Raddocks Horizon (Godyssey Legacy Book 1) Read online

  Roths is older by a decade at least, with a very regal bearing and powerful presence that shows no sign of diminishing with age. Her shoulder length blonde hair has greyed mildly, but her piercing grey-green eyes demand full attention.

  Roths sighs in frustration, “One of us should be in there with them.”

  Caufmann is standing closest to the glass. He turns to regard first Roths, then Rethrin through his reflective red lens glasses.

  “This experiment is dangerous. Too dangerous for us to risk making a mistake. I need you two alive, these lab techs need training, and are a dime a dozen.” He turns back to watch the experiment.

  Rethrin scoffs, “You don’t just find willing lab techs to work ridiculous hours and be basically imprisoned until our projects are complete.”

  “For the right price, most come running,” he says.

  “Exactly how many need die? Farrow shot another one this evening,” says Roths angrily.

  “He was a traitor.”

  Rethrin’s face turns to disbelief, “Traitor? This is a company, not a country and therefore possesses no sovereignty. He worked here with you for years.”

  “Do you two even remember his name?”

  Roths’ expression is so sour Caufmann can feel his throat tighten. “His name was James.”

  Caufmann nods. “And James was handing a memory card to the Gorai Aurelia. The information on it was everything we don’t want the public to see.”

  Roths looks to the vague reflection of Caufmann’s face in the glass, “Haven’t you ever thought that what we’re doing here is wrong?”

  Caufmann swings around to face them both. Being nearly a head taller than both of them and possessing a rather imposing frame they both lean back ever so slightly, “Do you really believe I like my job?”

  “Rennin Farrow likes his. That butcher is on our payroll. That, I find disturbing,” says Roths.

  “I suppose you’re here because you’re not allowed to leave?”

  Roths smiles, “Your intuition never fails you.”

  “Your sarcasm must help you sleep at night.”

  “How do you sleep at night?”

  “Haven’t you heard the rumours? I don’t.”

  An alarm blares inside the containment chamber drawing the immediate attention of all three scientists.

  One of the lab technicians has torn his suit, and in panic has dropped a vial of transparent purple liquid. The spilled fluid is quickly turning to vapour.

  The tech is attempting to hold the rip closed with both hands, to maintain the positive air pressure inside the hazmat suit.

  His workmate is moving towards the door to the decontamination chamber but Caufmann is quicker; he taps his forearm terminal, locking down the laboratory. The lab tech is scrabbling at the keypad with increasing panic while Caufmann types in a fourteen-digit command, and executes it.

  The containment chamber instantly turns impossibly bright. Caufmann watches the ten-second incineration, but Rethrin and Roths avert their gaze.

  Once the bright light fades there is very little left inside the chamber apart from the charred partial remains of the technicians and badly burned benches. But no remnants of any toxins are present.

  Roths and Rethrin are stunned beyond speech. Caufmann slowly turns to face them but his shoulders are hunched this time and there is no pride in his stance, “I would do that to you if I had to and I’d expect the same for myself,” he pauses and takes a breath. “Now get me some more techs.”

  ◆◆◆

  Caufmann stalks up the hallway towards his office, barely looking up from the floor. Gossip of Rennin Farrow’s most recent shooting and Caufmann’s own forced cremation of two more technicians has spread like a virus already.

  The other workers are not keen to get in his way but Caufmann could walk straight into someone and not even notice at this point. He has closed down the part of his brain that keeps up with what’s happening outside his head. He is on autopilot all the way back to his office and nothing short of God will stop him.

  The door to his office flies up, he storms inside and slaps a button on his forearm terminal, slamming the door and locking it.

  The lights come on brightly.

  “Dim!” Caufmann screams and the lights lower to a soft glow, throwing shadows all over the room.

  There’s not much clutter in his office apart from the two chairs in front of his desk, the desk itself, and his throne-like black chair. He sits in it for barely twenty minutes per day and even that time is spent mostly arguing with Rennin.

  The doctor takes a shaky step forwards and feels the world leave his feet for a moment. He steadies himself by taking a breath but the pain spikes in his chest again and he stumbles back against the door with a metallic thud.

  He takes his glasses off, dropping them on the floor. His bright green eyes glow against the dim light. “Three dead in one day…” he raises his hands to his face pressing his fingers against his eyes as if to hold them closed. “James Wolcott, shot. Stephen Kale and Francis Wales burned alive…” he can barely say that above a whisper.

  His breaths become shorter and shorter, “Fuck!” he shouts kicking his heel against the door. He takes his hands away from his face and opens his eyes. They glow viciously against his dark sockets, looking even further recessed than they did a moment ago.

  Caufmann goes over to his desk and sinks into his chair’s upholstery finding no comfort. After a moment’s respite from the world, he slaps the intercom button on his desk. The monotone voice of his assistant is heard almost instantly, “Yes, Doctor Caufmann?”

  “I want Professor Danard Nordoth and Doctor Elsie Straker thawed from the stasis section immediately.”

  “Chairman Van Gower has revoked all authority to remove any of the CryoGen Research Team until further notice.”

  Caufmann’s eyes flare up throwing a glare across his desk’s faux wood finish, “Why is that?” he asks harshly.

  The assistant pauses, “He doesn’t tell me anything, sir, I’m sorry, it’s not-”

  He interrupts her, “Find out!”

  “But-”

  “Bah!” he yells and his veins pulse, “I’ll call him,” he slaps the intercom button on his desk, hanging up.

  He leans back for a moment and takes a breath to calm himself down. His angry heartbeat can be seen pulsing beneath his lab shirt. He almost leaps out of his throne and retrieves his glasses from the floor. He puts them on to conceal his unusual eyes then returns to his seat at a slow and precise walk.

  Once confident he has regained his composure, he opens a channel with the Iyatoya lunar base to his employer and CEO of Godyssey: Dacaster Van Gower.

  After a few attempts at establishing a connection Van Gower’s hideous secretary appears on his screen. Del looks like a Vogue model by comparison.

  Does Vogue even exist anymore?

  “Yes, Doctor Caufmann?” she asks in that raspy voice that Caufmann would like to tear out with a rusted pair of pliers.

  “Put me through to Van Gower,” he says barely moving his lips. The way he looks on the screen at her end is like a hungry reanimated corpse.

  “CEO Van Gower is not available at this time,” she says not the least bit intimidated.

  “You talk to him and tell him I’m on my way up there to see him.”

  “One moment,” she says and his screen goes blank for half a minute before she reappears, “He will speak with you now.”

  Caufmann doesn’t answer and clenches his jaw as an image of his employer flickers onto the screen.

  Van Gower’s impossibly symmetrical face smiles blandly, “Doctor Caufmann,” as if he’s surprised, “What can I do for you?”

  “I need some information from Professor Nordoth and Doctor Straker, but apparently you’ve given an order to deny anyone from thawing the CryoGen team.”

  “Once they are thawed it will be very time consuming to re-freeze them.”

  “I don’t understand why having them froze
n in stasis is necessary at all. Their expertise would be invaluable to me.”

  “The CryoGen team designed the android system as a means of an alternative way of life rather than dying of cancer or disease. They did not develop it for military application and since they founded Godyssey they have the right to close down everything we’ve done. But as acting CEO I have decided they will remain in stasis,” he says casually.

  Caufmann clenches his jaw so tightly he can hear his own teeth grinding together, “They are frozen on the lower level, I’ll thaw them myself if I have to.”

  “I can remotely kill them from here before the defrosting process is complete if I detect that you have.”

  “I need information to complete Del’s programming errors.”

  “Use a human template. We have dozens of Instinctual Clusters in storage with no bodies; any of them would work perfectly.”

  “Instinctual Clusters are not required, I am not using a HolinMech system for this android.”

  Van Gower’s eyes widen in near panic, “Well you are not using a CryoZaiyon system!” he says with his voice rising almost shrilly.

  Caufmann mentally struggles to suppress a smile, “I’m using a different system altogether.”

  Van Gower’s face turns to a frown, “You’re a molecular biologist, what are you doing building androids?”

  “With this android the two go hand in hand.”

  “What is it for?”

  Caufmann hesitates. “It is a combat model.”

  “Combat models are illegal.”

  “We use them for every special forces mission! How did that happen after the universal condemnation of military grade androids? The entire solar system was strip mined for resources to fight a ludicrous war that we haven’t recovered from.”

  “Twelve. We keep twelve for those missions. Hardly an army.”

  “The only twelve in the world. Quite a monopoly.”

  “Doctor Caufmann, listen to me very carefully. We are the biggest corporation of bioengineering in the solar system and as such have certain privileges normally denied to others. We cure cancer, we develop organic prosthetics, we are the future!” he says in a commanding tone. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten who it is you work for, despite your obvious talents.”

  “I build what I want. My contract says as long as I make my professional requirements my pet projects aren’t your concern if they’re not a direct threat to the company. Either way, Del is a protector of this installation and the project was approved by the board unanimously who make up fifty-one percent of the total.”

  “I was not told!”

  “In a unanimous vote, you are not required to be informed.”

  Van Gower says nothing but is obviously fuming.

  “They are most interested in how this project turns out as they may want one for their own uses. In defence, of course.”

  “I can make sure that project is scrapped, doctor.”

  Caufmann tilts his head, “I build everything you ask me to, from bio warfare to vaccines to genetic bombs and all I want is to build one android for my own experiment. Is that really so much to ask?”

  “You just said that you build what you want, regardless.”

  Caufmann makes a dismissive gesture, “With the board’s permission. I have work to get back to, it’s been an honour as always,” he says, and disconnects. He sits back alone in the silence and rocks lightly in his throne.

  “I’ll thaw Nordoth and Straker, somehow,” he tells himself.

  ◆◆◆

  Rennin Farrow arrives home just after three o’clock in the morning to his upper working class apartment block. The building is also owned by Godyssey Company, and paid for by Godyssey employees in some kind of magical fiscal merry-go-round. It’s not pretty but the rent is cheap for their employees.

  The interior is a dim grey and so are the bench tops, the cooking appliances, the bed sheets and the carpet. The lounge, living room, and kitchen are all the same room. The only floor space that isn’t covered by carpet is the kitchenette.

  Rennin believes the blandness and lack of colour scheme is to aid the killing of imagination in Godyssey’s employees. The only other room is a bathroom with shower barely big enough to hold a child, let alone an ex-CryoZaiyon Standard trooper.

  Then again, the walls are never plain for Rennin. He can still see the memories of the war on those seemingly blank surfaces like an olden day cinema screen. He can still see the warships flamed off Saturn’s moon, Titan, shot down by a hyper-transit rail gun from Neptune. On the opposite wall, he can see the troopers torn up by armed satellites off the frontline of Suva.

  Rennin sits on his meagre couch and lies back, looking at the ceiling. On that bland surface, so devoid of detail, it seems to move before his eyes. It appears to stretch away from him then loom downward towards him.

  For some reason the ceiling always plays the same hallucinatory memory; the terrible end to the Jupiter Sieges. Rennin was stationed on Io with a small garrison, protecting the last remaining android foundry. The Gorai Aurelia had set up a stronghold on Europa. As the two moons approached on an abnormally close orbit path, Rennin remembers Europa rising in the sky, seemingly close enough to throw a stone at.

  The two moons’ respective armies waited until the celestial bodies were at the closest possible proximity, and then they both opened fire. Unfathomable beams of energy passed between them, propelled by vast engines of war, as Europa and Io began to reap devastation upon one another. Cannon emplacements the size of small mountains erupted with tremendous energy across the void in a cacophony that Rennin can still feel stealing his breath. The horror he felt still hammers the air from his lungs as he remembers the crash of enemy fire against the shields.

  It was all a matter of which side would eventually wear down the other’s defences, or get a direct hit on a critical element of the war machine. Sometimes Io’s shields would fail and they’d sustain the barrage underground, praying for anything to make it stop. Sometimes the GA shields would be broken, and ravenous, voracious madness would grip the troops like they were rabid animals. They’d scream and snarl as they blasted Europa, fantasizing about wiping them from the solar system. When both side’s shields failed he isn’t even sure who was operating the guns.

  It was pure chaos.

  His ears used to ring after a bombardment cycle, which occurred roughly twice every seven or eight days. Io orbits Jupiter at almost twice the speed of Europa so it was only a matter of a few short days to prepare for the next time they were in range of each other.

  Rennin had never seen weaponry like that. Sometimes he still isn’t sure if it was real. It was a literal war between worlds. Every time Europa rose on Io’s horizon was like a needle piercing Rennin’s soul.

  Chaos.

  Looking down to the final grey wall in front of him, he can see Commander Forgal Lauros brandishing a flaming green sword, cutting a swath through the ground troops leaving hacked limbs, heads and cleaved guns in his wake.

  Despite the sheer brilliance of seeing it first hand, Rennin was shaking at the time. The concussive shock from nearby orbital shots temporarily left him trembling.

  Rennin will never forget the eyes of Lauros. In the flaming ruin of a Gorai Aurelia base he remembers Lauros standing with shattered pauldrons, cracked armour, many cuts and even a few bullet holes in his limbs. Yet for all his wounds, he was still standing in the wreckage and fire waiting for his troops to catch up. When Rennin’s company met up with the leader, he wasn’t sure but he thought Forgal Lauros looked at him with his shining eyes. The shadow over his face made his eyes the only visible feature and the green in them looked reptilian. Those eyes had seen Hell, Rennin had no doubt of that.

  What Rennin realised, at that moment in the embers falling like snow, is that those CryoZaiyons had no way to block all those battles away like a human can. Rennin himself never mustered the kind of cowardice to hide his pain behind a wall of repression. It was then that he found it easier
to relate to a machine than his own kind. Because Rennin Farrow has never felt human at all.

  2.

  Line in the Sand

  The blinding lights illuminate the yard, immediately followed by a sniper round tearing through the skull of another escapee from the lower level. Rennin hasn’t received a kill order from Caufmann yet, but it was an escapee, and there’s only one way to deal with them.

  Del was returned to the lower levels for diagnostics a fortnight ago, and in that short period this is the third attempted breakout. Rennin is back in his seat even before the scientist’s body stops moving.

  He wipes his eyes, feeling sleep accumulating and slaps his hand against his desk, angry with his aging body. He could once go for days without sleep during his time in the service.

  Despite the obvious tediousness of his current job, Rennin knows he shouldn’t be so hard on himself. But sometimes when he really thinks about it, he feels like he is still in service. Something about Caufmann really makes him uncomfortable.

  What kind of Head of Research threatens his staff with pummelling?

  Rennin could take on someone twice his size, but Caufmann still scares him stiff sometimes.

  Either he’s getting scarier, or I’m getting soft.

  Rennin looks to his computer terminal and blinks away another wave of weariness. His mind reviews the two Beta HolinMech’s conversation in the bar, recalling the name of their primary target. He opens up the Godyssey Co. system and types ‘Arbiter’ into the search bar.

  Only one match is found, and it is regarding a class of computer system made nearly a hundred and forty years ago. Rennin rolls his eyes and thinks to the other thing they mentioned.

  “Iz-fee-or-ad…” he says to himself, sounding it out to decipher the spelling, but after a moment’s pause he shakes his head. “Fuck it,” and puts the computer in standby.

  What kind of name is that anyway?

  He is about to stand up to leave when an idea occurs to him. He reopens the search engine. He types in: ‘Progenitor-class’.