It stoops, vomiting a thick brownish-purple substance onto the ground.
‘Viral body purged. Repeat in four hours.’
The progenitor-class briefly rues its singularity. Being so unique makes it impossible to repair or replace its frame. It is at risk of rapidly dissolving should it need to divert its attention. It knows it would have to find another unit like itself to cannibalise. No such thing exists that’s worth the risk and it would be contaminated instantly upon implementation. Caufmann must have designed this toxin as soon as he took readings during their brief encounter.
None of that matters now. All Caufmann needed to do was get records of the Isfeohrad Project from the Iyatoya lunar base. The android is sure the good Doctor knows its name.
Perhaps it isn’t exactly a name. Perhaps it is more of a designation. The progenitor-class doesn’t know, nor does it care. Many androids had names during the war. Names mean nothing.
Isfeohrad grimaces as genuinely as any sentient. According to its calculations it can sustain itself with an oral purge every four hours to expel the focussed plasma of the oxidizing agent that has become devastatingly virulent.
It will also need to constantly monitor the progression of its condition and keep cleaning out its blood through a filtering machine similar to dialysis every so often. The contagion level of the virus seems to be null and specific only to the system type it’s infected and reacted to. So this oxidizing agent will be contagious to all progenitor-class androids.
Like all viruses that have become accustomed to an environment, it will react far more harshly if passed to another.
It could be hours, days or years later. Rennin has lost all concept of time. He sometimes sees flashes of light that look like hospital lights.
There are surgeons all around him but he could be inside a bar or anywhere. Not that it matters to him. The pain is too intense to concentrate on such piffling details as where he is. He hears people speaking, but he can’t quite understand them, even in his fleeting moments of consciousness.
He is absolutely broken in mind and spirit, and being this vulnerable isn’t one of his strong points. Dreams of work, the war, his childhood running in the park and other kaleidoscopic images that strobe past, making no sense, haunt him.
It forms a terrible self-perpetuating spiral of pain and fear.
Caufmann is standing over the ruination of Rennin Farrow, looking at him in bewilderment.
His most talented Godyssey surgeon, secondary only to Jellan Roths, Talati Hillon has taken control of Horizon Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
Hillon completes her initial visual inspection of her new patient. It does not inspire confidence. “What the hell happened to him?”
Caufmann is unresponsive.
“William. He was armed to the teeth and all his clothing is fully armoured. What could have caused this amount of trauma?”
“Rennin was on assignment, the nature of which is classified.”
“He’s going to lose his right arm from the elbow, and almost his entire left leg. The femur and tibia are both shattered by the same bullet. Whatever crushed his wrist did a perfect job, especially so to get through his gauntlet. He is wearing CryoZaiyon Standard issue gear. If it wasn’t for the armour-weave in the collar of his jacket, whatever gripped his throat would have torn his head off.”
“I agree, the kit was inadequate,” Caufmann concedes, inwardly chiding himself for underestimating the Isfeohrad Prototype.
“It’s obvious that this was done by an android but progenitor-classes don’t have the hardware required to inflict this kind of damage,” Hillon says.
Caufmann smiles condescendingly, “And how many progenitor-class androids have you had experience with?”
“I’m the only one aiding your construction of Del, so I had to do a lot of study. Progenitor units weren’t constructed with metacarpal pistons, therefore they don’t have the ability to crush bone to this extent.”
“It’s clearly been weaponised. But how and where are questions for another time. Rennin is our immediate concern. He’s the only one who has had any contact with it. The glasses I gave him recorded some verbal interaction, but the rain distorted what was said. I must know what he learned.”
Hillon nods knowingly, “Ah, that explains everything.”
“Do we have all the parts required?”
“Well, yes, but not for his skull. The left side of his head is collapsed. I believe this to be a waste of resources. Also the weight of the parts we’re using are a serious concern. His frame won’t be able to support it.”
“That’s why I have this,” says Caufmann producing a syringe. In the glass tube a pearlescent fluid is visible.
Hillon’s eyes widen in wonder, “Is that what I think it is?”
Caufmann nods.
“Real Thermosteel plasma?”
Caufmann nods again.
“May I?” she asks holding out her hand. Caufmann passes it to her cautiously. She wraps her hand around the glass tube. “It really does generate heat. The synthesized stuff doesn’t do that. This one lives up to its name. Where did you get it?”
“It was painstaking to acquire.”
“What are you going to do with it? There’s not a lot there,” Hillon asks.
“This amount is sufficient.”
“Would you waste what’s possibly the last of the rarest substance in the world on anyone else?” she asks, handing the needle back to him.
Caufmann places a hand against Rennin’s swollen, bleeding, face in a paternal way. “No. I told him to do something, he did it, and nearly died for it. I ordered him not to engage the target unless he was absolutely sure of success but a true soldier doesn’t know how to fail. I can’t say the same for myself. I spend my time in the lab butchering test subject after test subject in the name of saving more lives, but what has that wrought?”
“But, sir—”
“Stop!” he looks at her fiercely. “Thus far, I have only killed people; hundreds of people!”
“Keep your voice down!”
“They all know what I’ve done! Everyone knows! They lack the courage to oust us from this city, plain and simple. I haven’t actually saved one life during my time here, with my own hands. I am going to save him. I’m going to save one!”
Caufmann and Hillon waste no more time talking. They work for days, in fourteen-hour shifts rebuilding what’s left of Rennin Farrow’s body. The right arm is amputated at the elbow, replaced with a biomechanical arm similar to the military grade HolinMechs.
His left leg is removed at the hip. The hip joints and lower back are reinforced with Thermosteel plasma to handle the extra weight of the android leg.
Rennin is kept in a semiconscious state throughout most of the surgery, as an overload of anaesthetic would kill him. The work on his head is also extremely delicate, requiring him to respond with each minute adjustment.
Every now and then he’d be present enough to cry out in pain and during the installation of his arm he became fully aware long enough to see his skinless andronic limb. Despite being dosed up again, Caufmann is sure he passed out from shock. His left arm is easy by comparison, and only needs to be reset in position and put in a cast.
The skull plates are installed last, after a day of rest to let him recuperate a little after the brain surgery. Prototype’s blow did far more damage than they expected.
Afterwards, all they can do is wait. Caufmann has never performed a human conversion to android, not even a partial one and after exiting the operating room he throws up. He’s never thrown up before either, as far as he can recall. But his memories aren’t always consistent.