Raddocks Horizon (Godyssey Legacy Book 1)

by Duran Cross

  Most of the nightclubs in the area are beginning to open, and if he loses Prototype’s locator signal now the hunt is over, so he steels his nerves and begins to make his move toward the remainder of the signal.

  The loathsome guttersnipes are starting to get devastatingly drunk. They stumble about the streets mewing at one another in tones and phrases Rennin forces himself to block out. It’s at the point where all he can hear is background noise that sounds like feeding time at a farm.

  He almost reaches the end of the rally, that has become somewhat of a mardi gras, when the reading of the Prototype temporarily becomes clear enough to get a good idea of distance. He looks to the side of Main Road where a strip of bars and clubs are open. The tracker reading is coming from inside the middle building.

  Rennin watches as the last of the signal dies out completely and he sighs deeply. Now or never.

  The club is called Starsprite and is a well-known alternative event, meant to be one of the most sought after spots to be in the Raddocks Horizon nightlife. Rennin thinks back to Prototype’s appearance and Starsprite would be the perfect camouflage for an androgynous black clad skin job.

  He walks up to the front doors where there is a small line. Rennin can’t afford to wait in the queue, so he decides to go straight for the door knowing it will raise his profile but better that than lose Prototype altogether.

  Upon reaching the VIP-only entrance he’s confronted by two bouncers that put Rennin’s powerful form to shame. One of them holds up his hand and speaks in an obviously put on deep voice that makes Rennin want to sigh and roll his eyes. “Hold up, pilgrim, you on the list?”

  Rennin feels a terrible heat rise inside him that is merely the result of the anxiety he feels. He wants to kill this man. “No.”

  “Back of the line, pal,” says the other and Rennin decides to differentiate them with the call sign B1 and B2 since these meatheads look like twins. Rennin holds regard for them at the same level as a banana.

  “I’d rather go straight in, it would make me happy.”

  B1 leans towards him, “Are we going to have a problem?”

  If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that. Rennin isn’t intimidated but he doesn’t want to give his name or show his Godyssey ID in case the Prototype somehow gets wind of it. Either way, Rennin has to handle this mess quickly. The people in the line are starting to pay too much attention. He leans in to the bouncer making a show of hands that he’s not going to try anything and whispers, “I have a delivery on me, okay?”

  B1 looks at him hard, “Can I see it?”

  “Okay I’ll rephrase. I have a delivery in me, get me?”

  B1 nods, “Alright,” and signals B2 to let him through.

  Rennin steps up to the doorway and can see a haze that makes him shudder. A nano-field designed for sound dampening envelops him as he passes. He breaks out in a sea of goosebumps feeling the insides of his ears tingle. His eyes also itch but after a moment the sensation ends and the music blares to life all about him.

  The nano-field was originally developed to aid against noise pollution during the night hours but in the last decade they developed another system underneath the floor. Below Rennin there is a mechanism that’s rigged with a sonar-like plate where the music is sent out silently by resonating through the floor and into the people’s bodies where the inner ear absorbs the vibrations that gives the impression of blaring music. The nano-dampening field is to stop the resonating sound from spilling into the streets.

  Rennin keeps his hood up while he climbs the stairs, feeling the music get louder and louder. The staircase is flanked on the left by a blood red water feature protected by a pane of glass that covers the whole wall. The staircase and the entire stairwell itself is painted black with posters of various local artists all over the place.

  He arrives in the main area that is more jam-packed than a sardine tin. The music is so loud he feels the need to squint his eyes as if it’ll help. Rennin is wearing a belt that Caufmann designed that emits a perfectly calibrated counter signal, which completely silences the music, so he engages it. The music drops out totally, reducing the only sounds to people shouting at the bartenders or each other, clanking drinks, and the shuffling of people dancing. For a moment Rennin is mesmerised by how idiotic these twits look dancing in apparent silence.

  Men and women, boys and girls, are everywhere and all over each other with some requiring a close look to designate their gender. A lot of them could be Prototype at first glance but Rennin is sure he would know the android when he sees it. This is the perfect place for Prototype to hide.

  Rennin notices a blonde woman standing at the bar and despite her makeup he recognises her from one of the Raddocks Horizon primary schools, a nurse if he remembers correctly. She came to the lab complaining there weren’t enough flu shots in their shipment only a few days earlier.

  She is staring at someone in the far corner of the club, with very little subtlety. Following her gaze he sees the figure in the corner, illuminated briefly by the flickering strobe lights.

  Rennin’s left hand twitches as he instantly recognises Prototype crouched on a seating area elevated from the dance floor in the back corner. The android isn’t looking at him, but rather glaring back at the blonde at the bar and in the flashes of strobe light Rennin can see the soulless silvery metallic eyes even from across the room.

  The android breaks eye contact to begin scanning across the crowd. Rennin makes the bar his focus and sees the flaxen-haired woman make a slightly frustrated pout before taking a swig from her drink.

  The bar top is solid wood stained red and varnished. Like the rest of the place, it looks like a cross between an industrial factory and the bleeding décor of the entry stairwell.

  Once he’s gotten himself a drink he takes up position next to the vexed blonde. He stands to the left of her so as to keep her between him and the android. Feeling a little more confident with his hood and glasses camouflage, he leans on his elbow to face her and decides to speak. “I don’t think he’s interested.”

  She doesn’t even acknowledge that he said anything, she remains with her back to the bar, hand curled around her glass, one leg straight and the other crooked. Rennin notices she’s wearing a skirt that’s little more than a belt. Thighs that could crack your ribs.

  The watchman realises that the music, which he can’t hear due to his belt’s interference, must still be blaring and she would never have heard what he said. He disengages the dampener and music instantly thunders in his ears making him jump, spilling a little of his drink.

  He nudges her gaining a look from her bright green eyes that are venting hostility. “I don’t think he’s interested,” he cries over the music.

  She huffs slightly as if scoffing, “I suppose you are?”

  Rennin is off-guard already. Exactly what is he doing talking to this woman? “If it makes you more comfortable, I lost my nuts in the war.” Completely untrue, he reminds himself as if his reproductive system will be offended. But whatever keeps her talking, so he doesn’t have to, will be said. No exceptions.

  Both her eyebrows disappear behind her fringe. “Well that’s one I haven’t heard.”

  “It’s not exactly the best pick up line, I admit.”

  “If someone doesn’t want sex, it’s perfect.”

  “What are you trying to get that thing’s attention for, anyway? Don’t you think he looks NQR?”

  “Not Quite Right?” she laughs. “Who here does? Even you look like a freak,” she taps his jacket where one of the plates is bulging slightly. “Is that Kevlar?”

  Rennin’s mind stalls again, “Yeah, I have a bike. Safety first.”

  She smirks and leans closer to him, “Another thing not to do when picking up is being cautious.”

  He nods, “Check.”

  “You look very devil-may-care, though,” she says, slurring slightly.

  “Have you seen that guy here much?”

  “Almost every week
. He never talks to anyone.”

  Rennin takes a mock closer look, “How can you tell it’s a he?”

  “Leave him alone, he’s absolutely unique and I find him beautiful.”

  She’s going to eat those words if she finds out what it is. “You like different looking people?”

  “Unique looking, yes. You have a name, dingus?”

  “Rennin,” he says holding out his hand.

  “Eleanor,” she says taking his hand. “My god, your hands are rough. You really were a soldier, huh?”

  Rennin nods.

  Eleanor looks at him closely, “World War One or Two?”

  “I look damn good for my age, thank you so much, and I don’t have to forget my underpants to attract a mate.”

  “Still, you should show a little more skin than you are, even at your age. Are you here trying to land a donor?”

  “A what?”

  “A vaginal donor.”

  Rennin coughs out a surprised laugh, “No, I’m just curious about the scene.”

  Her face turns deadly serious suddenly. “What did you say your name is?”

  Oh fuck. “Rennin.”

  Her head tilts, “I’ve heard that somewhere,” she says leaning back slightly.

  Rennin gets a good look at her eyes as she’s leaning and can see her dilated pupils. So she’s high. He knows it is time for him to move on and hope she’s high enough to forget about him by morning. “Thanks for the chat, I’ll see you around.”

  She nods and returns to ogling Prototype.

  Rennin turns the belt’s signal disruptor back on and the music instantly drops out. He looks to Eleanor one last time, “You are so hot, it’s intensely unfair,” he says at normal volume.

  She doesn’t react.

  “I guess you really can’t hear a thing,” he says before stepping away from the bar and across to the other side of the dance floor to keep a bit more of an eye on Prototype.

  As he’s crossing the dance floor he moves between the people, the dancing and the swaying, with fluid precision not touching any of them despite the close proximity. He reaches the wall that seems to be lined with the really wasted people. They’re all leaning against it with eyes closed or just staring into space whilst nodding or bopping along to the music.

  The tracks are obviously getting faster because the green, red and blue light show is devouring his vision with alarming voracity. Rennin stands against the wall with sea of drunkards and waits for an opportunity to make his move.

  Caufmann wanted an update should he find Prototype, but sending a transmission so close to the progenitor-class might prove fatal if it’s got the ability to intercept signals. Rennin is also quite sure it possesses a similar disruptor for the music signal.

  As a couple of hours pass the crowd becomes more degenerate; trashy even. Rennin has made a few trips to and from the bar but only to order lemonade. Prototype hasn’t moved.

  Eleanor has vanished somewhere or other and she was not looking well in the minutes leading up to her leaving. She briefly made contact with the progenitor but it smiled blandly, indulging her for a few moments before they separated. Well Eleanor separated, the android just sat there.

  Rennin rubs his arms against his weapon holsters and hopes to himself that Caufmann’s little bullet additive will do the trick. The good doctor told Rennin to make a hit, location irrelevant, on the android and flee. Nothing more. Just a single hit will do it.

  Caufmann did take the time to explain to him the exact chemical that he applied to the bullets but Rennin didn’t understand all that egghead talk. As near as he can tell it is some kind of oxidizing agent that acts like a blood virus, literally eating the android from the inside out.

  Caufmann made a ridiculous pun, saying the most important thing you can ever know about your enemy is what they’re made of.

  IQ of eleventy-thousand and that’s his A-material?

  Rennin believes that he’s passed more workable humour through the down-pipes after a harsh curry, but he still finds himself smirking at the comment.

  The Prototype stands up and Rennin’s body is instantly awash with adrenaline. It comes on so quickly he sees a white flash, and feels the world fall out from under him for just a moment. The android moves with an uncannily smooth ease through the crowd. It still hasn’t noticed Rennin but he has a nagging feeling that its apparent ignorance of him is feigned.

  Rennin slaps that feeling away but he has a distinct doubt about all this.

  Being so close to this thing alone, despite being surrounded by club-going masses, makes him immensely ill at ease. The android moves across the bar, towards the stairwell but instead of descending it swerves behind to the toilets. Rennin’s nerves screech at him to follow but if he does too quickly it’ll be far too obvious.

  After waiting for what seems like the entire Cretaceous Period Rennin can’t take it anymore. He heads straight for the toilets in a bee line almost bowling over three people without noticing. His adrenaline floods again, causing everything to seemingly slow around him. Smaller details sharpen in focus and the only sound in his ears is his pounding heartbeat.

  The toilet has a queue but he walks straight past, earning some snide comments. The place stinks. There are three stalls lining one wall and a urinal trough lining the other, with basins next to the door. Once inside he moves straight to the sink, making a show of washing his hands.

  Turning his back on the room of human waste, Rennin realises he is wearing his gloves and they’re rather annoying to remove. He is about to curse himself when a gust of cold night air brushes past him from behind. Night air?

  He spins around, standing on the tips of his toes to see far enough over the stalls to check for a window, and he spots an open one in the third stall.

  Rennin walks across casually to bust it open, easily snapping the rudimentary lock, surprising two clubbers having sex. Rennin doesn’t notice. After half throwing them out of the stall he climbs on the toilet seat looking out the window. Rooftops.

  This is not where Rennin wants to be, but he has to be fast because the android clearly knows it’s been spotted. One of the sex fiends is swearing at him and Rennin briefly wonders what kind of sex they were having for it to smell so bad before launching himself through the window to land relatively quietly on the roof.

  A light snow is still falling, with a thick fog descending to make things more difficult. Visibility is not too badly obscured at the moment, though the sounds of the rally are muffled out a little due to the density of the air. In fact the slightly deadened cheers and music from the rally puts an entirely new kind of discomfort within Rennin’s chest.

  His glasses’ scanner spots something like a radiation trail to his right, so he sets off at a slow jog across the pitched rooftops, up and down, up and down.

  Someone seems to flick a switch on the city’s weather machine turning the snow into a rather heavy rain almost in the blink of an eye.

  After a few buildings he starts to slow down as it dawns on him that he’s lost the Prototype. He lets out a huff and stops. “Stupid, useless, idiot,” he mutters at himself.

  Despite dressing himself down, he honestly can’t think of a way he could have taken the thing down any quicker, short of walking right up and blowing its head off. Though Caufmann said he only needed to land one shot.

  Too late either way.

  As he turns away, a massive blow strikes his side hard enough to throw him clean off his feet. Rennin is surprised to find himself on his back and rolling down the slope of the roof, only stopping when he falls into the V between connecting buildings.

  He looks up in shock, choking out a breath knowing that he would be drowning in his own blood if it wasn’t for his armour-weave, just to see Prototype standing on a roof peak soaking wet, long hair hanging down, wearing a bland smile and black overcoat.

  Rennin lost his glasses in the fall and can barely breathe. It feels like he was hit in the ribs by a flying anvil. He wants to go for his g
un but if he does he knows the thing will be on him in a moment’s notice. He sucks in another half-gasp feeling a shooting pain in his side. His ribs are definitely broken.

  He tries his hand at talking to distract it. “Was I that obvious?”

  Prototype seems to pause for a moment. “I heard you talking to the woman at the bar,” it says and even with the rain coming down, its metallic voice cuts through the noise.

  Now Rennin feels like an absolute fool. He should have known the android would be able to filter out the music. He had to shout so loud for Eleanor to hear him, he might as well have painted a sign on his face. He can see how ridiculous he must have looked.

  This can’t be it for me. “Any tips for next time I do this?”

  The prototype’s expression remains the same. “Don’t get your picture put in the news if you’re planning to be inconspicuous.”

  I am such a dickhead. “Sound advice. So we shake hands and part ways as mates, right?”

  “I am unable to comply with that,” it says, still brandishing a soft smile.

  “Look, don’t be like that. Just talk to me. I served under your kind in the war. We were on the same side once. What’s all this about?” asks Rennin still attempting to draw a full breath.

  Prototype nods, “I am aware of that. It’s why I didn’t kill you straight away.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Humans require closure. It is not my intention to cause you any pain. I assure you, it will be quick.”

  “You don’t need to do this,” says Rennin feeling his voice crack.

  “It isn’t to do with necessity, it’s about practicality. There is a sickness here, in this city. It will end human kind as you know it. You work for the creatures responsible,” it says with a subtle change in expression only visible around the eyes.

  “What sickness?”

  “Decades ago a ship went missing. It was the first ship to test the Leap Drive, a form of zero mass transmission. Only one survived.”

  The Montrialis. Rennin knows the story from school. One of the very first androids was on that ship. He can vaguely remember the android on board went completely berserk and killed the crew. “What does that have to do with a sickness?”