Raddocks Horizon (Godyssey Legacy Book 1) Read online

  Rennin stops for a moment to study the empty container outside his tower and shakes his head, wondering which eager Gorai Aurelia lackey or reporter had the privilege of snapping whatever came out of it.

  He shakes his head again, this time to get the water out of his longer-than-regulation hair, even though it’ll only get soaked and drip down his collar again. His black tunic uniform with fibre-weave armour underlay is mostly synthetic and therefore waterproof, but water can still dribble down between his collar and skin, and once inside has no option but run all the way down to his boots. But Rennin loves the rain, despite the grim reminder of his last tour of duty in the CryoZaiyon Wars.

  He misses his black armour and the—now illegal—sniper rifle he used to carry. He was a precision shooter worthy of an android. His last mission was a solo assassination of a dignitary and financier of the Gorai Aurelia war effort. He shakes his head again, sending another spray of water outwards and continues into clock tower, refusing to think of the war any further.

  Upon entering the lookout, he is greeted with the broadside of an eight or nine foot android standing just inside the door. He remains frozen in place, never having seen an android of this size before. It has grey, almost translucent skin and armour plating across its shoulders, the top of its head, elbows, and lower legs. Otherwise it looks naked. The Godyssey emblem is also etched on an armour plate just below the right shoulder blade.

  Rennin feels goosebumps appearing all over him when its left hand turns upwards and gestures towards his seat. The watchman complies, attempting to sit down casually, trying to avoid thinking about Caufmann laughing at him as he watches the surveillance footage, bearing witness to Rennin’s tentative steps.

  He slowly turns his head to look at the android’s face, such as it is. The mouth is huge, an exposed row of sharp interlocking teeth, with no lips to speak of. There is a slight bump for a nose but no eyes.

  He is barely settled when the hairs on his arms stand on end again just before the monitor in front of him beeps. He leans forwards and reads:

  Hello, Watchman Farrow, my name is Del.

  Before his eyes the teeth retract into Del’s jaw line. He doesn’t want to think about what a bite attack from this colossus would do to a person. Rennin remains silent for a moment, taking a look at the android’s now disturbingly human face, then focuses back to the console in front of him.

  “Hi,” he says as more of a question.

  How are you?

  “Fine,” he pauses and shrugs, wondering what to do with an eight foot android, “and how are you?”

  Text continues scrolling across the screen. 45% operational. Combat protocols locked down. Body components below 50% developed. Incubation interrupted for early test.

  Great, he thinks, sitting in a room a long way away from anyone with an untested android that looks like it could snap its fingers and break him in half, “You look perfectly healthy to me.”

  I am not ready for combat. I was ordered to converse with you.

  “About what?”

  I don’t know.

  “The break-ball scores?”

  I don’t know.

  “Okay…” Rennin sits quietly for a moment thinking hard about what he’s supposed to do with this thing. A thought does come to him, “What were you built for?”

  Combat.

  A smart arse. Wonderful. “Combat where? You’re too big to be a spy, so what are you?”

  I am a state of the art fighting model built for any form of combat. The highest care has been taken to ensure maximum strength with minimum framework. I am twice the size and exponentially faster than any Standard.

  Rennin feels a pang at the word Standard being used by an android. Standard is the name most military androids adopted for the human soldiers in their ranks. Standard meaning less than them, ordinary, “barely feasible” as one once said.

  “I thought the word Standard being applied to human troops was universally condemned.”

  Doctor Caufmann told me to refer to all other soldiers as such.

  So a regular android is even considered a Standard compared to Del, “Favourite son, huh?”

  I don’t know.

  Rennin’s attention is drawn to the front gates where the Gorai Aurelia activists have started chanting their catchy but mind numbing rubbish. Rennin doesn’t even bother trying to understand their monkey babble anymore.

  He looks at his sniper rifle. His Godyssey modified sniper rifle designed to project purpose-made poisoned rounds, making every injury a kill. Another of Caufmann’s personal touches. Rennin wonders if this is Caufmann’s version of micro managing.

  The silent alarm is tripped; one of the scientists from a restricted floor is walking out the front entrance of the lab. Rennin has to let a cynical laugh escape his lips at the sheer audacity of this lunatic. He isn’t even running.

  Most of those juice-fiddlers in the chemical weapons division don’t even know they’ve been implanted with a microscopic chip behind their eyes during their initial retina scans. These implants trip the alarm if they leave the safe zone, calling Rennin to action.

  The sniper rifle is in his hands before a moment passes and the scope is trained on a familiar looking scientist walking at a forcibly relaxed pace towards the gate. Rennin hears Caufmann’s voice resonate in the lookout, “Are you waiting for something? He’s a contagion risk. Take him out.”

  Rennin can’t place his name but trains the scope down to see the scientist has something palmed on the side nearest the watchman.

  He frowns, ignoring another direct order to take him down. Moving the scope left to the gateway he sees, in the midst of the chanting locals, a suspiciously unmoving figure standing just to the side of the front gate. A drop off?

  This is becoming stranger by the moment. No communications are allowed from the lower levels, but then again how has the scientist made it this far out to begin with? The idiot hasn’t realised he’s tripped the alarm. But he’s got someone here to meet him.

  “How did you organise that?” he whispers.

  The scientist is only metres from the front gate and Caufmann is still nagging Rennin to take him out. He’s only two steps away, and in expectation of delivery, he begins to reach out his hand.

  The recipient moves to accept it, bringing his face into view. Rennin peers down the sniper scope, and taps the imaging button, taking a snapshot of the man’s face, before pressing a button on the nearby console, switching on the floodlights. The entire courtyard is bathed in a stunningly bright white light, effectively halting all vision from outside the gate. Looking directly into those lights can blind you for several days.

  Rennin, looking with the light, not into it, can still see perfectly. He sees the scientist jump in shock, take a backward step, tottering slightly as he realises he’s been caught out. The man on the other side of the gate is now sticking his arm through, no doubt shouting at the scientist to hurry up and hand over whatever he’s holding.

  Recognition dawns on Rennin. “Hey it’s little Jakey, you’re no scientist. Why are you wearing that coat?” he says forgetting that Del is there for a moment. Or is it Jamie? Doesn’t matter now.

  The bullet Rennin fires hits the scientist square in the chest causing the body to fly backwards, almost flip over, before crumpling to the ground in a nondescript heap.

  Rennin puts the sniper rifle down after detaching the scope and looks to Del, “Pretty slick, hey?”

  Efficient. I could not do better, appears on the screen.

  “High praise indeed,” he says spinning the scope on his flat upturned palm.

  Bear in mind that I am not yet half of my full potential.

  “A last word freak too, just like your father.”

  ◆◆◆

  Rennin is sitting in Caufmann’s office for the third time this shift, “Was something wrong with taking him out earlier?” asks the doctor.

  The watchman is sitting too smugly for Caufmann’s liking. “I did more than yo
u expected.”

  Caufmann remains still for a moment before a resigned expression crosses his face, “Oh do please enlighten me.”

  Rennin smiles and places a printout in front of the doctor, “This is an image of the man that the scientist was trying to reach.”

  Caufmann leans over and his gaze remains still as if burning the image into his mind, “Well done, Ren.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Fire away.”

  “You said he was a contagion risk?”

  “I was trying to hurry you.”

  “Okay,” says Rennin, less than convinced with that answer. “What exactly was the scientist holding?”

  Caufmann gazes at Rennin with a strange look that may well have been an emotion Rennin doesn’t possess himself, “If you knew that, you wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

  Rennin isn’t one to be intimidated by threats, but Caufmann’s casually dismissive tone makes the watchman feel like he’s swallowed a bucket of ice, “I-I see, sir.”

  “How did you find Del?”

  “Well,” Rennin shifts in his seat, “he’s polite. He is a he isn’t he?”

  Caufmann smiles, “I like that you ask. Not many would even care to. Del is a he, yes.”

  “He says he’s not finished.”

  “Yes, we’re working on that, but an android like that needs special attention.”

  “I see. He’s too big to be an infiltrator, what is he for?”

  “He’s a soldier. Plain and simple.”

  Rennin nods, feigning understanding.

  “Dismissed. Take the rest of the night off. Go get something to drink.”

  Rennin leaves after an exaggerated bow.

  William Caufmann sighs and leans back in his chair. Rennin Farrow is one of the strangest people he’s ever met. Caufmann takes a breath, increasing the stabbing pain in his chest. Nothing inside him seems to work like it should nowadays.

  His eyes constantly hurt, his hands feel severely arthritic, but he knows that can’t be so. Every now and then he has a pain in his head so harsh it temporarily blinds him. His body isn’t made for the kind of treatment he’s putting it through.

  He lays his right arm on the table after pulling up the sleeve to inspect what Rennin presumed was a communication gauntlet. This isn’t a gauntlet or an implant. This is as much a part of his body as anything else.

  The skin at the wrist and elbow has been sliced right around, the tissue removed, exposing the artificial workings beneath. Diagnostic scans display in his glasses that act as a heads-up-display. He reads quickly, skimming over the jargon and focussing only on the necessary data:

  Internal trauma.

  Casing rupture, algorithm unstable.

  Neural-net leak.

  Multiple systems inaccessible.

  Implant array: Active.

  Transponder signal disruption: Active.

  Caufmann stands up clenching both fists, willing himself to use the pain to keep him strong, or at the very least focussed. He looks at his desk and lands a punch directly down with his right hand.

  The desk may look like polished wood but it is only an effect finish on the steel substrate. The indentation he’s made in the surface distorts his reflection, though his show of strength has cost him most of the skin on his knuckles.

  Caufmann grunts looking at his warped image in the desk’s surface. He doesn’t understand how his internal problems can cause so much pain yet outward physical trauma doesn’t invoke even the slightest of reactions. “All this worth it, old boy?” he asks sighing with weariness decades old, “Doctor William Caufmann… where have you left me?”

  ◆◆◆

  As always, after his shift, Rennin waits the precisely eighty excruciating seconds for the gate to cycle its locking sequence before opening the only door to any respite from his self-pitying existence.

  Hope isn’t something Rennin feels but there is a distinct sense of satisfaction when he sees the pub across Wells Street.

  He takes a triumphant stride outside the lab’s grounds into the desperate attempt at a modernised Victorian street scheme, and sets his sight on the bar. Since he couldn’t have one for the road after leaving work he will now have to order two to get started. If he is unlucky enough to be served by the robot bartender it will as always refuse to supply two drinks to a lone person. But he will order two anyway.

  One day it’ll crack.

  The robot bartender stands out severely amongst the Victorian décor. Considering how elaborate the bar’s collection of period trinkets are to set the scene they’re trying to create, Rennin would have thought they’d have helped the robot blend in a little. It’s shiny blue protector plates contrast sharply with the interior’s burgundy and cream setting.

  At that point he notices that the robot isn’t the only thing to stand out today. In a booth up the rear of the pub sit some fancy uniforms that Rennin doesn’t see too often. The plain dark grey fatigues they wear are glossed up only by the shiny grey armour plating around the shoulders, chest, and knees.

  They are members of the Godyssey owned Beta HolinMech unit. Rennin can’t suppress the arching of one of his eyebrows.

  Predictably, Beta HolinMech have followed the free booze. Or at least two of them have; sitting in the farthest booth from the entrance that line the rightmost wall.

  The furthest of the pair has dirty blonde hair atop a gaunt face with high cheekbones. His shining blue eyes are piercing enough for Rennin to see even from across the room.

  Definitely a veteran soldier, Rennin thinks.

  Seen from behind, the soldier’s companion seems fairly young, but from his hunched posture, the way his left hand rotates his drink round and round suggests enough for Rennin to make an educated guess. He’s either bored or deep in thought, but thinking is not what soldiers are best at, so Rennin bets on the former.

  He concludes this kind of downtime is not what he finds fun.

  Rennin slides up the bar to sit at the far end, as close to the two soldiers as he can. The venue is half full, mostly with guards and low security clearance lab workers, many of whom are too exhausted to talk, though some are drunk out of their minds. They seem to be perpetually slurring louder, as if that will help clarify whatever they’re attempting to communicate.

  He can see the two soldiers sitting and talking in the wall mirror behind the bar. Upon focussing he begins to filter out the other patrons, slowly fading their voices away and zeroing in on the Betas. “…not the best I-…”

  “…-ne, you… we can…”

  Rennin focuses almost to the point of overtly glaring.

  “…we shouldn’t,” says bright eyes.

  “This coming-…m you?” says the dark haired other.

  Rennin concentrates harder until all he can see is the reflection of the two soldiers, and everything else has blurred out into an indistinct haze. Bright eyes peps up, “Listen, Drake, you know we’re here to get the mark and only the mark. Isfeohrad is primary, Arbiter is secondary.”

  Drake shrugs, “I don’t know about this. Only one team to comb an entire megacity, for some android that’s been here for months? Why would finding Arbiter be secondary? He was supposed to be the pinnacle of the universe or whatever Caufmann said.”

  So, Caufmann has called in the big guns. Beta HolinMechs are Special Forces. They and the SAS have a fierce rivalry. Rennin concedes that they’re not here for the free booze after all.

  “That doesn’t make sense, but if he was alive, we’d know by now. We’re looking for a synthetic cadaver, that’s all,” says bright eyes.

  “Oh great, should be easy. It’s not like we can ask if anyone’s seen him.”

  Bright eyes rolls his baby blues. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you, I knew you’d act like this.”

  “I wish you could see your face. Mister ‘I was given a solo mission how awesome am I’,” says Drake.

  “It’s necessary to make sure he can’t be reactivated. Either way it’
s a secondary objective.”

  “Can’t be reactivated? Now you have to kill him? And why are we still talking about this? In public.”

  “Well he’s supposed to still be dead. And the mission isn’t classified. And we’re Godyssey, we own everything. All these people here?” Bright eyes says with the sweep of his hand, “Who are they going to tell? We are the authorities.”

  Drake fixes bright eyes with a sceptical stare. “Where exactly did you get this information?”

  “Intel.”

  Drake bursts out laughing, almost into a mad cackle. “Suddenly it makes so much sense. Why did they pick the name ‘Arbiter’ as his codename?”

  “His call sign is ‘Achilles’, Arbiter is-”

  “CAN I HELP YOU, SIR?” says a deafening electronic voice.

  Rennin almost jumps out of his skin, while nearly falling off his barstool. For a moment he stares at the featureless metal face staring at him with two yellow eyes in utter bewilderment.

  His hearing had been so concentrated it felt like the thing had yelled right in his ear. Rennin checks the reflection but the soldiers are still chatting away. He looks back at the bartender, “A pint.”

  “Pale or black?”

  “Once you go black,” he winks at the robot that completely misses the reference. Rennin sighs, “Porter.”

  The robot trundles off to fetch his order. Rennin sometimes forgets of the gulf between robots and androids. An android still wouldn’t find his joke funny, but it would understand that he’d made it.

  ◆◆◆

  In a lower level of the Godyssey lab, two technicians in full hazmat gear work with various toxins, mixing them according to instructions displayed on a screen in the furthest wall.

  From the monitoring room, Caufmann stands with his two most senior researchers Mepida Rethrin and Jellan Roths. Rethrin is in her mid-thirties, her long brown hair tied in a tight bun with bright blue eyes. Caufmann thinks she looks quite Swedish, and wonders what he’d think of her if he still had a working reproductive system.