Fabienne Gschwind - The Fallen Heroine

That calmed me down, I wouldn't take it all day long, but only in emergencies.

We walked all night without further incident and explored the forest. At some point Emily said, "Can't we finally take a break, we've walked over twenty kilometers now, not to mention all the little detours ..."

But Tartelette, already missing her breakfast, looked irritated and poked Emily violently on the helmet:

"For crying out loud, you've all been given sinfully expensive muscle stimulation machines. So you should be able to do three marathon runs in a row. At least!"

I thought Tartelette was absolutely right, and wondered why Emily was always in a foul mood.

"Good morning folks," Thibault called into the radio, "it's six in the morning. Another sunny summer day is in store. A whopping 33 degrees is expected. I can just see that your hydration supplies are running low. Your best bet is to find a clearing to meet up with the Ghosty."

The Ghosty team brought us a nice breakfast consisting of croissant, tea and coffee. The pilots had unceremoniously bought everything at the nearest village when they changed their batteries.

We had breakfast in the clearing while Tartelette handed out extra weapons.

Loaded like a donkey, we continued on. The Harzapp hung on my back in addition to the pump shotgun, and in front of my chest I had small machine gun too. Fortunately, the forest was getting thinner the closer we got to the sea. It was now just after nine and the sun was already beating down on us pretty hot.

And finally some news from the ocelot. He had bitten a jogger at the Tourist Center at the Dune du Pilat.

The boss immediately instructed the Ghosty to bring us up and we flew to this shifting dune, which rose almost a hundred and fifty meters into the air.

"Ahoy, ocelot ahead, just under a hundred meters off the water, at three o'clock!" shouted Emily excitedly.

Sure enough! The ocelot had run over the dune and was running away from us straight to shore.

"Shoot it down!" screeched Tartelette, for under no circumstances was the critter allowed to reach the water and cause another fish repro catastrophe there.

The Ghosty was loaded with weapons and ejected two guided missiles. They exploded at the water line where we had last seen the ocelot.

Despite an intensive search, we didn't catch the full carcass afterwards, but at least we caught parts of the animal.

"We need to have the beach and shoreline bombed with precision missiles. Thibault, get permission and prepare everything for a precision satellite bombardment within a 250-meter radius. Make sure the government grants it quickly!” She gave the parameters of the bombardment in rapid succession while the Ghosty took cover, namely just behind the dune. The pilots landed and waited. We scrambled to the top edge and looked down at the beach. Finally after 10 minutes, the red laser warning beam shot down. We saw how some sailing ships, which were nearby, immediately turned away and searched for the distance as good as they could. Because they all knew what the red warning beam meant. It was a two minute warning. We waited patiently and watched the sailing boat getting out of range.

Suddenly, a cry of terror from Thibault. "Get off the dune! The idiots have increased the 250 meter radius to 1000 meter. Holy Shit, a nuclear satellite is targeting you!!!"

We frantically jumped down the dune.

"Hack your way in. Stop the nuke!!!" screamed Tamara in earnest panic.

Blinding light lit up the world and the dune was emotionally pulverized.

Of course this was not the case, only the first meter of sand on the dune hill had been thrown into the air and we all had to dig ourselves free, the Ghosty had also started to slide due to the mass of sand and tipped over to the side. However, the soldiers were already digging it free to get it back upright.

The explosion had been violent, but since we were still alive it meant that Thibault could stop the nuke.

Emily scrambled up the dune and looked toward the sailboats, me panting behind. One catamaran floated keel up, and around it floated a larger debris field. Probably all the rigging had been torn apart. One of the three sailors clung to the hull, one swam in slow motion to the third, which lay motionless in water. Quickly, the soldiers brought the Ghosty online and flew off with Gabin and Emily to retrieve the sailors. I was left alone with the boss, which was pale with rage.

"Thibault damn it, what was that about! I exactly told you 250 meter radius….not a any meters more! And I have surely not mentioned a nuclear cleaning when I’m standing right on the targeting zone!” cursed Tartelette into the microphone as we stood alone on the dune.

"Sorry boss, the government people overreacted. They overrode your suggestions and spontaneously ordered a complete cleanup with 1000 meter radius. And somebody managed to get a launch permission for the nuke too. I managed to hack the satellite at the last moment and stop the nuke. Otherwise there wouldn't have been much left of you and Dune du Pilat and surrounding villages.

“Somebody gave launch permission for a nuke? A Nuke? In an habitated area? Without evacuation?? Who has the power to order such a thing ... only the king! Does he want me dead or what!" said Tartelette, pale with rage.

I was still shaking from the shock of almost being killed. But we had no time to think. We still had to find a reprogrammed jogger who had been bitten by the ocelot. The implanted NFC chips meant everyone could be located, and a red dot on the helmet display showed it. So the search would be easy.

I ran after Tartelette, who ran down the dune in great leaps and disappeared into the woods. I had to strain to keep up with her. The red dot on the map we were chasing seemed startled by the explosion and moved lower and moved deeper into the forest. Fortunately, the forest was incredibly dense. This hindered the man ... but us just as much. At some point we resorted to using machetes to make our way.

We had to be very close to the man because the repro smell was quite strong. Then we found him. He had tangled himself in a bramble bush and was unflinchingly tearing away scraps of skin to free himself. He did not see us. His face was frozen in the typical grimace and his eyes looked vacant, as if everything human had left his body. He had countless wounds and abrasions, but they were already healing and forming that hideous-looking black-gray slime. This was never seen so pronounced in animals, simply because it usually disappeared into the fur.

"Thibault, record the kill protocol: Former human Jules Durchand is hereby identified by two ReS employees as genetically reprogrammed. He exhibits all three major symptoms. A final voice sample is awaited." Tartelette flipped up her visor and called the man by name. The latter turned at the sound of her voice, threw himself forward to attack us, tangled himself again, and began to free himself. He forgot about us and did not react to us anymore.

While it did happen that we found people who had not yet fully transformed, they usually reacted in panic and begged for help, knowing that they were transforming. Or worse, they didn't know they were already in the process of being reprogrammed. I had seen a video of such an incident in which a young man begged for mercy and insisted that it was all a misunderstanding. But the commando simply killed him. That was the worst variant of all. I hope to never have to face a semi-transformed person myself, it would feel like murder.

Unless you had to shoot a repro human in self-defense, a kill protocol was inevitable. For in earlier times, to make matters worse, it had happened that police officers simply killed drunks or people who otherwise seemed crooked to them. Only out of the repro presumption. This had been lifted. Only special police units were allowed to shoot repros in non-self-defense circumstances. As special forces, we had been given the killing clearance as well.