Close to the Marx

Entry 12

21 Krishna

So, who in the god damn hell are the Star Builders? I had gone back to my office to research this when all the sudden it hit me. The damn monkey had given me another hint. He mentioned the Samantha White and Samuel Blanco debacle.

I mentioned this before, but this debacle was what prompted people to start looking for the cure for the Sigmosis plague. Because before this happened no one and I mean no one gave two hoots about the Sigmosis plague. I mean people were walking around with latex gloves for years I think it was before this debacle happened, and people were told not to have s*x which they did anyways, and it was found that Sigmosis did not spread to the children of people who had Sigmosis.

But to get to the extreme that happened with White and Blanco, that was something that had never been seen before. The thing that happened to the Colonel was something that had never been seen before either. Then there was that vampire thing that supposedly happened. I wondered if that is something that was part of the .01% that the Colonel talked about. I didn’t quite remember what had happened.

I was about to investigate this when all the sudden there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I said.

A moment later walked in an unlikely trio. It was Eugene, William and of all people Vinnie. I hit my forehead thinking that Vinnie had been caught jagging off by Eugene and William.

“Vinnie what in the f**k did you do?” I asked.

“Hey, I didn’t do anything,” Vinnie said.

“It’s true sir,” William said. “We ran into Lt. Gould on the way here.”

“Are you on your meds?” I asked.

“Persephone reminded me,” Vinnie nodded.

It was a good sign that he called her Persephone this time instead of Beth.

“Then what can I do for you boys?” I asked.

“Hey, I am not a boy,” Vinnie said.

“Be quiet before I throw a knife at you,” I said then in an undertone. “Again.”

“Fine,” Vinnie said begrudgingly.

 “So?” I asked the other two.

“My mother said we could come to you if we needed help.” Eugene said.

“Help with what exactly?” I asked.

“It’s my…sister I guess you can call her.” William said.

“Sis…” it suddenly hit me. I asked very quietly after looking around making sure no one was spying I was pretty sure the damn monkey was around somewhere. “Samantha White is your f*****g sister?!”

 “Yes, sir it is not well known,” William said quietly. “She is my eldest sister, 20 years between us.”

I hit my head with my hand and sighed heavily.

“My mom knows,” Eugene peeped up.

“The Colonel knows?” I asked looking back up and William nodded.

“So, what about her?” I asked after a pause.

“Do you know the whole story about her?” William asked.

“I mean I know the story that they talk about,” I said.

“Did you know she was a soldier?” William said after looking around several times.

I froze and looked at William for a long minute.

“A soldier?” I asked.

“I looked her up,” Vinnie spoke. “And Casey Casium.”

“You mean the Spooky Pastry?” I c****d my eyebrow.

“Its more than just that,” Vinnie said.

“It’s a god damn legend Vinnie, an old wives’ tale.” I said.

“No, it’s not,” Vinnie said he pulled out a document from the inner coat he had.

Vinnie dropped it in front of me and I saw a personnel file. On the tab it read CORP. CASSANDRA “CASSIE” CASIUM, MOUNTED DIVISION. I c****d my eyebrow and looked up at Vinnie.

“My sister and her were friends,” William said.

“Your f*****g joking right?” I asked and William said nothing.

I opened the file. Cassie (not Casey) Casium was definitely a real person, a real soldier. She served in the forces about 10 years ago. She was assigned to the Mounted Division because of her great affinity for animals. The Mounted Division was the part of the Golordia Army that still rode around on horseback, mostly through the backwoods of Medrash, the biggest forest in Golordia Prime. It was probably as big as one of the Galordian moons.

I reviewed everything. She was a decorated soldier of the Mounted Division and was well loved and adored. She was damn cute, something about her face looked familiar to me but I could not quite place it, but I did not think much about it and continued reviewing. She denied commission from the Colonel who was a Captain, at the time, twice. This was to be her lieutenant.

“That’s how your mom knows about her?” I asked looking up at Eugene. “Your mom wanted her to be her Lieutenant?”

“Yes sir,” Eugene said.

“So, she exists then,” I said shrugging.

“Read on,” Vinnie said.

I humored him for a moment. The next few pages were heavily redacted. Like there was so much black on the paper that I wondered what the hell Vinnie was talking about. I saw some stuff like she was a Fakir woman. I was surprised at that because next thing I read was that she suffered from Sigmosis. I looked for more of the white parts and there was one sentence that stood out.

She sired as desired, most excellent progress!

I read that like 9 times before wondering what the f**k the word “sired” meant.

I pulled up a digital dictionary and saw:

Verb:

To be the male parent of.

I c****d my eyebrow and looked up.

“What the f**k does that mean?” I asked.

“We…don’t know.” William said.

“My mom never heard of a woman who had Sigmosis, grow male genitalia and go off and mate with another woman and have a child with that woman.” Eugene said.

“And what does your sister have to do with this?” I asked William.

“Well, that’s the thing sir, Casey and Samantha were friends.” William said he handed me another file. I looked at it and saw it read Sargent Samantha White.

“She was enrolled too?” I asked.

“Served in the same company,” William said.

I scanned the documents quickly and realized he was telling the truth.

“And this has to do with…” I asked.

“It is what the Colonel told us about,” Vinnie spoke up.

“The thing that General Redd found out about?” I asked c*****g my eyebrow.

“Sir, there is something called Project Rho you need to investigate.” William said and I stood up quickly from my seat. That son of a b***h monkey! He knew about this!

“Please, I am sure you haven’t even looked into what they are doing on Rho, yet.”

“Oh yeah you’ll find all sorts of goodies on Rho,” I distinctly remembered that.

“The only thing I know about Rho is that they have some sort of Lab there that is trying to create synthetic lifeforms.” I said. This was true.

“Yes, we know that,” Eugene said.

“But what is the only other non-redacted thing on that page?” Vinnie asked.

I scanned the page again. I found a simple sentence that read.

The female sired a child on P                               

That “P” was a symbol many had used to signify Golordia Rho.

“Okay but what does this have to do with what the Colonel was talking about?” I asked.

“Looked who signed the documents,” Vinnie said pointing at the file.

I flipped several pages before finally I found a signature that made my blood run cold.

Norman Hunraken

I read this over several times before looking up at these young soldiers again.

“Okay boys now you have my attention,” I said.

Ah s**t just as it was getting juicy again this piece of s**t started beeping again.