“Yes, if you’re in the research division or a soldier, your family gets out if they scan clean.”
Rethrin nods.
“Your husband will be fine. Now get dressed.” Without bothering to see if she’s embarrassed, he turns to walk off only to find Rennin standing right in his way.
“Rennin,” he says in mild surprise.
“I noticed your handiwork,” he says tilting head to gaze past Caufmann to the downed man who’s being attended to by a couple of staff. “Nice.”
“Can I help you, Ren?”
“Well I was here to execute Doctor Whistleblower.”
Caufmann spots Killjoy in Rennin’s hand. “That won’t be necessary.”
Rennin nods and salutes with the gun. “She’s got some good information.”
“I have things to do, Rennin.”
“Can I have the afternoon off?”
Caufmann gets the feeling Rennin is up to something. “What? Why?”
Rennin’s artificial eye gives nothing away, but his human eye is overly focussed. “Please?” He mimics the infamous puppy eyes trick most kids try on their mothers.
Caufmann is mildly unsettled, “Very well.”
Rennin steps a little closer to him, “Have I told you that I love you lately?”
“Get out, Rennin.”
Confident his humour has disarmed Caufmann’s suspicions, Rennin leaves the lab without a moment to waste. The streets are almost bare. Of the few people outside, some look horrendously ill, whilst others look fine.
The compound accepting the uninfected in Centre-city is up and running. The people who didn’t qualify for a ticket out are queuing up outside. The Horizon Military have efficiently fortified enough room for almost twenty thousand people. Rennin wonders how many of these checkpoints are currently in operation.
Several skyscrapers fall within the confines of the compound, overseen by two Desolator satellites. They are stationed above the compound itself to defend against potential group attacks from hostiles, but so far the general public has not been made aware of that.
Arriving at the Army Recruitment building, Rennin enters the massive dome structure. It is filled with waiting people, slumped in the chairs or leaning against support pillars.
Rennin walks up to one of the several dozen people at the recruitment counters sniggering to himself, not believing they could possibly need a building this elaborate for any practical reason.
He waits in line for nearly half an hour as the dozen or so people in front sign their lives away, hopefully to die quietly without having to show up on news updates and interrupt his TV programs.
The plain, featureless, probably useless soldier sitting behind the desk looks up at the forty-something year old in front of him. “Yes, sir?”
“Do I look like your sergeant?”
The soldier doesn’t react. Probably hasn’t changed his nappy, or his initiation involved some rectal batteries, Rennin sniggers, or battering, judging by his age.
“I just have some questions. I want to know how this getting-out-of-the-city thing works. Is it all Godyssey staff can evacuate or what?”
The soldier, whose nametag says Tyrone, rolls his eyes ever so slightly. “Godyssey Lab employees can evacuate with their families as a first priority. Godyssey security must stay, families can evacuate through regular channels. Godyssey Military can evacuate their families only,” he says slowly enough for a triple-concussed football player to have to time to process each word.
Rennin does need a little time to process it though. His face is set in stone. “Better sign me up.”
“You’re a little old, aren’t you?”
“I prefer ‘veteran’.”
“Name?”
“Rennin Elizabeth Farrow.”
Tyrone can’t repress a smirk while typing it into his console. His face turns to surprise as he starts reading what turns up. “Eight years as a CryoZaiyon Standard, served under Lieutenant Saifer Veidan… fought the Invasion of China, three peacekeeping missions, two occupations, four months in the Sieges under Valhara. The Valhara?” Tyrone asks looking up with wide eyes.
Rennin nods.
“What was she like?”
“Don’t remember,” he lies.
“That bad?” the soldier asks.
“Depends what you mean by bad. It’s hard to describe,” Rennin says, images of the Jupiter Sieges flooding his mind. “Forgal was so strong. I remember him being,” he trails for a moment, “impossible.”
Tyrone is frozen in place watching Rennin rotate his hands as he searches for the words.
“But seeing Valhara in that final battle, she was a juggernaut. She wore a Serriform Warsuit; looked like a meat grinder. Pretty appropriate for her, really.
“Io and Europa tore each other to pieces, I remember looking up at the shields. Two worlds at war. They broke us.
“At the brink of it all, she was at the centre of the madness. Every goddamn shot they took seemed to hit her, but she didn’t go down. I can hear her scream like it’s carved its own note into my skull. I saw Valhara take shots that would have levelled city blocks, and she just didn’t stop. Each hit seemed to drive her on. When she reached their line it was a fucking massacre. I saw her pick a trooper up, and the amount of energy she was emitting set him alight in her hand.
“How could Forgal, or anyone, be stronger than that? It was like watching a god.”
“Is that where Commander Valhara died?”
Rennin shrugs himself out of his reminiscence. “I was shipped out, wounded.”
Tyrone continues reading, “Fought in Russia, America, and helped defend Raddocks Horizon during the attempted occupation. Unofficially awarded the Andron Cross and Undine Spire. Those are for androids, aren’t they?”
“Usually. Forgal Lauros gave me his medals for the campaign in Ireland and the closing fight in the Jupiter Sieges.”
Tyrone blinks and shakes his head. “This is… an intense amount of combat. It says here you survived the destruction of the capital ship, the HMAS Possession.”
An image of the Possession exploding from through the view-port of an escape pod enters Rennin’s mind unbidden.
“Yes, we were the rear guard for a grossly outnumbered fleet. Most of us didn’t make it.” Rennin takes a breath and shudders away the memory of the men that died from the pod he was in.
“Well with this record I’m sure you’ll be accepted without much trouble. I don’t know about your sergeant rank being restored, the army has changed a lot in the last twenty years.”
Horse shit. “I see.”
“We’ll get you scanned for infection and a quick physical.”
Three hours later and after explaining his various android parts, his rank of sergeant is restored dependent on his reading the rules of engagement text book, but he’s more or less got the job. His infection level turned up inconclusive once, then negative, then inconclusive, then negative.
He passed his psychiatric test as the picture of mental health, so perfect in fact that they had to retest him. The lieutenant asking the questions figured he merely knew what to say, but since his scores say he has passed, there’s not much that can be done.
The lieutenant doesn’t like him. Rennin doesn’t like any of them. None of them would like him if they figured out he killed three of them barely a few nights before. He curses himself in the army dome several times for his own thoughtlessness; he still carries Logan’s gun since the night he threw him out of Carla’s apartment window.
He is having a great deal of internal conflict about getting rid of it because it is such a brilliantly crafted weapon. Though its customisation makes it, therefore, recognizable.