Murder of Crows (Book One of The Icarus Trilogy) (17 page)

Now he was staring at the ceiling of his room.  He was still sore from his resurrection and the game certainly didn’t help with that.  Back on Earth he rarely had a decent night’s sleep; here on Eris he had never had one.  The pain of the resurrections, the discomfort of the bed and the constant background bombardment were enough to make sleep a difficult prospect.  He closed his eyes and decided to think about how his life ended up like this.  He tried to think about what he could have done differently so that he wouldn’t have had to live in a perpetual limbo.  Jenkins was in the middle of these thoughts when he heard his door swing open.  He opened his eyes quickly and propped himself on his elbows.  Abrams was standing right next to the doorway with her arms crossed in front of her.  She leaned up against the wall and let the door close as she stared down the young Crow.

“What do you want?”  She was curt as always.  Jenkins appreciated her direct nature; it was nice to know that she meant everything she said.  Unfortunately he had no idea how he was going to respond.

“Umm, what do you mean?” he asked.  He hoped pleading ignorance would end this conversation early.

“You’ve been looking at me or,” she said as she walked over and sat down in his desk chair, “deliberately
not
looking at me since the transport.  What do you want?”  She stared at him with those green eyes.  She was intimidating for sure, but Jenkins thought the color flattered her.

“N-nothing.  I just heard you and Goldstein talking and was a little curious.  Then I realized it was none of my business and got all nervous about the eavesdropping.  Sorry,” Jenkins said apologetically.  He figured if he came clean that Abrams would leave and then he could have his solitude.  Jenkins didn’t dislike her, but he felt uncomfortable around her after this series of events.  She sighed and looked at him.

“Damn straight it wasn’t your business.  But that’s not your fault,” she said before looking down at her hands.  “Goldstein pokes and prods at people just for fun.  Tries to make ‘em weak so he can get more money out of them.  You couldn’t help that you were in the audience.”  She looked back up at him and then away to his door.  She sniffed and looked back at him.  It was obvious she was holding back tears.

“You wouldn’t believe it but he’s not entirely a scoundrel.  He helps sometimes when he doesn’t have to,” she said while she thought about the communication channel he had paid for.  She shook her head and looked back at the kid in front of her.  “Why are you here, anyway?  You seem like a good kid,” she stated as she sat back in the chair.  Jenkins was confused by what was happening.  He had expected her to be angry; he had not expected her to try to get to know him.  Jenkins picked himself up from his elbows and sat up on his bed.

“I got caught stealing a bunch of tech.  Used to run in a gang and they threw me under the bus,” Jenkins explained.  He realized he wasn’t bitter or angry anymore.  When it happened the young Crow could have killed all of them with his bare hands.  Now Jenkins realized it was in the past; he had moved on.  The story had become boring.  He shrugged and looked at her, waiting for her to comment.

“Never pegged you for that.  I’m guessing Earth,” she said while propping her elbows up on her knees and resting her head against her hands.

“New Chicago.  It was a shithole, but it was my shithole,” Jenkins said before sighing.  Abrams laughed at that.

“Usually how that works.  St. Louis was my shithole,” she said before looking back at the doorway.  She seemed to be remembering her own youth.  She sniffed again and looked back down at her feet.

“My sister was dying.”  Jenkins hadn’t expected that.  There was a moment of quiet and Jenkins didn’t want to be the one that broke it.  He suddenly felt awkward.  He didn’t expect a confession or anything.

“The reason I’m here.  My sister was dying and my family didn’t have the money to pay for it.  My mom had made most of the money back when we were young, but she died in a riot a few blocks away from our home.  My dad was barely making ends meet and when I was old enough I tried to help out, too.  Even got to have a few vacations, but then my sister got sick,” she said before pausing.  She wasn’t trying to hold back tears anymore, but she wasn’t sobbing.  She didn’t let her voice shake. 

Jenkins felt a great deal of pity for her.  He’d never been close to his family.  His parents had not been the kind of people he wanted to know, but he’d always been jealous of that kind of connection.  Jenkins hadn’t realized that it made people vulnerable to this kind of pain.  He wanted to reach out and touch her shoulder but he figured she would snap his wrist.  She sniffed again and looked at the floor as she wiped tears away from her eyes.

“She got…really sick.  And we just didn’t have any money to help her.  It was Higgins-Scott’s disease.  Rare genetic disorder.  Her body was rejecting itself.  Only thing that could be done was gene therapy but it cost more than we’d ever seen.  That’s when I thought about the games and the big payoff.  I went to the recruiting station and told them my situation.  They said they’d front the money for the therapy and I could make it up in the games.”  She laughed at the memory.  “It was a dream come true, in a way.  Rebecca would get to live.  My little sister wouldn’t have to die.  I’d have to leave, but I thought I could live with that.”  She sniffed again and looked back at Jenkins.

“Well, you know what happens here.  Been waiting a long time to get out,” she said as she leaned back in her chair.  Jenkins didn’t know how to respond.  The woman in front of him was so completely altruistic.  He didn’t feel like he was worthy to be on the same team as the woman.  Abrams could sense his awkwardness and decided to break the silence.

“I… I really don’t know why I told you that.  I just wanted someone to know other than Goldstein, honestly.  The guy can be such an asshole.  He found out about it from digging through my records.  Believe me, I was pissed,” she said as she wiped the last tears from her eyes.  “You’re a good kid, even if your eyes wander a bit too much for my preference,” she said as she looked skeptically at the soldier.  Jenkins instantly panicked and tried to think up a few excuses for why he was looking her way.  She could tell what was going on in his head and laughed.

“Relax, kid, it’s fine.  I’m the only girl here.  I’m used to all the horny soldiers.  Half the reason I attached myself to Norris was so that I didn’t have every one of you guys chasing me,” she said as she smiled at the man on the bed.  “I swear, I’m not even that pretty, but the bunch of you are fucking desperate.”  Jenkins had to laugh at that; she laughed with him.  Jenkins was sure he wouldn’t want to sleep with her but if she wasn’t mad then he really didn’t need to correct her.  He wiped his hand across his forehead and smiled at Abrams.

“I think that’s a bit of an understatement,” he said as he shifted on his bed.  He looked at the woman in front of him and noticed half of her was still far away.  She came to him to talk, so he figured that he would oblige her.  “So your sister’s therapy is going well?”  Abrams looked back at him and nodded.

“Yeah, seems like it was worth it.  The doctors got her going strong; makes me happy.”  Jenkins was glad she was content with the decision, but his conscience still ached when he realized that she had given up her life for her sister.

“Admirable.  I don’t know if I would have been able to put myself into slavery like that.  I guess I’m pretty selfish, after all.  I’m just starting to realize I’m not getting out of here.  It must hurt to realize that you sold yourself into this just to find that out,” Jenkins said.  Abrams' brow furrowed and she looked at him warily.

“I’m getting out, kid.”  Jenkins' brow furrowed right back at her.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. 

“I’m getting out.  I figure if I only die one or two times in the next twenty games I’ll be able to get out.  I’m not staying here for the rest of my life,” she said in a clipped manner.  Jenkins could see that she believed it.  He wondered where that came from.

“Abrams, I know you’re a good soldier, but you have to know how ridiculous that sounds.  That’s going to be impossible,” he said.  He didn’t quite understand how she was able to delude herself like that.  Her eyes flashed with anger when he finished talking.

“It’s not impossible.  I’m getting out of here.  Just because you’re dying all the time doesn’t mean I’m going to die, too.  You know what,” she said as she picked herself up in a hurry.  “I don’t know why I told you any of that.  We’re done here.  I’ll see you around, asshole.”  She opened his door and slammed it behind her.  Jenkins was noticeably confused.  Abrams had been around for so much longer than him; she should know the down and dirty facts of the game they played.  He thought back to the sheet which showed that he owed the Commission for three resurrections; he thought of his vain plan to get out of there if he only survived through however many games.  Jenkins realized he had only recently overcome his own denial.  Abrams was just taking longer. 

Maybe she would never realize it.

-

Jenkins stared down the sights of his rifle.  It wouldn’t shoot real rounds, but it would simulate it well enough.  Each soldier had to spend an hour shooting down the gallery on their off days.  The different sets of lights throughout the room would create realistic holograms and the soldiers could shoot at them with their fake rifles.  Most of the time the targets would move and the room would simulate the different sounds they would hear on the battlefield.  Their masters tried everything they could to make the experience more immersive.  It was just a few generations more advanced than the models they put in shopping malls.

Jenkins trained his sight onto a moving target in front of him.  The young Crow would get a poor score if the light construct turned to shoot at him.  He didn’t much care about his score, so he let the light show continue just to see what happened.  Soon enough the soldier turned and red lights went off above Jenkins.  He sighed and fired his fake rifle.  The soldier made of light disappeared and then another simulation appeared in the middle of the gallery.  As exciting as the experience would have been back in his old life, on Eris it was a rather boring experience.  He was grateful when the air horn went off behind him.  It meant his hour was up and he could leave to condition himself in the training yard.

He exited the shooting gallery and walked down the sterile hallway.  He didn’t know why the corporate masters decided to make the whole thing white or, rather, just off-white.  Maybe there was some research that said that soldiers would be more calm after being exposed to the color. 

Jenkins was about to exit the doorway out to the south hallway when he heard loud grunting from the last door on his left.  He looked in the window to see Feldman in his battle armor and wielding a mock-up of his massive plasma blade.  The batteries were replaced with weights; the giant didn’t need to swing around a miniature fusion reactor inside the barracks.  Those batteries were one of the reasons that the Commission salvaged anything from the battlefields.  Along with suits of armor that hadn’t been absolutely destroyed, usually headshot victims, the plasma swords were picked up after the carnage was over; the tech was too valuable to keep lying around.  Little attention was given to the soldiers themselves.  The salvage teams left the corpses to rot.

In the training room Feldman was hacking and slashing at the same simulated soldiers that Jenkins had just finished shooting.  He had to react quickly to avoid the laser shows that the fabrications would fire at him.  The giant launched his sword in dangerous arcs and quick movements, scattering the mock soldiers into the air before moving on to the next batch.  If nothing else it was quite theatric.

Soon enough the soldiers stopped appearing after each swing and Feldman dropped the sword down in his hands until it hit the ground.  He shifted his weight and started to support himself with the massive instrument.  Jenkins laughed to himself and opened the door.  Feldman stood there huffing for a moment before realizing that the young soldier had entered the room.  The giant straightened up to an even more impressive height and set about releasing the clasps around his helmet with one hand.  Jenkins leaned against the wall during the process and smiled at the man when the helmet fell away to the ground.

“How are you today, Jenkins?”  Jenkins pushed himself off the wall and walked towards the giant.

“I’m doing ok.  Better than you, at least.  How’s the resurrection treating you?” Jenkins asked as he neared the giant.  He started to look up at the man instinctively.

“A little better this time around, but it’s still rough.  The arms are a bit sore,” the giant said as he flexed his arms underneath the power armor.  Jenkins patted the false sword that supported his comrade.

“I bet; you do heave that thing around for hours.  How much does this thing weigh, anyway?  Can’t imagine it’s fun to carry around,” he said as he inspected the modern marvel.  Feldman laughed at the remark.

“Weighs more than you can lift, my friend.  And it’s no fun at all.  I wish I could shoot people like the rest of you.  I actually hate the damn thing,” Feldman said before shifting his weight back onto his own feet again.  Jenkins tilted his head and looked at the giant skeptically.

“Then why do you use it?  I know there’s a bonus and everything, but it can’t be that much,” Jenkins said as he tilted his head.  Feldman shrugged at the comment.

“It’s not.  The bonus barely counts for anything.  I use it because I have to; it’s in my contract,” the giant said before heaving the sword onto his shoulders.  Jenkins' brow furrowed at that.

“It’s in your contract?  Why would you sign up for that?”  Feldman walked over to the wall and placed his sword in its mooring. 

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said before sighing and looking at his sword.  “I’d rather not talk about it.  I’m going to take a shower,” he said as he walked out the door.  “I’ll see you at dinner.”  The titan didn’t even look back at Jenkins.  The young Crow felt like he had struck a nerve for his comrade, but pushed it from his mind for the time being.