“I’m not making jokes, God made you, it’s his joke.”
“Listen to me, Rennin!”
“God having a sense of humour almost got me to go back to Church,” he says now in autopilot, his emotions locked in an airtight coffin until the deed is done.
“Caufmann is nuts, man, just don’t do it. Or miss.”
“I never miss,” he pulls the bolt back loading a round into the chamber, then clicks it forwards ready to fire.
Wanker shakes his head and grits his teeth.
“Contact,” says Rennin as Michael Gainsford, the walking dead, leaves the building and is visible in the courtyard below. He hasn’t said ‘contact’ upon seeing an enemy since the war but Gainsford isn’t an enemy, just a target.
Just a target.
He takes aim.
“Don’t do it,” pleads Wanker.
Gainsford is almost halfway across the courtyard when the floodlights come on, drenching everything in a white haze. His brisk walk pauses midstride. He takes another resigned step then halts entirely.
Rennin is about to pull the trigger when he notices that Gainsford doesn’t move, he doesn’t shield his eyes, he doesn’t run. He just stands there with his head down and eyes closed.
The watchman freezes for a moment, taking stock of the man he thought was an idiot, accept his fate with courage. Gainsford has guts Rennin didn’t know he had. He takes a sharp breath, with a frown crossing his face as he pulls the trigger.
The gun’s blast seems infinitely louder than usual and the bullet hits Gainsford in the side of the head, throwing him off his feet. Rennin doesn’t watch the body land he just drops his rifle on the floor and sits down next to his co-worker without any expression at all.
His colleague says something but Rennin doesn’t even hear him. He falls into a kind of physical torpor. He hasn’t felt like this is a long, long time. He doesn’t feel bad, but there is a cripplingly distinct absence of anything good.
Caufmann is in the experimental lab, deep in the bowels of Godyssey, when interrupted by a call from security. Rennin has attacked his secretary outside his office. By all accounts, the watchman had told his secretary repeatedly to summon the doctor back from the restricted section. Her refusal to do so did not end well.
She is a very difficult woman to deal with at the best of times, which is one of her best features. As official guard of Caufmann’s schedule, her tendency to be dismissive definitely has major perks. Despite being universally hated by all of Caufmann’s staff, she is good at her job. But according to the security team, Rennin hit her, and not softly.
If he hit her with his right hand the damage would be horrendous.
Caufmann mentally curses himself for not having the time to take Rennin aside after his surgery.
The man must be a mess.
His obsession with Rennin’s survival and successful reconstruction was mainly driven by his need for details on his encounter with Prototype. Though, as usual, other matters have gotten in the way. He’ll get the information he needs sooner or later. The glasses Rennin had that night were damaged and didn’t record anything useful.
In the hallway to his office, he sees a splatter of blood across the floor near his secretary’s desk. He sighs and shakes his head but picks up the pace. This isn’t what I expected to deal with as Head of Research. Behind the desk, some of his staff are comforting his secretary.
She’s not bruised. As far as Caufmann can tell she hasn’t been touched, but his relief is tainted by a massive dent in the steel desk.
It makes some sense now, Rennin must have lost his temper and punched the desk, she then called security. He blinks wearily and asks where Rennin is.
Entering his office, Caufmann finds Rennin handcuffed onto one of the seats facing his desk, head tilted to one side. Blood is dripping off his face onto the floor. Caufmann shakes his head, and steps around to get a better look. Rennin has a nasty bruise swelling just above his left temple.
Caufmann leans in, and the watchman’s eyes flutter open. He steps back a bit to give Rennin a little space. Rennin’s pupils are unusually dilated, and his movement is groggy. I think I’ll be having a little chat with my security staff.
“William…” Rennin manages to croak.
All the years working in his employ Rennin has never called him William. They must have really hit him hard. “Are you alright?”
“I’m not sure if I…” he takes a breath, “deserved the baton.”
Caufmann doesn’t say anything.
“What did you do to me?”
Caufmann tilts his head questioningly.
“My bones…” he sighs and closes his eyes as if they weigh a tonne.
“Are you sure you don’t want to ask another time, when you’ll remember?”
“Do I have a concussion?”
“It seems you have been hit on the armoured section of your skull. Your brain may well have been shaken.”
“But not stirred,” Rennin says with a weak smile.
“I’ll see to it that you’re patched up. Take a day off.”
Rennin’s smile vanishes. “What is happening to my body? The weird bone thing is spreading,” he says, his voice taking a serious tone.
Caufmann takes a breath. “There was a lot of damage and you lost a lot of blood, we had to do something drastic. You almost died. Your body suffered serious trauma and you had a grievous head wound.”
“What did you do?” he asks, slowly leaning forwards. He looks very awkward, trying to move while handcuffed in place.
“We implanted two combat-grade limbs, your entire left leg and your right arm from the elbow. Part of your skull needed to be replaced and your left eye was damaged, easier to replace than fix.”
Rennin takes a moment to process that, but handles it quite well. “So why is the bone definition spreading? At this rate I’ll cut myself on my own cheekbones.”
Caufmann breaks eye contact briefly and blinks. “Like I said, we had to do something drastic. With no living next of kin and your incapacitation, I took the liberty of choosing for you.”
Rennin looks up at him with mildly clearer eyes.
“We injected you with Thermosteel plasma.”
Rennin stiffens, becoming absolutely still. The memory of something agonisingly hot stabbing into the base of his spine recurs, and is difficult to blink away.
“The combat-grade limbs are far too heavy for a standard human skeleton to support, so we had to reinforce it. The organic components of Thermosteel make it ideal; it is designed to make bones stronger. It’s just spreading across your entire skeleton. That was not meant to happen. I’m sorry to say, I didn’t know enough about the substance,” Caufmann continues.
Rennin blinks several times before hauling himself to his feet, dragging the chair up with him, “You injected me with a bone grafting plasma that spreads like a virus.”
Caufmann is finding his remorse most unwelcome and uncommon.
“I’m sorry, Ren, but you would have died. Or been incapable of supporting your new limbs.”
“Well it’s shit.”
Caufmann doesn’t respond.
“My head still hurts like hell,” he says before a smirk crosses his face.
Caufmann smiles, “Thermosteel plasma is in extremely short supply and it did save your life.”
“Why not use regular andronic limbs? Not that I’m complaining,” says Rennin looking better by the moment.
Caufmann’s expression returns to an uncomfortable kind of neutral.
“You’ll need them.”
Rennin wakes up the next morning feeling unusually bad.