Troy feels happy now. He feels ecstatic, even. When he eats he feels like he can run around the world. His girlfriend will be happy too. They can be happy and eat. They can eat and eat for days with this whole body. Children are easier to carry but they just don’t last. The pair of them have eaten a full child in just over a day, not even enough time for it to begin spoiling.
A click from behind gives him a fright. He turns around to see the face of a soldier. A huge individual with black skin, strong frame and piercing onyx eyes. Demon Coal-something, Troy recalls. Voices of others react in fear, they know him too. Another voice, still with most of its original Separate senses, speaks the name into Troy’s mind: Damon Kowalski.
Troy feels a horrible fear as three bullets tear through his chest. The pain isn’t very intense, but the force knocks him clean off his feet. Damon Kowalski. Troy takes a spasmodic breath and looks upwards as the soldier’s face comes into view above him. No, he thinks, Demon, he’s a demon.
There’s a flash from the Demon’s gun, then nothing.
Rennin is in his apartment, digging through his cupboard. He throws his old S-type CryoZaiyon armour onto his bed. Beneath his old war boots he finds a case, precious to him, containing his very illegal sniper rifle from the war.
This rifle, unlike the one he has at work, can shoot further, zoom closer on any target; and is undetectable by x-ray. With a few of the parts from his rifle at the lab, this weapon will be more efficient with a larger magazine. Even as it is, this rifle is completely outlawed to civilians, mostly due to its stopping power. A graze can shatter bone. He was supposed to hand it in when the war ended, but he hid it instead. Five years later, he has found himself dragging it back out. Since he’s military again he can take it out and carry it around everywhere just as he used to.
A knock at his front door draws his attention. In recent memory he can’t recall anyone ever coming to see him, and the sound of a knock on his door is almost alien. If they had thermal-vision they could just shoot through the door when he comes to open it. He shakes off his paranoia and steps silently over to the entry.
He presses the transparency button, revealing someone he never thought he would see out of the lab: Mepida Rethrin. He opens the door, and she doesn’t wait for an invitation to enter. She barges straight in, instructing him to shut the door behind her.
“Oh please, come in. Should I get you something to drink?”
“Look, Farrow, I didn’t want to come here, but I can’t be seen at the lab since I gave up all that information to the press. You’re the only one I can think of.”
“For what?”
She holds out an A4 sized envelope. “William needs to see this, it’s important.”
“What is it?”
“You can open it if you like, but it might not make much sense.”
“Why do I have to deliver it?”
“I can’t mail it, the postal service is discontinued since the virus and I can’t risk anything digital, there’s just too many eyes around.”
Good to see he’s not the only one who’s paranoid. “I guess it can’t hurt. I have to go to the lab to pick up my rifle, so I’ll drop it off then.”
“No. Give it to him. It must be placed in his hand, not left on his desk.”
She looks serious but there’s definitely a plea in her words. “Alright.”
“You’ll make sure?”
He holds up his right hand. “By the power of Greyskull, I will see to it.”
She nods, visibly relaxing. “Thank you.”
Obviously she has never seen He-Man. “Anything else?”
“No,” she says, and her gaze goes distant. “I have to get to the Skyhook.”
He nods and looks at the envelope. “What happens if I’m caught carrying it?”
She remains quiet for a moment. “Get it to him quickly.” After that she leaves.
Rennin stays by the front door staring at the envelope. It isn’t long before he can’t help himself and has to open it. He takes it to his dining table, placing the single piece of paper inside face up.
His fascination evaporates when he sees it. It’s an A4 printout of Forgal Lauros. It’s a nice picture, he admits, really captures his arms and glowing eyes, he thinks with a smirk.
He’s wearing a suit of armour that’s grey rather than his usual black. He’s also holding a pulse rifle. It looks to be security footage from somewhere or other.
He shrugs to himself, turning to grab himself a drink from the fridge. He opens it and takes a few swigs, then freezes, feeling the hairs on his arms stand on end. The drink is still tilted, continuing to pour down his front but he doesn’t notice, he just turns to face the image on the table.
He puts the drink down roughly and walks back over to the picture. He picks it up looking closely at it. Forgal looks exactly how Rennin remembers him. He increases his scrutiny, knowing something is out of place. The armour configuration matches his memory, as does Forgal’s face. It’s when he looks at the gun that something clicks in his mind.
Rennin enjoys perusing the latest weapons magazines and is dumbfounded. “That gun was only made last year…” he says as it dawns on him. “You’re alive.”
Half an hour later Rennin storms through the lab entrance finding what can only be described as a shambles. The foyer is ripped to pieces, burning. Security staff lay dead all over the place, some with holes through them, others apparently bludgeoned by the looks of them. None that he can see look like they’ve been struck with claws or been bitten.
Can’t be contaminants.
He reverts to decades old training. His attempts to tread lightly but his heavier left leg thuds just that little bit louder. He doesn’t really need to know where he’s going, he just has to follow the carnage. Something ripped the entire Godyssey security force to pieces with minimal damage to property. He can see some of the dead have crushed limbs and an image enters his mind of Prototype and the aftermath of their rooftop encounter. He grunts in frustration at the thought of the damned thing still being alive.
He reaches an emergency stairwell, following the gore down several flights. He tracks the smatterings of blood that vary from a few drops to smears of grotesque viscera until he arrives at the hatch to one of the lowest levels. He leans over the handrail, looking further down the stairwell.
No further evidence of a struggle is apparent, so he levers open the hatch cover to access Base Level 3, the first level of the Test Labs. He’s never been down here before. Until recently it was the restricted wing.
More bodies, still very few shots fired. Whatever took them out was fast and viciously efficient. A little further down the hallway, Rennin finds something strange. It is a shimmering purplish puddle next to one of the walls that looks like partially coagulated blood.
Is it contaminant blood? Or some other kind of infected individual?
He continues for a few more paces before faint gunfire brings him up short. Rennin looks around, ensuring he has a doorway to duck into for cover should he need it.
Jogging slowly down the hallway towards the gunfire, he sees a familiar shape through a lab window. Slowing for a moment, his brain catches up.
Del!
He realises the great android is powered down in a massive cradle or over the top chair, though he does not seem connected to any mainframe. A weapons rack is exposed near him.
The hell are they doing?
He soon happens upon a security door down the end of the corridor. It’s one of the fully armoured doors designed to stop anything getting out. By Rennin’s reckoning, it must be some kind of testing ground for Del. He presses the panel on the side but the borders of the door flash red. He curses. He can hear the gunfire clearly now, then there’s a rumble of an explosion.