Caufmann presses the ‘View Unit’ button on the control panel, and the top half of the pillar shell slides back, revealing the sleeping CryoZaiyon.
Antares was an experimental model built three years into the war. She had the strangest effect on Forgal, something similar to severe unease.
Her hair is long, more akin to cables than anything, each a centimetre in diameter. It gives her the appearance of white gold matting. They are just past shoulder length. Caufmann had seen her detach the ends of them at times and place them onto other machines, allowing small tendrils to slither out and interface with the local system, providing free access to hack the CPU, giving her complete control. Caufmann found the trick rather unnerving the first time he witnessed it.
Antares reminds him of Valhara with having a slender build and well-defined musculature. Though Valhara was almost twice her size and all CryoZaiyons have physiques beyond even the most impressive human athletes.
Something about her frame suggests to Caufmann that she was a dancer of some kind in her full-orga life. Or a weightlifter. Maybe a sprinter? He shakes his head clear.
He is completely unsure whether to wake her. He had heard nothing of her since her disappearance. She had somehow completely vanished, leaving no traces anywhere.
Even when he’d known her in the past—although ‘known’ was a loose term—she was always a mystery. He glances to Sephirlin Darrad’s current resting place; that CryoZaiyon was a classic soldier, not very useful in a delicate situation, and he certainly wouldn’t tolerate Arca Drej’s fragile state of being.
But Forgal and Saifer are both dead! He cries in a bitter lament within the confines of his own mind.
Arca needs a woman’s touch, he thinks to himself before realising he may know the expression but has no true understanding of the meaning.
Caufmann looks to Angelien Zillah’s tube. She was strong and capable but not gentle. Zillah was perfect at assassination, but being such a loner she’d be far too conspicuous in a group of people. She was never one to hide. If Zillah was out and about she’d draw far too much attention.
Zillah would also be furious about being incarcerated for so long. She was incapacitated without her prior knowledge or approval. There were concerns that she wouldn’t comply with the plan. Caufmann is starting to think she may have been right to have her reservations. Either way, the last thing she remembers might be betrayal.
No, too risky.
Caufmann winces inwardly looking back at Antares. She worked excellently in team-based operations during the war so, by logical extension, she’s the only real choice. Xelxor Akcoda would have far too many questions. Caufmann secretly acknowledges that Xelxor is an ideal choice but he is overwhelmed by curiosity about Antares.
He presses the ‘Wake Unit’ button. The blue lights of the tank turn green and the water begins draining. Several wired plugs are still attached to her, shocking her mildly to provoke a natural muscle spasm. The pillar case opens, and she falls out onto the floor with a cough.
After a moment, her neon-green eyes flutter open. The first thing she does is look at the back of her left hand. She regards her own body, clad in a rudimentary two piece undergarment, and stands up slowly, taking careful account of her own progress as if scared she’ll fall.
Her back is to Caufmann only for a moment. She spins to face him with eyes that are almost psychotic, causing the doctor to wonder if he can draw his gun before she dives at him. He decides to slowly raise his hands, to show he means no harm. He removes his glasses to show her he’s like her.
Antares seems to relax a little. “Medtech…” she says taking a breath.
So her memory is intact. “You’ve been asleep for quite a while.”
“Where am I?” she says completely still, but her muscles are fully tensed, ready to spring on anything perceived to be a threat.
“Godyssey Genetics Laboratory, we—”
At the mention of Godyssey her eyes brighten. She leaps straight at him, pushing him up against a wall. Even her long period in stasis hasn’t affected her strength. Caufmann can hardly move. Her eyes dart over his uniform then focus on his face.
“What are you doing in a Godyssey installation?” she asks so calmly it makes his skin crawl.
I should have woken Xelxor. “I’m head of research here, and have been for ten years.”
“What year is it?”
“October 18th, 2319.”
“Where’s my husband?”
That completely stumps Caufmann. “Husband?”
She grips his neck, hands tightening like a vice and bares her teeth. “You were one of his confidants, and since you’re still alive you’d know.”
Caufmann represses the rapidly increasing urge to defend himself. “Whom are you talking about?”
“Forgal! Where is he?”
For the second time in half a minute Caufmann is absolutely speechless. He blinks a couple of times to take it in. “He was never married. He’s an android.”
“We had a daughter.” Her eyes have a maddened look, but there’s also absolute certainty.
Caufmann thinks for a moment. “That’s impossible.”
“I traced my daughter’s whereabouts towards the end of the war, but when I went looking I was captured by Van Gower. He kept me locked up in a bunker. Couldn’t erase my memories but he found me amusing. Disabled my combat protocols, used me as an experiment.”
Caufmann’s head was starting to swim but not from being strangled. “Why?”
“He hates us. He’s scared to death of us. He was so convinced that we were going to turn on him, he tried to make me his pet. Then from me, he’d know how to enslave us all. He chose me because Forgal saw me as his equal during life, and through me he might gain an insight into him. That’s the only reason I was converted in the first place. He was so sure Forgal was self-aware that he constructed me to prove it, as some kind of test. It failed, he didn’t know me.”
No, there was something else about you that warranted your conversion. “But you knew him.”
“I retained almost everything. In the mayhem of the Jupiter Sieges I deserted. I detonated my craft to simulate a crash, then went looking for my daughter. I did eventually find her,” she trails off for a moment before regaining her focus. “She died aged eighty-five, over a century before the war started.”
“How did you get caught?”
“How didn’t you?” she asks glaring at him, with very real fury in her eyes.
Caufmann undoes his jacket and shows her the sea of scars that was once a torso. “Satisfied?”
She looks him over, her face completely unreadable. She releases her grip around his throat. “I’d almost escaped Austria. I was captured crossing the border into Germany.”
“Germany?”
“CryoGen Industries began there. I had reason to believe it holds knowledge that I could have used.”
Caufmann shakes his head. “To what end?”
She points to her chest.
The Instinctual Cluster. “You want to remove it?”
“I want to destroy it.”
“You can’t do that. If you do, it will disrupt the synchronicity with your other major and minor systems. Your programming is designed to predict IC emissions when none are present. If you destroy it, your computer mind will continue to predict your actions and drives with increasing inaccuracy.”
“It has to be taken out. It’s how they’re going to enslave us,” says Antares.
“Us?”