Murder of Crows (Book One of The Icarus Trilogy) (16 page)

Jenkins thought about how many games he would have to survive through if he only had two deaths to pay for.  Then he remembered that his stay was not so temporary.  He wasn’t just stuck paying for the accounting problem; the soldier had to stay for his sentence.  Jenkins was going to die over and over again for the next six months.  Two or three deaths may have been possible to overcome, but with a game every other day for six months he was looking at insurmountable odds.

The soldier walked in a daze back to his room.  He didn’t concern himself with any of the people he passed or the things he could see.  It was all fully sinking into him now and he cursed his decision to ever come to this hellhole.  He wasn’t ever going to leave; he was going to end up like Carver.  It was no longer the goal; Carver was now everything he never wanted to be.  Jenkins didn’t want to force himself to live with all of this.

When he regained his senses he found himself in the library.  He’d never been inside the room and thought about how it was such a relic.  If people read, it was on a computer display.  It was the reason the library was so well-stocked with the antiques.  No one wanted them anymore. 

It was a large complex, considering the need for such a room, but some of the bookcases were empty.  All the books that belonged in them were scattered around in stacks on tables and on the floor.  There were computers set about on desks near the entrance, but otherwise the room was devoted to relaxing and enjoying a quiet read.  Pieces of antiquated furniture were scattered around the area devoted for that purpose.  They were falling apart and the material was torn off a few pieces, but they seemed to have retained their comfort.

Jenkins threw his balance sheet into the garbage can as he passed the entrance.  He sat down in a slightly-worn, cushioned arm chair near one of the book stacks.  The corporate masters allowed them some luxury in this room, it seemed.  Jenkins sat for a few moments while mindlessly playing with the edge of the material.  He couldn’t tell how time was passing; it was quicksand for him.  All he knew was that he was sitting in the arm chair by himself one minute and the next moment Feldman appeared between the stacks of books holding a dusty tome.  Jenkins was startled by the giant’s appearance.  The other soldier merely looked at Jenkins, nodded and then sat himself down in the chair across from Jenkins. 

There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence for the young Crow.  He didn’t know how to interact with the man like this; he’d never expected the giant to be such an avid reader.  Jenkins almost started to speak several times but every time he opened his mouth the initial sound was followed by nothing.  Eventually it was too much for the soldier to bear.

“Sooo…. Do you read in here often?” Jenkins asked, trying desperately to fill the silence.  The giant looked up at him, dog-eared the page he was reading and then set the book down on his lap.  He lifted his eyebrow and scoffed at the child soldier.

“Sounds like a bad pick-up line.”  Jenkins instantly felt stupid.  He could have tried to play it off like that was the joke but he couldn’t muster the false bravado.  He just laughed and shrugged.

“It … really does.  I just didn’t know what to say.”

“Plato once said ‘A wise man speaks when he has something to say, a fool when he wishes to say something,’” the giant quoted from the arm chair.  Jenkins hadn’t expected intelligence from the brute.  He promised to himself that he would make no more presumptions about the man.

“I guess I am a fool, after all,” Jenkins conceded.  Feldman just shook his head.

“Well, we’re all fools.  We don’t need Plato to realize that.”  Jenkins smiled at his compatriot.  Before that fifth game the giant had said almost nothing to the new recruit.  It seemed like the titan was finally opening up.   Jenkins craned his neck and looked around the room.

“I didn’t realize you were such the brainiac.  Someone your size…” Jenkins said before slapping himself mentally.

“Hah, we’re all big, dumb gorillas over on Osmos, I’ll admit.  And I’m not that special or smart, Jenkins.  I just know a lot.  I have a lot of time to read when I’m here.  It helps me deal with all this around us,” Feldman said while waving his hand suggestively. 

“So all the fighting
does
get to you.  I thought you were superhuman about all that stuff,” Jenkins said while feeling a wave of relief.

“The fighting doesn’t get to me,” Feldman said abruptly.  Jenkins' brow furrowed.

“Then what’s ‘all this?’”

“All of you,” Feldman said while looking his compatriot in the eye.  Jenkins tilted his head in his confusion.

“What’s wrong with us?” Jenkins asked accusingly.  He didn’t like being talked down to; even if the man had almost half a meter on him.

“You’re all stuck in here.  You’re all miserable.  I want to help you,” he said while looking down at his hands.  “But sometimes I just need time for myself.  I need time to get away from your problems.  The books are how I get by,” he said before looking back up at his new friend.

“Everybody wants to escape in their own way, I guess,” Jenkins said while looking at his own hands.  He didn’t know how he was going to get by.  He had no way of retreating away from his life like the others.

“It’s not escape, really,” Feldman said before pausing.  He was doing his best to say it the right way.  He didn’t want to offend the boy.  “It’s just a way for me to hope for better.  In these works of fiction, even some of the historical tomes, I can see that there were some dark times.”  Jenkins looked at the giant skeptically.

“And how does that make you hope for better?”

“The dark times ended.  It gives me hope that this is temporary.  I know it’s hard to consider when you’re new to the games, but this is not forever.  Eventually the games go on without us.  There’s always new players to take over for the old,” Feldman said before standing to his impressive height.  He walked over to his small friend and placed his hand onto the man’s shoulder.  “We don’t
have
to turn into Carver; we have other options,” he said before leaving for the door with his book in hand.  Jenkins didn’t know what to say.  He hadn’t considered that all the old men left the games eventually.  He remembered Patrick McEwen on War World; he was living proof.  Jenkins’ fear of becoming Carver was still very real, but it did not give him as much anxiety as before.  Feldman was almost through the doorway when Jenkins called after him.

“I have a question for you.”  Feldman turned sideways so that he could look at the rookie.

“What would you ask of me?”  Jenkins thought about the question he really wanted to ask.  He wanted to know why this kind giant with a solid head on his shoulders had ended up here with the rest of them.  Jenkins was a criminal and so were many of the people here.  Others were here for the fool’s gold they were promised in the advertisements.  Feldman didn’t seem like he belonged to either group.

“What are you reading, anyway?” Jenkins asked with a smile.  Feldman looked down and laughed.

“The Neverending Story.  Always loved it when I was a kid.  I’ll see you on the battlefield, Jenkins,” he said before turning the corner and disappearing from view.  Jenkins sat against his arm chair and let out a chuckle before looking at the ceiling and wondered what he was going to do for the next hour while he waited for the match.

-

Jenkins felt exhausted as he piled himself into the transport.  The game was fairly uneventful for him.  He only ran into three soldiers with his partner during the entire match.  He killed two of them; Templeton got the other.  Jenkins didn’t consider himself an old hand, yet, and he certainly didn’t think he had much skill, but Templeton didn’t even meet his standards.  It seemed like sometimes the thin, black man wasn’t even trying.

Jenkins thought the soldier was rather pathetic.

The Crows had fought the Dragons, which were one of the lowest ranking teams in the circuit.  After the last match they needed an easy opponent to even things out; none of the Crows were ready for another resurrection.  Unfortunately four Crows would have to face that misery yet again.  Roth had been killed again, but this time it was a bullet instead of a chainsaw and an explosive shell.  Cortes had been killed by an enemy grenade.  Feldman had been caught in the crossfire of two enemy soldiers.  Corrigan, an average soldier who merely did his duty, had found himself on the wrong end of a rifle.  There were a dozen drones just like him in the Crows’ roster; they had given into their depression and accepted their fate.  It was hard for Jenkins to remember all of their names.

Jenkins sat there in the aircraft as soldiers came back from the field.  A few straggled in, but what caught his notice was Abrams’ arrival.  She wasn’t wearing her helmet but instead held it in her hand. When she sat down she set the thing next to her on the bench; she seemed determined to stay quiet and mind her own business.  Jenkins had no intention in denying her wishes.

When Goldstein arrived it was a completely different story.  He sat across from the woman and hunkered himself into a position so that his knees supported the weight of his upper body.  He grinned at the woman but looked around at the other soldiers as well.

“Well, that was pretty easy money, right, gentlemen?  And lady, excuse me,” he added while turning the grin into a wry smile.  Jenkins wondered why the merchant would antagonize the woman like that.

“Very easy money, Goldstein.  Let’s just leave it at that,” Abrams replied without looking at him.  She just kept peering out the loading bay so that she didn’t have to make eye contact with the man.  Goldstein sat back and leaned against the hull of the transport.

“Fair enough.  Gentleman doesn’t ask and a lady never tells, as they say.  Did you get your care package from your sister?” he asked with a small turn at the corner of his lip.  Even Jenkins knew that there was a load of subtext underneath the question.  Abrams gave the other soldier a quick glare in response.

“Yes, it was quite nice.  Thanks for asking.”  Abrams fully intended for that to be the end of the conversation.  She did not want any of her business aired in front of the other soldiers.

“How is she doing, anyway?  That condition of hers stabilized?” Goldstein asked.  He was faking sincerity, of course, but Jenkins was curious about that line of questioning.  But while Jenkins might have been interested, he could see the fury coming off of Abrams in waves.  Her very anger seemed to eke out into the air around them.

“Yes, she’s fine.  Best money I ever spent,” she said in a clipped manner.  Jenkins could tell that Goldstein would have much to answer for when the two were in a more private setting.

“Good.  Wouldn’t want you to regret it,” he said before looking out the door.  There was something going on that Jenkins couldn’t possibly understand, but it was getting to the point that he really didn’t want to know anything else.  The information would come at too high of a cost.  An awkward quiet fell over the soldiers as more of them fell into ranks in the transport.  Those who had been there to witness the conversation between Abrams and her antagonist were keeping to themselves.  Maybe it was just Jenkins who had noticed.  Either way the young soldier was uncomfortable with the two sitting across from each other.

Soon enough noise started to fill the loading bay.  Norris had appeared sans his partner and was trading stories with some of the other soldiers.  He laughed as he started to tell his own.

“So there I was with Roth and the two of us were sitting around waiting for a Dragon or two to show up.  I figured we could lay low for a bit and maybe get a good nap in.  Then the bloody idiot sees one of them and instead of letting me, the sniper, know about it he gets it into his head that he should shoot at the bloke.  Of course, the tosser misses with the RPG and then he gets his head blown off by someone who has clearly spent more time on the battlefield.  It gave me enough time to plant a bullet in the man’s face, so I can’t really complain, but it was just silly,” he said as he was shaking his head.  He started laughing as he recalled the experience.  “I tell you what, though.  He got shot in the shoulder right before his head popped off and I swear he did the best pirouette I’ve seen from a man.  Downright graceful.  Right bloody dancer, he is,” he said before laughing again.  

Jenkins looked at the soldier skeptically throughout his story.  He didn’t get the humor; no one did.  They just pretended to laugh at his awkward stories because they didn’t know what else to do.  In his dismay Jenkins looked over to Abrams.  He’d heard the two of them were bunk buddies.  When he turned to look at her he found that she was looking his way, as well.  Jenkins tried to play it off by continuing his head movement past Abrams and towards the other side of the loading bay.  He didn’t want to make eye contact with the woman, but soon enough his curiosity got the better of him and he glanced back at her.

She hadn’t averted her gaze.  Her green eyes were peering right into his.

-

Jenkins walked down the hallway and pretended that he was wearing blinders.  Jenkins was afraid that Abrams would try to catch up with him or someone would try to talk to him.  All he wanted was to go back to his room and try to sleep.  If he failed at that he would just stare at the ceiling.  The soldier just wanted to be away from everybody around him.

No one tried to stop him.  He made it to his room and sank into his bed, finally letting the tension fall from his shoulders.  The eye contact with Abrams hadn’t lasted very long, and she didn’t say anything, but just that one look was enough for Jenkins to be nervous the entire way to headquarters.  Jenkins let all the men around him talk and made sure to keep his head down.  When the transport landed he tried to keep to the middle of the group and took off his armor discretely in the locker room. 

He had done his best to close his eyes in the showers.  Jenkins had mistakenly looked around after he had washed the soap from his eyes and saw Abrams standing off to his side.  He desperately tried not to look her over, but weeks of living on the asteroid were difficult for the man.  She was not unattractive, but she was no real prize.  Jenkins was about to let his eyes wander back when their eyes locked again.  He cursed and went back to washing himself.  When he finished he threw on a light outfit and rushed out the door.