They are members of the Godyssey owned Beta HolinMech unit. Rennin can’t suppress the arching of one of his eyebrows.
Predictably, Beta HolinMech have followed the free booze. Or at least two of them have; sitting in the farthest booth from the entrance that line the rightmost wall.
The furthest of the pair has dirty blonde hair atop a gaunt face with high cheekbones. His shining blue eyes are piercing enough for Rennin to see even from across the room.
Definitely a veteran soldier, Rennin thinks.
Seen from behind, the soldier’s companion seems fairly young, but from his hunched posture, the way his left hand rotates his drink round and round suggests enough for Rennin to make an educated guess. He’s either bored or deep in thought, but thinking is not what soldiers are best at, so Rennin bets on the former.
He concludes this kind of downtime is not what he finds fun.
Rennin slides up the bar to sit at the far end, as close to the two soldiers as he can. The venue is half full, mostly with guards and low security clearance lab workers, many of whom are too exhausted to talk, though some are drunk out of their minds. They seem to be perpetually slurring louder, as if that will help clarify whatever they’re attempting to communicate.
He can see the two soldiers sitting and talking in the wall mirror behind the bar. Upon focussing he begins to filter out the other patrons, slowly fading their voices away and zeroing in on the Betas. “…not the best I-…”
“…-ne, you… we can…”
Rennin focuses almost to the point of overtly glaring.
“…we shouldn’t,” says bright eyes.
“This coming-…m you?” says the dark haired other.
Rennin concentrates harder until all he can see is the reflection of the two soldiers, and everything else has blurred out into an indistinct haze. Bright eyes peps up, “Listen, Drake, you know we’re here to get the mark and only the mark. Isfeohrad is primary, Arbiter is secondary.”
Drake shrugs, “I don’t know about this. Only one team to comb an entire megacity, for some android that’s been here for months? Why would finding Arbiter be secondary? He was supposed to be the pinnacle of the universe or whatever Caufmann said.”
So, Caufmann has called in the big guns. Beta HolinMechs are Special Forces. They and the SAS have a fierce rivalry. Rennin concedes that they’re not here for the free booze after all.
“That doesn’t make sense, but if he was alive, we’d know by now. We’re looking for a synthetic cadaver, that’s all,” says bright eyes.
“Oh great, should be easy. It’s not like we can ask if anyone’s seen him.”
Bright eyes rolls his baby blues. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you, I knew you’d act like this.”
“I wish you could see your face. Mister ‘I was given a solo mission how awesome am I’,” says Drake.
“It’s necessary to make sure he can’t be reactivated. Either way it’s a secondary objective.”
“Can’t be reactivated? Now you have to kill him? And why are we still talking about this? In public.”
“Well he’s supposed to still be dead. And the mission isn’t classified. And we’re Godyssey, we own everything. All these people here?” Bright eyes says with the sweep of his hand, “Who are they going to tell? We are the authorities.”
Drake fixes bright eyes with a sceptical stare. “Where exactly did you get this information?”
“Intel.”
Drake bursts out laughing, almost into a mad cackle. “Suddenly it makes so much sense. Why did they pick the name ‘Arbiter’ as his codename?”
“His call sign is ‘Achilles’, Arbiter is—”
“CAN I HELP YOU, SIR?” says a deafening electronic voice.
Rennin almost jumps out of his skin, while nearly falling off his barstool. For a moment he stares at the featureless metal face staring at him with two yellow eyes in utter bewilderment.
His hearing had been so concentrated it felt like the thing had yelled right in his ear. Rennin checks the reflection but the soldiers are still chatting away. He looks back at the bartender, “A pint.”
“Pale or black?”
“Once you go black,” he winks at the robot that completely misses the reference. Rennin sighs, “Porter.”
The robot trundles off to fetch his order. Rennin sometimes forgets of the gulf between robots and androids. An android still wouldn’t find his joke funny, but it would understand that he’d made it.
In a lower level of the Godyssey lab, two technicians in full hazmat gear work with various toxins, mixing them according to instructions displayed on a screen in the furthest wall.
From the monitoring room, Caufmann stands with his two most senior researchers Mepida Rethrin and Jellan Roths. Rethrin is in her mid-thirties, her long brown hair tied in a tight bun with bright blue eyes. Caufmann thinks she looks quite Swedish, and wonders what he’d think of her if he still had a working reproductive system.
Roths is older by a decade at least, with a very regal bearing and powerful presence that shows no sign of diminishing with age. Her shoulder length blonde hair has greyed mildly, but her piercing grey-green eyes demand full attention.
Roths sighs in frustration, “One of us should be in there with them.”
Caufmann is standing closest to the glass. He turns to regard first Roths, then Rethrin through his reflective red lens glasses.
“This experiment is dangerous. Too dangerous for us to risk making a mistake. I need you two alive, these lab techs need training, and are a dime a dozen.” He turns back to watch the experiment.
Rethrin scoffs, “You don’t just find willing lab techs to work ridiculous hours and be basically imprisoned until our projects are complete.”
“For the right price, most come running,” he says.
“Exactly how many need die? Farrow shot another one this evening,” says Roths angrily.
“He was a traitor.”
Rethrin’s face turns to disbelief, “Traitor? This is a company, not a country and therefore possesses no sovereignty. He worked here with you for years.”
“Do you two even remember his name?”
Roths’ expression is so sour Caufmann can feel his throat tighten. “His name was James.”
Caufmann nods. “And James was handing a memory card to the Gorai Aurelia. The information on it was everything we don’t want the public to see.”
Roths looks to the vague reflection of Caufmann’s face in the glass, “Haven’t you ever thought that what we’re doing here is wrong?”
Caufmann swings around to face them both. Being nearly a head taller than both of them and possessing a rather imposing frame they both lean back ever so slightly, “Do you really believe I like my job?”
“Rennin Farrow likes his. That butcher is on our payroll. That, I find disturbing,” says Roths.
“I suppose you’re here because you’re not allowed to leave?”
Roths smiles, “Your intuition never fails you.”
“Your sarcasm must help you sleep at night.”
“How do you sleep at night?”
“Haven’t you heard the rumours? I don’t.”
An alarm blares inside the containment chamber drawing the immediate attention of all three scientists.
One of the lab technicians has torn his suit, and in panic has dropped a vial of transparent purple liquid. The spilled fluid is quickly turning to vapour.
The tech is attempting to hold the rip closed with both hands, to maintain the positive air pressure inside the hazmat suit.