“They replaced your arm, yes.”
“My left leg too, and part of my skull. You hadn’t noticed my left eye glows in the dark like a small novelty diaphragm?”
Her face cringes slightly, “No, I guess not. But it doesn’t explain bullet proof bones.”
“The limbs Caufmann grafted onto me are too heavy for my skeleton to support, so he injected me with Thermosteel.”
She arches an eyebrow. “I heard that stuff is worth seven million a kilo.”
Rennin finds himself smirking, “We can rebuild him, we have the technology,” he quotes from the Six Million Dollar Man. Judging from Carla’s expression, she doesn’t watch TV shows from three and a half centuries ago. She must have some kind of life outside work or something.
“I’m assuming that’s a line from a movie.”
Close enough. “You got me.” He sighs lightly and looks at her with a warm smile or at least as warm as he can manage. “We have to leave this city.”
She nods. “Where though?”
“It doesn’t matter. How is the real question.”
Another day passes. The hit squads have been out around the clock. Their execution count has climbed into the thousands. The public aren’t as stupid as the grunts thought they were. Several have caught on to what is going on, though they still can’t do anything.
The military have labelled the bodies contagious, and have openly admitted that they are removing bodies that have fallen victim to the disease. At least at first it worked just fine but the press received a letter from Doctor Mepida Rethrin that changed all that.
Caufmann was covered in various forms of gore from the lab when he found out and left immediately for Rethrin’s quarters.
He ignores the opportunity to be civilised and knock, bypassing the locking mechanism almost on arrival. The door flies up into the bulkhead, waking both occupants. Rethrin’s roommate is up in an instant only wearing his underpants, visibly winding himself up to make a complaint when Caufmann grabs his wrist and literally throws him out of the room. He unceremoniously thumps into the wall across the hall, sliding into a stunned, uncoordinated pile.
The door slams down when Caufmann hits the plate, and for a second he and Rethrin are left alone in the dark. Rethrin feels something like terror grip her, as Caufmann appears as some demonic, glowing eyed spectre in front of her bunk for at least a moment before the lights come on.
Rethrin stands up, folding her arms over herself, feeling terribly exposed. Caufmann’s gaze is fixed on her face.
She opens her mouth to speak. What she receives is a backhand so hard it throws her back onto her bed. A trickle of blood runs out of the corner of her mouth, but her face is still riddled with conviction. Caufmann holds up a scrunched copy of the letter she wrote to the press office.
She grits her teeth, “They deserve to know, William.”
His face screws up into a snarl. Rethrin sees more wrinkles cross his face than she has ever seen before. “I don’t care that you sent it! It’s irrelevant now. You told them I made it!”
It’s the first time she’s ever heard him yell.
For a moment she’s a little confused. He’s not upset about her leaking information, that people have died for revealing a glimpse of, he’s upset she said he designed the affliction. “William… you didn’t? You really didn’t?”
“Of course not! You… you idiot!” he turns away, beyond speechless. He takes several deep, calming breaths.
“I can’t think of anyone else in the world who could have possibly done it.”
He turns to face her. “Do you believe for one second that I’d have made something this faulty?”
Rethrin’s scientific mind clicks on and she forgets about her throbbing jaw. “Faulty? It’s perfect. According to calculations the entire world could be overrun in a little under a year. Complete conversion.”
“It’s not perfect. I’ve discovered a weakness in the contaminants that is quite crippling, but I’ve no idea how to exploit it. Plus I would never have let it out without a cure. I’d never make anything that sacrificed intelligence for obedience.”
“What weakness? What do you mean by obedience?” asks Rethrin.
“Some people see a particular reflection of light and it induces an epileptic fit.”
“That’s very rare, but yes.”
“The contaminants seem to react to certain colours with a phobic response,” says Caufmann.
“They’re afraid of colour?” she doesn’t even bother to hide her scepticism.
“More or less.”
“Pity Raddocks Horizon is such a dreary temperate zone and almost always rainy.”
Caufmann smiles, “Yes, it is,” and almost instantly his smile vanishes to a rather cold expression. “You understand you’ll have to leave, don’t you?”
Rethrin looks at the floor for a moment thinking then looks back to him. “Yes. I thought you were here to kill me.”
Caufmann removes a syringe from his jacket pocket. “I was, yes.” He puts it away. “Since your actions would normally result in a death sentence and I have another here who also wouldn’t be allowed to live if discovered, I think you can help each other.”
Rethrin frowns with a questioning look, “I’m sorry?”
“I need you to leave this city tonight, and I want you to take a deserter from the HolinMech Warrior unit.”
Rethrin stands up very slowly looking at Caufmann’s eyes. “Arca Drej? He’s here?”
Caufmann nods.
Rethrin shakes her head, “I can’t take him.”
“This isn’t exactly open for debate.”
“William, martial law is going to be in place tomorrow. Before I can even get out of this city I have to dock at the Skyhook, and they will do a ship scan as well as test me for infection. If they find Arca Drej on board… well you might as well just kill me now.”
The Skyhook has been commandeered by the Iyatoya lunar base that houses the HolinMech android special forces team. There are several Skyhook bases located around the continent, which have now converged above Raddocks Horizon and latched onto each other, creating a bigger base of operations to combat the plague.
Caufmann makes a rumbling noise at the back of his throat, “Very well.”
“I can’t take him and run either. If I leave via Gateway, I’ll be shipped to the Outbound housing zone. The military would take one look at Drej and know he’s an android. Or if I take a ship and escape, they will detect an andronic construct aboard my vessel, ask questions and then shoot us down.”
Caufmann’s left eye twitches just slightly. “Mm,” he nods, “he’s been through a lot. He couldn’t pass for human.”
“I’m sorry, William.”
Caufmann looks at her for a long moment then rolls up his sleeve and presses a button on his forearm. A moment later he speaks, his voice projected from every PA in the Godyssey Lab. “Attention, this is Doctor William Caufmann, Head of Genetic Research. As of 9AM tomorrow morning, the staff restrictions are lifted from both the Experimental and Incubation sections. Watchman Crew, stand down.”
He clicks off his forearm and turns to leave. The door flies up and he’s out in the hall where Rethrin’s roommate is nursing a broken arm and a quickly swelling and bruising face where his head collided with the wall.
Rethrin follows him out. “William, what about our families?”
“Make sure they’re at Gateway in two days.”
“Why?”
“All immediate relatives of essential Godyssey employees and the military are allowed to leave if they pass a medical scan.”
Caufmann stops walking when Rethrin grabs his arm. “So any of the military and our staff can get out of this city?”