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.