, Emily you need to act better!”

"Stop this shit, you're overdoing it. It's going to backfire on us!" She got up angrily and headed for the bathroom. Tamara and Gabin laughed out loud.

Finally a new track opened up, namely in the north of Bordeaux, in the vineyard Chateau Climens. We were picked up by a military vehicle and on our way to Chateau Climens when joyful news arrived from Thibault and lifted our morale:

"The Ghosty is hovering four kilometers above you and the three soldier boys are waiting for your orders!"

We all laughed and Tartelette beamed with joy. The scene from earlier was forgotten.