Raddocks Horizon (Godyssey Legacy Book 1)

by Duran Cross

  “What about more convicts?”

  Caufmann laughs, “Because their lives are worth less?”

  “No one misses them. It isn’t like they’re a considerable loss to society,” says Hillon.

  “Justification any way possible? I don’t draw those distinctions, a test subject is a test subject. I will kill one to save two, thousands to save millions. That’s the only logical way to deal with this.”

  “You find it that easy?”

  “I no longer feel required to feebly grasp at tattered ideals to remain sane.”

  Hillon blinks a couple of times, “Then what are you going to do?”

  “I’m field testing it in the city. It’s the only way, we have no time to test it in the lab in a controlled environment. By the time we get the results we need, the infection will be total.”

  “You may have just killed an entire city!”

  “Raddocks Horizon is one city next to an entire planet. This city is already dead.”

  Hillon remains silent for a long moment, “So there’s not going to be an evacuation?”

  “Not at this time. Not until we know whether the vaccine actually works. The schools close after the GA rally on the 23rd, and the docks will be shut down soon afterwards. The Horizon Military will not be inoculated unless it’s proven to work; we’ll need them once the hostile infected emerge.”

  “This is an impossible fight. How do you expect to contain an entire city?”

  Caufmann averts his gaze for a moment, “I have several D-class satellites in place to glass us, if and when it’s necessary.”

  “You have access to Desolator satellites?” she asks rhetorically, gripping the bridge of her nose.

  Caufmann says nothing and waits for it all to sink in.

  She takes a long breath inwards. “How long before we’re in serious trouble?”

  “About a month before the hostiles become too numerous to contain.”

  “And we’re not going to call for help?” Hillon asks.

  “No unnecessary risks. No contamination. The plan is simple, we fight it on our own and if we lose, I’ll activate the Desolator satellites.”

  “What about android help? We could call in for the fully cybernetic HolinMech Warrior unit.”

  Caufmann knows who’s in that crew but remains absolutely deadpan, “No, that is not an option.”

  “Why not? They are Solar Special Forces and are a Godyssey owned project, it’s within our power to get them here. They’re androids, they’re immune. The things they’ve done-”

  “They are not to set foot in this city. Not until this infiltrator Progenitor-class is found and destroyed.”

  “You just said we don’t have time. I helped design Magnus Breen’s system I know what he can do! He’s commanded them for four years.” she says.

  “There have been irregularities with them. One of them went AWOL if you haven’t heard.”

  Hillon frowns obviously unaware, “Which one?”

  “Unit Arca Drej.”

  Hillon makes a dismissive gesture, “Ah. He was nothing but trouble.”

  “How so?”

  “He didn’t respond at all to authority.”

  “He recognised Magnus’ authority well enough. From what I’m told he didn’t like the restrictions that were put on the crew,” says Caufmann.

  “He’s not supposed to like or dislike, William, he’s a machine and should do what he’s told.”

  Caufmann bites back a retort that may have been accompanied by a strike to the face, “Have you told Del that face to face? Would you tell Arca Drej?”

  “Of course not,” she laughs.

  “Drej was complaining of nightmares not long before he went missing.”

  “How did he get out of Iyatoya Base?”

  “He didn’t. He disappeared on mission.”

  “Which mission, William?” she says growing impatient.

  “Unknown. Something out near Jupiter.”

  “Is there anything more we can do on the E-DNA?” she asks returning to the more immediate problem.

  “The vaccine is the E-DNA,” says Caufmann.

  Hillon looks hard at him. “You sent out an experimental retroviral gene sequence as a vaccine?”

  “I told you, we are out of time.”

  ◆◆◆

  Rennin is back in the food hall, having another attempt at eating his breakfast. Since that oafish twat, Michael Gainsford, isn’t around his half raw precooked chicken skewer should be safe.

  The watchman pokes at the mashed potato that has the texture of particularly runny excrement, not that he regularly pokes his passed solids. He lets out a half cackle, unintentionally drawing attention from the other diners.

  The newspaper article’s release brought home a terrible truth to many of the scientists and regular staff: Watchman Rennin Farrow will shoot you if you try to leave. His workplace relationships, such as they are, have always been tainted by his requirement of taking out escapees but it was always something that everyone refused to truly admit to themselves.

  The article just threw it in all their snide faces. After all their years of schooling to become anally retentive virgin geniuses, the grunt with a gun on duty has their lives in his hands.

  He looks up to see Caufmann and Gainsford entering from opposite sides of the food hall. Caufmann, with his hunched walk and rapid stride, seems distracted or even oblivious to his surroundings.

  Gainsford is in a mad rush, fury writhing across his facial features. He moves heavily and quickly across the room. He has definitely noticed Caufmann. The two are about to pass when Gainsford attempts to shoulder check the Head of Research upon passing.

  The hit is meant as one of those schoolyard tactics that lets an enemy know you’re not his friend without actually saying anything. The knock is hard, but Gainsford is the one thrown by it. He looks like he just walked into a solid block of concrete and is rebounded off balance to fall flat on his side, his face a mask of utter shock.

  Rennin is impressed. Even more surprising, Caufmann doesn’t even break stride, he just keeps walking until he’s out of the food court as if Gainsford isn’t even there.

  When his shift ends after four dreary hours of replaying Caufmann’s body knock to Gainsford over and over, Rennin is back at the pub across the road.

  Just under three hours later, with four pints of rum and ginger ale under his belt, he’s feeling the intense heat and numbness of intoxication. Thinking of ‘The Caufmann Slam’ now brings an ear-to-ear grin. Rennin hates Gainsford.

  In fact, he can’t think of one staff member he actually likes.

  I could shoot them all.

  That thought stops his swimming and dizzy mind for a moment and with a crystalline clarity he thought lost after the war he finally sees something he does well. Murder.

  Not murder, maybe. Murder implies a crime of passion and Rennin Farrow would never kill someone at Godyssey out of passion because that would mean he’s wasting what limited emotional bandwidth he has on those parasites. Then again, when he thinks of Caufmann in his crosshairs he does feel pause. He likes the doctor.

  The bartender is not the robot this time, he notices, staring at the frame of a thirty-something year old pouring drinks with alarming inaccuracy regarding the maximum alcohol allowed per serve.

  Despite it being the weekend there are barely any people at the bar. She passes a drink to the man to Rennin’s left and he can smell the potency of that concoction. He makes eye contact with her with his reddened eyes. She jilts her head back in the what-do-you-want manner.

  Rennin opens his mouth and the bar top is nearly greeted with a coating of his dinner brought on by a surprise convulsion.

  He manages to suppress the purge. “I’ll have what dingus-” gesturing to the guy who was next to him a moment before, but seems to have vanished, “-had.”

  She smiles and turns back to the bar to make the drink and Rennin’s eyes seem to move on their own to her waistline.

&
nbsp; “Holy God,” escapes his mouth. Only a dribble of saliva running down his face would make him look like more of a sleaze.

  She turns back and hands him the potion. He wrenches his eyes up to hers, “Cheers. Here’s to something meaningful,” he slurs taking a swig.

  She arches an eyebrow, “Nothing in particular?”

  He cringes at the taste, “Jesus…”

  “To Jesus then,” she says smiling, putting her hands together in the prayer fashion.

  “Funny,” he chokes out, wiping his mouth and feeling his insides burning, “what the hell was that?”

  “Absinthian Siege.”

  “Absinthe?” He blinks hard, “That stuff is mean and I used to like liquorice.”

  “I recognise you. You’re the guy in the papers, right?”

  He shrugs, “I don’t know anything.”

  “If you finish that drink as fast as the others you’ve had, you may never know anything again.”

  “Don’t you have drinks to serve to real humans?”

  “It’s a quiet night. Most people are sick or just plain lazy,” she says pretending to wipe the counter.

  “Too lazy to get drunk? Impossible!”

  “Well it’s not the economy stopping people.”

  Rennin would have rolled his eyes if it wouldn’t make him sick, “You have a theory.” It is not a question.

  She nods, “I think the rumours of those scientists being shot and that truck being blown apart have something to do with it,” she says changing her mock cleaning to re-cleaning the cleaned glasses.

  “That’s great, but I didn’t ask,” he says winking and grinning while swaying lightly on his stool.

  “You are the guy though, aren’t you?”

  He takes another swig of his Siege. Another fireball greets his insides. “Yes. I’m Rennin Farrow,” he straightens his posture and puts on a pompous accent, “of the East Brighton Farrows.”

  “From Melbourne then?” she says knowingly, but feigning it as a question. As if his alcoholism is explained because of the destruction of the city.

  “Before it beat Hiroshima for world’s hottest town.”

  “The press have painted a pretty bad picture of you in front of that burning truck.”

  “That’s okay, my drinks are paid by their taxes,” he says slurring heavily now.

  “It must be frustrating.”

  In Rennin’s fuzzy state of mind something inside him thinks this woman is trying to relate to him. Perhaps she thinks he’s in some kind of trouble, either way Rennin feels a little insecure about talking.

  Though, as always, the severe effects of the alcohol have removed most of his inhibitions, “It is a little. My job isn’t exactly easy, or nice,” he says managing to remember he cannot say anything about being an executioner of sorts.

  “What is it you do?”

  Rennin turns to his left on the barstool and points out the front window of the bar, across the street to the front wall of the Godyssey lab compound, and to his tower on the right hand side, “That clock tower is my orifice.”

  She looks at him for a moment waiting to see if he’s joking. But no, it’s a Freudian slip, “How long are you up there for?”

  “About ten hours a shift. Of course there’s a ninety-minute lunch break, two ten-minute tea breaks and three two-minute urinary cossets between them.”

  She laughs, “Got it all, haven’t you?”

  “Almost, except the scientists obviously aren’t allowed to bathe.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Probably bacterial experiments going on under those clothes. Judging by their personal aroma I imagine they wear NASA-class diapers to cope with those long shifts.”

  “You imagine that, huh?”

  Rennin takes a moment to click, “Oh I see what you did there. Kudos to you,” he takes the rest of the drink down in one fell swoop and everything else evaporates.

  3.

  Project Outreach

  Rennin wakes up late for work. He knows he’s late but the hangover is exploding in his brain so badly that he doesn’t care. He’s never even missed one day of work so they shouldn’t exactly fire him.

  Any monkey could take care of his duties, except the ones with extreme prejudice. His head feels like someone placed a Nexus Armaments Particle Annihilator grenade inside his skull and set it to maximum range. He opens his mouth and rotates his jaw a little trying to ease out some of the tension.

  He is on his back staring at the ceiling with crust-filled red eyes. He wipes them with the backs of his hands before noticing something odd draped across his chest. A third arm? Rennin’s face turns to dumbfounded surprise and he looks at the skinny arm that is, at least, a woman’s. The last time he woke up with a man he couldn’t get the taste out of his mouth all day.

  He pulls the covers up slightly and gets a look at the sleeping face of the bartender. Alarm bells are ringing in Rennin’s mind even louder than the hangover headache. With amazing dexterity he slips out from bed and lifts the covers more to find that she’s still fully dressed and her pants haven’t been touched. That is a good thing.

  A very good thing.

  Rennin is in the bathroom in moments to retrieve a needle from his bathroom cabinet before returning to the bedroom. She is still asleep, lying there in a serene way that sets off a mild pang in his chest. He pushes the feeling aside and locks it back in its box. He steps over to her and, holding his breath, pricks her arm in one perfectly precise movement.

  She grumbles lightly and rolls over and Rennin is already out of the room.

  Back in the bathroom, Rennin removes a gadget from the medicine cabinet that looks like an old style calculator. He slips the needle with the blood sample into the slot at its base and awaits the reading, fidgeting and clicking his teeth. The machine beeps and he looks at the display: ‘Result Negative’.

  Rennin sighs in relief. They didn’t have sex.

  Early in the war Rennin and some others were hit with a GA biological weapon called Indigo Reign, named as such because the victim’s veins would turn purple, and permanently stain the eyes.

  It was a weapon that was specifically designed to attack the organic and mechanic cohesion of the CryoZaiyon android. It would shut down the parameter that tells the body’s organic nerves to ignore the mechanised intruder system. The android would go into a violent convulsive fit.

  Inside the toxin itself was a nano-virus code that told the android mind to release the pain receptors from the blocking buffers. The android then could feel the pain of the conversion surgeries with no programming to stop it, and also no automatic shut off when the pain became too intense.

  The result was catastrophic. Unbearable to witness. Contaminated androids went down very quickly, and within minutes were reduced to a screaming ruination too horrendous to be left alive.

  It was never meant to affect humans, but it did. Thousands died, though the effects were far more protracted. The first hour was uneventful. The second was when the affects began. Rennin remembers feeling dizzy and a strange pain, like mild sunburn being scratched, spreading across his body from the spine outwards.

  As with the androids, it attacked the nervous system in people too. Within three hours his entire body was aflame with pain like he was on fire himself. Another hour after that, all he could see was white flashes and hear sporadic waves of his own screams inside the rushes of agony.

  Rennin was saved by the timely arrival of a rescue unit, led by an android Medtech trooper, Nexarien Decora, who had synthesized a cure for it. Or at least it suppressed the effects of it, but you would always carry the bioweapon inside you wherever you went for the rest of your life.

  There is a bitter irony in the use of Indigo Reign by so-called humanists. When a human is infected, the pain becomes so intense that they die from shock. In an android they would scream and thrash until their power core hit zero percent power, then they would shutdown to recharge, only to wake up screaming and thrashing again. They would
do this until they were cured, or put out of their misery. The irony is that the GA said the androids had no souls, were inhuman. No one whom dares to say they ‘fight the good fight’ would design something that thoughtlessly torturous, so inhumane.

  Rennin throws the needle away and puts the device back in the cabinet. He was told he wasn’t contagious; that every man, woman, and child in the system had been vaccinated for Indigo Reign but he never trusted the word of a doctor or what he can’t see.

  Even all these years later the scars of it still mark him. His pale eyes are shot through with spokes of magenta. There is a faint purple ring around both his irises. The hue of his lips are also darkened to a colour more like maroon than pink. His skin is also unnaturally pale and darkened veins snake up the sides of his face. His reflection is a constant reminder of that atrocity.

  Remembering the pain always makes him lose his breath and he realises he’s covered in sweat, panting like a tired dog.

  “Hi there,” says a sweet and drowsy voice from the doorway.

  Rennin looks up so fast he sees stars for a moment and all he manages is a slightly awkward smile.

  “Relax, we didn’t do anything. You were absolutely shitfaced and started a fight with one of the soldiers last night. You took a nasty hit to the jaw.”

  Ah. That explains the stiffness. “So I didn’t suck anyone off. What did I do?”

  She smiles, “He had an attitude and you offered to help him explore his sexuality.”

  “Yeah that sounds like me.”

  “A little skinny soldier knocked his friend out to save you the trouble since you were sleeping by that stage.”

  Rennin’s pride is hurt. “He knocked me out?”

  “I think you were out long before he hit you.”

  Rennin bows his head conceding, “Look I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

  “Really?”

  “I might have Alzheimer’s but at least I don’t have Alzheimer’s.”

  She laughs, “Should I be worried? You’re sweating.”

  “It’s a long walk from the bed.”

  She stares at him.