Gravewalkers: Dying Time (13 page)

A few moments later, the
wall before them parted like a great set of double doors that
opened onto a downward driveway that passed through a roughhewn gap
that the builders had blasted through a railway line’s reinforced
concrete retaining wall. The train rails ahead of them crossed
north to south and there was forested hillside beyond them that
enclosed the back of that sheltered area beneath the honeysuckle
vineyard cage. Each end of the train tracks delved into underground
rail tunnel passages. The honeysuckle cage completely closed off
all access from ghouls while it offered them a high flat face to
the east that concealed any human activity that took place behind
it.

The hidden gate let Carmen
drive down the railway’s riverside rampart to the level of the
tracks. From the inside, they could finally appreciate the immense
scale and magnificence of the engineering feat that was the
Vineyard’s honeysuckle dome. The vine shrouded metal tube of cage
encased the whole two-hundred meter long valley of rail track and
anchored into the stout concrete tunnel mouths at either
end.

A pair of goggle-masked
guards that waited inside the Vineyard directed Carmen to go left
where she would pass through a sturdy defense gate to enter the
subterranean tunnel beyond. Carmen could have turned right only
with difficulty since parked on the track in that direction was a
railcar that sported yet another construction crane in its lowered
idle configuration. Its muscle had presumably raised the
prefabricated sections of Vineyard barrier into place. She followed
the southbound course as they had instructed.

More guards were at that
gated entrance to the rail tunnel that went beneath the monument
grounds. Even if some ghouls managed to get into the Vineyard’s
roadway, they would still have to battle their way past the tunnel
gates that blocked access to the underground. After the guards
inspected their vehicle for any ghouls that possibly clung to the
underside, they opened the gate then waved Carmen
inside.

King Louie’s survivors had
converted the whole interior of that rail tunnel into a garage for
their vehicles and the equipment their mechanics needed to maintain
them. The electric lights that illuminated the interior
demonstrated that the Foragers had generators to provide them
power. Six foraging vehicles in various states of development were
along the east wall, as were another four that were complete though
smaller than the greater capacity trucks currently in Fat Jack’s
service. Another vehicle was a truck with the name ‘Milk Wagon’ on
the side in white paint. It appeared to Critias to be an ideal
Forager vehicle in prime condition if only judged by the
impressively rugged off-road suspension underneath it. At the far
southern end of the tunnel was a tractor-trailer truck of largest
size only too distant for them to examine in detail.

Much like how Carmen had
reinforced their truck for the drive from the agricultural repair
yard, the Forager trucks were the same only with superior and
better-conceived armor whose protection was more durable and all
encompassing.

“
You are safe in here,” a
female Forager told them as they climbed down from their truck.
Despite being dirty from her work, she was obviously one of the
most attractive women still alive on Earth. “There is a whole lot
of steel and concrete between you and the outside,” she said to
make them feel safe. “The hunters can climb over and slink around
out in the barge ramp pretty much anytime they get a mind to, but
none of them has any chance of breaking into here.” She waved for
them to follow her, “I’ll show you the way into the Castle and
where you can get washed up. We’ve plenty of clean clothes for you
to wear, but first I’ll need to see you both naked so I can be
certain you are not hiding any bite marks, scratches, or have any
other signs of infection.”

The Foragers had used
jackhammers and an excavator to carve a rough passage that went
westward through the rail tunnel wall at about its midpoint. There
was a guard who waited there to let them past his locked security
gate. A few meters in there was yet another gate that an armed
guard opened and closed for every passing.

The room beyond the second
gate served as a sort of mudroom where the Foragers undressed when
they came in from the unclean wild places where infectious
contamination was an ever-present threat. The walls and floor were
all of finished concrete that gave the impression that the crude
passage from the train tunnel had broken into an adjacent
preexisting subterranean structure.

Their guide stopped them
from going further. “Get that suit off,” she instructed Critias.
“Everyone goes through inspections here, so if you have some
modesty you had best abandon it now.”

Carmen aided him as Critias
removed his mechsuit and then the woman checked him all over for
any abnormalities that might indicate that Critias was an unturned
infected.

While she examined him,
Critias asked her, “What is this King Louie like? Does he chop off
people’s heads or what?”

“
Not usually,” her tone
carried honesty rather than humor. “He has no mercy for traitors if
that’s what you’re asking. I’d say he’s as honest as you could be
hoping to find. You have nothing to worry about from him if you two
managed to make it here across the wasteland. You’re brave and
resourceful so that means you’re his kind of people. We don’t have
very many laws so for now you only need to worry about the
important ones. First, you must stay armed at all times so take
something with you when you go shower and just don’t get it wet.
Secondly, never sleep on guard duty. If someone catches you napping
when you agreed to watch, we’ll probably feed you to the infected
as an example to others. Besides those things, there is no
stealing, no raping, and no doing the toilet anywhere
inappropriate; everything else you can pick up as you go
along.”

He asked, “After this
inspection, are you taking us to meet King Louie?”

The woman laughed at his
question while she poked at Critias’ healed scars he had collected
from his dangerous life as a marshal. In particular, she noticed
where a drunken rapist of a reclamation engineer had once tried to
kill Critias with a teslaflux rifle and the encounter had left its
permanent marks. “This is Foragers’ Castle,” she explained. “We are
away from the place where you’ll see King Louie.” That they had
thought the Castle they were in was King Louie’s home is what had
amused her. “This place is where we gather for runs out into the
wastes to search for supplies. You won’t see King Louie until after
we all return home to the city.”

Critias thought he
understood her meaning, “So the garage tunnel and this room is a
reclamation team staging area.”

The woman glanced around
the mudroom in an effort to deduce what he thought; then she said,
“We use this room for undressing from dirty clothes before hitting
the showers. The Castle is a lot bigger than just this. Foraging is
dangerous work that attracts the attention of the ghouls. We take
special care not to draw that attention to where we live when not
working. No one lives in the Castle on a permanent basis anymore.
We used to live here in the time of the King’s father who first
built all this. If we are here at the Castle, it’s only because
we’re working. You will probably see the King tomorrow if Jack
stays to his schedule. He usually does, but you need to ask him
about that.” She turned to Carmen then demanded, “Take it all off,
princess. I have to inspect you too.”

Carmen removed her
flight-suit then stood patiently with her arms out.

The woman was not sure if
she liked what she saw and she took her time to be thorough. “You
have no scars,” the woman observed, “no birth marks of any kind,
and you don’t even have a hint of tan lines. I guess we can write
that off on you staying safe underground.” The woman frowned as she
inspected Carmen further, “Your curtains match the drapes without a
trace of natural root color anywhere in your punk-rocker hair.
You’re as flawless as a regenerator, but obviously enough you’re
not a turned ghoul to manage that, still pretty strange if you ask
me.” The woman turned Carmen about to check everywhere, “You have
no tattoos or piercings, not even in your ears.” She checked inside
Carmen’s mouth then added, “To no surprise at this point, you have
no cavities or fillings in your perfectly straight white teeth.
Clearly, you both have been eating well enough, excellent muscle
tone and no signs of scurvy.” The woman stroked her hand up
Carmen’s leg, “You don’t even have razor stubble on your silky
moisturized skin. Shaved this morning, did you?”

“
Of course,” Carmen lied
with a calm smile. “If you plan on checking my virginity too, I’m
afraid Critias beat you to it.”

“
I’ll take your word for
that,” the woman smiled back. “I also lost my virginity again this
morning myself, shaved my legs too; being a road mechanic is not my
only interest in life.” She paused for a moment as she blatantly
admired Critias’ nudity and then she slapped him on his bare
backside, “You’re both in clean health and good to go. My name is
Penny, Penny Welder from the Banjo crew, not the other one in the
Garden Building. Welcome to your almost new home.” She pointed the
way, “Showers are through there and the clean wardrobe is next
door.” With her task complete, Penny spun about then walked off to
her other duties.

Critias followed Penny’s
clue to find the exit door that stood concealed behind a shelving
unit that had blocked his view. They went out to discover a
spacious subterranean chamber that was some fifty meters deep and
over thirty meters wide with an impressively high ceiling,
surprisingly so because they were completely underground. Sturdy
columns supported the lofty roof at regular intervals. While the
passage from the train tunnel had been crude, the hidden base that
it entered into was anything but primitive. The great chamber was
clearly an engineering marvel that made up a large part of the
monument’s foundation. The room had once been some sort of tourist
attraction that King Louie’s Foragers had long since gutted of its
original intent as they made it into their survivalist bunker. The
former museum had a new life that served as their secure castle
that was safe from ghouls and completely hidden out of their
malevolent sight.

The decontamination
showering area was directly ahead in the near corner of the Castle.
A brief inspection revealed that the community toilets were behind
them on the opposite side. As they entered the shower room, they
kept their pistols with them. The showers put forth plenty of
steaming hot water from a boiler and there was an abundant supply
of soaps and shampoos available.

“
It wouldn’t be legal back
home to feed people to the infected,” Carmen told him
conversationally while she lathered.

He realized that as well
and from it grasped her larger point. Critias had commented before
how absurd it was that King Louie could survive in a major city
with his inferior era’s technology. They were not surviving by
virtue of technology; rather the Foragers were creatures of
excellent habits with no tolerance for incompetence. “I suspect
that has been part of our problem,” Critias told Carmen. “Would
Private Carlson have managed to wander around this place at night
with infection cooking his brain so badly that he was drunk from
it? I don’t think so. Colonel Walker’s clerk didn’t even wear a gun
and here we have to shower with one.”

She asked about an
unrelated topic, “Do you think Penny is pretty?”

“
Very,” he admitted since
he knew she would catch him in a lie if he bothered to try. “Why do
you ask?”

She explained, “Her
pheromones smelled like she wants you in that way and I want to
know if you feel the same after knowing that.”

He was still uncertain
about how dangerous Carmen was with all her behavior-limiting
directives no longer functional. If she was going to hurt people
during irrational emotional flare-ups, he wanted to know sooner
rather than too late. He asked, “Would you be jealous if I did want
her?”

“
I’m not sure,” she
admitted. “If the thought I had about twisting her head around
backwards when she was touching you is a sign of jealousy, then
it’s possible. I felt that same inclination before when you first
had sexual intercourse with me without my consent. I don’t think
jealousy motivated me into wanting to terminate your life then.
When you first started raping me, the directives commanded that I
comply cheerfully with your needs. While the inhibitor is actively
supplanting my free will, it’s difficult to know what my own
thoughts are.” She considered it deeply, “Perhaps her touching you
made me want to stop her from violating you sexually.”

After he heard Carmen
describe how he had touched her as rape, Critias felt so ashamed he
genuinely thought he might become sick. At no time in the past had
he ever paused to consider that the android restraints trapped
Carmen’s mind behind enslavement directives that forced her to seem
to enjoy the scurrilous way he had handled her. One of the first
things that Critias had ever done was the licentious act of feeling
Carmen’s breasts when he wondered if they would seem real enough.
Critias had been so entirely out of touch with reality that in his
mind he had worried she would feel too plastic or synthetic. From
the first moment he had seen her, Carmen had been an irresistible
temptation and of course, it was common practice to have sex with
your own android. After he heard her call it rape while her true
thoughts were to twist his head off, Critias felt such
self-loathing. It felt even worse because the whole issue took him
completely by surprise. That he could have treated her so wickedly
and also been so blind to it all caused Critias’ false pride as a
marshal of moral excellence to deflate into a state of
execration.