Psychologically he feels just as enthusiastic as he did when he woke up in the hospital a week before. And apart from when he shot Gainsford, he has felt equally good emotionally every day since, for absolutely no reason. Today though, he feels physically sick.
Rennin drank a lot last night, as he does most nights, but this is a whole new level of hangover. His vision is slightly split, he can’t keep track of his thoughts, and his entire body feels like it’s being hollowed out from within.
He rolls over expecting to find Carla, but she’s not in the bed. Which is severely concerning as he’s usually a very light sleeper.
The watchman swings his legs off the bed. The motion makes his head swim, pulling the world out from under him briefly.
Rennin hears vomiting from the bathroom, which drags his concentration back to the present. He takes a few faltering steps before managing an off kilter stagger to the bathroom, to find Carla on her knees in front of the toilet. Her skin is extremely pale. “Puking first thing in the morning. You pregnant?” he asks.
She huffs out a hacking laugh, “You’re so sensitive and considerate.”
Rennin slumps down next to her. Her face is ashen, and her darkened sockets make her eyes look unnaturally bright. “Can I get you anything?”
“A priest,” she says.
He smiles but notices the veins on her neck and temples are severely darkened, almost black. “Well if you hadn’t noticed I am a devout kitchen.”
She blinks at him, “Christian, I think you mean.”
“You hope. Seriously, do you want some water?”
“If you would pay attention I’ve been trying to reach it but my head won’t go down far enough.”
“Never had that problem before.”
She mockingly backhands his face, exaggerating the effort required. “Smart arse.”
Rennin goes to the kitchen to make some coffee for her when a sharp pain runs up the side of his head. He closes his eyes and focuses on making coffee, trying to distract himself from the sudden surge of pain.
When the fog in his mind clears he readies the coffee. He drops the small brown cube into a cup, adds a spoon full of old fashioned sugar, milk extract and water. He brings it into the bathroom and leaves it on the basin within arms reach.
After dressing, he says his goodbyes to Carla, who smiles weakly in response. Rennin limps out of the house still unaccustomed to his heavy, combat-grade prosthetics. The leg particularly has been difficult to adapt to. It moves under its own power, but it pulls on his spine with each step.
He reckons in another day or so the Thermosteel will have spread through his entire body causing the protruding look to his bones to appear everywhere. He is a little disappointed that it didn’t add the same symmetry to his left hand that his right hand now possesses, but Thermosteel can’t fix genetics.
An hour into his shift at the lab Rennin bursts into the toilet and throws up before even reaching the bowl. It is mostly bile but it’s streaked with a fair amount of blood.
Righty, he notes before stumbling over to the sink to wash his face.
The cool water does soothe the sick feeling somewhat, but he feels like someone drained his blood and filled him up with formaldehyde. And dog piss.
His whole body feels like it’s shutting down, waves of numbness manifesting randomly all over his body. He looks at himself in the mirror, I swear I look even worse than I did this morning. His real eye is paler, the pupil looking less distinct, almost hazy somehow. He throws up again in the sink before feeling his knees buckle. There’s a splitting pain in his spine, and the world turns dark.
Del sits in the Chair.
The relic from over two decades ago is for use when androids are offline, in order to update and improve programming; in this case by Caufmann and Doctor Hillon. The skull plate across the back of Del’s head has been removed, replaced by thick cables that snake upwards to the wall behind, feeding into a mainframe designed to recalibrate and install.
Hillon rubs her eyes in exhaustion, “This android is never going to work if it has to be mind-wiped every day and restored to factory settings just to function at a basic level.”
“I’m aware of that, thank you,” says Caufmann.
Hillon hands him a page of Transfilm, a holographic printout on a transparent blue sheet. “Look at this. I’ve never seen so much ghost-code form in an android so quickly, he’ll need to be constantly maintained.”
“Not if we get his algorithms in order.”
“Exactly how are you going to do that in the foreseeable future?”
“Just by keeping at it,” says Caufmann.
“Del has made an interesting first attempt but it’s time to move on to another experiment. Is Adrenin ready?”
“No. Adrenin is still in the birth-pod. I’m attempting to program him while he’s growing to see if it’s more successful. At the moment I’m inclined to believe it is better. I should not have removed Del from the capsule so early.”
“What about the Suvaco Program? Maybe those hybrid androids can provide some programming solutions,” says Hillon.
The Suvacoes have been in stasis since their discovery and that was quite a long time ago. Caufmann was hoping they could provide data to improve future generations of androids. So far, with no success.
Caufmann grumbles, “I have no idea. Their encryptions are so invasive I can’t even get basic information out of them. As far as I can tell from their construct they’re a hive-mind unit.”
“How can you tell?”
“Those spikes that run up the centre of their heads aren’t just cosmetic. They are based on an insectile template, they are utilised to transmit signals. Since they are organic signals, we can’t intercept and decode them. Quite brilliant, really.”
“Are you ever going to tell me where you found them?”
“I didn’t find them. The HolinMech Warrior strike-team found them inactive. One of the androids had a seizure, so I’m told,” he says making a dismissive gesture, “and found an antechamber housing these units.”
Hillon’s face turns sceptical. “Found them while in seizure?”
“I know, it’s ridiculous.”
“Which unit was it?”
“A 22,000 series: Cain Hicks.”
“A twenty-two went into seizure?” she says in disbelief. “Cause?”
“Unknown. Either way, he found the Suvaco units and they were ordered to be shipped here.”
“I don’t like that at all.”
Caufmann nods in genuine concern, “Neither do I. I’ve put them in the most protected area available. If it’s locked down, no one should be able to get in or out.”
“You think they might activate?”
“Anything’s possible.”
Hillon looks at Del, “He doesn’t look much like a combat model slumped in that chair. I think whoever built the Suvacoes is a lot cleverer than we are.”
“Speak for yourself. I have taken various precautions, you know. I removed most of the heavy armour and several of the sensors around the cranial cap, so even if they do activate they’ll be far less effective than they otherwise would be, should they turn hostile.”
“Why not dismantle them?”
Caufmann smiles, “So much work went into them. I have to know how it was done. I’ve sabotaged them as much as I dare to and created several vulnerabilities in their framework.”
Hillon takes a steadying breath, “You cannot deny that cloning them may have been the worst idea you could possibly have had. The fruits of this work are one barely active, blind, android and a twin unit that is taking an ice age to gestate.
“The Suvacoes are part organic. Their programming could well be genetic. You may be making Del worse by trying to implement programs he simply isn’t designed to assimilate.