Rennin can’t place his name but trains the scope down to see the scientist has something palmed on the side nearest the watchman.
He frowns, ignoring another direct order to take him down. Moving the scope left to the gateway he sees, in the midst of the chanting locals, a suspiciously unmoving figure standing just to the side of the front gate. A drop off?
This is becoming stranger by the moment. No communications are allowed from the lower levels, but then again how has the scientist made it this far out to begin with? The idiot hasn’t realised he’s tripped the alarm. But he’s got someone here to meet him.
“How did you organise that?” he whispers.
The scientist is only metres from the front gate and Caufmann is still nagging Rennin to take him out. He’s only two steps away, and in expectation of delivery, he begins to reach out his hand.
The recipient moves to accept it, bringing his face into view. Rennin peers down the sniper scope, and taps the imaging button, taking a snapshot of the man’s face, before pressing a button on the nearby console, switching on the floodlights. The entire courtyard is bathed in a stunningly bright white light, effectively halting all vision from outside the gate. Looking directly into those lights can blind you for several days.
Rennin, looking with the light, not into it, can still see perfectly. He sees the scientist jump in shock, take a backward step, tottering slightly as he realises he’s been caught out. The man on the other side of the gate is now sticking his arm through, no doubt shouting at the scientist to hurry up and hand over whatever he’s holding.
Recognition dawns on Rennin. “Hey it’s little Jakey, you’re no scientist. Why are you wearing that coat?” he says forgetting that Del is there for a moment. Or is it Jamie? Doesn’t matter now.
The bullet Rennin fires hits the scientist square in the chest causing the body to fly backwards, almost flip over, before crumpling to the ground in a nondescript heap.
Rennin puts the sniper rifle down after detaching the scope and looks to Del, “Pretty slick, hey?”
Efficient. I could not do better, appears on the screen.
“High praise indeed,” he says spinning the scope on his flat upturned palm.
Bear in mind that I am not yet half of my full potential.
“A last word freak too, just like your father.”
Rennin is sitting in Caufmann’s office for the third time this shift, “Was something wrong with taking him out earlier?” asks the doctor.
The watchman is sitting too smugly for Caufmann’s liking. “I did more than you expected.”
Caufmann remains still for a moment before a resigned expression crosses his face, “Oh do please enlighten me.”
Rennin smiles and places a printout in front of the doctor, “This is an image of the man that the scientist was trying to reach.”
Caufmann leans over and his gaze remains still as if burning the image into his mind, “Well done, Ren.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Fire away.”
“You said he was a contagion risk?”
“I was trying to hurry you.”
“Okay,” says Rennin, less than convinced with that answer. “What exactly was the scientist holding?”
Caufmann gazes at Rennin with a strange look that may well have been an emotion Rennin doesn’t possess himself, “If you knew that, you wouldn’t be sitting here now.”
Rennin isn’t one to be intimidated by threats, but Caufmann’s casually dismissive tone makes the watchman feel like he’s swallowed a bucket of ice, “I-I see, sir.”
“How did you find Del?”
“Well,” Rennin shifts in his seat, “he’s polite. He is a he isn’t he?”
Caufmann smiles, “I like that you ask. Not many would even care to. Del is a he, yes.”
“He says he’s not finished.”
“Yes, we’re working on that, but an android like that needs special attention.”
“I see. He’s too big to be an infiltrator, what is he for?”
“He’s a soldier. Plain and simple.”
Rennin nods, feigning understanding.
“Dismissed. Take the rest of the night off. Go get something to drink.”
Rennin leaves after an exaggerated bow.
William Caufmann sighs and leans back in his chair. Rennin Farrow is one of the strangest people he’s ever met. Caufmann takes a breath, increasing the stabbing pain in his chest. Nothing inside him seems to work like it should nowadays.
His eyes constantly hurt, his hands feel severely arthritic, but he knows that can’t be so. Every now and then he has a pain in his head so harsh it temporarily blinds him. His body isn’t made for the kind of treatment he’s putting it through.
He lays his right arm on the table after pulling up the sleeve to inspect what Rennin presumed was a communication gauntlet. This isn’t a gauntlet or an implant. This is as much a part of his body as anything else.
The skin at the wrist and elbow has been sliced right around, the tissue removed, exposing the artificial workings beneath. Diagnostic scans display in his glasses that act as a heads-up-display. He reads quickly, skimming over the jargon and focussing only on the necessary data:
Internal trauma.
Casing rupture, algorithm unstable.
Neural-net leak.
Multiple systems inaccessible.
Implant array: Active.
Transponder signal disruption: Active.
Caufmann stands up clenching both fists, willing himself to use the pain to keep him strong, or at the very least focussed. He looks at his desk and lands a punch directly down with his right hand.
The desk may look like polished wood but it is only an effect finish on the steel substrate. The indentation he’s made in the surface distorts his reflection, though his show of strength has cost him most of the skin on his knuckles.
Caufmann grunts looking at his warped image in the desk’s surface. He doesn’t understand how his internal problems can cause so much pain yet outward physical trauma doesn’t invoke even the slightest of reactions. “All this worth it, old boy?” he asks sighing with weariness decades old, “Doctor William Caufmann… where have you left me?”
As always, after his shift, Rennin waits the precisely eighty excruciating seconds for the gate to cycle its locking sequence before opening the only door to any respite from his self-pitying existence.
Hope isn’t something Rennin feels but there is a distinct sense of satisfaction when he sees the pub across Wells Street.
He takes a triumphant stride outside the lab’s grounds into the desperate attempt at a modernised Victorian street scheme, and sets his sight on the bar. Since he couldn’t have one for the road after leaving work he will now have to order two to get started. If he is unlucky enough to be served by the robot bartender it will as always refuse to supply two drinks to a lone person. But he will order two anyway.
One day it’ll crack.
The robot bartender stands out severely amongst the Victorian décor. Considering how elaborate the bar’s collection of period trinkets are to set the scene they’re trying to create, Rennin would have thought they’d have helped the robot blend in a little. It’s shiny blue protector plates contrast sharply with the interior’s burgundy and cream setting.
At that point he notices that the robot isn’t the only thing to stand out today. In a booth up the rear of the pub sit some fancy uniforms that Rennin doesn’t see too often. The plain dark grey fatigues they wear are glossed up only by the shiny grey armour plating around the shoulders, chest, and knees.