Caufmann’s gaze remains fixed on his. “Best worry about that if or when it happens.”
Caufmann and Rennin part ways. Or at least the watchman leaves his office looking rather down. The chemical reaction occurring within his body will knock the stuffing out of him for a couple of days as his immune system fires up, combatting the disease. But he’ll live.
He had better live.
Caufmann has been doing this job for what feels like centuries, slowly eroding his body and mind. Despite feeling like he’s deteriorating, he knows it’s all in his head because he’s physically quite powerful.
For years Caufmann hasn’t had company he’s enjoyed or found all that interesting. He leans back, thinking of the horrors of the war and things he once called friends. He’s lost so many, some he had to leave behind, either under orders or out of survival. In the many years since, Rennin Farrow is the only person he can honestly call his friend.
Beta HolinMech are all aboard their gunship. Pharaoh Drake accompanies the unit, not at all comfortable with this assignment.
Serro Hopper sits opposite him, staring at him with those bright blue eyes. Drake glares back with his dark orbs, knowing how they intimidate Serro. It’s easy to read people, especially when he can see their pupil dilations fluctuating.
Dark eyes aren’t so easy to read.
“Nervous?” asks Serro.
Drake represses the urge to roll his eyes. His leg is twitching. “Who can be nervous? We’re shooting unarmed civilians. There’s no risk factor.”
“They’re dangerous.”
“Not yet they’re not.”
The pilot’s voice is transmitted over their headsets. “Ten seconds!”
Drake and the others ready themselves to disembark. The gunship’s engines whine loudly as the shuttle settles atop an apartment complex.
They’re in the Middle-city zone where the earliest infected have been registered through use of the outlawed Embryon Protocol.
“What the hell is the Embryon Protocol?” asks Drake.
Serro seems hesitant to respond. He briefly fidgets with the straps on his battle harness. “It’s an old school registry.”
“Gee I never would have guessed, thanks a lot, sir,” says Drake, irrepressibly frustrated.
Serro shakes his head, “It was the program used to select CryoZaiyon soldiers in the years leading up to the war.”
“To select whom? How?”
“Embryon Protocol was originally a medical program used by hospitals to detect genetic defects in unborn children. Godyssey eventually used it to find… you know… candidates,” Serro says with an uneasy smile.
Drake feels like he is missing something. “We’re next in line to become androids, why do you look so uncomfortable?”
“We are volunteers,” says Serro.
“Speak for yourself.”
“Point is, that the original ‘candidates’ were all selected by computer. It’s the shameful part of Godyssey’s history that gave us Andron technology. The rumour is that most of the original experiments were on high profile athletes. Most of them apparently died in mysterious circumstances, were put on ice for decades until things died down, then they were converted,” says Serro.
“Yeah, okay, I get the picture.”
According to Embryon data there are now dozens of targets that are dropping off the humanoid side of the scale and are succumbing quickly to whatever is loose in the city. Then they turn.
The targets Beta HolinMech will be confronting may or may not already be turned into the hostile organism officially labelled ‘Contaminant’; but they are to be executed regardless. No exceptions.
Beta HolinMech have been deployed into the most heavily infected population centre, whilst the Horizon Military are clearing less risky zones. Drake wonders how the future generations will remember this action. Apparently they’re preventing the spread of a deadly pathogen, but in his opinion they’re just a death squad.
A team of murderers.
Be all that you can be…
The gunship lands, the rear gangplank drops and the Beta HolinMechs file out by twos, in their assigned teams. Drake is with Serro as always. The two of them might as well be conjoined twins, attached at the hip.
The spring rain seems to have been locked in the on position at the Horizon weather station today. Drake could bet his right arm that it has been either raining or snowing for several weeks straight. What’s the point in having a superior weather machine if it always makes the weather terrible?
The team enter the building through the roof access, dispersing to their specified sections. Serro and Drake are on one of the lower floors. Since they don’t use lifts in these situations, all the units are taking the stairs. As they run down the others split off in pairs, and soon enough it’s only Serro and Drake left. Now alone, they head to their floor.
The pair take position at either side of the door to floor fourteen, catching their breath while waiting for the go command. After a moment, the deep resonating voice of Captain Damon Kowalski, mission leader, comes over their headsets. “All units in assigned alpha point?”
All six pairs confirm.
“Engage.”
Serro and Drake open their door to a replica 1920’s style hotel hallway. The hall is cream coloured with dark maroon accents and stained wooden features. Era appropriate lamps are distributed evenly along both walls. “Drake, ease up a bit.”
“I want this shit done.”
“One of them might have a gun and alert the others, so relax, we don’t want a panic.”
“What do you think will happen when people realise we’re shooting innocents?”
“Non-combatants,” Serro corrects.
“Do we shoot anyone that sees us? Perhaps we should just burn the building down,” says Drake.
Mac Hudson’s gravely voice comes over their headsets, “One target down.”
Drake grunts, “Jesus, already?”
They are at their allocated target apartment door now, silencers attached, guns at the ready. So far the hall has been clear, but someone is playing loud Industrial music on this floor.
“Captain, Team Four at bravo point. Engaging,” Serro advises.
Drake shakes his head. This is going to get nasty. Kicking the door in, he surprises a young woman so badly she drops her cup of tea. “Are you Alexandra Tasker?”
She is still in shock and stammers an answer. “W-what do you want with my daughter?”
Daughter? This woman would barely be thirty. How young is this target? “Where is Alexandra Tasker?”
The mother looks at them in horror when a little voice speaks.
“Mama?” A little girl, not more than five years old appears. Her blonde hair is tied in plaits, and she is holding a soft toy elephant to her chest. Her skin is pale with black veins creeping down her arms and up her neck. Her eye sockets are so dark it’s like she has been punched.
Drake’s stomach feels like it’s been filled with mercury, “Oh shit.”
Serro is frozen solid.
“Target two down,” says the deceptively soft voice of Mia Saker.
“Sit down on the couch over there,” orders Drake, waving towards their lounge.
Mother and daughter huddle together on the seat. The child is observing them with wide eyes, her mother stroking her hair and mumbling to her in some attempt at comfort. They look more vulnerable and helpless than any two beings that Serro has ever seen.
He whispers to Captain Kowalski, turning his back to ensure the woman and child cannot hear, “Sir, the target is a child.”
Kowalski’s voice is remorseless, “Your orders are clear. All contaminants are to be taken out, along with all possible victims of secondary exposure.”