Fabienne Gschwind - The Fallen Heroine

"Okay Junior, this is your first human. But don't get confused. He's no different than any of the many repros we kill day in and day out. So zap and behead as usual."

I felt it was a significant difference whether it was a human or an animal. But Tartelette pushed me forward when I hesitated. I didn't know if I was ready for it.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't send you off if I wasn't sure you were going to make it."

With those encouraging words, I stumbled into the bushes, not really knowing if I would have the courage to go through with it. But the repro took the decision away from me. He spotted me and tore free of the brush. He charged at me with a violence that only reprogrammed humans had and wrenched his jaws unnaturally wide open to bite me. The image from my worst nightmares.

The trauma of the last generations: An attacking repro with jaw wide open. Almost casually, I zapped him and moments later my machete sank into his neck. His head rolled away. This happened within two seconds, I was so used to it from training that my body performed the movements automatically. Tamara patted me on the shoulder and I felt like I was in seventh heaven.

"Well done, now we'll wait for the funeral company.... and then we'll have some food ... hmm maybe some blackberries can be found?"

Less than an hour and a half later, we were all sitting in a sidewalk café in the famous wine region in Saint-Émilion. Gabin and the others had flown the sailors, who were badly battered, to a hospital before picking us up in the forest. Then Tartelette had also given the address of an 'exquisite restaurant’.

In the press we found nothing of the incident, there was no report of the near nuclear strike. Somewhere in a side note there was a hint that a sailing ship had not sailed away in time and was therefore torn to pieces during a cleanup operation. Our broadcast was off exactly after Tamara had passed the parameters and only turned back on when we followed the repro in the forest. But our anger quickly faded, as we were celebrated on the evening news for saving Bordeaux from disaster. ReS headquarters had already cut together our most adventurous fight scene and the clip went around the world.

In the evening, the Ghosty pilots just dropped me off in the parking lot of the mall where I was going to pick up my bike. I still had to do my shopping, but I didn't even have any coins with me, because my civilian clothes were still in the Decacopter. Wait a minute, Gabin had uploaded some private clips, hadn't he? And indeed he had kept word and my bank account had magically be filled up with a good deal of money. I let the shopping be and ordered a true five-course menu from a delivery service, while looking for my bike.

A small problem were all the weapons that I still carried. I clamped the Harzapp to the crossbar and strapped the assault rifle to the luggage rack. I then pedaled back on the squeaky bike and more than a few people turned to look at me. At first I didn't know if I should be embarrassed, but then I decided to see the comedy behind it and had to laugh out loud.

We were all having breakfast. Suddenly the door was flung open and Tartelette stared at us with her face contorted in rage. She went straight for Emily.

"I forbade you to write such letters!" the captain shouted so loudly that I'm sure it could be heard all the way in the policemen's offices, waving a rolled-up piece of paper around. I was stunned, Gabin and Thibault mentally grabbed their cameras to film. I quickly followed suit.

Emily stared at the tabletop. "It's my basic right!" she said in a muffled voice.

"STAND UP!"

She held the paper under the smaller Emily's chin and forced her to look her in the eye. "Someday I'm going to beat this fundamental right out of you!" the captain spat out angrily, tearing up the letter.

She tossed the shreds into Emily's coffee. "Drink!"

Emily didn't answer; she was as white as a sheet. I marveled at Emilie's superior acting skills. You really thought she was scared.

"Drink up, I command you!" Finally, she reached into Emily's updo and twisted her head into her neck, "Is that supposed to be a refusal of orders?" "Tamara please, stop it."

Tartelette's angry expression faded as if on cue and she grinned widely. That mocking grin I had seen so many times before. She tousled through Emily's hair.

"You are such a scaredy cat Emily!" The boss lady took the coffee and drank it down laughing.

"Light sailor, come into my office!" I hurried so much to run after Tartelette that I almost fell over the chair.

But Tamara just wanted me to sign some papers. "Actually, I have a secretary somewhere who should do that. But she works from home all the time, supposedly she's afraid of me."

The first emergency call of the day followed immediately. It was a faulty batch of the animal vaccine and it was to be expected that we would have to run after all kinds of pets in the next few days. I was on my way to the veterinary office to take care of a repro parakeet and Emily, who went with me, enlightened me about the incident earlier.

Emily wrote a transfer request to the job center every quarter. Each time, Tamara made a drama out of it and tore up the request. "You act really well," I told her. She looked at me strangely. "I don't act!"

The budgie was no challenge and quickly we returned. At the barracks building, we greeted a couple of police officers. I was pleased that I now knew everyone.

Meanwhile, the grounds were being diligently worked on. The commandant wanted to use the large square in the rear as a training area. With the earth piled up, we were surrounded by a five meter high earth wall, a perfect shooting range.

I walked with Emily to the front end of the new building and we marveled at the huge construction printer that was in the process of printing the new hangar exactly to Tartelette's wishes and those of the police commander, because we were going to use the hangar together.

Then we discovered our pilots. By the way, we now knew their names, respectively their last names, because they insisted on addressing each other only by that. Granard was the co-pilot, Smilly the pilot, the funniest of the three, and Prassert the weapons officer.

They were taking the Ghosty apart with two technicians to make sure the sand hadn't done any damage.

Gabin and Tartelette stood in a jumble of boxes and cardboard boxes spread halfway across the yard.

"The unloading robot broke down and spit everything out at once while the truck was still maneuvering," Gabin said as he straightened a large box and looked for the scan code.

It was a whole load of retro climbing gear and other military stuff. Then it was finally time for lunch.

But we came to nothing, this time a semi-transformed Chihuahua in the city center, at the same time a repro lamb in the slaughterhouse. I was again with Emily and we caught the repro dog without any problems.

It was a nice feeling and showed the progress I had made in the repro fight.

In the slaughterhouse things had not gone well, the boss had to watch pitifully as a whole fillet of beef was turned into minced meat, which she considered a great loss. We were hardly in the barracks - the next emergency call. A maybe-repro crayfish in some creek outside La Rochelle we had to check if it was a repro or not. By late afternoon, we were in our Ghosty on the way back and we were all heartily hungry. At a bistro, Tartelette shredded a robot waiter and held a machine gun to the whining host's head until we got the nod for a free meal. We weren't on life broadcast so this was good footage.

Our 3D printer had completed the hangar. Gabin and I got all our vehicles and gear in there while Tartelette organized the second dinner, in person and in full combat gear mind you.