240.Day
After breakfast I went through the further planning with everyone. We would have another hike ahead of us. We had to go a whole day’s march south to get to the Märden Bunker. We had to conquer it. From there we would start the next action. We had to enter the Kungsgarden villa. Van Ulmers Villa. It was located on a small lake. We prepared everything, packed our things and went to bed early, because we wanted to march off before sunrise.
Day 241
We set off. It snowed heavily. We were able to identify some infrared signatures of Huntern. But they were far enough away. We staggered through the snow. I took Amelie by the hand and carried her the bazooka. Amelie’s gunshot wound hurt a little. Akiko had drizzled them with rose oil before the march.
I had put on her cap before she put on her helmet. Then I gave her a scarf and put the scarf around and pulled it over her mouth and nose. She made me willing. Thickly masked, she staggered beside me. When it got hesitantly bright, I asked her if she was cold. She shook her head. Around noon we stopped.
We had to take a detour because we saw a tank in the distance and some Hunter. We made a big bow around them. That, of course, took us time. We found a lumberjack hut that offered us shelter from the icy wind. The snowflakes were very fine and were blown in our faces. I gave Amelie my sunglasses. “There’s no sun,” Amelie said with a chuckle. "If you are constantly looking at the white in the weather, your eyes are hurting and the glasses prevent you from getting the snow blown so much into your eyes.
After we moved on, Amelie said, “Thank you Helldiver that’s really good with the sunglasses, thank you.” She also had no blue lips. I had looked at that at the rest. In the late afternoon we came near the March Bunker and got into a firefight with some hunters. We were able to wipe you out after some time. Then we stormed the bunker. We had found code cards again and were able to open a bunker gate.
We first searched the bunker’s energy center and turned on the light. On the way to the power supply we encountered some ticks. Then we ran off the aisles to clean up the bunker. Hallway by hallway and room by room we secured the bunker. We had to deal with some runners in one go, but together we wiped them out.
Amelie complained of headaches and a general feeling of weakness. Akiko took over the dinner, Jim and I set up the bedroom, put beds together and covered them with bed linen and enough blankets, because it was cold in the bunker. The heating would take a few more days to make it pleasant. Amelie looked tired and done. She froze, although she claimed on the march she had not frozen. I covered them warmly and took them in my arms to warm them up.
Day 242
In the morning, Amelie was a bit cuddly. She wanted to leave something else. Akiko and Jim had already got up. Actually, this was unusual, because otherwise Amelie was always the one who got up early. I noticed that she often rused herself. When I asked if she would not be well, she replied
"I have a frog in my neck."
At breakfast she was quiet and ate somehow appetizing. Although, in my opinion, she ate too little, she always ate with appetite. We discussed our next action. On the plan was a visit to the Villa Kungsgarden.
It was the house of the scientist van Ulmer, who was connected with the secret project and certainly with the robots. I fell to Amelie for the frostand and looked pale. I didn’t like it.
I felt her forehead and asked , "Are you sick?"
she denied it. “I’m just cold,” she replied.
Akiko also criticized her and asked her to go to the hospital ward. She changed Amelie’s dressing and dripped rose oil on the wound. Amelie rattled and shook.
"I want to see your neck Amalie," Akiko said.
From one of the cupboards she took a wooden spatula and posed in front of Amelie
"Mouth up and make Ahhh," Akiko said.
Amelie opened her mouth and made "AAAAAHHHHH,"
Akiko pressed her tongue back with the wooden spatula, lit her neck with her flashlight, and looked inside.
"Is a little red and almonds a little swollen. Must be watching."
Then she put a fever thermometer in Amelie’s mouth.
"Iff have germ fever," Amelie quipped with the thermometer in her mouth.
Akiko was relentless. When she read the temperature after a while, she said
"Temperature normal, no fever."
Amelie coughed a few times and dressed.
"Can we?" she asked.
We packed our things and got ready to go. Kungsgarden was not so far away. If all went well we would be back in the afternoon. I made sure she dressed warmly, especially a woolly hat under her helmet. I pulled the scarf over her mouth and nose. On the way, she coughed again and again. Once we even had to stop because she had a real coughing fit and had a hard time getting air.
I took her guns except for her MP, who desperately wanted to keep them. When we arrived near the villa, Jim and I scouted the area. The day was cloudy and foggy. A nasty damp cold even made me froze. The villa was located on a lake and was very large. In the summer it was certainly very nice here. We didn’t see any robots in the vicinity. We moved slowly. Amelie was supposed to crack the door lock. Akiko helped her. It turned out that this castle was not so easy to crack, but with united forces, Amelie and Akiko managed to open the door.
On the other side of the lake I could see the signature of a few runners. Then Jim and I slipped into the building. In the living room, Amelie dropped on the couch, took off her helmet and took off her cap. She was short-breathed and coughed again and again.
'You don’t like Amelie, you don’t look good. Areyou not doing well?" I asked her.
“It goes like this,” she said, “I’m just getting bad air at the moment and my neck hurts.”
"You certainly got a cold," I told her.
"Stay here, we search the house," I said to her, asking her to take her claw in her hand.
We found code cards, a diary, several cassettes and a pocket dictation device to which the found cassettes matched. Then there are a lot of handwritten notes. Luckily, the house wasn’t tick contaminated. We took everything that seemed important to us, then we got ready to leave. I took Amelie’s weapons again and took them by the hand. The fog became more and more dense. We staggered back to the bunker. Amelie was getting worse and worse, she had very murky eyes and coughed again and again. I took to her to put her in bed in the bunker and pack her warm. She had certainly gotten a fat flu during the long march through the cold. My neck also hurt. I had definitely infected myself with her, or she had contacted me, only that it broke out with me later.
Amelie was walking on the gums as we reached the bunker. She dropped on a chair in the canteen. I took her weapons and took them to the bedroom, then I took the blankets from our bed and wrapped Amelie in them. She was pale, coughing constantly and very short-breathed.
Akiko looked back at her neck and covered her face.
"Ohh, that’s fire red and almonds swollen. I’ll give you antibiotics, you’ve got to take them.’
Amelie let everything go well. Akiko cooked her a cup of hot milk, which she had stirred from the milk powder. I found a few glasses of honey in the farthest corner of the pantry. Akiko put a thick spoonful of honey into her milk.
"Here you have to drink!" Akiko said to Amelie, squeezing the cup into her hand.
"I make rice porridge for her, make warm from the inside and then Amelie in bed,"
Akiko said. I fed Amelie the rice porridge and although she was obviously not doing well, she smiled thinly after every spoon I put in her mouth. She ate quite well and waved off when she was full. Then I wanted to carry her to bed, but she pulled a snout.
“I don’t want to go to bed alone.”
I let myself soften and bedded her on the couch in the common room. I sat down next to her and held her in my arms to warm her. She cuddled up and looked at me from murky eyes. She was really sick. Jim brought me a beer and ripped open the can for me. Then Akiko came into the lounge with a steaming bowl and a towel over her arm. She put the bowl on the table and said
"Amalie, you come here. You have to inhale, then you better."
Amelie sat down at the table and kept the blankets around her. Akiko dripped a liquid from a small bottle into the steaming water.
"So you take a towel over your head and then inhale deeply," Akiko said.
She spread the towel over Amelie’s head and hung it over the bowl.
"Man that burns you all away," Amelie mumbled under the cloth with a muted voice.
"Always take a deep breath," Akiko said relentlessly.
Amelie bowed Akiko’s instructions and took a deep breath. At first she coughed a little, but that settled down after a few breaths. After about 10 minutes, Akiko took the towel from Amelie’s head. It smelled strongly of peppermint and eucalyptus. Amelie’s face was damp and sweaty.
"Puh, at first you think it burns your neck and the lungs off but it helps, I can breathe much better," Amelie said.
Then Akiko Amelie buttoned up the shirt and rubbed a few drops from the vial on Amelie’s chest.
"So and you must now be in bed Amalie," Akiko said.
“I’m going with her,” I said.
I took Amelie on my arm and carried her to the bedroom. Amelie looked at me gratefully, swayed her arms around my neck and put her head on my chest smiling. Then I put her in our bed. I quickly pulled a blanket out of the laundry and spread it over us. Amelie now had three blankets on top of each other. I lay down in bed with her, took her in my arm and warmed her. She put her hand on mine and muttered
“Thank you Helldiver, you’re so sweet, sleep well.”
Day 243
I woke up in the morning sweat-bathed. Amelie was also very sweaty. It was very warm in bed. My neck felt like a rubbing bite. She had slept quietly. When she woke up, she said
“Uiihh it’s warm. I’m sweating, you too?” she asked.
"And how," I said.
"How do you feel?" I asked her.
"Still a little weak, but better than yesterday."
She coughed a few times, but the cough sounded different. When I got dressed, I froze a bit and I had limb pain, like a muscle soreness. I told Akiko that I also felt sick. She examined me after breakfast and also noticed a redness of my neck.
I drank a hot milk with honey and inhaled the drops Akiko had. They were really very strong. The first breaths hurt, but after that I felt better. I suggested to Amelie to go back to bed. When I told her I was going to go, Amelie laughed
"then I can cuddle with you all day, do you wear me again?"
Asked Amelie and stretched out her arms after me. Everyone was smiling as I took her in my arms. Then we just lay down in bed again. After a while, Jim and Akiko arrived.
“It’s snowing like crazy and it’s stormy,” Jim said.
They sat down on their bed and talked to us. Jim got some cans of beer and even Amelie drank one. She was visibly better off. Akiko had given me the bottle of oil to rub Amelie’s chest. We were all in bed in the afternoon and doze a little.
In the evening Akiko cooked the rice porridge again, which we all liked to eat. He was fed up and warmed up well. Amelie ate with a good appetite and didn’t have such murky eyes anymore. I inhaled again after the meal and also rubbed my chest. A little later I lay with Amelie in my arms and fell asleep with her.
Day 244
I woke up so sweaty again but my neck didn’t hurt so much anymore, but Like Amelie I had to cough a little. She was a little better off. After dinner I wanted to take a shower. I just wanted to get my laundry items out of the bedroom, when Amelie appeared in the doorway
“I’m coming with you,” she said firmly, taking her toilet bag.
"But I…,"
“Come on, don’t beson’t like that,” she said, taking me by the hand.
We walked down the hallway to the shower room.
"But Jim and Akiko, what does that look like?" I said
“Don’t act like that. Haven’t you noticed that the two are also taking a shower together?”
she said as she pushed me into the shower room and closed the door behind us.
“You’ve already seen me naked and I’ve seen you so what’s there.”
While she said that, she undressed.
"Well what is, down with the clothes,"
she said, promptly, and looked at me seductively. As I undressed, she went into the shower completely naked with a hip swing and turned up the water. She also operated the second shower so that we had enough warm water. I let it bounce on my body and sit down.
"Are you squeeous to my back?" asked Amelie, smiling seductively at me again.
When I had shaved her off, she turned to me, shaved her arms around my neck and kissed me demandingly. It was strange under the warm water, which rained down on us. She snuggled her soft body to me and sighed softly. Then she leaned against the wall with her back, held on to my shoulders and slung her legs around my hips. I held her so she could put her arms around me. Then we loved each other under the warm water. She was demanding and quickly came to the summit, my back was somewhat spared even though she clung to me shrugging.
She kissed me long and tender ly not getting enough. After a short time she asked me again. When she reached her peak again, she sighed deeply and laughed. We took each other off again and then turned off the water. “Now I’m doing really well,” she said, “That’s been good, let’s get back to bed and cuddle, please, please,”
she said with an eye-roll where you couldn’t say no. We dried and dressed. Amelie blew her hair dry and combed mine too. When we finished we went on a jump to the canteen where Akiko and Jim were sitting.
"You both look better," Akiko said.
“We lie down in bed again, then we’ll be back on the dam tomorrow,” I said.
“That’s good, Jim and I’re coming right away, I could doze a little bit,”
Akiko said, cuddling in Jim’s arm. Jim and Akiko arrived a little later with a few cans of beer in their arms.
“Now we’re having a bed party,” Jim said with a laugh, handing Amelie and me a can of beer. Akiko cuddled up to Jim in bed while Amelie lay dozing in my arm. The break was good for all of us.
Day 245
I woke up and felt fit. Amelie was much better off. She was just cheerful as she opened her eyes. At breakfast she was again as usual. After breakfast, we took a look at the documents we had found in van Ulmer’s house.
We found a doctor’s report that van Ulmer had AIDS. There was no cure for this disease. She was probably well advanced with van Ulmer. The tapes turned out to be a kind of diary of van Ulmer. He had spoken about it. We heard that he had been working very closely with Ingrid Granqvist on a project for several years. They worked on a neural connection between the human brain and a computer. He was also friends with Veronika Nilsson, a member of staff who worked on a computer program. The last recording was from a day when an important experiment was to take place.
Van Ulmer wanted to do a self-test because he was severely weakened by his advanced AIDS disease and there were no immune reactions to his body because his immune system was no longer responding. Otherwise, this could have derailed the experiment. They also found a recording of a phone call between van Ulmer and Fredrik Holberg. Ulmer was to work on a national defense project. They worked to get the robots to be controlled by humans from the bunker. I remembered the newspaper article we found in Lennarts Marin. I put the newspaper on the documents. According to this, Ingrid Granqvist was killed after the experiment with van Ulmer.
I summed it up. Van Ulmer had worked with Ingrid Granqvist for years on a connection between man and machine.
Veronika Nilsson was also involved in this project and had maintained a relationship with van Ulmer that went beyond the normal relationship between manager and employee. She had developed software that was needed for the project.
The project was designed to control the machines by humans, through a spiritual connection between humans and robots.
Van Ulmer and Granqvist had conducted an experiment.
Granqvist had been killed a few days after the experiment
The robot crisis then erupted.
Fredrik Holberg, was obviously a member of a sect. The Church of the Irons. He was the chief executive of the project, which probably included van Ulmer’s self-experiment.
Holberg and van Ulmer had dived just before the robot crisis began.
Holberg had obviously fled or had anything in front of him, as he had probably been seen on Hjimfäll after the invasion by the robots. He had taken some people from Ljuset and killed those who did not want to.
Was Holberg behind all this? What role did van Ulmer play? He had complained to Holberg because he feared that his work would be misused for military purposes. He had done it anyway, because he wanted to put his years of research into practice and he had received the funds from the FOA. Had van Ulmer perhaps seen an opportunity for himself in it. Had he perhaps managed to transfer his consciousness to a computer in order to escape his dying body? A crazy thought.
The code cards we found belonged to a research lab that belonged to FOA 53. That was our ultimate goal. This plant had to be destroyed. It was used to execute the radio commands used to control the robots. We just had to smash the infrastructure. The actions we had carried out before were directed against the supply of fuel and the supply of weapons. We had to conquer the Hermelinen Bunker and destroy two industrial facilities before we were to attack the FOA 53. The Hermelinen Bunker should serve as a base for us in the attack on FOA 53.
We discussed the results all day long. We decided to stay in the bunker for another day so that Amelie and I could cure ourselves. I was fine the sore throats were gone, only the cough had remained. Amelie and I inhaled again with the oil from Akiko’s vial. Amelie fared much better.
Day 246
We packed our belongings and set out to destroy the Leräng industrial plant. It was not far away. We still had enough time igniters and could destroy the plant if we were far enough away. We invaded them. Some Hunters patrolled. They were again quite dangerous. They had a black-green color and carried grenade launchers and a tank with a greenish fluorescent liquid. They were equipped with a tick tank. We had occasionally seen such robots on Hjimfäll. They were also equipped with a flamethrower.
They were very bad guys. On their own, they had little chance against them. We formed two teams. Jim and I fired at the grenade launchers. The girls should focus on the flamethrowers. When the robots were disarmed, we wanted to wipe them out. That worked out reasonably well. We were heavily shelled and often had to withdraw, because the poison gas they fired was very strong. We fought an hour-long battle without really getting into the facility. We were beaten back every time. Our ammunition stock also declined rapidly, so I was already considering cancelling the action.
We started one last attempt by laying a mine belt and luring the robots in. The last one was lured by Jim by shooting him from behind into the tick tank. The robot immediately turned around and fired at Jim, who immediately ran away to get out of range of his shells. The Hunter pursued him and ran into the deep-staggered mine belt. He was torn apart by the mines. Then it became quiet.
We invaded the facility. Ammunition was produced in the factory halls. We stuffed our pockets, because we found a lot of 7.62 and caliber 50 ammunition. Then we distributed the explosives and installed the remote detonators. We quickly got out of the dust when we had everything installed. At some distance, I asked, "Who wants?" and held up the ignition device. This time we let Akiko press. She was delighted when she pressed the button. Through binoculars we watched the explosion. The halls exploded in turn and when the ammunition depots exploded, there was real fireworks. Everything that was in the immediate vicinity of the work was destroyed. Burning and smoking ruins were left behind.
We went back to the bunker and celebrated our victory. In the evening we prepared our next action. This time, the Granhyet industrial plant should believe in it. According to our documents, poison gas was also produced here. The operation was dangerous in that an explosion would release the gas. So we had to be far enough away before we set the whole thing on fire. Unfortunately, the remote detonator had only a limited range. I suggested the use of time igniters, because if we had set them long enough, we would have put enough distance between ourselves and the work.
Day 247
We got back early. We wanted to attack the facility at dawn. We approached cautiously. The weather helped us because a strong northerly wind was blowing and the fine snowflakes were pushing us in the face like ice needles. We staggered through the deep snow. A short time later we looked like snowmen, the snow sticking to our uniforms.
We approached the plant and fought the robots that got in our way. We tried to keep the firefights to a minimum and deceived the robots with fireworks. We invaded the facility and placed our explosive charges. We split up to make it faster. Jim and I had taught the girls how to handle the prison blasts to sharpen them. We gathered, spied out the area and dared to break out. We fired from all the pipes and withdrew from the plant.
“Can’t the robots clear the explosive charges?”
asked Amelie when we were in cover outside the facility.
“No, they don’t have gripping hands and even if they take the hold at the points, it doesn’t stop them from exploding,” I told her.
We retreated further. We lay down mines where we went into cover and took our legs in our hands. At the explosions we heard that our persecutors had fallen into the trap. One or the other robot was only badly damaged and pursued us further. But in the forest she had no chance against us. When we had covered half the way to the bunker, the sow of the wind was torn apart by a huge detonation.
Behind us, a huge cloud of embers rises into the sky. The subsequent rising cloud was colored poison green. That was the poison gas, stupidly it was driven in our direction by the wind. We put our gas masks back on. We had dropped them off after our escape because they hampered us breathing. We staggered back to the bunker and reached it in the early afternoon. We were quite pumped out by the tight march, because the stalk through the deep snow was quite exhausting. After the meal we drank something together and fell into the beds.
