“You could get a small army willing to take it down just to keep its parts.”
“Yes but we don’t want that technology in anyone’s hands but ours. I need it killed, then our men will retrieve the body and disassemble it.”
“If I get a clean shot from the clock tower I’ll take it out, otherwise you’re on your own.”
Caufmann nods, “That’s good enough.”
Rennin takes a breath, “So what’s this android you want to domestically test? Is it dangerous?”
“No. The combat protocols aren’t active.”
Rennin again makes the return journey to the clock tower, noticing a large steel coffin shaped box near the door.
The infamous Raddocks Horizon rain has started to fall, and Rennin’s perception opens up as it always does in a downpour. His mind wanders as his vision runs across the bland grass, stretching from wall to solid wall, spiked periodically with defence weapons. The grounds outer wall has gun turrets at either side of the front gate and four others above the entrance to the Godyssey lab building itself. He’s never seen them activated or used them himself.
The nostalgic upright steel bar gate is less security conscious than Rennin would like. Why can’t we just have a solid steel gate, it’d stop all those nosy bastards peering in.
His daydreaming is interrupted when he sees a small but growing crowd of Gorai Aurelia gathering outside the gate. He knows he’s not allowed to antagonise them, but he cannot suppress a venomous glare that is a mere splinter of his hatred for them. Half the dozen-strong crowd look to be in their mid-teens. They probably don’t know the atrocities committed by the humanists during the war, but they are still tacitly approving them. They should research what they have signed up with.
Rennin doesn’t like that one of Raddocks Horizon’s busiest streets is barely fifty metres from the front entrance. He personally believes the lab should have been situated well outside the city. But then again he isn’t sure which came first, the lab or the city. Then we can just shoot these pricks and plant some corn.
Rennin stops for a moment to study the empty container outside his tower and shakes his head, wondering which eager Gorai Aurelia lackey or reporter had the privilege of snapping whatever came out of it.
He shakes his head again, this time to get the water out of his longer-than-regulation hair, even though it’ll only get soaked and drip down his collar again. His black tunic uniform with fibre-weave armour underlay is mostly synthetic and therefore waterproof, but water can still dribble down between his collar and skin, and once inside has no option but run all the way down to his boots. But Rennin loves the rain, despite the grim reminder of his last tour of duty in the CryoZaiyon Wars.
He misses his black armour and the—now illegal—sniper rifle he used to carry. He was a precision shooter worthy of an android. His last mission was a solo assassination of a dignitary and financier of the Gorai Aurelia war effort. He shakes his head again, sending another spray of water outwards and continues into clock tower, refusing to think of the war any further.
Upon entering the lookout, he is greeted with the broadside of an eight or nine foot android standing just inside the door. He remains frozen in place, never having seen an android of this size before. It has grey, almost translucent skin and armour plating across its shoulders, the top of its head, elbows, and lower legs. Otherwise it looks naked. The Godyssey emblem is also etched on an armour plate just below the right shoulder blade.
Rennin feels goosebumps appearing all over him when its left hand turns upwards and gestures towards his seat. The watchman complies, attempting to sit down casually, trying to avoid thinking about Caufmann laughing at him as he watches the surveillance footage, bearing witness to Rennin’s tentative steps.
He slowly turns his head to look at the android’s face, such as it is. The mouth is huge, an exposed row of sharp interlocking teeth, with no lips to speak of. There is a slight bump for a nose but no eyes.
He is barely settled when the hairs on his arms stand on end again just before the monitor in front of him beeps. He leans forwards and reads:
Hello, Watchman Farrow, my name is Del.
Before his eyes the teeth retract into Del’s jaw line. He doesn’t want to think about what a bite attack from this colossus would do to a person. Rennin remains silent for a moment, taking a look at the android’s now disturbingly human face, then focuses back to the console in front of him.
“Hi,” he says as more of a question.
How are you?
“Fine,” he pauses and shrugs, wondering what to do with an eight foot android, “and how are you?”
Text continues scrolling across the screen. 45% operational. Combat protocols locked down. Body components below 50% developed. Incubation interrupted for early test.
Great, he thinks, sitting in a room a long way away from anyone with an untested android that looks like it could snap its fingers and break him in half, “You look perfectly healthy to me.”
I am not ready for combat. I was ordered to converse with you.
“About what?”
I don’t know.
“The break-ball scores?”
I don’t know.
“Okay…” Rennin sits quietly for a moment thinking hard about what he’s supposed to do with this thing. A thought does come to him, “What were you built for?”
Combat.
A smart arse. Wonderful. “Combat where? You’re too big to be a spy, so what are you?”
I am a state of the art fighting model built for any form of combat. The highest care has been taken to ensure maximum strength with minimum framework. I am twice the size and exponentially faster than any Standard.
Rennin feels a pang at the word Standard being used by an android. Standard is the name most military androids adopted for the human soldiers in their ranks. Standard meaning less than them, ordinary, “barely feasible” as one once said.
“I thought the word Standard being applied to human troops was universally condemned.”
Doctor Caufmann told me to refer to all other soldiers as such.
So a regular android is even considered a Standard compared to Del, “Favourite son, huh?”
I don’t know.
Rennin’s attention is drawn to the front gates where the Gorai Aurelia activists have started chanting their catchy but mind numbing rubbish. Rennin doesn’t even bother trying to understand their monkey babble anymore.
He looks at his sniper rifle. His Godyssey modified sniper rifle designed to project purpose-made poisoned rounds, making every injury a kill. Another of Caufmann’s personal touches. Rennin wonders if this is Caufmann’s version of micro managing.
The silent alarm is tripped; one of the scientists from a restricted floor is walking out the front entrance of the lab. Rennin has to let a cynical laugh escape his lips at the sheer audacity of this lunatic. He isn’t even running.
Most of those juice-fiddlers in the chemical weapons division don’t even know they’ve been implanted with a microscopic chip behind their eyes during their initial retina scans. These implants trip the alarm if they leave the safe zone, calling Rennin to action.
The sniper rifle is in his hands before a moment passes and the scope is trained on a familiar looking scientist walking at a forcibly relaxed pace towards the gate. Rennin hears Caufmann’s voice resonate in the lookout, “Are you waiting for something? He’s a contagion risk. Take him out.”