Raddocks Horizon (Godyssey Legacy Book 1) Read online

  “Forgive me, William, but this does not help your argument regarding Del.”

  “Del’s tissue is mostly synthetic. There is very little actual organic matter from the cloning. I wanted as little of the Suvaco genome in Del as possible.”

  “But he still has Rennin’s… whatever it is, inside him. If you’re right about Arca and Valhara, then the same still applies to Del, regardless of how much or how little real genetic material is in him. He’ll still go mad.”

  “I needed to use something and the tissue was there and ready.”

  Roths narrows her eyes. “How bad were Rennin’s injuries?”

  “Exactly as I stated in my report, apart from one.”

  Roths closes her eyes.

  “I needed brain matter, the head wound was severe so I took some.”

  “Took some?”

  “I replaced the pieces with synthetic equivalents. They will out perform his birth tissue and actually produce a small but constant flow of oxytocin. Apart from a general feeling of wellbeing, he’ll be none the wiser.”

  “You cut out some of his brain. Part of Rennin’s mind is in Del.”

  “You said Rennin is insane and you’re right, but that little bit of lunacy might be enough to balance the equation.”

  “William, this is not a double negative making a positive, this is a fully armed machine programmed to kill and you’ve just given it the genes of a psychopath as a driving force.”

  “We will see. The genetic material needed to be raw because cloned tissue invariably results in unstable processes,” Caufmann smirks and throws a switch on the control panel in front of him, restoring power to Del’s body. “Hello, Del, can you hear me?” he asks as the android’s head rises.

  Yes, sir. Del displays across the screen in front of Caufmann and Roths.

  Caufmann activates Del’s combat protocols. “Stand up.”

  Yes, sir. He stands up, still attached to the mainframe by the dreadlock cables connected to his head.

  Caufmann presses another switch and the wall to Del’s left slides up, revealing a rack with dozens of weapons from knives to rocket launchers. “Pick up the S6-Grin,” he directs, referring to a snub nosed machine gun.

  Acknowledged. Del doesn’t move.

  “It’s on the wall to your left,” says Caufmann but Del doesn’t even answer this time. “Did you hear what I said?”

  Yes, sir, I heard what you said.

  Despite feeling a chill at Del’s statement, Roths sighs. “No change, and when he does select a weapon he can’t distinguish which targets to kill and which to protect.”

  Caufmann ignores her. “Del, pick up the Sunbreaker Photon Beam Rifle.”

  Del’s head turns slightly towards the rack and Caufmann feels a sudden rush of goosebumps meaning Del is using his sonar. The great android stands out of the chair and walks to the rack with silent, precise steps and picks the sniper rifle off the rack. Del then stands with it rested against his shoulder. Ready.

  Caufmann smiles all too proudly and turns to face Roths. “You see, Doctor Roths? It’s only a matter of time.”

  “How much time have we got here? We’re on emergency power as it is,” her eyes suddenly widen. “William…”

  “It can’t be that far. It’s just a question of synchronization and deleting any unneeded code.”

  “William, Del’s loading the rifle.”

  Caufmann looks in the room to see Del sliding a positron clip into the receiver in front of the trigger. “Del, stand down.”

  Del seems to ignore him and finishes loading the rifle.

  Roths is frozen. “If Del cocks that rifle he’ll be holding the most lethal long-range gun ever built.”

  Caufmann types on the console quickly and deactivates Del’s combat protocols. “Del, sit down.”

  Yes, sir. Del places the rifle back on the rack and returns to the chair.

  “What did you think of that?” asks Caufmann smiling again.

  Roths looks at him as if he’s lost his mind. “Not very good, I’m sorry to say.”

  “You missed it then.”

  “Missed what?”

  “I didn’t tell him to place the rifle back or to sit in the chair specifically. He’s operating off Instruction Only yet he did that on his own. Automatic response. That’s Rennin’s element.”

  Roths shakes her head. “I know you’ve put an incredible amount of work into him but I think you’re grasping at straws. I’m sorry, but I think you should scrap the project. Focus on Adrenin,” she says, not noticing Del’s head flick up as a person’s would who just realised they’re being talked about.

  Roths suddenly shivers as the skin on her arms horripilates again, but Caufmann didn’t feel Del’s sonar this time. “That’s odd…” he says looking to see Del gripping the arms of the Chair tightly.

  Roths looks at the goosebumps. “William, they’re not going away, what does that mean?”

  Del’s muscles tense up.

  “Oh…” says Caufmann glancing at the loaded rifle on the rack.

  ‘Target acquired’ appears on the screen.

  “Take cover!”

  Del is out of the chair quick as a flash and rips the rifle off the rack knocking down several other guns. The rifle is gripped, cocked and aimed right at Roths’ head in barely a second.

  Caufmann throws a red lever next to the glass killing all power in Del’s room. The lights go out instantly but for just a moment the red dot is square on Roths’ forehead and she can see the reflection of it in the glass. Del drops the rifle and falls over.

  Roths is stunned for a moment. “What would you say happened just then?”

  Caufmann is staring at Del as if expecting him to get up suddenly. “I don’t think you should ever mention scrapping him again.”

  “A wonderful idea adding Rennin to calm his already troubled programming,” though she means it sarcastically she sounds absolutely sincere. “Del is psychotic as well now.”

  A smile flickers across his face. “No. He just wants to live.”

  ◆◆◆

  It’s almost dawn.

  Military patrols are storming up and down the streets with alarming regularity. The streetlights flicker on and off at random intervals. Pharaoh Drake’s family mansion, complete with custodial quarters and personal helipad, looms before him as he walks up the half kilometre driveway.

  Caufmann allowed Drake personal leave for a few hours in order to visit his father. There are questions Drake wants to ask, and also doesn’t want the answers to. He grimaces and continues trudging across the soggy driveway until he reaches the entrance.

  Upon entering the house proper, he can hear the grand piano coming from the ballroom adjacent to the main hall. Where the main hall carpets are deep red and the woodwork is stained so dark it looks black, the ballroom is pearl and cream coloured. Drake feels slightly off balance walking from one room to the other.

  His father is sitting at the grand piano, playing Chopin’s Raindrop. His maid, Samara, stands near the double doors, with their absurdly detailed carved intricacies, on the far side of the room should her master need something.

  Drake regards his father for a short while, just taking in the gentle classical composition in this absurdly lavish room. A man as despicable as his father shouldn’t be able to play so beautifully. It reminds Drake of a predator that lures its prey with a cunning façade.

  Phillip Drake, one of the richest men in the civilised world, glances up at his son. Their faces are very similar apart from age, though Phillip’s eyes are like ice, as if he’s regarding some kind of offensive floral growth that isn’t supposed to be in his garden. “I didn’t think you would be excused from service at a time like this.”

  “I’m not excused exactly.”

  Samara’s soft voice is heard. “Can I get you anything, Master Drake?”

  “No thank you, leave us,” Phillip answers, knowing Samara was talking to his son. “What are you doing here?”

  “
I’ve been temporarily relieved of duty until I pass my psych tests.”

  “Reason?”

  “Mentally unsound.”

  Phillip sighs derisively. “Too stressful for you?”

  “I shot a child,” Drake says, not knowing or caring whether he’s allowed to talk about it.

  “Many soldiers have.”

  “Not many under orders, not a five year old.”

  “So you would like to come home and weep it away, is that it?”

  “I have a few questions,” says the younger Drake, an image of the Mind Killer hypo burned into his mind.

  “I can indulge you for a while.”

  “Why won’t you let me leave the Beta HolinMechs? Why do you pay incredible amounts of money just to keep me in the military? It’s not an honour to be gutted and filled with cogs and gears no matter what Godyssey says it is.”

  Phillip looks at his son for a long moment. “Your past exploits have humiliated our family on a dozen occasions at the least. You have no discipline, and the HolinMech Program ensures that will permanently change.”

  “I won’t be a son, I’ll be a slave.”

  “Obedient and quiet,” Phillip says, sipping some odd concoction that would no doubt be obscenely expensive. “Only the wealthiest families and the most exceptional people can secure a place as a HolinMech Warrior. When you’re among them, our family’s reputation will be secured, and you,” he says pointing at Drake, “will finally have earned the name I chose for you. I called you Pharaoh because you could have lived as a king, not merely acquiring a kingly sum of carnal conquests.”

  Drake laughs humourlessly. “I was not the first your consort let bed her.”

  Phillip doesn’t visibly react. “And as long as you’re serving with Godyssey military taskforces, your family are evacuated should any hazard affect this city.”

  Drake remains quiet for a moment struggling to work through what that means. “You’re a Godyssey Founder, you get a way out no matter what.”

  “Ha! With the steerage clogging Gateway? Godyssey cares for no one, but with you as a HolinMech candidate, I am given military priority.”

  Drake feels sick. “You’ve kept me a soldier because you want to jump the queue? Is that why you wanted me lobotomised?”

  Phillip arches an eyebrow briefly. “You have never been so useful,” he says, taking the exit pass out of his pocket and placing it atop the piano with practised grace.

  “Did you know this was going to happen? What’s loose in the city, I mean.”

  “I’m not inclined to tell you anything. You’re my son, not the other way around.”

  Drake knows those passes are worth the weight of the owner in platinum, but they have no name on them, just a barcode indicating that the bearer is to be evacuated. “Those passes have no identity because some very crooked people are on the VIP listings of those passes. That could prove—what was that word you like? Problematic?”

  “See yourself out, will you?” he turns away from Drake and start to play again, this time Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. He doesn’t see Drake pull out his sidearm.

  “You know, Dad, I really did kill a little girl,” he says feeling a fresh storm of unrelenting grief threaten to tear his innards asunder.

  Phillip ignores him as he has most of his life.

  “I didn’t even know her,” Drake says, his eyes welling up.

  His father keeps playing.

  “And I killed her.”

  Phillip presses the keys harder trying to make the point clear.

  “But you…”

  His father still plays.

  “I always hated you,” he pulls the trigger and his father’s body slumps onto the piano ringing out a loud, deep chord that resonates through the ballroom for what feels like a small eternity.

  ◆◆◆

  Back at the lab in Room XVI, Arca Drej is busy cutting into his flesh. The android has cut one of his thighs open with a shiv made from one of the supporting legs of his cot. He has peeled the skin back, exposing his thigh muscles. Drej has willed his body not to recognise the wound to keep the bleeding at a minimum. Barely a few trickles have escaped so far.

  He strips a couple of long fibres away from his muscles and entwines them. After wrapping them around his hands for grip, he stretches them until they’re barely visible. Keeping the stringline taut he drags it along the bed frame, easily scraping shards of steel off. He puts the stringline down and uses the shiv to dig between his muscles to separate them.

  His bare femur is revealed and Drej’s eyes focus intently. He picks up the stringline and runs it against his femur shaving slivers off his bone.

  ◆◆◆

  Rennin sits in the toilet cubical in the clock tower. He has his head in his hands, wondering what he’s going to do. The watchman is planning to desert but he has no idea how. He runs the numbers in his head. If more than half of the population is turned by the end of the week, the Horizon Military and Beta HolinMech literally will not have enough bullets to cope.

  Carla will get out at least, but Rennin will have to wait for his chance to make a break for it. Desolator satellites might fire on the city once it gets out of control but would that really happen now that someone has uploaded a virus into the Defence Force system?

  He lets out a barely audible, anguished curse. Leaving the military is the easy bit, they’re just expendable meat-droids, a dime a dozen. He’s not going to die here and certainly not for, or with, the military. Not after the HMAS Possession.

  8.

  Reignfall

  Eighteen years earlier.

  CryoZaiyon War- Year 3, Day 87.

  The Crucible, CryoZaiyon medical frigate, had flown into a disastrous ambush while returning from Saturn’s orbit. It was homebound after a rescue operation on Titan. After dropping out of hyper-transit, it was set upon by half the Gorai Aurelian fleet in high orbit over Earth.

  A distress call was sent out, but the only ship within reach was the Possession. Its captain responded immediately. By the time the Possession arrived, the Crucible was very nearly a wreck. It had been hit with an EMP pulse strong enough to render it completely disabled, and while vulnerable it had been pummelled by cannon fire from the GA ambush ships and their cruiser’s supercannons.

  The Possession had strict orders to save the Crucible at any cost, so it positioned itself between the disabled frigate and the enemy ships, dumping every fighter and gunship it contained into battle. A straight minute of bombardment was all it took to rip through the Possession’s armour, causing the ship to buckle and deform into a death throe. The Crucible managed to make a desperate limping jump to back into hyper-transit. The Possession was left to fend for itself. Expendable.

  Rennin, his friend Jolen and four others piled into an escape shuttle as the ship began to break up. The sounds of the superstructure of the HMAS Possession bending made a noise similar to a dying animal as the battered capital ship drifted towards the Earth.

  Since the GA had taken to attacking escape pods, it was necessary for the CryoZaiyons to develop lifeboats capable of manoeuvring. Unfortunately, defensive capabilities were deemed unnecessary.

  Rennin and Jolen were in the two pilots’ seats at the front of the escape shuttle, Rennin in front and Jolen behind. The other four were in the rear passenger section. The overhead canopy sealed and with flames beginning to spew up around them, the craft lurched forwards to be projected out of the underside of the ship. Rennin looked up in time to see an explosion rip the Possession to pieces.

  Dozens of escape ships zipped around the brutal dogfight where the CryoZaiyons were battling at proportions of seven to one, trying to maintain the rear-guard position while the remaining gunships limped away to make the shift to hyper-transit.

  With a lack of other targets the GA pilots soon turned their sights on the defenceless pods. The radio chatter became panicked screeches as more and more pods were turned into burning debris. One ship shot at Rennin’s pod, disabling one of th
e two thrusters before the GA fighter was blown up by a CryoZaiyon.

  “Enemy down,” said the deceptively gentle voice of one of the deadliest androids ever made.

  “Thanks, Zillah,” sighed Jolen.

  “Captain,” she corrected.

  Jolen apologised as the pod began entering Earth’s atmosphere at an awkward angle. It was all Rennin could do with only one engine. Jolen wiped his forehead, looking at the flames engulfing the canopy. “It’s getting hot in here!”

  “So take off all your clothes!” yelled Rennin in song.

  The shuttle clipped a satellite with a loud crash. The crew are jostled in their seats. “What the fuck was that?” cried Jolen.

  “Our angle has shifted! We’re coming in too steep!” yelled Rennin, trying to adjust the angle to no avail. The ship was now fully immersed in the atmosphere. Visibility zero. There’s nothing but fire roaring all around them.

  “We’re going to burn up!” yelled one of the others.

  Cockpit alarms began sounding. Jolen put a hand on Rennin’s shoulder, leaning forward as close as he can. “What can we do, Ren?”

  “We have to get the nose down,” said Rennin, reading ‘Hull integrity failing’ on the monitor in front of him.

  “Think of something, man,” said another passenger, Ryan, from the back section of the pod.

  Rennin knew these lifeboats had been rigged so the rear half could be purged for an emergency situation such as this. Of course, not usually while it still contained people. He put his right hand on the red jettison lever, weighing his options with a detached expression.

  Jolen, looking over Rennin’s shoulder, could read his intentions. “Ren, what are you doing?”

  “Our arse is too heavy,” he answered softly. If it wasn’t for the headset Jolen would never have heard him over the roar of re-entry. Unfortunately, the four men who would be purged heard as well.

  “You better think of something else!” yelled another of them.

  Jolen saw Rennin’s grip tighten. “Don’t you do it!”

  Rennin read ‘Hull breach imminent’ on the display. The entire interior was lit red from the flames, the roar from outside resonating through the pod, making him feel as if he is in an elevator to Hell. He’d been in this position once before. A dark room full of screams, some his some the roar from outside as his home city died around him.